|
BOOK OF THE DAMNED
By Charles Fort
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15, 16,
17, 18,
19, 20,
21, 22,
23, 24, 25,
26, 27,
28
WE shall have an outcry of silences. If a single instance of
anything be disregarded by a System -- our own attitude is that a single instance
is a powerless thing. Of course our own method of agreement of many instances is
not a real method. In Continuity, all things must have resemblances with all
other things. Anything has any quasi-identity you please. Some time ago
conscription was assimilated with either autocracy or democracy with equal
facility. Note the need for a dominant to correlate to. Scarcely anybody said
simply that we must have conscription: but that we must have conscription, which
correlates with democracy, which was taken as a base, or something basically
desirable. Of course between autocracy and democracy nothing but false
demarcation can be drawn. So I can conceive of no subject upon which there
should be such poverty as a single instance, if anything one pleases can be
whipped into line. However, we shall try to be more nearly real than the
Darwinites who advance concealing coloration as Darwinism, and then drag in
proclaiming luminosity, too, as Darwinism. I think the Darwinites had better
come in with us as to the deep-sea fishes -- and be sorry later, I suppose. It
will be amazing or negligible to read all the instances now to come of things
that have been seen in the sky, and to think that all have been disregarded. My
own opinion is that it is not possible, or very easy, to disregard them, now
that they have been brought together -- but that, if prior to about this time we
had attempted such as assemblage, the Old Dominant would have withered our
typewriter -- as it is the letter "e" has gone back on us, and the
"s" is temperamental.
"Most extraordinary and singular phenomenon," North
Wales, Aug. 26, 1894; a disk from which projected an orange-colored body that
looked like "an elongated flatfish," reported by Admiral Ommanney (Nature,
50-524); disk from which projected a hook-like form, India, about 1838; diagram
of it given, disk about size of the moon, but brighter than the moon, visible
about twenty minutes; by G. Pettit, in Prof. Baden-Powell's Catalogue (Rept.
Brit. Assoc., 1849); very brilliant hook-like form, seen in the
sky at Poland, Trumbull Co., Ohio, during the stream of meteors, of 1833;
visible more than an hour: also, large luminous body, almost stationary
"for a time," shaped like a square table, Niagara Falls, Nov. 13, 1833
(Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-25-391); something described as a bright white
cloud, at night, Nov. 3, 1886, at Hamar, Norway; from it were emitted rays of
light; drifted across the sky; "retained throughout its original form"
(Nature, Dec. 16, 1886-158); thing with an oval nucleus, and streamers
with dark bands and lines very suggestive of structure; New Zealand, May 4, 1888
(Nature, 42-402); luminous object, size of full moon, visible an hour
and a half, Chili, Nov. 5, 1883 (Comptes Rendus, 103-682); bright
object near sun, Dec. 21, 1882 (Knowledge, 3-13); light that looked
like a great flame, far out at sea, off Ryook Phyoo, Dec. 2, 1845 (London
Roy. Soc. Proc., 5-627); something like a gigantic trumpet, suspended,
vertical, oscillating gently, visible five or six minutes, length estimated at
425 feet, at Oaxaca, Mexico, July 6, 1874 (Sci. Am. Supp., 6-2365); two
luminous bodies, seemingly united, visible five or six minutes, January 3, 1898
(La Nature, 1898-1-127); thing with a tail, crossing moon, transit half
a minute, Sept. 26, 1870 (London Times, Sept. 30, 1870); object four or
five times size of the moon, moving slowly across sky, Nov. 1, 1885, near
Adrianople (L'Astronomie, 1886-309); large body, colored red, moving
slowly, visible 15 minutes, reported by Coggia, Marseilles, Aug. 1, 1871 (Chemical
News, 24-193); details of this observation, and similar observation by
Guillemin, and other instances by de Fonville (Comptes Rendus, 73-297,
755); thing that was large and that was stationary twice in seven minutes,
Oxford, Nov. 19, 1847, listed by Lowe (Rec. Sci., 1-136); grayish
object that looked to be about three and a half feet long, rapidly approaching
the earth at Saarbruck, April 1, 1826; sound like thunder; object expanding like
a sheet (Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-26-133; Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst.,
24-488); report by an astronomer, N.S. Drayton, upon an object duration of which
seemed to him extraordinary, duration three-quarters of a minute, Jersey City,
July 6, 1882 (Scientific American, 47-53); object like a comet, but
with proper motion of 10 degrees an hour; visible one hour; reported by Purine
and Glancy from the Cordoba Observatory, Argentine, March 14, 1916 (Scientific
American, 115-493); something like a signal light, reported by Glaisher,
Oct. 4, 1844; bright as Jupiter, "sending out quick flickering waves of
light" (Year Book of Facts, 1845-278).
