Lo!

by Charles Fort

  Early in the morning of Dec. 9, 1873, Thomas B. Cumpston and his wife, “who occupied good positions in Leeds,” were arrested in a railroad station, in Bristol, England, charged with disorderly conduct, both of them in their nightclothes, Cumpston having fired a pistol. See the London Times, Dec. 11, 1873. Cumpston excitedly told that he and his wife had arrived the day before, from Leeds, and had taken a room in a Bristol hotel, and that, early in the morning, the floor had “opened,” and that, as he was about to be dragged into the “opening,” his wife had saved him, both of them so terrified that they had jumped out the window, running to the railroad station, looking for a policeman. In the Bristol Daily Post, December 10, is an account of proceedings in the police court. Cumpston’s excitement was still so intense that he could not clearly express himself. Mrs. Cumpston testified that, early in the evening, both of them had been alarmed by loud sounds, but that they had been reassured by the landlady. At three or four in the morning the sounds were heard again. They jumped out on the floor, which was felt giving away under them. Voices repeating their exclamations were heard, or their own voices echoed strangely. Then, according to what she saw, or thought she saw, the floor opened wide. Her husband was falling into this “opening” when she dragged him back.

  The landlady was called, and she testified that sounds had been heard, but she was unable clearly to describe them. Policemen said that they had gone to the place, the Victoria Hotel, and had examined the room, finding nothing to justify the extraordinary conduct of the Cumpstons. They suggested that the matter was a case of collective hallucination. I note that there was no suggestion of intoxication. The Cumpstons, an elderly couple, were discharged in the custody of somebody who had come from Leeds.

  Collective hallucination is another of the dismissal labels by which conventionalists shirk thinking. Here is another illustration of the lack of standards, in phenomenal existence, by which to judge anything. One man’s story, if not to the liking of conventionalists, is not accepted, because it is not supported: and then testimony by more than one is not accepted, if undesirable, because that is collective hallucination. In this kind of jurisprudence, there is no hope for any kind of testimony against the beliefs in which conventional scientists agree. Among their amusing disregards is that of overlooking that, quite as truly may their own agreements be collective delusions.

  The loud sounds in the Cumpston case suggest something of correlation with poltergeist phenomena. Spiritualists have persistently called poltergeist sounds “raps.” Sometimes they are raps, but often they are detonations that shake buildings. People up and down a street have been kept awake by them. Maybe existences open and shut noisily. From my own experience I don’t know that there ever has been a poltergeist. At least, I have had only one experience, and that is explainable several ways. But what would be the use of writing a book about things that we think we’re sure of?—unless, like a good deal in this book, to show the dooce we are.

  In the Sunday Express (London), Dec. 5, 1926, Lieutenant-Colonel Foley tells of an occurrence that resembles the Cumpstons’ experience. A room in Corpus Christi College (Cambridge University) was, in October, 1904, said to be haunted. Four students, of whom Shane Leslie, the writer, was one, investigated. Largely the story is of an invisible, but tangible, thing, or being, which sometimes became dimly visible, inhabiting, or visiting, this room. The four students went into the room, and one of them was dragged away from the others. His companions grabbed him. “Like some powerful magnet” something was drawing him out of their grasp. They pulled against it, and fought in a frenzy, and they won the tug. Other students, outside the room, were shouting. Undergraduates came running down the stairs, and, crowding into the room, wrecked it, even tearing out the oak paneling. Appended to the story, in the Sunday Express, is a statement by Mr. Leslie—“Colonel Foley has given an accurate account of the occurrence.”

  19

  In the Encyclopædia Britannica, the story of Kaspar Hauser is said to be one of the most baffling mysteries in history. This is an unusual statement. Mostly we meet denials that there are mysteries. In everything that I have read upon this case, it is treated as if it were unique. A writer like Andrew Lang, who has a liking for mysteries, takes up such a case, with not an indication of a thought in his mind that it should not be studied as a thing in itself, but should be correlated with similars. That, inductively, anything of an ultimate nature could be found out, is no delusion of mine: I think not of a widening of truth, but of a lessening of error.

