Post by uforn on Jul 9, 2010 3:52:54 GMT 1
Report's Starting From The 1900's
1902
10-28-1902
Zoologist, 4-7-38--that, according to the log of the steamship Fort Salisbury, the second officer, Mr. A. H. Raymer, had, Oct. 28, 1902, in Lat. 5° 31' S., and Long. 4° 42' W., been called, at 3:05 A.M., by the lookout, who reported that there was a huge, dark object bearing lights in the sea ahead. Two lights were seen. The steamship passed a slowly sinking bulk of an estimated length of five or six hundred feet. Mechanism of some kind---fins, the observers thought---was making a commotion in the water. "A scaled back" was slowly submerging.
One thinks that seeing for such details as "a scaled back" could not have been very good at three o'clock in the morning. So doubly damned is this datum that the attempt to explain it was in terms of the accursed Sea Serpent.
Phosphorescence of the water is mentioned several times, but that seems to have nothing to do with two definite lights, like those of a vessel. The Captain of the Fort Salisbury was interviewed. "I can only say that he (Mr. Raymer) is very earnest on the subject, and has, together with the lookout and helmsman, seen something in the water of a huge nature, as specified."
One thinks that this object may have been a large, terrestrial vessel that had been abandoned and was sinking.
1904
02-28-1904
For the complete write-up of this case, with the original documents, please see Dr. Bruce Maccabee’s web site at: brumac.8k.com/RemarkableMeteors/Remarkable.html
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.
This reference: The Complete Books of Charles Fort, p. 298, © 1974 from the original The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort, © 1919.
ALSO
1904: Circular UFOs Maneuvered Near Ship
One of the earliest formation cases was reported February 28, 1904, by a ship in the North Pacific off San Francisco. Three members of the crew of the USS Supply, at 6:10 a.m. local time, sighted an echelon formation of three "remarkable meteors" which appeared near the horizon below clouds, moving directly toward the ship. As they approached, the UFOs began soaring, rose above the cloud layer, and were observed climbing into space, still in echelon. The lead object was egg-shaped and about the size of six suns (about 3 degrees of arc). The other two were smaller and appeared to be perfectly round. They remained visible for over two minutes. [7] (Meteors, of course, do not travel in echelon formation, change course and climb, nor remain visible for two minutes).
1904
07-28-1904
Note: This case was originally shown as 1908 based on a New York City news clip.-CF-
ELECTRIC CLOUD ENVELOPED SHIP
Caused Mohicans’s Sailors to Become like Animated Magnets
Compass Was Set A-Spinning and Iron Chains Could Not Be Lifted From the Deck
When the British steamer Mohican, from Ibraila, Roumania, which reached this port on Saturday, was making for the Delaware Breakwater, it had a most remarkable experience which terrorized the crew, played havoc with the ship’s compass and brought the vessel to a standstill for nearly a half hour.
For that length of time the vessel was enshrouded in a strange metallic vapor, which glowed like phosphorus. The entire vessel looked as if it were afire and the sailors flitted about the deck like glowing phantoms. The cloud had a strange magnetic effect on the vessel, for the needle of the compass revolved with the speed of an electric motor and the sailors were unable to raise pieces of steel from the magnetized decks. Captain Urquhart described the thrilling experience and his story is vouched for by every man of the crew.
"It was shortly after the sun had gone,” he said, "and we were in latitude 37 degrees 16 minutes and longitude 72 degrees 48 minutes. The sea was almost as level as a parlor carpet and scarcely a breeze ruffled the water. It was slowly growing dark when the lookout saw a strange gray cloud in the southeast. At first it appeared as a speck on the horizon, but it rapidly came nearer and was soon as large as balloon.”
Ship in Shining Cloud
"It had a peculiar gray tinge, and as it bore down upon us, we saw bright glowing spots in its mass. A mile away we perceived that it rose several hundred feet above the level of the sea and was almost that broad. It rolled over the sea toward us, the glowing spots becoming more and more vivid. Suddenly the cloud enveloped the ship, and the most remarkable phenomena took place. The Mohican suddenly blazed forth like a ship on fire, and from stem to stern and topmast to keel everything was tinged with the strange glow. The seamen were in terror when they found themselves looking as if they had been immersed in hell fire. Their hair stood straight on end, not from the fright so much as from the magnetic power of the cloud.
