The Book of the Damned

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--