Heber C. Kimball Sees Heavenly Hosts Marching in Platoons of Twelve — the Night Joseph Smith Receives the Plates (1827)

On the night Joseph Smith received the golden plates from the hill Cumorah, Heber C. Kimball witnessed a remarkable vision in the sky above him: vast hosts of men marching in perfectly ordered platoons of twelve, moving across the firmament toward the western horizon. He watched them with his natural eyes for hours and 'never observed a variation of a hair's breadth in their step, or the least disorder or confusion in their ranks.' Kimball retold the vision decades later as evidence that heavenly manifestations attended the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, even to witnesses far away who did not yet know the Prophet.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

It was one of the most beautiful starlit nights, so clear that we could see to pick up a pin. We looked to the eastern horizon, and beheld a white smoke arise toward the heavens; as it ascended it formed itself into a belt, and it kept extending east and west across the heavens. When it had formed itself into a belt, it began to widen and then to move toward the south. It continued to widen and move south until it reached the zenith of the heavens. It then formed into a bow, and was transparent, and in the center of the bow there was a bluish cast. It then began to move toward the western horizon, and as it moved, it began to form into platoons, and as they reached the western horizon, they would melt away or disappear. They looked like a large army of men in the west, reaching to the north and south as far as the eye could see. They appeared to be in constant motion, marching and counter-marching, and they continued to march until they reached the western horizon, as far as I could see them. After looking upon them for hours with my natural eyes, I never observed a variation of a hair's breadth in their step, or the least disorder or confusion in their ranks. I have seen many such things in the heavens, but I never saw anything that appeared so grand and magnificent as this.