Wild Talents

by Charles Fort

  There has been no poltergeist case better investigated. I know of no denial of the phenomena by any investigator. One of the witnesses was the Rev. A.L. Gardiner, vicar of St. Gabriel’s, Wood Green, London. “There can be no doubt of the phenomena. I have seen them, myself.” Another witness was Dr. Herbert Lemerle, of Hornsey. Dr. Lemerle told of a clock that mysteriously vanished. Upon the 8th of May, a public meeting was held in Hornsey, to discuss the phenomena.

  In the newspapers there was a tendency to explain it all as mischief by the children of this household.

  The child, Muriel, terrified by the doings, died upon April 1st. The boy, Gordon, frightened into a nervous breakdown, was taken to the Lewisham Hospital.

  The coal in all these cases was coal from British coal mines. The newspapers that told of these explosions told of the bitterness and vengefulness of British coal miners, enraged by hardships and reduced wages, uncommon in even their harsh experiences—

  Or see back—

  There’s a shout of vengefulness, in Hyde Park, London—far away, in Gloucestershire, an ancient mansion bursts into flames.

  16

  But why this everlasting attempt to solve something?—whereas I it is our acceptance that, in a final sense, there is, in phenomenal affairs, nothing—or that there is only the state of something-nothing—so that all problems are only soluble-insoluble—or that most of the social problems we have, today, were at one time conceived of as solutions of preceding problems—or that every Moses leads his people out of Egypt into perhaps a damn sight worse—Promised Lands of watered milk and much-adulterated honey—so why these everlasting attempts to solve something?

  But to take surgical operations upon warders of Sing Sing Prison, and the loss of rectitude by lace curtains, and the vanishing man of Berlin; “Typhoid Mary,” and a Chinese hair-clipper, and explosions of coal, and bodies on benches in a Harlem Park—

  Robert Browning’s conception was to take three sounds, and make, not a fourth, but a star.

  Out of seven colors, not to lay on daubs, but to paint a picture.

  Out of seven million Americans, Russians, Germans, Irishmen, Italians, and on, so long as geography holds out, not to pile a population, but to organize—more or less—into New York City.

  Sulphur and lava in a barren plain, and a salty block of stone, shaped roughly like a woman—signs of erosion on rocks far above water level—a meteor that had set a bush afire—the differences of languages of peoples—and all the other elements that organized into Genesis.

  Data of variations and heredity and adaptations; of multiplications and of checks and of the doctrine of Malthus; of acquired characters and of transmissions—and they organized into The Origin of Species—

  Just as, once upon a time, minerals that had affinity for one another came together and took on geometrical appearances.

  But a crystal is not supposed to be either a prohibition or an anti-prohibition argument. I know of a crystal of quartz that weighs several hundred pounds. But it has not been mistaken for propaganda—

  Or all theories—theological, scientific, philosophical—and that they represent the same organizing process—but that self-conscious theorists, instead of recognizing that thought-forms were appearing in their minds, as in wider existence have appeared crystalline constructions, have believed that it was immortal Truth that they were conceiving.

  Oxygen and sulphur and carbon—

  Or Emma Piggott and Ambrose Small and Rose Smith—

  Or let’s have just a little, minor expression, or organization, a small composition, arranging the data of poltergeist girls. The elements of this synthesis are moving objects, fires, girls in strange surroundings, youth and the atavism of youth.

  Case of Jennie Bramwell—she was an adopted daughter. The Antigonish girl was an adopted daughter. See the Dagg case—adopted daughter. “Adoption” is a good deal of a disguise for getting little girls to work for not much more than nothing. It is not so much that so many poltergeist girls have been housemaids and “adopted daughters,” as that so many of them have been not in their own homes; lost and helpless youngsters, under hard taskmasters, in strange surroundings—

  Or the first uncertain and precarious appearances of human beings upon this earth—and a need for them, and a fostering, a nurturing, a protection, far different from conditions in these swarming times, when the need is for eliminations—

  A lost child in primordial woods—and the value of her, which no genius, king, or leveler of kings, has today—

  That objects moved in her presence—fruits of trees that came down from the trees and set themselves beside her—the shaking of bushes that cast, to her, berries—then night and coldness—faggots, joining twigs, and dancing around her—heaping—the crackling of flames to warm her—

  Or that, to this day, grotesque capers of chairs, the antics of sofas, and the seeming wantonness of flames are survivals of co-operations that once upon a time moved even the trees, when a child was lost in a forest.