  I am naïve enough in my own ways, but I have not the youthful hopes of John Stuart Mill and Francis Bacon.

  As to one of the most mysterious of the circumstances in the story of Kaspar Hauser, I have many records of attacks upon human beings, by means of an unknown, missile-less weapons. See the newspapers for several dozen accounts of somebody, or something, that was terrorizing people in New Jersey, in and around Camden, in the winter of 1927-28. People were fired upon, and in automobiles there were bullet holes, but bullets were unfindable. I know of two other instances, in the State of New Jersey. In France, about the year 1910, there was a long series of such attacks, attributed to “phantom bandits.”

  It may be that, telepathically, human beings have been induced to commit suicide. Look up the drowning of Frank Podmore. It may be that the mystery of Kaspar Hauser was attracting too much attention. There is a strange similarity in the taking off of Frank Podmore, Houdini, Washington Irving Bishop, and perhaps Dr. Crawford. The list is long, of the deaths that followed the opening of the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen.

  Psychologically and physiologically the case of the Rev. Thomas Hanna is so much like the case of Kaspar Hauser that the suggestion is that if Hanna were not an impostor, Hauser was not. For particulars of the Hanna case, see Sidis, Multiple Personality. In both cases there was said to be obliteration of memory, or reduction to the mental state of the newborn, with, however, uncommon, or marvelous, ability to learn. Phenomena common to both cases were no idea of time; no idea of sex; appearance of all things, as if at the same distance, or no idea of distance; and inability, or difficulty, in walking. Kaspar Hauser was no impostor, who played a stunt of his own invention, as tellers of his story have thought. If he were an impostor, somewhere, back in times when little was known of amnesia, he had gotten ahold of detailed knowledge of profoundest amnesia. And he was about seventeen years old. Perhaps he was in a state of profound hypnosis. If the boy of Nepal, India, had wandered from the priest—who may have kidnaped him ordinarily, and may not have kidnaped him ordinarily—and had appeared in an English community, he would have been unable to account for himself, and there would have been a mystery similar to Hauser’s.

  If a “wolf child,” when found, was “almost devoid of human intelligence,” and when grown up became a policeman, ours is not quite the cynicism of a scenario-writer, or a writer of detective stories. If we do not think that this child had been the associate of wolves from an age of a few months, we think of an obliterative process that rendered it “a speechless, little animal,” but that did not so impair its mentality that the child could not start anew. Our expression upon Kaspar Hauser will be that he was a “wolf child,” and that, if he had appeared somewhere in India, he would, according to local conventions, probably be called a “wolf child,” and that if he had found any place of refuge, it would be called a “wolf’s den”: but, in our expression, the lupine explanation is not accepted in his case and the cases of all so-called “wolf children.” “Wolf children” have appeared, and the conventional story of their origin is not satisfactory. If “wolf children” have had something the matter with their legs, or have crawled on all fours, it is not satisfactory to say that this was because they had been brought up with wolves, any more than it would be to say that a young bird, even if not taught by its parents, would not be able to fly, if brought up with mammals.

  If we accept that the Pansini boys ever were teleported, we note the mental effects of the experience, in
that they were in a state of profound hypnosis.

  Little frogs bombard horses—and, though there have been many attempts to explain Kaspar Hauser, it has never before occurred to anybody to bring little frogs into an explanation—

  Or seals in a pond in a park—and the branded reindeer of Spitzbergen—see back to everything else in this book. Later, especially see back to lights in the sky, and the disappearance of them, when a story was told, and, so long as the story was not examined, seemed to account for them. The luminous owl—the malmoot—and if anybody can’t be explained conventionally, he’s an impostor—or, if we’re all, to some degree, impostors, he’s an exceptional impostor.