"They rushed about the deck in consternation, and the more they rushed about, the more excited they became. I tried to calm them, but the situation was beyond me. I looked at the needle and it was flying around like an electric fan. I ordered several of the crew to move some iron chains that were lying on the deck, thinking that it would distract their attention. But what was the surprise to find that the sailors could not budge the chains, although they did not weigh more than seventy five pounds each. Everything was magnetized, and chains, bolts, spikes and bars were as tight on the deck as if they had been riveted there.”
Hair on Heads Stood Out
"The cloud was so dense that it was impossible for the vessel to proceed. I could not see beyond the decks, and it appeared as if the whole world was a mass of glowing fire. The frightened sailors fell on the decks and prayed. I never saw anything so terrifying in the years I have been at sea. The hair on our heads and in our beards stuck out like bristles on a pig. After we had been in the cloud for about ten minutes, we noticed that it became difficult to move our arms and legs, in fact, all the joints of the body seemed to stiffen.
"Then it was that my sea legs began to fail me for the first time. I've heard of phantom ships and stories about the needle running wild, but shiver me if I had ever seen the like of that. For a half hour we were enveloped in that mysterious vapor. And for nearly all that time, after the sailors' first cries of fright had subsided, there was a great silence over everything that only added to the terror. I tried to talk, but the words refused to leave my lips. The density of the cloud was so great that it would not carry sound.
"Suddenly the cloud began to lift. The phosphorescent glow of the ship and the crew began to fade. It gradually died away and, at the same time, the stiffness left the hair. In a few minutes the cloud had passed over the vessel and we saw it moving off over the sea. It loomed above the water as a great, gray mass, spotted like a leopard's back with the bright, glowing patches.
"The crew gradually regained their composure and whispered to one another. I went among them, telling that all danger was past and they slowly went about their work. When I ordered them to move the iron chains for the second time, the men had no trouble in lifting them from the deck and tossing them about. Then I took a look at the needle and it was pointing steadily toward the north, as it (sic – if) nothing had occurred. I have sailed the seas for many years, but I never encountered a cloud like that. It must have been composed of some magnetized substance, which at the same time was combined with phosphorus.”
1906
06-02-1906
Extract from a letter from Mr. Douglas Carnegie, Blackheath, England. Date sometime in 1906—
"This last voyage we witnessed a weird and most extraordinary electric display." In the Gulf of Oman, he saw a bank of apparently quiescent phosphorescence: but, when within twenty yards of it, "shafts of brilliant light came sweeping across the ship's bows at a prodigious speed, which might be put down as anything between 60 and 200 miles an hour. These light bars were about 20 feet apart and most regular." As to phosphorescence--"I collected a bucketful of water and examined it under the microscope, but could not detect anything abnormal." That the shafts of light came up from something beneath the surface---"They first struck us on our broadside, and I noticed that an intervening ship had no effect on the light beams: they started away from the lee side of the ship, just as if they had traveled right through it.”
The Gulf of Oman is at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
1907
03-14-1907
Extract from a letter by Mr. S. C. Patterson, second officer of the P. and O. steamship Delta: a spectacle which the Journal continues to call phosphorescent:
Malacca Strait, 2 A.M., March 14, 1907:
"... shafts which seemed to move round a center--like the spokes of a wheel--and appeared to be about 300 yards long." The phenomenon lasted about half an hour, during which time the ship had traveled six or seven miles. It stopped suddenly."
1908
01-03-1908
STRANGE LIGHTS IN NORTH MAY BE SIGNALS TO EARTH
Nome Residents Witness an Inexplicable Phenomenon January 3
A strange light at sea, far out over the vast expanses of frozen ice, was visible to the residents of Nome, January 3. The officers at Fort Davis, who had a clear view out over the ice, report that the light was visible for intervals of fifteen minutes and that it changed color constantly from red to white and green.
Viewed through marine glasses, the light appeared too high to belong to a ship, and it was stated from the wireless station at Port Safety that from its position on the horizon, it might possibly “be some signal from nearby planets through intersiderial (sic) space to the inhabitants of the earth.”
Olympia Seeing Lights, Too.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 28– (Special) – Farmers in the vicinity of Mud Bay, a few miles west of Olympia, report the seeing of a large light in the western skies in the evening, supposed to be an airship.
Those who have seen the light say it is not a star as it is too near the earth and that it is too large to be a lantern hanging from the tail of a kite.
