Lo!

by Charles Fort

  But the outstanding phenomenon of this period was the revival—

  Liverpool Echo, January 18—”Wales in the Grip of Supernatural Forces!”

  This was in allusion to the developing frenzies of the revival, and the accompanying luminous things, or beings that had been reported. “Supernatural” is a word that has no place in my vocabulary. In my view, it has no meaning, or distinguishment. If there never has been, finally, a natural explanation of anything, everything is, naturally enough, the supernatural.

  The grip was a grab by a craze. The excitement was combustion, or psycho-electricity, or almost anything except what it was supposed to be, and perhaps when flowing from human batteries there was a force that was of use to the luminous things that hung around. Maybe they fed upon it, and grew, and glowed, brilliant with nourishing ecstasies. See data upon astonishing growths of plants, when receiving other kinds of radio-active nourishment, or stimulation. If a man can go drunk on God, he may usefully pass along his exhilarations to other manifestations of godness.

  There were flares where they’d least be expected. In the big stores, in the midst of waiting on customers, shop girls would suddenly, or electrically, start clapping hands and singing. Very likely some of them cut up such capers for the sport of it, and enjoyed keeping hard customers waiting. I notice that, though playing upon widely different motives, popular excitements are recruited and kept going, as if they were homogeneous. There’s no understanding huge emotional revolts against sin, without considering all the fun there is in them. They are monotony-breakers. Drab, little personalities have a chance to scream themselves vivid. There were confession-addicts who, past possibility of being believed, proclaimed their own wickedness, and then turned to public confessions for their neighbors, until sinful neighbors appealed to the law for protection. In one town, a man went from store to store, “returning” things that he had not stolen. Bands of girls roved the streets, rushing earnestly and mischievously into the more sedate churches, where the excitation was not encouraged, singing and clapping their hands, all of them shouting, and some of them blubbering, and then some of the most sportive ones blubbering, compelled into a temporary uniformity. This clapping of hands, in time with the singing, was almost irresistible: some vibrational reason: power of the rhythm to harmonize diverse units; primitive power of the drum-beat. Special trains set out from Liverpool to Welsh meeting places, with sightseers, who hadn’t a concern for the good of their souls; vendors of things that might have a sale; some earnest ones. Handclapping started up, and emotional furies shot through Wales.

  There were ghost scares in the towns of Blyth and Dover. Blyth News, March 14—crowds gathered around a school house—something of a ghostly nature inside—nothing but the creaking of a partition.

  I pick up something else. We wonder how far our neo-mediaevalism is going to take us. Perhaps—though our interpretations will not be the same—only mediaevalism will be the limit. Blyth News, February 28—smoke that was seen coming from the windows of a house in Blyth. Neighbors broke in, and found the body of the occupant, Barbara Bell, aged seventy-seven, on a sofa. Her body was burned, as if for a long time it had been in the midst of intense flames. It was thought that the victim had fallen into the fireplace. “The body was fearfully charred.”

  Something was slaughtering sheep—and things in the sky of Wales—and it may be that there were things, or beings, that acted like fire, consuming the bodies of women. London Daily News, Dec. 17, 1904—“Yesterday morning, Mrs. Thomas Cochrane, of Rosehall, Falkirk, widow of a well-known, local gentleman, was found burned to death in her bedroom. No fire in the grate—burned almost beyond recognition”—no outcry—little, if anything else burned—body found, “sitting in a chair, surrounded by pillows and cushions.” London Daily Mail, December 24—inquest on the body of a woman, who had died of the effects of “mysterious burns.” “She could give no account of her injuries.” An almshouse, late at night—and something burned a woman. Trinity Almshouse, Hull—story told, in the Hull Daily Mail, January 6. Body covered with burns—woman still living, when found in the morning—strange that there had been no outcry—bed unscorched. The woman, Elizabeth Clark, could tell nothing of her injuries, and she died without giving a clue to the mystery. “There was no fire nor light in the room.”

