Wild Talents

by Charles Fort

  There can be no science, or pretended science, except upon the basis of ideal certainty. Anything else is to some degree guesswork. As a guesser, I’ll not admit my inferiority to any scientist, imbecile, or rabbit. The position today of what is said to be the science of physics is so desperate, and so confused, that its exponents are trying to incorporate into one system both former principles and the denial of them. Even in the anæmia and frazzle of religion, today, there is no worse state of desperation, or decomposition. The attempt to take the principle of uncertainty—or the principle of unprincipledness—into science is about the same as would be an attempt by theologians to preach the word of God, and also include atheism in their doctrines.

  As an Intermediatist, I find the principle of uncertainty unsatisfactorily expressed. My own expressions are upon the principled-unprincipled rule-misrule of our pseudo-existence by certainty-uncertainty—

  Or, whereas it seems unquestionable that no man has ever been transformed into a hyena, we can be no more than sure-unsure about this.

  About the first of January, 1849, somebody, employed in a Paris cemetery, came upon parts of a human body, strewn on the walks. Up in the leafless trees dangled parts of a body. He came to a new-made grave, from which, during the night, had been dug the corpse of a woman. This corpse had been torn to pieces, which, in a frenzy, had been scattered. For details, see Galignani’s Messenger (Paris) March 10, 23, 24, 1849.

  Several nights later, in another Paris cemetery, there was a similar occurrence.

  The cemeteries of Paris were guarded by men and dogs, but the ghoul eluded them, and dug up bodies of women. Upon the night of March 8th, guards outside the cemetery of St. Parnasse saw somebody, or something, climbing a wall of the cemetery. Face of a wolf, or a clothed hyena—they could give no description. They fired at it, but it escaped.

  Near a new-made grave, at St. Parnasse, they set a spring-gun. It was loaded with nails and bits of iron, for the sake of scattering. One morning, later in March, it was found that, during the night, this gun had discharged. Part of a soldier’s uniform that had been shot away was found.

  A gravedigger heard of a soldier, who had been taken to a Paris hospital, where he had told that he had been shot by an unknown assailant. It was said that he had been wounded by a discharge of nails and bits of iron.

  The soldier’s name was Francis Bertrand. The suspicion against him was considered preposterous. He was a young man of twenty-five, who had advanced himself to the position of Sergeant-Major of Infantry. “He bore a good name, and was accounted a man of gentle disposition, and an excellent soldier.”

  But his uniform was examined, and the fragment of cloth that had been found in the cemetery fitted into a gap in the sleeve of it.

  The crime of the ghoul was unknown, or was unrecognized in French law. Bertrand was found guilty, and was sentenced to imprisonment for one year, the maximum penalty for the only charge that could be brought against him. Virtually he could explain nothing, except that he had surrendered to an “irresistible impulse.” But there is one detail of his account of himself that I especially notice. It is that, after each desecration, there came to him another irresistible impulse.” That was to make for shelter—a hut, a trench in a field, anywhere—and there lie in a trance, then rising from the ghoul into the soldier.

  I have picked up another item. It is from the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, June 27, 1874—“Bertrand the Ghoul is still alive: he is cured of his hideous disease, and is cited as a model of gentleness and propriety.”

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  Damn the particle, but there is salvation for the aggregate.

  A gust of wind is wild and free, but there are handcuffs on the storm. During the World War, no course of a single bullet could have been predicted absolutely, but any competent mathematician could have written the equations of the conflict as a whole.

  This is the attempt by the theologians of science to admit the Uncertainty Principle, and to cancel it. Similarly reason the scientists of theology:

  The single records of the Bible may not be altogether accurate, but the good, old book, as a whole, is Immortal Truth. Says Dr. C.G. Darwin, in New Conceptions of Matter: “We cannot say exactly what will happen to a single electron, but we can confidently estimate the probabilities. If an experiment is carried out, with a thousand electrons, what was a probability for one, becomes nearly a certainty. Physical theory confidently predicts that the millions of millions of electrons in our bodies will behave even more regularly, and that to find a case of noticeable departure from the average, we should have to wait for a time quite fantastically longer than the estimated age of the universe.”

  This reasoning is based upon the scientific delusion that there are final bodies, or wholes.

  Arthur B. Mitchell, of 472 McAllister Avenue, Utica, N.Y., goes out for the evening. It can’t be said exactly what will happen to a single cell of Mr. Mitchell’s composition, but every wink of an eye, or scratch of an ear, of this body, as a whole, can be foretold.

  But now we have a change of view, as to this body that had been regarded as a whole. Now Mr. Mitchell is regarded as one of many units in this community known as Utica. Now the admission is that Mr. Mitchell’s conduct may be slightly irregular, but the contention is that the politics of Utica, as a whole, is never a surprise.

