 Chapter 20 The New Dominant, Inclusionism In it we have a pseudo-standard. We have a datum, and we give it an interpretation in accordance with our pseudo-standard. At present we have not the delusions of absolutism that may have translated some of the positivists of the nineteenth century to heaven. We are intermediatists, but feel a lurking suspicion that we may someday solidify and dogmatize and illiberalize into higher positivists. At present we do not ask whether something be reasonable or preposterous, because we recognize that by reasonableness and preposterousness are meant agreement and disagreement with a standard, which must be a delusion, though not absolutely, of course, and must someday be displaced by a more advanced quasi-delusion. Scientists in the past have taken the positivist attitude. Is this or that reasonable or unreasonable? We recognize them and we find that they meant relatively to a standard, such as Newtonism, Daltonism, Darwinism, or Lyalism, but they have written and spoken and thought as if they could mean real reasonableness and real unreasonable-ness. So our pseudo-standard is inclusionism, and if a datum be a correlate to a more widely inclusive outlook as to this earth and its externality in relations with externality, its harmony with inclusionism admits it. Such was the process, and such was the requirement for admission in the days of the old dominant. Our difference is an underlying intermediateism, or consciousness that though we are more nearly real, we in our standards are only quasi. Or that all things in our intermediate state are phantoms in a supermind in a dreaming state, but striving to awaken to realness. Though in some respects our own intermediateism is unsatisfactory, our underlying feeling is that in a dreaming mind awakening is accelerated. If phantoms in that mind know that they are only phantoms in a dream, of course they too are quasi, but in a relative sense they have an essence of what is called realness. They are derived from experience or from sense relations, even though grotesque distortions. It seems acceptable that a table that is seen when one is awake is more nearly real than a dreamed table which, with fifteen or twenty legs, chases one. So now in the twentieth century, with a change of terms and a change in underlying consciousness, our attitude toward the new dominant is the attitude of the scientists of the nineteenth century to the old dominant. We do not insist that our data and interpretations shall be a shocking grotesque, evil, ridiculous, childish, insincere, laughable, ignorant to nineteenth centuryites as were their data and interpretations to the medieval minded. We ask only whether data and interpretations correlate. If they do, they are acceptable, perhaps only for a short time or as nuclei or scaffolding or preliminary sketches or as gropings and tentative-nesses. Later of course when we cool off and harden and radiate into space most of our present mobility which expresses in modesty and plasticity we shall acknowledge no scaffoldings, gropings or tentative-nesses but think we utter absolute facts. A point in intermediateism here is opposed to most current speculations upon development. Usually one thinks of this spiritual as higher than the material, but in our acceptance quasi-existence is a means by which the absolutely immaterial materializes absolutely, and, being intermediate, is a state in which nothing is finally either immaterial or material. All objects, substances, thoughts occupying some grade of approximation one way or the other. Final solidification of the ethereal is, to us, the goal of cosmic ambition. Positivism is puritanism. Heat is evil. Final good is absolute frigidity. An arctic winter is very beautiful, but I think that an interest in monkeys chattering in palm trees accounts for our own intermediateism. Our confusion here, out of which we are attempting to make quasi-order, is as great as it has been throughout this book, because we have not the positivist's delusion of homogeneity. A positivist would gather all data that seemed to relate to one kind of visitor and wholly disregard all other data. I think of as many different kinds of visitors to this earth as there are visitors to New York, to a jail, to a church. Some persons go to church to pickpockets, for instance. My own acceptance is that either a world or a vast super-construction, or a world, if red substances and fishes fell from it, hovered over India in the summer of 1860. Something then fell from somewhere July 17th, 1860, at Dharamsala. Whatever it was, it is so persistently alluded to as a meteorite that I look back and see that I adopted this convention myself. But in the London Times, December 26th, 1860, Syed Abdullah, professor of Hindustani University College London, writes that he had sent to a friend in Dharamsala for an account of the stands that had fallen at that place. The answer? Diverse forms and sizes, many of which bore great resemblance to ordinary cannonballs just discharged from engines of war. It's in addition to our data of spherical objects that have arrived upon this earth. Note that they are spherical stone objects. And in the evening of the same day that something took a shot at Dharamsala, or sent objects upon which there may be decipherable markings, lights were seen in the air. I think myself of a number of things, beings, whatever they were, trying to get down but resisted like balloonists at a certain altitude, trying to get farther up, but resisted. Not in the least accepted good positivists, or the homogenous minded, does this speculation interfere with the concept of some other world that is in successful communication with certain esoteric ones upon this earth, by a code of symbols that print and rock, like symbols of telephotographers and selenium. I think that sometimes, in favorable circumstances, emissaries have come to this earth. Secret meetings. Of course it sounds, but secret meetings, emissaries, esoteric ones in Europe before the war broke out, and those who suggested that such phenomena could be. However, as to most of our data, I think of super things that have passed close to this earth with no more interest in this earth than have passengers upon a steamship in the bottom of the sea, or passengers may have a keen interest, but circumstances of schedules and commercial requirements forbid investigation of the bottom of the sea. Then on the other hand, we may have data of super scientific attempts to investigate phenomena of this earth from above, perhaps by beings from so far away that they had never even heard that something, somewhere, asserts a legal right to this earth. All together we're good intermediatists, but we can't be very good hypnotists. Still another source of the merging away of our data, that upon general principles of continuity if super vessels or super vehicles have traversed this earth's atmosphere, there must be mergers between them and terrestrial phenomena. Observations upon them must merge away into observations upon clouds and balloons and meteors. We shall begin with data that we cannot distinguish ourselves and work our way out of mergers into extremes. In the Observatory 35168 it is said that, according to a newspaper, March 6, 1912, residents of Warmly, England were greatly excited by something that was supposed to be a splendidly illuminated aeroplane passing over the village. The machine was apparently traveling at a tremendous rate and came from the direction of Bath and went on towards Glauchester. The editor says that it was a large, triple-headed fireball. Tremendous indeed, he says, but we are prepared for anything nowadays. That is satisfactory. We'd not like to creep up stealthily and then jump out of a corner with our data. This editor, at least, is prepared to read. Nature, October 27, 1898. A correspondent writes that, in the county Wicklow, Ireland, at about six o'clock in the evening, he had seen, in the sky, an object that looked like the moon in its three-quarter aspect. We note the shape which approximates to triangularity, and we note that in color it is said to have been golden yellow. It moves slowly, and in about five minutes disappeared behind a mountain. The editor gives his opinion that the object may have been an escaped balloon. In nature, August 11, 1898, there is a story taken from the July number of the Canadian Weather Review by the meteorologist F. F. Payne that he had seen in the Canadian sky a large, pear-shaped object sailing rapidly. At first he supposed that the object was a balloon, its outline being sharply defined. But as no cage was seen, it was concluded that it must be a mass of cloud. In about six minutes this object became less definite, whether because of increasing distance or not, the mass became less dense and finally it disappeared. Because of cyclonic formation, no whirling motion could be seen. Nature, 58294, that upon July 8, 1898, a correspondent had seen, at Kiel, an object in the sky, colored red by the sun, which had set. It was about as broad as a rainbow and about twelve degrees high. It remained in its original brightness about five minutes, and then faded rapidly, and then remained almost stationary again, finally disappearing about eight minutes after I first saw it. In an intermediate existence we quasi-persons have nothing to judge by because everything is its own opposite. If a hundred dollars a week be a standard of luxurious living to some persons, it is poverty to others. We have instances of three objects that were seen in the sky in a space of three months, and this concurrent seems to me to be something to judge by. This has been built upon concurrence, so have been most of the fallacies and fanaticisms. I feel the positivism of a laverier, or instinctively take to the notion that all three of these observations relate to the same object. However, I don't formulate them and predict the next transit. Here's another chance for me to become a fixed star, but as usual, oh well, appoint an intermediateism, that the intermediateist is likely to be a flaccid compromiser, our own attitude. Ours is a partly positive and partly negative state, or a state in which nothing is finally positive or finally negative. But if positivism attract you, go ahead and try. You will be in harmony with cosmic endeavour. The continuity will resist you. Only to have appearance and quasiness is to be proportionately positive, but beyond a degree of attempted positivism, continuity will rise to pull you back. This, as it is called, though there is only success, failure and intermediateness, will, in intermediateness, be yours proportionately as you are in adjustment with its own state, or some positivism mixed with compromise and retreat. To be very positive is to be a Napoleon Bonaparte, against whom the rest of