New Lands

by Charles Fort

  History, geology, palaeontology, astronomy, meteorology—that nothing short of cataclysmic thinking can break down these united walls of Exclusionism.

  Unknown monsters sometimes appear in the ocean. When, upon the closed system of normal preoccupations, a story of a sea serpent appears, it is inhospitably treated. To us of the wider cordialities, it has recommendations for kinder reception. I think that we shall be noted in recognitions of good works for our bizarre charities. Far back in the topography of the nineteenth century, Richard Proctor was almost submerged in an ocean of smugness, but now and then he was a little island emerging from the gently alternating doubts and satisfactions of his era, and by means of several papers upon the “sea serpent” he so protruded and gave variety to a dreary uniformity. Proctor reviewed some of the stories of “sea serpents.” He accepted some of them. This will be news to some conventionalists. But the mystery that he could not solve is their conceivable origin. To be sure this earth may not be round, or top-shaped, and may tower away somewhere, perhaps with the great Antarctic plateau as its foothills, to a gigantic existence commensurate throughout with the sea monsters that sometimes reach regions known to us. Judging by our experience in other fields of research, we suspect that this earth never has been traversed except in conventional trade routes and standard explorations. One supposes that enormous forms of life that have appeared upon the surface of the ocean, did not come from conditions of great pressure below the surface. If there be no habitat of their own, in unknown seas of this earth, the monsters fell from the sky, surviving for a while. In his day, Charles Lyell never said a more preposterous thing than this—however, we have no idea that mere preposterousness is a criterion.

  Then at times the things have fallen upon land, presumably. To scientific minds in their present anæmia of malnutrition, we offer new nourishment. There are materials for a science of neo-palaeontology—as it were—at least a new view of animal remains upon this earth. Remains of monsters, supposed to have lived geologic ages ago, are sometimes found, not in ancient deposits, but upon, or near, the surface of the ground, sometimes barely covered. I have notes upon a great pile of bones, supposed to be the remains of a whale, out in open view in a western desert.

  In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, is the mummified body of a monster called a trachodon, found in Converse County, Wyoming. It was not found upon the surface of the ground, which is bad for our attempts to stimulate palaeontology. But the striking datum to me is that the only other huge mummy that I know of is another trachodon, now in the Museum of Frankfort. If only extraordinarily would geologic processes mummify remains of a huge animal, doubly extraordinarily would two animals of the same species be so exclusively affected. One at least gives some consideration to the idea that these trachodons are not products of geologic circumstances, but were affected, in common, by other circumstances. By inspiration, or progressive deterioration, one then conceives of the things as having wafted and dried in space, finally falling to this earth. Our swooping vandals are relieved with showering mummies. Life is turning out to be interesting.

  Organic substances like life fluids of living things have rained from the sky. However, it is enough for our general purposes to make acceptable simply that unknown substances have, in large quantities, fallen from the sky. That is neoism enough, it seems to me. I consider, myself, all such data relatively to this earth’s stationariness or possible motions. In Ciel et Terre, 22-198, it is said that, about 2 p.m., June 8, 1901, a glue-like substance fell at Sart. The story is told by an investigator, M. Michael, a meteorologist. He says that he saw this substance falling from the sky, but does not give an estimate of duration: he says that he arrived during the last five minutes of the shower. Editors and extra-geographers can’t help trying to explain. The Editor of Ciel et Terre writes that, three days before, there had been, at Antwerp, a great fire, in which, among other substances, a large quantity of sugar had been burned. He asks whether there could be any connection. Antwerp is about eighty miles from Sart.

  Sept. 2, 1905—the tragedy of the space pig:

  In the English Mechanic, 86-100, Col. Markwick writes that, according to the Cambrian Natural Observer, something was seen in the sky, at Llangollen, Wales, Sept. 2, 1905. It is described as an intensely black object, about two miles above the earth’s surface, moving at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. Col. Markwick writes: “Could it have been a balloon?” We give Col. Markwick good rating as an extra-geographer, but of the early, or differentiating type, a transitional, if not a sphinx: so he was not quite developed enough to publish the details of this object. In the Cambrian Natural Observer, 1905-35—the journal of the Astronomical Society of Wales—it is said that, according to accounts in the newspapers, an object had appeared in the sky, at Llangollen, Wales, Sept. 2, 1905. At the schoolhouse, in Vroncysylite—I think that’s it: with all my credulity, some of these Welsh names look incredible to me, in my notes—the thing in the sky had been examined through powerful field glasses. We are told that it had short wings, and flew, or moved, in a way described as “casually inclining sideways.” It seemed to have four legs, and looked to be about ten feet long. According to several witnesses it looked like a huge, winged pig, with webbed feet. “Much speculation was rife as to what the mysterious object could be.”

