 THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED by Charles Fort, CHAPTER XIV. We see conventionally. It is not only that we think and act and speak and dress alike because of our surrender to social attempt at entity in which we are only supercellular. We see what it is proper that we should see. It is orthodox enough to say that a horse is not a horse to an infant any more than is an orange to the unsophisticated. It's interesting to walk along the streets sometimes and look at things and wonder what they look like if we hadn't been taught to see horses and trees and houses as horses and trees and houses. I think that to supersight there are local stresses merging indistinguishably into one another in an all-inclusive nexus. I think that it would be credible enough to say that many times have monstratour and Alvera and Azuria crossed telescopic fields of vision and we're not even seen because it wouldn't be proper to see them. It wouldn't be respectable and it wouldn't be respectful. It would be insulting to old bones to see them. It would bring on evil influences from the relics of Saint Isaac to see them. With our data, a vast worlds that are orbitless or that are navigable or that are adrift in interplanetary tides and currents, the data that we shall have of their approach in modern times within five or six miles of this earth, but then their visits or approaches to other planets or to other of the few regularized bodies that have surrendered to the attempted entity of this solar system as a whole. The question that we can't very well evade. Have these other worlds or superconstructions ever been seen by astronomers? I think there would not be much approximation to realness in taking refuge in the notion of astronomers who stare and squint and see only that which it is respectable and respectful to see. It is all very well to say that astronomers are hypnotics and that an astronomer looking at the moon is hypnotized by the moon. But our acceptance is that the bodies of this present expression often visit the moon or cross it or are held in temporary suspension near it. Then some of them must often have been within the diameter of an astronomer's hypnosis. Our general expression that upon the oceans of this earth there are regularized vessels but also that there are tramp vessels. That upon the super ocean there are regularized planets but also that there are tramp worlds. That astronomers are like mercantile purists who would deny commercial vagabondage. Our acceptance is that vast celestial vagabonds have been excluded by astronomers primarily because their irresponsibilities are in affront to the pure and the precise or to attempted positivism and secondarily because they have not been seen so very often. The planets steadily reflect the light of the sun. On this uniformity a system that we call primary astronomy has been built up. But now the subject matter of advanced astronomy is data of celestial phenomena that are sometimes light and sometimes dark, varying like some of the satellites of Jupiter but with a wider range. However, light or dark they have been seen and reported so often that the only important reason for their exclusion is that they don't fit in. With dark bodies that are probably external to our own solar system I have in the provincialism that no one can escape not much concern. Dark bodies afloat in outer space would have been damned a few years ago but now they're sanctioned by Professor Barnard and if he says they're all right you may think of them without the fear of doing something wrong or ridiculous. The close kinship we note so often between the evil and the absurd. I suppose by the ridiculous I mean the froth of evil, the dark companion of algal for instance. Though that's a clear case of celestial misogynation, the purists or positivists admit that so. In the proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 1915, 394, Professor Barnard writes of an object. He calls it an object in Cephas. His idea is that there are dark opaque bodies outside this solar system. But in the astrophysical journal, 1961, he modifies into regarding them as dark nebulae. That's not so interesting. We accept that Venus, for instance, has often been visited by other worlds or by super constructions from which come cinders and coke and coal that sometimes these things have reflected light and have been seen from this earth by professional astronomers. It will be noted that throughout this chapter our data are accursed Brahmins as by hypnosis and inertia we keep on and keep on saying just as a good many of the scientists of the 19th century kept on and kept on admitting the power of the system that preceded them or continuity would be smashed. There's a big chance here for us to be instantaneously translated to the positive absolute. Oh well. What I emphasize here is that our damned data are observations by astronomers of the highest standing, excommunicated by astronomers of similar standing, but backed up by the dominant spirit of their era, to which all minds had to equilibrate or be negligible, unheard, submerged. It would seem sometimes in this book as if our revolts were against the dogmatisms and pontifications of single scientists of eminence. This is only a convenience because it seems necessary to personify. If we look over philosophical transactions or the publications of the Royal Astronomical Society for instance, we see that Herschel for instance was as powerless as any boy stargazer to enforce acceptance of any observation of his that did not harmonize with the system that was growing up as independently of him and all the other astronomers as a phase in the development of an embryo compels all cells to take on appearances concordantly with the design and the predetermined progress and schedule of the whole. Visitors to Venus, Evans, Ways of the Planets, page 140. Yet in 1645 a body large enough to look like a satellite was seen near Venus. Four times in the first half of the 18th century a similar observation was reported. The last report occurred in 1767. A large body has been seen seven times according to Science Gossip 1886-178 near Venus. At least one astronomer Huzo accepted these observations and named the world planet super construction Nath. His views are mentioned in passing but without endorsement in the transactions of the New York Academy 5249. Huzo or someone writing for the magazine section of a Sunday newspaper Outer Darkness A new satellite in this solar system might be a little disturbing though the formulas of Laplace which were considered final in his day have survived the admittance of five or six hundred bodies not included in those formulas. A satellite to Venus might be a little disturbing but would be explained but a large body approaching a planet, staying a while, going away, coming back some other time, anchoring as it were. Azuria is pretty bad but Azuria is no worse than Nath, Astrophysical Journal 1127. A light reflecting body or a bright spot near Mars seen November 25, 1894 by Professor Pickering and others at the Lowell Observatory above an illuminated part of Mars, self-luminous it would seem, thought to have been a cloud but estimated to have been about twenty miles away from the planet. Luminous spot seen moving across the disk of Mercury in 1799 by Harding and Schroeter. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 38338. In the first bulletin issued by the Lowell Observatory in 1903 Professor Lowell describes a body that was seen on the terminator of Mars, May 20, 1903. On May 27 it was suspected if still there it had moved, we are told, about three hundred miles, probably a dust cloud. Very conspicuous and brilliant spots seen on the disk of Mars October and November 1911, popular astronomy, volume 19, number 10. So one of them accepted six or seven observations that were in agreement except that they could not be regularized upon a world, planet, satellite and he gave it a name. He named it Nath, Monstrator and Alvera and Azuria and Super Romanimus. Or Heresy and Orthodoxy and the Oneness of all Quasiness and our ways and means and methods are the very same. Or if we name things that may not be we are not of lonely guilt in the nomenclature of absences. But now Leveret and Vulcan. Leveret again. Or to demonstrate the collapsibility of a froth stick a pin in the largest bubble of it, astronomy and inflation and by inflation we mean expansion of the attenuated. Or that the science of astronomy is a phantom film, distended with myth, stuff. But always our acceptance that it approximates higher to substantiality than did the system that preceded it. So Leveret and the planet Vulcan. And we repeat and it will do us small good to repeat. If you be of the masses that the astronomers have hypnotized, being themselves hypnotized, or they could not hypnotize others. Or that the hypnotist's control is not the masterful power that it is popularly supposed to be but only the transference of state from one hypnotic to another. If you be of the masses that the astronomers have hypnotized you will not be able even to remember ten pages from here and Leveret and the planet Vulcan will have fallen from your mind like beans from a magnet or like data of cold meteorites from the mind of a Thompson. Leveret and the planet Vulcan. And much the good it will do us to repeat. But at least temporarily we shall have an impression of a historic fiasco such as in our acceptance could occur only in a quasi-existence. In 1859 Dr. Les Garbeaux, an amateur astronomer of Orguerre, France, announced that upon March 26 of that year he had seen a body of planetary size across the sun. We are in a subject that is now as unholy to the present system as ever were its own subjects to the system that preceded it or as ever were slanders against miracles to the preceding system. Nevertheless few textbooks go so far as quite to disregard this tragedy. The method of the systematists is slightingly to give a few instances of the unholy and dispose of the few. If it were desirable to them to deny that there are mountains upon this earth they would record a few observations upon some slight eminences near Orange New Jersey but say that commuters, though estimable persons in several ways, are likely to have their observations mixed. The textbooks casually mention a few of the supposed observations upon Vulcan and then pass on. Dr. Les Garbeaux wrote to Leverrier, who hastened to Orguerre. Because this announcement assimilated with his own calculations upon a planet between Mercury and the sun, because this solar system itself has never attained positiveness in the aspect of regularity there are to Mercury as there are to Neptune phenomena irreconcilable with the formulas or motions that betray influence by something else. We are told that Leverrier satisfied himself as to the substantial accuracy of the reported observation. The story of this investigation is told in monthly notices 2098. It seems too bad to threaten the naive little thing with our rude sophistications but it is amusingly of the ingenuousness of the age from which present dogmas have survived. Les Garbeaux wrote to Leverrier. Leverrier hastened to Orguerre, but he was careful not to tell Les Garbeaux who he was. Went right in and subjected Dr. Les Garbeaux to a very severe cross-examination. Just the way you or I may feel at liberty to go into anybody's home and be severe with people. Pressing him hard step by step, just as anyone might go into someone else's house and press him hard, though unknown to the hard-pressed one. Not until he was satisfied did Leverrier reveal his identity. I suppose Dr. Les Garbeaux expressed astonishment. I think there's something utopian about this. It's so unlike the stand-offishness of New York life. Leverrier gave the name Vulcan to the object that Dr. Les Garbeaux had reported. By the same means by which he is, even to this day supposed by the faithful to have discovered Neptune, he had already announced the probable existence of an intramercurial body or group of bodies. He had five observations besides Les Garbeaux upon something that had been seen to cross the sun. In accordance with the mathematical hypnosis of his era, he studied these six transits. Out of them he computed elements giving Vulcan a period of about twenty days, or a formula for heliocentric longitude at any time. But he placed the time of best observation away up in 1877. But even so, or considering that he still had probably a good many years to live, it may strike one that he was a little rash. That is, if one has not gone very deep into the study of hypnosis, that having discovered Neptune by a method which, in our acceptance, had no more to recommend it than had one equally well thought of methods of witch-finding, he should have taken such chances that if he was right as to Neptune, but should be wrong as to Vulcan, his average would be a way below that of most fortune-tellers who could scarcely hope to do business upon a fifty percent basis, all that the reasoning of a Tyro in hypnosis. The date? March 22, 1877. The scientific world was up on its hind legs nosing the sky. The thing had been done so authoritatively. Never a pope had said a thing with more of the seeming of finality. If six observations correlated, what more could be asked? The editor of Nature, a week before the predicted event, though cautious, said it is difficult to explain how six observers, unknown to one another, would have data that could be formulated if they were not related phenomena. In a way, at this point occurs the crisis of our whole book. Formulas are against us. But can astronomical formulas backed up by observations in agreement, taken many years apart, calculated by a laverie, be as meaningless in a positive sense as all other quasi-things that we have encountered so far? The preparations they made before March 22, 1877. In England, the astronomer Royal made at the expectation of his life notified observers at Madras, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand and arranged with observers in Chile and the United States. M. Struve had prepared for observations in Siberia and Japan. March 22, 1877. Not absolutely, hypocritically, I think it's pathetic, myself. If anyone should doubt the sincerity of laverie in this matter we note whether it has meaning or not that a few months later he died. I think we'll take up monstratour, though there's so much to this subject that we'll have to come back. According to the annual register, 9-120, upon the 9th of August, 1762, M. de Rostin of Basel, France was taking altitudes of the sun at Lausanne. He saw a vast spindle-shaped body, about three of the sun's digits in breadth and nine in length, advancing slowly across the disk of the sun or at no more than half the velocity with which the ordinary solar spots move. It did not disappear until the 7th of September when it reached the sun's limb. Because of the spindle-like form, I inclined to think of a super-zeppelin. But another observation which seems to indicate that it was a world is that though it was opaque and eclipsed the sun it had around it a kind of nebulosity or atmosphere. A penembra would ordinarily be a datum of a sunspot, but there are observations that indicate that this object was at a considerable distance from the sun. It is recorded that another observer at Paris watching the sun at this