Part 72

Editor's note:

"May not these appearances be attributed to an abnormal state of the optic nerves of the observer?"

In Monthly Notices, 12-38, Mr. Read answers that he had been a diligent observer, with instruments of a superior order, for about 28 years--"but I have never witnessed such an appearance before." As to illusion he says that two other members of his family had seen the objects.

The Editor withdraws his suggestion.

We know what to expect. Almost absolutely--in an existence that is essentially Hibernian--we can predict the past--that is, look over something of this kind, written in 1851, and know what to expect from the Exclusionists later. If Mr. Read saw a migration of dissatisfied angels, numbering millions, they must merge away, at least subjectively, with commonplace terrestrial phenomena--of course disregarding Mr. Read's probable familiarity, of 28 years' duration, with the commonplaces of terrestrial phenomena.

Monthly Notices, 12-183:

Letter from Rev. W.R. Dawes:

That he had seen similar objects--and in the month of September--that they were nothing but seeds floating in the air.

In the Report of the British Association, 1852-235, there is a communication from Mr. Read to Prof. Baden-Powell:

That the objects that had been seen by him and by Mr. Dawes were not similar. He denies that he had seen seeds floating in the air. There had been little wind, and that had come from the sea, where seeds would not be likely to have origin. The objects that he had seen were round and sharply defined, and with none of the feathery appearance of thistledown. He then quotes from a letter from C.B. Chalmers, F.R.A.S., who had seen a similar stream, a procession, or migration, except that some of the bodies were more elongated--or lean and hungry--than globular.

He might have argued for sixty-five years. He'd have impressed nobody--of importance. The super-motif, or dominant, of his era, was Exclusionism, and the notion of seeds in the air assimilates--with due disregards--with that dominant.

Or pageantries here upon our earth, and things looking down upon us--and the Crusades were only dust clouds, and glints of the sun on shining armor were only particles of mica in dust clouds. I think it was a Crusade that Read saw--but that it was right, relatively to the year 1851, to say that it was only seeds in the wind, whether the wind blew from the sea or not. I think of things that were luminous with religious zeal, mixed up, like everything else in Intermediateness, with black marauders and from gray to brown beings of little personal ambitions. There may have been a Richard Coeur de Lion, on his way to right wrongs in Jupiter. It was right, relatively to 1851, to say that he was a seed of a cabbage.

Prof. Coffin, U.S.N. (Jour. Frank. Inst., 88-151):

That, during the eclipse of August, 1869, he had noted the passage, across his telescope, of several bright flakes resembling thistleblows, floating in the sunlight. But the telescope was so focused that, if these things were distinct, they must have been so far away from this earth that the difficulties of orthodoxy remain as great, one way or another, no matter what we think they were--

They were "well-defined," says Prof. Coffin.

Henry Waldner (Nature, 5-304):

That, April 27, 1863, he had seen great numbers of small, shining bodies passing from west to east. He had notified Dr. Wolf, of the Observatory of Zurich, who "had convinced himself of this strange phenomenon." Dr. Wolf had told him that similar bodies had been seen by Sig. Capocci, of the Capodimonte Observatory, at Naples, May 11, 1845.

The shapes were of great diversity--or different aspects of similar shapes?

Appendages were seen upon some of them.

We are told that some were star-shaped, with transparent appendages.

I think, myself, it was a Mohammed and his Hegira. May have been only his harem. Astonishing sensation: afloat in space with ten million wives around one. Anyway, it would seem that we have considerable advantage here, inasmuch as seeds are not in season in April--but the pulling back to earth, the bedraggling by those sincere but dull ones of some time ago. We have the same stupidity--necessary, functioning stupidity--of attribution of something that was so rare that an astronomer notes only one instance between 1845 and 1863, to an every-day occurrence--

Or Mr. Waldner's assimilative opinion that he had seen only ice crystals.

Whether they were not very exclusive veils of a super-harem, or planes of a very light material, we have an impression of star-shaped things with transparent appendages that have been seen in the sky.

Hosts of small bodies--black, this time--that were seen by the astronomers Herrick, Buys-Ballot, and De Cuppis (L'Annee Scientifique, 1860-25); vast numbers of bodies that were seen by M. Lamey, to cross the moon (L'Annee Scientifique, 1874-62); another instance of dark ones; prodigious number of dark, spherical bodies reported by Messier, June 17, 1777 (Arago, OEuvres, 9-38); considerable number of luminous bodies which appeared to move out from the sun, in diverse directions; seen at Havana, during eclipse of the sun, May 15, 1836, by Prof. Auber (Poey); M. Poey cites a similar instance, of Aug. 3, 1886; M. Lotard's opinion that they were birds (L'Astronomie, 1886-391); large number of small bodies crossing disk of the sun, some swiftly, some slowly; most of them globular, but some seemingly triangular, and some of more complicated structure; seen by M. Trouvelet, who, whether seeds, insects, birds, or other commonplace things, had never seen anything resembling these forms (L'Annee Scientifique, 1885-8); report from the Rio de Janeiro Observatory, of vast numbers of bodies crossing the sun, some of them luminous and some of them dark, from some time in December, 1875, until Jan. 22, 1876 (La Nature, 1876-384).

Of course, at a distance, any form is likely to look round or roundish: but we point out that we have notes upon the seeming of more complex forms. In L'Astronomie, 1886-70, is recorded M. Briguiere's observation, at Marseilles, April 15 and April 25, 1883, upon the crossing of the sun by bodies that were irregular in form. Some of them moved as if in alignment.

Letter from Sir Robert Inglis to Col. Sabine (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1849-17):

That, at 3 P.M., Aug. 8, 1849, at Gais, Switzerland, Inglis had seen thousands and thousands of brilliant white objects, like snowflakes in a cloudless sky. Though this display lasted about twenty-five minutes, not one of these seeming snowflakes was seen to fall. Inglis says that his servant "fancied" that he had seen something like wings on these--whatever they were. Upon page 18, of the Report, Sir John Herschel says that, in 1845 or 1846, his attention had been attracted by objects of considerable size, in the air, seemingly not far away. He had looked at them through a telescope. He says that they were masses of hay, not less than a yard or two in diameter. Still there are some circumstances that interest me. He says that, though no less than a whirlwind could have sustained these masses, the air about him was calm. "No doubt wind prevailed at the spot, but there was no roaring noise." None of these masses fell within his observation or knowledge. To walk a few fields away and find out more would seem not much to expect from a man of science, but it is one of our superstitions, that such a seeming trifle is just what--by the Spirit of an Era, we'll call it--one is not permitted to do. If those things were not masses of hay, and if Herschel had walked a little and found out, and had reported that he had seen strange objects in the air--that report, in 1846, would have been as misplaced as the appearance of a tail upon an embryo still in its gastrula era. I have noticed this inhibition in my own case many times. Looking back--why didn't I do this or that little thing that would have cost so little and have meant so much? Didn't belong to that era of my own development.

Nature, 22-64: