Okay folks, today got me thinking about those weird blob things in old paintings people scream "UFO!" about. You know the ones – medieval skies filled with flying saucers? Wanted to dig in myself, see what the fuss was, so I just rolled up my sleeves and started digging.
First thing I did was just look. Like, actually look at the paintings, not just the parts everyone circles. Pulled up that famous "Madonna with Saint Giovannino" – yeah, the one with the dude and his dog staring at that glowing thing in the sky. Spent ages just zooming in, looking at the brushstrokes, the context. Noticed all the angels nearby, the halos... Made me go hmmm.
First Stop: Religious Symbols?
So, first theory everyone throws around: Religious symbols! Divine light! Holy Spirit stuff! I was scratching my head. Okay, possible... but then I looked at how they usually painted divine stuff back then. Lots of angel figures, clouds parting, rays beaming down – super clear symbolic stuff, right? The artists were pretty darn good at getting that specific message across. Then I see this one weird, isolated, metallic-looking disc hovering near the ground? Kinda stands out, doesn't feel like the usual "divine light" package. Didn't quite sit right. Needed more.
Second Theory: Hidden Knowledge?
Next thought buzzing around the conspiracy corners: What if the artist saw something real?! Aliens visiting! Hidden knowledge encoded in paint! Sounds wild, I know. So I tried putting myself in their shoes. Imagine you're a painter in the 1400s. A UFO crashes? Or you see crazy lights? Would you secretly paint it? Maybe... but secretly paint it as the central weird object in a religious scene featuring the Virgin Mary? While signing your name? And showing it off to patrons? Nah. If you were risking your neck for forbidden knowledge, you'd be way subtler. Painting it like that, smack dab in a mainstream religious scene? Just wouldn't make sense back then. The risk/reward was waaaay off. Theory feeling shaky.
Third Possibility: Restoration Goofs?
Okay, maybe it wasn't the original artist? Maybe someone restored the painting later and messed up? Stuck a UFO in by accident? Sounded plausible. Went digging again. Looked up restoration records (when I could find them!), compared different versions. Often, nope. That weird "ship" or "disc"? Seems to be part of the original layer, confirmed by experts and fancy scans. Didn't show signs of being clumsily painted over some other object centuries later. The evidence wasn't there. Felt like a dead end.
So, What Gives?
After all that looking and digging, here's where I landed:
- Context is King: Ignore the spotlight everyone puts on the UFO. Look at the whole scene. What's actually happening? Saints? Miracles? Heaven opening up? Odds are that flying object fits the story they were telling back then – a miracle, an angelic shield, the Lord's glory, not little green men.
- Symbol Over Substance: Artists back then weren't painting documentaries. They were telling stories, mostly religious ones, using a shared visual language. A glowing circle wasn't always a spaceship; it was probably just them saying "look, holy thing happening here!".
- Our Eyes, Our Times: Biggest realization? We see tech everywhere. Flying disc? Must be a UFO! But a painter centuries ago? Flying discs weren't a sci-fi trope. They saw clouds, suns, shields, divine signs. We project our modern anxieties and wonders onto their very different world.
Turns out, the explanations trying to shove aliens into old masters mostly crumble when you look closely. It's way less about X-Files stuff, and way more about our own misinterpretation of ancient art styles and religious storytelling. Case closed for me. Just artists doing their thing, long before Spielberg. Weird how we keep trying to see ourselves in their clouds.