3-12-1908
Monster Was ‘All Lit Up’
“March 27. – At 8 p.m. Thursday, March 12, latitude 22.06 north, longitude 72.21 west. One-half mile off starboard bow sighted strange marine monster. It approached and followed ship all night. Friday at 9 a.m. monster crossed our bows. Passengers in a panic. Reduced speed to five knots.” – Extract from the log of the Admiral Farragut.
Sitting in the doorway of his cabin, collarless and in his shirt sleeves, Captain Mader of the fruit steamer Admiral Farragut, which arrived recently from Port Antonio [Jamaica], told the story.
“We picked the sea serpent up – or rather the monster picked us up – late one night,” said he. “I was on the bridge when one of the passengers, an elderly man, rushed up and excitedly called my attention to a phosphorescent light several miles astern. At first I thought it was a new submarine boat. As it came nearer we played the searchlight on it and could see that it was some strange sea monster.
“It seemed about 120 feet long and threshed its way through the rough sea at a fearful speed. All night long it followed the vessel and during that time most of the passengers and crew remained on deck. The phosphorescent glow of the monster lighted up the sea within a radius of fifty feet. What a “fearful speed” might be is unknown to me, but I would assume that it might be faster, at least, than the speed of the ship. The fact that the sea was lit up to a radius of 50 feet indicates that either the plankton were disturbed beyond the “sea serpent” by some means or that it possessed an extremely bright, artificial light source.
“On the next morning about breakfast time, the serpent swam within thirty feet of the starboard side. The creature resembled a huge boa constrictor, with the exception that its body was green. From its side streamed seaweed and other marine growth. Green is a color commonly found in water UFO cases. The snake-like movements of the object could be attributed to a cylindrical object with the water’s movement distorting its shape into that of a snake.
“The monster raised its head several feet above the water. It had huge eyes projecting from the top of its head and two green horns that projected upward nearly five feet. The horns resembled large antennae and moved about continually. Five foot horns that resemble antennae are one thing, but to have them “moved about continually” seems more like a mechanical operation.
“Three times the serpent crossed our bows and fearing to run it down, I signaled the engineer to reduce speed to five knots an hour.
“Some of the persons on board thought the monster was hungry, and we threw over several sacks of peanuts and a few bunches of bananas. When we arrived off Cape Hatteras late that day the monster circled around and swam south.”
1909 Another From The Bermuda Triangle
06-10-1909
(Possible date error. See “Note” below regarding 06-19-1909) -CF-
Other seamen who saw the sea light up were aboard the Danish S.S. Bintang steaming through the straits of Malacca between Malaya and Sumatra. Normally the passage here was quiet and uneventful, but on the still, tropical night of June 10, 1909, Captain Gave (sic – Gabe) was obliged to write an unusual entry in the ship's log. His account was published by the Danish Meteorological Institute, a society that printed only well-documented information.
The trip had been routine and no other ships were expected along the course. So, when the captain heard the lookout call: "Lights on the starboard bow, sir!" Gave (sic – Gabe) moved to the front of the bridge. The charts showed no lighthouses or buoys in the area. The captain leaned over the forward rail and was astonished to see a long beam of light sweeping the sea—revolving spokes of a great wheel.
The sweeping beams came closer and closer until, in a few minutes, the captain and crew saw a bright, round hub in the far distance on the horizon. The long beams radiated from this spot, revolving silently and steadily across the water toward the Bintang. The dumbfounded crew stared, amazed, at a light source so huge that only half of it could be seen below the horizon.
The light beams sank lower and lower in the water as they neared the ship. Then they dimmed gradually and, within 15 minutes, disappeared when they were dead ahead of the vessel, leaving the Straits of Malacca once more black and empty. Later that night, Captain Gave (sic – Gabe) wrote in the Bintang's log:" [It was]. . . a vast, revolving wheel of light, flat upon the water, long arms issued from a center around which the whole system appeared to rotate."
In truth, the light "wheels" are not wheel shaped at all; rather, they are rimless. A diffuse "hub" with spokes that rotate or whirl about the center in wide sweeps, just below the surface of the water. The shape more accurately resembles the sunburst design of the Japanese naval flag with spokes radiating from the center. They may turn clockwise or counter-clockwise; two may be rotating in opposite directions, then one may dim almost to the point of vanishing, then brighten, having reversed its rotation.