The Abduction of 1572

By Joseph Buchmann

This is the story of an amazing convergence of two events. Both events happened in the year 1572, over four centuries ago. Both occurred just four days apart. In November, to his astonishment, a well-known Swedish astronomer noticed a bright new star in the Cassiopeia constellation. Four days later, in the Swiss countryside, a peasant farmer was mysteriously abducted and transported across the Alps to a foreign country. Meaningless coincidence? Or Alien Abduction? You decide. The stories are based on historically documented chronicles.

The story is especially dear to me because the abducted man bore my family name and he lived within 500 paces of my childhood home.

Rostock, Baltic Sea, Year 1566

The invited guests are elegantly attired and arrive in coaches at the mansion of Lucas Bacmeister, distinguished Professor of Theology. The evening is bitterly cold; the date is 10th of December in the year of the Lord 1566. Professor Bacmeister is hosting a formal engagement reception and gala event. Aided by their attentive escorts, the ladies step down from the coaches and are hurriedly ushered into the warm reception hall. Among the high-society guests are Tycho Brahe, his friend Manderup Parsberg and other important persons of Danish nobility. Tycho Brahe is the first-born son of an influential family of the highest rank of Danish nobility. Tycho and Manderup are students at the university of Rostock on the Baltic Sea. The atmosphere is festive and joyous; the spirit of Christmas is in the air.

Tycho Brahe, at the young age of twenty, is already an accomplished scholar. He learned Latin at home and studied Mathematics, Philosophy, Law and Rhetorics at the universities of Copenhagen and Leipzig. Ever since he witnessed a solar eclipse as a boy, Tycho had been immensely interested in the emerging science of astronomy. The time is several years before the invention of the telescope by Galileo Galilei, so, the ingenious Tycho built several instruments that help him measure and calculate the movements of the celestial bodies.

Tycho was just over a year old when his parents surrendered him to his paternal uncle Jürgen Brahe and his wife Inger Oxe. He was brought up in splendor and cultured environment at the uncle’s castle of Knutsorp in Scania (Denmark at that time, now Sweden).

The engagement party was in full swing when Tycho and Manderup get embroiled in a heated argument. Who was the better mathematician, Tycho or Manderup? As the evening unfolds, the disagreement turns more vocal, the positions of the two young men harden and the tension grows. The argument remains unsettled when the party ends past midnight.

A few days later, on Friday, December 27, 1566, Tycho and Manderup decide to settle the question once and for all, in a gentlemanly fashion. The question will be settled not in a Mathematics challenge but rather in a man-to-man duel that will to take place the following Sunday evening. The two meet on Sunday, December 29 at seven o’clock in the evening for the arranged duel.

The duel is fought in total darkness and tragically ends with Tycho Brahe’s nose irreparably broken. For the rest of his life, Tycho will cover the scar and disfiguration with a plate fashioned from a silver, gold and copper alloy, neatly matching the color of his face and fastened to the nose with glue and wax.

Tycho soon leaves Rostock and completes his studies in Wittenberg and Basel. Then he returns to his homeland in Scania. Tycho forgives Manderup, and the two will work together in later life.

Scania, Fateful Evening, Year 1572

It has been six years since the disastrous duel in Rostock. Tycho Brahe wears his metal plate to cover the ravages that the fight caused to his nose. The date is November 11,1572, a fateful evening. Back in his beloved Scania, Tycho, now 26 years old and mature, walks home one crisp evening after sunset. The sky is clear, the moon is half full. His trained eyes scan the sky, observing and admiring the familiar constellations, stars and planets. Every heavenly body is in its exact proper position. Everything is calm and orderly. Then, stunned, he notices a bright light in the Cassiopeia constellation, almost exactly above his head, an object brighter than other stars, a star as brilliant as the planet Jupiter. But that star does not belong there. He stares at the strange object, pauses and reflects on his knowledge of the heavenly vault. He is so surprised at the sight that he is not ashamed to doubt his own perception. Did his profound knowledge of the sky perhaps play a trick on him; surely not. He looks at the star again. Yes, he is convinced, this is a new star. The next evening he contacts his astronomer friends and points out the location of the new star and asks them to verify for themselves that what he saw was indeed a new star. They concur. A wondrous moment in time, a new star that has never been seen before, never since the creation of the world. Tycho writes a book called Stella Nova which makes him a celebrity and a recognized astronomer throughout Europe.

Kriesbühl, Switzerland. Four Days Later

The commotion and excitement in Scania is slowly fading. News of the discovery of Stella Nova slowly spreads throughout the continent, but has yet to reach the towns in Switzerland. It will be weeks before word of the discovery will reach the remote hamlet of Kriesbühl. Life here in early winter is slow and peaceful. The crops have been gathered and are dry and safely stored away in the barn. There is enough fodder to feed the livestock during the coming long cold winter. Cider, fruits and vegetables are stocked up in the cellar, and a few junks of bacon and ham hang in the chimney. The new star shines brilliantly in the night sky, yet no one has noticed her arrival in the Cassiopeia constellation. Life is lived blissfully unaware of the momentous discovery in the heavenly skies.

