Chapter Fifteen

It may be that we now add to our sins the horse that swam in the sky. For all I know, we contribute to a wider biology. In the New York Times, July 8, 1878, is published a dispatch from Parkersburg, West Virginia: that, about July 1, 1878, three or four farmers had seen, in a cloudless sky, apparently half a mile high, “an opaque substance.” It looked like a white horse, “swimming in the clear atmosphere.” It is said to have been a mirage of a horse in some distant field. If so, it is interesting not only because it was opaque, but because of a selection or preference: the field itself was not miraged.

Black bodies and the dark rabbles of the sky—and that rioting thing, from floating anarchies, have often spotted the sun. Then, by all that is compensatory, in the balances of existence, there are disciplined forces in space. In the Scientific American, 44-291, it is said that, according to newspapers of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, figures had been seen in the sky in the latter part of September, and the first week in October, 1881, reports that “exhibited a mediæval condition of intelligence scarcely less than marvellous.” The writer suggests that, though probably something had been seen in the sky, it was only an aurora. Our own intelligence and that of astronomers and meteorologists and everybody else with whom we have had experience had better not be discussed, but the accusation of mediævalism is something that we’re sensitive about, and we hasten to the Monthly Weather Review, and if that doesn’t give us a modern touch, I mistake the sound of it. Monthly Weather Review, Sept, and Oct., 1881—an auroral display in Maryland and New York, upon the 23rd of September; all other auroras in September far north of the three states in which it was said phenomena were seen. October—no auroras until the 18th; that one in the north. There was a mirage upon Sept. 23, but at Indianola; two instances in October, but late in the month, and in northern states.

It is said, in the Scientific American, that, according to the Warrentown (Va.) Solid South, a number of persons had seen white-robed figures in the sky, at night. The story in the Richmond Dispatch is that many persons had seen, or had thought they had seen, an alarming sight in the sky, at night: a vast number of armed, uniformed soldiers drilling. Then a dispatch from Wilmington, Delaware—platoons of angels marching and counter-marching in the sky, their white robes and helmets gleaming. Similar accounts came from Laurel and Talbot. Several persons said that they had seen, in the sky, the figure of President Garfield, who had died not long before. Our general acceptance is that all reports upon such phenomena are colored in terms of appearances and subjects uppermost in minds.

L’Astronomie, 1888-392:

That, about the first of August, 1888, near Warasdin, Hungary, several divisions of infantry, led by a chief, who waved a flaming sword, had been seen in the sky, three consecutive days, marching several hours a day. The writer in L’Astronomie says that in vain does one try to explain that this appearance was a mirage of terrestrial soldiers marching at a distance from Warasdin, because widespread publicity and investigation had disclosed no such soldiers. Even if there had been terrestrial soldiers near Warasdin repeating mirages localized would call for explanation.

But that there may be space-armies, from which reflections or shadows or Brocken spectres are sometimes cast—a procession that crossed the sun: forms that moved, or that marched, sometimes four abreast; observation by M. Bruguière, at Marseilles, April 15 and 16, 1883 (L’Astro., 5-70). An army that was watched, forty minutes, by M. Jacquot, Aug. 30, 1886 (L’Astro., 1886-71)—things or beings that seemed to march and to counter-march: all that moved in the same direction, moved in parallel lines. In L’Année Scientifique, 29-8, there is an account of observations by M. Trouvelot, Aug. 29, 1871. He saw objects, some round, some triangular, and some of complex forms. Then occurred something that at least suggests that these things were not moving in the wind, nor sustained in space by the orbital forces of meteors; that each was depending upon its own powers of flight, and that an accident occurred to one of them. All of them, though most of the time moving with great rapidity, occasionally stopped, but then one of them fell toward the earth, and the indications are that it was a heavy body, and had not been sustained by the wind, which would scarcely suddenly desert one of its flotsam and continue to sustain all the others. The thing fell, oscillating from side to side like a disc falling through water.

New York Sun, March 16, 1890—that, at 4 o’clock, in the afternoon of March 12th, in the sky of Ashland, Ohio, was seen a representation of a large, unknown city. By some persons it was supposed to be a mirage of the town of Mansfield, thirty miles away; other observers thought that they recognized Sandusky, sixty miles away. “The more superstitious declared that it was a vision of the New Jerusalem.”

May have been a revelation of heaven, and for all I know heaven may resemble Sandusky, and those of us who have no desire to go to Sandusky may ponder that point, but our own expression is that things have been pictured in the sky, and have not been traced to terrestrial origins, but have been interpreted always in local terms. Probably a living thing in the sky—seen by farmers—a horse. Other things, or far-refracted images, or shadows—and they were supposed to be vast lions or soldiers or angels, all according to preconceived ideas. Representations that have been seen in India—Hindoo costumes described upon them. Suppose that, in the afternoon of January 17, 1892, there was a battle in the sky of Montana—we know just about in what terms the description would be published. Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 18, 1892—a mirage in the sky of Lewiston, Montana—Indians and hunters alternately charging and retreating. The Indians were in superior numbers and captured the hunters. Then details—hunters tied to stakes; the piling of faggots; etc. “So far as could be ascertained last night, the Indians on the reservations are peaceable.” I think that we’re peaceable enough, but, unless the astronomers can put us on reservations, where we’ll work out expressions in beads and wampum instead of data, we’ll have to carry on a conflict with the vacant minds to which appear mirages of their own emptiness in the sometimes swarming skies.

Altogether there are many data indicating that vessels and living things of space do come close to this earth, but there is absence of data of beings that have ever landed upon this earth, unless someone will take up the idea that Kaspar Hauser, for instance, came to this earth from some other physical world. Whether spacarians have ever dredged down here or not, or “sniped” down here, pouncing, assailing, either wantonly, or in the interests of their sciences, there are data of seeming seizures and attacks from somewhere, and I have strong objections against lugging in the fourth dimension, because then I am no better off, wondering what the fifth and sixth are like.

In La Nature, 1888-2-66, M. Adrian Arcelin writes that, while excavating near de Solutré, in August, 1878, upon a day, described as superbe, sky clear to a degree said to have been parfaitement, several dozen sheets of wrapping paper upon the ground suddenly rose. Nearby were a dozen men, and not one of them had felt a trace of wind. A strong force had seized upon these conspicuous objects, touching nothing else. According to M. Arcelin, the dust on the ground under and around was not disturbed. The sheets of paper continued upward, and disappeared in the sky.

A powerful force that swooped upon a fishing vessel, raising it so far that when it fell back it sank—see London Times, Sept. 24, 1875. A quarter of a mile away were other vessels, from which set out rescuers to the sailors who had been thrown into the sea. There was no wind: the rescuers could not use sails, but had to row their boats.

Upon Oct. 2, 1875, a man was trundling a cart from Schaffhausen, near Beringen, Germany. His right arm was perforated from front to back, as if by a musket ball (Pop. Sci., 15-566). This man had two companions. He had heard a whirring sound, but his companions had heard nothing. At one side of the road there were laborers in a field, but they were not within gunshot distance. Whatever the missile may have been, it was unfindable.

La Nature, 1879-1-166, quotes the Courrier des Ardennes as to an occurrence in the Commune Signy-le-Pettit, Easter Sunday, 1879—a conspicuous, isolated house—suddenly its slate roof shot into the air, and then fell to the ground. There had not been a trace of wind. The writer of the account says that the force, which he calls a trouble inoui had so singled out this house that nothing in its surroundings beyond a distance of thirty feet had been disturbed.

Scientific American, July 10, 1880—that, according to the Plaindealer, of East Kent, Ontario, two citizens of East Kent were in a field, and heard a loud report. They saw stones shooting upward from a field. They examined the spot, which was about 16 feet in diameter, finding nothing to suggest an explanation of the occurrence. It is said that there had been neither a whirlwind nor anything else by which to explain.

It may be that witnesses have seen human beings dragged from our own existence either into the objectionable fourth dimension, perhaps then sifting into the fifth, or up to the sky by some exploring thing. I have data, but they are from the records of psychic research. For instance, a man has been seen walking along a road—sudden disappearance. Explanation—that he was not a living human being, but an apparition that had disappeared. I have not been able to develop such data, finding, for instance, that someone in the neighborhood had been reported missing; but it may be that we can find material in our own field.