  On both sides of the River Tyne, something kept on slaughtering. It crossed the Tyne, having killed on one side, then killing on the other side. At East Dipton, two sheep were devoured, all but the fleece and the bones, and the same night two sheep were killed on the other side of the river.

  “The Big Game Hunter from India!”

  Another celebrity came forth. The Wolf Committee met him at the station. There was a plaid shawl strapped to his back, and the flaps of his hunting cap were considered unprecedented. Almost everybody had confidence in the shawl, or felt that the flaps were authoritative. The devices by which he covered his ears made beholders feel that they were in the presence of Science.

  Hexham Herald—“The right man, at last!”

  So finally the wolf hunt was taken up scientifically. The ordinary hunts were going on, but the wiseman from India would have nothing to do with them. In his cap, with flaps such as had never before been seen in Northumberland, and with his plaid shawl strapped to his back, he was going from farm to farm, sifting and dating and classifying observations: drawing maps, card-indexing his data. For some situations, this is the best of methods: but something that the methodist-wiseman cannot learn is that a still better method is that of not being so tied to any particular method. It was a serious matter in Hexham. The ravaging thing was an alarming pest. There were some common hunters who were unmannerly over all this delay, but the Hexham Herald came out strong for Science—“The right man in the right place, at last!”

  There was, in this period, another series of killings. Upon a farm, near Newcastle, late in this year 1904, something was killing poultry. The depredations were so persistent, and the marauder was so evasive that persons who are said to be superstitious began to talk in a way that is said to be unenlightened.

  Then the body of an otter was found.

  The killing of poultry stopped.

  For a discussion of the conclusion that to any normal logician looks obvious, see the Field, Dec. 3, 1904. Here we learn that otters, though ordinarily living upon fish, do sometimes vary their diet. But no data upon persistent killing of poultry, by otters, came out.

  This body of an otter was found, lying on a railroad line.

  France in the grip of military forces. August, 1914—France was invaded, and the people of France knew that France was invaded. It is my expression that so they knew, only because it was a conventional recognition. There were no wisemen to say that reported bodies of men moving along roads had nothing to do with mutilated persons appearing in hospitals, and that only by coincidence was there devastation. The wiseman of France did not give only a local explanation to every local occurrence, but of course correlated all, as the manifestations of one invasion. Human eyes have been made to see human invaders.

  Wales in the grip of “supernatural forces.” People in England paid little attention, at first, but then hysterias mobbed across the border. To those of us who have some failings, and now and then give a thought to correcting them, if possible, but are mostly too busy to bother much, cyclones of emotions relating to states that are vaguely known as good and evil, are most mysterious. In the Barmouth Advertiser (April 20) it is said that, in the first three months of this year 1905, there had been admitted to the Denbigh Insane Asylum, sixteen patients, whose dementias were attributed to the revival. It is probable that many cases were not reported. In the Liverpool Echo, November 25, are accounts of four insane revivalists, who were under restraint in their own homes. Three cases in one town are told of in this newspaper, of January 10th. The craze spread in England, and in some parts of England it was as intense as anywhere in Wales. At Bromley, a woman wrote a confession of sins, some of which, it
was said, she could not have committed, and threw herself under a railroad train. In town after town, police stations were invaded by exhorters. In both England and Wales, bands stood outside theaters, calling upon people not to enter. In the same way they tried to prevent attendance at football games.

  December 29—“Wolf killed on a railroad line!”

  It was at Cumwinton, which is near Carlisle, about thirty miles from Hexham. The body was found on a railroad line—“Magnificent specimen of male gray wolf—total length five feet—measurement from foot to top of shoulder, thirty inches.”

  Captain Bains, of Shotley Bridge, went immediately to Cumwinton. He looked at the body of the wolf. He said that it was not his wolf.

  There was doubt in the newspapers. Everybody is supposed to know his own wolf, but when one’s wolf has made material for a host of damage suits, one’s recognitions may be dimmed.

  This body of a wolf was found, and killings of sheep stopped.

