Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

What are the first things to come to your mind when we say ‘Germany?’ For us it’s throaty languages, short green pants with shoulder straps and white people eating billions of sausages.

Also genocide.

After you read this super awesome article, something else might come to your mind too – UFO’s fighting it out in German skies sometime in the 1500s. Have you heard of that? You haven’t? Then by all means read on!

In keeping with last week’s theme of really old, weird UFO sightings, we’ve got another one for you today. A week ago we told you about a few weird lights that zoomed around the Bostonian sea side with disembodied voices. This week we’re telling you about aerial UFO battles held at least twice in the air space over the ski-friendly parts of Europe.

MysteryHistory.tv gives a pretty good synopsis of the first one:

“The citizens of Nuremberg, Germany behold what appears to be a large scale aerial battle followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object and a large crash (with smoke) outside the city. A news notice (pictured above) was printed 10 days later (April 14, 1561) describing the event.

“At sunrise on the 4th April 1561, the citizens of Nuremberg beheld “A very frightful spectacle.” The sky appeared to fill with cylindrical objects from which red, black, orange and blue white disks and globes emerged. Crosses and tubes resembling cannon barrels also appeared whereupon the objects promptly “began to fight one another.””

Interesting, but we bet you want to know what the news story said ten days later. Of course you do – here it is straight from 1561:

“At dawn of April 4, in the sky of Nuremberg (Germany), a lot of men and women saw a very alarming spectacle where various objects were involved, including balls “approximately 3 in the length, from time to time, four in a square, much remained insulated, and between these balls, one saw a number of crosses with the color of blood. Then one saw two large pipes, in which small and large pipes, were 3 balls, also four or more. All these elements started to fight one against the other.””

As if that’s not strange enough, in 1566 the exact same thing happened over Basel, Switzerland. Here’s an accounting from a UFO website called Signal In The Noise:

“On August 7, 1566, at dawn, many citizens of Basle (Switzerland), frightened, saw during several hours the black spheres involved in a formidable aerial battle, invading the sky of their city: “at the time when the sun rose, one saw many large black balls which moved at high speed in the air towards the sun, then made half-turns, banging one against the others as if they were fighting a battle out a combat, a great number of them became red and igneous, thereafter they were consumed and died out,” wrote Samuel Coccius, the student in “crowned writings and liberal arts” who consigned the strange events in the city’s gazette.”

Pretty weird, right? And real enough to appear in papers of the time. Real enough for people to make wood cuts about both instances, too. Still, we once made a wood cut of our mother-in-law getting eaten by a thousand alligators, and that definitely hasn’t happened yet.We guess wood carvings aren’t necessarily hard evidence.

Carving out all those teeth was the worst part about it. Now our wrists creak.

This Roman Polanski thing is tricky, isn’t it? On one hand he’s been convicted for having unlawful sex with a child.

Then again, Rosemary’s Baby was quite good. Oh, it’s such a dilemma! But at least the Swiss authorities know what to do with Roman Polanski – they’ve granted him bail, so that he can await his extradition back to America under house arrest in the untempered luxury of his Swiss chalet. And it seems like a good idea, too, because it’s not like Roman Polanski has a habit of fleeing the country while he awaits sentencing or anything, is it?

Hey, wait a minute.

You might say that Roman Polanski has already served his sentence for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl – after all, he’s been forced to spend the last 30 years living in mainland Europe, and if three decades of female armpit hair, suspect-looking sausages and alarming red-faced fat men in lederhosen constantly trying to slap your buttock isn’t a fittingly harrowing punishment, we don’t know what is – but tell that to America.

The American authorities have spent 30 years trying to pin Roman Polanski down while he constantly goaded them by appearing at the end of Rush Hour 3 and making versions of Oliver! where nobody even sings any songs about food, but now they’ve got him. Roman Polanski was arrested at a Swiss airport in September, and he’s been in jail awaiting extradition ever since.