  Upon Whit Monday afternoon, May, 1828, a youth, aged sixteen or seventeen, staggered, with a jaunty stride, into the town of Nuremberg, Germany. Or, while painfully dragging himself along the ground, he capered into the town. The story has been told by theorists. The tellers have fitted descriptions around their theories. The young man was unable fully to govern the motions of his legs, according to Andrew Lang, for instance. He walked with firm, quick steps, according to the Duchess of Cleveland. The Duchess’ theory required that nothing should be the matter with his legs. By way of the New Gate, he entered the town, and there was something the matter with his legs, according to all writers, except the one who preferred that there should be nothing the matter with his legs.

  To Nurembergers who gathered around, the boy held out two letters, one of which was addressed to a cavalry captain. He was taken to the captain’s house, but, because the captain was not at home, and because he could give no account of himself, he was then taken to a police station. Here it was recorded that he could speak only two sentences in the German language, and that when given paper and pencil he wrote the name Kaspar Hauser. But he was not put away and forgotten. He had astonished and mystified Nurembergers, in the captain’s house, and these townsmen had told others, so that a crowd had gone with him to the station house, remaining outside, discussing the strange arrival. It was told in the crowd, as recorded by von Feuerbach that near the New Gate of the town had appeared a boy who seemed unacquainted with the commonest objects and experiences of everyday affairs of human beings. The astonishment with which he had looked at the captain’s saber had attracted attention. He had been given a pot of beer. The luster of the pot and the color of the beer affected him, as if he had never seen anything of the kind before. Later, seeing a burning candle, he cried out in delight with it, and before anybody could stop him, tried to pick up the flame. Here his education began.

  This is the story that has been considered imposture by everybody who wanted to consider it imposture. I cannot say whether all alleged cases of amnesia are fakes, or not. I say that, if there be amnesia, the phenomena of Kaspar Hauser are aligned with phenomena of many cases that are said to be well-known. The safest and easiest and laziest of explanations is that of imposture.

  Of the two letters, one purported to be from the boy’s mother, dated sixteen years before, telling that she was abandoning her infant, asking the finder to send him to Nuremberg, when he became seventeen years old, to enlist in the Sixth Cavalry Regiment, of which his father had been a member. The other letter purported to be from the finder of the infant, telling that he had ten children of his own, and could no longer support the boy.

  Someone soon found that these letters had not been written by different persons, sixteen years apart. One of them was in Latin characters, but both were written with the same ink, upon the same kind of paper. In the “later” letter, it was said: “I have taught him to read and write, and he writes my handwriting exactly as I do.” Whereupon the name that Kaspar had written, in the police station, was examined, and it was said that the writings were similar. Largely with this circumstance for a basis, it has been said that Kaspar Hauser was an impostor—or that he had written the letters himself. With what expectation of profit to himself is not made clear. If I must argue, I argue that an impostor, aware that handwritings might be compared, would, if he were a good impostor, pretend to be unable to write, as well as unable to speak. And those who consider Kaspar Hauser an impostor, say that he was a very good impostor. The explanation in the letter, of the similarity of handwritings, seems to be acceptable enough.

  People living along the road leading to the New Gate were questioned. Not an observation upon the boy, before he appeared near the Gate, could be heard of. But we see, if we accept that someone else wrote his letters that this Gate could not have been his appearing-point in the sense we’re thinking of. He must have been with, or in the custody of, someone else, at least for a while. Streets near the jail, where for a time he was lodged, were filled with crowds, clamoring for more information. Excitement and investigation spread far around Nuremberg. A reward was offered, and, throughout Germany, the likeness of Kaspar Hauser was posted in public places. People in Hungary took up the investigation. Writers in France made much of the mystery, and the story was published in England. People from all parts of Europe went to see the boy. The mystery was so stimulated by pamphleteers that, though “feverish” seems an extreme word, writers described the excitement over this boy, “who had appeared as if from the clouds,” as a “fever.” Because of this international interest, Kaspar Hauser was known as “The Child of Europe.”