Upon December 10, 1881, Walter Powell and two companions ascended from Bath in the Government balloon Saladin (Valentine and Tomlinson, Travels in Space, p. 227). The balloon descended at Bridport, coast of the English Channel. Two of the aëronauts got out, but the balloon, with Powell in it, shot upward. There was a report that the balloon had been seen to fall in the English Channel, near Bridport, but according to Capt. Temple, one of Powell’s companions, probably something thrown from the balloon had been seen to fall.

A balloon is lost near or over the sea. If it should fall into the sea it would probably float and for considerable time be a conspicuous object; nevertheless the disappearance of a balloon last seen over the English Channel, can not, without other circumstances, be considered very mysterious. Now one expects to learn of reports from many places of supposed balloons that had been seen. But the extraordinary circumstance is that reports came in upon a luminous object that was seen in the sky at the time that this balloon disappeared. In the London Times, it is said that a luminous object had been seen, evening of the 13th, moving in various directions in the sky near Cherbourg. It is said that upon the night of the 16th three customhouse guards, at Laredo, Spain, had seen something like a balloon in the sky, and had climbed a mountain in order to see it better, but that it had shot out sparks and had disappeared—and had been reported from Bilbao, Spain, the next day. In the Morning Post, it is said that this luminous display was the chief feature; that it was this sparkling that had made the object visible. In the Standard, Dec. 16, is an account of something that was seen in the sky, five o’clock, morning of Dec. 15, by Capt. Mc. Bain, of the steamship Countess of Aberdeen, off the coast of Scotland, 25 miles from Montrose. Through glasses, the object seemed to be a light attached to something thought to be the car of a balloon, increasing and decreasing in size—a large light—“as large as the light at Girdleness.” It moved in a direction opposite to that of the wind, though possibly with wind of an upper stratum. It was visible half an hour, and when it finally disappeared, was moving toward Bervie, a town on the Scottish coast about 12 miles north of Montrose. In the Morning Post it is said that the explanation is simple: that someone in Monfreith, 8 miles from Dundee, had, late in the evening of the 15th, sent up a fire-balloon, “which had been carried along the coast by a gentle breeze, and, after burning all night, extinguished and collapsed off Montrose, early on Thursday morning (16th).” This story of a balloon that wafted to Montrose, and that was evidently traced until it collapsed near Montrose does not so simply explain an object that was seen 25 miles from Montrose. In the Standard, Dec. 19, it is said that two bright lights were seen over Dartmouth Harbor, upon the 11th.

Walter Powell was Member of Parliament for Malmesbury, and had many friends, some of whom started immediately to search. His relatives offered a reward. A steamboat searched the Channel, and did not give up until the 13th; fishing vessels kept on searching. A “sweeping expedition” was organized, and the coast guard was doubled, searching the shore for wreckage, but not a fragment of the balloon, nor from the balloon, except a thermometer in a bag, was found.

In L’Astronomie, 1886-312, Prof. Paroisse, of the College Bar-sur-Aube, quotes two witnesses of a curieux phénomène that occurred in a garden of the College, May, 22, 1886—cloudless sky; wind très faible. Within a small circle in the garden were some baskets and ashes and a window frame that weighed sixty kilogrammes. These things suddenly rose from the ground. At a height of about forty feet, they remained suspended several minutes, then falling back to the place from which they had risen. Not a thing outside this small circle had been touched by the seizure. The witnesses said that they had felt no disturbance in the air.

Scientific American, 56-65—that in June, 1886, according to the London Times, “a well-known official” was entering Pall Mall, when he felt a violent blow on the shoulder and heard a hissing sound. There was no one in sight except a distant policeman. At home, he found that the nap of his coat looked as if a hot wire had been pressed against the cloth, in a long, straight line. No missile was found, but it was thought that something of a meteoritic nature had struck him.

Charleston News and Courier, Nov. 25, 1886—that, at Edina, Mo., Nov. 23, a man and his three sons were pulling corn on a farm. Nothing is said of meteorologic conditions, and, for all I know, they may have been pulling corn in a violent thunder storm. Something that is said to have been lightning flashed from the sky. The man was slightly injured, one son killed, the other seriously injured—the third had disappeared. “What has become of him is not known, but it is supposed that he was blinded or crazed by the shock, and wandered away.”

Brooklyn Eagle, March 17, 1891—that, at Wilkesbarre, Pa., March 16th, two men were “lifted bodily and carried considerable distance in a whirlwind.” It was a powerful force, but nothing else was affected by it. Upon the same day, there was an occurrence in Brooklyn. In the New York Times, March 17, 1891, it is said that two men, Smith Morehouse, of Orange Co., N. Y., and William Owen, of Sussex Co., N. J., were walking in Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, about 2 o’clock, afternoon of the 16th, when a terrific explosion occurred close to the head of Morehouse, injuring him and stunning Owen, the flash momentarily blinding both. Morehouse’s face was covered with marks like powder-marks, and his tongue was pierced. With no one else to accuse, the police arrested Owen, but held him upon the technical charge of intoxication. Morehouse was taken to a hospital, where a splinter of metal, considered either brass or copper, but not a fragment of a cartridge, was removed from his tongue. No other material could be found, though an object of considerable size had exploded. Morehouse’s hat had been perforated in six places by unfindable substances. According to witnesses there had been no one within a hundred feet of the men. One witness had seen the flash before the explosion, but could not say whether it had been from something falling or not. In the Brooklyn Eagle, March 17, 1891, it is said that neither of the men had a weapon of any kind, and that there had been no disagreement between them. According to a witness, they had been under observation at the time of the explosion, her attention having been attracted by their rustic appearance.

There is an interesting merging here of the findable and the unfindable. I suppose that no one will suppose that someone threw a bomb at these men. But enough substance was found to exclude the notion of “lightning from a clear sky.” Something of a meteoritic nature seems excluded.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Out from a round, red planet, a little white shaft—a fairy’s arrow shot into an apple. June 10, 1892—a light like a little searchlight, projecting from the limb of Mars. Upon July 11 and 13, it was seen again, by Campbell and Hussey (Nature, 50-500).

Aug. 3, 1892—climacteric opposition of Mars.

Upon August 12, 1892, flashes were seen by many persons, in the sky of England. See Eng. Mec., vol. 56. At Manchester, so like signals were they, or so unlike anything commonly known as “auroral” were they, that Albert Buss mistook them for flashes from a lighthouse. They were seen at Dewsbury; described by a correspondent to the English Mechanic, who wrote: “I have never seen such an appearance of an aurora.” “Rapid flashes” reported from Loughborough.

* * * * *

A shining triangle in a dark circle.

In L’Astronomie, 1888-75, Dr. Klein publishes an account of de Speissen’s observation of Nov. 23, 1887—a luminous triangle on the floor of Plato. Dr. Klein says it was an effect of sunlight.

In this period, there were in cities of the United States, some of the most astonishing effects at night, in the history of this earth. If Rigel should run for the Presidency of Orion, and if the stars in the great nebula should start to march, there would be a spectacle like those that Grover Cleveland called forth in the United States, in this period.

So then—at least conceivably—something similar upon the moon. Flakes of light moving toward Plato, this night of Nov. 23, 1887, from all the other craters of the moon; a blizzard of shining points gathering into light-drifts in Plato; then the denizens of Aristarchus and of Kepler, and dwellers from the lunar Alps, each raising his torch, marching upon a triangular path, making the triangle shine in the dark—conceivably. Other formations have been seen in Plato, but, according to my records, this symbol that shone in the dark had never been seen before, and has not been seen since.

About two years later—a demonstration of a more exclusive kind—assemblage of all the undertakers of the moon. They stood in a circular formation, surrounded by virgins in their nightgowns—and in nightgowns as nightgowns should be. An appearance in Plinius, Sept. 13, 1889, was reported by Prof. Thury, of Geneva—a black spot with an “intensely white” border.

March 30, 1889—a black spot that was seen for the first time, by Gaudibert, near the center of Copernicus (L’Astro., 1890-235). May 11, 1889—an object as black as ink upon a rampart of Gassendi (L’Astro., 1889-275). It had never been reported before; at the time of the next lunation, it was not seen again. March 30, 1889—a new black spot in Plinius (L’Astro., 1890-187).

The star-like light of Aristarchus—it is a long time since latest preceding appearance (May 7, 1867). Then it can not be attributed to commonplace lunar circumstances. The light was seen, Nov. 7, 1891, by M. d’Adjuda, of the Observatory of Lisbon—“a very distinct, luminous point” (L’Astro., 11-33).

