by Charles Fort
Snails, little frogs, seals, reindeer have mysteriously appeared.
The standardized explanation of mysterious human strangers, who have appeared at points upon this earth, acting as one supposes inhabitants of some other world would act, if arriving here, or acting as inhabitants of other parts of this earth, transported in a state of profound hypnosis, would probably act, is that of imposture. Having begun with a pretty liberal view of the prevalence of impostors, I am not going much to say that the characters of our data were not impostors, but am going to examine the reasons for saying that they were. If, except fraudulently, some of them never have been explained conventionally, we are just where we are in everything else that we take up, and that is in the position of having to pretend to think for ourselves.
The earliest of the alleged impostors in my records—for which, though not absolutely, I draw a dead line at the year 1800—is the Princess Caraboo, if not Mary Willcocks, though possibly Mrs. Mary Baker, but perhaps Mrs. Mary Burgess, who, the evening of April 3, 1817, appeared at the door of a cottage, near Bristol, England, and in an unknown language asked for food.
But I am not so much interested in whether the Princess, or Mary, was a rascal, as I am in the reasons for saying that she was. It does not matter whether we take up a theorem in celestial mechanics, or the case of a girl who jabbered, we come upon the bamboozlements by which conventional thought upon this earth is made and preserved.
The case of the angles in a triangle that equal two right angles has never been made out: no matter what refinements of measurement would indicate, ultra-refinement would show that there had been errors. Because of continuity, and because of discontinuity, nothing has ever been proved. If only by making a very bad error to start with, Prof. Einstein’s prediction of the curvature of lights worked out as it should work out, we suspect, before taking up the case of the Princess Caraboo that the conventional conclusion in her case was a product of mistakes.
That the Princess Caraboo was an impostor—first we shall take up the case, as it has been made out:
London Observer, June 10, 1923—that the girl, who spoke unintelligibly, was taken before a magistrate, Samuel Worrall, of Knowle Park, Bristol, who, instead of committing her as a vagrant, took her to his home. It is not recorded just what Mrs. Worrall thought of that. It is recorded that the girl was at least what is said to be “not unprepossessing.” When questioned, the “mysterious stranger” wrote in unknown characters, many of which looked like representations of combs. Newspaper correspondents interviewed her. She responded with a fluency of “combs,” and a smattering of “bird cages” and “frying pans.” The news spread, and linguists traveled far to try their knowledge, and finally one of them was successful. He was “a gentleman from the East Indies,” and, speaking in the Malay language to the girl, he was answered. To him she told her story. Her name was Caraboo, and one day while walking in her garden in Java, she was seized by pirates, who carried her aboard a vessel, from which, after a long imprisonment, she escaped to the coast of England. The story was colorful with details of Javanese life. But then Mrs. Willcocks, not of Java, but of a small town in Devonshire, appeared and identified her daughter, Mary. Mary broke down and confessed. She was not prosecuted for her imposture: instead, Mrs. Worrall was so kind as to pay her passage to America.
Mostly our concern is in making out that this case was not made out—or, more widely, that neither this nor any other case ever has been made out—but I notice a little touch of human interest entering here. I notice that we feel a disappointment, because Mary broke down and confessed. We much prefer to hear of impostors who stick to their impostures. If no absolute line can be drawn between morality and immorality, I can show, if I want to, that this touch of rascality in all of us—or at any rate in me—is a virtuous view, instead. So when an impostor sticks to his imposture, and we are pleased, it is that we approve a resolutely attempted consistency, even when applied to a fabric of lies.
Provided I can find material enough, I can have no trouble in making it appear “reasonable,” as we call it, to accept that Mary, or the Princess, confessed, or did not confess, or questionably confessed.
Chambers’ Journal, 66-753—that Caraboo, the impostor, had told her story of alleged adventures, in the Malay language.
Farther along, in this account—that the girl had spoken in an unknown language.