  The city of Nuremberg adopted Kaspar. He was sent to live with Prof. Daumer, a well-known scientist, and the Mayor of Nuremberg notified the public to “keep away from his present residence, and thereby avoid collision with the police.” The seeming paralysis of his legs wore off. He quickly learned the German language, but spoke always with a foreign accent. I have been unable to learn anything of the peculiarities of this accent. Except to students of revivals of obliterated memories, his quickness in learning would seem incredible. Writers have said that so marvelous was his supposed ability to learn that he must have been an impostor, having a fair education, to start with. Though the impostor theory is safest and easiest, some writers have held that the boy was an idiot, who had been turned adrift. This explanation can be held simply and honestly by anybody who refuses to believe all records after the first week or so of observations. Whether impostor or idiot, the outstanding mystery is the origin of this continentally advertised boy.

  The look of all the circumstances to me is that somebody got rid of Kaspar, considering him an imbecile, having been able to teach him only two German sentences. Then the look is that he had not for years known Kaspar, but had known him only a few weeks, while his disabilities were new to him. Where this custodian found the boy is the mystery.

  Kaspar Hauser, in the year 1829, wrote his own story, telling that, until the age of sixteen or seventeen, he had lived upon bread and water in a small, dark cell. He had known only one person, alluded to by him, as “the man,” who, toward the end of his confinement had taught him two sentences, one of them signifying that he wished to join a cavalry regiment, and the other, “I don’t know.”

  He had been treated kindly, except once, when he had been struck for being noisy.

  Almost anybody, reading this account, will, perhaps regretfully, perhaps not, say farewell to our idea of a teleported boy. “That settles it.” But nothing ever has settled anything, except relatively to a desire for settlement, and if ours is a desire for unsettlement, we have assurance that we, or any other theorist, can find in the uncertainties of any human document, whether supposed to have been dictated from on high, or written by a boy, material for thinking as our theories require.

  We note in Kaspar’s story a statement that he had no idea of time. That is refreshing to our wilting theory. We may think that he had lived in a small, dark room all his life of which he had remembrance, and that that may have been a period of only a few weeks. We pick upon his statement that once he had been struck for being noisy. To us that means that he had been confined, not in a cell, or a dungeon, but in a room in a house, with neighbors around, and that there was somebody’s fear that sounds from him would attract attention�
�or that there were neighbors so close to this place that the imprisonment of a boy could not have been kept a secret more than a few weeks.

  We’re not satisfied. We hunt for direct data for thinking that, if Kaspar Hauser had been confined in a dark room, it had not been for more than a few weeks.

  “He had a healthy color” (Hiltel). “He had a very healthy color: he did not appear pale or delicate, like one who had been some time in confinement” (Policeman Wüst).

  According to all that can be learned of another case, a man, naked, almost helpless, perhaps in a state of hypnosis so profound that also it was physical, so that he could scarcely walk, and in whom memory was obliterated so that he did not know enough to make his way along a road, which he crossed, appeared near Petersfield, Hampshire, Feb. 21, 1920. If we can think that a peasant, near Nuremberg, found on his farm a boy in a similar condition, and took him in, then considering him an imbecile, and wanting to get rid of him, keeping him in confinement, fearing he might be held responsible for him, then writing two letters that would explain an abandonment in commonplace terms that would not excite inquiry, but not being skillful in such matters, that looks as if we’re explaining somewhat.

  Because of the continuation of Kaspar’s story, we think that this place was near Nuremberg. Whit Monday was a holiday, and the farmers, or the neighbors, were probably not laboring in the fields: so this was the day for the shifting of the supposed imbecile. Upon this day, as told by Kaspar, “the man” carried the boy from the dark room, and carried, or led, him, compelling him to keep his eyes downward, toward Nuremberg. Kaspar’s clothes were changed for the abandonment.