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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
272
Our
position:
That
the
things
have
been
seen:
Also
that
their
shadows
have
been
seen.
Vast
black
thing
poised
like
a
crow
over
the
moon.
So
far
it
is
a
single
instance.
By
a
single
instance,
we
mean
the
negligible.
In
Popular
Science,
34-158,
Serviss
tells
of
a
shadow
that
Schroeter
saw,
in
1788,
in
the
lunar
Alps.
First
he
saw
a
light.
But
then,
when
this
region
was
illuminated,
he
saw
a
round
shadow
where
the
light
had
been.
Our
own
expression:
That
he
saw
a
luminous
object
near
the
moon:
that
that
part
of
the
moon
became
illuminated,
and
the
object
was
lost
to
view;
but
that
then
its
shadow
underneath
was
seen.
Serviss
explains,
of
course.
Otherwise
he'd
not
be
Prof.
Serviss.
It's
a
little
contest
in
relative
approximations
to
realness.
Prof.
Serviss
thinks
that
what
Schroeter
saw
was
the
"round"
shadow
of
a
mountain--in
the
region
that
had
become
lighted.
He
assumes
that
Schroeter
never
looked
again
to
see
whether
the
shadow
could
be
attributed
to
a
mountain.
That's
the
crux:
conceivably
a
mountain
could
cast
a
round--and
that
means
detached--shadow,
in
the
lighted
part
of
the
moon.
Prof.
Serviss
could,
of
course,
explain
why
he
disregards
the
light
in
the
first
place--maybe
it
had
always
been
there
"in
the
first
place."
If
he
couldn't
explain,
he'd
still
be
an
amateur.
We
have
another
datum.
I
think
it
is
more
extraordinary
than--
Vast
thing,
black
and
poised,
like
a
crow,
over
the
moon.
But
only
because
it's
more
circumstantial,
and
because
it
has
corroboration,
do
I
think
it
more
extraordinary
than--
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