They were between the ship and a mountain. The mountain was about 6,000
feet high. The lights seemed to be globular. They moved sometimes
massed, but sometimes strung out in an irregular line. They bore
"northward," until lost to sight. Duration two hours.
The next night the lights were seen again.
They were, for a time, eclipsed by a small island. They bore north at
about the same speed and in about the same direction as speed and
direction of the _Caroline_. But they were lights that cast a
reflection: there was a glare upon the horizon under them. A telescope
brought out but few details: that they were reddish, and seemed to emit
a faint smoke. This time the duration was seven and a half hours.
Then Capt. Norcock says that, in the same general locality, and at about
the same time, Capt. Castle, of H.M.S. _Leander_, had seen lights. He
had altered his course and had made toward them. The lights had fled
from him. At least, they had moved higher in the sky.
_Monthly Weather Review_, March, 1904-115:
Report from the observations of three members of his crew by Lieut.
Frank H. Schofield, U.S.N, of the U.S.S. _Supply_:
Feb. 24, 1904. Three luminous objects, of different sizes, the largest
having an apparent area of about six suns. When first sighted, they were
not very high. They were below clouds of an estimated height of about
one mile.
They fled, or they evaded, or they turned.
They went up into the clouds below which they had, at first, been
sighted.
Their unison of movement.
But they were of different sizes, and of different susceptibilities to
all forces of this earth and of the air.
_Monthly Weather Review_, August, 1898-358:
Two letters from C.N. Crotsenburg, Crow Agency, Montana:
That, in the summer of 1896, when this writer was a railroad postal
clerk--or one who was experienced in train-phenomena--while his train
was going "northward," from Trenton, Mo., he and another clerk saw, in
the darkness of a heavy rain, a light that appeared to be round, and of
a dull-rose color, and seemed to be about a foot in diameter. It seemed
to float within a hundred feet of the earth, but soon rose high, or
"midway between horizon and zenith." The wind was quite strong from the
east, but the light held a course almost due north.
Its speed varied. Sometimes it seemed to outrun the train
"considerably." At other times it seemed to fall behind. The mail-clerks
watched until the town of Linville, Iowa, was reached. Behind the depot
of this town, the light disappeared, and was not seen again. All this
time there had been rain, but very little lightning, but Mr. Crotsenburg
offers the explanation that it was "ball lightning."
The Editor of the _Review_ disagrees. He thinks that the light may have
been a reflection from the rain, or fog, or from leaves of trees,
glistening with rain, or the train's light--not lights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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