A pretty far Out Proctor "meteor" situation:
I was finally getting the last of Ivan Sanderson's three-ring notebook files on the archive shelving [this is the main sort of "work" that I've made a priority while in Michigan this time], and came across one with a little remark about meteors on the bottom of a several subject label. Well, timely... so what the heck, let's look. There were about a dozen meteor cases noted there at the end of this notebook. Most weren't too thrilling to me [although Ivan apparently liked them], but one of them was one of those "What?" types of cases.
This case is actually three [at least observations] which may or may not be related.
June 18th, 1845. Mediterranean Sea. This "case" is in Greg's catalog, but only the first part of it. Case part one: Adalia, Asia Minor [if you're looking this up, it has changed its name in the 20th century to Antalya, after being a famous trade city of the former name far back to Roman times.] A Reverend F. Hawlett, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, was residing in Adalia [marked with the Google teardrop on the map above], when a tremendous flash appeared covering about half the sky in the direction of vision. {today we would have said like a huge aerial firework bursting, but with the difference that the explosive "flower" stayed spectacularly visible for several minutes.} The elements of the slowly expanding flower were of great beauty, shining in red, orange, and silvery-green. The observers seem to have been privileged to witness a great meteoritic explosion "head-on" with dramatic post-dusk Sun illumination. Well, great; would have loved to share in that. But there was more going on elsewhere it seems....
Case part two: the write-up gives the impression that the Reverend Hawlett was interested to receive a letter from someone near Mt. Lebanon [about where the white "burst" is marked on the map above] who reported seeing two luminous bodies "each appearing at least five times larger than the Moon", which flew together joined by streamers and gave the appearance of flags flying in the sky. The main bodies were so bright as to be painful to look at long. They were in sight one hour. This seems to have been witnessed at the same general time as the Adalia sighting. Hmmmm.... that complicates things a bit. One could wiggle around with this and force fit these two together under the bursting fireball hypothesis, I suppose, but I don't like the eye-straining long-lasting brightness part of it.
Case part three: for the same time period, but far to the west near Malta [see the red burst symbol on the map], the crew of the brig Victoria had a little more unnerving experience. They were in dead calm when a violent gust blew --- "her topgallant and royal masts suddenly went over the side". This violent gusting went on for two hours, then dead calm. The crew then felt overpowered by great heat and a sulphurous stench. One half mile from the brig, three luminous bodies rose out of the sea. These were visible hovering for ten minutes [no statement of how they either left or disappeared]. The wind violently returned in the opposite direction to what they had just experienced. Now just a consarned minute!! I was coping with reality pretty well up until then.
And just to further wring out the brain: three days later in the general area of Adalia [not there but Erzeroum], they had been having typical mid-summer days when the temperature dropped off the cliff. It suddenly fell to just above freezing and was accompanied by three days of massive snowfall. After those three days, the temperature shot back up within the day to summer heat levels. Meanwhile over on Malta, the temperature soared far over 100 degrees. You tell me what was going on.
I don't know if any of the pieces of strangeness above are intimately related to one another. But even if they are not, there are at least two bigtime anomalies in there: 1). sudden temperatures dives and rises with massive snow dumping in June in the Mediterranean; and 2). sudden violent gales out of dead calm air, accompanied by luminous bodies rising from the sea. Did Mother GAIA get a migraine for a few days?? Did our Old Earth run into weird space-time rough spot focussed on the Mediterranean at that time? Did Hephaestus' forge start acting up on him?
What'd YOU think, Ivan??
Vulcanism maybe?
ReplyDeleteIt would have enough power to cause the effects described.
Maybe big weird plasma hot crystal bubbles popping up from below,
popping lol
I'd have to think about this idea --- it's not completely nuts. The volcanic cause would be undersea, of course --- there IS vulcanism in the general region of Malta [Etna// Stromboli] but you would think that we would have a pretty good idea if there was an active vent near Malta. Maybe no one's looked in the 20th century for an old now-inactive one, but that puts me off on the hypothesis. The focussed heat pocket would have to be VERY focussed and hot as well --- to produce smallish steamy clouds mistaken for the "globes" and to create the massive temperature gradient for the violent winds. The steamy clouds, one would think, would dissipate rapidly in the wind rather than stay congruent. A plasma hypothesis would have to be added. This doesn't seem "simple" to me. The "feel" of what's needed seems too "precise" for a gross natural phenomenon. I guess I'll keep it in the graybasket.
Deleteonce again, from an evidence point of view, all we have is the description given from long ago; how do we interpret it? We all imagine the event in our own mind's eye. When I look at these cases this way, I can only guess what the witness really saw. We are all inclined to draw in details that are different. The glowing bodies does sound like methane or other gas or steam from submarine vulcanism. I have been on the water and had very fast changes in wind and cold weather hit me during a hot season, in Galveston, Texas. It is scary as hell and you can't see it coming from sea level.
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