Upon April 1, 1893, a shaft of light was seen projecting from the moon, by M. de Moraes, in the Azores. A similar appearance was seen, Sept. 25, 1893, at Paris, by Mr. Gaboreau (L’Astro., 13-34).

* * * * *

Another association like that of 1884—in the English Mechanic, 55-310, a correspondent writes that, upon May 6, 1892, he saw a shining point (not polar) upon Venus. Upon the 13th of August, 1892, the same object—conceivably—was seen at a short distance from Venus—an unknown, luminous object, like a star of the 7th magnitude that was seen close to Venus, by Prof. Barnard (Ast. Nach., no. 4106).

Upon August 24, 1895, in the period of primary maximum brilliance of Venus, a luminous object, it is said, was seen in the sky, in day time, by someone in Donegal, Ireland. Upon this day, according to the Scientific American, 73-374, a boy, Robert Alcorn, saw a large luminous object falling from the sky. It exploded near him. The boy’s experience was like Smith Morehouse’s. He put his hands over his face: there was a second explosion, shattering his fingers. According to Prof. George M. Minchin no substance of the object that had exploded could be found. Whether there be relation or not, something was seen in the sky of England a week later. In the London Times, Sept. 4, 1895, Dr. J. A. H. Murray writes that, at Oxford, a few minutes before 8 P. M., August 31, 1895, he saw in the sky a luminous object, considerably larger than Venus at greater brilliance, emerge from behind tree tops, and sail slowly eastward. It moved as if driven in a strong wind, and disappeared behind other trees. “The fact that it so perceptibly grew fainter as it receded seems to imply that it was not at a great elevation, and so favors a terrestrial origin, though I am unable to conceive how anything artificial could have presented the same appearance.” In the Times, of the 6th, someone who had read Dr. Murray’s letter says that, about the same time, same evening, he, in London, had seen the same object moving eastward so slowly that he had thought it might be a fire balloon from a neighboring park. Another correspondent, who had not read Dr. Murray’s letter, his own dated Sept. 3, writes from a place not stated that about 8.20 P. M., Aug. 31, he had seen a star-like object, moving eastward, remaining in sight four or five minutes. Then someone who, about 8 P. M., same evening, while driving to the Scarborough station, had seen “a large shooting star,” astonishing him, because of its leisurely rate, so different from the velocity of the ordinary “shooting star.” There are two other accounts of objects that were seen in the sky, at Bath and at Ramsgate, but not about this time, and I have looked them up in local newspapers, finding that they were probably meteors.

In the Oxford Times, Sept. 7, Dr. Murray’s letter to the London Times is reprinted, with this comment—“We would suggest to the learned doctor that the supposed meteor was one of the fire-balloons let off with the allotments show.”

Let it be that when allotments are shown, balloons are always sent up, and that this Editor did not merely have a notion to this effect. Our data are concerned with an object that was seen, at about the same time, at Oxford, about 50 miles south east of Oxford, and about 170 miles northeast of Oxford, with a fourth observation that we can not place.

And, in broader terms, our data are concerned with a general expression that objects like ships have been seen to sail close to this earth at times when the planet Venus is nearest this earth. Sept. 18, 1895—inferior conjunction of Venus.

Still in the same period, there were, in London, two occurrences perhaps like that at Donegal. London Morning Post, Nov. 16, 1895—that, at noon, Nov. 15, an “alarming explosion” occurred somewhere near Fenchurch Street, London. No damage was done; no trace could be found of anything that had exploded. An hour later, near the Mansion House, which is not far from Fenchurch Street, occurred a still more violent explosion. The streets filled with persons who had run from buildings, and there was investigation, but not a trace could be found of anything that had exploded. It is said that somebody saw “something falling.” However, the deadly explainers, usually astronomers, but this time policemen, haunt or arrest us. In the Daily News, though it is not said that a trace of anything that had exploded had been found, it is said that the explanation by the police was that somebody had mischievously placed in the streets fog-signals, which had been exploded by passing vehicles.

Observation by Müller, of Nymegen, Holland—an unknown luminous object that, about three weeks later, was seen near Venus (Monthly Notices, R. A. S., 52-276).

Upon the 28th of April, 1897, Venus was in inferior conjunction. In Popular Astronomy, 5-55, it is said that many persons had written to the Editor, telling of “airships” that had been seen, about this time. The Editor writes that some of the observations were probably upon the planet Venus, but that others probably related to toy balloons, “which were provided with various colored lights.”

The first group of our data, I take from dispatches to the New York Sun, April 2, 11, 16, 18. First of April—“the mysterious light” in the sky of Kansas City—something like a powerful searchlight. “It was directed toward the earth, travelling east at a rate of sixty miles an hour.” About a week later, something was seen in Chicago. “Chicago’s alleged airship is believed to be a myth, in spite of the fact that a great many persons say that they have seen the mysterious night-wanderer. A crowd gazed at strange lights, from the top of a downtown skyscraper, and Evanston students declare they saw the swaying red and green lights.” April 16—reported from Benton, Texas, but this time as a dark object that passed across the moon. Reports from other towns in Texas: Fort Worth, Dallas, Marshall, Ennis, and Beaumont—“It was shaped like a Mexican cigar, large in the middle, and small at both ends, with great wings, resembling those of an enormous butterfly. It was brilliantly illuminated by the rays of two great searchlights, and was sailing in a southeasterly direction, with the velocity of the wind, presenting a magnificent appearance.”

New York Herald, April 11—that, at Chicago, night of April 9-10, “until two o’clock in the morning, thousands of amazed spectators declared that the lights seen in the northwest were those of an airship, or some floating object, miles above the earth.... Some declare they saw two cigar-shaped objects and great wings.” It is said that a white light, a red light, and a green light had been seen.

There does seem to be an association between this object and the planet Venus, which upon this night was less than three weeks from nearest approach to this earth. Nevertheless this object could not have been Venus, which had set hours earlier. Prof. Hough, of the Northwestern University, is quoted—that the people had mistaken the star Alpha Orionis for an airship. Prof. Hough explains that astronomeric effects may have given a changing red and green appearance to this star. Alpha Orionis as a northern star is some more astronomy by the astronomers who teach astronomy daytimes and then relax when night comes. That atmospheric conditions could pick out this one star and not affect other brilliant stars in Orion is more astronomy. At any rate the standardized explanation that the thing was Venus disappears.

There were other explainers—someone who said that he knew of an airship (terrestrial one) that had sailed from San Francisco, and had reached Chicago.

Herald, April 12—said that the object had been photographed in Chicago: “a cigar-shaped, silken bag,” with a framework—other explanations and identifications, not one of them applying to this object, if it be accepted that it was seen in places as far apart as Illinois and Texas. It is said that, upon March 29th, the thing had been seen in Omaha, as a bright light sailing to the northwest, and that, for a few moments, upon the following night, it had been seen in Denver. It is said that, upon the night of the 9th, despatches had bombarded the newspaper offices of Chicago, from many places in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

“Prof. George Hough maintains that the object seen is Alpha Orionis.”

April 14—story, veritable observation, yarn, hoax—despatch from Carlensville, Ill.—that upon the afternoon of the 10th, the airship had alighted upon a farm, but had sailed away when approached—“cigar-shaped, with wings, and a canopy on top.”

April 15—shower of telegrams—development of jokers and explainers—thing identified as an airship invented by someone in Dodge City, Kansas; identified as an airship invented by someone in Brule, Wisconsin—stories of letters found on farms, purporting to have been dropped by the unknown aëronauts (terrestrial ones)—jokers in various towns, sending up balloons with lights attached—one laborious joker who rigged up something that looked like an airship and put it in a vacant lot and told that it had fallen there—yarn or observation, upon a “queer-looking boat” that had been seen to rise from the water in Lake Erie—continued reports upon a moving object in the sky, and its red and green lights.

Against such an alliance as this, between the jokers and the astronomers, I see small chance for our data. The chance is in the future. If, in April, 1897, extra-mundane voyagers did visit this earth, likely enough they will visit again, and then the alliance against the data may be guarded against.

New York Herald, April 20—that, upon the 19th, about 9 P. M., at Sistersville, W. Va., a luminous object had approached the town from the northwest, flashing brilliant red, white, and green lights. “An examination with strong glasses left an impression of a huge cone-shaped arrangement 180 feet long, with large fins on either side.”

