on the point of view used to determine the nature of the phenomenon: impossible in theory, possible in practice.
In Switzerland, at the Säntis Observatory, in the canton of Appenzell, on the Rigi, on the Gäbris, in the stations at St. Gotthard, St. Bernard, Julier, Simplon, Zurich, and Sonnblick in the Tyrolean Alps, people remained extremely reserved about a fact nobody had ever been able to verify—which is most reasonable.
But in Italy, at the meteorological stations in Venice, at the post at Etna installed in the former Casa Inglese,9 and at Monte Cavo, observers did not hesitate to admit the reality of the phenomenon, given that they had been able to see it, one day in the form of a little curl of vapor, and one night giving the appearance of a shooting star.10 Of what it was, in any case, they had absolutely no idea.
The truth is that the mystery began to grow tiresome to men of science, while it continued to impassion or even frighten the humble and ignorant, who have formed, now form, and will continue to form the vast majority in this world, thanks to one of the sagest laws of nature. So the astronomers and meteorologists would have given up bothering themselves with it altogether—if, on the night of the twenty-sixth, at the Kautokeino Observatory in Finnmark, Norway, and on the night of the twenty-eighth at the Isfjord Observatory in Spitsbergen, the Norwegians on one side and the Swedes on the other had not agreed on this point: in the midst of an aurora borealis there had appeared some kind of giant bird, a monster in the sky. Though it had been impossible to determine its structure, at least there was no doubt that from it came small corpuscles that detonated like bombs.
In Europe, nobody wanted to cast much doubt on the observation from the stations in Finnmark and Spitsbergen. But what seemed most phenomenal in the whole matter was that Swedes and Norwegians had been able to come to an agreement on any point at all.
People laughed about the supposed discovery in all the observatories in South America, in Brazil and Peru as at La Plata, and in those of Australia, in Sydney and Adelaide as at Melbourne. And the Australian laugh is one of the most infectious.
In short, only one head of a meteorological station spoke affirmatively on the question, despite all the sarcasms his solution might provoke. This was a Chinese astronomer, the director of the Zi-ka-wei Observatory,11 built in the middle of a vast plain fewer than ten leagues from the sea, overlooking an immense horizon bathed in pure air.
“It may be,” he said, “that the object in question is simply an apparatus for aviation—a flying machine!”
What a joke!
However, if the controversy was intense in the Old World, one can imagine what it must have been in that portion of the New World occupied mainly by the United States.
A Yankee, as everyone knows, never beats around the bush. He cuts right through the bush, and the path he makes generally leads straight to his goal.12 Therefore, the observatories in the American federation did not hesitate to speak their minds. If they did not throw their lenses at each others’ heads, it was only because they would have had to replace them at the moment they were most needed to serve.
On this question that had grown so controversial, the observatories in Washington, D.C., and the one in Cambridge in the state of Massachusetts, locked heads with those of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Ann Arbor in Michigan. The subject of their dispute was not on the nature of the object observed, but on the precise moment of observation; for all declared to have seen it on the same night, at the same hour, at the same minute, at the same second, though the trajectory of the mysterious moving object was only a moderate height above the horizon. Now, from New Hampshire to Michigan, from Massachusetts to the District of Columbia, there is enough distance that this double observation, made at the same moment, could be considered impossible.13
Dudley Observatory, in Albany in the state of New York,14 and the Military Academy at West Point, proved their colleagues wrong with a note calculating the right ascension and declination of said object.
But it was recognized later that these observers were mistaken about their object, for the latter was only a meteor that was passing through the middle layer of the atmosphere. Therefore, it could not be the thing in question. Besides, how could that meteor have played the trumpet?
As for that trumpet, people tried in vain to explain away its blaring fanfare as a kind of acoustical illusion. Ears, in this circumstance, were no more mistaken than eyes. People had certainly seen, and certainly heard. On the night of May 12—a very dark night—the astronomers of Yale College, at the Sheffield Scientific School, had been able to transcribe a few measures of a musical phrase, in D major, in 4/4 time, which gave, note for note and rhythm for rhythm, the refrain of the “Chant du départ.”15
“Aha!” replied the wits, “it’s a French orchestra playing in the middle of the clouds!”
But witticisms are no reply. That was the remark of the Boston Observatory, which was founded by the Atlantic Iron Works, and whose opinions on questions of astronomy and meteorology were beginning to be seen as law in the learned world.16
Then intervened the Cincinnati Observatory, created in 1873 on Mount Lookout thanks to the generosity of Mr. Kilgour,17 and so well known for its micrometrical measurements of double stars. Its director declared, in the fullest good faith, that something was certainly there, that some kind of moving object had been seen, at rather closely spaced times, at various points in the atmosphere, but that on the nature of this moving object—its dimensions, its speed, its trajectory—it was impossible to say anything.
It was then that a newspaper of immense circulation, the New York Herald,18 received from one of its subscribers the following anonymous communication:
It will not have been forgotten that, a few years ago, a rivalry led to conflict between the begum of Ragginahra’s two inheritors: the French doctor Sarrasin in his city Franceville, and the German engineer Herr Schultze in his city Stahlstadt, both situated in southern Oregon in the United States.
It cannot have been forgotten either that, with the goal of destroying Franceville, Herr Schultze fired off a colossal projectile intended to crash into the French city and sweep it off the face of the earth in a single blow.
Even less can it possibly have been forgotten that this projectile, whose initial velocity from the mouth of the monster cannon had been miscalculated, flew with a speed six times that of an ordinary shell (150 leagues per hour), that it never fell to earth, and that, having become a satellite, it now circles and will eternally circle our globe.19
Why might not this be the object in question, whose existence cannot be denied?
Very ingenious, that subscriber to the New York Herald. And the trumpet?—There had been no trumpet in Herr Schultze’s projectile!
So all the explanations explained nothing, and all the observatories observed badly.
There still remained the hypothesis proposed by the director of Zika-wei. But the opinion of a Chinese! …
It must not be believed that satiety finally overtook the public in the Old and New World. No! Discussions continued at full force, without anybody managing to agree with anybody else. And yet, there was a pause. A few days rolled by without any report of the object, whether meteor or otherwise, and without any trumpet blast heard in the sky. Had the thing fallen on some point of the globe where it would be difficult to find its traces—at sea, for example? Was it lying in the depths of the Atlantic, Pacific, or Indian Ocean? How could anybody say?
But then, between