Until now, that is, because a Swiss court has just granted Roman Polanksi bail, meaning that he can wait for his extradition under house arrest in his Swiss chalet. The Los Angeles Times reports:

A Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman said that the court approved a $4.5-million bail for the famed director, who faces extradition to Los Angeles to be sentenced for unlawful intercourse with a 13-year-old girl more than three decades ago. Under the bail plan, Polanski would be under electronic monitoring at his Swiss chalet until the justice system decides whether he should be sent to Los Angeles.

We can’t but feel that this is a mistake. Not only does Roman Polanski have a proven history of running away whenever it looks like he’s about to go to jail, but letting him loose in Switzerland seems like a particularly bad idea. What if he goes mad and gets his hands on one of the country’s most dangerous products, like a cuckoo clock or some fancy chocolate or a well-made watch or something? We’d all be done for, that’s what.

Not that we can see what all the fuss is about. At worst, Roman Polanski would only have to face two years in jail. And he’s already had to put up with 30 years of silly little cars and supermarkets that don’t smell quite right, so it’ll be a walk in the park in comparison.

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Here’s a lesson that Roman Polanski would do well to remember – never trust the ruddy Swiss.

Because the Swiss have done Roman Polanski in. Sure, they might look like the world’s friendliest people, what with their chocolate and precision-engineered watches and big fat red happy faces, but secretly none of them can wait to extradite you to America to face charges for fleeing sentencing for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl that you were arrested for three decades ago.

Still, this might be for the best. At least now Roman Polanski can’t make any more godawful Rush Hour cameos.

For as long as anybody can remember, Roman Polanski has been playing a perilous cat and mouse game with the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. In 1977, Polanski hoofed it out of America for a life in France before a court could sentence him for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. And that’s where he’s lived in exile ever since, only briefly surfacing to film stupid remakes of Oliver Twist where nobody even sings any happy songs about custard.

True, a few months ago it looked as if Roman Polanski might have wriggled off the hook when he briefly decided to ask the Los Angeles district attorney’s office for a dismissal of his charges so that he could return to America, but then he realised that he’d probably get arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane anyway so he bottled it.

And that was that – Roman Polanski resigned himself to spending the rest of his life in France, safe in the knowledge that the country’s unique combination of knotted female armpit hair and exaggerated nonchalance would keep the American authorities at bay.

But then it happened. Roman Polanski’s innate desire for either a) cuckoo clocks, b) jaunty feathered hats or c) Nazi gold got the better of him and he flew to Zurich where, surprise surprise, he was arrested by Swiss police at the request of the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. And while we all wait for him to be extradited, at least we’ve got the ensuing gigantic diplomatic poop-storm to keep us entertained. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

[French] Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand issued a statement saying he “profoundly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already known so many during his life.” Polanski also received public support from the foreign minister of Poland, where he moved as a toddler and avoided capture by the Nazis, who put his mother to death in a concentration camp.

So now we all just have to see who wins this weird tug-of-war over Roman Polanski. Honestly, this ordeal is just like the plot of one of his movies. Or at least it would be, if only it was much longer and not quite as good as everyone else says it is. And, you know, Roman Polanski pooed out the devil at the end of it. Or whatever.

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Hard as it may be to believe or even accept, authorities in Switzerland have confirmed that everyone’s favourite ‘death waiting to happen’, Pete Doherty, has been fined for a being a big drug-using drug user.

The troubled poet – nay, genius – was found slumped on the toilet on a British Airways flight into Geneva on Friday, possibly as a result of his ferocious intellect finally managing to overwhelm him.

Either that or he was offering handjobs for crack money and got a bit tired from all the wrist action, so decided to settle down for a little nap.

The 30-year-old was simply believed to be a bit pissed, before staff on the flight discovered a hypodermic syringe on Doherty’s person – don’t worry though, we’re reliably informed it was “wrapped in tissue” and probably thrown on top of the nearest bin in a playground.

Just to be safe, natch.

A passenger on the flight threw this nugget of pure, unadulterated knowledge the way of the London Evening Standard:

“He went to the bathroom more than halfway into the flight. He had been in there for about 25 minutes when the announcement came for the crew to prepare for landing.

“They knocked on the door but Pete didn’t come out. They eventually managed to get in 10 minutes before the plane landed.”