civilizational sooner or later combine. For interesting data, see newspaper accounts of fate of one dowy of Chicago. And then, is recognition that our state is only a quasi-state. It is no bar to one who desires to be positive, it is recognition that he cannot be positive and remain in a state that is positive negative. Or that a great positivist, isolated, with no system to support him, will be crucified or will starve to death, or will be put in jail and beaten to death, that these are the birth pangs of translation to the positive absolute. So, though positive negative myself, I feel the attraction of the positive pole of our intermediate state and attempt to correlate these three data to see them homogeneously, to think that they relate to one object. In the Aeronautic journals and in the London Times there is no mention of escaped balloons in the summer or fall of 1898. In the New York Times there is no mention of ballooning in Canada or the United States in the summer of 1898. In the London Times, September 29, 1885, a clipping from the Royal Gazette of Bermuda of September 8, 1885, sent to the Times by General LaFroy. That upon August 27, 1885, at about 8.30 a.m., there was observed by Mrs. Adelina de Basset a strange object in the clouds coming from the north. She called the attention of Mrs. L. Lowell to it, and they were both somewhat alarmed. However, they continued to watch the object steadily for some time, it drew nearer. It was of triangular shape and seemed to be about the size of a pilot boat mainsail, with chains attached to the bottom of it. While crossing the land it had appeared to descend, but as it went out to sea it ascended and continued to ascend until it was lost to sight high in the clouds. Or with such power to ascend I don't think much myself of the notion that it was an escaped balloon, partly deflated. Nevertheless, General LaFroy, correlating with exclusionism, attempts to give a terrestrial interpretation to this occurrence. He argues that the thing may have been a balloon that had escaped from France or England, or the only aerial thing of terrestrial origin that, even to this date of about thirty-five years later, has been thought to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He accounts for the triangular form by deflation, a shapeless bag barely able to float. My own acceptance is that great deflation does not accord with observations upon its power to ascend. In the Times, October 1st, 1885, Charles Harding of the RMS argues that if it had been a balloon from Europe, surely it would have been seen and reported by many vessels. Whether he was as good a Britain as a general or not, he shows awareness of the United States, or that the thing may have been a partly collapsed balloon that had escaped from the United States. General LaFroy wrote to Nature about it, Nature 3399, saying, whatever his sensitiveness is may have been, that the columns of the Times were hardly suitable for such a discussion. If in the past there had been more persons like General LaFroy, we would have better than the mere fragments of data that in most cases are too broken up very well to piece together. He took the trouble to write to a friend of his, W. H. Gosling of Bermuda, who also was an extraordinary person. He went to the trouble of interviewing Mrs. Bassett and Mrs. Lowell. Their description to him was somewhat different, an object from which nets were suspended, deflated balloon with its net work hanging from it, a super-drag net, that something was trawling overhead, the birds of baton rouge. Mr. Gosling wrote that the item of chains or suggestion of a basket that had been attached had originated with Mr. Bassett, who had not seen the object. Mr. Gosling mentioned a balloon that had escaped from Paris in July. He tells of a balloon that fell in Chicago September 17, or three weeks later than the Bermuda object. It's one incredibility against another, with disregards and convictions governed by whichever of the two dominance looms stronger in each reader's mind, that he can't think for himself any more than I can, is understood. My own correlates. I think that we're fished for. It may be that we're highly esteemed by super-epicures somewhere. It makes me more cheerful than I think that we may be of some use after all. I think that dragnets have often come down and have been mistaken for whirlwinds and waterspouts. Some accounts of seeming structure in whirlwinds and waterspouts are astonishing, and I have data that in this book I can't take up at all mysterious disappearances. I think we're fished for. That this is a little expression on the side, relates to trespassers, has nothing to do with the subject that I shall take up at some other time, or are used to some other mode of seeming that has a legal right to us. Nature 33137. Our Paris correspondent writes that in relation to the balloon which is said to have been seen over Bermuda in September, no assent took place in France which can account for it. Last of August, not September. In the London Times there is no mention of balloon assents in Great Britain in the summer of 1885, but mention of two assents in France. Both balloons had escaped. In Lauderdat, August 1885, it is said that these balloons had been sent up from fets of the 14th of July, forty-four days before the observation at Bermuda. The aeronauts were Gower and Alloy. Gower's balloon was found floating on the ocean, but Alloy's balloon was not found. On the 17th of July it was reported by a sea captain, still in the air, still inflated. But this balloon of Alloy's was a small exhibition balloon made for short assents from fets and fairgrounds. In Lauderdat, 1885 to 131 it is said that it was a very small balloon incapable of remaining long in the air. As to contemporaneous ballooning in the United States, I find only one account, an assent in Connecticut, July 29, 1885. Upon leaving this balloon the aeronauts had pulled the ripcord, turning it inside out, New York Times, August 10, 1885. To the Intermediatist, the accusation of anthropomorphism is meaningless. There is nothing in anything that is unique or positively different. We'd be materialists were it not quite as rational to express the material in terms of the immaterial as to express the immaterial in terms of the material, oneness of allness in quasiness. I will engage to write the formula of any novel in psycho-chemic terms, or draw its graph in psycho-mechanic terms, or write in romantic terms the circumstances and sequences of any chemic or electric or magnetic reaction, or express any historic event in algebraic terms, or see the rule in Jevons for economic situations expressed algebraically. I think of the dominance as I think of persons, not meaning that they are real persons, not meaning that we are real persons, or the old dominant in its jealousy, and its suppression of all things and thoughts that endangered its supremacy. In reading discussions of papers by scientific societies I have often noted how when they approached forbidden or irreconcilable subjects the discussions were thrown into confusion and ramification. It's as if scientific discussions have often been led astray as if purposefully, as if by something directive, hovering over them. Of course I mean only the spirit of all development. Just so, in any embryo cells that would tend to vary from the appearances of their era are compelled to correlate. In Nature 90169 Charles Tilden Smith writes that at Chisbury Wiltshire England April 8th 1912 he saw something in the sky. Unlike anything that I had ever seen before, although I have studied the skies for many years I have never seen anything like it. He saw two stationary dark patches upon clouds. The extraordinary part, they were stationary upon clouds that were rapidly moving. They were fan shaped, or triangular, and varied in size, but kept the same position upon different clouds as cloud after cloud came along. For more than half an hour Mr. Smith watched these dark patches. His impression as to the one that appeared first, that it was really a heavy shadow cast upon a thin veil of clouds by some unseen object away in the west which was intercepting the sun's rays. Upon page 244 of this volume of Nature is a letter from another correspondent to the effect that similar shadows are cast by mountains upon clouds, and that no doubt Mr. Smith was right in attributing the appearance to some unseen object which was intercepting the sun's rays. But the old dominant that was a jealous dominant and the wrath of the old dominant against such an irreconcilability as large opaque objects in the sky casting down shadows upon clouds. Still the dominants are suave very often, or are not absolute gods, and the way attention was let away from this subject is an interesting study in quasi-divine bamboozlement. Upon page 268 Charles J. P. Cave, the meteorologist, writes that upon April 5 and 8 at Ditchham Park Petersfield he had observed a similar appearance while watching some pilot balloons. But he described something not in the least like a shadow on clouds, but a stationary cloud. The inference seems to be that the shadows at Chisbury may have been shadows of pilot balloons. Upon page 322 another correspondent writes upon shadows cast by mountains. Upon page 348 someone else carries on the divergence by discussing this third letter. Then someone takes up the third letter mathematically, and then there is a correction of error in this mathematic demonstration. I think it looks very much like what I think it looks like. But the mystery here, that the dark patches at Chisbury could not have been cast by stationary pilot balloons that were to the west, or that were between clouds in the setting sun. If to the west of Chisbury a stationary object were high in the air intercepting the sun's rays, the shadow of the stationary object would not have been stationary, but would have moved higher and higher with the setting of the sun. I have to think of something that is in accord with no other data whatsoever. Illuminous body, not the sun, in the sky, but because of some unknown principle or atmospheric condition, its light extended down only about to the clouds. That from it were suspended to triangular objects, like the object that was seen in Bermuda, that it was this light that fell short of the earth that these objects intercepted, that the objects were drawn up and lowered from something overhead so that, in its light, their shadows changed size. If my grope seemed to have no grasp in it, and if a stationary balloon will, in half an hour, not cast a stationary shadow from the setting sun, we have to think of two triangular objects that accurately maintain positions in a line between sun and clouds, and at the same time approach and receded from clouds. Whatever it may have been, it's enough