time had not seen this object. But that M. de Rostin at Seoul, about 45 German leagues northward from Lausanne had seen it, describing the same spindle form but disagreeing a little as to breadth. Then comes the important point that he and M. de Rostin did not see it upon the same part of the sun. This then is parallax and compounded with invisibility at Paris is great parallax or that in the course of a month in the summer of 1762 a large opaque spindle-shaped body traversed the disc of the sun but at a great distance from the sun. The writer in the register says, in a word we know of nothing to have recourse to in the heavens by which to explain this phenomenon. I suppose he was not a hopeless addict to explaining. Extraordinary. We fear he must have been a man of loose habits in some other respects. As to us, monstrateur. In the monthly notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, February 1877, Le Verrier, who never lost faith up to the last day gives the six observations upon an unknown body of planetary size that he had formulated. Fritz, October 10th, 1802. Stark, October 9th, 1819. Découpie, October 30th, 1839. Seidbatham, November 12th, 1849. Lescarbeaux, March 26th, 1859. Lumi, March 20th, 1862. If we weren't so accustomed to science and its essential aspect of disregard, we'd be mystified and impressed, like the editor of Nature, with the formulation of these data agreement of so many instances, would seem incredible as a coincidence. But our acceptance is that, with just enough disregard, astronomers and fortune tellers can formulate anything or we'd engage ourselves to formulate periodicities with crowds in Broadway. Say that every Wednesday morning, a tall man with one leg and a black eye carrying a rubber plant passes the Singer building at quarter past 10 o'clock. Of course, it couldn't really be done unless such a man did have such periodicity. But if some Wednesday mornings, it should be a small child lugging a barrel or a fat negris with a week's wash. By ordinary disregard, we'd have a prediction good enough for the kind of quasi-existence we're in. So whether we accuse or whether we think that the word accuse over-dignifies an attitude toward a quasi-astronomer or mere figment in a super dream, our acceptance is that Laverier never did formulate observations. That he picked out observations that could be formulated. That of this type are all formulas. That if Laverier had not been himself helplessly hypnotized or if he had had in him more than a tincture of realness, never could he have been beguiled by such a quasi-process, but that he was hypnotized and so extended or transferred his condition to others On March 22nd, 1877, he had this earth bristling with telescopes with the rigid and almost inanimate forms of astronomers behind them and not a blessed thing of any unusuality was seen upon that day or succeeding days. But that the science of astronomy suffered the slightest impression it couldn't. The spirit of 1877 was behind it. If, in an embryo, some cells should not live up to the phenomena of their era, the others will sustain the scheduled appearances. Not until an embryo enters the mammalian stage are cells of the reptilian stage false cells. It is our acceptance that there were many equally authentic reports upon large planetary bodies that had been seen near the sun that, of many, Le Verrier picked out six, not then deciding that all the other observations related to still other large planetary bodies but arbitrarily or hypnotically disregarding, or heroically disregarding every one of them that to formulate at all he had to exclude falsely. The denouement killed him, I think. I'm not at all inclined to place him with the grays and hitchcocks and simonses. I'm not because, though it was rather unsportsmanlike to put the date so far ahead, he did give a date and he did stick to it with such a high approximation. I think Le Verrier was translated to the positive absolute. The Disregarded Observation of July 26, 1819 by Gruthensen but that was of two bodies that crossed the sun together. End of Chapter 14A Recording by Patrick McAfee, Chicago g-i-s dot d-p-o-l dot e-d-u slash p-m-c-a-f-e The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort Chapter 14 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Patrick McAfee The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort Chapter 14B Nature, 14469 That, according to the astronomer J.R. Heind Benjamin Scott, City Chamberlain of London and Mr. Ray had in 1847 seen a body similar to Vulcan crossed the sun. Similar observation by Heind and Low March 12, 1849 Launay scientifique 1876-9 Nature, 14505 Body of a parent size of Mercury seen, January 29, 1860 by F.A.R. Russell and four other observers crossing the sun. De Vico's Observation of July 12, 1837 Observatory, 2424 Launay scientifique 1865-16 That, another amateur astronomer M. Coombrai of Constantinople had written to Le Verrier that upon the 8th of March, 1865 he had seen a black point sharply outlined, traversed the disc of the sun. It detached itself from a group of sunspots near the limb of the sun and took 48 minutes to reach the other limb. Figuring upon the diagram sent by M. Coombrai a central passage would have taken a little more than an hour. This observation was disregarded by Le Verrier because his formula required about 4 times that velocity. The point here is that these other observations are as authentic as those that Le Verrier included that then upon data as good as the data of Vulcan there must be other Vulcans. The heroic and defiant disregard then of trying to formulate one omitting the others, which by orthodox doctrine must have influenced it greatly if all were in the relatively narrow space between Mercury and the sun. Observation upon another such body of April 4, 1876 by M. Weber of Berlin As this observation, Le Verrier was informed by Wolf in August 1876 La Né scientifique 1876-7 it made no difference so far as can be shown to this notable positivist. Two other observations noted by Heind and Denning London Times on November 3, 1871 and March 26, 1873 Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2100 Standacher February 1762 Liechtenberg November 19th, 1762 Hoffmann May 1764 Dango February 18, 1798 Stark, February 12, 1820 An observation by Schmitt October 11, 1847 is said to be doubtful, but upon page 192 it is said that this doubt had arisen because of a mistaken translation and two other observations by Schmitt are given October 14, 1849 and February 18, 1850 also an observation by Loft January 6, 1818 observation by Steinheibel at Vienna April 27, 1820 Monthly notices, 1862 Haase had collected reports of 20 observations like the List was published in 1872 by Wolff also there are other instances like Grythinsons American Journal of Science 228, 446 Report by Pastorf that he had seen twice in 1836 and once in 1837 an unequal size moving across the sun changing position relatively to each other and taking a different course, if not orbit each time that, in 1834 he had seen similar bodies past six times across the disk of the sun looking very much like Mercury in his transits March 22, 1876 but to point out Le Verrier's probability stricken average or discovering planets upon a 50% basis would be to point out the low percentage of realness in the quasi-myth stuff of which the whole system is composed we do not accuse the textbooks of omitting this fiasco, but we do note that theirs is the conventional adaptation here of all beguilers who are in difficulties the diverting of attention it wouldn't be possible in a real existence with real mentality to deal with but I suppose it's good enough for the quasi-intellects that