  But surprising things, in Utica, are reported. Well, Utica is only one of the many communities that make up the State of New York. But the State of New York—

  My own expression is that ours is an intermediate existence, poised, or fluctuating back and forth between two unrealizable extremes that may be called positiveness and negativeness; a hyphenated state of goodness-badness, coldness-heat, equilibrium-inequilibrium, certainty-uncertainty. I conceive of our existence as an organism in which positivizing and negativizing manifestations, or conflicts, are metabolic. Certainty, or regularity, exists to a high degree, in the movements of the planets, but not absolutely, because of small, unformulable digressions: and negativeness exists to a high degree, in the freaks of a cyclone, though not absolutely, because a still more frenzied state of eccentricity can always be thought of.

  My expression is that there are things, beings, and events that conform strikingly to regularized generalizations, but that also there are outrageous, silly, fiendish, bizarre, idiotic, monstrous things, beings, and events that illustrate just as strikingly universal imbecility, crime, or unformulability, or fantasy.

  In the London newspapers, last of March, 1908, was told a story, which, when starting off, was called “what the coroner for South Northumberland described as the most extraordinary case that he had ever investigated.” The story was of a woman at Whitley Bay near Blyth, England, who, according to her statement, had found her sister, burned to death on an unscorched bed. This was the equivalence of the old stories of “spontaneous combustion of human bodies.” It was said that the coroner was at first puzzled by this story; but that he learned that the woman who told it had been intoxicated, and soon compelled her to admit that she had found her sister, suffering from burns, in another part of the house, and had carried her to her bedroom.

  But, in my experience with Taboo, I have so many notes upon coroners, who have seen to it that testimony was what it should be; and so many records of fires that, according to all that is supposed to be known of chemical affinity, should not have been, that, between what should and what shouldn’t, I am so confused that all that I can say about a story of a woman who burned to death on an unscorched bed is that it is possible-impossible.

  Looking over data, I note a case that has no bearing on the story of the burning woman on the unscorched bed, but that is a story of strange fires, or of fires that would be strange, if stories of similar fires were not so common. It is a case that interests me, because it aligns with the stories of Emma Piggott and John Doughty. There was an occurrence, and it was followed by something else that seems related: but, in terms of common knowledge, it cannot be maintained th
at between the first occurrence and the following occurrences there was relationship. Most of the story was told in the London Times, Aug. 21, 1856: but, whenever it is possible for me to do so, I go to local newspapers for what I call data. I take from various issues of the Bedford Times and the Bedford Mercury.

  Upon the 12th of August, 1856, a resident of Bedford named Moulton, was absent from home. He was upon a business trip to Ireland. At home were Mrs. Moulton and the housemaid, Anne Fennimore. To fumigate the house, the girl burned sulphur, in an earthenware jar, on the floor. The burning sulphur ran out on the floor, and set the house afire. This fire was put out.

  About an hour later, a mattress was found burning, in another room. But the fire from the sulphur had not extended beyond one room, and this mattress was in another part of the house. Smoke was seen, coming from a chest. Later, smoke was seen coming from a closet, and in it linen was found burning. Other isolated fires broke out. Moulton was sent for, and returned, upon the evening of the 16th. He took off damp clothes, and threw them on the floor. Next morning these clothes were found afire. Then came a succession of about forty fires, in curtains, in closets, and in bureau drawers. Neighbors and policemen came in, and were soon fearful for their safety. Not only objects around them flamed: so flamed their handkerchiefs.

  There were so many witnesses, and so much talk in the town, that there was an investigation. Considering that nobody was harmed, it seems queer to read that the investigation was a coroner’s inquest: but the coroner was the official who took up the investigation. Witnesses told of such occurrences as picking up a pillow and setting it down—pillow flaming. There was an attempt to explain, in commonplace terms: but nothing that could suggest arson was found, and Moulton had insured neither the house nor the furniture. The outstanding puzzlement was that an ordinary fire seemed to be in some way related to the fires that followed it, but in no way that could be defined. The verdict of the jury was that the fire from the burning sulphur was accidental, but that there was no evidence to show what had caused the succeeding fires.

  This story attracted attention in London. After the first account, in the Times, there was considerable correspondence. At the inquest, two physicians had given their opinion that the sulphur fire must have been the cause of the other fires—or that inflammable, sulphurous fumes had probably spread throughout Moulton’s house. But the jury had refused to accept this explanation, because of testimony that chairs and sofas that had been carried out into the yard, had flamed. The fires were in a period of five days, and it is probable that in that length of time any permeation by fumes would have been detected. In the discussion in the Times it was pointed out that sulphurous fumes are oxides and are not inflammable.

  However, I come to another fire, and maybe I’ll explain this one.

  It was upon the night of Jan. 21, 1909. Upon this night, a small-town woman exasperated a New York hotel clerk. Perhaps I explain her unusual behavior by thinking that, having come from a small town, she started picturing the dangers of the big city, and let her imaginings become an obsession. The woman was Mrs. Mary Wells Jennings of Brewster, N.Y. Place—the Greek Hotel, 30 E. 42nd Street. See the Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 22, 1909. Mrs. Jennings asked the night clerk to change her room, saying that she feared fire. The clerk assigned her to another room. Not long afterward—wouldn’t he let her have another room? So another room. Again she annoyed the clerk. Room changed again. A few hours later, in an unoccupied room, where, during alterations, paints were stored, a fire broke out.

