Authors: Charles Fort
New Lands (14 page)
18
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.
Or the “phantom soldiers” that were seen at Ujest, Silesia, in 1785—see Parish’s
Hallucinations and Illusions,
p. 309. Parish finds that at the time of this spectacle, there were soldiers, of this earth, marching near Ujest; so he explains that the “phantom soldiers” were mirages of them. They were marching in the funeral procession of General von Cosel. But some time later they were seen again, at Ujest—and the general had been dead and buried several days, and his funeral procession disbanded—and if a refraction can survive independently of its primary, so may a shadow, and anybody may take a walk where he went a week before, and see some of his shadows still wandering around without him. The great neglect of these explainers is in not accounting for an astonishing preference for, or specialization in, marching soldiers, by mirages. But if often there be, in the sky, things or beings that move in parallel lines, and, if their betrayals be not mirages, but their shadows cast down upon the haze of this earth, or Brocken specters, such frequency, or seeming specialization, might be accounted for.
Sept. 27, 1846—a city in the sky of Liverpool
(Rept. B.A.,
1847-39). The apparition is said to have been a mirage of the city of Edinburgh. This “identification” seems to have been the product of suggestion: at the time a panorama of Edinburgh was upon exhibition in Liverpool.
Summer of 1847—see Flammarion’s
The Atmosphere,
p. 160—story told by M. Grellois: that he was traveling between Ghelma and Bone, when he saw, to the east of Bone, upon a gently sloping hill, “a vast and beautiful city, adorned with monuments, domes, and steeples.” There was no resemblance to any city known to M. Grellois.
In the
Bull. Soc. Astro. de France,
21-180, is an account of a spectacle that, according to twenty witnesses, was seen for two hours in the sky of Vienne dans le Dauphiné, May 3, 1848. A city—and an army, in the sky. One supposes that a Brewster would say that nearby was a terrestrial city, with troops maneuvering near it. But also vast lions were seen in the sky—and that is enough to discourage any Brewster. Four months later, according to the London
Times,
Sept. 13, 1848, a still more discouraging—or perhaps stimulating—spectacle was, or was not, seen in Scotland. Afternoon of Sept. 9, 1848—Quigley’s Point, Lough Foyle, Scotland—the sky turned dark. It seemed to open. The opening looked reddish, and in the reddish area, appeared a regiment of soldiers. Then came appearances that looked like war vessels under full sail, then “a man and a woman and a swan and a peahen.” The “opening” closed, and that was the last of this shocking or ridiculous mixture that nobody but myself would record as being worth thinking about.
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen in the sky, near the Banmouth, Dec. 30, 1850
(Rept. B.A.,
1852-30).
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen at Buderich, Jan. 22, 1854
(Notes and Queries,
1-9-267).
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen by Lord Roberts
(Forty-One Years in India,
p. 219) at Mohan, Feb. 25, 1858. It is either that Lord Roberts saw indistinctly, and described in terms of the familiar to him, or that we are set back in our own motions. According to him, the figures wore Hindoo costumes.
Extra-geography—its vistas and openings and fields—and the Thoreaus that are upon this earth, but undeveloped, because they cannot find their ponds. A lonely thing and its pond, afloat in space—they crossed the moon. In
Cosmos,
n.s., 11-200, it is said that, night of July 7, 1857, two persons of Chambon had seen forms crossing the moon—something like a human being followed by a pond.
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen, about the year 1860, at Paderborn, Westphalia (Crowe,
Nightside of Nature,
p. 416).
19
We attempt to coordinate various streaks of data, all of which signify to us that, external to this earth, and in relation with, or relatable to, this earth are lands and lives and a generality of conditions that make of the whole, supposed solar system one globule of circumstances like terrestrial circumstances. Our expressions are in physical terms, though in outer space there may be phenomena known as psychic phenomena, because of the solid substances and objects that have fallen from the sky to this earth, similar to, but sometimes not identified with, known objects and substances upon this earth. Opposing us is the more or less well-established conventional doctrine that has spun like a cocoon around mind upon this earth, shutting off research, and stifling even speculation, shelling away all data of relations and relatability with external existences, a doctrine that, in its various explanations and disregards and denials, is unified in one expression of Exclusionism.
