Wonders in the Sky (77 page)

11 August 1855, Tillington, Sussex, England
Red wheel in the sky

At 11:30 P.M. a Mrs. Ayling and other witnesses watched in awe as a red wheel-like object with spokes emerged from behind some hills and remained visible in the sky for an hour and a half.

 

Source: Baden Powell, “Report on observations of luminous meteors, 1855-56,”
Annual Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
(1856): 53-62, at 54-55.

460.

10 December 1855, Copenhagen, Denmark
Unexplained object

An object varying in size from the apparent diameter of the sun to that of a star was visible in the south-western atmosphere for 10 to 12 minutes. It “changed its configuration several times, having appeared now in one mass, then in two, then again in three, and so forth alternately, lighting up the heavens to a considerable distance.”

 

Source: Copenhagen
Faedrelandet,
quoted by the
Manchester Guardian
of 5 January, 1856, under the heading “Prussia, from our own correspondent.”

461.

1858, Jay, Ohio, USA: Silent vessel with passengers

Alerted by a sudden shadow over the place where they were standing, several witnesses including Mr. Henry Wallace are said to have looked up in time to see “a large and curiously constructed vessel, not over one hundred yards from the earth.” A number of very tall people were seen aboard this craft, which the recorder of the event believes was “a vessel from Venus, Mercury, or the planet Mars, on a visit of pleasure or exploration, or some other cause.”

Mr. Wallace reportedly added: “The vessel was evidently worked by wheels and other mechanical appendages, all of which worked with a precision and a degree of beauty never yet attained by any mechanical skill upon this planet (…) This was no phantom that disappeared in a twinkling…but this aerial ship was guided, propelled and steered through the atmosphere with the most scientific system and regularity, about six miles an hour, though, doubtless, from the appearance of her machinery, she was capable of going thousands of miles an hour.”

Author Jesse Glass rediscovered the book containing this report and claimed he found evidence at the Ohio Historical Society regarding the existence of a man named Henry Wallace in Jay, Ohio at the time.

Research by C. Aubeck disclosed that there was indeed a Post Office at Jay from March 14th 1839 to March 23rd 1842, but its whereabouts had become unknown shortly afterwards. Indeed, the town did not figure in any gazetteer or Erie County history. Aubeck managed to pinpoint the location of Jay from comments made by the historian Henry Timman in his popular weekly column,
Just Like Old Times.
It was, he said, “on the township line between Milan and Huron” but nothing marks the spot today. According to census records a Henry C. Wallace lived in nearby Erie County in 1850, a fifteen year old lad from New York. By 1860 he must have either died or moved on, because he is not listed again in the state of Ohio. This Mr. Wallace was too young to have lived in Jay and in fact was registered as a resident of Florence, a different township.

We can only conclude that the claim rests on the veracity of names that cannot be verified today.

 

Source: Dr. William Earl,
The Illustrated Silent Friend, embracing subjects never before scientifically discussed
(New York, 1858).

462.

26 March 1859, Orgères, France: Sighting of Vulcan

Mr. Lescarbault, an amateur astronomer, has observed a body of planetary size crossing the disk of the sun. He wrote to Le Verrier, who came to Orgères to meet with him and to verify the records of the observation in view of computing an orbit for Vulcan, the intra-mercurial planet which he hypothesized. In his letter, Lescarbault wrote:

Fig. 37: French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier, discoverer of Neptune

“The duration of the passage of the new planet was one hour seventeen minutes, and twenty seconds of sidereal time. I have the conviction that, some day, a black dot, perfectly circular, very small, will be seen again passing in front of the sun (…) This object must be the planet or one of the planets whose existence in the vicinity of the solar globe you have announced a few months ago, Mr. Director, using this same wonderful power of computation that made you recognize the existence of Neptune in 1846.”

 

Source:
L'Année Scientifique
(1878): 16.

463.

29 January 1860, London, England
Unknown planetoid

An unknown object of planetary size is reported by Mr. Russell and three other observers.

 

Source: F. A. R. Russell, “An Intra-Mercurial planet,”
Nature
14 (October 5, 1876): 505.

464.

1 March 1860, Moscow, Russia: Unexplained sky object

At 9:45 P.M. “a star to the southwest of the Great Bear suddenly commenced to wax larger, assuming at the same time the color of iron at a red heat, but without the appearance of any sparks or rays.” It was observed in this condition until 11:30 P.M., growing to half the size of the moon. It then became dimmer, and by midnight it had disappeared. In its stead “a sort of black speck was to be noticed by the light of the other stars.”

The writer adds: “It remains for the astronomers to describe, and poets to sing, the destruction of the luminary, which, for ought we know, may have been the abode of a race superior to our own.”

 

Source: The Russian correspondent of the
London Telegraph
, quoted in
The Banner of Liberty
(Middletown, New York), 6 June 1860.

465.

17 July 1860, Dharamsala, India: Lights in the heavens

On the evening of the day when a remarkable meteor had fallen in the area, a man who was observing the sky about 7 P.M. saw a pattern of lights, each lasting for one minute or more, over places where there were no houses or roads:

“Some were high up in the air moving like fire balloons, but the greater part of them were in the distance in the direction of the lower hills in front of my house, others were closer to the house and between Sir Alexander Lawrence's and the Barracks. I am sure from some which I observed closely that they were neither fire baloons (sic), lanterns nor bonfires, nor any other thing of that sort, but
bona fide
lights in the heavens. Though I have made enquiries among the Natives the next day, I have never been able to find out what they were or the cause of their appearance.”

 

Source:
The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art
, Canadian Institute (1849-1914), vol 7 (1862): 197.

466.