  Five days later, according to a member of the Astronomical Society of Wales—see Cambrian Observer, 1905-30—a purple-red substance fell from the sky, at Llanelly, Wales.

  I don’t know that my own attitude toward these data is understood, and I don’t know that it matters in the least; also from time to time my own attitude changes: but very largely my feeling is that not much can be, or should be, concluded from our meager accounts, but that so often are these occurrences, in our fields, reported, that several times every year there will be occurrences that one would like to have investigated by someone who believes that we have written nothing but bosh, and by someone who believes in our data almost religiously. It may be that, early in February, 1892, a luminous thing traveled back and forth, exploring for ten hours in the sky of Sweden. The story is copied from a newspaper, and ridiculed, in the English Mechanic, 55-34. Upon March 7, 1893, a luminous object shaped like an elongated pear was seen in the sky of Val-de-la-Haye, by M. Raimond Coulon (L’Astro., 1893-169). M. Coulon’s suggestion is that the light may have been a signal suspended from a balloon. The signal idea is interesting.

  In the summer of 1897, several weeks after Prof. Andrée and his two companions had sailed in a balloon, from Amsterdam Island, Spitzbergen, it was reported that a balloon had been seen in British Columbia. There was wide publicity: the report was investigated. It may be that had a terrestrial balloon escaped from somewhere in the United States or Canada, or if there had been a balloon ascension at this time, the circumstances would have been reported: it may well be that the object was not Andrée’s balloon. President Bell, of the National Geographic Society, heard of this object, and heard that details had been sent to the Swedish Foreign Office, and cabled to the American Minister, at Stockholm, for information. He publishes his account in the National Geographic Magazine, 9-102. He was referred to the Swedish Consul, at San Francisco. In reply to inquiry, the Consul telegraphed the following data, which had been collected by the President of the Geographical Society of the Pacific:

  “Statement of a balloon passing over the Horse-Fly Hydraulic Mining Camp, in Caribou, British Columbia, 52º, 20’, and Longitude 120º, 30’—

  “From letters of J.B. Robson, manager of the Caribou Mining Co., and of Mrs. Wm. Sullivan, the blacksmith’s wife, there, and a statement of Mr. John J. Newsome, San Francisco, then at camp. About two or three o’clock, in the afternoon, between fourth and seventh of August last, weather calm and cloudless, Mrs. Sullivan, while looking over the Hydraulic Bank, noticed a round, grayish-looking object in the sky, to the right of the sun. As she watched, it grew larger and was descending. She saw the larger mass of the balloon above
, and a smaller mass apparently suspended from the larger. It continued to descend, until she plainly recognized it as a balloon and a large basket hanging thereto. It finally commenced to swing violently back and forth, and move very fast toward the eastward and northward. Mrs. Sullivan called her daughter, aged eighteen, and about this time Mrs. Robson and her daughter were observing it.”

  If someone saw a strange fish in the ocean, we’d like to know—what was it like? Stripes on him—spots—what? It would be unsatisfactory to be told over and over only that a dark body had crossed some waves. In Cosmos, n.s., 39-356, a satisfactory correspondent writes that, at Lille, France, Sept. 4, 1898, he saw a red object in the sky. It was like the planet Mars, but was in the position of no known planet. He looked through his telescope, and saw a rectangular object, with a violent-colored band on one side of it, and the rest of it striped with black and red. He watched it ten minutes, during which time it was stationary; then, like the object that was seen at the time of the Powell-mystery, it cast out sparks and disappeared.

  In the English Mechanic, 75-417, Col. Markwick writes that, upon May 10, 1902, a friend of his had seen in the sky, in South Devon, a great number of highly colored objects like little suns or toy balloons. “Altogether beats me,” says Col. Markwick.