  But Capt. Bains’ denial that the wolf was his wolf was accepted by the Hexham Wolf Committee. Data were with him. He had reported the escape of his wolf, and the description was on record in the Shodey Bridge police station. Capt. Bains’ wolf was, in October, no “magnificent” full-grown specimen, but a cub, four and a half months old. Though nobody had paid any attention to this circumstance, it had been pointed out, in the Hexham Herald, October 15.

  The wolf of Cumwinton was not identified, according to my reading of the data. Nobody told of an escape of a grown wolf, though the news of this wolf’s death was published throughout England. The animal may have come from somewhere far from England. Photographs of the wolf were sold, as picture postal cards. People flocked to Cumwinton. Men in the show business offered to buy the body, but the decision of the railroad company was that the body had not been identified, and belonged to the company. The head was preserved, and was sent to the central office, in Derby.

  But what became of the Shotley Bridge wolf?

  All that can be said is that it disappeared.

  The mystery begins with this statement:

  That, in October, 1904, a wolf, belonging to Capt. Bains, of Shotley Bridge, escaped, and that about the same time began a slaughtering of sheep, but that Capt. Bains’ wolf had nothing to do with the slaughter.

  Or the statement is that there was killing of sheep, in Northumberland, and that then came news of the escape of a wolf, by which the killing of a few sheep might be explained—

  But that then there were devourings, which could not be attributed to a wolf cub.

  The wolf cub disappeared, and there appeared another wolf, this one of a size and strength to which the devourings could be attributed.

  Somewhere there was science.

  If it had not been for Capt. Bains’ prompt investigation, the reported differences between these two animals would have been overlooked, or disbelieved, and the story would be simply that a wolf had escaped from Shotley Bridge, had ravaged, and had been killed at Cumwinton. But Capt. Bains did investigate, and his statement that the wolf of Cumwinton was not his wolf was accepted. So then, instead of a satisfactory explanation, there was a new mystery. Where did the wolf of Cumwinton come from?

  There is something that is acting to kill off mysteries. Perhaps always, and perhaps not always, it can be understood in commonplace terms. If luminous things that move like flying birds are attracting attention, a Mr. Cannell appears, and says that he has found a luminous owl. In the newspapers, about the middle of February, appeared a story that Capt. Alexander Thompson, of Tacoma, Washington—and I have looked this up, learning that a Capt. Alexander Thompson did live in Tacoma, about the year 1905—was walking along a street in Derby, when he glanced in a taxidermist’s window, and there saw the supposed wolf’s head. He recognized it, not as the head of a wolf, but the head of a malmoot, an Alaskan sleigh dog, half-wolf and half-dog. This animal, with other malmoots, had been taken to Liverpool, for exhibition, and had escaped in a street in Liverpool. Though I have not been able to find out the date, I have learned that there was such an exhibition, in Liverpool. No date was mentioned by Capt. Thompson. The owners of the malmoot had said nothing, and rather than to advertise, had put up with the loss, because of their fear that there would be damages for sheep-killing. Not in the streets of Liverpool, presumably. No support for this commonplace-ending followed. Nothing more upon the subject is findable in Liverpool newspapers.

  Liverpool is 120 miles from Hexham.

  It is a story of an animal that escaped in Liverpool, and, leaving no trail of slaughtering behind it, went to a distant part of England, exactly to a place where a young wolf was at large, and there slaughtered like a wolf.

  I prefer to think that the animal of Cumwinton was not a malmoot.

  Derby Mercury, February 22—that the animal had been identified as a wolf, by Mr. A.S. Hutchinson, taxidermist to the Manchester Museum of Natural History. Liverpool Echo, December 31—that the animal had been identified as a wolf, by a representative of Bostock and Wombell’s Circus, who had traveled from Edinburgh to see the body.

  Killing of poultry, and the body of an otter on the railroad line—and the killing of poultry stopped.

  Or that there may be occult things, beings and events, and that also there may be something of the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough for whatever, somewhat of the nature of minds, human beings have—or that, if there be occult mischief-makers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to explain them, not benevolently, but to divert suspicion from themselves, because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and in orderly, or organized fashion.

