There have been published several observations upon a signal-like
regularity of the Barisal Guns, which, because unaccompanied by
phenomena that could be considered seismic, may have been detonations in
the sky, and which, because, according to some hearers, they seemed to
come from the sky, may have come from some region stationary in the
local sky of Barisal. In _Nature_, 61-127, appears a report by Henry S.
Schurr, who investigated the sounds in the years 1890-1891:
“These Guns are always heard in triplets, i. e., three guns are always
heard, one after the other, at regular intervals, and, though several
guns may be heard, the number is always three or a multiple of three.
Then the interval between the three is always constant, i. e., the
interval between the first and the second is the same as the interval
between the second and the third, and this interval is usually three
seconds, though I have heard it up to ten seconds. The interval,
however, between the triplets varies, and varies largely, from a few
seconds up to hours and days. Sometimes only one series of triplets is
heard in a day; at others the triplets follow with great regularity, and
I have counted as many as forty-five of them, one after the other,
without pause.”
In vols. 16 and 17, _Ciel et Terre_, M. Van den Broeck published a
series of papers upon the mysterious sounds that had been heard in
Belgium.
July, 1892—heard near Brée, by Dr. Raemaekers, of Antwerp—detonations at
regular intervals of about 12 seconds, repeated about 20 times.
Aug. 5, 1892—near Dunkirk, by Prof. Gérard, of Brussels—four reports
like sounds of cannons.
Aug. 17, 1893—between Ostend and Ramsgate, by Prof. Gérard—a series of
distinct explosions—state of the sky giving no reason to think that they
were meteorological manifestations.
Sept. 5, 1893—at Middelkirke—loud sounds of remarkable intensity.
Sept. 8, 1893—English Channel near Dover—by Prof. Gérard—an explosive
sound.
In _Ciel et Terre_, 16-485, M. Van den Broeck records an experience of
his own. Upon June 25, 1894, at Louvain, he had heard detonations like
discharges of artillery: he tabulates the intervals in a series of
sounds. If there were signalling from some unknown region over Belgium,
and not far from the surface of this earth, or from extra-mundane
vessels, and if there were something of the code-like, resembling the
Morse alphabet, perhaps, in this series of sounds, there can be small
hope of interpreting such limited material, but there may be suggestion
to someone to record all sounds and their intervals and modulations, if,
with greater duration, such phenomena should ever occur again. The
intervals were four minutes and twenty-three minutes; then three
minutes, four, three quarters, three and three quarters, three quarters.
Sept. 16, 1895—a triplet of detonations, heard by M. de Schryvere, of
Brussels.
There were attempts to explain. Some of M. Van den Broeck’s
correspondents thought that there had been firing from forts on the
coast of England, and somebody thought that the phenomena should be
attributed to gravitational effects of the moon. Upon Sept. 13, 1895,
four shocks were felt and sounds heard at Southampton: a series of three
and then another (_Nature_, 52-552); but I have no other notes upon
sounds that were heard in England at this time, except the two
explosions that were explained by the police of London. However, M. Van
den Broeck says that Mr. Harmer, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, had, about the
first of November, heard booming sounds that had been attributed to
cannonading at Harwich. Mr. Harmer had heard other sounds that had been
attributed to cannonading somewhere else. He could not offer a definite
opinion upon the first sounds, but had investigated the others, learning
that the attribution was a mistake.
It was M. de Schryvere’s opinion that the triplet of detonations that he
had heard was from vessels in the North Sea. But now, according to
developments, the sounds of Belgium can not very well be attributed to
terrestrial cannonading in or near Belgium: in _Ciel et Terre_, 16-614,
are quoted two artillery officers who had heard the sounds, but could
not so trace them: one of these officers had heard a series of
detonations with intervals of about two minutes. A variety of
explanations was attempted, but in conventional terms, and if these
localized, repeating sounds did come from the sky, there’s nothing to it
but a new variety of attempted explanations, and in most unconventional
terms. There are recorded definite impressions that the sounds were in
the sky: Prof. Peleseneer’s _positivement aérien_. In _Ciel et Terre_,
17-14, M. Van den Broeck announced that General Hennequin, of Brussels,
had co-operated with him, and had sent enquiries to army officers and
other persons, receiving thirty replies. Some of these correspondents
had heard detonations at regular intervals. It is said that the sounds
were like cannonading, but not in one instance were the sounds traced to
terrestrial gunfire.
Jan. 24, 1896—a triplet of triplets—between 2.30 and 3.30, P. M.—by M.
Overloop, of Middelkirke, Belgium—three series of detonations, each of
three sounds.
