28o BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



tion with Ex-Governor Woodbury and Mr. A. A. Buell, when, 

 without the slightest indication, or warning, we were startled by 

 what sounded like a most unusual and terrific explosion, evidently 

 very nearby. Raising my eyes, and looking eastward along College 

 street, I observed a torpedo-shaped body, some 300 feet away, 

 stationary in appearance, and suspended in the air, about 50 feet 

 above the tops of the buildings. In size it was about 6 feet long 

 by 8 inches in diameter, the shell, or covering, having a dark ap- 

 pearance, with here and there tongues of fire issuing from spots on 

 the surface, resembling red-hot, unburnished copper. Although 

 stationary when first noticed, this object soon began to move, 

 rather slowly, and disappeared over Dolan Brothers' store, south- 

 ward. As it moved, the covering seemed rupturing in places, and 

 through these the intensely red flames issued." 



Bishop Michaud attempts to correlate it with meteorological obser- 

 vations. 



Because of the nearby view this is perhaps the most remarkable 

 of the new correlates, but the correlate now coming is extraordinary 

 because of the great number of recorded observations upon it. 

 My own acceptance is that, upon Nov. 17, 1882, a vast dirigible 

 crossed England, but by the definiteness-indefiniteness of all things 

 quasi-real, some observations upon it can be correlated with any- 

 thing one pleases. 



E. W. Maunder, invited by the Editors of the Observatory to write 

 some reminiscences for the sooth number of their magazine, gives 

 one that he says stands out (Observatory, 39-214). It is upon 

 something that he terms "a strange celestial visitor." Maunder 

 was at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Nov. 17, 1882, at night. 

 There was an aurora, without features of special interest. In the 

 midst of the aurora, a great circular disk of greenish light appeared 

 and moved smoothly across the sky. But the circularity was evi- 

 dently the effect of foreshortening. The thing passed above the 

 moon, and was, by other observers, described as "cigar-shaped," 

 "like a torpedo," "a spindle," "a shuttle." The idea of foreshorten- 

 ing is not mine: Maunder says this. He says: "Had the incident 

 occurred a third of a century later, beyond doubt every one would 

 have selected the same simile it would have been 'just like a Zep- 

 pelin.' " The duration was about two minutes. Color said to have 

 been the same as that of the auroral glow in the north. Neverthe- 

 less, Maunder says that this thing had no relation to auroral phe- 

 nomena. "It appeared to be a definite body." Motion too fast 



