Chapter 10
UNKNOWN, LUMINOUS things, or beings, have often been seen, sometimes close to this earth, and sometimes high in the sky. It may be that some of them were living things that occasionally come from somewhere else in our existence, but that others were lights on the vessels of explorers, or voyagers, from somewhere else.
From time to time, luminous objects, or beings, have been reported from Brown Mountain, North Carolina. They appear, and then for a long time are not seen, and then they appear again. See the Literary Digest, Nov. 7, 1925. I have other records. The luminosities travel, as if with motions of their own. They are brilliant, globular forms, and move in the sky, with a leisureliness and duration that exclude any explanation in meteoric terms. For many years, there had been talk upon this subject, and then, in the year 1922, people of North Carolina, asking for a scientific investigation, were referred to the United States Geological Survey. A geologist was sent from Washington to investigate these things in the sky.
One imagines, but most likely only faintly, the superiority of this geologist from Washington. He heard stories from the natives. He contrasted his own sound principles with the irresponsible gab of denizens, and went right to the investigation, scientifically. He went out on a road, and saw lights, and made his report. 47% of the lights that he saw were automobile headlights; 33% of them were locomotive headlights; 10% were lights in houses, and 10% were bush fires. Tot that up, and see that efficiency can't go further. The geologist from Washington, having investigated nothing that he had been sent to investigate, returned to Washington, which also, by the way, is a place where there's plenty to investigate, and I suppose that the people of North Carolina will be no wiser, as to these things in the sky, if some other time they appeal to a United States Fish Commission, or the Department of Labor.
I don't know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody's inability seriously to spend time upon something, which, according to his preconceptions, is nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the year 1492, hearing stories of lands to the west, going out on the ocean for an hour or so, in a row-boat, and then saying, whether exactly in these words, or not: "Oh, hell! there ain't no America."
In Knowledge, September, 1913, Count de Sibour enjoyed his laziness, or incompetence, which a merciful providence, bent upon keeping us human beings reconciled to being human beings, made him think was his own superiority. He told a story of foolish, credulous people, in North Norfolk, England, who, in the winter of 1907-8, believed that a pair of shining things, moving about the fields, could not be explained as he explained them. We are told of a commonplace ending of this alleged mystery: that finally a gamekeeper shot one of these objects, and found that it was a common barn owl, phosphorescent with decayed wood from its nesting place, or with a fungous disease of its feathers. According to other accounts, these things were as brilliant as electric lights. But a phosphorescent owl could not shine with a light like an electric light. So De Sibour described the light as "a pale, yellow glow," such as a phosphorescent owl could shine with.
Science concerns itself with adaptations, and science itself is adaptation. We are reminded of the Rev. Hugh Guy. He could not explain downpours: so he turned downpours into "a small quantity," which he could explain.
De Sibour knew nothing about this subject, from his own experiences. We go to the same records to which he went. Like him, we find just about what we want to find. In the London Times, Dec. 10, 1907, and in following issues, are accounts of these luminous objects, which were flying about the fields of North Norfolk, having been reported by Mr. R. W. Purdy, a well-known writer upon biologic subjects.
Among other attempts to assimilate with the known, or among other expressions of a world-wide antipathy to the finding out of anything new, was the idea that owls are sometimes luminous. The idea came first, or the solution of the problem was published first, and then the problem was fitted to the solution. This is said to be a favorite method of ratiocination with inmates of a home for the mentally deficient, but I should think that one of these inmates should feel at home anywhere. De Sibour and others fitted in a story that a luminous owl had been shot. I think that at times there may be faintly luminous owls, because I accept that, under some circumstances, almost anything may be luminous. English Mechanic, 10-15— case of a man with a luminous toe.
Shining things, flying like birds, in the fields of North Norfolk continued to be reported. The brilliant things looked electric. When they rested on trees, everything around them was illuminated. Purdy's descriptions are very different from "a pale, yellow glow." Upon the night of December 1st, he saw something that he thought was the lamp of a motor cycle, moving rapidly toward him, in a field, stopping, then rising several yards, moving higher, and then retreating. It moved in various directions. See the Field, Jan. 11, 1908.
De Sibour was uncareful, in his mystery-squelching story, his bobbed story, a story that forced a mystery to a commonplace ending. No gamekeeper shot a luminous owl, at this time, in North Norfolk.