My own general impression:

Night of October 12, 1492—if I have that right. Some night in October, 1492, and savages upon an island-beach are gazing out at lights that they had never seen before. The indications are that voyagers from some other world are nearby. But the wise men explain. One of the most nearly sure expressions in this book is upon how they explain. They explain in terms of the familiar. For instance, after all that is spiritual in a fish passes away, the rest of him begins to shine nights. So there are three big, old, dead things out in the water—

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There have been published several observations upon a signal-like regularity of the Barisal Guns, which, because unaccompanied by phenomena that could be considered seismic, may have been detonations in the sky, and which, because, according to some hearers, they seemed to come from the sky, may have come from some region stationary in the local sky of Barisal. In Nature, 61-127, appears a report by Henry S. Schurr, who investigated the sounds in the years 1890-1891:

“These Guns are always heard in triplets, i. e., three guns are always heard, one after the other, at regular intervals, and, though several guns may be heard, the number is always three or a multiple of three. Then the interval between the three is always constant, i. e., the interval between the first and the second is the same as the interval between the second and the third, and this interval is usually three seconds, though I have heard it up to ten seconds. The interval, however, between the triplets varies, and varies largely, from a few seconds up to hours and days. Sometimes only one series of triplets is heard in a day; at others the triplets follow with great regularity, and I have counted as many as forty-five of them, one after the other, without pause.”

In vols. 16 and 17, Ciel et Terre, M. Van den Broeck published a series of papers upon the mysterious sounds that had been heard in Belgium.

July, 1892—heard near Brée, by Dr. Raemaekers, of Antwerp—detonations at regular intervals of about 12 seconds, repeated about 20 times.

Aug. 5, 1892—near Dunkirk, by Prof. Gérard, of Brussels—four reports like sounds of cannons.

Aug. 17, 1893—between Ostend and Ramsgate, by Prof. Gérard—a series of distinct explosions—state of the sky giving no reason to think that they were meteorological manifestations.

Sept. 5, 1893—at Middelkirke—loud sounds of remarkable intensity.

Sept. 8, 1893—English Channel near Dover—by Prof. Gérard—an explosive sound.

In Ciel et Terre, 16-485, M. Van den Broeck records an experience of his own. Upon June 25, 1894, at Louvain, he had heard detonations like discharges of artillery: he tabulates the intervals in a series of sounds. If there were signalling from some unknown region over Belgium, and not far from the surface of this earth, or from extra-mundane vessels, and if there were something of the code-like, resembling the Morse alphabet, perhaps, in this series of sounds, there can be small hope of interpreting such limited material, but there may be suggestion to someone to record all sounds and their intervals and modulations, if, with greater duration, such phenomena should ever occur again. The intervals were four minutes and twenty-three minutes; then three minutes, four, three quarters, three and three quarters, three quarters.

Sept. 16, 1895—a triplet of detonations, heard by M. de Schryvere, of Brussels.

There were attempts to explain. Some of M. Van den Broeck’s correspondents thought that there had been firing from forts on the coast of England, and somebody thought that the phenomena should be attributed to gravitational effects of the moon. Upon Sept. 13, 1895, four shocks were felt and sounds heard at Southampton: a series of three and then another (Nature, 52-552); but I have no other notes upon sounds that were heard in England at this time, except the two explosions that were explained by the police of London. However, M. Van den Broeck says that Mr. Harmer, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, had, about the first of November, heard booming sounds that had been attributed to cannonading at Harwich. Mr. Harmer had heard other sounds that had been attributed to cannonading somewhere else. He could not offer a definite opinion upon the first sounds, but had investigated the others, learning that the attribution was a mistake.

It was M. de Schryvere’s opinion that the triplet of detonations that he had heard was from vessels in the North Sea. But now, according to developments, the sounds of Belgium can not very well be attributed to terrestrial cannonading in or near Belgium: in Ciel et Terre, 16-614, are quoted two artillery officers who had heard the sounds, but could not so trace them: one of these officers had heard a series of detonations with intervals of about two minutes. A variety of explanations was attempted, but in conventional terms, and if these localized, repeating sounds did come from the sky, there’s nothing to it but a new variety of attempted explanations, and in most unconventional terms. There are recorded definite impressions that the sounds were in the sky: Prof. Peleseneer’s positivement aérien. In Ciel et Terre, 17-14, M. Van den Broeck announced that General Hennequin, of Brussels, had co-operated with him, and had sent enquiries to army officers and other persons, receiving thirty replies. Some of these correspondents had heard detonations at regular intervals. It is said that the sounds were like cannonading, but not in one instance were the sounds traced to terrestrial gunfire.

Jan. 24, 1896—a triplet of triplets—between 2.30 and 3.30, P. M.—by M. Overloop, of Middelkirke, Belgium—three series of detonations, each of three sounds.

The sounds went on, but, after this occurrence, there seems to me to be little inducement to me to continue upon the subject. This is indication that from somewhere there has been signalling: from extra-mundane vessels to one another, or from some unknown region to this earth, as nearly final as we can hope to find. There are persons who will see nothing but a susceptibility to the mysticism of numbers in a feeling that there is significance in threes of threes. But, if there be attempt in some other world to attract attention upon this earth, it would have to be addressed to some kind of a state of mind that would feel significances. Let our three threes be as mystic as the eleven horns on Daniel’s fourth animal; if throughout nature like human nature there be only superstition as to such serialization, that superstition, for want of something more nearly intelligent, would be a susceptibility to which to appeal, and from which response might be expected. I think that a sense of mystic significance in the number three may be universal, because upon this earth it is general, appearing in theologies, in the balanced compositions of all the arts, in logical demonstrations, and in the indefinite feelings that are supposed to be superstitious.

The sounds went on, as if there were experiments, or attempts to communicate by means of other regularizations and repetitions. Feb. 18, 1896—a series of more than 20 detonations, at intervals of 2 or 3 minutes, heard at Ostend, by M. Pulzeys, an engineer of Brussels. Four or five sounds were heard at Ostend by someone else: repeated upon the 21st of Feb. Heard by M. Overloop, at Ostend, April 6: detonations at 11.57.30 A. M., and at 12.1.32 P. M. Heard the next day, by M. Overloop, at Blankenberghe, at 2.35 and 2.51 P. M.

The last occurrence recorded by M. Van den Broeck was upon the English Channel, May 23, 1896: detonations at 3.20 and 3.40 P. M. I have no more data, as to this period, myself, but I have notes upon similar sounds, by no means so widely reported and commented upon, in France and Belgium about 15 years later. One notices that the old earthquake-explanation as to these sounds has not appeared.

But there were other phenomena in England, in this period, and to considerable degree they were conventionally explained. They were not of the type of the Belgian phenomena, and, because manifestations were seen and felt, as well as heard, they were explained in terms of meteors and earthquakes. But in this double explanation, we meet a divided opposition, and no longer are we held back by the uncompromising attempt by exclusionist science to attribute all disturbances of this earth’s surface to a subterranean origin. The admission by Symons and Fordham that we have recorded, as to occurrences of 1887-89, has survived.

The earliest of the accounts that I have read of the quakes in the general region of Worcester and Hereford (London Triangle) that associated with appearances in the sky, was published by two church wardens in the years 1661, as to occurrences of October, 1661, and is entitled, A True and Perfect Relation of the Terrible Earthquake. It is said that monstrous flaming things were seen in the sky, and that phenomena below were interesting. We are told, “truly and perfectly,” that Mrs. Margaret Petmore fell in labor and brought forth three male offsprings all of whom had teeth and spoke at birth. Inasmuch as it is not recorded what the infants said, and whether in plain English or not, it is not so much an extraordinary birth such as, in one way or another, occurs from time to time, that affronts our conventional notions, as it is the idea that there could be relation between the abnormal in obstetrics and the unusual in terrestrics. The conventional scientist has just this reluctance toward considering shocks of this earth and phenomena in the sky at the same time. If he could accept with us that there often has been relation, the seeming discord would turn into a commonplace, but with us he would never again want to hear of extraordinary detonating meteors exploding only by coincidence over a part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, or of concussions of this earth, time after time, in one small region, from meteors that, only by coincidence, happened to explode in one little local sky, time after time. Give up the idea that this earth moves, however, and coincidences many times repeated do not have to be lugged in.

