Comet?
...so down she darted
from the topmost summits of Olympus. She shot through the sky as some brilliant meteor which the son of scheming Saturn has sent as a sign to mariners or to some great army, and a fiery train of light follows in its wake. The Trojans and Achaeans were struck with awe...
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.mb.txt
Rivers dried up, ran backwards, or somethin’, as well...