to make the devout make the sign of the crucible, or whatever the devotees of the old dominant do in the presence of a new correlate. Vast, black thing poised like a crow over the moon. It is our acceptance that these two shadows of Chisbury looked from the moon like vast things, black as crows poised over the earth. It is our acceptance that two triangular luminosities and then two triangular patches, like vast black things, poised like crows over the moon and like the triangularities at Chisbury, have been seen upon or over the moon. Scientific American 4649, two triangular luminous appearances reported by several observers in Lebanon, Connecticut, evening of July 3rd, 1882, on the moon's upper limb. They disappeared, and two dark triangular appearances that look like notches were seen three minutes later upon the lower limb. They approached each other, met, and instantly disappeared. The merger here is notches that have at times been seen upon the moon's limb, thought to be cross sections of craters, monthly notices RAS 37432. But these appearances of July 3rd, 1882 were vast upon the moon, seemed to be cutting off or obliterating nearly a quarter of its surface. Something else that may have looked like a vast black crow poised over this earth from the moon. Monthly weather review 41599. Description of a shadow in the sky of some unseen body April 8th, 1913, Fort Worth, Texas, supposed to have been cast by an unseen cloud. This patch of shade moved with the declining sun. Report of the British Association, 1854, 410. Account by two observers of a faint but distinctly triangular object visible for six nights in the sky. It was observed from two stations that were not far apart. But the parallax was considerable. However it was, it was acceptably relatively close to this earth. I should say that relatively to phenomena of light we are in confusion as great as some of the discords that orthodoxy is in relatively to light. Broadly and intermediatistically our position is that light is not really and necessarily light any more than is anything else really and necessarily anything, but an interpretation of a mode of force, as I suppose we have to call it as light. At sea level the earth's atmosphere interprets sunlight as red or orange or yellow. High up on mountains the sun is blue. Very high up on mountains the zenith is black. Or it is orthodoxy to say that in interplanetary space where there is no air there is no light. So then the sun and comets are black but this earth's atmosphere or rather dust particles in it interpret radiations from these black objects as light. We look up at the moon. The jet black moon is so silvery white. I have about 50 notes indicating that the moon has atmosphere. Nevertheless most astronomers hold out that the moon has no atmosphere. They have to. The theory of eclipses would not work out otherwise. So arguing in conventional terms the moon is black. Rather astonishing explores upon the moon stumbling and groping in intense darkness with telescopes powerful enough we could see them stumbling and groping in brilliant light. Or just because of familiarity it is not now obvious to us how the preposterousness of the old system must have seemed to the correlates of the system preceding it. Ye jet black silvery moon. All together then it may be conceivable that there are phenomena of force that are interpretable as light as far down as the clouds but not in denser strata of air or just the opposite of familiar interpretations. I now have some notes upon an occurrence that suggests a force not interpreted by air as light but interpreted or reflected by the ground as light. I think of something that for a week was suspended over London of an emanation that was not interpreted as light until it reached the ground. Lancet June 1st 1867, that every night for a week a light had appeared in Woburn Square London upon the grass of a small park enclosed by railings. Crowds gathering police called out for the special service of maintaining order and making the populace move on. The editor of the Lancet went to the square. He says that he saw nothing but a patch of light falling upon an arbor at the northeast corner of the enclosure. Seems to me that that was interesting enough. In this editor we have a companion for Mr. Simons and Dr. Gray. He suggests that the light came from a street lamp. Does not say that he could trace it to any such origin himself, but recommends that the police investigate neighboring street lamps. I did not say that such a commonplace as light from a street lamp would not attract and excite and deceive great crowds for a week, but I do accept that any cop who was called upon for extra work would have needed nobody's suggestion to settle that point, the very first thing. Or that something in the sky hung suspended over a London square for a week. Look of the Damned by Charles Forte CHAPTER XXI Knowledge December 28, 1883 Seeing so many meteorological phenomena in your excellent paper knowledge, I am tempted to ask for an explanation of the following, which I saw when on board the British India Company steamer Patna, while on a voyage up the Persian Gulf. In May 1880, on a dark night, about eleven-thirty p.m., there suddenly appeared on each side of the ship an enormous luminous wheel whirling around, the spokes of which seemed to brush the ship along. The spokes would be two hundred or three hundred yards long, and resembled the birch rods of the Dame Schools. Each wheel contained about sixteen spokes, and although the wheels must have been some five hundred or six hundred yards in diameter, the spokes could be distinctly seen all the way round. The phosphorescent gleam seemed to glide along flat on the surface of the sea, no light being visible in the air above the water. The appearance of the spokes could be almost exactly represented by standing in a boat and flashing a bull's eye lantern horizontally along the surface of the water, round and round. I may mention the phenomena was also seen by Captain Avron of the Patna, and Mr. Manning, third officer, Leigh Force Brace. P.S. The wheels advanced along with the ship for about twenty minutes. L.F.B. Knowledge, January 11, 1884. Letter from A. McD. That Leigh Force Brace, who sees so many meteorological phenomena in your excellent paper, should have signed himself the modern Ezekiel for his vision of wheels is quite as wonderful as the prophets. The writer then takes up the measurements that were given and calculates a velocity at the circumference of a wheel of about one hundred sixty-six yards per second, apparently considering that especially incredible. He then says, From the non-deplume he assumes, it might be inferred that your correspondent is in the habit of sailing close to the wind. He asks permission to suggest an explanation of his own. It is that before eleven-thirty p.m. there had been numerous accidents to the main brace, and that it had required splicing so often that almost any ray of light would have taken on a rotary motion. In Knowledge, January 25, 1884, Mr. Brace answers and signs himself J. W. Robertson. I don't suppose A. McD. means any harm, but I do think it's rather unjust to say a man is drunk because he sees something out of the common. If there's one thing I pride myself upon, it's being able to say that never in my life have I indulged in anything stronger than water. From this curiosity of pride, he goes on to say that he had not intended to be exact, but to give his impressions of dimensions and velocity. He ends amiably, however, no offense taken where I suppose none is meant. To this letter Mr. Proctor adds a note apologizing for the publication of A. McD's letter which had come about by a misunderstood instruction. Then Mr. Proctor wrote disagreeable letters himself about other persons. What else would you expect in a quasi-existence? The obvious explanation of this phenomenon is that under the surface of the sea in the Persian Gulf was a vast luminous wheel, that it was the light from its submerged spokeset Mr. Robertson saw shining upward. It seems clear that this light did shine upward from origin below the surface of the sea, but at first it is not so clear how vast luminous wheels, each the size of a village, ever got under the surface of the Persian Gulf. Also there may be some misunderstanding as to what they were doing there. A deep sea fish and its adaptation to a dense medium. That, at least in some regions aloft, there is a medium dense even to gelatinousness. A deep sea fish brought to the surface of the ocean in a relatively attenuated medium it disintegrates. Superconstructions adapted to a dense medium in interplanetary space. Sometimes by stresses of various kinds they driven into this earth's thin atmosphere. Later we shall have data to support just this, that things entering this earth's atmosphere disintegrate and shine with a light that is not the light of incandescence shine brilliantly, even if cold. Fast wheel-like superconstructions, they enter this earth's atmosphere and threatened with disintegration, plunge for relief into an ocean or into a dense or medium. Of course the requirements now facing us are not only data a vast wheel-like superconstructions that have relieved their distresses in the ocean, but data of enormous wheels that have been seen in the air or entering the ocean or rising from the ocean and continuing their voyages. Very largely we shall concern ourselves with enormous fiery objects that have either plunged into the ocean or risen from the ocean. Our acceptance is that, though disruption may intensify into incandescence, apart from disruption and its probable fireiness, things that enter this earth's atmosphere have a cold light which would not like light from molten matter be instantly quenched by water. Also it seems acceptable that a revolving wheel would, from a distance, look like a globe, that a revolving wheel seen relatively close by looks like a wheel in few aspects. The mergers of ball lightning and meteorites are not resistances to us. Our data are of enormous bodies. So we shall interpret. And what does it matter? Our attitude throughout this book that here are extraordinary data that they never would be exhumed and never would be massed together unless here are the data. Our first atom is of something that was once seen to enter an ocean. It's from the Puritanic Publications Science, which has yielded us little material or which, like most Puritans, does not go upon a spree very often. Whatever the thing could have been, my impression is of tremendousness, or of bulk many times that of all meteorites and all museums combined. Also of relative slowness or of long warning of approach. The story in Science 5 242 is from an account sent to the Hydrographic Office at Washington from the branch office at San Francisco. That