Lo!

by Charles Fort

  29

  Why don’t they see, when sometimes magnificently there is something to see?

  The answer is the same as the answer to another question:

  Why, sometimes, do they see when there is nothing to see?

  In the year 1899, Campbell, the astronomer, “announced” that the star Capella is a spectroscopic binary, or has a companion-star, as determined by the spectroscope. Astronomers of Greenwich Observatory investigated. One of them looked through the telescope, and he said, or rather, announced, that he saw it. Another of the astronomers looked for the companion. He announced that he saw it. Eight other astronomers followed. Each announced that he saw it. But now the astronomers say that this alleged companion cannot be seen in any telescope. See Duncan, Astronomy, p. 335.

  The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that, though a description of a nearby view of its parts would read like divorce statistics in the United States, no dissolving motion can be seen by observers on this earth. In astronomical books, published in the past, appeared reproductions of photographs of this nebula, which were as artfully touched up, I should say, as any life of a saint ever was by any theologian. It was given a most definitely spiral appearance, to convey an impression of whirlpool-motion. But the nebula-theory of existence has passed away. In astronomical books of recent date we see no such definite look of a whirlpool in pictures of the Andromeda nebula, but more of a stratified appearance. The astronomers see whatever they want to see—when they do see—and then see to it that we see as they see. So, though according to our records, one would think otherwise, there is considerable seeing by astronomers.

  If I look at a distant house, and see faces appearing at windows, something seems to tell me that the stoop of the house is not flying in one direction, the roof of it scooting some other way, and every brick upon a jamboree of its own. Of course, minutely, there are motions. But, if the house is not so far away as to prevent the seeing of new faces looking out, I argue that other changes, such as the roof in a frenzy to get away from the stoop, would, if there were such incompatibilities, be visible. Of course this is only argument. If we can have neat little expressions, that’s mentality’s profoundest.

  The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that tremendous motions of its parts cannot be seen.

  But more than fifty new stars in it have been seen, looking out.

  So we are realizing how numerous new stars are, if in one little celestial formation more than fifty have been seen. If amateur astronomers were as numerous as amateur golf players, for instance, we’d realize much more.

  Pronounced changes, such as appearances and disappearances of stars, have been watched, but no change in relative positions of stars has ever been watched occurring. There are parts of the sky that are dusty with little stars. If they were not such good-looking little things, the heavens would be filthy with them. But no grain of these shining sands has ever been watched changing its position relatively to other grains. All recorded changes of positions are so slight that some of them may be attributed to inaccuracies in charting, in earlier times, and some to various stresses that have nothing to do with independent motions. Just here we are not discussing the alleged phenomena of “companion stars.” But our own expressions require that there be small changes in positions of stars, just as terrestrial volcanoes change slightly. Not a star has ever been seen to cross another star, but observations upon other changes in the stars are frequent.

  For records of five new stars in five months, see Popular Astronomy, March, 1920.

  Many of the so-called new stars have been sudden flares of faint old stars. Upon this earth there have been sudden flares in volcanic craters that were dormant, or that were supposed to be extinct. And it was not by collision. Nothing came along and knocked against them.

  Apart from our expressions upon organic suppressions, it is easy enough to understand one aspect of the origin of the present astronomical doctrine. It was in a time of mathematicians, to whom astronomical observations were secondary. The only one of these earlier ones who was an industrious observer (Tycho Brahé) gave his opinion that this earth is stationary. The rest of them did little observing, and spent their time calculating. Nowadays new stars are seen often, but, for 178 years, the calculators saw not one of them. In their time it was considered crude, or vulgar, to see. Mentality always has been bullied by snobbery. In the times of the founders of astronomical dogmas, observations were sneered at, and were called empiricism. Any way that is not the easiest way always is held in contempt, until competition forces harder methods. The easiest of all affectations is the aristocratic pose, if by aristocracy we mean minimization of doing anything. There’s a coarseness to anybody who works. Give this a thought—he might sweat. Amateurs, out in their backyards, see, with their little spyglasses, much that the professionals miss, but they catch colds. When a backyard amateur, like W.F. Denning, reports something that represents patience and snuffling. Denning blew his nose, and kept his eyes open. The inmates of observatories, when not asleep, are calculating. It’s easier on brains, and it’s easier on noses. Back in times when little boys were playing hop-scotch and marbles, and had not yet taken up the new sport of giving astronomers astronomical information, or in those times when only astronomers were attending somewhat to astronomical matters, and when therefore changes in stars were unheard of, arose the explanation of vast distances, to account for unobserved changes.