  The old mathematicians had this aesthetic appraisal of their thoughts: they wrought theorems and calculi “for elegance,” and were scornful of uses. But virtually everything that they produced “for elegance” was put to work by astronomers, navigators, surveyors. I assemble, compositionally, what I call data: but I am much depressed, perhaps, fearing that they have meaning outside themselves, or may be useful.

  There is, upon this earth, today, at least one artist. Prof. Albert Einstein put together, into what he called one organic whole, such a diversity of elements as electro-magnetic waves and irregularities in the motions of the planet Mercury; the fall of a stone from a train to an embankment, the geometry of hyper-space, and accelerated coordinate systems, and Lorentz transformations, and the displacements of stars during eclipses—

  And the exploitation of everything by something, or, more or less remotely, by everything else—the need of astronomers for Einsteinism, because it was so encouragingly unintelligible, whereas schoolboys were beginning to pick Newtonism to pieces—and in the year 1918 it was announced that the useful Einstein had predicted displacements of stars, according to his theory, and that his predictions had been confirmed.

  For purposes of renewed confirmation—or maybe in innocence of trying to confirm anything, or at least not consciously intending to observe whatever was wanted—an expedition was sent by Lick Observatory to report upon the displacement of stars during the solar eclipse of October, 1922. The astronomers of this expedition agreed that the displacements of stars confirmed Einstein, the Prophet. Einstein was said to be useful, and, in California, school children, dressed in white, sang unto him kindred unintelligibilities. In New York, mounted policemen roughly held back crowds from him, just as he, to make his system of thoughts, had clubbed many astronomical data into insensibility. He had taken into his system of thoughts irregularities of the planet Mercury, but had left out irregularities of the planet Venus. Crowds took him into their holiday-making, but omitted asking what it was all about.

  Upon June 12, 1931, Prof. Erwin Freundlicher reported to the Physics Association of Berlin that according to his observations, during the eclipse of May 9, 1929, stars were not displaced, as, according to Einstein, they should be—or that, outside itself, Einsteinism is meaningless.

  There was no excitement over this tragedy, or comedy, because this earth’s intellectuals, mostly, take notice only when they’re told to take notice; and to orthodoxy it seemed wisest that this earth’s thinkers should not think about this. Prof. Freundlicher’s explained the astronomers of the Lick expedition, quite as I explain all astronomers. He gave his opinion that they had confirmed Einstein because “they had left out of consideration observations that did not fit in with the results that they wanted to obtain.” If there be much more of such agreements with me, I shall have to hunt me some new heresies. For an account of Prof. Freundlicher’s report, see the New York Herald Tribune, June 14, 1931.

  Outside itself Einsteinism has no
meaning.

  As a worthless thing—as an unrelated thing its state is that of which artists have dreamed, in their quest for absoluteness—the dream of “art for art’s sake.”

  Up to Dec. 6, 1931, I thought of Prof. Einstein’s theories as almost alone, or as representing almost sublime worthlessness. But New York Times, Dec. 6, 1931—scientists of the University of California, experimenting upon an admixture of phosphorus in the food of swine, were developing luminous pigs. “Just what they will be good for has not yet been announced.”

  Mine is a dream of being not worth a displaced star to anybody. I protest that with the elements of this book my only motive is compositional—but comes the suspicion that I protest too much.

  There has been a gathering of suggestions—that there are subtler “rays” than anything that is known in radioactivity, and that they may be developed into usefulness. The Ascot Cup and the Dublin jewels—and, if they were switched away by a means of transportation now not commonly known, a common knowledge may be developed to enormous advantage in commercial and recreational and explorative transportations.

