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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
269
"An
unusual
phenomenon
noticed
by
Lieut.
Herschel,
Oct.
17
and
18,
1870,
while
observing
the
sun,
at
Bangalore,
India."
Lieut.
Herschel
had
noticed
dark
shadows
crossing
the
sun--but
away
from
the
sun
there
were
luminous,
moving
images.
For
two
days
bodies
passed
in
a
continuous
stream,
varying
in
size
and
velocity.
The
Lieutenant
tries
to
explain,
as
we
shall
see,
but
he
says:
"As
it
was,
the
continuous
flight,
for
two
whole
days,
in
such
numbers,
in
the
upper
regions
of
the
air,
of
beasts
that
left
no
stragglers,
is
a
wonder
of
natural
history,
if
not
of
astronomy."
He
tried
different
focusing--he
saw
wings--perhaps
he
saw
planes.
He
says
that
he
saw
upon
the
objects
either
wings
or
phantom-like
appendages.
Then
he
saw
something
that
was
so
bizarre
that,
in
the
fullness
of
his
nineteenth-centuriness,
he
writes:
"There
was
no
longer
doubt:
they
were
locusts
or
flies
of
some
sort."
One
of
them
had
paused.
It
had
hovered.
Then
it
had
whisked
off.
The
Editor
says
that
at
that
time
"countless
locusts
had
descended
upon
certain
parts
of
India."
We
now
have
an
instance
that
is
extraordinary
in
several
respects--super-voyagers
or
super-ravagers;
angels,
ragamuffins,
crusaders,
emigrants,
aeronauts,
or
aerial
elephants,
or
bison
or
dinosaurs--except
that
I
think
the
thing
had
planes
or
wings--one
of
them
has
been
photographed.
It
may
be
that
in
the
history
of
photography
no
more
extraordinary
picture
than
this
has
ever
been
taken.
L'Astronomie,
1885-347:
That,
at
the
Observatory
of
Zacatecas,
Mexico,
Aug.
12,
1883,
about
2,500
meters
above
sea
level,
were
seen
a
large
number
of
small
luminous
bodies,
entering
upon
the
disk
of
the
sun.
M.
Bonilla
telegraphed
to
the
Observatories
of
the
City
of
Mexico
and
of
Puebla.
Word
came
back
that
the
bodies
were
not
visible
there.
Because
of
this
parallax,
M.
Bonilla
placed
the
bodies
"relatively
near
the
earth."
But
when
we
find
out
what
he
called
"relatively
near
the
earth"--birds
or
bugs
or
hosts
of
a
Super-Tamerlane
or
army
of
a
celestial
Richard
Coeur
de
Lion--our
heresies
rejoice
anyway.
His
estimate
is
"less
distance
than
the
moon."
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