stupefy themselves with textbooks the trick here is to gloss over Le Verrier's mistake and blame Le Scarbeau he was only an amateur had delusions the reader's attention is led against Le Scarbeau by a report from M. Leas, director of the Brazilian Coast Survey who at the time of Le Scarbeau's supposed observation had been watching the sun in Brazil and instead of seeing even ordinary sunspots had noted that the region of the supposed transit was of uniform intensity but the meaninglessness of all utterances and quasi-existence uniform intensity turns our way as much as against us or someday some brain will conceive a way of beating Newton's third law if every reaction or resistance is or can be interpretable as stimulus instead of resistance if this could be done in mechanics there's a way open here for someone to own the world specifically in this matter uniform intensity means that Le Scarbeau saw no ordinary sunspot just as much as it means that no spot at all was seen upon the sun continuing the interpretation of a resistance which can always be done with mental forces making us wonder what applications could be made with steam and electric forces we point out that invisibility in Brazil means parallax quite as truly as it means absence and in as much as Vulcan was supposed to be distant from the sun and it was called denial as corroboration method of course of every scientist, politician theologian, high school debater so the textbooks with no special cleverness because no special cleverness is needed lead the reader into contempt for the amateur of orgue and forgetfulness the very A and some other subject is taken up but our own acceptance that these data are as good as ever they were that if someone of eminence should predict an earthquake and if there should be no earthquake at the predicted time that would discredit the profit but data of past earthquakes would remain as good as ever they had been easy enough to smile at the illusion of a single amateur the mass formation fricha, stark, de cupes, side bottom lescarbo, lumis gruthensen, de vico scott, ray, rustle hind, low cumbrai, Weber schendacker, Liechtenberg dango, Hoffmann schmitt, Luft steinheibel, pastorf these are only the observations conventionally listed relatively to an intramercurial planet therefore middle enough to prevent are being diverted as if it were all the dream of a lonely amateur but they're a mere advanced guard from now on other data of large celestial bodies some dark and some reflecting light will pass and pass and keep on passing so that some of us will remember a thing or two after the processions over possibly taking up only one of the listed observations or our impression that the discrediting of Le Verrier has nothing to do with the acceptability of these data in the London Times January 10th 1860 is Benjamin Scott's account of his observation that in the summer of 1847 he had seen a body that had seemed to be the size of Venus crossing the sun he says that hardly believing the evidence of his sense of sight he had looked for someone whose hopes or ambitions would not make him so subject to illusion he had told his little son aged five years to look through the telescope the child had exclaimed that he had seen a little balloon crossing the sun Scott says that he had not had sufficient self-reliance to make public announcement of his remarkable observation at the time but that in the evening of the same day Richard Abbott, who had cited other instances in the Times January 12th 1860 is published a letter from Richard Abbott that he remembered Mr. Scott's letter to him upon this observation at the time of the occurrence I suppose that at the beginning of this chapter one had the notion that by hard scratching through musty old records we might rake up vague more than doubtful data distortable into what's called evidence of unrecognized worlds or constructions of planetary size but the high authenticity and the support and the modernity of these of the accursed that we are now considering and our acceptance that ours is a quasi-existence in which above all other things, hopes, ambitions, emotions motivations, stands attempt to positiveize that we are here considering an attempt to systematize that is sheer fanaticism in its disregard of the unsystematizable that it represented the highest good in the 19th century that is monomania but heroic monomania that was quasi-divine in the 19th century but that this isn't the 19th century as a doubly sponsored Brahman in the regard of Baptists the objects of July 29th 1878 stand out and proclaim themselves so that nothing but disregard of the intensity of monomania can account for their reception by the system or the total eclipse of July 29th, 1878 and the reports by Professor Watson from Rawlins, Wyoming and by Professor Swift from Denver, Colorado that they had seen two shining objects at a considerable distance from the sun quite in accord with our general expression not that there is an intramercurial planet but that there are different bodies many vast things near this earth sometimes near the sun sometimes orbitless worlds which because of scarcely any data of collisions we think of as under navigable control or dirigible super constructions Professor Watson and Professor Swift published their observations then the disregard that we cannot think of in terms of ordinary sane exclusions the textbooks systematists begin by telling us that the trouble with these observations is that they disagree widely there's considerable respectfulness especially for Professor Swift but we are told that by coincidence these two astronomers two miles apart were eluded their observations were so different Professor Swift Nature September 19th, 1878 that his own observation was in close approximation to that given by Professor Watson in the observatory 2.161 Swift says that his observations and Watson's were confirmatory of each other the faithful try again that Watson and Swift mistook stars for other bodies in the observatory 2.193 Professor Watson says that he had previously committed to memory all stars near the sun down to the seventh magnitude and he's damned anyway how such exclusions work out as shown by Lockyer Nature August 20th, 1878 he says there is little doubt that an intramurcurial planet has been discovered by Professor Watson that was before excommunication was pronounced he says if it will fit one of Le Verrier's orbits it didn't fit in Nature 21.301 Professor Swift says I have never made a more valid observation nor one more free from doubt he's damned anyway we shall have some data that will not live up to most rigorous requirements but if anyone would like to read how carefully and minutely these two sets of observations were made they held description in the American Journal of Science 116.313 and the technicalities of Professor Watson's observations in monthly notices 38.525 our own acceptance upon dirigible worlds which is assuredly enough more nearly real than attempted concepts of large planets relatively near this earth moving in orbits that are visible only occasionally which more nearly approximates to reasonableness than does wholesale slaughter of Swift and Watson and Frisch and Stark and Decoupin but our own acceptance is so painful to so many minds that in another of the charitable moments that we have now and then for the sake of contrast we offer relief to the sky by Swift and Watson well only two months before the horse and the barn we go on with more observations by astronomers recognizing that it is the very thing that has given them life, sustained them, held them together that has crushed all but the quasi-glean of independent life out of them were they