New Lands

by Charles Fort

  They fell again from the sky, two years later. In La Science Pour Tons, June 19, 1860, it is said that, according to the Wolverhampton Advertiser, a great number of little black stones had fallen, in a violent storm, at Wolverhampton. According to all records findable by me no such stones have ever fallen anywhere in Great Britain, except at Birmingham and Wolverhampton, which is thirteen miles from Birmingham.

  Eight years after the second occurrence, they fell again. English Mechanic, July 31, 1868—that stones “similar to, if not identical with the well-known Rowley ragstones” had fallen in Birmingham, having probably been carried from Rowley, in a whirlwind.

  We were pleased with Dr. Phipson’s story, but to tell of more of the little dark companions rising in a whirlwind and going unerringly from Rowley to rejoin the exiles in Birmingham is overdoing. That’s not sentiment: that’s mawkishness.

  In the Birmingham Daily Post, May 30, 1868, is published a letter from Thomas Plant, a writer and lecturer upon meteorological subjects. Mr. Plant says, I think, that for one hour, morning of May 29, 1868, stones fell, in Birmingham, from the sky. His words may be interpretable in some other way, but it does not matter: the repeating falls are indication enough of what we’re trying to find out—“From nine to ten, meteoric stones fell in immense quantities in various parts of town.” “They resembled, in shape, broken pieces of Rowley ragstone . . . in every respect they were like the stones that fell in 1858.” In the Post, June 1, Mr. Plant says that the stones of 1858 did fall from the sky, and were not fragments washed out of the pavement by rain, because many pounds of them had been gathered from a platform that was twenty feet above the ground.

  It may be that for days before and after May 29, 1868, occasional stones fell from some unknown region stationary above Birmingham. In the Post, June 2, a correspondent writes that, upon the first of June, his niece, while walking in a field, was struck by a stone that injured her hand severely. He thinks that the stone had been thrown by some unknown person. In the Post, June 4, someone else writes that his wife, while walking down a lane, upon May 24th, had been cut on the head by a stone. He attributes this injury to stone-throwing by boys, but does not say that anyone had been seen to throw the stone.

  Symons’ Met. Mag., 4-137:

  That, according to the Birmingham Gazette, a great number of small, black stones had been found in the streets of Wolverhampton, May 25, 1869, after a severe storm. It is said that the stones were precisely like those that had fallen in Birmingham, the year before, and resembled Rowley ragstone outwardly, but had a different appearance when broken.

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  Upon page 287, Popular Astronomy, Newcomb says that it is beyond all “moral probability” that unknown worlds should exist in such numbers as have been reported, and should be seen crossing the solar disc only by amateur observers and not by skilled astronomers.

  Most of our instances are reports by some of the best-known astronomers.

  Newcomb says that for fifty years, prior to his time of writing (edition of 1878) the sun had been studied by such men as Schwabe, Carrington, Secchi, and Spörer, and that they had never seen unknown bodies cross the sun—

  Aug. 30, 1863—an unknown body that was seen by Spörer to cross the sun (Webb, Celestial Objects, p. 45).

  Sept. 1, 1859—two star-like objects that were seen by Carrington to cross the sun (Monthly Notices, 20-13, 20-13, 15, 88).

  Things that crossed the sun, July 31, 1826, and May 26, 1828—see Comptes Rendus, 83-623, and Webb’s Celestial Objects, p. 40. From Sept. 6 to Nov. 1, 1831, an unknown luminous object was seen every cloudless night, at Geneva, by Dr. Wartmann and his assistants (Comptes Rendus, 2-307). It was reported from nowhere else. What all the other astronomers were doing, September-October, 1831, is one of the mysteries that we shall not solve. An unknown, luminous object that was seen, from May 11 to May 14, 1835, by Cacciatore, the Sicilian astronomer (Amer. Jour. Sci., 31-158). Two unknowns that, according to Pastorff, crossed the sun, Nov. 1, 1836, and Feb. 16, 1837 (An. Sci. Disc., 1860-410)—De Vico’s unknown, July 12, 1837 (Observatory, 2-424)—observation by De Cuppis, Oct. 2, 1839 (C.R., 83-314)—by Scott and Wray, last of June, 1847; by Schmidt, Oct. 11, 1847 (C.R., 83-623)—two dark bodies that were seen, Feb. 5, 1849, by Brown, of Deal (Rec. Sci., 1-138)—object watched by Sidebotham, half an hour, March 12, 1849, crossing the sun (C.R., 83-622)—Schmidt’s unknown, Oct. 14, 1849 (Observatory, 3-137)—and an object that was watched, four nights in October, 1850, by James Ferguson, of the Washington Observatory. Mr. Hind believed this object to be a Trans-Neptunian planet, and calculated for it a period of 1,600 years. Mr. Hind was a great astronomer, and he miscalculated magnificently: this floating island of space was not seen again (Smithson. Miscell. Cols., 20-20).