  The look is that stars do not change positions relatively to one another for the same reason that Vesuvius and Etna do not. Or there are very slight changes of position, just as relatively to each other Vesuvius and Etna change: but no star has ever been seen to pass over any other star, any more than has Vesuvius ever been seen sailing in the sky over Etna.

  Other changes of stars that are said to be so far away that changes of position cannot be seen, have been noted. For a discussion of stars that have disappeared, see Nature, 99-159. For a list of about forty missing stars, see Monthly Notices, R.A.S., 77-56. This list is only supplementary to other lists.

  Upon March 14, 1912, the newspapers told that the discovery of a new star had been “announced” by the Kiel Observatory, Germany. No reader of newspapers, of that time, would suppose otherwise than that vigilant astronomers, at least worth their keep, knew when a new star appeared.

  Early in the morning of March 11th, earthquakes of unusual intensity were recorded at many places in the United States. At Harvard University, the calculators announced that the center of the quake was in the West Indies, or Mexico. Newspaper readers, if they paid any attention, were properly impressed with this ability of intellectuals in Massachusetts to know what was going on in the West Indies, or Mexico. But newspapers the next day told of a quake, upon the 11th, of Triangle Island, off Vancouver, B.C, and of nothing in either the West Indies or Mexico. At Victoria, B.C, it was calculated that the center of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean, 400 miles westward. The same readers, forgetting just where the calculators of Harvard had placed the quake, thought it marvelous how the scientists can know these things.

  Sometimes distant skies turn black with the shadows of disasters. Had this quake centered in a densely populated region, we’d have another datum of a distant fall of probably volcanic material, about the time of a catastrophe. Upon the day of the quake, black water fell from the sky, near Colmer, about thirty miles from London (Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 38-275). The rain was not muddy, but was like diluted ink. Somebody thought that it was soot from London. Somebody else thought not, pointing out that, if this were so, ink, not much diluted, would often fall in London.

  The night of the 12th, the astronomers of this earth’s observatories were calculating. Wherever the town of Dombass, Norway, is, the astronomers of Kiel, Germany, were disturbed by a telegram. It was from an amateur, named Enebo, telling that there was a new star in the constellation Gemini, and that it was visible without a telescope. Astronomers in other parts of this earth were notified. They looked up
from what they considered astronomical matters, and saw what the amateur had discovered.

  In November, 1913, an astronomer photographed a part of the constellation Sagittarius. I don’t know what his idea was. Perhaps simply and somnambulically he photographed, and had no ideas. Six years later, somebody found out that he had photographed a new star. Then other photographs were examined. Astronomers are pretty keen at detecting something that has been pointed out to them, and they learned that they had photographed this star, rising from tenth to seventh magnitude, between the 21st and the 22nd of November.

  Wanted—something by way of data for us.

  Like every other theorist, we find just that—

  Nature, 94-372—that, seven days after the maximum of this new star, an afterglow, which can be attributed to no known volcanic eruption upon this earth, was seen in the sky, in Italy, France, Belgium, and England.

  April 25, 1917—a professional astronomer photographed a new star (magnitude 6.5) in the constellation Hercules. The next day there was a disastrous earthquake in Italy. Upon May 1st, a great quake—perhaps in the constellation Hercules—whereabouts unknown to this earth’s scientists—was registered by this earth’s seismographs (Nature, 99-472).

