by Charles Fort
In some cases of obstinate unassimilableness, it is supposed to be necessary to swat a little girl. But I doubt the necessity, because there is in human beings such a fondness, or sometimes such a passion, for confessing, that sooner or later somebody will come forward with almost any desired confession. Sometimes, from time to time, half a dozen persons confess to having committed the same murder. The police pay scarcely any attention any more to a new confession, in the matter of the Hall murder, in New Jersey. There was a case, in an English police court, of a man who had given himself up, as a deserter from the army. But a policeman testified that this was his fifth or sixth confession, and that he had never been in the army. The man admitted the charge. “But,” said he, “I have something else that I wish to confess.” “I’ll hear no more of your confessions. Six months!” said the magistrate. In some cases the incentive for false confessions is not obvious, but in others it is obviously to come out of one’s pale, yellow glow, and be brilliant in limelight. There have been cases not quite of confessions, but of somebody attributing to himself unexplained occurrences, or taking advantage of them for various kinds of profit. I accept that, if explorers from somewhere else should visit this earth, and if their vessels, or the lights of their vessels, should be seen by millions of the inhabitants of this earth, the data would soon be conventionalized. If beings, like human beings, from somewhere else, should land upon this earth, near New York, and parade up Broadway, and then sail away, somebody, a year or so later, would “confess” that it had been a hoax by him and some companions, who had dressed up for their parts, and had jabbered, as they thought extra-mundanians should jabber. New Yorkers would say that from the first they had suspected something wrong. Who ever heard of distinguished foreigners coming to New York, and not trying to borrow something? Or not coinciding with propaganda in newspapers?
Probably, in August, 1929, an aeroplane from somewhere in Europe passed over a jungle, and was reported, in a village, by a native.
Savages are highly scientific. They reason upon generalizations that are so exclusive as to be nothing short of academic. They are as keen as any Newton, or Einstein, in understanding that, in order to arrive at what is said to be the known, they must start with something that they don’t know about. We’d have a pretty good idea of what the wisemen said, when they heard the story of a vessel, probably occupied by passengers that had been seen in the sky, if we could accept that they could be so undignified as to say anything—
Near York Herald Tribune, Aug. 29, 1929—a traveling light in the sky—about 400 miles off the coast of Virginia. It was reported by Thomas Stuart, third mate of the steamship Coldwater, of the South Atlantic Steamship Line. “There was something that gave the impression that it was a large, passenger craft.” It was traveling at an estimated speed of 100 miles an hour, in the direction of Bermuda. There was an investigation that “failed to reveal any trans-Atlantic or Bermuda flight.”
We shall have an expression upon luminous appearances that may have been of a kind with the seeming creatures of the preceding chapter, or that may belong in another category.
Before I could find out the date, and look the matter up, I came upon several humorous allusions, in English newspapers, to a time when there was a scare in England, because of moving lights in the sky. And all the excitement was about the advertising scheme of an automobile manufacturer, who had sent up an imitation-airship, with lanterns tied to it. There was a lesson in this: presumably other alleged mysteries could be explained in similar, commonplace terms.
I was doing one of my relatively minor jobs, which was going through the London Daily Mail, for a period of about twenty-five years, when I came upon this—
March 25, 1909—that, upon the 23rd of March, at 5:10 in the morning, two constables, in different parts of the city of Peterborough, had reported having seen an object, carrying a light, moving over the city, with sounds like the sounds of a motor. In the Peterborough Advertiser, March 27th, is published an interview with one of these constables, who described “an object, somewhat oblong and narrow in shape, carrying a powerful light.” To suit whatever anybody should prefer, I could give data to show that only lights, and no object were seen, and that no sound was heard; or that a vessel, carrying lights, was seen, and that sounds, like sounds of a motor, were heard.