Our subject now is the supposed earthquake centering around Worcester and Hereford, Dec. 17, 1896; but there may have been related events, leading up to this climax, signifying long duration of something in the sky that occasionally manifested relatively to this corner of the London Triangle. Mrs. Margaret Petmore was too sensational a person for our liking, at least in our colder and more nearly scientific moments, so we shall not date so far back as the time of her performance; but the so-called earthquakes of Oct. 6, 1863, and of Oct. 30, 1868, were in this region, and we had data for thinking that they were said to be earthquakes only because they could not be traced to terrestrial explosions.

At 5.45 P. M., Nov. 2. 1893, a loud sound was heard at a place ten miles northeast of Worcester, and no shock was felt (Nature, 49-245); however at Worcester and in various parts of the west of England and in Wales a shock was felt.

According to James G. Wood, writing in Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8, at 9.30 P. M., Jan. 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than 20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something else occurred: according to Denning (Nature, 49-325) it was in several places, near Hereford and Worcester, supposed to be an earthquake. But, at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8) was seen the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.

In the English Mechanic, 74-155, David Packer calls attention to “a strange meteoric light” that was seen in the sky, at Worcester, during the quake of Dec. 17, 1896. I should say that this was the severest shock felt in the British Isles, in the 19th century, with the exception of the shock of April 22, 1884, in the eastern point of the London Triangle. There was something in the sky. In Nature, 55-179, J. Lloyd Bozward writes that, at Worcester, a great light was seen in the sky, at the time of the shock, and that, in another town, “a great blaze” had been seen in the sky. In Symons’ Met. Mag., 31-180, are recorded many observations upon lights that were seen in the sky. In an appendix to his book, The Hereford Earthquake of 1896, Dr. Charles Davison says that at the time of the quake (5.30 A. M.) there was a luminous object in the sky, and that it “traversed a large part of the disturbed area.” He says that it was a meteor, and an extraordinary meteor that lighted up the ground so that one could have picked up a pin. With the data so far considered, almost anyone would think that of course an object had exploded in the sky, shaking the earth underneath. Dr. Davison does not say this. He says that the meteor only happened to appear over a part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, “by a strange coincidence.”

Suppose that, with ordinary common sense, he had not lugged in his “strange coincidence,” and had written that of course the shock was concussion from an explosion in the sky—

Shocks that had been felt before midnight, Dec. 17, and at 1.30 or 1.45, 2, 3, 3.30, 4, 5, and 5.20, and then others at 5.40 or 5.45 and at 6.15 o’clock—and were they, too, concussions, but fainter and from remoter explosions in the sky—and why not, if of course the great shock of 5.30 o’clock was from a great explosion in the sky—and by what multiplication of strangeness of coincidence could detonating meteors, or explosions of any other kind, so localize in the one little sky of Worcester, if this earth be a moving earth—and how could their origin be otherwise than a fixed region nearby?

In some minds it may be questionable that the earth could be so affected as it was at 5.30 A. M., Dec. 17, 1896, by an explosion in the sky. Upon Feb. 10, 1896, a tremendous explosion occurred in the sky of Madrid: throughout the city windows were smashed; a wall in the building occupied by the American Legation was thrown down. The people of Madrid rushed to the streets, and there was a panic in which many were injured. For five hours and a half a luminous cloud of débris hung over Madrid, and stones fell from the sky.

Suppose, just at present, we disregard all the Worcester-Hereford phenomena except those of Dec. 17, 1896. Draw a diagram, illustrating a stream of meteors pursuing this earth, now supposed to be rotating and revolving, for more than 400,000 miles in its orbit, and curving around gracefully and unerringly after the rotating earth, so as to explode precisely in this one little local sky and nowhere else. But we can’t think very reasonably even of a flock of birds flying after and so precisely pecking one spot on an apple thrown in the air by somebody. Another diagram—stationary earth—bombardment of any kind one chooses to think of—same point hit every time—thinkable.

The phenomena associate with an opposition of Mars. Dec. 10, 1896—opposition of Mars.

But we have gone on rather elaborately with perhaps an insufficiency to base upon. We can not say, directly, that all the phenomena of the night of Dec. 16-17, 1896, were shocks from explosions in the sky: only during the greatest of the concussions was something seen, or was something near enough to be seen.

We apply the idea of the diagrams to another series of occurrences in this period. Now draw a diagram relatively to the sky of Florida, and see just what the explanation of coincidence demands or exacts. But then consider the diagram as one of an earth that does not move and of something that is fixed over a point upon its surface. Things can be thought of as coming down from somewhere else to one special sky of this earth, as logically as precariously placed objects on one special window sill sometimes come down to a special neighbor.

In the Monthly Weather Review, 23-57, is a report, by the Director of the Florida Weather Service, upon “mysterious sounds” and luminous effects in the sky of Florida. According to investigation, these phenomena did occur in the sky of Florida, about noon, Feb. 7, 1895, again at 5 o’clock in the morning of the 8th, and again between 6 and 10 o’clock, night of the 8th. The Editor of the Review thinks that three meteors may have exploded so in succession in the sky of Florida, and nowhere else, “by coincidence.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Char me the trunk of a redwood tree. Give me pages of white chalk cliffs to write upon. Magnify me thousands of times, and replace my trifling immodesties with a titanic megalomania—then might I write largely enough for our subjects. Because of accessibility and abundance of data, our accounts deal very much with the relatively insignificant phenomena of Great Britain. But our subjects, if not so restricted, would be the violences that have screamed from the heavens, lapping up villages with tongues of fire. If, because of appearances in the sky, be accepted that some of the so-called earthquakes of Italy and South America represented relations with regions beyond this earth, then is accepted that some of this earth’s greatest catastrophes have been relations with the unknown and the external. We have data that seem to be indications of signalling, but not unless we can think that foreign giants have hurled explosive mountains at this earth can we see such indications in all the data.

Our data do seem to fall into two orders of phenomena: sounds of Melida, Barisal, and Belgium, and nothing falling from the sky, and nothing seen in the sky, and excellently supported observations for accepting a signal-like intent in intervals and grouping of sounds, at least in Barisal and Belgium; and the unregularized phenomena of Worcester-Hereford, Colchester, Comrie, and Birmingham, in which appearances are seen in the sky, or in which substances fall from the sky, and in which effects upon this earth, not noted at all in Belgium and Bengal, are great, and sometimes tremendous. It seems that extra-geography divides into the extra-sociologic and the extra-physical; and in the second type of phenomena, we suppose the data are of physical relations between this earth and other worlds. We think of a difference of potential. There were tremendous detonations in the sky at the times of the falls of the little black stones of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and the electric manifestations, according to descriptions in the newspapers, were extraordinary, and great volumes of water fell. Consequently the events were supposed to be thunderstorms. I suppose, myself, that they were electric storms, but electric storms that represented difference of potential between this earth and some region that was fixed, at least eleven years, over Birmingham and Wolverhampton, bringing down stones and volumes of water from some other world, or bringing down stones, and dislodging intervening volumes of water, such as we have many data for thinking exist in outer space, sometimes in bodies of warm or hot water, and sometimes as great masses, or fields, of ice.

Let two objects be generically similar, but specifically different and a relation that may be known as a difference of potential, though that term is usually confined to electric relations, generates between them. Quite as the Gulf Stream—though there are no reasons to suppose that there is such a Gulf Stream as one reads of—represents a relation between bodies of water heated differently, given any two worlds, alike in general constitution, but differing, say, electrically, and given proximity, we conceive of relations between them other than gravitational.

But this cloistered earth, and its monkish science—shrinking from, denying, or disregarding, all data of external relations, except some one controlling force that was once upon a time known as Jehovah, but that has been re-named Gravitation—

That the electric exchanges that were recognized by the ancients, but that were anthropomorphically explained by them, have poured from the sky and have gushed to the sky, afferently and efferently, between this earth and the nearby planets, or between this mainland and its San Salvadors, and have been recognized by the moderns, or the neo-ancients, but have been meteorologically and seismologically misconstrued by them.

When a village spouts to the sky, it is said to have been caught up in a cyclone: when unknown substances fall from the sky, not much of anything is said upon the subject.

