Samuel Sewall’s diary entries on Boston celestial appearances

Record summary

Samuel Sewall’s extensive diary records weather, comets, eclipses, auroral-looking displays, and other public phenomena observed in colonial Boston. Individual entries can serve as named civilian observation leads because they are anchored to a known diarist, place, and date. Their importance lies in comparison with later UFO narratives: Sewall’s notes show what an educated observer considered worth recording and how astronomical knowledge coexisted with providential interpretation. The diary is not a catalogue of unexplained craft, and each entry requires identification and astronomical reconstruction.