The sounds went on, but, after this occurrence, there seems to me to be
little inducement to me to continue upon the subject. This is indication
that from somewhere there has been signalling: from extra-mundane
vessels to one another, or from some unknown region to this earth, as
nearly final as we can hope to find. There are persons who will see
nothing but a susceptibility to the mysticism of numbers in a feeling
that there is significance in threes of threes. But, if there be attempt
in some other world to attract attention upon this earth, it would have
to be addressed to some kind of a state of mind that would feel
significances. Let our three threes be as mystic as the eleven horns on
Daniel’s fourth animal; if throughout nature like human nature there be
only superstition as to such serialization, that superstition, for want
of something more nearly intelligent, would be a susceptibility to which
to appeal, and from which response might be expected. I think that a
sense of mystic significance in the number three may be universal,
because upon this earth it is general, appearing in theologies, in the
balanced compositions of all the arts, in logical demonstrations, and in
the indefinite feelings that are supposed to be superstitious.
The sounds went on, as if there were experiments, or attempts to
communicate by means of other regularizations and repetitions. Feb. 18,
1896—a series of more than 20 detonations, at intervals of 2 or 3
minutes, heard at Ostend, by M. Pulzeys, an engineer of Brussels. Four
or five sounds were heard at Ostend by someone else: repeated upon the
21st of Feb. Heard by M. Overloop, at Ostend, April 6: detonations at
11.57.30 A. M., and at 12.1.32 P. M. Heard the next day, by M. Overloop,
at Blankenberghe, at 2.35 and 2.51 P. M.
The last occurrence recorded by M. Van den Broeck was upon the English
Channel, May 23, 1896: detonations at 3.20 and 3.40 P. M. I have no more
data, as to this period, myself, but I have notes upon similar sounds,
by no means so widely reported and commented upon, in France and Belgium
about 15 years later. One notices that the old earthquake-explanation as
to these sounds has not appeared.
But there were other phenomena in England, in this period, and to
considerable degree they were conventionally explained. They were not of
the type of the Belgian phenomena, and, because manifestations were seen
and felt, as well as heard, they were explained in terms of meteors and
earthquakes. But in this double explanation, we meet a divided
opposition, and no longer are we held back by the uncompromising attempt
by exclusionist science to attribute all disturbances of this earth’s
surface to a subterranean origin. The admission by Symons and Fordham
that we have recorded, as to occurrences of 1887-89, has survived.
The earliest of the accounts that I have read of the quakes in the
general region of Worcester and Hereford (London Triangle) that
associated with appearances in the sky, was published by two church
wardens in the years 1661, as to occurrences of October, 1661, and is
entitled, _A True and Perfect Relation of the Terrible Earthquake_. It
is said that monstrous flaming things were seen in the sky, and that
phenomena below were interesting. We are told, “truly and perfectly,”
that Mrs. Margaret Petmore fell in labor and brought forth three male
offsprings all of whom had teeth and spoke at birth. Inasmuch as it is
not recorded what the infants said, and whether in plain English or not,
it is not so much an extraordinary birth such as, in one way or another,
occurs from time to time, that affronts our conventional notions, as it
is the idea that there could be relation between the abnormal in
obstetrics and the unusual in terrestrics. The conventional scientist
has just this reluctance toward considering shocks of this earth and
phenomena in the sky at the same time. If he could accept with us that
there often has been relation, the seeming discord would turn into a
commonplace, but with us he would never again want to hear of
extraordinary detonating meteors exploding only by coincidence over a
part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, or of concussions
of this earth, time after time, in one small region, from meteors that,
only by coincidence, happened to explode in one little local sky, time
after time. Give up the idea that this earth moves, however, and
coincidences many times repeated do not have to be lugged in.
Our subject now is the supposed earthquake centering around Worcester
and Hereford, Dec. 17, 1896; but there may have been related events,
leading up to this climax, signifying long duration of something in the
sky that occasionally manifested relatively to this corner of the London
Triangle. Mrs. Margaret Petmore was too sensational a person for our
liking, at least in our colder and more nearly scientific moments, so we
shall not date so far back as the time of her performance; but the
so-called earthquakes of Oct. 6, 1863, and of Oct. 30, 1868, were in
this region, and we had data for thinking that they were said to be
earthquakes only because they could not be traced to terrestrial
explosions.
At 5.45 P. M., Nov. 2. 1893, a loud sound was heard at a place ten miles
northeast of Worcester, and no shock was felt (_Nature_, 49-245);
however at Worcester and in various parts of the west of England and in
Wales a shock was felt.