Lost tribes and the nations that have disappeared from the face of this earth—that the skies have reeked with terrestrial civilizations, spreading out in celestial stagnations, where their remains to this day may be. The Mayans—and what became of them? Bones of the Mayans, picked white as frost by space-scavengers, regioned to this day in a sterile luxuriance somewhere, spread upon existence like the pseudo-breath of Death, crystallized on a sky-pane. Three times gaps wide and dark the history of Egypt—and that these abysses were gulfed by disappearances—that some of the eliminations from this earth may have been upward translations in functional suctions. We conceive of Supervision upon this earth’s development, but for it the names of Jehovah and Allah seem old-fashioned—that the equivalence of wrath, but like the storms of cells that, in an embryonic thing, invade and destroy cartilage-cells, when they have outlived their usefulness, have devastated this earth’s undesirables. Likely enough, or not quite likely enough, one of these earlier Egypts was populated by sphinxes, if one can suppose that some of the statuary still extant in Egypt were portraitures. This is good, though also not so good, orthodox Evolutionary doctrine—that between types occur transitionals—

That Elimination and Redistribution swept an earlier Egypt with suctions—because it was written, in symbols of embryonic law, that life upon this earth must form onward—and the crouching sphinx on the sands of Egypt, blinking the mysticism of her morphologic mixtures, would perhaps detain forever the less interesting type that was advancing—

That often has Clarification destroyed transitionals, that they shall not hold back development.

One conceives of their remains, to this day, wafting still in the currents of the sky: floating avenues of frozen sphinxes, solemnly dipping in cosmic undulations, down which circulate processions of Egyptian mummies.

An astronomer upon this earth notes that things in parallel lines have crossed the sun.

We offer this contribution as comparing favorably with the works of any other historian. We think that some of the details may need revision, but that what they typify is somewhere nearly acceptable.

Latitudes and longitudes of bones, not in the sky, but upon the surface of this earth. Baron Toll and other explorers have, upon the surface of this earth kicked their way through networks of ribs and protrusions of skulls and stacks of vertebræ, as numerous as if from dead land they had sprouted there. Anybody who has read of these tracts of bones upon the northern coast of Siberia, and of some of the outlying islands that are virtually composed of bones cemented with icy sand, will agree with me that there have been cataclysms of which conventionality and standardization tell us nothing. Once upon a time, some unknown force translated, from somewhere, a million animals to Colorado, where their remains now form great bone-quarries. Very largely do we express a reaction against dogmatism, and sometimes we are not dogmatic, ourselves. We don’t know very positively whether at times the animal life of some other world has been swept away from that world, or not, eventually pouring from the sky of Siberia and of Colorado, in some of the shockingest floods of mammoths from which spattered cats and rabbits, in cosmic scenery, or not. All that we can say is that when we turn to conventionality it is to blankness or suppression. Every now and then, to this day, occurs an alleged fall of blood from the sky, and I have notes upon at least one instance in which the microscopically examined substance was identified as blood. But now we conceive of intenser times, when every now and then a red cataract hung in the heavens like the bridal veil of the goddess of murder. But the science of today is a soporific like the idealism of Europe before the War broke out. Science and idealism—wings of a vampire that lulls consciousness that might otherwise foresee catastrophe. Showers of frogs and showers of fishes that occur to this day—that they are the dwindled representatives to this day of the cataclysms of intenser times when the skies of this earth were darkened by afferent clouds of dinosaurs. We conceive of intenser times, but we conceive of all times as being rhythmic times. We are too busy to take up alarmism, but, if Rome, for instance, never was destroyed by terrestrial barbarians, if we can not very well think of Apaches seizing Chicago, extra-mundane vandals may often have swooped down upon this earth, and they may swoop again; and it may be a comfort to us, some day, to mention in our last gasp that we told about this.

History, geology, palæontology, astronomy, meteorology—that nothing short of cataclysmic thinking can break down these united walls of Exclusionism.

Unknown monsters sometimes appear in the ocean. When, upon the closed system of normal preoccupations, a story of a sea serpent appears, it is inhospitably treated. To us of the wider cordialities, it has recommendations for kinder reception. I think that we shall be noted in recognitions of good works for our bizarre charities. Far back in the topography of the nineteenth century, Richard Proctor was almost submerged in an ocean of smugness, but now and then he was a little island emerging from the gently alternating doubts and satisfactions of his era, and by means of several papers upon the “sea serpent” he so protruded and gave variety to a dreary uniformity. Proctor reviewed some of the stories of “sea serpents.” He accepted some of them. This will be news to some conventionalists. But the mystery that he could not solve is their conceivable origin. To be sure this earth may not be round, or top-shaped, and may tower away somewhere, perhaps with the great Antarctic plateau as its foothills, to a gigantic existence commensurate throughout with the sea monsters that sometimes reach regions known to us. Judging by our experience in other fields of research, we suspect that this earth never has been traversed except in conventional trade-routes and standard explorations. One supposes that enormous forms of life that have appeared upon the surface of the ocean, did not come from conditions of great pressure below the surface. If there be no habitat of their own, in unknown seas of this earth, the monsters fell from the sky, surviving for a while. In his day, Charles Lyell never said a more preposterous thing than this—however we have no idea that mere preposterousness is a criterion.

Then at times the things have fallen upon land, presumably. To scientific minds in their present anæmia of malnutrition, we offer new nourishment. There are materials for a science of neo-palæontology—as it were—at least a new view of animal-remains upon this earth. Remains of monsters, supposed to have lived geologic ages ago, are sometimes found, not in ancient deposits, but upon, or near, the surface of the ground, sometimes barely covered. I have notes upon a great pile of bones, supposed to be the remains of a whale, out in open view in a western desert.

In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, is the mummified body of a monster called a trachodon, found in Converse County, Wyoming. It was not found upon the surface of the ground, which is bad for our attempts to stimulate palæontology. But the striking datum to me is that the only other huge mummy that I know of is another trachodon, now in the Museum of Frankfort. If only extraordinarily would geologic processes mummify remains of a huge animal, doubly extraordinarily would two animals of the same species be so exclusively affected. One at least gives some consideration to the idea that these trachodons are not products of geologic circumstances, but were affected, in common, by other circumstances. By inspiration, or progressive deterioration, one then conceives of the things as having wafted and dried in space, finally falling to this earth. Our swooping vandals are relieved with showering mummies. Life is turning out to be interesting.

Organic substances like life-fluids of living things have rained from the sky. However, it is enough for our general purposes to make acceptable simply that unknown substances have, in large quantities, fallen from the sky. That is neo-ism enough, it seems to me. I consider, myself, all such data relatively to this earth’s stationariness or possible motions. In Ciel et Terre, 22-198, it is said that, about 2 P. M., June 8, 1901, a glue-like substance fell at Sart. The story is told by an investigator, M. Michael, a meteorologist. He says that he saw this substance falling from the sky, but does not give an estimate of duration: he says that he arrived during the last five minutes of the shower. Editors and extra-geographers can’t help trying to explain. The Editor of Ciel et Terre writes that, three days before, there had been, at Antwerp, a great fire, in which, among other substances, a large quantity of sugar had been burned. He asks whether there could be any connection. Antwerp is about 80 miles from Sart.

Sept. 2, 1905—the tragedy of the space-pig:

In the English Mechanic, 86-100, Col. Markwick writes that, according to the Cambrian Natural Observer, something was seen in the sky, at Llangollen, Wales, Sept. 2, 1905. It is described as an intensely black object, about two miles above the earth’s surface, moving at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. Col. Markwick writes: “Could it have been a balloon?” We give Col. Markwick good rating as an extra-geographer, but of the early, or differentiating type, a transitional, if not a sphinx: so he was not quite developed enough to publish the details of this object. In the Cambrian Natural Observer, 1905-35—the journal of the Astronomical Society of Wales—it is said that, according to accounts in the newspapers, an object had appeared in the sky, at Llangollen, Wales, Sept. 2, 1905. At the schoolhouse, in Vroncysylite—I think that’s it: with all my credulity, some of these Welsh names look incredible to me, in my notes—the thing in the sky had been examined through powerful field glasses. We are told that it had short wings, and flew, or moved, in a way described as “casually inclining sideways.” It seemed to have four legs, and looked to be about ten feet long. According to several witnesses it looked like a huge, winged pig, with webbed feet. “Much speculation was rife as to what the mysterious object could be.”

Five days later, according to a member of the Astronomical Society of Wales—see Cambrian Observer, 1905-30—a purple-red substance fell from the sky, at Llanelly, Wales.

