New Lands

by Charles Fort

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  At times when we think favorably of this work of ours, we see in it a pointing-out of an evil of modern specialization. A seismologist studies earthquakes, and an astronomer studies meteors; neither studies both earthquakes and meteors, and consequently each, ignorant of the data collected by the other, sees no relation between the two phenomena. The treatment of the event in Servia, Dec. 1, 1889, is an instance of conventional scientific attempts to understand something by separately, or specially, focusing upon different aspects, and not combining into an inclusive concept. Meunier writes only upon the stones that fell from the sky, and does not mention an earthquake at the time. Milne, in his Catalogue of Destructive Earthquakes, lists the occurrence as an earthquake, and does not mention stones that fell from the sky. All combinations greatly affect the character of components: in our combination of the two aspects, we see that the phenomenon was not an earthquake, as earthquakes are commonly understood, though it may have been meteoric; but was not meteoric, in ordinary terms of meteors, because of the unlikelihood that meteors, identical in material, should, seventeen years apart, fall upon the same part of this earth’s surface, and nowhere else.

  This occurrence was of course an explosion in the sky, and its vibrations were communicated to the earth below, with all the effects of any other kind of earthquakes. Back in our earliest confusion of the data of a century’s first quarter, we had awareness of this combination and its conventional misinterpretation: that many concussions that have been communicated from explosions in the sky have been catalogued in lists of subterranean earthquakes. We are farther along now, in our data of the 19th century, and now we come across awareness, in other minds, of this distinguishment. At 8:20 a.m., Nov. 20, 1887, was heard and felt something that was reported from many places in the region that is known to us as the London Triangle, as an earthquake, though in some towns it was thought that a great explosion, perhaps in London, had occurred. It was reported from Reading, and from four towns near Reading, and Reading is said to be one of the places where the concussion was greatest. There were several accounts of slight alarm among sheep, which are sensitive to meteors and earthquakes. But, in Symons’ Met. Mag., Mr. H.G. Fordham wrote that the occurrence was not an earthquake; that a meteor had exploded. He had very little to base this opinion upon: out of scores of descriptions, he had record of only two assertions that something had been seen in the sky. Nevertheless, because the sound was so much greater than the concussion, Mr. Fordham came to his conclusion.

  In Symons’ Met. Mag., 23-154, Dr. R.H. Wake writes that, upon the evening of Nov. 3, 1888, in a region about four miles wide and ten or fifteen miles long, in the Thames Valley (near Reading) flocks of sheep had rushed from their folds in a common alarm. About a year later, in the Chiltern Hills, which extend in a northeasterly direction from the Thames Valley, near Reading, there was another such occurrence. In the London Standard, Nov. 7, 1889, the Rev. J. Ross Barker, of Chesham, a town about twenty-five miles northeast of Reading, writes that, upon Oct. 25, 1889, many flocks of sheep, in a region of thirty square miles, had, by common impulse, broken from their folds. Mr. Barker asks whether anyone knew of a meteor or of an earthquake at the time. In vol. 24, Symons’ Met. Mag., Mr. Symons accepts that all three of these occurrences were effects of meteoric explosions in the sky. The phenomena are insignificant relatively to some that we have considered: the significance is in this definite recognition in orthodoxy, itself, that some supposed earthquakes, or effects of supposed earthquakes, are reactions to explosions in the sky.

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  Exploding monasteries that shoot out clouds of monks into cyclonic formations with stormy nuns similarly dispossessed—or collapsing monasteries—sometimes slowly crumbling confines of the cloistered—by which we typify all things: that all developments pass through a process of walling-away within shells that will break. Once upon a time there was a shell around the United States. The shell broke. Some other things were smashed.

  The doctrines of great distances among heavenly bodies, and of a moving earth are the strongest elements of Exclusionism: the mere idea of separations by millions of miles discourages thoughts of communication with other worlds; and only to think that this earth shoots through space at a velocity of nineteen miles a second puts an end to speculation upon how to leave it and how to return. But, if these two conventions be features of a walling-away like that of a chick within its shell, or that of the United States within its boundaries, and if someday all such confinements of the embryonic break, our own prophecy, in the vague terms of all successful prophecies, is that a matured view of astronomic phenomena will be from a Utter of broken demonstrations.