This is an inconsistency worth noting. We’re on the trail of bamboozlement, though we don’t have to go away back to the year 1817 to get there. We hunt around. We come upon a pamphlet, entitled Caraboo, published by J.M. Cutch, of Bristol, in the year 1817. We learn in this account, which is an attempt to show that Caraboo was unquestionably an impostor, that it was not the girl, but the “gentleman from the East Indies,” whose name was Manuel Eyenesso, who was the impostor, so far as went the whole Javanese story. To pose as a solver of mysteries, he had pretended that to his questions, the girl was answering him in the Malay language, and pretending to translate her gibberish, he had made up a fanciful story of his own.
Caraboo had not told any story, in any known language, about herself. Her writings were not in Malay characters. They were examined by scientists, who could not identify them. Specimens were sent to Oxford, where they were not recognized. Consequently, the “gentleman from the East Indies” disappeared. We are told in the pamphlet that every Oxford scholar who examined the writings, “very properly and without a moment’s hesitation, pronounced them to be humbug.” That is swift propriety.
If the elaborate story of the Javanese Princess had been attributed to a girl who had told no understandable story of any kind, it seems to us to be worthwhile to look over the equally elaborate confession, which has been attributed to her. It may be that regretfully we shall have to give up a notion that a girl had been occultly transported from the planet Mars, or from somewhere up in Orion or Leo, but we are seeing more of the ways of suppressing mysteries.
The mad fishmonger of Worcester shovels his periwinkles everywhere.
According to what is said to be the confession, the girl was Mary Willcocks, born in the village of Witheridge, Devonshire, in the year 1791, from which at the age of sixteen she had gone to London, where she had married twice. It is a long, detailed story. Apparently the whole story of Mary’s adventures, from the time of her departure from Witheridge, to the time of her arrival in Bristol, is told in what is said to be the confession. Everything is explained—and then too much is explained. We come to a question that would be an astonisher, if we weren’t just a little sophisticated, by this time—
By what freak of accomplishment did a Devonshire girl learn to speak Javanese?
The author of the confession explains that she had picked up with an East Indian, who had taught her the language.
If we cannot think that a girl, who had not even pretended to speak Javanese, would explain how she had picked up Javanese, it is clear enough that this part of the alleged confession is forgery. I explain it by thinking that somebody had been hired to write a confession, and with too much of a yarn for whatever skill he had, had overlooked the exposed imposture of the “gentleman from the East Indies.”
All that I can make of the story is that a girl mysteriously appeared. It cannot be said that her story was imposture, because she told no intelligible story. It may be doubted that she confessed, if it be accepted that at least part of the alleged confession was forgery. Her mother did not go to Bristol and identify her, as, for the sake of a neat and convincing finish, the conventionalized story goes. Mrs. Worrall told that she had gone to Witheridge, where she had found the girl’s mother, who had verified whatever she was required to verify. Caraboo was shipped away on the first vessel that sailed to America; or, as told in the pamphlet, Mrs. Worrall, with forbearance and charity, paid her passage far away. In Philadelphia, somebody took charge of her affairs, and, as if having never heard that she was supposed to have confessed, she gave exhibitions, writing in an unknown language. And I wou
ldn’t give half this space to the story of the Princess Caraboo, were it not for the epitomization, in her story, of all history. If there be God, and if It be ubiquitous, there must be a jostle of ubiquities because the Fishmonger of Worcester, too, is everywhere.
I should like to think that inhabitants of other worlds, or other parts of one existence, have been teleported to this earth. How I’d like it, if I were teleported the other way, has nothing to do with what I’d like to think has befallen somebody else. But I can’t say that our own stories, anyway so far, have the neat and convincing finish of the conventional stories. Toward the end of the year 1850, a stranger, or I should say a “mysterious stranger,” was found wandering in a village near Frankfort-on-the-Oder. How he got there, nobody knew. See the Athenæum, April 15, 1851. We are told that his knowledge of German was imperfect. If the imperfections were filled out by another Manuel Eyenesso, I fear me that suggestions of some new geographical, or cosmographical, knowledge can’t develop. The man was taken to Frankfort where he told his story, or where, to pose as a linguist, somebody told one for him. It was told that his name was Joseph Vorin, and that he had come from Laxaria. Laxaria is in Salvia, and Sakria is far from Europe—“beyond vast oceans.”