I don’t know that my own attitude toward these data is understood, and I don’t know that it matters in the least; also from time to time my own attitude changes: but very largely my feeling is that not much can be, or should be, concluded from our meagre accounts, but that so often are these occurrences, in our fields, reported, that several times every year there will be occurrences that one would like to have investigated by someone who believes that we have written nothing but bosh, and by someone who believes in our data almost religiously. It may be that, early in February, 1892, a luminous thing travelled back and forth, exploring for ten hours in the sky of Sweden. The story is copied from a newspaper, and ridiculed, in the English Mechanic, 55-34. Upon March 7, 1893, a luminous object, shaped like an elongated pear was seen in the sky of Val-de-la-Haye, by M. Raimond Coulon (L’Astro., 1893-169). M. Coulon’s suggestion is that the light may have been a signal suspended from a balloon. The signal-idea is interesting.

In the summer of 1897, several weeks after Prof. Andrée and his two companions had sailed in a balloon, from Amsterdam Island, Spitzbergen, it was reported that a balloon had been seen in British Columbia. There was wide publicity: the report was investigated. It may be that had a terrestrial balloon escaped from somewhere in the United States or Canada, or if there had been a balloon-ascension at this time, the circumstance would have been reported: it may well be that the object was not Andrée’s balloon. President Bell, of the National Geographic Society, heard of this object, and heard that details had been sent to the Swedish Foreign Office, and cabled to the American Minister, at Stockholm, for information. He publishes his account in the National Geographic Magazine, 9-102. He was referred to the Swedish Consul, at San Francisco. In reply to inquiry, the Consul telegraphed the following data, which had been collected by the President of the Geographical Society of the Pacific:

“Statement of a balloon passing over the Horse-Fly Hydraulic Mining Camp, in Caribou, British Columbia, 52°, 20′, and Longitude 120°, 30′—

“From letters of J. B. Robson, manager of the Caribou Mining Co., and of Mrs. Wm. Sullivan, the blacksmith’s wife, there, and a statement of Mr. John J. Newsome, San Francisco, then at camp. About 2 or 3 o’clock, in the afternoon, between fourth and seventh of August last, weather calm and cloudless, Mrs. Sullivan, while looking over the Hydraulic Bank, noticed a round, grayish-looking object in the sky, to the right of the sun. As she watched, it grew larger and was descending. She saw the larger mass of the balloon above, and a smaller mass apparently suspended from the larger. It continued to descend, until she plainly recognized it as a balloon and a large basket hanging thereto. It finally commenced to swing violently back and forth, and move very fast toward the eastward and northward. Mrs. Sullivan called her daughter, aged 18, and about this time Mrs. Robson and her daughter were observing it.”

If someone saw a strange fish in the ocean, we’d like to know—what was it like? Stripes on him—spots—what? It would be unsatisfactory to be told over and over only that a dark body had crossed some waves. In Cosmos, n. s., 39-356, a satisfactory correspondent writes that, at Lille, France, Sept. 4, 1898, he saw a red object in the sky. It was like the planet Mars, but was in the position of no known planet. He looked through his telescope, and saw a rectangular object, with a violet-colored band on one side of it, and the rest of it striped with black and red. He watched it ten minutes, during which time it was stationary; then, like the object that was seen at the time of the Powell-mystery, it cast out sparks and disappeared.

In the English Mechanic, 75-417, Col. Markwick writes that, upon May 10, 1902, a friend of his had seen in the sky, in South Devon, a great number of highly colored objects like little suns or toy-balloons. “Altogether beats me,” says Col. Markwick.

Upon March 2, 1899, a luminous object in the sky, from 10 A. M., until 4 P. M., was reported from El Paso, Texas. Mentioned in the Observatory, 22-247—supposed to have been Venus, even though Venus was then two months past secondary maximum brilliance. This seems reasonable enough, in itself, but there are other data for thinking that an unknown, luminous body was at this time in the especial sky of the southwestern states. In the U. S. Weather Bureau Report (Ariz. Sec., March, 1899) it is said that, at Prescott, Arizona, Dr. Warren E. Day had seen a luminous object, upon the 8th of March, “that travelled with the moon” all day, until 2 P. M. It is said that, the day before, this object had been seen close to the moon, by Mr. G. O. Scott, at Tonto, Arizona. Dr. Day and Mr. Scott were voluntary observers for the Weather Review. This association with the moon and this localization of observation are puzzling.

La Nature (Sup.) Nov. 11, 1899—that at Luzarches, France, upon the 28th of October, 1899, M. A. Garrie had seen, at 4.50 P. M., a round, luminous object rising above the horizon. About the size of the moon. He watched it for 15 minutes, as it moved away, diminishing to a point. It may be that something from external regions was for several weeks in the especial sky of France. In La Nature (Sup.) Dec. 16, 1899, someone writes that he had seen, Nov. 15, 1899, 7 P. M., at Dourite (Dordogne) an object like an enormous star, at times white, then red, and sometimes blue, but moving like a kite. It was in the south. He had never seen it before. Someone, in the issue of Dec. 30th, says that, without doubt it was the star Fomalhaut, and asks for precise position. Issue of Jan. 20, 1900—the first correspondent says that the object was in the southwest, about 35 degrees above the horizon, but moving so that the precise position could not be stated. The kite-like motion may have been merely seeming motion—object may have been Fomalhaut, though 35 degrees above the horizon seem to me to be too high for Fomalhaut—but, then, like the astronomers, I’m likely at times to expose what I don’t know about astronomy. Fomalhaut is not an enormous star. Seventeen are larger.

May 1, 1908, between 8 and 9 P. M., at Vittel, France—an object, with a nebulosity around it, diameter equal to the moon’s, according to a correspondent to Cosmos, n. s., 58-535. At 9 o’clock a black band appeared upon the object, and moved obliquely across it, then disappearing. The Editor thinks that the object was the planet Venus, under extraordinary meteorologic conditions.

Dark obj., by Prof. Brooks, July 21, 1896 (Eng. Mec., 64-12); dark obj., by Gathmann, Aug. 22, 1896 (Sci. Amer. Sup., 67-363); two luminous objs., by Prof. Swift, evidently in a local sky of California, because unseen elsewhere in California, Sept. 20, and one of them again, Sept. 21, 1896 (Astro. Jour. 17-8, 103); “Waldemath’s second moon,” Feb. 5, 1898 (Eng. Mec., 67-545); unknown obj., March 30, 1908 (Observatory, 31-215); dark obj., Nov. 10, 1908 (Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, 23-74).

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cold Harbor, Hanover Co., Virginia—two men in a field—“an apparently clear sky.” In the Monthly Weather Review, 28-29, it is said that upon Aug. 7, 1900, two men were struck by lightning. The Editor says that the weather map gave no indication of a thunderstorm, nor of rain, in this region at the time.

In July, 1904, a man was killed on the summit of Mt. San Gorgionio, near the Mojave desert. It is said that he was killed by lightning. Two days later, upon the summit of Mt. Whitney, 180 miles away, another man was killed “by lightning” (Ciel et Terre, 29-120).

It is said, in Ciel et Terre, 17-42, that, in the year 1893, nineteen soldiers were marching near Bourges, France, when they were struck by an unknown force. It is said that in known terms there is no explanation. Some of the men were killed, and others were struck insensible. At the inquest it was testified that there had been no storm, and that nothing had been heard.

If there occur upon the surface of this earth pounces from blankness and seizures by nothings, and “sniping” with bullets of unfindable substance, we nevertheless hesitate to bring witchcraft and demonology into our fields. Our general subject now is the existence of a great deal that may be nearby, or temporarily nearby, ordinarily invisible, but occasionally revealed by special circumstances. A background of stars is not to be compared, in our data, with the sun for a background, as a means of revelations. We accept that there are sunspots, but we gather from general experience and special instances that the word “sunspot” is another of the standardizing terms like “auroral” and “meteoric” and “earthquakes.” See Webb’s Celestial Objects for some observations upon large definite obscurations called “sunspots” but which were as evanescent against the sun as would be islands and jungles of space, if intervening only a few moments between this earth and the swiftly moving sun. According to Webb, astronomers have looked at great obscurations upon the sun, have turned away, and then looked again, finding no trace of the phenomena. Eclipses are special circumstances, and rather often have large, unknown bulks been revealed by different light-effects during eclipses. For instance, upon Jan. 22, 1898, Lieut. Blackett, R. N., assisting Sir Norman Lockyer, at Viziadrug, India, during the total eclipse of the sun, saw an unknown body between Venus and Mars (Jour. Leeds Astro. Soc., 1906-23). We have had other instances, and I have notes upon still more. The photographic plate is a special condition, or sensitiveness. In Knowledge, 16-234, a correspondent writes that, in August, 1893, in Switzerland, moon-lighted night, he had exposed a photographic plate for one hour. Upon the photograph, when developed, were seen irregular, bright markings, but there had been no lightning to this correspondent’s perceptions.