at midnight, February 24 1885, latitude 37 degrees north and longitude 170 degrees east, or somewhere between Yokohama and Victoria, the captain of the bark inner which was aroused by his mate, who had seen something unusual in the sky. This must have taken appreciable time. The captain went on deck and saw the sky turning fiery red. All at once a large mass of fire appeared over the vessel, completely blinding the spectators. The fiery mass fell into the sea. Its size may be judged by the volume of water cast out by it, said to have rushed toward the vessel with a noise that was deafening. The bark was struck flat aback and a roaring white sea passed ahead. The master, an old experienced mariner, declared that the awfulness of the sight was beyond description. In Nature 37 187 and Astronomy 1887-76, we are told that an object, described as a large ball of fire, was seen to rise from the sea near Cape Race. We are told that it rose to a height of 50 feet and then advanced close to the ship, then moving away, remaining visible about five minutes. The supposition in Nature is that it was ball lightning, but Flammarian, thunder and lightning page 68, says that it was enormous. Details in the American Meteorological Journal 6443, November 12 1887, British steamer Siberian that the object had moved against the wind before retreating. That Captain Moore said that at about the same place he had seen such appearances before. Report of the British Association 1861-30, that upon June 18 1845, according to the Malta Times, from the Brig, Victoria, about 900 miles east of Adalia, Asia Minor, 36 degrees, 40 minutes, 56 seconds north, latitude, 13 degrees, 44 minutes, 36 seconds east, longitude, three luminous bodies were seen to issue from the sea at about half a mile from the vessel. They were visible about 10 minutes. The story was never investigated, but other accounts that seem acceptably to be other observations upon this same sensational spectacle came in as if of their own accord and were published by Professor Baden Powell. One is a letter from a correspondent at Mount Lebanon. He describes only two luminous bodies. Apparently they were five times the size of the moon, each had appendages, or they were connected by parts that are described as sail-like or streamer-like, looking like large flags blown out by a gentle breeze. The important point here is not only suggestion of structure, but duration. The duration of meteors is a few seconds. Duration of 15 seconds is remarkable, but I think there are records up to half a minute. This object, if it were all one object, was visible at Mount Lebanon about one hour. An interesting circumstance is that the appendages did not look like trains of meteors which shined by their own light, but seemed to shine by light from the main bodies. About 900 miles west of the position of the Victoria is the town of Adalia, Asia Minor. At about the time of the observation reported by the captain of the Victoria, the Reverend F. Haulett, F-R-A-S, was in Adalia. He too saw this spectacle and sent an account to Professor Baden Powell. In his view it was a body that appeared and then broke up. He placed his duration at twenty minutes to half an hour. In the report of the British Association 1860-82, the phenomenon was reported from Syria and Malta as two very large bodies nearly joined. Report of the British Association 1860-77, that at Cherbourg, France, January 12, 1836, was seen a luminous body seemingly two-thirds the size of the moon. It seemed to rotate on an axis. Central to it seemed to be a dark cavity. For other accounts, all indefinite, but distortable into data of wheel-like objects in the sky, see Nature 22617, London Times, October 15, 1859, Nature 21225, Monthly Weather Review 1883-264, Astronomy 1894-157, that upon the morning of December 20, 1893, an appearance in the sky was seen by many persons in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. A luminous body passed overhead from west to east until at about 15 degrees in the eastern horizon, it appeared to stand still for 15 or 20 minutes. According to some descriptions, it was the size of a table. To some observers, it looked like an enormous wheel. The light was a brilliant white. Acceptably, it was not an optical illusion. The noise of its passage through the air was heard. Having been stationary, or having seemed to stand still 15 or 20 minutes, it disappeared, or exploded. No sound of explosion was heard. Fast wheel-like constructions. They are especially adapted to roll through a gelatinous medium from planet to planet. Sometimes because of miscalculations, or because of stresses of various kinds, they enter this earth's atmosphere. They're likely to explode. They have to submerge in the sea. They stay in the sea awhile, revolving with relative leisureliness until relieved, and then emerge, sometimes close to vessels. Seamen tell of what they see. Their reports are interred in scientific moorings. I should say that the general route of these constructions is along latitudes not far from the latitudes of the Persian Gulf. Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2829, that upon April 4, 1901, about 830, in the Persian Gulf, Captain Ho season of the steamship Kilwa, according to a paper read before the society by Captain Ho season, was sailing in a sea in which there was no phosphorescence. There being no phosphorescence in the water. I suppose I'll have to repeat that. There being no phosphorescence in the water. Vast shafts of light, though the captain uses the word ripples, suddenly appeared. Shaft followed shaft upon the surface of the sea. But it was only a faint light, and in about 15 minutes died out, having appeared suddenly, having died out gradually. The shafts revolved at a velocity of about 60 miles an hour. Vosphorescent jellyfish correlate with the old dominant. In one of the most heroic compositions of disregards in our experience, it was agreed in the discussion of Captain Ho season's paper that the phenomenon was probably pulsations of long strings of jellyfish. Nature, 21 410, reprint of a letter from R. E. Harris, commander of the A. H. N. Company steamship Shajihem to the Calcutta Englishman, January 21, 1880. That upon the 5th of June, 1880, off the coast of Malabar, at 10 p.m., water calm, sky cloudless, he had seen something that was so foreign to anything that he had ever seen before, that he had stopped his ship. He saw what he describes as waves of brilliant light, with spaces between. Upon the water were floating patches of a substance that was not identified. Thinking in terms of the conventional explanation of all phosphorescence at sea, the Captain at first suspected this substance. However, he gives his opinion that it did no illuminating but was, with the rest of the sea, illuminated by tremendous shafts of light. Whether it was a thick and oily discharge from the engine of a submerged construction or not, I think that I shall have to accept this substance as a concomitant because of another note. As waves succeeded wave, one of the most grand and brilliant yet solemn spectacles that one could think of was here witnessed. Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 32, 280. Extract from a letter from Mr. Douglas Carnegie, Blackheath England. Date sometime in 1906. This last voyage we witnessed a weird and most extraordinary electric display. In the Gulf of Oman, he saw a bank of apparently quiescent phosphorescence, but when within 20 yards of it, shafts of brilliant light came sweeping across the ship's bows at a prodigious speed, which might be put down as anything between 60 and 200 miles an hour. These light bars were about 20 feet apart and most regular. As to phosphorescence, I collected a bucket full of water and examined it under the microscope, but could not detect anything abnormal. That the shafts of light came up from something beneath the surface. They first struck us on our broad sides. And I noticed that an intervening ship had no effect on the light beams. They started away from the lee side of the ship, just as if they had traveled right through it. The Gulf of Oman is at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 33294. Extract from a letter by Mr. S. C. Patterson, second officer of the P&O Steamship Delta, a spectacle which the journal continues to call phosphorescent. Malacca Strait, 2am, March 14, 1907, shafts which seem to move around a center, like the spokes of a wheel, and appear to be about 300 yards long. The phenomenon lasted about half an hour, during which time the ship had traveled six or seven miles. It stopped suddenly. Lastronomy, 1891, 312. A correspondent writes that in October 1891 in the China Sea he had seen shafts or lances of light that had had the appearance of rays of a searchlight and that had moved like such rays. Nature, 2291. Report to the Admiralty by Captain Evans, the Hydrographer of the British Navy. That Commander J. E. Pringle of H. M. S. Vulture had reported that at latitude 26 degrees 26 minutes north and longitude 53 degrees 11 minutes east in the Persian Gulf, May 15, 1879, he had noticed luminous waves or pulsations in the water moving at great speed. This time we have a definite datum upon origin somewhere below the surface. It is said that these waves of light passed under the vulture. Unlooking toward the east, the appearance was that of a revolving wheel with a center on that bearing and whose spokes were illuminated and looking toward the west, a similar wheel appeared to be revolving, but in the opposite direction. Or finally, as disemergence, these waves of light extended from the surface well under the water. It is Commander Pringle's opinion that the shafts constituted one wheel and that doubling was an illusion. He judges the shafts to have been about 25 feet broad and the spaces about 100, velocity about 84 miles an hour, duration about 35 minutes, time 9.40 p.m. Before and after this display, the ship had passed through patches of floating substance described as oily looking fish spawn. Upon page 428 of this number of nature, E. L. Maw says that in April 1875, when upon HMS Bulldog, a few miles north of Veracruz, he had seen a series of swift lines of light. He had dipped up some of the water, finding in it an immacule, which would, however, not account for phenomena of geometric formation and high velocity. If he means Veracruz, Mexico, this is the only instance we have out of Oriental waters. Scientific American 10651 that in the nautical meteorological annual published by the Danish Meteorological Institute appears a report upon a singular phenomenon that was seen by Captain Gabe of the Danish East Asiatic Company Steamship Vinteng. At 3 a.m. June 10, 1909, while sailing through the Straits of Malacca, Captain Gabe saw a vast revolving wheel of light, flat upon the