not systematized at all except sporadically and without sustenance they are systematized they must not vary from the conditions of the system they must not break away for themselves the two great commandments thou shalt not break continuity thou shalt try we go on with these disregarded data some of which, many of which are of the highest degree of acceptability it is the system that pulls back its variations as this earth is pulling back the Matterhorn it is the system that nourishes and rewards and also freezes out life with the chill of disregard we do note that before excommunication is pronounced orthodox journals do liberally enough unassimilable observations all things merge away into everything else that is continuity so the system merges away and evades us when we try to focus against it we have complained a great deal at least we are not so dull as to have the delusion that we know just exactly what it is that we are complaining about seemingly definitely enough of the system but we are building upon observations by members of that very system or what we are doing gathering up the loose heresies of the orthodox of course the system fringes and raffles away having no real outline a swift will antagonize the system and a lockier will call him back but then a lockier will vary with a meteoric hypothesis and a swift will in turn represent the system this state is to us typical of all intermediatist phenomena or that not conceivably is anything really anything if its parts are likely to be their own opposites at any time we speak of astronomers as if there were real astronomers but who have lost their identity in a system as if it were a real system but behind that system is plainly a rapport or loss of identity in the spirit of an era bodies that have looked like dark bodies and lights that have been sunlight reflected from interplanetary objects masses, constructions that have been seen upon or near the moon in philosophical transactions 82.27 is Hershel's report upon many luminous points which he saw upon or near the moon during an eclipse why they should be luminous whereas the moon itself was dark would get us into a lot of trouble except that later we shall or we shan't accept that many times have luminous objects been seen close to the earth at night but numerousness is a new factor or new disturbance to our explorations a new aspect of interplanetary inhabitancy or occupancy worlds in hordes or beings, winged beings perhaps wouldn't astonish me if we should end up by discovering angels beings in machines argoses of celestial voyagers in 1783 and 1787 Hershel reported more lights on or near the moon which he supposed were volcanic the word of a Hershel has had no more weight in divergences from the orthodox than has had the word of a les garbots these observations are of the disregarded bright spots seen on the moon November 1821 proceedings London Royal Society 2.167 for four other instances see Lumis treatise on astronomy page 174 a moving light is reported in philosophical transactions 84.429 to the writer it looked like a star passing over the moon which on the next moment's consideration I knew to be impossible it was a fixed steady light upon the dark part of the moon I suppose fixed applies to luster in the report of the British Association 1847-18 there is an observation by Rankin upon luminous points seen on the shaded part of the moon during an eclipse they seemed to this observer like reflections of stars that's not very reasonable however we have in the annual register 1821-687 a light not referable to a star because it moved with the moon was seen three nights in succession reported by Captain Cater see Quarterly Journal Royal Institute 12-133 philosophical transactions 112-237 report from the Cape Town Observatory a whitish spot on the dark part of the moon's limb three smaller lights were seen the call of positiveness in its aspects of singleness or homogeneity or oneness or completeness in data now coming I feel it myself Eleverier studies more than 20 observations the inclination is irresistible to think that they all relate to one phenomenon it is an expression of cosmic inclination most of the observations are so irreconcilable with any acceptance other than of orbitless unimaginable worlds that he shuts his eyes to more than two-thirds of them he picks out six that can give him the illusion of completeness or of all relating to one planet or let it be that we have data of many dark bodies still do we incline almost irresistibly to think of one of them as the dark body in chief bodies floating or navigating in interplanetary space and I conceive of one that's the prince of dark bodies melanicus vast dark thing with the wings of a super bat or jet black super construction most likely one of the spores of the evil one the extraordinary year 1883 London Times December 17th 1883 extract from a letter by Hicks Pasha that in Egypt September 24th 1883 he had seen through glasses an immense black spot upon the lower part of the sun sunspot maybe one night an astronomer was looking up at the sky when something obscured a star for three and a half seconds a meteor had been seen nearby but its train had been only momentarily visible Dr. Wolf was the astronomer Nature 86-528 the next datum is one of the most sensational we have except there is very little to it a dark object that was seen by Professor Heiss for 11 degrees of arc moving slowly across the Milky Way Greg's catalog report British Association 1867 426 one of our quasi reasons for accepting that orbitless worlds are dirigible is the almost complete absence of data of collisions of course though in defiance of gravitation they may without direction like human direction adjust to one another in the way of vortex rings of smoke a very human like way that is but in knowledge February 1894 are two photographs of Brooks Comet that are shown as evidence of its seeming collision with a dark object October 1893 our own wording is that it struck against something Professor Barnards is that it had entered some dense medium which shattered it for all I know it had knocked against merely a field of ice Milanicus that upon the wings of a super bat he broods over this earth and over other worlds perhaps deriving something from them hovers on wings or wing like appendages or planes that are hundreds of miles from tip to tip a super evil thing that is exploiting us by evil I mean that which makes us useful he obscures a star he shoves a comet I think he's a vast black brooding vampire science July 31st 1896 that according to a newspaper account Mr. W. R. Brooks director of the Smith Observatory had seen a dark round object pass rather slowly across the moon in a horizontal direction in Mr. Brooks opinion it was a dark meteor in science September 14th 1896 a correspondent writes that in his opinion it may have been a bird we shall have no trouble with the meteor and bird mergers if we have observations of long duration and estimates of size up to hundreds of miles as to the body that was seen by Brooks there is a note from the Dutch astronomer Muller in the scientific American 75-251 that upon April 4th 1892 he had seen a similar phenomenon in science gossip NS3-135 are more details of the Brooks object apparent diameter about one-thirtieth of the moons moons disk crossed in three or four seconds the writer in science gossip says that on June 27 1896 at one o'clock in the morning he was looking at the moon with a two inch acromatic power 44 when a long black object sailed past from west to east the transit occupying three or four seconds he believed this object to be a bird there was however no fluttering motion observable in it in the Astronomisch