The details of the sheep-panic of Nov. 3, 1888, are extraordinary. The region affected was much greater than was supposed by the writer whom we quoted in an earlier chapter. It is said in another account in Symons’ Meteorological Magazine, that, in a tract of land twenty-five miles long and eight miles wide, thousands of sheep had, by a simultaneous impulse, burst from their bounds; and had been found the next morning, widely scattered, some of them still panting with terror under hedges, and many crowded into corners of fields. See London Times, Nov. 20, 1888. An idea of the great number of flocks affected is given by one correspondent who says that malicious mischief was out of the question, because a thousand men could not have frightened and released all these sheep. Someone else tries to explain that, given an alarm in one flock, it might spread to the others. But all the sheep so burst from their folds at about eight o’clock in the evening, and one supposes that many folds were far from contiguous, and one thinks of such contagion requiring considerable time spread over 200 square miles. Something of an alarming nature and of a pronounced degree occurred somewhere near, Reading, Berkshire, upon this evening. Also there seems to be something of special localization: the next year another panic occurred in Berkshire not far from Reading.

I have a datum that looks very much like the revelation of a ghost-moon, though I think of it myself in physical terms of light-effects. In Country Queries and Notes, 1-138, 417, it is said that, in the sky of Gosport, Hampshire, night of Sept. 14, 1908, was seen a light that came as if from an unseen moon. It may be that I can here record that there was a moon-like object in the sky of the Midlands and the south of England, this night, and that, though to human eyesight, this world, island of space, whatever it may have been, was invisible, it was, nevertheless, revealed. Upon this evening of Sept. 14, 1908, David Packer, then in Northfield, Worcestershire, saw a luminous appearance that he supposed was auroral, and photographed it. When the photograph was developed, it was seen that the “auroral” light came from a large, moon-like object. A reproduction of the photograph is published in the English Mechanic, 88-211. It shows an object as bright and as well-defined as the conventionally accepted moon, but only to the camera had it revealed itself, and Mr. Packer had caught upon a film a space-island that had been invisible to his eyes. It seems so, anyway.

In Country Queries and Notes, 1-328, it is said that, upon Aug. 2, 1908, at Ballyconneely, Connemara coast of Ireland, was seen a phantom city of different-sized houses, in different styles of architecture; visible three hours. It is said that no doubt the appearance was a mirage of some city far away—far away, but upon this earth, of course. This apparition is not of the type that we consider so especially of our own data. The so-called mirages that so especially interest us are interesting to us not in themselves, but in that they belong to the one order of phenomena or evidence that unifies so many fields of our data: that is, repetitions in a local sky, signifying the fixed position of something relatively to a small part of this earth’s surface. We can not think that mirages, terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, could so repeat. But if in a local sky of this earth there be a fixed region, perhaps not a city, but something of rugged and featureful outlines, with projections that might look architectural, reflections from it, shadows, or Brocken spectres repeating always in one special sky are thinkable except by the Chinese-minded who regard all our data as “foreign devils.” The writer in Country Queries and Notes says—“Circumstantial accounts have even been published of the city of Bristol being distinctly recognized in a mirage seen occasionally in North America.” If we shall accept that anywhere in North America repeated representations of the same city or city-like scene have appeared in the same local sky, I prefer, myself, a foreign devil of a thought, and its significance, whether hellish or not, that this earth is stationary, to such a domestic vagrant of a thought as the idea that mirage could so pick out the city of Bristol, or any other city, over and over, and also invariably pick out for its screen the same local sky, thousands of miles, or five miles, away.

In the English Mechanic, Sept. 10, 1897, a correspondent to the Weekly Times and Echo is quoted. He had just returned from the Yukon. Early in June, 1897, he had seen a city pictured in the sky of Alaska. “Not one of us could form the remotest idea in what part of the world this settlement could be. Some guessed Toronto, others Montreal, and one of us even suggested Pekin. But whether this city exists in some unknown world on the other side of the North Pole, or not, it is a fact that this wonderful mirage occurs from time to time yearly, and we were not the only ones who witnessed the spectacle. Therefore it is evident that it must be the reflection of some place built by the hand of man.” According to this correspondent, the “mirage” did not look like one of the cities named, but like “some immense city of the past.”

In the New York Tribune, Feb. 17, 1901, it is said that Indians of Alaska had told of an occasional appearance, as if of a city, suspended in the sky, and that a prospector, named Willoughby, having heard the stories, had investigated, in the year 1887, and had seen the spectacle. It is said that, having several times attempted to photograph the scene, Willoughby did finally at least show an alleged photograph of an aërial city. In Alaska, p. 140, Miner Bruce says that Willoughby, one of the early pioneers in Alaska, after whom Willoughby Island is named, had told him of the phenomenon, and that, early in 1899, he had accompanied Willoughby to the place over which the mirage was said to repeat. It seems that he saw nothing himself, but he quotes a member of the Duc d’Abruzzi’s expedition to Mt. St. Elias, summer of 1897, Mr. C. W. Thornton, of Seattle, who saw the spectacle, and wrote—“It required no effort of the imagination to liken it to a city, but was so distinct that it required, instead, faith to believe that it was not in reality a city.” Bruce publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph, and says that the city was identified as Bristol, England. So definite, or so un-mirage-like, is this reproduction, trees and many buildings shown in detail, that one supposes that the original was a photograph of a good-sized terrestrial city, perhaps Bristol, England.

In Chapter 10, of his book, Wonders of Alaska, Alexander Badlam tries to explain. He publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph: it is the same as Bruce’s, except that all buildings are transposed, or are negative in positions. Badlam does not like to accuse Willoughby of fraud: his idea is that some unknown humorist had sold Willoughby a dry plate, picturing part of the city of Bristol. My own idea is that something of this kind did occur, and that this photograph, greatly involved in accounts of the repeating mirages, has nothing to do with the mirages. Badlam then tells of another photograph. He tells that two men, near the Muir Glacier, had, by means of a pan of quicksilver, seen a reflection of an unknown city somewhere, and that their idea was that it was at the bottom of the sea near the glacier, reflecting in the sky, and reflecting back to and from the quicksilver. That’s complicated. A photographer named Taber then announced that he had photographed this scene, as reflected in a pan of quicksilver. Badlam publishes a reproduction of Taber’s photograph, or alleged photograph. This time, for anybody who prefers to think that there is, somewhere in the sky of Alaska, a great, unknown city, we have a most agreeable photograph: exotic-looking city; a structure like a coliseum, and another prominent building like a mosque, and many indefinite, mirage-like buildings. I’d like to think this photograph genuine, myself, but I do conceive that Taber could have taken it by photographing a panorama that he had painted. Badlam’s explanation is that mirages of glaciers are common, in Alaska, and that they look architectural. Some years ago, I read five or six hundred pounds of literature upon the Arctic, and I should say that far-projected mirages are not common in the Arctic: mere looming is common. Badlam publishes a photograph of a mirage of Muir Glacier. The looming points of ice do look Gothic, but they are obviously only loomings, extending only short distances from primaries, with no detachment from primaries, and not reflecting in the sky.

For the first identification of the Willoughby photograph as a photograph of part of the city of Bristol, see the New York Times, Oct. 20, 1889. That this photograph was somebody’s hoax seems to be acceptable. But it was not similar to the frequently reported scene in the sky of Alaska, according to descriptions. In the New York Times, Oct. 31, 1889, is an account, by Mr. L. B. French, of Chicago, of the spectral representation, as he saw it, near Mt. Fairweather. “We could see plainly houses, well-defined streets, and trees. Here and there rose tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient mosques or cathedrals.... It did not look like a modern city—more like an ancient European City.”

Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 27-158:

That every year, between June 21 and July 10, a “phantom city” appears in the sky, over a glacier in Alaska; that features of it had been recognized as buildings in the city of Bristol, England, so that the “mirage” was supposed to be a mirage of Bristol. It is said that for generations these repeating representations had been known to the Alaskan Indians, and that, in May, 1901, a scientific expedition from San Francisco would investigate. It is said that, except for slight changes, from year to year, the scene was always the same.

La Nature, 1901-1-303:

That a number of scientists had set out from Victoria, B. C., to Mt. Fairweather, Alaska, to study a repeating mirage of a city in the sky, which had been reported by the Duc d’Abruzzi, who had seen it and had sketched it.