  Domes of Observatories look like big snail shells. Architectural symbolism. It took the astronomers about three years to learn that they had photographed the new star in Hercules (Pop. Astro., March, 1920). If newspaper editors were like astronomers, they’d send out photographers, rather busily, and, perhaps years later, if they could condescend from journalism into doing some newspaper work, they’d examine plates. They’d tell of a fire that had occurred long before. They’d write up some fashion notes upon the modes in their readers’ childhood. Like dealers in stale stars, they’d wonder at a lack of public interest.

  Upon March 6, 1918, black rain fell from the sky, in Ireland (Symons’ Met. Mag., 53-29). If our preconceptions so direct, we relate this occurrence with smoky discharges from factory chimneys of South Wales, or somewhere else in Great Britain—and it is better that we do not ask why black rains are not common near Pittsburgh. Or we note that the next night there was in the sky a crimson appearance that worried many communities in Europe and North America. For a week there were, in the newspapers of New York and London, descriptions of this glare, and comments upon it. People thought that there was a great fire somewhere. I give data for thinking that there may have been a volcanic eruption somewhere.

  March 6th—the fall of black rain. March 7th—the glare in the sky. March 9th—down upon this earth fell dusts in volumes that were proportional to the glare. See Amer. Jour. Sci., Monthly Weather Review, and Sci. Amer., of this period. There was a fall of dust in Wisconsin, and in Michigan; and there was a fall of dust in Vermont. These falls, so far apart—in Ireland, in Western States, and in Vermont—look like what is called indication of an origin somewhere beyond this earth. There is no findable record of any disturbance upon this earth, by which to explain. No new star was reported, but there may have been a stellar eruption in a part of the daytime sky, reflecting in a glare, at night. There may have been relation with an occurrence in June. In the meantime, there were several remarkable glares in the sky.

  Early in the evening of June 8th of this year 1918, two men, one of them in Madras, India, and the other in South Africa, looked up at the sky, and saw a brilliant new star in the constellation Aquila. Each of them notified an Observatory, which had not been observing. Evening of the 8th—Harvard University Observatory notified by an amateur. The astronomers of Harvard had seen nothing new, but telegram after telegram came to them from other amateurs. Whatever else the astronomers of Lick Observatory were doing, I don’t know. They were probably calculating. But they, too, were receiving telegrams, and when told, by amateurs, to look up at the sky, and see a new star, they looked up at the sky, and saw the new star. See Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific, August, 1918. Besides the amateur in Madras, an amateur in Northern India notified the Observatories (Nature, 102-105). English Mechanic, August 9—professionals of New Zealand notified by an amateur. In Nature, 101-285, is published a list of amateurs, who, in England, had reported this new star to official centers of unobservation. There is only one record of a professional astronomer, who, without information from amateurs, saw this new star. One of the astronomers of Greenwich Observatory had looked up at the sky, and had seen this new star. Nature, 101-285—that he had seen it, but had not recognized that it was a new star. One of the amateurs who saw it, and recognized it, was a schoolboy named Wragge (London Times, June 21). The Lisbon Observatory was notified by a boy, aged fourteen (Observatory, 41-292).

  30

  I am thinking of an abstraction that was noted by Aristotle, and that was taken by Hegel, for the basis of his philosophy: That wherever there is a conflict of extremes, there is an outcome that is not absolute victory on either side, but is a compromise, or what Hegel called “the union of complementaries.”

  Our own controversy is an opposition of extremes:

  That this earth moves swiftly;

  That this earth is stationary.

  In terms of controversies and their outcomes, I cannot think that either of these sides can be altogether right, or will absolutely defeat the other, when comes some way of rinding out, and settling this issue.