water, long arms issuing from a center around which the whole system appeared to rotate. So vast was the appearance that only half of it could be seen at a time, the center lying near the horizon. This display lasted about fifteen minutes. Here to fore we have not been clear upon the important point that forward motions of these wheels do not synchronize with a vessel's motions and freaks of disregard, or rather common places of disregard might attempt to assimilate with lights of a vessel. This time we are told that a vast wheel moved forward decreasing in brilliancy and also in speed of rotation disappearing when the center was right ahead of the vessel, or my own interpretation would be that the source of light was submerging deeper and deeper and slowing down because meeting more and more resistance. The Danish Meteorological Institute reports another instance that when Captain Breyer of the Dutch steamship Valenchen was in the South China Sea, midnight, August 12, 1910, he saw a rotation of flashes. It looked like a horizontal wheel turning rapidly. This time it is said that the appearance was above water. The phenomenon was observed by the captain, the first and second mates, and the first engineer, and upon all of them it made a somewhat uncomfortable impression. In general, if our expression be not immediately acceptable, we recommend arrival interpreters that they consider the localization, with one exception, of this phenomenon to the Indian Ocean and Injacent Waters, or Persian Gulf on one side and China Sea on the other side. Though we're intermediates, the call of attempted positivism in the aspect of completeness is irresistible. We have expressed that from few aspects would wheels of fire in the air look like wheels of fire, but if we can get it, we must have observation upon vast luminous wheels, not interpretable as optical illusions, but enormous substantial things that have smashed down material resistances and have been seen to plunge into the ocean. Athenaeum 1848, 833. That at the meeting of the British Association, 1848, Sir W. S. Harris said that he had recorded an account sent to him of a vessel toward which had whirled two wheels of fire, which the men described as rolling millstones of fire. When they came near an awful crash took place, the top masts were shivered to pieces. It is said that there was a strong, sulfurous odor. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22 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 Acacia Wood. The Book of the Damned by Charles Forte. Chapter 22. One of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1157. Extract from the Log of the Bark Lady of the Lake by Captain F. W. Banner. Communicated by R. H. Scott FRS. That, upon the 22nd of March, 1870, at latitude five degrees forty-seven minutes north, longitude twenty-seven degrees fifty-two minutes west, the sailors of the Lady of the Lake saw a remarkable object or cloud in the sky. They reported to the captain. According to Captain Banner, it was a cloud of circular form with an included semi-circle divided into four parts, the central dividing shaft beginning at the center of the circle and extending far outward and then curving backward. Geometricity and complexity and stability of form and the small likelihood of a cloud maintaining such diversity of features to say nothing of appearance of organic form. The thing traveled from a point at about twenty degrees above the horizon to a point about eighty degrees above. Then it settled down to the northeast having appeared from the south southeast. Light gray in color or it was cloud color. It was much lower than the other clouds. And this statum stands out. That whatever it may have been it traveled against the wind. It came up obliquely against the wind and finally settled down right in the wind's eye. For half an hour this form was visible. When it did finally disappear that was not because it disintegrated like a cloud but because it was lost to sight in the evening darkness. Captain Banner draws the following diagram. Chapter twenty three 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 Acacia Wood. The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort. Chapter twenty three. Textbooks tell us that the Dermsalah meteorites were picked up soon or within half an hour. Given a little time the conventionalists may argue that these stones were hot when they fell but that their great interior coldness had overcome the molten state of their surfaces. According to the deputy commissioner of Dermsalah these stones had been picked up immediately by passing coollies. These stones were so cold that they benumbed the fingers. But they had fallen with a great light. It is described as a flame of fire about two feet in depth and nine feet in length. Exceptibly this light was not the light of molten matter. In this chapter we are very intermediatistic and unsatisfactory. To the intermediatists there is but one answer to all questions. Sometimes and sometimes not. Another form of this intermediatist solution of all problems is yes and no. Everything that is also isn't. A positivist attempts to formulate. So does the intermediatist but with less rigorousness. He accepts but also denies. He may seem to accept in one respect and deny in some other respect. But no real line can be drawn between any two aspects of anything. The intermediatist accepts that which seems to correlate with something that he has accepted as a dominant. The positivist correlates with the belief. In the Dermsalah meteorites we have support for our expression that things entering this earth's atmosphere sometimes shine with a light that is not the light of incandescence. Or so we account or offer an expression upon. Thunder stones or carved stones that have fallen luminously to this earth in streaks that have looked like strokes of lightning. But we accept also that some things that have entered this earth's atmosphere disintegrate with the intensity of flame and molten matter. But some things we accept enter this earth's atmosphere and collapse non luminously quite like deep sea fishes brought to the surface of the ocean. Whatever agreement we have is an indication that somewhere aloft there is a medium denser than this earth's atmosphere. I suppose our stronghold is in that such is not popular belief or the rhythm of all phenomena air dense at sea level upon this earth less and less dense as one ascends. Then denser and denser. A good many bothersome questions arise. Our attitude. Here are the data. Luminous rains sometimes fall. Nature March 9 1882. Nature 25 437. This is a light that is not the light of incandescence. But no one can say that these occasional or rare rains come from this earth's externality. We simply note cold light of falling bodies. For luminous rain, snow and dust see heartwig area world page 319. As to luminous clouds we have more nearly definite observations and opinions. They mark transition between the old dominant and the new dominant. We've already noted the transition in professor Shvedov's theory of external origin of some hailstones and the implications that to a former generation seem so preposterous. Droll was the word that there are in interplanetary regions volumes of water. Whether they have fishes and frogs in them or not. Now our acceptance is that clouds sometimes come from external regions having had origin from super geographical lakes and oceans that we shall not attempt to chart just at present. Only suggesting to enterprising aviators. And we note that we put it all up to them and show no inclination to go Columbusing on our own account. That they take bathing suits or rather deep sea diving suits along. So then that some clouds come from interplanetary oceans of the super Sargasso sea if we still accept the super Sargasso sea and shine upon entering this earth's atmosphere. In Himmel und Erd February 1889 a phenomenon of transition of thirty years ago. Herr O. Jesse in his observations upon luminous night clouds notes the great height of them and rolly or sensibly suggests that some of them may have come from regions external to this earth. I suppose he means only from other planets. But it's a very drool and sensible idea either way. In general I am accounting for a great deal of this earth's isolation. That it is relatively isolated by circumstances that are similar to the circumstances that make for relative isolation of the bottom of the ocean. Except that there is a clumsiness of analogy now. To call ourselves deep sea fishes has been convenient but in a quasi existence there is no convenience that will not sooner or later turn awkward. So if there be denser regions aloft these regions should now be regarded as analogs of far submerged oceanic regions and things coming to this earth would be like things rising to an attenuated medium and exploding sometimes incandescently sometimes with cold light sometimes non-luminously like deep sea fishes brought to the surface altogether conditions of inhospitality. I have a suspicion that in their own depths deep sea fishes are not luminous. If they are Darwinism is mere Jesuitism in attempting to correlate them. Such advertising would so attract attention that all advantages would be more than offset. Darwinism is largely a doctrine of concealment. Here we have brazen proclamation if accepted. Fishes in the mammoth cave need no light to see by. We might have an expression that deep sea fishes turn luminous upon entering a less dense medium but models in the American Museum of Natural History specialized organs of luminosity upon these models. Of course we do remember that awfully convincing dodo and some of our sophistications we trace to him. At any rate disruption is regarded as a phenomenon of coming from a dense to a less dense medium. An account by Emma Carius in the transactions of the Swedish Academy of Sciences 1808215 translated for the North American Review 3 319 that Emma Carius having heard of an extraordinary and probably hitherto unseen phenomenon reported from near the town of Skaming Sweden investigated that upon the 16th of May 1808 at about 4pm the sun suddenly turned dull brick red. At the same time there appeared upon the western horizon a great number of round bodies dark brown and seemingly the size of a hat crown. They passed overhead and disappeared in the eastern horizon. Tremendous procession. It lasted two hours. Occasionally one fell to the ground. When the place of a fall was examined there was found a film which soon dried and vanished. Often when approaching the sun these bodies seemed to link together or were then seen to be linked together in groups not exceeding eight and under the sun they were seen to have tails three or four fathoms long. Away from the sun the tails were invisible. Whatever their substance may have been it