In the London Daily Mail, Sept. 18, 1905, and following issues, are accounts of a young man who had been arrested in Paris, charged with vagrancy. It was impossible to understand him. In vain had he been tried with European and Asiatic languages, but, by means of signs, he had made known that he had come from Lisbian. Eisar was the young man’s word for a chair: a table was a lotoba, and his sonar was his nose. Mr. George R. Sims, well-known criminologist, as well as a story writer, took the matter up scientifically. As announced by him, the mystery had been solved by him. The young man, an impostor, had transposed letters, in fashioning his words. So the word raise, transposed, becomes eisar. But what has a raise to do with a chair? It is said that true science is always simple. A chair raises one, said Mr. Sims, simply. Now take the word sonar. As we see, when Mr. Sims points it out to us, that word is a transposition of the word snore, or is almost. That’s noses, or relation to noses.
The criminologists are not banded like some scientists. In Paris, the unhanded wisemen said that Mr. Sims’ transpositions were far-fetched. With a freedom that would seem reckless to more canny scientists, or without waiting three or four months to find out what each was going to say, they expressed opinions. The savants at Glozel, in the year 1927, were cannier, but one can’t say that their delays boosted the glories of science. One of the wisemen of Paris, who accused Mr. Sims of fetching too far, was the eminent scientist, M. Haag. “Take the young man’s word Odir, for God,” said M. Haag: “transpose that, and we have Dio, or very nearly. Dio is Spanish for God. The young man is Spanish.” Another distinguished wiseman was M. Roty. He rushed into print, while M. Haag was still explaining. “Consider the word sacar, for house,” said M. Roty. “Unquestionably we have a transposition of the word casa, with a difference of only one letter, and casa is Italian for house. The young man is Italian.” he Temps, September 18—another wiseman, a distinguished geographer, this time, identified the young man as one of the Russian Doukhobors.
Where would we be, and who would send the young ones to school, if all the other wisemen of our tribes had such independence? If it were not for a conspiracy that can be regarded as nothing short of providential, so that about what is taught in one school is taught in the other schools, one would spend one’s lifetime, learning and unlearning, in school after school. As it is, the unlearning can be done, after leaving one school.
The young man was identified by the police, as Rinaldo Agostini, an Austrian, whose fingerprints had been taken several times before, somewhere else, when he had been arrested for vagrancy.
Whether the police forced this mystery to a pseudo-conclusion, or not, a suggestive instance is told of, in the London Daily Express, Oct. 16, 1906. A young woman had been arrested in Paris, charged with picking pockets, and to all inquiries she answered in an unknown language. Interpreters tried her with European and Asiatic languages, without success, and the magistrate ordered her to be kept under surveillance, in a prison infirmary. Almost immediately, watchers reported that she had done exactly what they wanted to report that she had done—that she had talked in her sleep, not mumbling in any way that might be questionable, but speaking up “in fluent French, with the true Parisian accent.” If anybody thinks that this book is an attack upon scientists, as a distinct order of beings, he has a more special idea of it than I have. As I’m seeing things, everybody’s a scientist.
If there ever have been instances of teleportations of human beings from somewhere else to this earth, an examination of inmates of infirmaries and workhouses and asylums might lead to some marvelous astronomical disclosures. I suppose I shall be blamed for a new nuisance, if after the publication of these notions, mysterious strangers start cropping up, and when asked about themselves, point up to Orion or Andromeda. Suppose any human being ever should be translated from somewhere else to this earth, and should tell about it. Just about what chance would he have for some publicity? I neglected to note the date, but early in the year 1928, a man did appear in a town in New Jersey, and did tell that he had come from the planet Mars. Wherever he came from, everybody knows where he went, after telling that.