Nachrichten number 3477 Dr. Brindel of Griswald Pomerania writes that Postmaster Siegler and other observers had seen a body about six feet in diameter crossing the sun's disk the duration here indicates something far from the earth and also far from the sun the thing was seen a quarter of an hour before it reached the sun time in crossing the sun was about an hour after leaving the sun it was visible an hour I think he's a vast black vampire that sometimes broods over this earth and other bodies communication from Dr. F. B. Harris popular astronomy 2398 that upon the evening of January 27 1912 Dr. Harris saw upon the moon an intensely black object he estimated it to be 250 miles long and 50 miles wide the object resembled a crow poised as near as anything clouds then cut off observation Dr. Harris writes I cannot but think that a very interesting and curious phenomenon happened End of Chapter 14 Recording by Patrick McAfee Chicago g-i-s dot d-p-o-l dot e-d-u slash P. McAfee Chapter 15 of The Book of the Damned This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Don Bot w-w-w dot flacker dot c-a The Book of the Damned by Charles Forte Chapter 15 Short chapter coming now and it's the worst of them all I think it's speculative it's a lapse from our usual pseudo standards I think it must mean that the preceding chapter was very efficiently done and that now by the rhythm of all quasi-things which can't be real things if they're rhythms because a rhythm is an appearance that turns into its own opposite and then back again but now to pay up where what we weren't short chapter and I think we'll fill in with several points in intermediateism a puzzle if it is our acceptance that out of the negative absolute the positive absolute is generating itself recruiting or maintaining itself via a third state or our own quasi-state it would seem that we're trying to conceive of universalness manufacturing more universalness from nothingness take that up yourself if you're willing to run the risk of disappearing with such velocity that you'll leave an incandescent train behind and risk being infinitely happy forever whereas you probably don't want to be happy I'll sidestep that myself and try to be intelligible by regarding the positive absolute from the aspect of realness instead of universalness recalling that by both realness and universalness we mean the same state or that which does not merge away into something else because there is nothing else so the idea is that out of unrealness instead of nothingness realness instead of universalness is via our own quasi-state manufacturing more realness just so but in relative terms of course all imaginings that materialize into machines or statues buildings, dollars, paintings books in paper and ink are graduations from unrealness to realness in relative terms it would seem then that intermediateness is a relation between the positive absolute and the negative absolute but the absolute cannot be related of course a confession that we can't really think of it at all if here we think of a limit to the unlimited doing the best we can and encouraged by the reflection that we can't do worse than has been done by metaphysicians in the past we accept that the absolute can't be the related so then that our quasi-state is not a real relation if nothing in it is real on the other hand it is not an unreal relation if nothing in it is unreal it seems unthinkable that positive absolute can by means of intermediateness have a quasi-relation be quasi-related or be the unrelated in final terms or at least not be the related in final terms as to free will and intermediateism same answer as to everything else by free will we mean independence or that which does not merge away into something else so in intermediateness neither free will nor slave will but a different approximation that we call person toward one or the other of the extremes the hackneyed way of expressing this seems to me to be the acceptable way if in intermediateness there is only the paradoxical that we're free to do what we have to do I am not convinced that we make a fetish of the preposterous I think our feeling is that in first gropings there's no knowing what will afterward be the acceptable I think that if an early biologist heard of birds that grow on trees he should record that he had heard of birds that grow on trees then let sorting over of data occur afterward the one thing that we try to tone down but that is to a great degree unavoidable is having our data all mixed up like Long Island and Florida in the minds of early American explorers my own notion is that this whole book is very much like a map of North America in which the Hudson River is set down and headed leading to Siberia we think of and of a world that is now in communication with this earth if so secretly with certain esoteric ones upon this earth whether that world's must be the subject of later inquiry it would be a gross thing to do solve up everything now and leave nothing to our disciples I've been very much struck with phenomena of cup marks they look to me like symbols of communication but they do not look to me like means of communication between some of the inhabitants of this earth and other inhabitants of this earth my own impression is that some external force has marked with symbols rocks of this earth from far away I do not think that cup marks are inscribed communications among different inhabitants of this earth seems too unacceptable that inhabitants of China Scotland and America should all have conceived of the same system cup marks are strings of cup-like impressions in rocks sometimes there are rings around them and sometimes they have only semicircles Great Britain, America France, Algeria, Circassia Palestine they're virtually everywhere except in the far north I think China, cliffs are dotted with them upon a cliff near Lake Como there is a maze of these markings in Italy and Spain in India they occur in enormous numbers given that a force say, like electrical force could from a distance mark such a substance as rocks as from a distance of hundreds of miles selenium can be marked by telephotographers but I am of two minds the lost explorers from somewhere and an attempt from somewhere to communicate with them so a frenzy of showering of messages towards this lost earth in the hope that some of them would mark rocks near the lost explorers or that somewhere upon this earth there is a special rocky surface or receptor or polar construction or a steep conical hill upon which for ages have been received messages from some other world but that at times messages go astray and mark substances perhaps thousands of miles from the receptor that perhaps forces behind the history of this earth have left upon the rocks of Palestine and England and India and China records that may someday be deciphered of their misdirected instructions to certain esoteric ones order of the Freemasons, the Jesuits I emphasize the row formation of cup marks Professor Douglas, Saturday review November 24th, 1883 Whatever may have been their motive the cup markers show a decided liking for arranging their sculpturing in regularly spaced rows that cup marks are an archaic form of inscription was first suggested by Cannon Greenwell many years ago but more specifically a dumberatory to our own expression are the observations of Griffith Karnack Journal Royal Asiatic Society 1903-515 that the Braille system of raised dots is an inverted arrangement of cup marks also that there are strong resemblances to the Morse code no tame and systemized archaeologists can do more than casually point out resemblances and merely suggest that strings of cup marks look like