  In the period of my writing of this book, Californian scientists were trying to make pigs shine at night. Another scientist, who could not yet announce much usefulness, was feeding skimmed milk to huckleberries. For all I know one of us may revolutionize something or another.

  17

  London Daily Chronicle, March 30, 1922—“It is incredible, but nothing has been heard of Holding.”

  For three weeks a search had been going on—cyclists, police, farmers, people from villages.

  At half-past ten o’clock, morning of the 7th of March, 1922, Flying Officer B. Holding had set out from an aerodrome, near Chester, England, upon what was intended by him to be a short flight in Wales. About eleven o’clock, he was seen near Llangollen, Wales, turning back, heading back toward Chester—

  Holding disappeared far from the sea, and he disappeared over a densely populated land. One of my jobs was that of looking over six London newspapers for the years 1919-1926, and it is improbable that anything was learned of what became of Holding, later, without my knowing of it. I haven’t a datum upon which to speculate, in the Holding mystery: but now I have a story of two men, whose track on land stopped as abruptly as stopped Holding’s track in the sky: and this time I note an additional circumstance. The story of these men is laid in a surrounding of hates of the intensity of oriental fanaticism.

  Upon July 24, 1924, at a time of Arab hostility, Flight Lieutenant W.T. Day and Pilot Officer D.R. Stewart were sent from British headquarters, upon an ordinary reconnaissance over a desert in Mesopotamia. According to schedule, they would not be absent more than several hours. I take this account from the London Sunday Express, Sept. 21, 28, 1924.

  The men did not return, and they were searched for. The plane was soon found, in the desert. Why it should have landed was a problem. “There was some petrol left in the tank. There was nothing wrong with the craft. It was, in fact, flown back to the aerodrome.” But the men were missing. “So far as can be ascertained, they encountered no meteorological conditions that might have forced them to land.” There were no marks to indicate that the plane had been shot at. There may be some way, at present very exclusively known, of picking an aeroplane out of the sky. According to the rest of this story, there may be some such way of picking men out of a desert.

  In the sand, around the plane, were seen the footprints of Day and Stewart. “They were traced, side by side, for some forty yards from the machine. Then, as suddenly as if they had come to the brink of a cliff, the marks ended.”

  The landing of the plane was unaccountable. But, accepting that as a minor mystery, the suggested explanation of the abrupt ending of the footprints was that Day and Stewart had been captured by hostile Bedouins who had brushed away all trails in the sand, starting at the point forty yards from the plane. But hostile Bedouins could not be thought of as keeping on brushing indefinitely, and a search was made for a renewal of traces.

  Aeroplanes, armored cars, and mounted police searched. Rewards were offered. Tribal patrols searched unceasingly for four days. Nowhere beyond the point where the tracks in the sand ended abruptly, were other tracks found. The latest account of which I have record is from the London Sunday News, March 15, 1925—mystery of the missing British airmen still unsolved.

  London Evening News, Sept. 28, 1923—“Second Lieut. Morand, while at shooting practice at Gadaux, France—himself firing at a target on the ground, while a sergeant piloted the machine—suddenly fell back, calling to the pilot to land, as he had been wounded. It was found that he had a serious wound in his shoulder, and he was taken to Bordeaux, by the hospital aeroplane.” It was said that he had been shot. “But no clue has been found, as to the origin of the shot.”

  I especially notice this case, because it was at a time of other “accidents” to French fliers. The other “accidents” were different, in that they did not occur in France, and in that they were not shootings. I know of no case that in all particulars I can match with the disappearance of Day and Stewart: but there are records of airmen who, flying over a land where the sight of them directed hate upon them, were unaccountably picked out of the sky.