  Our expression now is upon the function of Isolation in Development. Specially it is not ours, because I think we learned it from the biologists, but we are applying it generally. If the general expression be accepted, we conceive that functionally have the astronomers taught that planets are millions of miles away, and that this earth moves at such terrific velocity that it is encysted with speed. Whether isolations function or not, that exclusions that break down are typical of all developments is signified by data upon all growing things, beginning with the aristocratic seeds, which, however, liberalize to intercourse with mean materials or die. All animal-organisms are at first walled away. In human circumstances conditions are the same. The development of every science has been a series of temporary exclusions, and the story of every industry tells of inventions that were resisted, but that were finally admitted. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel published his demonstration that there could be only seven planets: too late to recall the work, he learned that Ceres had been discovered. It is our expression that the mental state of Hegel partook of a general spirit of his time, and that it was necessary, or that it functioned, because early astronomers could scarcely have systematized their doctrine had they been bewildered by seven or eight hundred planetary bodies; and that, besides the functions of the astronomers, according to our expressions, there was also their usefulness in breaking down the walls of the older, and outlived, orthodoxy. We conceive that it is well that a great deal of experience should be withheld from children, and that, anyway, in their early years, they are sexually isolated, for instance, and our idea is that our data have been held back by no outspoken conspiracy, but by an inhibition similar to that by which a great deal of biology, for instance, is not taught to children. But, if we think of something of this kind, equally acceptable is it that even in the face of orthodox principles, these data have been preserved in orthodox publications, and that, in the face of supposed principles of Darwinism, as applied generally they have survived, though not in harmony with their environment.

  Tons of paper have been consumed by calculations upon the remoteness of stars and planets. But I can find nothing that has been calculated, or said, that is sounder than Mr. Shaw’s determination that the moon is thirty-seven miles away. It is that the Vogels and the Struves and the Newcombs have been functionally hypnotized and have usefully spread the embryonic delusion that there is a vast, untraversible expanse of space around this earth, or that they have had some basis that it has been my misfortune to be unable to find, or that there is no pleasant and unaccusatory way of explaining them.

  April 10, 1874—a luminous object that exploded in the sky of Kuttenberg, Bohemia. It is said that the glare was like sunlight, and that the “terrifying flash” was followed by a detonation that rumbled about a minute. April 9, 1876—an explosion that is said to have been violent, over the town of Rosenau, Hungary. See Rept. B.A., 1877-147.

  These two objects which appeared in virtually the same local sky of this earth—points of explosion 250 miles apart—came from virtually the same point in the sky: constellation of Cassiopeia; different by two degrees in right ascension, and with no difference in declination. About the same time in the evening: one at 8:09 p.m., and the other at 8:20 p.m. Same night in the year, according to extra-terrestrial calendars: the year 1876 w
as a leap year.

  If they had been ordinary meteors, by coincidence two ordinary meteors of the same stream might, exactly two years apart, come from almost the same point in the heavens and strike almost the same point over this earth. But they were two of the most extraordinary occurrences in the records of explosions in the sky. Coincidences multiply, or these objects did come from the not far-distant constellation Cassiopeia, and their striking so closely together indicates that this earth is stationary; and something of the purposeful may be thought of. Serially related to these events, or representing some more coincidence, there had been, upon June 9, 1866, a tremendous explosion in the sky of Knysahinya, Hungary, and about a thousand stones had fallen from the sky (Rept. B.A., 1867-430). Rosenau and Knysahinya are about seventy-five miles apart. Of course one can very much extend our own circumscribed little notions, and think of the firing of projectiles from beyond the stars, just as one can think of our unknown lands as being not in the immediate sky of Servia or Birmingham or Comrie, but as being beyond the nearby stars, reducing everything more than we have reduced—but the firing of stones to this earth seems crude to me. Of course, objects, or fragments of objects made of steel, like the manufactured steel of this earth, have fallen to this earth, and are now in collections of “meteorites.” There is a story in a book that is not very accessible to us, because it can’t be found along with C.R., or Eng. Mec., or L’Astro., of tablets of stone that were once upon a time fired to this earth. It may be that inhabitants of this earth have been receiving instructions ever since, engravings arriving very badly damaged, however.