is described as gelatinous soapy and jellied. I place this datum here for several reasons. It would have been a good climax to our expression upon hordes of small bodies that in our acceptance were not seeds nor birds nor ice crystals but the tendency would have been to jump to the homogenous conclusion that all our data in that expression related to this one kind of phenomena whereas we conceive of infinite heterogeneity of the external. Of crusaders and rebels and immigrants and tourists and dragons and things like gelatinous hat crowns. Or that all things here upon this earth that flock together are not necessarily sheep, Presbyterians, gangsters, or porpoises. The datum is important to us here as indication of disruption in this earth's atmosphere. Dangers in entering this earth's atmosphere. I think myself that thousands of objects have been seen to fall from aloft and have exploded luminously and have been called ball lightning. As to what ball lightning is we have not yet begun to make intelligent guesses. Monthly weather review 3417. In general it seems to me that when we encounter the opposition of ball lightning we should pay little attention but confine ourselves to guesses that are at least intelligent that stand phantom like in our way. We note here that in some of our acceptances upon intelligence we should more clearly have pointed out that they were upon the intelligent as opposed to the instinctive. In the monthly weather review 33409 there is an account of ball lightning that struck a tree. It made a dent such as a falling object would make. Some other time I shall collect instances of ball lightning to express that they are instances of objects that have fallen from the sky luminously exploding terrifically. So bewildered is the old orthodoxy by these phenomena that many scientists have either denied ball lightning or have considered it very doubtful. I refer to Dr. Cister's list of 150 instances which he considered authentic. In accord with our discord is an instance related in the monthly weather review March 1887 something that fell luminously from the sky accompanied by something that was not so affected or that was dark. That according to Captain C. D. Sweet of the Dutch Bark JPA upon March 19 1887 north 37 degrees 39 minutes west 57 degrees 00 minutes he encountered a severe storm. He saw two objects in the air above the ship. One was luminous and might be explained in several ways but the other was dark. One or both fell into the sea with a roar and a casting up of billows. It is our acceptance that these things had entered this earth's atmosphere having first crashed through a field of ice immediately afterward lumps of ice fell. One of the most astonishing of the phenomena of ball lightning is a phenomenon of many meteorites violence of explosion out of all proportion to size and velocity. We accept that the icy meteorites of Dermisala could have fallen with no great velocity but the sound from them was tremendous. The soft substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope was carbonaceous but was unburned or had fallen with velocity insufficient to ignite it. The tremendous report that it made was hurt over an area more than 70 miles in diameter. That some hailstones have been formed in a dense medium and violently disintegrate in this earth's relatively thin atmosphere. Nature 88 350 large hailstones noted at the University of Missouri November 11 1911. They exploded with sounds like pistol shots. The writer says that he had noticed a similar phenomenon 18 years before at Lexington Kentucky. Hailstones seemed to have been formed in a denser medium. When melted under water they gave out bubbles larger than their central air spaces. Monthly weather review 33 445. Our acceptance is that many objects have fallen from the sky but that many of them have disintegrated violently. This acceptance will coordinate with data still to come but also we make it easy for ourselves and our expressions upon super constructions if we're asked why from thinkable wrecks of them girders plates or parts recognizably of manufactured metal have not fallen from the sky. However as to composition we have not this refuge so it is our expression that there have been reported instances of the fall of manufactured metal from the sky. The meteorite of Rutherford North Carolina is of artificial material mass of pig iron. It is said to be fraudulent. American Journal of Science 234 298. The object that was said to have fallen at Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1858 is described in the American Journal of Science 234 135 as a furnace product formed in smelting copper ores or iron ores containing copper. It is said to be fraudulent. According to Ehrenberg the substance reported by Captain Callum to have fallen upon his vessel near Java offered complete resemblance to the residue resulting from combustion of a steel wire in a flask of oxygen. Zercher Meteors page 239. Nature November 21 1878 publishes a notice that according to the Yuma Sentinel a meteorite that resembles steel had been found in the Mojave In Nature February 15 1894 we read that one of the meteorites brought to the United States by Peary from Greenland is of tempered steel. The opinion is that meteoric iron had fallen in water or snow quickly cooling and hardening. This does not apply to composition. November 5 1898 Nature publishes a notice of a paper by Professor Burworth of Vienna upon the close connection between meteoric iron and steelwork At the meeting of November 24 1906 of the Essex Field Club was exhibited a piece of metal said to have fallen from the sky October 9 1906 at Braintree. According to the Essex naturalist Dr. Fletcher of the British Museum had declared this metal to be smelted iron so that the mystery of its reported fall remained unexplained. End of Chapter 23 Recording by Acacia Wood Chapter 24 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 Acacia Wood The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort Chapter 24 We shall have an outcry of silences. If a single instance of anything be disregarded by a system our own attitude is that a single instance is a powerless thing. Of course our own method of agreement of many instances is not a real method. In continuity all things must have resemblances with all other things. Anything has any quasi-identity you please. Some time ago conscription was assimilated with either autocracy or democracy with equal facility. Note the need for a dominant to correlate to. Scarcely anybody said simply that we must have conscription but that we must have conscription which correlates with democracy which was taken as a base or something basically desirable. Of course between autocracy and democracy nothing but false demarcation can be drawn. So I can conceive of no subject upon which there should be such poverty as a single instance if anything one pleases can be whipped into line. However we shall try to be more nearly real than the Darwinites who advance concealing coloration as Darwinism and then drag in proclaiming luminosity too as Darwinism. I think the Darwinites better come in with us as to the deep sea fishes and be sorry later I suppose. It will be amazing or negligible to read all the instances now to come of things that have been seen in the sky and to think that all have been disregarded. My own opinion is that it is not possible or very easy to disregard them now that they have been brought together but that if prior to about this time we had attempted such an assemblage the old dominant would have withered our typewriter as it is the letter E has gone back on us and the S is temperamental. Most extraordinary and singular phenomenon north wales august 26 1894 a disc from which projected an orange colored body that looked like an elongated flatfish reported by admiral Amani nature 5524 disc from which projected a hook-like form India about 1838 diagram of it given disc about size of the moon but brighter than the moon visible about 20 minutes by GPT in Professor Baden Powell's catalog reported the British Association 1849 very brilliant hook-like form seen in the sky at Poland Trumbull Company Ohio during the stream of meteors of 1833 visible more than an hour large luminous body almost stationary for a time shaped like a square table Niagara Falls November 13 1833 American Journal of Science 125 391 something described as a bright white cloud at night November 3 1886 at Harmer Norway from it were emitted brilliant rays of light drifted across the sky retained throughout its original form nature December 16 1886 158 thing with an oval nucleus and streamers with dark bands and lines very suggestive of structure New Zealand May 4 1888 nature 42 402 luminous object size of full moon visible an hour and a half chilly November 5 1883 come to Srendis 103 682 bright object near sun December 21 1882 knowledge 313 light that looked like a great flame far out at sea of Ruque few December 2 1845 London Royal Society proceedings 5627 something like a gigantic trumpet suspended vertical oscillating gently visible five or six minutes length estimated at 425 feet at Oaxaca Mexico July 6 1874 scientific American supplement 6 2365 two luminous bodies seemingly united visible five or six minutes June 3 1898 Lanachur 1898 1 127 thing with a tail crossing moon transit half a minute September 26 1870 London Times September 30 1870 object four or five times size of moon moving slowly across sky November 1 1885 near Andrew and Opel Astronomy 1886 3 and 9 large body colored red moving slowly visible 15 minutes reported by Kaguya Marseille August 1 1871 chemistry news 24 193 details of this observation and similar observation by GMN and other instances by D. Comtes Srendis 73 297 755 thing that was a large and that was stationary twice in seven minutes Oxford November 19 1847 listed by low Raxi 1 136 grayish object that looked to be about three and a half feet long rapidly approaching the earth at Sarbrooke April 1 1826 sound like thunder object expanding like a sheet American Journal of Science 126 133 quarterly Journal of the Royal Institute 24 488 report by an astronomer in S. Dryton upon an object duration of which seemed to him extraordinary duration three quarters of a minute Jersey City July 6 1882 scientific American 47 53 object like a comet but with proper motion of 10 degrees an hour visible one hour reported by Purine and Glancy from the Cordova Observatory Argentina March 14 1916 scientific American 115 493 something like a signal light reported by Glacier October 4 1844 bright as Jupiter sending out quick flickering waves of light yearbook of facts 1845 278 I think that with the object known as Eddie's Comet passes away the last of our susceptibility to the common fallacy of personifying it is one of the most deep-rooted of positivist