messages because China, Switzerland, Algeria, America if messages they be there seems to be no escape from attributing one origin to them then if messages they be I accept one external origin to which the whole surface of this earth was accessible for them something else that we emphasize that rows of cup marks have often been likened to footprints but in this similitude their unilinear arrangement must be disregarded of course often they're mixed up in every way but the arrangement in single lines is very common it is odd that they should so often be likened to footprints I suppose there are exceptional cases but unless it's something that hops on one foot or a cat going along a narrow fence top I don't think of anything that makes footprints one directly ahead of another cop, in a station house walking a chalk line, perhaps upon the witches stone near Rathow, Scotland there are 24 cups sitting in size from one and a half to three inches in diameter arranged in approximately straight lines locally it is explained that these are tracks of dogs feet proc society antiquities scotland 2-4-7-9 similar marks are scattered bewilderingly all around the witches stone like a frenzy of telegraphing or like messages repeating and repeating trying to localize differently in Invernessshire cup marks are called fairies foot marks at Valna's church Norway and St. Peter's amble-tues there are such marks said to be horses hoof prints the rocks of Clare, Ireland are marked with prints supposed to have been made by a mythical cow folklore 21-184 we now have such a ghost of a thing that I'd not like to be interpreted as offering it as a datum it simply illustrates what I mean by the notion of symbols like cups or like footprints which if like those of horses or cows are the reverse of or the negatives of cups of symbols that are regularly received somewhere upon this earth steep conical hill somewhere I think but that have often elighted in wrong places considerably to the mystification of persons waking up some morning to find them upon formerly blank spaces an ancient record still worse an ancient Chinese record of a courtyard of a palace dwellers of the palace waking up one morning finding the courtyard marked with tracks like the footprints of an ox supposed that the devil did it notes and queries 9-6-225 End of Chapter 15 Recording by Don Bot www.flacker.ca Chapter 16 of the Book of the Damned This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Don Bot www.flacker.ca The Book of the Damned by Charles Forte Chapter 16 Angels Hords upon hordes of them Beings masked like the clouds of souls or the commingling whiffs of spirituality or the exhalations of souls that Dore pictured so often It may be that the Milky Way is a composition of stiff, frozen finally static, absolute angels We shall have data of little Milky Ways moving swiftly or data of hosts of angels not absolute or still dynamic I suspect myself that the fixed stars are really fixed and that the minute motions said to have been detected in them are illusions I think that the fixed stars are absolutes Their twinkling is only the interpretation by the Intermediatus state of them I think that soon after Leveret died a new fixed star was discovered that if Dr. Gray had stuck to his story of the thousands of fishes from one pail of water had written upon it, lectured upon it taken to street corners to convince the world that whether conceivable or not his explanation was the only true explanation had thought of nothing but this last thing at night and first thing in the morning his obituary, another nova reported in monthly notices I think that Milky Ways of an inferior or dynamic order have often been seen by astronomers Of course, it may be that the phenomena that we shall now consider are not angels at all We are simply feeling around trying to find out what we can accept Some of our data indicate hosts of abandoned and complacent tourists in interplanetary space but then data of long, lean, hungry ones I think that there are, out in interplanetary space super tamer lanes at the head of hosts of celestial ravagers which have come here and pounced upon civilizations of the past cleaning them up, all but their bones or temples and monuments for which later historians have invented exclusionist histories but if something now has a legal right to us and can enforce its proprietorship they've been warned off It's the way of all exploitation I should say that we're now under cultivation that we're conscious of it but have the impertinence to attribute it all to our own nobler and higher instincts Against these notions is the same sense of finality that opposes all advance It's why we rate acceptance as a better adaptation than belief Opposing us is the strong belief that as to interplanetary phenomena virtually everything has been found out sense of finality and illusion of homogeneity but that what is called advancing knowledge is violation of the sense of blankness A drop of water once upon a time water was considered so homogenous that it was thought of as an element the microscope and not only that the suppositiously elementary was seen to be of infinite diversity but that in its protoplasmic life there were new orders of beings or the year 1491 and a European looking westward over the ocean he's feeling that that swab western droop was unbreakable that gods of regularity would not permit that smooth horizon to be disturbed by coasts or spotted with islands the unpleasantness of even contemplating such a state, wide, smooth west so clean against the sky spotted with islands, geographical leprosy but coasts and islands and Indians and Bison in the seemingly vacant west lakes, mountains, rivers one looks up at the sky the relative homogeneity of the relatively unexplored one thinks of only a few kinds of phenomena but the acceptance is forced upon me that there are modes and modes and modes of interplanetary existence things as different from planets and comets and meteors as Indians are from Bison and prairie dogs a super geography or slest geography of vast stagnant regions but also of super Niagara's and ultra Mississippi's and a super sociology voyagers and tourists and ravagers the hunted and the hunting the super mercantile, the super paratic the super evangelical sense of homogeneity or our positivist illusion of the unknown fate of all positivism astronomy and the academic ethics and the abstract the universal attempt to formulate or to regularize an attempt that can be made only by disregarding or denying or all things disregard or deny that which will eventually invade and destroy them until comes the day when some one thing shall say and enforce upon infinitude thus far shall thou go here is absolute demarcation the final utterance there is only I in the monthly notice of the RAS 11-48 there is a letter from the Reverend W. Reed that upon the 4th of September 1851 at 9.30 a.m. he had seen a host of self-luminous bodies passing the field of his telescope some slowly and some rapidly they appeared to occupy a zone several degrees in breadth the direction of most of them was due east to west but some moved from north to south the numbers were tremendous they were observed for six hours 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. Reed 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. Reed saw a migration of dissatisfied angels numbering millions they must merge away at least subjectively with commonplace terrestrial phenomena of course disregarding Mr. Reed's probable familiarity of 28 years duration with the commonplaces of terrestrial phenomena monthly notices 12-183 letter from reverend 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. Reed