New Lands

by Charles Fort

  It is funny to read of an “earthquake,” described in technical lingo, and to have a datum that indicates that it was no earthquake at all, in the usual seismologic sense, but a concussion from an explosion in the sky. Aug. 7, 1921—a severe shock at New Canton, Virginia. See Bull. Sets. Soc. Amer., 11-197—Prof. Stephen Taber’s explanation that the shock had probably originated in the slate belt of Buckingham County, intensity about V on the R-F scale. But then it is said that, according to the “authorities” of the McCormick Observatory, the concussion was from an explosion in the sky. The time is coming when nothing funny will be seen in this subject, if someday be accepted at least parts of the masses of data that I am now holding back, until I can more fully develop them—that some of the greatest catastrophes that have devastated the face of this earth have been concussions from explosions in the sky, so repeating in a local sky weeks at a time, months sometimes, or intermittently for centuries, that fixed origins above the ravaged areas are indicated.

  New York Tribune, Sept. 2, 1921:

  “J.C.H. Macbeth, London Manager of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd., told several hundred men, at a luncheon of the Rotary Club, of New York, yesterday, that Signor Marconi believed he had intercepted messages from Mars, during recent atmospheric experiments with wireless on board his yacht Electra, in the Mediterranean. Mr. Macbeth said that Signor Marconi had been unable to conceive of any other explanation of the fact that, during his experiments, he had picked up magnetic wavelengths of 150,000 meters, whereas the maximum length of wave-production in the world today is 14,000 meters. The regularity of the signals, Mr. Macbeth declared, disposed of any assumption that the waves might have been caused by electrical disturbance. The signals were unintelligible, consisting apparently of a code, the speaker said, and the only signal recognized was one resembling the letter V in the Marconi code.” See datum of May 19, 1919.

  But, in the summer of 1921, the planet Mars was far from opposition. The magnetic vibrations may have come from some other world. They may have had the origin of the sounds that have been heard at regular intervals—

  The San Salvadors of the sky—

  And we return to the principle that has been our reinforcement throughout: that existence is infinite serialization, and that, except in particulars, it repeats—

  That the dot that spread upon the western horizon of Lisbon, March 4, 1493, cannot be the only ship that comes back from the unknown, cargoed with news—

  And it may be September this, nineteen hundred and twenty or thirty something, or February that, nineteen hundred and twenty or thirty something else—and, later, see record of it in Eng. Mec., or Sci. Amer., vol. and p. something or another—a speck in the sky of this earth—the return of somebody from a San Salvador of the sky—and the denial by the heavens themselves, which may answer with explosions the vociferations below them, of false calculations upon their remotenesses. If the heavens do not participate with snow, the skyscrapers will precipitate torn up papers and shirts and skirts, too, when the papers give out.

  There will be a procession. Somebody will throw little black pebbles to the crowds. Over his procession will fly blue-fringed cupids. Later he will be insulted and abused and finally hounded to his death. But, in that procession, he will lead by the nose an outrageous thing that should not be: about ten feet long, short-winged, waddling on webbed feet. Insult and abuse and death—he will snap his fingers under the nose of the outrageous thing. It will be worth a great deal to lead that by the nose and demonstrate that such things had been seen in the sky, though they had been supposed to be angels. It will be a great moment for somebody. He will come back to New York, and march up Broadway with his angel.

  Some now unheard-of De Soto, of this earth, will see for himself the Father of Cloudbursts.

  A Balboa of greatness now known only to himself will stand on a ridge in the sky between two auroral seas.

  Fountains of Everlasting Challenge.

  Argosies in parallel lines and rabbles of individual adventurers. Well enough may it be said that they are seeds in the sky. Of such are the germs of colonies.

  37

  That the geo-system is an incubating organism, of which this earth is the nucleus—but an organism that is so strongly characterized by conditions and features of its own that likening it to any object internal to it is the interpreting of a thing in terms of a constituent—so that we think of an organism that is incompletely, or absurdly inadequately, expressible in terms of the egg-like and the larval and other forms of the immature—a geo-nucleated system that is dependent upon its externality as, in one way or another, is every similar, but lesser and included, thing—stimulated by flows of force that are now said to be meteoric, though many so-called “meteoric” streams seem more likely to be electric, that radiate from the umbilical channels of its constellations—vitalized by its sun, which is itself replenished by the comets, which, coming from external reservoirs of force, impart to the sun their freightages, and, unaffected by gravitation, return to an external existence, some of them even touching the sun, but showing no indication of supposed solar attraction.

  In a technical sense we give up the doctrine of Evolution. Ours is an expression upon super-embryonic development, in one enclosed system. Ours is an expression upon Design underlying and manifesting in all things within this one system, with a Final Designer left out, because we know of no designing force that is not itself the product of remoter design. In terms of our own experience we cannot think of an ultimate designer, any more than we can think of ultimacy in any other respect. But we are discussing a system that, in our conception, is not a final entity; so then no metaphysical expression upon it is required.