  About May 30, 1853—a black point that was seen against the sun, by Jaennicke (Cosmos, 20-64).

  A procession—in the Rept. B.A., 1855-94, R.P. Greg says that, upon May 22, 1854, a friend of his saw, near Mercury, an object equal in size to the planet itself, and behind it an elongated object, and behind that something else, smaller and round.

  June 11, 1855—a dark body of such size that it was seen, without telescopes, by Ritter and Schmidt, crossing the sun (Observatory, 3-137). Sept. 12, 1857—Ohrt’s unknown world; seemed to be about the size of Mercury (C.R., 83-623)—Aug. 1, 1858—unknown world reported by Wilson, of Manchester (Astro. Reg., 9-287).

  I am not listing all the unknowns of a period; perhaps the object reported by John H. Tice, of St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 15, 1859, should not be included; Mr. Tice was said not to be trustworthy—but who has any way of knowing? However, I am listing enough of these observations to make me feel like a translated European of some centuries ago, relatively to a wider existence—lands that may be the San Salvadors, Greenlands, Madagascars, Cubas, Australias of extra-geography, all of them said to have crossed the sun, whereas the sun may have moved behind some of them—

  Jan. 29, 1860—unknown object, of planetary size, reported from London, by Russell and three other observers (Nature, 15-505). Summer of 1860—see Sci. Amer., 35-340, for an account, by Richard Covington, of an object that, without a telescope, he saw crossing the sun. An unknown world, reported by Loomis, of Manchester, March 20, 1862 (Monthly Notices, 22-232)—a newspaper account of an object that was seen crossing the sun, Feb. 12, 1864, by Samuel Beswick, of New York (Astro. Reg., 2-161)—unknown that was seen, March 18, 1865, at Constantinople (L’Ann. Sci., 1865-16)—unknown “cosmetic objects” that were seen, Nov. 4, 9, and 18, 1865 (Monthly Notices, 26-242).

  Most of these unknowns were seen in the daytime. Several reflections arise. How could there be stationary regions over Irkutsk, Comrie, and Birmingham, and never obscure the stars—or never be seen to obscure the stars? A heresy that seems too radical for me is that they may be beyond the nearby stars. A more reasonable idea is that if nightwatchmen and policemen and other persons who do stay awake nights, should be given telescopes, something might be found out. Something else that one thinks of is that, if so many unknowns have been seen crossing the sun, or crossed by the sun, others not so revealed must exist in great numbers, and that instead of being virtually blank, space must be archipelagic.

  Something that was seen at night; observer not an astronomer—

  Nov. 6, 1866—an account, in the London Times, Jan. 2, 1867, by Senor De Fonblanque, of the British Consulate, at Cartagena, U.S. Colombia, of a luminous object that moved in the sky. “It was of the magnitude, color, and brilliance of a ship’s red light, as seen at a distance of 200 yards.” The object was visible three minutes, and then disappeared behind buildings. De Fonblanque went to an open space to look for it, but did not see it again.

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  If we could stop to sing, instead of everlastingly noting vol. this and p. that, we could have the material of sagas—of the bathers in the sun, which may be neither intolerably hot nor too uncomfortably cold; and of the hermit who floats across the moon; of heroes and the hairy monsters of the
sky. I should stand in public places and sing our data—sagas of parades and explorations and massacres in the sky—having a busy band of accompanists, who set off fireworks, and send up balloons, and fire off explosives at regular intervals—extrageographic songs of boiling lakes and floating islands—extra-sociologic meters that express the tramp of space-armies upon interplanetary paths covered with little black pebbles—biologic epics of the clouds of mammoths and horses and antelopes that once upon a time fell from the sky upon the northern coast of Siberia—

  Song that interprets the perpendicular white streaks in the repeating mirages at Youghal—the rhythmic walruses of space that hang on by their tusks to the edges of space islands, sometimes making stars variable as they swing in cosmic undulations—so a round space island with its border of gleaming tusks, and we frighten children with the song of an ogre’s head, with a wide-open mouth all around it—fairylands of the little moon, and the tiny civilizations in rocky cups that are sometimes drained to their slums by the wide-mouthed ogres. The Maelstrom of Everlasting Catastrophe that overhangs Genoa, Italy—and twines its currents around a living island. The ground underneath quakes with the struggle—then the fall of blood—and the fall of blood—three days the fall of blood from the broken red brooks of a living island whose mutilations are scenery—

  But after all, it may be better that we go back to Rept. B.A.—see vol. 1849, p. 46—a stream of black objects, crossing the sun, watched, at Naples, May 11, 1845, by Capecci and other astronomers—things that may have been seeds.