  I have data upon repeating appearances, said to have been “auroral,” in a local sky. If they were auroral, repetitions at regular intervals and so localized are challengers to the most resolute of explainers. If they were of extra-mundane origin, they indicate that this earth is stationary. The regularity is suggestive of signaling. For instance—a light in the sky of Lyons, N.Y., Dec. 9, 1891, and Jan. 5, Feb. 2, Feb. 29, March 27, April 23, 1892. In the Scientific American, May 7, 1892, Dr. M.A. Veeder writes that, from Dec. 9, 1891, to April 23, 1892, there had been a bright light that he calls “auroral” in the sky of Lyons, every twenty-seventh night. He associates the lights with the sun’s synodic period, and says that upon each of the days preceding a nocturnal display, there had been a disturbance in the sun. How a disturbance in the sun could, at night, sun somewhere near the antipodes of Lyons, N.Y., so localize its effects, one can’t clear up. In Nature, 46-29, Dr. Veeder associates the phenomena with the synodic period of the sun, but he says that this period is of 27 days, 6 hours, and 47 minutes, noting that this period is inconsistent with the phenomena at Lyons, making more than a day’s difference in the time of his records. This precise determination is more of the “exact science” that is driving some of us away from refinements into hoping for caves. Different parts of the sun move at different rates: I have read of sun spots that moved diagonally across the sun.

  In Nature, 15-451, a correspondent writes that, at 8:55 p.m., he saw a large red star in Serpens, where he had never seen such an appearance before—Gunnersbury, March 17, 1877. Ten minutes later, the object increased and decreased several times, flashing like the revolving light of a lighthouse, then disappearing. This correspondent writes that, about 10 p.m., he saw a great meteor. He suggests no relation between the two appearances, but there may have been relation, and there may be indication of something that was stationary at least one hour over Gunnersbury, because the object said to have been a “meteor” was first seen at Gunnersbury. In the Observatory, 1-20, Capt. Tupman writes that, at 9:57, a great meteor was seen first at Frome, Tetbury, and Gunnersbury. The red object might not have been in the local sky of Gunnersbury; might have been in the constellation Serpens, unseen in all the rest of the world.

  There is a great field of records of “meteors” that, with no parallax, or with little parallax, or with little parallax that may be accounted for by supposing that observations were not quite simultaneous, have been seen to come as if from a star or from a planet, and that may have come from such points, indicating that they are not far away. For instance, Rept. B.A., 1879-77—the great meteor of Sept. 5, 1868. It was seen, at Zurich, Switzerland, to come from a point near Jupiter; at Tremont, France, origin was so close to Jupiter that this object and the planet were seen in the same telescopic field; at Bergamo, Italy, it was seen five or six degrees from Jupiter. Zurich is about 140 miles from Bergamo, and Tremont is farther from Zurich and Bergamo than that,

  So there are data that indicate that objects have come to this earth from planets or from stars, enforcing our idea that the remotest planet is not so far from this earth as the moon is said, conventionally, to be; and that the stars, all equidistant from this earth might be reached by traveling from this earth. One notices that I always conclude that, if phenomena repeatedly occur in one local sky of this earth, their origin is traceable to a fixed place over a stationary earth. The fixed place over this earth is indicated, but that fixed place—island of space, foreign coast, whatever it may be—may be conceived of as accompanying this earth in its rotations and revolutions around the sun. Accepting that nothing much is known of gravitation; that gravitational astronomy is a myth; that attraction may extend but a few miles around this earth, if I can think of something hanging unsupported in space, I always think of an island, say, over Birmingham, or Irkutsk, or Comrie, as soon flying off by the centrifugal force of a rotating earth, or as being soon left behind in a rush around the sun. Nevertheless there is good room for discussion here. But when it comes to other orders of data, I find one convergence toward the explanation that this earth is stationary. But the subject is supposed to be sacred. One must not think that this earth is stationary. One must not investigate. To think upon this subject, except as one is told to think, is, or seems to be considered, impious.

  But how can one account for an earth that moves?

  By thinking that something started it and that nothing ever stopped it.

  Earth that doesn’t move?

  That nothing ever started it.

  Some more sacrilege.

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  If a grasshopper could hop on a cannon ball, passing overhead, I could conceive, perhaps, how something, from outer space, could flit to a moving earth, explore a while, and then hop off.