  I point out that this expression of ours is not meant for aid and comfort to the reactionaries of the type of Col. W.J. Bryan, for instance: it is not altogether anti-Darwinian: the concept of Development replaces the concept of Evolution, but we accept the process of Selection, not to anything loosely known as Environment, but relatively to underlying Schedule and Design, predetermined and supervised, as it were, but by nothing that we conceive of in anthropomorphic terms.

  I define what I mean by dynamic design, in the development of any embryonic thing: a pre-determined, or not accidental, or not irresponsible, passage along a schedule of phases to a climax of unification of many parts. Some of the aspects of this process are the simultaneous varying of parts, with destiny, and not with independence, for their rule, or with future coordinations and functions for their goal; and their survival while still incipient, not because they are fittest relatively to contemporaneous environment, so not because of usefulness or advantage in the present, inasmuch as at first they are not only functionless but also discordant with established relations, but surviving because they are in harmony with the dynamic plan of a whole being: and the presence of forces of suppression, or repression, as well as forces of stimulation and protection, so that parts are held back, or are not permitted to develop before their time.

  If we accept that these circumstances of embryonic development are the circumstances of all wider development, within one enclosed system, the doctrine of Darwinian Evolution, as applied generally, will, in our minds, have to be replaced by an expression upon super-embryonic Development, and Darwinism, unmodified, will become to us one more of the insufficiencies of the past. Darwinism concerns itself with the adaptations of the present, and does heed the part that the past has played, but, in Darwinism, there is no place for the influence of the future upon the present.

  Consider any part of an embryonic thing—the heart of an embryo—and at first it is only a loop. It will survive, and it will be nourished in its functionless incipiency; also it will not be permitted to become a fully developed heart before its scheduled time arrives; its circumstances are dominated by what it will be in the future. The eye of an embryo is a better instance.

  Consider anything of a sociologic nature that ever has grown: that there never has been an art, sci
ence, religion, invention that was not at first out of accord with established environment, visionary, preposterous in the light of later standards, useless in its incipiency, and resisted by established forces so that, seemingly animating it and protectively underlying it, there may have been something that in spite of its unfitness made it survive for future usefulness. Also there are data for the acceptance that all things, in wider being, are held back as well as protected and prepared for, and not permitted to develop before comes scheduled time. Langley’s flying machine makes me think of something of the kind—that this machine was premature; that it appeared a little before the era of aviation upon this earth, and that therefore Langley could not fly. But this machine was capable of flying, because, some years later, Curtis did fly in it. Then one thinks that the Wright Brothers were successful, because they did synchronize with a scheduled time. I have heard that it is questionable that Curtis made no alterations in Langley’s machine. There is no lack of instances. One of the greatest of secrets that have eventually been found out was for ages blabbed by all the pots and kettles in the world—but that the secret of the steam engine could not, to the lowliest of intellects, or to supposititiously highest of intellects, more than adumbratively reveal itself until came the time for its coordination with the other phenomena and the requirements of the Industrial Age. And coal that was stored in abundance near the surface of the ground—and the needs of dwellers over coal mines, veins of which were often exposed upon the surface of the ground, for fuel—but that this secret, too, obvious, too, could not be revealed until the coming of the Industrial Age. Then the building of factories, the inventing of machines, the digging of coal, and the use of steam, all appearing by simultaneous variation, and coordinating.

  Shores of North America—nowadays, with less hero worship than formerly, historians tell us that, to English and French fishermen, the coast of Newfoundland was well-known, long before the year 1492; nevertheless, to the world in general, it was not, or, according to our acceptances, could not be, known. About the year 1500, a Portuguese fleet was driven by storms to the coast of Brazil, and returned to Europe. Then one thinks that likely enough, before the year 1492, other vessels had been so swept to the coasts of the western hemisphere, and had returned—but that data of westward lands could not emerge from the suppressions of that era—but that the data did survive, or were preserved for future usefulness—that there are “Thou shalt nots” engraved upon something underlying all things, and then effacing, when phases pass away.