illusions that people are persons we have been guilty too often of spleens and spites and ridicules against astronomers as if they were persons or final unities individuals completenesses or selves instead of indeterminate parts but so long as we remain in quasi existence we can cast out illusion only with some other illusion though the other illusion may approximate higher to reality so we personify no more but we super personify we now take into full acceptance our expression that development is an autocracy of successive dominance which are not final but which approximate higher to individuality or selfness then do the human tropisms that irresponsibly correlate to them Eddie reported a celestial object from the observatory at Gramstown South Africa it was in 1890 the new dominant was only air presumptive then or air apparent but not obvious the thing that Eddie reported might as well have been reported by a night watchman who had looked up through an unplaced sewer pipe it did not correlate the thing was not admitted to monthly notices i think myself that if the editor had attempted to let it in earthquake or a mysterious fire in this publishing house the dominance are jealous gods in nature presumably a vassal of the new god though of course also plausibly rendering homage to the old is reported a comet like body of October 27th 1890 observed at Gramstown by Eddie it may have looked comet like but it moved 100 degrees while visible or 100 degrees in three-quarters of an hour see nature 43 89 90 in nature 44 519 professor Copeland describes a similar appearance that he had seen September 10th 1891 drier says nature 44 541 that he had seen this object at the armog observatory he likens it to the object that was reported by Eddie it was seen by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell September 11th 1891 in Nova Scotia but the old dominant was a jealous god so there were different observations upon something that was seen in November 1883 these observations were philistines in 1883 in the american meteorologic journal 1110 a correspondent reports having seen an object like a comet with two tails one up and one down November 10th or 12th 1883 very likely this phenomenon should be placed in our expression upon torpedo-shaped bodies that have been seen in the sky our data upon dirigibles or super zeppelins but our attempted classifications are far from rigorous or are mere gropes in the scientific american 50 40 a correspondent writes from Humaco, Puerto Rico that November 21st 1883 he and several other persons or persons as it were had seen a majestic appearance like a comet visible three successive nights disappeared then the editor says that he can offer no explanation if accepted this thing must have been close to the earth if it had been a comet it would have been seen widely and the news would have been telegraphed over the world says the editor upon page 97 of this volume of the scientific american a correspondent writes that at sulfur springs Ohio he had seen a wonder in the sky at about the same date it was torpedo shaped or something with a nucleus at each end of which was a tail again the editor says that he can offer no explanation that the object was not a comet he associates it with the atmospheric effects general in 1883 but it will be our expression that in England and Holland a similar object was seen in November 1882 in the scientific american 40 294 is published a letter from Henry Harrison of Jersey City copied from the New York Tribune that upon the evening of April 13 1879 Mr. Harrison was searching for Brorson's Comet when he saw an object that was moving so rapidly that it could not have been a comet he called a friend a look and his observation was confirmed at two o'clock in the morning this object was still visible in the scientific american supplement seven 2008 85 mr. Harrison disclaims sensationalism which he seems to think unworthy and gives technical details he says that the object was seen by mr. j spencer devote of manhattan bill end of chapter 24 recording by acacia wood chapter 25 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 the book of the damned by Charles Forte chapter 25 a formation having the shape of a dirigible it was reported from Huntington West Virginia luminous object that was seen july 19 1916 at about 11 pm observed through quote rather powerful field glasses it looked to be about two degrees long and a half a degree wide it gradually dimmed disappeared reappeared and then faded out of sight another person as we say it would be too inconvenient to hold our intermediatist recognitions another person who observed this phenomenon suggested to the writer of the account that the object was a dirigible but the writer says that faint stars could be seen behind it this would seem really to oppose our notion of a dirigible visitor to this earth except for the inconclusiveness of all things in a mode of seeming that is not final or we suggest that behind some parts of the object theme construction faint stars were seen we find a slight discussion here professor H. M. Russell thinks that the phenomenon was a detached cloud of aurora borealis upon page 369 of this volume of the scientific american another correlator suggests that it was a light from a blast furnace disregarding that if there be blast furnaces in or near Huntington their reflections would be commonplace there we now have several observations upon cylindrical shaped bodies that have appeared in this earth's atmosphere cylindrical but pointed at both ends or torpedo shaped some of the accounts are not very detailed but out of the bits of description my own acceptance is that super geographical routes are traversed by torpedo shaped super constructions that have occasionally visited or that have occasionally been driven into this earth's atmosphere from data the acceptance is that upon entering this earth's atmosphere these vessels have been so wracked that they have not sailed away disintegration would have occurred that before leaving this earth they have whether in attempted communication or not or in mere wantonness or not dropped objects which did almost immediately violently disintegrate or explode upon general principles we think that explosives have not been purposely dropped but that parts have been racked off and have fallen exploding like the things called ball lightning many have been objects of stone or metal with inscriptions upon them for all we know at present in all instances estimates of dimensions are valueless but ratios of dimensions are more acceptable a thing said to have been six feet long may have been six hundred feet long but shape is not so subject to the illusion of distance nature 40 415 that august 5th 1889 during a violent storm an object that looked to be about 15 inches long and five inches wide fell rather slowly at east twickenham england it exploded no substance from it was found the nayscientific 1864 54 that october 10 1864 monsieur lever yay had sent to the academy three letters from witnesses of a long luminous body tapering at both ends that had been seen in the sky in thunder and lightning page 87 flammarian says that on august 20th 1880 during a rather violent storm ma tricul of the french academy saw a very brilliant yellowish white body apparently 35 to 40 centimeters long and about 25 centimeters wide torpedo shaped or a cylindrical body quote with slightly conical ends it dropped something and disappeared in the clouds whatever it may have been that was dropped it fell vertically like a heavy object and left a luminous train the scene of this occurrence may have been far from the observer no sound was heard for imtrakul's account see comptes rendus 103 849 monthly weather review 1907 310 that july 2nd 1907 in the town of burlington vermont a terrific explosion had been heard throughout the city a ball of light or a luminous object had been seen to fall from the sky or from a torpedo shape thing or construction in the sky no one had seen this thing that had exploded fall from a larger body that was in the sky but if we accept that at the same time there was a larger body in the sky my own acceptance is that a dirigible in the sky or a construction that showed every sign of disrupting had barely time to drop whatever it did drop and to speed away to safety above the following story is told in the review by bishop john s michaud quote i was standing on the corner of church and college streets just in front of the howard bank and facing east engaged in conversation with ex-governor woodbury and mr aa buell when without the slightest indication or warning we were startled by what sounded like a most unusual and terrific explosion evidently very nearby raising my eyes and looking eastward along college street i observed a torpedo shaped body some 300 feet away stationary in appearance and suspended in the air about 50 feet above the tops of the buildings in size it was about six feet long by eight inches in diameter the shell or covering having a dark appearance with hearing their tongues of fire issuing from spots on the surface resembling red hot unburnished copper although stationary when first noticed this object soon began to move rather slowly and disappeared over dole and brother's store southward as it moved the covering seemed rupturing in places and through these the intensely red flames issued end quote bishop michaud attempts to correlate it with meteorological observations because of the nearby view this is perhaps the most remarkable of the new correlates but the correlate now coming is extraordinary because of the great number of recorded observations upon it my own acceptance is that upon november 17th 1882 a vast dirigible crossed england but by the definiteness indefiniteness of all things quasi real some observations upon it can be correlated with anything one pleases ew maunder invited by the editors of the observatory to write some reminiscences for the five hundredth number of their magazine gives one that he says stands out it is upon something that he terms quote a strange celestial visitor maunder was at the royal observatory greenwich november 17th 1882 at night there was an aurora without features of special interest in the midst of the aurora a great circular disk of greenish light appeared and moved smoothly across the sky but the circularity was evidently the effect of foreshortening the thing passed above the moon and was by other observers described as cigar shaped like a torpedo a spindle a shuttle the idea of foreshortening is not mine maunder says this he says quote had the incident occurred a third of a century later beyond doubt everyone would have selected the same simile it would have been quote just like a zeppelin end quote the duration was about two minutes color said to have been the same as that