  We have noticed, in investigating obscure, or occult, phenomena, or alleged phenomena, that sometimes in matters that are now widely supposed to be rank superstitions, orthodox scientists are not so uncompromising in their oppositions, as are those who have not investigated. In the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, April, 1894, is an account of a case of “spontaneous combustion of human bodies.” The account is by Dr. Adrian Hava, not as observed by him, but as reported by his father. In Science, 10-100, is quoted a paper that was read by Dr. B.H. Hartwell, of Ayer, Mass., before the Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society. It was Dr. Hartwell’s statement that, upon May 12, 1890, while driving through a forest near Ayer, he had been called, and, going into the wood, saw, in a clearing, the crouched form of a woman. Fire which was not from clothing, was consuming the shoulders, both sides of the abdomen, and both legs. See Dr. Dixon Mann’s Forensic Medicine (edition of 1922), p. 216. Here, cases are told of and are accepted as veritable—such as the case of a woman, consumed so by fire that on the floor of her room there was only a pile of calcified bones left of her. The fire, if in an ordinary sense it was fire, must have been of the intensity of a furnace: but a table cloth, only three feet from the pile of cinders, was unscorched. There are other such records.

  I think that our data relate, not to “spontaneous combustion of human bodies,” but to things, or beings, that, with a flaming process, consume men and women, but, like werewolves, or alleged werewolves, mostly pick out women. Occurrences of this winter of 1904-5 again. Early in February, in London, a woman, who was sitting asleep, before a fire in a grate, awoke, finding herself flaming. A commonplace explanation would seem to be sufficient: nevertheless it is a story of “mysterious burns,” as worded in Lloyd’s Weekly News, February 5. A coroner had expressed an inability to understand. In commenting upon the case, the corner had said that a cinder might have shot from the grate, igniting this woman’s clothes, but that she had been sitting, facing the fire, and that the burns were on her back.

  Upon the morning of February 26th (Hampshire Advertiser, March 4) at Butlock Heath, near Southampton, neighbors of an old couple, named Kiley, heard a scratching sound. They entered the house, and found it in flames, inside. Kiley was found,
burned to death, on the floor. Mrs. Kiley, burned to death, was sitting in a chair, in the same room, “badly charred, but recognizable.”

  A table was overturned, and a broken lamp was on the floor.

  So there seems to be an obvious explanation. But, at the inquest, it was said that an examination of this lamp showed that it could not have caused the fire. The verdict was: “Accidental death, but by what means, they (the jury) were unable to determine.”

  Both bodies had been fully dressed, “judging by fragments of clothes.” This indicates that the Kileys had been burned before their time for going to bed. Hours later, the house was in flames. At the inquest, the mystery was that two persons, neither of whom had cried for help, presumably not asleep in an ordinary sense, should have been burned to death in a fire that did not manifest as a general fire, until hours later.

  Something had overturned a table. A lamp was broken. Again the phenomenon of scene-shifting—

  Soon after the killing of poultry ceased, near Newcastle, there were uncanny occurrences upon Binbrook Farm, near Great Grimsby. There is an account, in the Jour. S.P.R., 12-138, by the Rev. A.C. Custance, of Binbrook Rectory. There was no confession, this time, but this time the girl in the case—the young housemaid again—was in no condition to be dragged to a police station. It will not be easy to think that it was trickery by the girl in this case. The story is that objects were thrown about rooms: that three times, near “a not very good, or big, fire,” things burst into flames, and that finally a servant girl was burned, or was attacked by something that burned her. In the Liverpool Echo, January 25, is published a letter from a school teacher of Binbrook, in which it is said that a blanket had been found burning in a room in which there was no fireplace. According to the report by Col. Taylor, to the S.P.R., the first manifestations occurred upon the 31st of December. Something was killing chickens, in the farmyard, and in the henhouse. All were killed in the same way. A vampirish way? Their throats were torn.