  The idea of stationariness came first. Then, as a sheer, mechanical reaction—inasmuch as Copernicus had not one datum that a conventionalist of today would accept as meaning anything—came the idea of a swiftly moving earth. An intermediate view will probably appear and prevail.

  My own notion of equilibrium between these extremes, backed up with our chapters of data, is that, within a revolving, starry shell that, relatively to the extravagances of the astronomical extremists, is not far away, this roundish earth is almost central, but is not absolutely stationary, having various slight movements. Perhaps it does rotate, but within a period of a year. Like everybody else, I have my own notions upon what constitutes reasonableness, and this is my idea of a compromise.

  The primary view had for its support the highest mathematical authoritativeness of its era. Now, so has the secondary view. Mathematics has been as subservient to one view as the other.

  Mostly our data have been suggestive, or correlative, but it may be that there are visual indications of a concave land in the sky, or of a substantial shell around this earth. There are dark places in the sky, and some of them have the look of land. They are called “dark nebulae.” Some astronomers have speculated upon them, as glimpses of a limiting outline of a system as a whole. See back to Dolmage, quoted upon this subject. My own notion is of a limiting, outlining substance that I call a “shell.” “Dark nebulae” have the look of bare, or starless, patches of a shell. Some of them may be formations that are projections from a shell. They hang like super-stalactites in a vast and globular cave. At least one of these appearances has the look of a mountain peak. In several books by astronomers plates of this object have appeared. See Duncan’s Astronomy. It is known as the Horsehead nebula. It stands out, as a vast, sullen refusal to mix into a frenzy of phosphorescent confetti. It is a solid-looking gloom, such as, some election night, the Woolworth Building would be, if Republican, and all the rest of Broadway hysterical with a Democratic celebration. Over its summit comes light, like the fringe of dawn topping a mountain. Something is shining behind this formation, but penetrates no more than it would shine through a mountain.

  It may be that relatively there are few stars—that hosts of tiny lights in the sky are reflections, upon irregularities of the shell-land, from large stars.

  Among expressions that I have not developed is one that is suggested by a circumstance that astronomers consider strange. This is that some variable stars have a period of about a year. Just what variations of stars that are said to be trillions of miles away could have to do with a period upon this ultra-remote earth cannot be conceived of in orthodox terms. The suggestion is that these lights, with variations corresponding
with advances and recessions of the sun, moving spirally around this almost stationary earth, are reflections of sunlight from points of land, or from lakes in extinct, or dormant craters. It may be that many variations of light that have been attributed to “companions” are tidal phenomena in celestial lakes that shine as reflections from the sun, or from other stars, which may be lakes of molten lava.

  There is a formation in the constellation Cygnus that has often been noted. It is faintly luminescent, but this light, according to Prof. Hubble, is a reflection from the star Deneb. It is shaped like North America, and it is known as the America nebula. Out from its Gulf of Mexico are islands of light. One of these may be a San Salvador someday.

  Like Alaska to birds from the north, the Horse-head nebula stands out from its background, like something to fly to.

  Star after star after star has blazed a story, sometimes publishing tragedy on earth, illustrated with spectacles in the heavens. But, when transcribed into human language, these communications are depopularized with “determinations” and “pronouncements.” So our tribes have left these narratives of fires and smokes and catastrophes to the wisemen, who have made titanic tales unintelligible with their little technical jargons. The professionals will not unprofessionalize; they will not give up their system. Where have the wisemen ever done so among the Eskimos, or the hairy Ainus, the Zulus, or the Kaffirs? Whatever we are, they are acting to keep us whatever we are, as the Zulus are kept whatever they are. We are beguiled by snoozers, who have been beaten time after time by schoolboys.

  There’s a fire in the sky, and ashes and smoke and dust reach this earth, as sometimes after an eruption of Vesuvius, discharges reach Paris. There may be volcanoes in a land of the sky, so close to this earth that, if intervening space be not airless and most intensely cold, an expedition could sail away in a dash to the stars that would be a bold and magnificent trifle.