of the aurora glow in the north nevertheless maunder says that this thing had no relation to the auroral phenomena quote it appeared to be a definite body end quote motion too fast for a cloud but quote nothing could be more unlike the rush of a meteor end quote in the philosophical magazine five 15 318 j rand capron in a lengthy paper alludes throughout to this phenomenon as in quote auroral beam end quote but he lists many observations upon its quote torpedo shape and one observation upon a quote dark nucleus in it host of most confusing observations estimates of height between 40 and 200 miles observations in holland and belgium we are told that according to capron spectroscopic observations the phenomenon was nothing but a beam of auroral light in the observatory six 192 is maunder's contemporaneous account he gives a parent approximate length and breadth at 27 degrees and three degrees and a half he gives other observations seeming to indicate structure quote remarkable dark marking down the center end quote in nature 2784 capron says that because of the moonlight he had been able to do little with the spectroscope color white but aurora rosy nature 2787 bright stars seen through it but not at the zenith where it looked opaque this is the only ascitation of transparency too slow for a meteor but too fast for a cloud quote surface had a modeled appearance quote very definite in form like a torpedo quote probably a meteoric object dr groenman technical demonstration by dr groenman that it was a cloud of meteoric matter see nature 27315 338 365 388 412 and 434 quote very little doubt it was an electric phenomenon end quote proctor in knowledge to 419 in the london times november 20th 1882 the editor says that he had received a great number of letters upon this phenomenon he publishes two one correspondent described it as quote well-defined and shaped like a fish extraordinary and alarming end quote the other correspondent writes of it as quote a most magnificent luminous mass shaped somewhat like a torpedo end quote end of chapter 25 chapter 26 notes and queries 53306 about eight lights that were seen in wales over an area of about eight miles all keeping their own ground whether moving together perpendicularly horizontally or over a zigzag course they look like electric lights disappearing reappearing dimly then shining as bright as ever quote we have seen them three or four at a time afterward on four or five occasions london times october 5th 1877 quote from time to time the west coast of wales seems to have been the scene of mysterious lights and now we have a statement from toan that within the last few weeks lights of various colors have been seen moving over the estuary of the dasani river and out to sea they are generally in a northerly direction but sometimes they hug the shore and move at high velocity for miles towards abradovi and suddenly disappear end quote lani scientific 1877 45 lights that appeared in the sky above voss france march 23 1877 described as balls of fire of dazzling brightness appeared from a cloud about a degree in diameter moving relatively slowly they were visible more than an hour moving northward it is said that eight or ten years before similar lights or objects had been seen in the sky at voss london times september 19th 1848 that at inverness scotland two large bright lights that looked like stars had been seen in the sky sometimes stationary but occasionally moving at high velocity lani scientific 1888 66 observed near st petersburg july 30th 1880 in the evening a large spherical light and two smaller ones moving along a ravine visible three minutes disappearing without noise nature 35 173 that at elo elo september 30th 1886 was seen a luminous object the size of the full moon it quote floated slowly quote northward followed by smaller ones close to it the false lights of durham every now and then in the english newspapers in the middle of the 19th century there is something about lights that were seen against the sky but as if not far above land oftenest upon the coast of durham they were mistaken for beacons by sailors wreck after wreck occurred the fishermen were accused of displaying false lights and profiting by wreckage the fishermen answered that mostly only old vessels worthless except for insurance were so wrecked in 1866 from the london times popular excitement became intense there was an investigation before a commission headed by admiral collinson testimony was taken one witness described the light that had deceived him as quote considerably elevated above ground no conclusion was reached the lights were called quote the mysterious lights but whatever the quote false lights of durham may have been they were unaffected by the investigation in 1867 the tine pilotage board took the matter up opinion of the mayor of tine a mysterious affair in the report of the british association 1877 152 there is a description of a group of quote meteors that traveled with quote remarkable slowness they were in sight about three minutes remarkable it seems is scarcely strong enough one reads of remarkable as applied to a duration of three seconds these meteors had another peculiarity they left no train they are described as quote seemingly huddled together like a flock of wild geese and moving with the same velocity and grace of regularity end quote journal of the royal astronomical society of canada november and december 1913 that according to many observations collected by professor chant of toronto there appeared upon the night of february 9th 1913 a spectacle that was seen in canada the united states and at sea and in bermuda a luminous body was seen to it there was a long tail the body grew rapidly larger quote observers differ as to whether the body was single or was composed of three or four parts with a tail to each part end quote the group or complex structure moved with quote a peculiar majestic deliberation quote it disappeared in the distance and another group emerged from its place of origin onward they moved at the same deliberate pace in twos or threes or fours end quote they disappeared a third group or a third structure followed some observers compared the spectacle to a fleet of airships others two battleships attended by cruisers and destroyers according to one writer quote there were probably 30 or 32 bodies and the peculiar thing about them was they're moving in fours and threes and twos abreast of one another and so perfect was the lining up that you would have thought it was an aerial fleet maneuvering after rigid drilling end quote nature may 25th 1893 a letter from captain charles j. norcock of hms caroline that upon the 24th of february 1893 at 10 p.m. between shanghai in japan the officer of the watch had reported quote some unusual lights they were between the ship and a mountain the mountain was about 6000 feet high the lights seemed to be globular they moved sometimes massed but sometimes strung out in an irregular line they bore quote northward until lost to site duration two hours the next night the lights were seen again they were for a time eclipsed by a small island they bore north at about the same speed and in about the same direction as speed and direction of the caroline but they were lights that cast a reflection there was a glare upon the horizon under them a telescope brought out but few details that they were reddish and seemed to emit a faint smoke this time the duration was seven and a half hours then captain norcock says that in the same general locality and at about the same time captain castle of hms leander had seen the lights he had altered his course and had made towards them the lights had fled from him at least they had moved higher in the sky monthly weather review march 1904 115 reports from the observations of three members of his crew by lieutenant frank f showfield united states navy of the uss supply february 24th 1904 three luminous objects of different sizes the largest having an apparent area of about six suns when first sighted they were not very high they were below clouds of an estimated height of about one mile they fled or evaded or they turned they went up into the clouds below which they had at first been sighted their unison of movement but they were of different sizes and of different susceptibilities to all forces of this earth and of the air monthly weather review august 1898 358 two letters from c in croatsenberg crow agency montana that in the summer of 1896 when this rider was a railroad postal clerk or one who was experienced in train phenomena while his train was going quote northward from trinton montana he and another clerk saw in the darkness of a heavy rain a light that appeared to be round and of a dull rose color and seemed to be about a foot in diameter it seemed to float within a hundred feet of the earth but soon rose high or quote midway between horizon and zenith the wind was quite strong from the east but the light held a course almost due north its speed varied sometimes it seemed to outrun the train quote considerably at other times it seemed to fall behind the mail clerks watched until the town of linville iowa was reached behind the depot of this town the light disappeared and was not seen again all this time there had been rain but very little lightning but mr croatsenberg offers the explanation that it was quote ball lightning the editor of the review disagrees he thinks that the light may have been a reflection from the rain or fog or from leaves of trees glistening with rain or the train's light but not lights in the december number of the review is a letter from edward in bogs that the light was a reflection perhaps from the glare one light this time from the locomotives firebox upon wet telegraph wires an appearance that might not have been striated by the wires but consolidated into one rotundity that it had seemed to oscillate with the undulations of the wires and had seemed to change horizontal distance with the varying angles of reflection and had seemed to advance or fall behind when the train had rounded curves all of which is typical of the best of quasi reasoning it includes and assimilates diverse data but it excludes that which will destroy it that acceptably the telegraph wires were alongside the track beyond as well as leading to linville mr croatsenberg thinks of quote ball lightning which though a sore bewilderment to most speculation is usually supposed to be a correlate with the old system of thought but his awareness of quote something else is expressed in other parts of his letters when he says that he has something to tell that is quote so strange that i should never have mentioned it even to my friends had it not been corroborated so unreal that i hesitate to speak of it fearing that it was some freak of the imagination end quote end of chapter 26