But, if human beings ever have been teleported to this earth from somewhere else, I should think that their clothes, different in cut and texture, would attract attention. Clothes were thought of by Manuel Eyenesso. He pretended that Caraboo had told him that, before arriving in Bristol, she had exchanged her gold-embroidered, Javanese dress for English clothes. Whatever the significance may be, I have noted a number of “mysterious strangers,” or “wild men,” who were naked.
A case that is mysterious, and that may associate with other mysteries, was reported in the London newspapers (Daily Mail, April 2; Daily News, April 3, 1923). It was at the time that Lord Carnarvon was dying, in Cairo, Egypt, of a disease that physicians said was septic pneumonia, but that, in some minds, was associated with the opening of Tut-Ankh-Amen’s tomb. Upon Lord Carnarvon’s estate, near Newbury, Hampshire, a naked man was running wild, often seen, but never caught. He was first seen, upon March 17th. Upon March 17th, Lord Carnarvon fell ill, and he died upon April 5th. About April 5th, the wild man of Newbury ceased to be reported.
If human beings from somewhere else ever have been translated to this earth—
There are mysteries at each end, and in between, in the story of Cagliostro.
He appeared in London, and then in Paris, and spoke with an accent that never has been identified with any known language of this earth. If, according to most accounts of him, he was Joseph Balsamo, a Sicilian criminal, who, after a period of extraordinarily successful imposture, was imprisoned in Rome, until he died, that is his full life story.
The vagueness of everything—and the merging of all things into everything else, so that stories that we, or some of us, have been taking, as “absolutely proved,” turned out to be only history, or merely science. Hosts of persons suppose that the exposure of Cagliostro, as an impostor, is as firmly, or rationally, established, as are the principles of geology, or astronomy. And it is my expression that they are right about this.
Wanted—well, of course, if we could find data to support our own notions—but, anyway, wanted—data for at least not accepting the conventionalized story of Cagliostro:
See Trowbridge’s story of Cagliostro. According to Trowbridge, the identification of Cagliostro was fraudulent. At the time of the Necklace Affair, the police of Paris, needing a scapegoat, so “identified” him, in order to discredit him, according to Trowbridge. No witness appeared, to identify him. There was no evidence, except that handwritings were similar. There was suggestion, in the circumstance that Balsamo had an uncle, whose name was Giuseppe Cagliostro. One supposes that a police official, whose labors were made worthwhile by contributions from the doctors of Pari
s, searched records until he came upon an occurrence of the name of Cagliostro in the family of a criminal, and then went on from that finding. Then it was testified that the handwritings of Balsamo and Cagliostro were similar. For almost everybody’s belief that of course Cagliostro was identified as Joseph Balsamo, there is no more than this for a base. In February, 1928, the New York newspapers told of a graphologist, who had refused to identify handwriting, according to the wishes of the side that employed him. According to all other cases that I have ever read of, anybody can get, for any handwriting, any identification that he pays for. If in any court, in any land, any scientific pronouncement should be embarrassing to anybody that is because he has been too stingy to buy two expert opinions.
Cagliostro appeared, and nothing more definite can be said of his origin. He rose and dominated, as somebody from Europe, if transported to a South Sea Island, might be expected to capitalize his superiority. He was hounded by the medical wisemen, as Mesmer was hounded by them, and as anybody who, today, would interfere with flows of fees, would be hounded by them. Whether in their behalf, or because commonplace endings of all mysteries must be published, we are told, in all conventional accounts, that Cagliostro was an impostor, whose full life story is known, and is without mystery.
It is said that, except where women were concerned, where not much can be expected, anyway, Cagliostro had pretty good brains. Yet we are told that, having been identified as an Italian criminal, he went to Italy.
There are two accounts of the disappearance of Cagliostro. One is a matter of mere rumors: that he had been seen in Aix-les-Bains; that he had been seen in Turin. The other is a definite story that he went to Rome, where, as Joseph Balsamo, he was sent to prison. A few years later, when Napoleon’s forces were in Rome, somebody went to the prison and investigated. Cagliostro was not there. Perhaps he had died.