  We conceive now of all buildings—within one enclosed system—in terms of embryonic building, and of all histories as local aspects of Super-embryonic Development. Cells of an embryo build falsely and futilely, in the sense that what they construct will be only temporary and will be out of adjustment later. If, however, there are conditions by which successive stages must be traversed before the arrival of maturity, ours is an expression upon the functioning of the false and the futile, in which case these terms, as derogations, should not be applied. We see that the cells that build have no basis of their own; that for their formations there is nothing of reason and necessity of their own, because they flourish in other formations quite as well. We see that they need nothing of basis, nor of guidance of their own, because basis and guidance are of the essence of the whole. All are responses, or correlates, to a succession of commandments, as it were, or of dominant, directing, supervising spirits of different eras: that they take on appearances that are concordant with the general gastrula era, changing when comes the stimulus to agree with the reptilian era, and again responding harmoniously when comes the time of the mammalian era. It is in accordance with our experience that never has human mind, scientific, religious, philosophic, formulated one basic thought, one finally true law, principle, or major premise from which guidance could be deduced. If any thought were true and final it would include the deduced. We conceive that there has been guidance, just the same, if human beings be conceived of as cellular units in one developing organism; and that human minds no more need foundations of their own than need the sub-embryonic cells that build so preposterously, according to standards of later growth, but build as they are guided to build. In this view, human reason is tropism, or response to stimuli, and reasoning is the trial-and-error process of the most primitive unicellular organisms, a susceptibility to underlying mandates, then a groping in perhaps all possible distortions until adjustment with underlying requirements is reached. In this view, then, though there are, for instance, no atoms in the Daltonian sense, if in the service of a building science, the false doctrine of the atoms be needed, the mind that responds, perhaps not to stimulus, but to requirement, which seems to be a negative stimulus, and so conceives, is in adjustment and reaches the state known as success. I accept, myself, that there may be Final Truth, and that it may be attainable, but never in a service that is local or special in any one science or nation or world.

  It is our expression that temporary isolations characterize embryonic growth and super-embryonic growth quite as distinctly as do expansions and co-ordinations. Local centers of development in an egg—and they are isolated before they sketch out attempting relations. Or in wider being—hemisphere isolated from hemisphere, and nation from nation—then the breaking down of barriers—the appearance of Japan out of obscurity—threads of a military plasm are cast across an ocean by the United States.

  Shafts of light that have pierced the obscurity surrounding planets—and something like a star shines in Aristarchus of the moon. Embryonic heavens that have dreamed—and that their mirages will be realized someday. Sounds and an interval; sounds and the same interval; sounds again—that there is one integrating organism and that we have heard its pulse.

  38

  Feb. 7, 1922—an explosion “of startling intensity” in the sky of the northwestern point of the London Triangle (Nature, Feb. 23, 1922).

  Repeating phenomena in a local sky—in L’Astronomie, 36-201, it is said that, at Orsay (Seine-et-Oise), Feb. 15, 1922, a detonation was heard in the sky, and that nine hours later a similar sound was heard, and that an illumination was seen in the sky. It is said that, ten nights later, at Verneuil, in the adjoining province, Oise, a great, fiery mass was seen falling from the sky.

  March 12, 1922—rocks that had been falling “from the clouds,” for three weeks, at Chico, a town in an “earthquake region” in California (New York Times, March 12, 1922). Large, smooth rocks that “seemed to come straight from the clouds.”

  In the San Francisco Chronicle, in issues dating from the 12th to the 18th of March—clippings sent to me by Mr. Maynard Shipley, writer and lecturer upon scientific subjects, if there be such subjects—the accounts are of stones that, for four months, had been falling intermittently from the sky, almost always upon the roofs of two adjoining warehouses, in Chico, but, upon one occasion, falling three blocks away: “a downpour of oval-shaped stones”; “a heavy shower of warm rocks.” San Francisco Call, March 16—“warm rocks.” It is said that crowds gathered, and that upon the 17th of March a “deluge” of rocks fell upon a crowd, injuring one person. The police “combed” all surroundings: the only explanation that they could think of was that somebody was firing stones from a catapult. One person was suspected by them, but, upon the 14th of March, a rock fell when he was known not to be in the neighborhood.

  The circumstances point to one origin of these stones, stationary in the sky, above the town of Chico.

  Upon the first of January, 1922, the attention of Marshal J.A. Peck, of Chico, had been called to the phenomena. After investigating more than two months, he said (San Francisco Examiner, March 14), “I could find no one through my investigations who could explain the matter. At various times I have heard and seen the stones. I think someone with a machine is to blame.”

  Prof. C.K. Studley, vice president of the Teachers’ College, Chico, is quoted in the Examiner:

  “Some of the rocks are so large that they could not be thrown by any ordinar
y means. One of the rocks weighs sixteen ounces. They are not of meteoric origin, as seems to have been hinted, because two of them show signs of cementation, either natural or artificial, and no meteoric factor was ever connected with a cement factory.”

  Once upon a time, dogmatists supposed, asserted, angrily declared sometimes, that all stones that fall from the sky must be of “true meteoric material.” That time is now of the past. See Nature, 105-759—a description of two dissimilar stones, cemented together, seen to fall from the sky, at Cumberland Falls, Ky., April 9, 1919.

  Miriam Allen de Ford (P.O. Box 573, San Francisco, Cal.—or see the Readers’ Guide) has sent me an account of her own observations. About the middle of March, 1922, she was in Chico, and investigated. Went to the scene of the falling rocks; discussed the subject with persons in the crowd. “While I was discussing it with some bystanders, I looked up at the cloudless sky, and suddenly saw a rock falling straight down, as if becoming visible when it came near enough. This rock struck the roof with a thud, and bounced off on the track beside the warehouse, and I could not find it.” “I learned that the rocks had been falling since July, 1921, though no publicity arose until November.”