But somebody did say that he had conventionally solved the mystery. Eastern Daily Press (Norwich), Feb. 7, 1908— that, early in the morning of the 5th, Mr. E. S. Cannell, of Lower Hellesdon, saw something shining on a grass bank. According to him, it fluttered up to him, and he found that it was the explanation of a mystery. It was a luminous owl, he said; and, as told by him, he carried it to his home, where it died, "still luminous."
But see the Press of the 8th— that Mr. Cannell's dead owl had been taken to a taxidermist, who had been interviewed. Of course a phosphorescence of a bird, whether from decayed wood, or feather fungi, would be independent of life or death of the bird. Questioned as to whether the body of the owl was luminous or not, the taxidermist said: "I have seen nothing luminous about it."
In zoological journals, one frequently comes upon allusions to these things, or beings, of North Norfolk. No gamekeeper killed one of them, but the story of the gamekeeper who had killed a luminous owl is told in these records that are said to be scientific. It is not necessary that a gamekeeper should kill a luminous owl, and so put an end to a mystery. A story that he did will serve just as well.
The finding, or the procuring in some way or another, of the body of an owl, did not put an end to the mystery, except in most of the records, that are said to be scientific. There were at first two lights, and there continued to be two lights. The brilliant things continued to be seen in the fields, flitting about, appearing and disappearing. The last observation findable by me (May 3, 1908) is recorded in the Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, 8-550. Purdy records an observation upon the two lights, seen together, more than a month after the date upon which Mr. Cannell said that his owl had fluttered right up to him. Something else was reported, in this region. In the Eastern Daily Press, Jan. 28, 1908, it is said that, at night— moon bright— "a dark, globular object, with a structure of some kind upon the side of it, traveling at a great pace," had been seen in the sky, by employees of the Norwich Transportation Company, at Mousehead. "It seemed too large for a kite, and, besides, its movements seemed under control, for it was traveling against the wind."
I am here noting only a few of the many records of unknown, seemingly living, luminous things that used to be called will-o’-the-wisps. They come and they go, and their reappearances in a small region make me think of other localized repetitions that we have noted.
London Daily Express, February 15, and following issues, 1923— brilliant, luminous things moving across fields, sometimes high in the air, at Fenny Compton, Warwickshire. They were "intense lights," like automobile headlights. Sometimes these luminous things, or beings, hovered over a farmhouse. It was a deserted farmhouse, according to the London Daily News, February 13. About a year later, one of these objects, or whatever they were, returned, and was reported as "a swiftly moving light," by several persons, one of them Miss Olive Knight, a school teacher, of Fenny Compton (London Sunday News, Jan. 27, 1924).
The Earl of Erne tells, in the London Daily Mail, Dec. 24, 1912, of brilliant luminosities that, from time to time, in a period of seven or eight years, had been appearing near Lough Erne, Londonderry, Ireland, "in size and shape very much like a motor car lamp." In later issues of the Daily Mail, the Countess of Erne tells of these things, or creatures, "like motor car lamps, large and round."
Chapter 11
SCIENCE IS VERY much like the Civil War, in the U. S. A. No matter which side won, it would have been an American victory. By Science, I mean conventionalization of alleged knowledge. It, or maybe she, acts to maintain itself, or whatever, against further enlightenment, or alleged enlightenment but when giving in, there is not surrender, but partnership, and something that had been bitterly fought then becomes another factor in its, or her, prestige. So, seventy years ago, no matter whether evolutionists or anti-evolutionists had won, it would have been a big, scientific victory anyway. No wonder so many of us are humbled by a reputation that can't lose any way.
Science is a maw, or a headless and limbless stomach, an amoeba-like gut that maintains itself by incorporating the assimilable and rejecting the indigestible. There are whirlwinds and waterspouts, and it seems acceptable that there have been rare occurrences of faintly luminous owls. Then by a process of sorting over data, rejecting the objectionable, and taking in the desirable, Science saves itself great pains, because a bellyache is something that is only a gut in torment. So, with alimentary treatments, a shower of living things can always be made to assimilate with the whirlwind-explanation, and a brilliant, electric thing can be toned down digestibly. In extreme cases there is a secretion of fishmongers or gamekeepers.
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 extramundanians 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
New 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 o'clock 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.
