The Night the Moon Split
Medieval monks watched the horn of the new Moon split in two, and fire, sparks and burning coals pour out.
What was reported
The chronicler Gervase of Canterbury wrote that on an evening in June 1178, five men watching the thin new Moon saw its upper horn suddenly split in two. From the middle of the split, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing fire, hot coals and sparks, and the Moon seemed to writhe 'like a wounded snake'. It happened a dozen times or more.
In 1976 a geologist suggested the monks had seen a huge impact creating Giordano Bruno, a young crater just over the Moon's edge as seen from Earth.
Explanations offered
Others argue that an impact big enough to form the crater would have thrown up so much debris that Earth would have seen a week-long meteor storm, which no one recorded, and studies suggest the crater is millions of years old. A meteor exploding in the sky, lined up with the Moon from where the monks stood, could explain what they saw.
- When
- 18 June 1178
- Where
- Giordano Bruno crater, far side of the Moon (seen from Canterbury, England)
- Witnesses
- Five monks of Canterbury, recorded by the chronicler Gervase
- Status
- Disputed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.