An unknown vegetable substance falls from the sky. The datum is buried: it may sprout someday.
The earthquakes. A luminous object is seen in the sky. Substance falls from the unknown. But the event is catalogued with subterranean earthquakes.
All conventional explanations and all conventional disregards and denials have Exclusionism in common. The unity is so marked, all writings in the past are so definitely in agreement, that I now think of a general era that is, by Exclusionism, as distinctly characterized as ever was the Carboniferous Era.
A pregnant woman stands near Niagara Falls. There are sounds, and they are vast circumstances; but the cells of an unborn being respond, or vibrate, only as they do to disturbances in their own little environment. Horizons pour into a gulf, and thunder rolls upward: embryonic consciousness is no more than to slight perturbations of maternal indigestion. It is Exclusionism.
Stones fall from the sky. To the same part of this earth, they fall again. They fall again. They fall from some region that, relatively to this part of the earth’s surface, is stationary. But to say this leads to the suspicion that it is this earth that is stationary. To think that is to beat against the walls of uterine dogmas—into a partly hairy and somewhat reptilian mass of social undevelopment comes exclusionist explanation suitable for such immaturity.
It does not matter which of our subjects we take up, our experience is unvarying: the standardized explanation will be Exclusionism. As to many appearances in the sky, the way of excluding foreign forces is to say that they are auroras, which are supposed to be mundane phenomena. School children are taught that auroras are electric manifestations encircling the poles of this earth. Respectful urchins are shown an ikon by which an electrified sphere does have the polar encirclements that it should have. But I have taken a disrespectful, or advanced, course through the
Monthly Weather Review,
and have read hundreds of times of auroras that were not such polar crownings: of auroras in Venezuela, Sandwich Islands, Cuba, India; of an aurora in Pennsylvania, for instance, and not a sign of it north of Pennsylvania. There are lights in the sky for which “auroral” is as good a name as any that can be thought of, but there are others for which some other names will have to be thought of. There have been lights like luminous surfs beating upon the coasts of this earth’s atmosphere, and lights like vast reflections from distant fires; steady pencils of light and pulsating clouds and quick flashes and seeming objects with definite outlines, all in one poverty of nomenclature, for which science is, in some respects, not notable, called “auroral.” Nobody knows what an aurora is. It does not matter. An unknown light in the sky is said to be auroral. This is standardization, and the essence of this standardization is Exclusionism.
I see one resolute, unified, unscrupulous exclusion from science of the indications of nearby lands in the sky. It may not be unscrupulousness: it may be hypnosis. I see that all seeming hypnotics, or somnambulists of the past, who have most plausibly so explained, or so denied, have prospered and have had renown. According to my impressions, if a Brewster, or a Swift, or a Newcomb ever had written that there may be nearby lands and living beings in the sky, he would not have prospered, and his renown would be still subject to delay. If an organism flourishes, it is said to be in harmony with environment, or with higher forces. I now conceive of successful and flourishing Exclusionism as an organization that has been in harmony with higher forces. Suppose we accept that all general delusions function sociologically. Then, if Exclusionism be general delusion; if we shall accept that conceivably the isolation of this earth has been a necessary factor in the development of the whole geo-system, we see that exclusionistic science has faithfully, though falsely, functioned. It would be worldwide crime to spread worldwide too soon the idea that there are other existences nearby and that they have been seen and that sounds from them have been heard: the peoples of this earth must organize themselves before conceiving of, and trying to establish, foreign relations. A premature science of such subjects would be like a United States taking part in a Franco-Prussian War, when such foreign relations should be still far in the future of a nation that has still to concentrate upon its own internal development.
So in the development of all things—or that a stickleback may build a nest, and so may vaguely and not usefully and not explicably at all, in terms of Darwinian evolution, foreshadow a character of coming forms of life; but that a fish that should try to climb a tree and sing to its mate before even the pterodactyl had flapped around with wings daubed with clay would be an unnoticed little clown in cosmic drama. But I do conceive that when the Carboniferous Era is dominant, and when not a discordant thing will be permitted to flourish, though it may adumbrate, restrictions will not last forever, and that the rich and bountiful curse upon rooted things will someday be lifted.