to Professor 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 those 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 thisledown 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 he might have argued for 65 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 disregard 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 Reed 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 from grey to brown beings of little personal ambitions there may have been a Richard Cour de Lyon on his way to right wrongs in Jupiter it was right, relatively to 1851 to say that he was a seed of a cabbage Professor Coffin, USN Journal Frank Institute, 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 Professor 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. Wolfe of the Observatory of Zurich who had convinced himself of this strange phenomena Dr. Wolfe had told him that the similar bodies had been seen by Sieg Capocci of the Capodamonte 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 hijira may have been only his harem astonishing sensation a float in space with 10 million wives around one anyway, it would seem that we have considerable advantage here in as much as seeds are not in season in April but the pulling back to earth to be dragling 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 everyday occurrence on 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, Boyce-Bio, and Ducoupas Lanet scientifique 1860-25 vast numbers of bodies that were seen by M. Lamy to cross the moon Lanet scientifique 1874-62 another instance of dark ones prodigious number of dark spherical bodies reported by Messier June 17, 1777 Aragot, Ouvres 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 Professor Ulber Poey, M. Poey cites a similar instance of August 3rd, 1886 Messier-Lotard's opinion that they were birds L'astronomie 1886-391 large number of small bodies crossing disc of the sun some swiftly, some slowly most of them globular but some seemingly triangular and some of more complicated structure seen by M. Truvallet who, whether seeds, insects, birds or other commonplace things had never seen anything resembling these forms Lanet 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 January 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 L'astronomie 1886-70 is recorded M. Brighère's observation at Marseille, April 15th and April 25th, 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 Colonel Sabine Report British Association, 1849-17 That, at 3 p.m. August 8th, 1849 at Geus, Switzerland Inglis had seen thousands and thousands of brilliant white objects like snowflakes in a cloudless sky though this display lasted about 25 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 arrow 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 gastrolyera 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 that, at Katnau, Germany about half an hour before sunrise March 22nd, 1880 an enormous number of luminous bodies rose from the horizon and passed in a horizontal direction from east to west they are described as having appeared in a zone or belt they shone with a remarkably brilliant light so they thrown lassoes over our data to bring them back to earth but they're lassoes that cannot tighten we can't pull out of them we may step out of them or left them off some of us used to have an impression of science sitting in calm, just judgment some of us now feel that a good many of our data have been lynched if a crusade, perhaps from Mars to Jupiter occur in the autumn seeds if a crusade or outpouring of celestial vandals is seen from this earth in the spring ice crystals if we have record of a race of aerial beings perhaps with no substantial habitat seen by someone in India locusts this will be disregarded if locusts fly high they freeze and fall in thousands nature 47-581 locusts that were seen in the mountains of India at a height of 12,750 feet in swarms and dying by thousands but no matter whether they fly high or fly low no one ever wonders what's in the air when locusts are passing overhead because of the falling of stragglers I have especially looked this matter up no mystery when locusts are flying overhead constant falling of stragglers monthly notices 30-135 an unusual phenomena noticed by Lt. Herschel October 17th and 18th 1870 while observing the sun at Bangalore, India Lt. Herschel had noticed dark shadows crossing the sun but away from the sun there were luminous moving images for two days bodies passed in a continuous stream varying in size and velocity the Lt. tries to explain as we shall see but he says as it was the continuous flight for two whole days in such numbers in the upper regions of the air a beast that left no stragglers is a wonder of natural history and astronomy he tried different focusing he saw wings perhaps he saw planes he says that he saw upon the objects either wings or phantom like appendages then he saw something that was so bizarre that in the fullness of his 19th centuryness he writes there was no longer doubt they were locusts or flies of some sort one of them had paused it had hovered the editor says that at the time countless locusts had descended upon certain parts of India we now have an instance that is extraordinary in several respects super voyagers or super ravagers angels, ragamuffins, crusaders emigrants, aeronauts or aerial elephants or bison or dinosaurs except that I think the thing had planes or wings one of them has been photographed in a history of photography no more extraordinary picture than this has ever been taken L'astronomie 1885-347 that at the observatory of Zacatecas Mexico, August 12, 1883 about 2500 meters above sea level were seen a large number of small luminous bodies entering upon the disc of the sun Monsieur Bonilla telegraphed to the observatories of the city of Mexico and of Puebla word came back that the bodies were not visible there because of this parallax Monsieur Bonilla placed the bodies relatively near the earth but when we find out what he called relatively near the earth birds or bugs or hosts of a super tamer lane or an army of a celestial Richard Cour de Lyon our heresies rejoice anyway his estimate is less distance one of them was photographed see L'astronomie 1885-349 the photograph shows a long body surrounded by indefinite structures or by the haze of wings or planes in motion L'astronomie 1887-66 Señor Rico of the observatory of Palermo writes that November 30, 1880 at 8.30 o'clock in the morning he was watching the sun when he saw slowly traversing its disc bodies in two long parallel lines and a shorter parallel line the bodies looked winged to him but so large were they that he had to think of large birds he thought of cranes he consulted ornithologists and learned that the configuration of parallel lines agrees with the flight formation of cranes this was in 1880 when he was living in New York City for instance would tell him that also it is a familiar formation of aeroplanes but because of data of focus and subtended angles these beings or objects must have been high Señor Rico argues that condors have been known to fly 3 or 4 miles high and that heights reached by other birds have been estimated at 2 or 3 miles he says that cranes have been known to fly so high that they have been lost to view our own acceptance in conventional terms is that there is not a bird of this earth that would not freeze to death at a height of more than 4 miles that if condors fly 3 or 4 miles high they are birds that are especially adapted to such altitudes Señor Rico's estimate is that these objects or beings or cranes must have been at least 5 and a half miles high End of Chapter 16 Recording by Don Bot www.flacker.ca