Archives for November 2010

Luminous point on the moon

L'Astro., 11-33, reported that M. d'Adjuda of the Observatory of Lisbon saw “‘a very distinct, luminous point’” on the moon in Aristarchus on Nov. 7, 1891. It was also seen previously on May 7, 1867.

–Charles Fort, New Lands, p466 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).

The deadly explainers haunt or arrest us

On Nov. 15, 1895, at noon in London near Fenchurch Street, as reported in the London Morning Post the next day, an “‘alarming explosion’ occurred. No damage was done; no trace could be found of anything that had exploded. An hour later, near the Mansion House, which is not far from Fenchurch Street, occurred a still more violent explosion. The streets filled with persons who had run from buildings, and there was investigation, but not a trace could be found of anything that had exploded. It is said that somebody saw ‘something falling.’”

Although nothing was found, the police (‘deadly explainers’) explanation was that “somebody had mischievously placed in the streets fog-signals, which had been exploded by passing vehicles.”

–Charles Fort, New Lands, p468 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).

The sheep-panic of 1888

On Nov. 3, 1888, about 8 p.m. near Reading, Berkshire, flocks of sheep in a tract of land 25 miles long and 8 miles wide were affected by some simultaneous impulse, according to Symons’ Meteorological Magazine and the London Times, Nov. 20, 1888. Thousands of sheep burst from their pens and were found widely scattered the next morning, “some of them still panting with terror under hedges, and many crowded into corners of fields.”

Another panic occurred the next year in Berkshire, not far from Reading.

–Charles Fort, New Lands, p490 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).

Consternation in Reading

The Nov. 23, 1905 London Times reported that a man and his gamekeeper at East Liss, Hants., 40 miles from Reading, heard “a loud, distant rumbling” which seemed to be “a composition of triplets of sounds” on Nov. 17 about 3:30 p.m. The gamekeeper had heard similar sounds at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. They were “not like gunfire.” According to the Reading Standard, the sounds “closely resembled those that had been heard during the meteoric shower of 1866.”

–Charles Fort, New Lands, p499 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).

As if to make the date of the eclipse more memorable

On Nov. 16, 1910, a “meteor” appeared almost at the moment of totality of an eclipse of the moon, according to Eng. Mec., 92-430 and Nature, 85-118. The account in Nature reports that the object may have come from just below the eclipsed moon, ‘from an apparent radiant,’ according to an observer at Naas, Ireland. La Nature of Nov. 26 that same year reported that from Besancon, France, a meteor “like a superb rocket, ‘qui serait partie de la lune’” was seen. A Mrs. Albright reported, in Jour. B. A. A., 21-100, that a luminous point had been seen upon the moon throughout the eclipse.

–Charles Fort, New Lands, p506 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).