But:
Secret meetings--emissaries--esoteric ones in Europe, before the war
broke out--
And those who suggested that such phenomena could be.
However, as to most of our data, I think of super-things that have
passed close to this earth with no more interest in this earth than have
passengers upon a steamship in the bottom of the sea--or passengers may
have a keen interest, but circumstances of schedules and commercial
requirements forbid investigation of the bottom of the sea.
Then, on the other hand, we may have data of super-scientific attempts
to investigate phenomena of this earth from above--perhaps by beings
from so far away that they had never even heard that something,
somewhere, asserts a legal right to this earth.
Altogether, we're good intermediatists, but we can't be very good
hypnotists.
Still another source of the merging away of our data:
That, upon general principles of Continuity, if super-vessels, or
super-vehicles, have traversed this earth's atmosphere, there must be
mergers between them and terrestrial phenomena: observations upon them
must merge away into observations upon clouds and balloons and meteors.
We shall begin with data that we cannot distinguish ourselves and work
our way out of mergers into extremes.
In the _Observatory_, 35-168, it is said that, according to a newspaper,
March 6, 1912, residents of Warmley, England, were greatly excited by
something that was supposed to be "a splendidly illuminated aeroplane,
passing over the village." "The machine was apparently traveling at a
tremendous rate, and came from the direction of Bath, and went on toward
Gloucester." The Editor says that it was a large, triple-headed
fireball. "Tremendous indeed!" he says. "But we are prepared for
anything nowadays."
That is satisfactory. We'd not like to creep up stealthily and then jump
out of a corner with our data. This Editor, at least, is prepared to
read--
_Nature_, Oct. 27, 1898:
A correspondent writes that, in the County Wicklow, Ireland, at about 6
o'clock in the evening, he had seen, in the sky, an object that looked
like the moon in its three-quarter aspect. We note the shape which
approximates to triangularity, and we note that in color it is said to
have been golden yellow. It moved slowly, and in about five minutes
disappeared behind a mountain.
The Editor gives his opinion that the object may have been an escaped
balloon.
In _Nature_, Aug. 11, 1898, there is a story, taken from the July number
of the _Canadian Weather Review_, by the meteorologist, F.F. Payne: that
he had seen, in the Canadian sky, a large, pear-shaped object, sailing
rapidly. At first he supposed that the object was a balloon, "its
outline being sharply defined." "But, as no cage was seen, it was
concluded that it must be a mass of cloud." In about six minutes this
object became less definite--whether because of increasing distance or
not--"the mass became less dense, and finally it disappeared." As to
cyclonic formation--"no whirling motion could be seen."
_Nature_, 58-294:
That, upon July 8, 1898, a correspondent had seen, at Kiel, an object in
the sky, colored red by the sun, which had set. It was about as broad as
a rainbow, and about twelve degrees high. "It remained in its original
brightness about five minutes, and then faded rapidly, and then remained
almost stationary again, finally disappearing about eight minutes after
I first saw it."
In an intermediate existence, we quasi-persons have nothing to judge by
because everything is its own opposite. If a hundred dollars a week be a
standard of luxurious living to some persons, it is poverty to others.
We have instances of three objects that were seen in the sky in a space
of three months, and this concurrence seems to me to be something to
judge by. Science has been built upon concurrence: so have been most of
the fallacies and fanaticisms. I feel the positivism of a Leverrier, or
instinctively take to the notion that all three of these observations
relate to the same object. However, I don't formulate them and predict
the next transit. Here's another chance for me to become a fixed
star--but as usual--oh, well--
A point in Intermediatism:
That the Intermediatist is likely to be a flaccid compromiser.
Our own attitude:
Ours is a partly positive and partly negative state, or a state in which
nothing is finally positive or finally negative--
But, if positivism attract you, go ahead and try: you will be in harmony
with cosmic endeavor--but Continuity will resist you. Only to have
appearance in quasiness is to be proportionately positive, but beyond a
degree of attempted positivism, Continuity will rise to pull you back.
Success, as it is called--though there is only success-failure in
Intermediateness--will, in Intermediateness, be yours proportionately as
you are in adjustment with its own state, or some positivism mixed with
compromise and retreat. To be very positive is to be a Napoleon
Bonaparte, against whom the rest of civilization will sooner or later
combine. For interesting data, see newspaper accounts of fate of one
Dowie, of Chicago.
Intermediatism, then, is recognition that our state is only a
quasi-state: it is no bar to one who desires to be positive: it is
recognition that he cannot be positive and remain in a state that is
positive-negative. Or that a great positivist--isolated--with no system
to support him--will be crucified, or will starve to death, or will be
put in jail and beaten to death--that these are the birth-pangs of
translation to the Positive Absolute.
So, though positive-negative, myself, I feel the attraction of the
positive pole of our intermediate state, and attempt to correlate these
three data: to see them homogeneously; to think that they relate to one
object.
In the aeronautic journals and in the London _Times_ there is no mention
of escaped balloons, in the summer or fall of 1898. In the _New York
Times_ there is no mention of ballooning in Canada or the United States,
in the summer of 1898.
London _Times_, Sept. 29, 1885:
A clipping from the _Royal Gazette_, of Bermuda, of Sept. 8, 1885, sent
to the _Times_ by General Lefroy:
That, upon Aug. 27, 1885, at about 8:30 A.M., there was observed by Mrs.
Adelina D. Bassett, "a strange object in the clouds, coming from the
north." She called the attention of Mrs. L. Lowell to it, and they were
both somewhat alarmed. However, they continued to watch the object
steadily for some time. It drew nearer. It was of triangular shape, and
seemed to be about the size of a pilot-boat mainsail, with chains
attached to the bottom of it. While crossing the land it had appeared to
descend, but, as it went out to sea, it ascended, and continued to
ascend, until it was lost to sight high in the clouds.
Or with such power to ascend, I don't think much myself of the notion
that it was an escaped balloon, partly deflated. Nevertheless, General
Lefroy, correlating with Exclusionism, attempts to give a terrestrial
interpretation to this occurrence. He argues that the thing may have
been a balloon that had escaped from France or England--or the only
aerial thing of terrestrial origin that, even to this date of about
thirty-five years later, has been thought to have crossed the Atlantic
Ocean. He accounts for the triangular form by deflation--"a shapeless
bag, barely able to float." My own acceptance is that great deflation
does not accord with observations upon its power to ascend.
In the _Times_, Oct. 1, 1885, Charles Harding, of the R.M.S., argues
that if it had been a balloon from Europe, surely it would have been
seen and reported by many vessels. Whether he was as good a Briton as
the General or not, he shows awareness of the United States--or that the
thing may have been a partly collapsed balloon that had escaped from the
United States.
General Lefroy wrote to _Nature_ about it (_Nature_, 33-99),
saying--whatever his sensitivenesses may have been--that the columns of
the _Times_ were "hardly suitable" for such a discussion. If, in the
past, there had been more persons like General Lefroy, we'd have better
than the mere fragments of data that in most cases are too broken up
very well to piece together. He took the trouble to write to a friend of
his, W.H. Gosling, of Bermuda--who also was an extraordinary person. He
went to the trouble of interviewing Mrs. Bassett and Mrs. Lowell. Their
description to him was somewhat different: