Wonders in the Sky (66 page)

July 1806, Maine: White globe and glowing specter

In 1806 the Rev. Abraham Cummings set out to investigate the apparition of a ghost. A serious scholar with a Master's degree from Brown University, he was sure the tales would turn out to be fraudulent. The philosopher C. J. Ducasse reproduces Cummings' testimony as follows:

“Some time in July 1806, in the evening, I was informed by two persons that they had just seen the Spectre in the field. About ten minutes after, I went out, not to see a miracle for I believed they had been mistaken. Looking toward an eminence twelve rods distance from the house, I saw there as I supposed one of the white rocks. This confirmed my opinion of their spectre, and I paid no attention to it.

“Three minutes after, I accidentally looked in the same direction, and the white rock was in the air; its form a complete globe, with a tincture of red and its diameter about two feet. Fully satisfied that this was nothing ordinary I went toward it for more accurate examination. While my eye was constantly upon it, I went on for four or five steps, when it came to me from the distance of eleven rods, as quick as lightning, and instantly assumed a personal form with a female dress, but did not appear taller than a girl seven years old. While I looked upon her, I said in my mind “you are not tall enough for the woman who has so frequently appeared among us!” Immediately she grew up as large and tall as I considered that woman to be.

“Now she appeared glorious. On her head was the representation of the sun diffusing the luminous, rectilinear rays every way to the ground. Through the rays I saw the personal form and the woman's dress.”

Cummings wrote that the entity was encountered on scores of occasions, and in his report he included thirty affidavits from witnesses to prove it. In all cases a small luminous cloud appeared first and then grew until it took the form of the deceased woman. Afterwards it would take its exit in much the same way.

 

Source: C. J. Ducasse,
Paranormal Phenomena, Science and Life After Death
(New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1969); Abraham Cummings,
Immortality Proved by the Testimony of Sense
(Bath, Maine, 1826).

381.

7 August 1806, Rutherford, North Carolina
Flying things, white beings

“Patsey Reaves, a widow woman, who lives near the Appalachian Mountain, declared, that about 6 o'clock P.M., her daughter Elizabeth, about 8 years old, was in the cotton field, about ten poles from the dwelling house, which stands by computation, six furlongs from the Chimney Mountain, and that Elizabeth told her brother Morgan, aged 11 years, that there was a man on the mountain. Morgan was incredulous at first, but the little girl affirmed it, and said she saw him, rolling rocks or picking up sticks, adding that she saw a heap of people.

“Morgan then went to the place where she was, and called out, [saying] that he saw a thousand or ten thousand things flying in the air. On which Polly, daughter of Mrs. Reaves, a good four years, and a Negro woman, ran out to the children and called Mrs. Reaves to see what a sight yonder was.

“Mrs. Reaves says she went about 8 poles towards them, and, without any sensible alarm or fright, she turned towards the Chimney Mountain, and discovered a very numerous crowd of beings resembling the human species but could not discern any particular members of the human body, nor distinction of sexes; that they were of every size, from the tallest men down to the least infants; that there were more of the small than of the full grown, that they were all clad with brilliant white raiment; but could not describe any form of their garment; that they appeared to rise off the mountain south of said rock, and about as high; that a considerable part of the mountain's top was visible about this shining host, that they moved in a northern direction, and collected about the top of Chimney Rock.

“When all but a few had reached said rock, two seemed to rise together and behind them about two feet, a third rose. These three moved with great agility towards the crowd, and had the nearest resemblance of two men of any before seen. While beholding those three her eyes were attracted by three more rising nearly from the same place, and moving swiftly in the same order and direction. After these, several others rose and went toward the rock.”

The sighting went on for about an hour, during which time Mrs. Reaves sent for Mr. Robert Siercy. The latter was reluctant to come as “he expected to see nothing extraordinary,” but after a second messenger was sent to him he finally arrived. At first he glanced at the mountain without seeing anything strange, but when he took a second look “he said he saw more glittering white appearances of human kind that ever had he seen of men at any general view.” He noticed there were entities of different sizes, “that they moved in throngs,” and that they “moved in a semicircular course between him and the rock.” Two of the larger beings seemed to go before the others at a distance of about 20 yards, where “they vanished out of sight, leaving a solemn and pleasing impression on the mind, accompanied with a diminution of body strength.”

 

Source:
Statesville
(North Carolina)
Landmark
June 15, 1883. The report was formally made on 7 August 1806 and presented to Mr. J. Gates, Editor of the
Raleigh Register and State Gazette
, where it was first published the following September.

382.

22 July 1808, Maine, USA
An old diary describes a maneuvering light

The diary of school teacher Cynthia Everett, who taught in Maine during the early 1800s, contains the following entry:

“About 10 o'clock I saw a very strange appearance. It was a light which proceeded from the East. At first sight, I thought it was a Meteor, but from its motion I soon perceived it was not. It seemed to dart at first as quickly as light, and appeared to be in the atmosphere, but lowered toward the ground and kept on at an equal distance sometimes ascending and sometimes descending. It moved round in the then visible Horizon. (it was not very light) and then returned back again.”

Dr. Ranlett, a historian at the State University College at Potsdam, finds it significant that Cynthia Everett did not explain what she witnessed as a natural phenomenon, although she was well educated and had firsthand knowledge about the night sky. “She was the kind of person who would have explained it as natural phenomenon, if she could have.”

 

Source:
New York
(Ogdensburg)
Journal
, March 29, 1978. The article describes the work of Dr. Judith Becker Ranlett: while studying the diary of her husband's great-great grandmother, she found this unusual sighting.

383.

1 September 1808, Moscow, Russia
Radiant “plate” flying over the Kremlin

Alexander Afanasyev, of the manuscript department of the Russian State History Museum, found a document in the personal archive of a Moscow senator Peter Poludensky. “On September 1, 1808 at 8 o'clock and 7 minutes after noon, in the sky, clear and sown with stars, a phenomenon appeared, incomparable in its beauty and rigor, as well as in radiance and enormous size, to anything seen before. As we noticed it, attracted by the loud cracking sound, it was rising in an arch over the horizon, from 55' to almost 90'. Having passed this distance in an instant, it stopped among the clouds as if over the Kremlin and looked like a long straight plate some nine arshin (6.35 meter) long and half arshin (0.35 meter) thick.

“Then on its front edge, turned to the South-West, an oval flame flared, some two arshin (1.4 meter) long and one and a half arshin (about one meter) thick, with a flame that can only be compared to the radiance of burning phosphor.

“Floating in a circle without open fire or sparkle, it nonetheless lighted everything around as broad daylight; then the flame went out, the light disappeared, but the bright plate remained and quite smoothly went perpendicularly upwards, reached the stars and still could be seen for some two minutes and then, without disappearing, it became invisible due to the extraordinary height.”

A sketch was attached, depicting the flying object. Afanasyev ruled out the possibility of a hoax based on the age of the paper and the writing style.

 

Source: Moscow daily
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, 2 July 2006, and V. A. Bronshten, “There was in a clear sky…(
…)”,
Vokrug Sveta,
no. 9 (2528), September 1984, 55-56.