It is said, in the Daily Mail, May 17th that many other stories of unaccountable objects and lights in the sky had reached the office of the Mail. If so, these stories were not published. The newspapers are supposed to be avid for sensational news, but they have their conventions, and unaccountable lights and objects in the sky are not supposed to have sex, and it is likely that hosts of strange, but sexless, occurrences have been reported, but have not been told of in the newspapers. In the Daily Mail, it is said that no attention had been paid to the letters, because everything that was mentioned in them, as evidence, was unsatisfactory. It is said that the object reported at Peterborough was probably a kite with a lantern tied to it. On the 15th of May, a constable at Northampton had sent to headquarters a written report upon lights that he had seen in the sky at 9 p.m.; but Chief Constable Madlin had learned that a practical joker had sent up a fire balloon.
The practical joker of Northampton, amusing himself at nine o’clock in the evening, is an understandable representative of his species; but some other representative of his species, flying a kite and lanterns, at Peterborough, at five o’clock in the morning, limiting his audience mostly to milkmen, though maybe a joker, could not have been a very practical joker. He must have been fond of travel. There were other reports from various places in England and in Wales. There were reports from places far apart.
Daily Mail, May 20—that a man, named Lithbridge, of 4 Roland Street, Cardiff, Wales, had, in the office of the Cardiff Evening Express, told a marvelous story. This story was that, upon the 18th of May, about 11 p.m., while walking along a road, near the Caerphilly Mountains, Wales, he had seen, on the grass, at a side of the road, a large tube-shaped construction. In it were two men, in heavy fur overcoats. When they saw Mr. Lithbridge, they spoke excitedly to each other, in a foreign language, and sailed away. Newspaper men visited the place, and found the grass trampled, and found a scattering of torn newspapers and other débris.
If anybody else wants to think that these foreigners were explorers from Mars or the moon, here is a story that of course can be reasoned out quite, or almost, satisfactorily.
At any rate, still more satisfactorily it may be said that no foreigners of this earth were sailing in the sky of Great Britain. In the Western Mail (Cardiff), May 21st, is published an interview with Mr. C.S. Rolls, the motorist, and the founder of the Aero Club, who gave his opinion that some of the stories of a strange object in the sky were hoaxes, but that not all of them could be explained so. Chiefly for the reason that there was no known airship of this earth, with such powers of flight, the reported observations were discredited, at least sometimes, in all newspapers that I have looked at. In the London Weekly Dispatch, May 23rd, the stories are so discredited, and it is argued that to be seen so often, without having been seen to cross the Channel, an airship would have to have a base in England, to which, in view of the general excitement, it would certainly have been traced: a base where it would be seen, “especially during the tedious preliminaries of ascent.” Then, in the Weekly Dispatch, are listed reports from twenty-two places, in the week preceding the 23rd of May, and nineteen reports earlier in May and in March.
Mr. Lithbridge was a Punch and Judy man. Perhaps his story was of some profit to him. Not much attention was paid to it. But then came another explanation.
Upon May 26th, it was told in the newspapers that the mystery of the lights in the sky had been solved. A large imitation-airship had “come down” at Dunstable, and the lights had been upon that. It was an advertising scheme. An automobile manufacturer had been dragging the thing around in England and Wales. There had been reports from Ireland, but Ireland was omitted in this e
xplanation. We are told that this object, roped to an automobile, had been dragged along the roads, amusingly exciting persons who were not very far advanced mentally. With whatever degree of advancement mine may be, I suppose that such a thing could be dragged slowly, and for a short time, perhaps only a few minutes, because it was of hot-air-inflation, along a road, and conceivably through a city or two, with a policeman, who reported lights in the sky, not seeing a rope going up from an automobile: but, with whatever degree of advancement that of mine may be, I do not think of any such successful imposition in about forty large cities, some of them several hundred miles apart. No one at Dunstable saw or heard the imitation-airship come down from the sky. An object, to which was tied a card, upon which was a request to communicate with a London automobile manufacturer, “in case of accident,” was found in a field, morning of May 26th.