  St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dec. 16, 1889—“In some mysterious way, a fire started in the mahogany desk in the center of the office of the Secretary of War, at Washington, D.C. Several official papers were destroyed, but it was said that they were of no especial value, and could be replaced. Secretary Proctor cannot understand how the fire originated, as he does not smoke, and keeps no matches about his desk.”

  It may be that there have been other cases, in which, “in some mysterious way” have been destroyed papers that were of no especial value, and could be replaced. Upon Sept. 16, 1920, London newspapers told of three fires that had broken out simultaneously in different departments of the government office in Tothill Street, Westminster, London. It was not said that papers of no especial value had been destroyed, but it was said that these simultaneous fires had not been explained. London Sunday Express, May 2, 1920—“Upon the night of April 28, fire of mysterious origin broke out at the War Office, Constantinople, where the archives are stored. The iron doors were locked, and it was impossible to gain entrance to the building until afternoon. Many important documents were destroyed.”

  The body of a girl—and the body of a crow—and a newspaper correspondent’s vague feeling of an unknown relationship—

  A woman who was away from home—

  Upon the night of April 6, 1919—see the Dartford (Kent) Chronicle, April 7—Mr. J. Temple Thurston was alone in his home, Hawley Manor near Dartford. His wife was abroad. Particulars of the absence of his wife or of anything leading to the absence of his wife, are missing. Something had broken up this home. The servants had been dismissed. Thurston was alone.

  At 2:40, morning of April 7th, the firemen were called to Hawley Manor. Outside Thurston’s room, the house was blazing: but in his room there was no fire. Thurston was dead. His body was scorched: but upon his clothes there was no trace of fire.

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  From the story of J. Temple Thurston, I pick up that this man, with his clothes on, was so scorched as to bring on death by heart failure, by a fire that did not affect his clothes. This body was fully clothed, when found about three o’clock in the morning. Thurston had not been sitting up, drinking. There was no suggestion that he had been reading. It was commented upon, at the inquest, as queer, that he should have been up and fully clothed about three o’clock in the morning. The verdict, at the inquest, was of death from heart failure due to inhaling smoke. The scorches were large red patches on the thighs and lower parts of the legs. It was much as if, bound to a stake, the man had stood in a fire that had not mounted high.

  In this burning house, nothing was afire in Thurston’s room. Nothing was found—such as charred fragments of nightclothes—to suggest that, about three o’clock, Thurston, awakened by a fire elsewhere in the house, had gone from his room, and had been burned, and had returned to his room, where he had dressed, but had then been overcome.

  It may be that he had died hours before the house was afire.

  It has seemed to me most fitting to regard all accounts in this book, as “stories.” There has been a permeation of the fantastic, or whatever we think we mean by “untrueness.” Our stories have not been realistic. And there is something about the story of J. Temple Thurston that, to me, gives it the look of a revised story. It is as if, in an imagined scene, an author had killed off a character by burning, and then, thinking it over, as some writers do, had noted inconsistencies, such as a burned body, and no mention of a fire anywhere in the house—so then, as an afterthought, the fire in the house—but, still, such an amateurish negligence in the authorship of this story, that the fire was not explained.

  To the firemen, this fire in the house was as unaccountable as, to the coroner was the burned body in the unscorched clothes. When the firemen broke into Hawley Manor, they found the fire raging outside Thurston’s room. It was near no fireplace; near no electric wires that might have crossed. There was no odor of paraffin, nor was there anything else suggestive of arson, or of ordinary arson. There had been no robbery. In Thurston’s pockets were money and his watch. The fire, of unknown origin, seemed directed upon Thurston’s room, as if to destroy, clothes and all, this burned body in the unscorched clothes. Outside, the door of this room was blazing, when the firemen arrived.

  We have had other stories of unaccountable injuries. According to them, men and women have been stabbed, but have not known until later that they were wounded. There was no evidence to indicate that Thurston knew of his scorched condition
, tried to escape, or called for help.

  There are stories of persons who have been found dead, with bullet wounds, under clothing that showed no sign of the passage of bullets. The police explanation has been of persons who were killed, while undressed, and were then dressed by the murderers. New York Times, July 1, 1872—mysterious murder, at Bridgeport, Conn., of Capt. Colvocoresses—shot through the heart—clothes not perforated. Brooklyn Eagle, July 8, 1891—Carl Gros found dead, near Maspeth, L.I.—no marks in the clothes to correspond with wounds in the body. Man found dead in Paris, Feb. 14, 1912—bullet wound—no sign of bullet passing through clothes.

  I have come upon so many stories of showers of stones that have entered closed rooms, leaving no sign of entrance in either ceilings or walls, that I have not much sense of strangeness in the idea that bullets, or a knife, could pierce a body, under uncut clothes. There are stories of bullets that have entered closed rooms, without disturbing the materials of walls or ceilings.