The World Is a Very Strange Place
Weird Experiences May Help Us Discover and Remember a Deeper, Unseen Lesson
In some circles, Charles Fort is renowned as history’s first UFO investigator. Born in Albany, New York during the summer of 1874, Fort chronicled the stories people related and writers reported of strange lights, sights and things in the sky.
Fort’s work, The Book of the Damned, startled the reading public when first published in 1919. Among its hundreds of incredible anecdotes is a citation from the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, November and December, 1913:
That, according to many observations collected by Prof. Chant, of Toronto, there appeared, upon the night of Feb. 9, 1913, a spectacle that was seen in Canada, the United States, and at sea, and in Bermuda. A luminous body was seen. To it there was a long tail. The body grew rapidly larger. "Observers differ as to whether the body was single, or was composed of three or four parts, with a tail to each part." The group, or complex structure, moved with "a peculiar, majestic deliberation." "It disappeared in the distance, and another group emerged from its place of origin. Onward they moved, at the same deliberate pace, in twos or threes or fours."
They disappeared. A third group, or a third structure, followed. Some observers compared the spectacle to a fleet of airships: others to battleships attended by cruisers and destroyers.
Professor Clarence Chant is remembered today as the father of Canadian astronomy. He served as editor of Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1904 until his death in 1956.
Fort also reported on strange happenings closer to the ground. Mysterious creatures, ghostly hauntings, telepathic and telekinetic powers, and sometimes the strange things that fall from the sky to earth. His reporting on the incredible today serves as an adjective for the paranormal, Fortean.
Another example of interest to The Residium comes from the July 12, 1873 Scientific American:
"A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at Kansas City, Mo."
How absurd the fall of living matter from the sky sounds. Yet the surreal reports continue. Here’s an example from 2011:
Apples Fall from the Sky in Coventry
Now where in the world did the apples come from? What orchard reported a giant loss during a windstorm? We may never know, but one apple that fell to earth may bring us closer to understanding.