  Upon March 2, 1899, a luminous object in the sky, from 10 a.m., until 4 p.m., was reported from El Paso, Texas. Mentioned in the Observatory, 22-247—supposed to have been Venus, even though Venus was then two months past secondary maximum brilliance. This seems reasonable enough, in itself, but there are other data for thinking that an unknown, luminous body was at this time in the especial sky of the southwestern states. In the U.S. Weather Bureau Report (Ariz. Sec., March, 1899) it is said that, at Prescott, Arizona, Dr. Warren E. Day had seen a luminous object, upon the 8th of March, “that traveled with the moon” all day, until 2 p.m. It is said that, the day before, this object had been seen close to the moon, by Mr. G.O. Scott, at Tonto, Arizona. Dr. Day and Mr. Scott were voluntary observers for the Weather Review. This association with the moon and this localization of observation are puzzling.

  La Nature (Sup.) Nov. 11, 1899—that at Luzarches, France, upon the 28th of October, 1899, M.A. Garrie had seen, at 4:50 p.m., a round, luminous object rising above the horizon. About the size of the moon. He watched it for fifteen minutes, as it moved away, diminishing to a point. It may be that something from external regions was for several weeks in the especial sky of France. In La Nature (Sup.) Dec. 16, 1899, someone writes that he had seen, Nov. 15, 1899, 7 p.m. at Dourite (Dordogne) an object like an enormous star, at times white, then red, and sometimes blue, but moving like a kite. It was in the south. He had never seen it before. Someone, in the issue of December 30th, says that without doubt it was the star Formalhaut, and asks for precise position. Issue of Jan. 20, 1900—the first correspondent says that the object was in the southwest, about thirty-five degrees above the horizon, but moving so that the precise position could not be stated. The kite-like motion may have been merely seeming motion—object may have been Formalhaut, though thirty-five degrees above the horizon seems to me to be too high for Formalhaut—but, then, like the astronomers, I’m likely at times to expose what I don’t know about astronomy. Formalhaut is not an enormous star. Seventeen are larger.

  May 1, 1908, between 8 and 9 p.m., at Vittel, France—an object, with a nebulosity around it, diameter equal to the moon’s, according to a correspondent to Cosmos, n.s., 58-535. At nine o’clock a black band appeared upon the object, and moved obliquely across it, then disappearing. The Editor thinks that the object was the planet Venus, under extraordinary meteorologic conditions.

  Dark obj., by Prof. Brooks, July 21, 1896 (Eng. Mec., 64-12); dark obj., by Gathmann Aug. 22, 1896 (Sci. Amer. Sup., 67-363); two luminous objs., by Prof. Swift, evidently in a local sky of California, because unseen elsewhere in California, Sept. 20, and one of them again, Sept. 21, 1896 (Astro. Jour. 17-8, 103); “Waldemath’s second moon,” Feb. 5, 1898 (Eng. Mec., 67-545); unknown obj., March 30, 1908 (Observatory, 31-215); dark obj., Nov. 10, 1908 (Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, 23-74).

  31

  Cold Harbor, Hanover Co., Virginia—two men in a field—“an apparently clear sky.” In the Monthly Weather Review, 28-29, it is said that upon Aug. 7, 1900, two men were struck by lightning. The Editor says that the weather map gave no indication of a thunderstorm, nor of rain, in this region at the time.

  In July, 1904, a man was killed on the summit of Mt. San Gorgionio, near the Mojave Desert. It is said that he was killed by lightning. Two days later, upon the summit of Mt. Whitney, 180 miles away, another man was killed “by lightning” (Ciel et Terre, 29-120).

  It is said, in Ciel et terre, 17-42, that, in the year 1893, nineteen soldiers were marching near Bourges, France, when they were struck by an unknown force. It is said that in known terms there is no explanation. Some of the men were killed, and others were struck insensible. At the inquest it was testified that there had been no storm, and that nothing had been heard.

