sorry, the josephus account was of another incident much later...
taken from http://askelm.com/prophecy/p921201.htm
On the twenty-first of the month Artemisium [the last day of the 2nd Passover season In A.D.661, there appeared a miraculous phenomenon, passing belief. Indeed, what I am about to relate would, I imagine, have been deemed a fable, were it not for the narratives of eyewitnesses and for the subsequent calamities which deserved to be so signalized. For before sunset throughout all parts of the county [everywhere throughout Judea] chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities" (War,VI.5.3 or Loeb VI.298, emphasis mine).
This is the very thing that Christ Jesus said to watch for. And then (about two weeks later) Josephus tells us:
Moreover, at the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests on entering the inner court of the temple by night, as their custom was in the discharge of their ministrations, reported that they were conscious, first of a commotion and a din, and after that of a voice as of a host, We are departing hence? (War, VI.209,300).
With these two signs what did the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea do? Eusebius tells us that this is the time they began to leave the region because of the command of Christ and went to a city called Pella on the east side of the Jordan River (Ecclesiastical History, III.5). They and the apostles obtained safety from the holocaust that soon enflamed Jerusalem and Judaea.
These chariots and armed forces seen in the skies all over Judaea and encompassing the cities of the Jews was similar to times recorded in the early history of Israel. Angelic powers (in this case, good angels) accompanied the armies of Israel when it was the normal period (in ancient Times) for hostilities to occur. The Bible says: ?And it came to pass, after the year had expired., at the time angels go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon" (II Samuel 11:1). The King James translators (and most modern ones) read the Hebrew as "kings," not "angels." But there is no reason whatever for reading the text as ?kings.? The verse was intended to show that angelic powers were there to aid Israel in their battles when they went to war.
A further reference (which even corroborates angelic connections with wars or the preparations for wars on earth) is 11 Samuel 5:23,24 God said to David that when he heard "the sound of a going [forth] in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you (David] shall bestir yourself [to war],? This swishing sound in the top. of the trees of a turbulent waving action of the wind was recognized by David as caused by the Lord and his angelic hosts going to battle with David (see also Genesis 32:1.3 and II Kings 6:17 about angels accompanying God). But in A.D.66, instead of helping Israel win the war with the Romans that the people of Judaea were about to start, the angelic hosts were seen in the clouds in chariots and as armed soldiers encompassing the cities of Judaea and enclosing them on all sides for capitulation. This is precisely what Christ Jesus said to watch for in his Olivet prophecy.
Not only that, Josephus said that a week before the Passover in A.D.66 an amazing thing happened that the authorities in Jerusalem saw. ?At the ninth hour of the night (3 A.M. ? the darkest part of the night], so brilliant a light shone round the altar and the sanctuary that it seemed to be broad daylight; and this continued for half an hour" (War, VI.290). A similar thing happened in the time of Solomon when the Temple was first dedicated and God entered the Sanctuary for the first time (II Chronicles 7:1-3).
But in early A.D.66, this manifestation occurring a week before Passover culminated in the statement that God was leaving the Sanctuary given at the feast of Pentecost about eight weeks later (War, VI.299,300).