  A great number of red points in the sky of Urrugne, July 9, 1853 (An. Soc. Met. de France, 1853-227). Astro. Reg., 5-179—C.L. Prince, of Uckfield, writes that, upon June n, 1867, he saw objects crossing the field of his telescope. They were seeds, in his opinion.

  Birmingham Daily Post, May 31, 1867:

  Mr. Bird, the astronomer, writes that, about 11 a.m., May 30, he saw unknown forms in the sky. In his telescope, which was focused upon them and upon the planet Venus, they appeared to be twice the size of Venus. They were far away, according to focus; also, it may be accepted that they were far away because an occasional cloud passed between them and this earth. They did not move like objects carried in the wind: all did not move in the same direction, and they moved at different speeds.

  “All of them seemed to have hairy appendages, and in many cases a distinct tail followed the object and was highly luminous.”

  Flashes that have been seen in the sky—and they’re from a living island that wags his luminous peninsula. Hair-like substances that have fallen to this earth—a meadow has been shorn from a monster’s mane. My animation is the notion that it is better to think in tentative hysteria of pairs of vast things, traveling like a North and South America through the sky, perhaps one biting the other with its Gulf of Mexico, than to go on thinking that all things that so move in the sky are seeds, whereas all things that swim in the sea are not sardines.

  In the Post, June 3, 1867, Mr. W.H. Wood writes that the objects were probably seeds. Post, June 5—Mr. Bird says that the objects were not seeds. “My intention was simply to describe what was seen, and the appearance was certainly that of meteors.” He saves himself, in the annals of extra-geography—“whether they were meteors of the ordinary acceptation, is another matter.”

  And the planet Venus, and her veil that is dotted with blue-fringed cupids—in the Astronomical Register, 7-138, a correspondent writes, from Northampton, that, upon May 2, 1869, he was looking at Venus, and saw a host of shining objects, not uniform in size. He thinks that it is unlikely that so early in the spring could these objects be seeds. He watched them about an hour and twenty minutes—“many of the larger ones were fringed on one side, the fringe appearing somewhat bluish.” Or that it is better even to sentimentalize than to go on stupidly thinking that all such things in the sky are seeds, whereas all things in the sea are not the economically adjusting little forms without which critics of underground traffic in New York probably could not express themselves—the planet Venus—she approaches this lordly earth—the blue-fringed ecstasies that suffuse her skies.

  With the phenomena of Aug. 7, 1869, I suspect that the “phantom soldiers” that have been seen in the sky, may have been reflections from, or mirages of, things or beings that march, in military formations, in space. In Popular Astronomy, 3-159, Prof. Swift writes that, at Mattoon, Ill., during the eclipse of the sun, of Aug. 7, 1869, he had seen, crossing the moon, objects that he thought were seeds. If they were seeds, also there happened to be seeds in the sky of Ottumwa, Iowa: here, crossing the visible part of the sun, twenty minutes before totality of the eclipse, Prof. Himes and Prof. Zentmayer saw objects that marched, or that moved, in straight, parallel lines (Les Mondes, 21-241). In the Jour. Frank. Inst., 3-58-214, it is said that some of these objects moved in one direction across the moon, and that others moved in another direction across another part of the moon, each division moving in parallel lines. If these things were seeds, also there happened to be seeds in the sky, at Shelleyville, Kentucky. Here were seen, by Prof. Winlock, Alvan Clark, Jr., and George W. Dean, things that moved across the moon, during the eclipse, in parallel, straight lines (Pop. Astro., 2-332).

  Whatever these things may have been, I offer another datum indicating that the moon is nearby: that these objects probably were not, by coincidence, things in three widely separated skies, parallelness giving them identity in two of the observations; and, if seen, without parallax, from places so far apart, against the moon, were close to the moon; that observation of such detail would be unlikely if they were near a satellite 240,000 miles away—unless, of course, they were mountain-sized.

  It may be that out from two floating islands of space, two processions had marched across the moon. Observatory, 3-137—that, at St. Paul’s Junction, Iowa, four persons had seen, without telescopes, a shining object close to the sun and moon, apparently; that, with a telescope, another person had seen another large object, crescentically illumined, farther from the sun and moon in eclipse. See Nature, 18-663, and Astro. Reg., 7-227.