I think that with the object known as Eddie's
"comet," passes away the last of our susceptibility to the common
fallacy of personifying. It is one of the most deep-rooted of the positivist
illusions -- that people are persons. We have been guilty too often of spleens and
spites and ridicules against astronomers, as if they were persons, or final
unities, individuals, completenesses, or selves -- instead of indeterminate parts.
But, so long as we remain in quasi-existence, we can cast out illusion only with
some other illusion, though the other illusion may approximate higher to
reality. So we personify no more -- but we super-personify. We now take into full
acceptance our expression that Development is an Autocracy of Successive
Dominants -- which are not final -- but which approximate higher to individuality or
self-ness, than do the human tropisms that irresponsibly correlate to them.
Eddie reported a celestial object, from the Observatory at
Grahamstown, South Africa. It was in 1890. The New Dominant was only heir
presumptive then, or heir apparent but not obvious. The thing that Eddie
reported might as well have been reported by a night watchman, who had looked up
through an unplaced sewer pipe.
It did not correlate.
The thing was not admitted to Monthly Notices. I
think myself that if the Editor had attempted to let it in -- earthquake -- or a
mysterious fire in his publishing house.
The Dominants are jealous gods.
In Nature, presumably a vassal of the new god, though
of course also plausibly rendering homage to the old, is reported a comet-like
body, of Oct. 27, 1890, observed at Grahamstown, by Eddie. It may have looked
comet-like, but it moved 100 degrees while visible, or one hundred degrees in
three-quarters of an hour. See Nature, 43-89, 90.
In Nature, 44-519, Prof. Copeland describes a similar
appearance that he had seen, Sept. 10, 1891. Dreyer says (Nature,
44-541), that he had seen this object at the Armagh Observatory. He likens it to
the object that was reported by Eddie. It was seen by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell,
Sept. 11, 1891, in Nova Scotia.
But the Old Dominant was a jealous god.
So there were different observations upon something that was
seen in November, 1883. These observations were Philistines in 1883. In the Amer.
Met. Jour., 1-110, a correspondent reports having seen an object like a
comet, with two tails, one up and one down, Nov. 10 or 12, 1883. Very likely
this phenomenon should be placed in our expression upon torpedo-shaped bodies
that have been seen in the sky -- our data upon dirigibles, or super-Zeppelins
-- but our attempted classifications are far from rigorous -- or are
mere gropes. In the Scientific American, 50-40, a correspondent writes
from Humacao, Porto Rico, that, Nov. 21, 1883, he and several other -- persons
-- or
persons, as it were -- had seen a majestic appearance, like a comet. Visible three
successive nights: disappeared then. The Editor says that he can offer no
explanation. If accepted, this thing must have been close to the earth. If it
had been a comet, it would have been seen widely, and the news would have been
telegraphed over the world, says the Editor. Upon page 97 of this volume of Scientific
American, a correspondent writes that, at Sulphur Springs, Ohio, he had
seen "a wonder in the sky," at about the same date. It was
torpedo-shaped, or something with a nucleus, at each end of which was a tail.
Again the Editor says that he can offer no explanation: that the object was not
a comet. He associates it with the atmospheric events general in 1883. But it
will be our expression that, in England and Holland, a similar object was seen
in November, 1882.
In the Scientific American, 40-294, is published a
letter from Henry Harrison, of Jersey City, copied from the N.Y. Tribune:
that upon the evening of April 13, 1879, Mr. Harrison was searching for
Brorsen's comet, when he saw an object that was moving so rapidly that it could
not have been a comet. He called a friend to look, and his observation was
confirmed. At two o'clock in the morning this object was still visible. In the Scientific
American Supplement, 7-2885, Mr. Harrison disclaims sensationalism, which
he seems to think unworthy, and gives technical details: he says that the object
was seen by Mr. J. Spencer Devoe, of Manhattenville.
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15, 16,
17, 18,
19, 20,
21, 22,
23, 24, 25,
26, 27,
28
|
