The Book of the Damned

_Scientific American_, 46-49:

Two triangular, luminous appearances reported by several observers in Lebanon, Conn., evening of July 3, 1882, on the moon's upper limb. They disappeared, and two dark triangular appearances that looked 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, R.A.S._, 37-432). But these appearances of July 3, 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_, 41-599:

Description of a shadow in the sky, of some unseen body, April 8, 1913, Fort Worth, Texas--supposed to have been cast by an unseen cloud--this patch of shade moved with the declining sun.

_Rept. Brit. a.s.soc._, 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. Whatever 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 inter-planetary s.p.a.ce, 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 fifty 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--explorers 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 preposterousnesses of the old system must have seemed to the correlates of the system preceding it.

Ye jet-black silvery moon.

Altogether, 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 1, 1867:

That every night for a week, a light had appeared in Woburn Square, London, upon the gra.s.s 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. Symons 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'd 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 n.o.body'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.

21

_Knowledge_, Dec. 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's steamer _Patna_, while on a voyage up the Persian Gulf. In May, 1880, on a dark night, about 11:30 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 200 or 300 yards long, and resembled the birch rods of the dames' schools. Each wheel contained about sixteen spokes, and, although the wheels must have been some 500 or 600 yards in diameter, the spokes could be distinctly seen all the way round. The phosph.o.r.escent 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 that the phenomenon was also seen by Captain Avern, of the _Patna_, and Mr.

Manning, third officer.

"Lee Fore Brace.

"P.S.--The wheels advanced along with the ship for about twenty minutes.--L.F.B."

_Knowledge_, Jan. 11, 1884:

Letter from "A. Mc. D.":

That "Lee Fore 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 prophet's." The writer then takes up the measurements that were given, and calculates a velocity at the circ.u.mference of a wheel, of about 166 yards per second, apparently considering that especially incredible. He then says: "From the nom de plume he a.s.sumes, 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 11:30 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_, Jan. 25, 1884, Mr. "Brace" answers and signs himself "J.W. Robertson":

"I don't suppose A. Mc. D. 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. Mc. D'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 spokes that 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--

Super-constructions adapted to a dense medium in inter-planetary s.p.a.ce--sometimes, by stresses of various kinds, they are 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--

Vast wheel-like super-constructions--they enter this earth's atmosphere, and, threatened with disintegration, plunge for relief into an ocean, or into a denser medium.

Of course the requirements now facing us are:

Not only data of vast wheel-like super-constructions 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 fieriness, 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 att.i.tude throughout this book: