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1
375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
355
E.W.
Maunder,
invited
by
the
Editors
of
the
Observatory
to
write
some
reminiscences
for
the
500th
number
of
their
magazine,
gives
one
that
he
says
stands
out
(Observatory,
39-214).
It
is
upon
something
that
he
terms
"a
strange
celestial
visitor."
Maunder
was
at
the
Royal
Observatory,
Greenwich,
Nov.
17,
1882,
at
night.
There
was
an
aurora,
without
features
of
special
interest.
In
the
midst
of
the
aurora,
a
great
circular
disk
of
greenish
light
appeared
and
moved
smoothly
across
the
sky.
But
the
circularity
was
evidently
the
effect
of
foreshortening.
The
thing
passed
above
the
moon,
and
was,
by
other
observers,
described
as
"cigar-shaped,"
"like
a
torpedo,"
"a
spindle,"
"a
shuttle."
The
idea
of
foreshortening
is
not
mine:
Maunder
says
this.
He
says:
"Had
the
incident
occurred
a
third
of
a
century
later,
beyond
doubt
everyone
would
have
selected
the
same
simile--it
would
have
been
'just
like
a
Zeppelin.'"
The
duration
was
about
two
minutes.
Color
said
to
have
been
the
same
as
that
of
the
auroral
glow
in
the
north.
Nevertheless,
Maunder
says
that
this
thing
had
no
relation
to
auroral
phenomena.
"It
appeared
to
be
a
definite
body."
Motion
too
fast
for
a
cloud,
but
"nothing
could
be
more
unlike
the
rush
of
a
meteor."
In
the
Philosophical
Magazine,
5-15-318,
J.
Rand
Capron,
in
a
lengthy
paper,
alludes
throughout
to
this
phenomenon
as
an
"auroral
beam,"
but
he
lists
many
observations
upon
its
"torpedo-shape,"
and
one
observation
upon
a
"dark
nucleus"
in
it--host
of
most
confusing
observations--estimates
of
height
between
40
and
200
miles--observations
in
Holland
and
Belgium.
We
are
told
that
according
to
Capron's
spectroscopic
observations
the
phenomenon
was
nothing
but
a
beam
of
auroral
light.
In
the
Observatory,
6-192,
is
Maunder's
contemporaneous
account.
He
gives
apparent
approximate
length
and
breadth
at
twenty-seven
degrees
and
three
degrees
and
a
half.
He
gives
other
observations
seeming
to
indicate
structure--"remarkable
dark
marking
down
the
center."
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