  In this summer of 1923, French aviators told of inexplicable mishaps and forced landings, while flying over German territory. The instances were so frequent that there arose a belief that, with “secret rays,” the Germans were practicing upon French aeroplanes. From a general impression of an existence of rationality-irrationality, we can conceive that the Germans were practicing upon French aeroplanes something that they were most particularly endeavoring to keep secret from France—if they had any such powers. But I think that they had not—or that officially they had not. There may have been a hidden experimenter, unknown to the German authorities.

  An article upon this subject was published in the London Daily Mail, Sept. 1, 1923. “Two theories have been put forward. One is that by a concentration of wireless rays the magneto of the aeroplane may be affected; and another is that a new ray, which will melt certain metals, has been discovered. In this connection it is notable that most of the forced landings of the French aeroplanes, when flying from Strasbourg to Prague, have taken place in the vicinity of a German aerodrome, near Furth.” It was said that for some time, at the German wireless station at Nauen, there had been experiments upon directional wireless, with the object of sending out rays, concentrated along a certain path, as the beams of a searchlight are directed. The authorities at Nauen denied that they had knowledge of anything that could have affected the French aeroplanes, in ways reported, or supposed. Automobiles can be stopped, by wireless control, if they be provided with special magnetos: otherwise not. Sir Oliver Lodge was quoted, by the Daily Mail, as saying that he knew of no rays that could stop a motor, unless specially equipped. Professor A.M. Low’s opinion was that someday distant motors may be stopped—“I feel confident that, in fifty or sixty years’ time, such a thing will be possible.” Prof. Low said that he knew of laboratory experiments in which, over a distance of two feet, rays of sufficient power to melt a small coil of wire had been transmitted. But, as to the reported “accidents” in Germany, Prof. Low said: “There is a wide difference between transmitting such a power over a distance of a foot or two, and a distance of one or two thousand yards.”

  In the Daily Mail, April 5, 1924, was an account of invisible rays, which had been discovered by Mr. H. Grindell-Mathews, powerful enough, under laboratory conditions, to stop the engine of a motorcycle at a distance of fifty feet.

  Of course high among virtues are the honorable lies of governments. Whether virtuously said, or accurately reported, I don’t know: but it is said, or reported, that, in the year 1929, the British Government spent $500,000 investigating alleged long-distance “death-rays,” and developed nothing that was effective. It is said, or reported, that the Italian navy gave opportunity to an inventor to demonstrate what he could do with “death-rays,”
but that his demonstrations came to nothing. We have no data for thinking that, in the year 1929, any government was in possession of a secret of long-distance “death-rays.” The forced landings of French aeroplanes, in the summer of 1923, remain unexplained.

  There may be powerful rays that are not electromagnetic. French aviators may have been brought to earth by no power that is called “physical”—though I know of no real demarcation between what is called physical and what is called mental. See back to the series of “mysterious attacks,” in England, in April and May, 1927. Three times, as if acted upon by an unknown influence, automobiles behaved unaccountably.

  Our data are upon “accidents” that have not been satisfactorily explained. There have been occurrences that were similar to effects that inventors are, by mechanical means, striving for, in the cause of military efficiencies. And these experimenters are practical persons. It may be that we are on the track of a subtler slaughter. It looks as if a lonely possessor of a secret, such as is called “occult,” operated wantonly, or in the malicious exercise of a power, upon automobiles, in England, in the months of April and May, 1927. He was a criminal. But I am a practical thinker, and a useful citizen, on the track of much efficiency, which will be at the disposal of God’s second choice of people—which I think we must be, judging by the afflictions that are upon us, at this time of writing—a power that would, by this great nation, be used only righteously, if anybody could ever distinguish between righteousness and exploitation and tyranny. One of the engaging paradoxes of our existence— which strip mathematics of meaning—is that a million times a crime is patriotism. I am unable to conceive that a power to pick planes out of the sky would be so terrible as to stop war, because up comes the notion that counter-operations would pick the pickers. If we could have new abominations, so unmistakably abominable as to hush the lubricators, who plan murder to stop slaughter—but that is only dreamery, here in our existence of the hyphen, which is the symbol of hypocrisy.