  If there occur upon the surface of this earth pounces from blank-ness and seizures by nothings, and “sniping” with bullets of unfindable substance, we nevertheless hesitate to bring witchcraft and demonology into our fields. Our general subject now is the existence of a great deal that may be nearby, or temporarily nearby, ordinarily invisible, but occasionally revealed by special circumstances. A background of stars is not to be compared, in our data, with the sun for a background, as a means of revelations. We accept that there are sunspots, but we gather from general experience and special instances that the word “sunspot” is another of the standardizing terms like “auroral” and “meteoric” and “earthquakes.” See Webb’s Celestial Objects for some observations upon large definite obscurations called “sunspots” but which were as evanescent against the sun as would be islands and jungles of space, if intervening only a few moments between this earth and the swifting moving sun. According to Webb, astronomers have looked at great obscurations upon the sun, have turned away, and then looked again, finding no trace of the phenomena. Eclipses are special circumstances, and rather often have large, unknown bulks been revealed by different light effects during eclipses. For instance, upon Jan. 22, 1898, Lieut. Blackett, R.N., assisting Sir Norman Lockyer, at Viziadrug, India, during the total eclipse of the sun, saw an unknown body between Venus and Mars (Jour. Leeds Astro. Soc., 1906-23). We have had other instances, and I have notes upon still more. The photographic plate is a special condition, or sensitiveness. In Knowledge, 16-234, a correspondent writes that, in August, 1893, in Switzerland, moonlighted night, he had exposed a photographic plate for one hour. Upon the photograph, when developed, were seen irregular, bright markings, but there had been no lightning to this correspondent’s perceptions.

  The details of the sheep panic of Nov. 3, 1888, are extraordinary. The region affected was much greater than was supposed by the writer whom we quoted in an earlier chapter. It is said in another account in Symons’ Meteorological Magazine, that, in a tract of land twenty-five miles long and eight miles wide, thousands of sheep had, by a simultaneous impulse, burst from their bounds; and had been found the next morning, widely scattered, some of them still panting with terror under hedges, and many crowded into corners of fields. See London Times, Nov. 20, 1888. An idea of the great number of flocks affected is given by one correspondent who says that malicious mischief was out of the question, because a thousand men could not have frightened and released all these sheep. Someone else tries to explain that, given an alarm in one flock, it might spread to the others. But all the sheep so burst from their folds at about eight o’clock in the evening, and one supposes that many folds were far from contiguous, and one thinks of such contagion requiring considerable time to spread over 200 square miles. Something of an alarming nature and of a pronounced degree occurred somewhere near Reading, Berkshire, upon this evening. Also there seems to be something of special localization: the next year another panic occurred in Ber
kshire not far from Reading.

  I have a datum that looks very much like the revelation of a ghost moon, though I think of it myself in physical terms of light effects. In Country Queries and Notes, 1-138, 417, it is said that, in the sky of Gosport, Hampshire, night of Sept. 14, 1908, was seen a light that came as if from an unseen moon. It may be that I can here record that there was a moon-like object in the sky of the Midlands and the south of England, this night, and that, though to human eyesight, this world, island of space, whatever it may have been, was invisible, it was, nevertheless, revealed. Upon this evening of Sept. 14, 1908, David Packer, then in Northfield, Worcestershire, saw a luminous appearance that he supposed was auroral, and photographed it. When the photograph was developed, it was seen that the “auroral” light came from a large, moon-like object. A reproduction of the photograph is published in the English Mechanic, 88-211. It shows an object as bright and as well-defined as the conventionally accepted moon, but only to the camera had it revealed itself, and Mr. Packer had caught upon a film a space island that had been invisible to his eyes. It seems so, anyway.

  In Country Queries and Notes, 1-328, it is said that, upon Aug. 2, 1908, at Ballyconneely, Connemara coast of Ireland, was seen a phantom city of different-sized houses, in different styles of architecture; visible three hours. It is said that no doubt the appearance was a mirage of some city far away—far away, but upon this earth, of course. This apparition is not of the type that we consider so especially of our own data. The so-called mirages that so especially interest us are interesting to us not in themselves, but in that they belong to the one order of phenomena or evidence that unifies so many fields of our data: that is, repetitions in a local sky, signifying the fixed position of something relatively to a small part of this earth’s surface. We cannot think that mirages, terrestrial or extraterrestrial, could so repeat. But if in a local sky of this earth there be a fixed region, perhaps not a city, but something of rugged and featureful outlines, with projections that might look architectural, reflections from it, shadows, or Brocken specters repeating always in one special sky are thinkable except by the Chinese-minded who regard all our data as “foreign devils.” The writer in Country Queries and Notes says—“Circumstantial accounts have even been published of the city of Bristol being distinctly recognized in a mirage seen occasionally in North America.” If we shall accept that anywhere in North America repeated representations of the same city or city-like scene have appeared in the same local sky, I prefer, myself, a foreign devil of a thought, and its significance, whether hellish or not, that this earth is stationary, to such a domestic vagrant of a thought as the idea that mirage could so pick out the city of Bristol, or any other city, over and over, and also invariably pick out for its screen the same local sky, thousands of miles, or five miles, away.