It’s unclear whether the passenger added “it only took me five minutes to have a wank earlier in the flight – I’m well better than that skag-faced berk”, but we like to think he did.

It’s been a while since Pete Doherty has featured on the pages of hecklerspray, which can only be a good sign for the overrated trilby-twat. While we hoped it was a sign he’d got shot of the smack (a pun!), it would appear that these particular demons haven’t left the Babyshambles bellend.

Which is a shame, as it means we’ll probably have to cover him more in the coming months and years.

Doherty was not held following the incident, with la Police cantonale de Geneve instead deciding it was fine to re-inflict the slurring moron on the general public.

This is clearly a covert act of war by the Swiss, and we at hecklerspray will not stand for such clear violations of their hometown convention.

Rolling war news will replace regular services.

Have we mentioned that we’re liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday? We are. Please come back then and validate us.

Only on Saturday, mind you. We’re not liveblogging any of those poncey Eurovision semi-finals. Especially not the one tonight, even though it could well be the last we’ll see of either of today’s participants. We refuse to liveblog that. You can watch it on TV if you like, just be aware that doing so makes you a gigantic nimrod if you do.

Here’s the Eurovision 2009 for Malena Ernman from Sweden and Lovebugs from Switzerland…

Sweden · Malena Ernman, La voix

Eurovision, like all things in life, tends to move through stages. Just off the top of our heads we can remember a Turkish-influenced stage, a hard rock stage and a transsexual Israeli disco stage. But could the next big Eurovision fad be opera? On the basis of La Voix by Malena Ernman, this year’s Swedish European representative, probably not. It’s not so much opera as a weird opera/techno hybrid, which is obviously quite an uncomfortable mix. It sounds, in fact, like a song that should be performed during the opening ceremony of the Gay Olympics. And since Eurovision essentially IS the Gay Olympics, La Voix should be pretty unstoppable. Or at least it would be if Sweden was a former Soviet state. But it isn’t. In summary, then, bleugh.

Switzerland · Lovebugs, The Highest Heights

IMPORTANT! Before you click on the video above, read a few of Lovebugs’ achievements: they’ve supported The Rolling Stones. Their new album was produced by one of U2’s producers. According to their Eurovision biography, their music is characterised by ‘atmospheric guitars and melancholic underlying themes, paired with a hypnotic, driving beat’. So The Highest Heights, the song chosen to represent both Switzerland and Lovebugs at Eurovision, must be pretty special, right? Well, almost. The song seems to have been designed with massive stadiums in mind, and sounds a little bit like a cross between Coldplay and Black Kids. And we sort of like it. Do we like it because it’s good, or because it’s not tinny disco nonsense performed by a bimbo? You tell us. Honestly, we’ve lost the ability to think.

Eurovision is just days away now and, yes, you have every right to be this excited. You are excited, right?

In fact, Eurovision is now so close that the first Eurovision semi-final takes place tonight, with countries like Andorra and Finland and Moldova all trying to make it to the Eurovision final. The odds are stacked against them – only nine of the competing 19 countries will make it to the final – but we’ll make it easy for you, Europe. Make Bosnia win the semi-final or we’ll come and fight you.

Here are the Eurovision betting odds for Switzerland, with help from Paddy Power…

Switzerland (pop. 7,993,100, a landlocked federal state in Europe) Paolo Meneguzzi, Era Stupendo

By far the most interesting thing about Paolo Meneguzzi is that he’s decided to use his official Eurovision biography to tell the world what a cunt his dad is. Honestly, read this: “The path to working as a professional singer has been marked by strong commitment but also by many trials and tribulations especially with his family, given that his father did not look kindly on the fact that Paolo gave up his job in a bank in order to turn his hobby into a risky enterprise. Thanks to his mother’s support, Paolo overcame these difficulties and stubbornly cultivated his passion.” Christ. Forget Eurovision, it sounds like Paolo needs his own Jeremy Kyle episode entitled Wah Hah Hah My Daddy Doesn’t Love Me. As for his song Era Stupendo, well, it’s so boring that it may as well not even exist at all. So let’s pretend that it doesn’t. Current Eurovision betting odds – 33/1

Tomorrow: Turkey! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Eurovision betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.