It is Saturday, the 15th of November 1572 in Kriesbühl, a mere four short days after the historic sighting in Scania. Kriesbühl is a small hamlet with a cluster of a few family farms, half an hour’s walk south of the village of Römerswil, located in pre-alpine Switzerland. The following is based on a true story chronicled by the well-known Lucerne town-clerk and historian Renward Cysat (1515-1614).

Hans Buchmann, a peasant farmer, undaunted of what is about to happen, looks out of the windows of his simple home in Kriesbühl. He watches the clouds and tries to foretell the weather. It looks cold but the weather is fair enough for him to travel to the town of Sempach. He walks to the bedroom, opens the drawer of the dresser, counts sixteen florins and places them safely in his leather pouch. Hans puts on his heavy walking shoes, woolen hat and coat and waves good-by to his wife.

Hans must go to Sempach to pay a creditor sixteen Florins, a mighty sum of money. It is a long walk, up a gentle slope to the hamlet of Williswil, then following the road to Traselingen, Hildisrieden, and down the hill towards the lake to the town of Sempach. In the distance he admires the beautiful panorama of the Alps, the snow covered mount Pilatus and Rigi in the foreground. Without incidence, the walk to Sempach will take an hour and a half and he should arrive there by mid-day.

For the peasant farmer Hans Buchmann, Sempach is a large vibrant city with crowded markets and imposing patrician houses inside a thick city wall. 186 years earlier, in the year 1386, a fierce battle between the local Swiss and the despised ruling Habsburgs overlords was fought near Sempach. The brave Swiss won the battle but lost many comrades, including Peter Buchmann, probably an ancestor of Hans.

Hans arrives in Sempach, enters thru the imposing city gate and smartly walks directly to the house of the man to whom he owes the money. He knocks at the door, but is told that the master was not at home. Having made this long journey in vain, Hans Buchmann decides to take care of some other business while he is in town. The business took a bit longer than planned, so he allows himself a break at a tavern and drinks a few goblets of brew, not too many according to a testimony given later to the police.

Later that evening after sunset, on his way back up the hill towards the village of Hildisrieden, he passes by the woods next to the field of the Battle of Sempach. Suddenly, he is surrounded by a strange swishing, buzzing sound. Was he attacked by a swarm of bees? The noise grows stronger and develops into a roaring, deafening sound. Fear and horror overcomes Hans. He grabs his heart, then his walking stick and swings it around him, to no avail. Hans feels being lifted upwards to the skies, then he loses consciousness.

Two weeks later

When he regains consciousness, he finds himself in a strange city where people speak a language that Hans does not understand. His face is swollen, and all his hair is lost.

After walking aimlessly thru the foreign town, he meets a German-speaking guard or soldier, probably a Swiss mercenary. He was south of the Alps in the city of Milan, Northern Italy, a traveling distance in those days of four or five days. The church bells are ringing, men, women and children of all walks of life stream towards the church for prayers. The atmosphere is festive. It is the evening of the day of St. Andrews; fourteen days have elapsed since he disappeared in Sempach. Hans is confused and bewildered. How was he transported to this distant city? And how did his face swell up and how did he lose all his hair?

The guard was kind enough to help Hans return to his home. The trip home took many days. Two full days in a wagon up the Ticino valley, then the treacherous voyage over the St Gotthard pass, then along the lake of the four cantons home to Kriesbühl. It is not historically documented how his wife received him back.

Home, Sweet Home

The town of Rothenburg and its castle lie on the trade route from the Northern Europe to Italy. In earlier times, a feared reeve, an appointee of the ruthless Habsburgs overlords, oversaw this important town. The bridge at Rothenburg was a very profitable toll station for the House of Habsburgs. After the defeat of the Habsburgs, Rothenburg was acquired by the nearby aristocratic town of Lucerne and became the district seat of the large surrounding area, including Kriesbühl.

The strange voyage of Hans Buchmann has come to the attention of the district administrator and he demands a full investigation into the matter. Hans is summoned to present himself at the Rothenburg police station. He leaves home early morning and walks two hours to arrive in Rothenburg at the appointed hour. He is questioned and examined all day long. The police naturally suspected that Hans may have been intoxicated by alcohol and that he used the bizarre story as a cover. At the end of the day the investigators concluded that Hans was telling the truth and they let him go home.

It is evening after sunset when Hans finally approaches his modest home in Kriesbühl. The sky is clear, the moon is full. His eyes scan the skies, he admires the brilliant lights of the far-away heavenly stars. Some stars shine brighter than others, all in beautiful harmony, a shrine to the Creator. Everything is calm and orderly. He opens the door to his home, enters the candle-lit dark room, slumps his tired body in his armchair and lets the warm feeling of contentment and happiness engulf him. He is home on his own ground and soil. Life is back to normal. Life is simple, life is good.

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