The explanation, as I want to see it, is that probably the automobile manufacturer took advantage of the interest in lights in the sky, and at night dumped a contrivance into a field, having tied his card to it. If so this was only one of many occurrences that have been exploited by persons who had a liking, or a use, for publicity. Probably Mr. Cannell and his dead owl can be so explained: and, though I should very much like to accept Mr. Lithbridge’s story, I fear me that we shall have to consider him one of these exploiters. Also, there was the case of the press agent, who, taking advantage of stories of a prowling animal, tied tin wings and green whiskers to a kangaroo.
The range of the reported observations was from Ipswich, on the east coast of England, to Belfast, Ireland, a distance of 350 miles: and, in Great Britain, from Hull to Swansea, a distance of 200 miles. Perhaps a gas bag could be dragged around a little, but the imitation airship that was found at Dunstable, was a flimsy contrivance, consisting of two hot-air balloons, and a frame about twenty feet long, connecting them.
The lights in the sky were frequently reported, upon the same night, from places far apart. Upon the night of May 9th, reports came from Northampton, Wisbech, Stamford, and Southend. In the Weekly Dispatch, May 23rd, it is pointed out that to be seen at Southend about 11 p.m., and then twenty minutes later, at Stamford, seventy miles away, the object in the sky must have traveled at a rate of 210 miles an hour.
The question that comes up is whether, after the finding of the object at Dunstable, or after a commonplace ending of a mystery, lights continued to be seen traveling in the sky.
The stoppage was abrupt. Or the stoppage of publication of reports was abrupt.
12
It may be that upon new principles we can account for the mystery of the Marie Celeste. If there is a selective force, which transports stones exclusively, or larvae, and nothing but larvae, or transports living things of various sizes, but nothing but living things, such a selective force might affect a number of human beings, leaving no trace, because unafflective to everything else.
I take from the report by the Queen’s Proctor, in the Admiralty Court, published in the London Times, Feb. 14, 1873. Upon the 5th of December, 1872, between the Azores and Lisbon, the crew of the British ship Dei Gratia saw a vessel, made out to be the American brigantine Marie Celeste. Her sails were set, and she was tacking, but so erratically that attention was attracted. Whether ships are really females, or not, this one looked so helpless, or woebegone, that all absence of male protection was suspected. The Britons shoved out and boarded the vessel. There was nobody aboard. There was findable nothing by which to account for the abandonment. “Every part of the vessel, inside and outside, was in good order and condition.” In the log book, the latest entry, having in it no suggestion of impending trouble of any kind, was dated November 25th. There was no sign of any such trouble as mutiny. A phial of oil, used by the captain’s wife upon a sewing machine, stood upright, indicating that there had been no rough weather. Investigation of this mystery was worldwide. The State Department of the United States communicated with all representatives abroad, and every custom house in the world was more or less alert for information of any kind: but fourteen persons, in a time of calm weather, and under circumstances that gave no indication of any kind of violence, disappeared, and either nothing, or altogether too much, was found out. I have a collection of yarns, by highly individualized liars, or artists who scorned, in any particular, to imitate one another; who told, thirty, forty, or fifty years later, of having been members of this crew.
London Times, Nov. 6, 1840—the Rosalie, a large French ship, bound from Hamburg to Havana—abandoned ship—no clue to an explanation. Most of the sails set—no leak—valuable cargo. There was a half-starved canary in a cage.
But I suggest that, with our hints of Teleportation, we are on the wrong track. Crews of vessels have disappeared, and vessels have disappeared. It may be that something of which the inhabitants of this earth know nothing, is concerned in these disappearances, or seizures.
In the New York Sun, April 24, 1930, the French astronomer and meteorologist, Gen. Frederic Chapel, is quoted, saying that aircraft, missing at sea, and seacraft, may have been struck by meteors. That there is something of the unexplained in these disappearances, many writers have felt. But there is no recorded instance of aircraft, flying over land, having been struck by a meteor, and I know of few instances of reported falls of meteoric matter upon vessels, and no instance of a vessel that has been much damaged by a meteor.
