The 1755 Lisbon earthquake sky-glow reports transmitted to North America

Record summary

Reports of lights, atmospheric changes, and other prodigies associated with the 1755 Lisbon earthquake circulated widely through newspapers, sermons, and correspondence, including British North America. The episode is relevant because later UAP discussions sometimes group earthquake lights with aerial anomalies. It is better treated as a transmission-history study: many colonial readers were reporting or repeating news from Europe rather than witnessing the event themselves. The physical interpretation of individual luminous claims remains disputed, and the sources require careful attribution.