  But suppose we have to accept that there have been instances of just such enterprise and agility, relatively to the planet Venus. Irrespective of our notion that it may be that sometimes a vessel sails to this earth from Venus and returns, there are striking data indicating that, whether conceivable or not, luminous objects have appeared from somewhere, or presumably from outer space, and have been seen temporarily suspended over the planet Venus. This is in accord with our indications that there are regions in the sky suspended over and near this earth. It looks bad for our inference that this earth is stationary, but it is the supposed rotary motion of this earth more than the supposed orbital motion that seems to us would dislodge such neighboring bodies; and all astronomers, except those who say that Venus rotates in about twenty-four hours, say that Venus rotates in about 224 days, a velocity that would generate little centrifugal force.

  I have a note upon a determined luminosity that was bent upon Saturn, as its objective. In the English Mechanic, 63-496, a correspondent writes that, upon July 13, 1896, he saw, through his telescope, from ten until after 11:15 p.m., after which the planet was too near the horizon for good seeing, a luminous object moving near Saturn. He saw it pass several small stars. “It was certainly going toward Saturn at a good rate.” There may be swifts of the sky that can board planets. If they can swoop on and off an earth moving at a rate of nineteen miles a second, disregarding rotation, because entrance at a pole may be thought of, why, then, for all I know smaller things do ride on cannon balls. Of course if our data that indicate that the supposed solar system, or the geosystem, is to an enormous degree smaller than is conventionally taught be accepted, the orbital v
elocity of Venus is far cut down.

  About the last of August, 1873—Brussels; eight o’clock in the evening—rising above the horizon, into a clear sky, was seen a star-like object. It mounted higher and higher, until, about ten minutes later, it disappeared (La Nature, 1873-239). It seems that this conspicuous object did appear in a local sky, and was therefore not far from this earth. If it were not a fire-balloon, one supposes that it did come from outer space, and then returned.

  Perhaps a similar thing that visited the moon, and was then seen sailing away—in the Astronomical Register, 23-205, Prof. Schafarik, of Prague, writes that upon April 24, 1874, he saw “an object of so peculiar a nature that I do not know what to make of it.” He saw a dazzling white object slowly traversing the disc of the moon. He had not seen it approaching the moon. He watched it after it left the moon. Sept. 27, 1881—South Africa—an object that was seen near the moon, by Col. Markwick—like a comet but moving rapidly (Jour. Liverpool Astro. Soc., 7-117).

  Our chief interest is in objects, like ships, that have “boarded” this moving earth with the agility of a Columbus who could dodge a San Salvador and throw out an anchor to an American coast screeching past him at a rate of nineteen miles a second, or in objects that have come as close as atmospheric conditions, or unknown conditions, would permit to the bottom of a kind of stationary sea. We now graduate Capt. Noble to the extra-geographic fold. In Knowledge, 4-173, Capt. Noble writes that, at 10:35 on the night of Aug. 28, 1883, he saw in the sky something “like a new and most glorious comet.” First he saw something like the tail of a comet, or it was like a searchlight, according to Capt. Noble’s sketch of it in Knowledge. Then Capt. Noble saw the nucleus from which this light came. It was a brilliant object. Upon page 207, W.K. Bradgate writes that, at 12:40 a.m., August 29, at Liverpool, he saw an object like the planet Jupiter, a ray of light emanating from it. Upon the nights of September 11 and 13, Prof. Swift saw, at Rochester, N.Y., an unknown object like a comet, perhaps in the local sky of Rochester, inasmuch as it was reported from nowhere else (Observatory, 6-345). In Knowledge, 4-219, Mrs. Harbin writes that, upon the night of September 21, at Yeovil, she saw the same brilliant searchlight-like light that had been seen by Capt. Noble, but that it had disappeared before she could turn her telescope upon it. And several months later (November, 1883) a similar object was seen obviously not far away, but in the local sky of Porto Rico and then of Ohio (Amer. Met. Jour., 1-110, and Sci. Amer., 50-40, 97). It may be better not to say at this time that we have data for thinking that a vessel carrying something like a searchlight, visited this earth, and explored for several months over regions as far apart as England and Porto Rico. Just at present it is enough to record that something that was presumably not a fire-balloon appeared in the sky of England, close to this earth, if seen nowhere else, and in two hours traversed the distance of about 200 miles between Sussex and Liverpool.