The disappearance of the Cyclops, a fuel ship of the U.S.N., even though in war time, is considered mysterious—sometime after March 4, 1918, after leaving Barbados, B.W.I., for Hampton Roads, Va.
When the Titanic went down, April 15, 1912, flotsam was reported months afterward, and there were many survivors: but, after the disappearance of the White Star steamship, the Naronic, in February, 1893, two empty lifeboats, supposed to be hers, were reported by a sea captain, and nothing more was seen. In the report by the London Board of Trade, it was considered highly improbable that the Naronic had struck an iceberg. It was said that this vessel was “almost perfect,” in construction and equipment. She was a freighter, with seventy-five men aboard. There were life belts for all.
New York Times, June 21, 1921—disappearance of three American ships—difficult to think of piracy—seemed to be no other explanation—five departments of the Washington Government investigating. In February, the Carol Deering, a five-masted schooner, of Portland, Me., had gone ashore, near Diamond Shoals, N.C. The mystery is similar to that of the Marie Celeste. Nobody aboard. Everything was in good condition. The circumstance that attracted most attention was that the crew had disappeared about the time a meal was to be served. A little later, a bottle was picked up on shore, and in it was a message purporting to have been written by the mate of the vessel. “An oil-burning tanker has boarded us, and placed our crew in irons. Get word to headquarters of the Company at once.” Just how somebody in irons could get a container for a message makes me wonder: still, if it’s a bottle, they say that that could be got by anybody in double irons.
In the London Daily Mail, June 22, the finding of another bottle, with a message in it, is told of—from the Captain of the Deering, this time—that he had been taken prisoner by the crew, and had been put upon another vessel.
After the Waratah “mysteriously disappeared,” off the coast of South Africa, July, 1909, five bottles, all said to be hoaxes, were found. There is as much complication and bafflement in this subject, as in anything that Science is said absolutely to have proved. If some of us tire of our existence, and would like to try some other existence, they had better think it over, because anything merrier than ours is hard to conceive of. Every shipwreck, or any other catastrophe, brings out merrymakers. The tragedy of the Waratah was enjoyed a long time. More than thirteen years later (Nov. 21, 1922) another bottle, said to be a hoax, was found near Cape Town. Still, I am affected just the other way, and am taking on a new pessimism. Heretofore I have thought cheerfully of bottles. But there’s a depression from anything, once the humorists get ahold of it. I wonder h
ow comes it that nobody has reported finding an old bottle, and in it a sea captain’s account of an impending mutiny, signed “Christopher Columbus.”
New York Times, June 22, 1921—“More ships added to the mystery list—almost simultaneous disappearances, without a trace, regarded as significant.” Times, June 24—about a dozen vessels in the list.
And yet such a swipe by an unknown force, of the vessels of a nation, along its own coast, was soon thought of no more. Anything could occur, and if not openly visible, or if observed by millions, would soon be gulfed in forgetfulness. Or soon it would be conventionalized. In the year 1921, it was customary to accuse the Russians. I think that the climax was reached, in the year 1927, when unruliness of natives in the jungles of Peru was attributed to Russian agents. Still, I suppose that, for years, whenever there is revolt against misrule and oppression, propagandists will tell us the same old yarn of otherwise contented natives, misled by those Russians. In June, 1921, the way of explaining the disappearance of a dozen vessels was by saying that it was thought that the Soviet Government was stealing them.
It may be that constructions from somewhere else have appeared upon this earth, and have seized crews of this earth’s ships.
In their book, The Cruise of the Bacchante, the two young princes, sons of the Prince of Wales, one of them now the King of England, tell of “a strange light, as if of a phantom vessel all aglow” that was, at four o’clock, morning of the 11th of June, 1881, between Melbourne and Sydney, reported by the lookout of the Bacchante. The unknown appearance was seen by twelve other members of the crew. Whether there be relation, or not, five hours later, the lookout fell from a crosstree and was killed.