  I have many data upon the fall of organic matter from the sky. Because of my familiarity with many records, it seems no more incredible that up in the seemingly unoccupied sky there should be hosts of living things than that the seeming blank of the ocean should swarm with life. I have many notes upon a phosphorescence, or electric condition of things that fall from the sky, for instance the highly luminous stones of Dhurmsulla, which were intensely cold—

  Amer. Jour. Sci., 2-28-270:

  It is said that, according to investigations by Prof. Shepard, a luminous substance was seen falling slowly, by Sparkman R. Scriven, a young man of seventeen, at his home, in Charleston, S.C, Nov. 16, 1857. It is said that the young man saw a fiery, red ball, the size and shape of an orange, strike a fence, breaking, and disappearing. Where this object had struck the fence, was found “a small bristling mass of black fibers.” According to Prof. Shepard, it was “a confused aggregate of short clippings of the finest black hair, varying in length from one tenth to one third of an inch.” Prof. Shepard says that this substance was not organic. It seems to me that he said this only because of the coercions of his era. My reason for so thinking is that he wrote that when he analyzed these hairs they burned away, leaving grayish skeletons, and that they were “composed in part of carbon,” and burned with an odor “most nearly bituminous.”

  For full details of the following circumstances, see Comptes Rendus, 13-215, and Rept. B.A., 1854-302:

  Feb. 17, 1841—the fall, at Genoa, Italy, of a red substance from the sky—another fall upon the 18th—a slight quake, at 5 p.m., February 18th—another quake, six hours later—fall of more of the red substance, upon the 19th. Some of this substance was collected and analyzed by M. Canobbia, of Genoa. He says it was oily and red.

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  In a pamphlet entitled Wonderful Phenomena, by Curtis Eli, is the report of an occurrence, or of an alleged occurrence, that was investigated by Mr.
Addison A. Sawin, a spiritualist. He interpreted in the only way that I know of, and that is the psychochemic process of combining new data with preconceptions with which they seem to have affinity. It is said that, at Warwick, C.W., Oct. 3, 1843, somebody named Charles Cooper heard a rumbling sound in the sky, and saw a cloud, under which were three human forms, “perfectly white,” sailing through the air above him, not higher than the treetops. It is said that the beings were angels. They were male angels. That is orthodox. The angels wafted through the air, but without motions of their own, and an interesting observation is that they seemed to have belts around their bodies—as if they had been let down from a vessel above, though this poor notion is not suggested in the pamphlet. They “moaned.” Cooper called to some men who were laboring in another field, and they saw the cloud, but did not see the forms of living beings under it. It is said that a boy had seen the beings in the air, “side by side, making a loud and mournful noise.” Another person, who lived six miles away, is quoted: “he saw the clouds and the persons and heard the sounds.” Mr. Sawin quotes others, who had seen “a remarkable cloud,” and had heard the sounds, but had not seen the angels. He ends up: “Yours is the glorious hope of the resurrection of the soul.” The gloriousness of it is an inverse function of the dolefulness of it: Sunday Schools will not take kindly to the doctrine—be good and you will moan forever. One supposes that the glorious hope colored the whole investigation. Someday I shall publish data that lead me to suspect that many appearances upon this earth that were once upon a time interpreted by theologians and demonologists, but are now supposed to be the subject matter of psychic research, were beings and objects that visited this earth, not from a spiritual existence, but from outer space. That extra-geographic conditions may be spiritual, or of highly attenuated matter, is not my present notion, though that, too, may be some day accepted. Of course all these data suffer, in one way, about as much distortion as they would in other ways, if they had been reported by astronomers or meteorologists. As to all the material in this chapter, I take the position that perhaps there were appearances in the sky, and perhaps they were revelations of, or mirages from, unknown regions and conditions of outer space, and spectacles of relatively nearby inhabited lands, and of space travelers, but that all reports upon them were products of the assimilating of the unknown with figures and figments of the nearest familiar similarities. Another position of mine that will be found well-taken is that, no matter what my own interpretations or acceptances may be, they will compare favorably, so far as rationality is concerned, with orthodox explanations. There have been many assertions that “phantom soldiers” have been seen in the sky. For the orthodox explanation of the physicists, see Brewster’s Natural Magic, p. 125: a review of the phenomenon of June 23, 1744; that, according to twenty-seven witnesses, some of whom gave sworn testimony before a magistrate, whether that should be mentioned or not, troops of aerial soldiers had been seen, in Scotland, on and over a mountain, remaining visible two hours and then disappearing because of darkness. In Clarke’s Survey of the Lakes (fol. 1789) is an account in the words of one of the witnesses. See Notes and Queries, 1-7-304. Brewster says that the scene must have been a mirage of British troops, who, in anticipation of the rebellion of 1745, were secretly maneuvering upon the other side of the mountain. With a talent for clear-seeing, for which we are notable, except when it comes to some of our own explanations, we almost instantly recognize that, to keep a secret from persons living upon one side of a mountain, it is a very sensible idea to go and maneuver upon the other side of the mountain; but then how to keep the secret, in a thickly populated country like Scotland, from persons living upon that other side of the mountain—however, there never has been an explanation that did not itself have to be explained.