According to James G. Wood, writing in _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 29-8, at
9.30 P. M., Jan. 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than
20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an
explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something
else occurred: according to Denning (_Nature_, 49-325) it was in several
places, near Hereford and Worcester, supposed to be an earthquake. But,
at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (_Symons’ Met. Mag._, 29-8) was seen
the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas
and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for
half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.
In the _English Mechanic_, 74-155, David Packer calls attention to “a
strange meteoric light” that was seen in the sky, at Worcester, during
the quake of Dec. 17, 1896. I should say that this was the severest
shock felt in the British Isles, in the 19th century, with the exception
of the shock of April 22, 1884, in the eastern point of the London
Triangle. There was something in the sky. In _Nature_, 55-179, J. Lloyd
Bozward writes that, at Worcester, a great light was seen in the sky, at
the time of the shock, and that, in another town, “a great blaze” had
been seen in the sky. In _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 31-180, are recorded many
observations upon lights that were seen in the sky. In an appendix to
his book, _The Hereford Earthquake of 1896_, Dr. Charles Davison says
that at the time of the quake (5.30 A. M.) there was a luminous object
in the sky, and that it “traversed a large part of the disturbed area.”
He says that it was a meteor, and an extraordinary meteor that lighted
up the ground so that one could have picked up a pin. With the data so
far considered, almost anyone would think that of course an object had
exploded in the sky, shaking the earth underneath. Dr. Davison does not
say this. He says that the meteor only happened to appear over a part of
this earth where an earthquake was occurring, “by a strange
coincidence.”
Suppose that, with ordinary common sense, he had not lugged in his
“strange coincidence,” and had written that of course the shock was
concussion from an explosion in the sky—
Shocks that had been felt before midnight, Dec. 17, and at 1.30 or 1.45,
2, 3, 3.30, 4, 5, and 5.20, and then others at 5.40 or 5.45 and at 6.15
o’clock—and were they, too, concussions, but fainter and from remoter
explosions in the sky—and why not, if of course the great shock of 5.30
o’clock was from a great explosion in the sky—and by what multiplication
of strangeness of coincidence could detonating meteors, or explosions of
any other kind, so localize in the one little sky of Worcester, if this
earth be a moving earth—and how could their origin be otherwise than a
fixed region nearby?
In some minds it may be questionable that the earth could be so affected
as it was at 5.30 A. M., Dec. 17, 1896, by an explosion in the sky. Upon
Feb. 10, 1896, a tremendous explosion occurred in the sky of Madrid:
throughout the city windows were smashed; a wall in the building
occupied by the American Legation was thrown down. The people of Madrid
rushed to the streets, and there was a panic in which many were injured.
For five hours and a half a luminous cloud of débris hung over Madrid,
and stones fell from the sky.
Suppose, just at present, we disregard all the Worcester-Hereford
phenomena except those of Dec. 17, 1896. Draw a diagram, illustrating a
stream of meteors pursuing this earth, now supposed to be rotating and
revolving, for more than 400,000 miles in its orbit, and curving around
gracefully and unerringly after the rotating earth, so as to explode
precisely in this one little local sky and nowhere else. But we can’t
think very reasonably even of a flock of birds flying after and so
precisely pecking one spot on an apple thrown in the air by somebody.
Another diagram—stationary earth—bombardment of any kind one chooses to
think of—same point hit every time—thinkable.
The phenomena associate with an opposition of Mars. Dec. 10,
1896—opposition of Mars.
But we have gone on rather elaborately with perhaps an insufficiency to
base upon. We can not say, directly, that all the phenomena of the night
of Dec. 16-17, 1896, were shocks from explosions in the sky: only during
the greatest of the concussions was something seen, or was something
near enough to be seen.
We apply the idea of the diagrams to another series of occurrences in
this period. Now draw a diagram relatively to the sky of Florida, and
see just what the explanation of coincidence demands or exacts. But then
consider the diagram as one of an earth that does not move and of
something that is fixed over a point upon its surface. Things can be
thought of as coming down from somewhere else to one special sky of this
earth, as logically as precariously placed objects on one special window
sill sometimes come down to a special neighbor.
In the _Monthly Weather Review_, 23-57, is a report, by the Director of
the Florida Weather Service, upon “mysterious sounds” and luminous
effects in the sky of Florida. According to investigation, these
phenomena did occur in the sky of Florida, about noon, Feb. 7, 1895,
again at 5 o’clock in the morning of the 8th, and again between 6 and 10
o’clock, night of the 8th. The Editor of the _Review_ thinks that three
meteors may have exploded so in succession in the sky of Florida, and
nowhere else, “by coincidence.”