Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/160

160 tains, it has been making night flights, and had recently been heard flying toward Norway during a heavy snowstorm.

Another dispatch from the same city on Jan. 9, 1934, stated that the "ghost plane" had been observed over Westerbotten in northern Sweden, and that the Swedish airforce had already lost two airplanes in efforts to locate the base of the mystery ship. A party of four men who had been making a ground search along the Norwegian border had vanished.

More dispatches followed from Helsingfors and Stockholm. There was speculation that the planes might be Soviet flyers making test flights to arctic icebreakers or exploring a new air route from Russia to the Atlantic. Soviet authorities denied that any of their planes were over the area.

On Feb. 3 a Helsingfors dispatch announced that "continued night flights over Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway by so-called ghost aviators which have caused such apprehension here as to prompt the general staff to organize reconnoitering on a wide scale by army planes all over Northern Finland still remain a deep mystery." Although there were a large number of eyewitnesses, the plane could not be identified.

The report added that mysterious lights over Helsingfors and Viborg had caused alarm, and that the large unidentified plane had been sighted over eastern Finland where aviation experts stated "that the mysterious flyers show exceptional skill, undoubtedly superior to that of northern European aviators." The appearance of a mystery plane, the first, over London is referred to in this dispatch, and it has been pointed out that this group of reports stopped about the time of the inferior conjunction of Venus (Feb. 5, 1934).

But in March, 1935, an object described as "a large shining form resembling a gigantic snake, wriggling forth in the northwestern sky" appeared for half an hour in the early evening over southern Norway and Denmark. As observed at Grimstad by a correspondent for the Tidens Tegn (Norway), it had four or five curves marked off by shadows, and was in a vertical position with its "head" down toward the earth. The vision was clear. There were no clouds, and it was very brilliant. The Stavanger Aftenblad for March 26 published a complete description of the appearance and sketches of it made by the artist Naesheim who was a witness.

A similar object appeared three times over the city of Cruz Alta, Brazil; twice in December, 1935, and again in July, 1937. On its last appearance the "snake" had its "head" toward the earth, the head appearing as a ball of fire. In passing it might be added that there were reports of "swords" and "coffins" in the sky over the Polish-German border in 1937, but details regarding these reports are not available to the writer at this time.

Then came the mystery ray stopping airplane motors over New York City. In a Universal Service dispatch dated May 24, 1935, written by Lou Wedemar, it was announced that pilots had asked the Department of Commerce to investigate a supposed radio ray which was stopping the motors of planes flying over the city. The planes while flying over the central part of Manhattan had experienced puzzling engine trouble. In aeronautical circles the belief had spread that some sort of short-wave had been developed by an unknown experimenter which affected the motors at which it was aimed.

Motors went suddenly dead without apparent reason, and careful examination by expert mechanics failed to reveal any reason for the phenomenon. Several disasters had almost occurred as the "magnetism" did not pass off for some time, and the planes had to be brought down to emergency landings. One example cited was the near-disaster of a cabin plane piloted by Michael Stupelli which was forced to land in the East River while carrying three passengers.

This report, too, is not unique. In October, 1930, forty automobiles were stalled for an hour on the road between Riesa and Wurzen in Germany. All motors mysteriously stopped. But earlier, in the summer of 1923, and south of this road in Saxony, Germany, French aviators reported the mysterious stopping of motors near Furth while they were flying from Strasbourg to Prague. It was believed that a German experimenter was practicing on French airplanes with newly-discovered rays. If so, his secret was never used in the late war.

N THE night of Nov. 24, 1935, a "flaming wordsword [sic]" was observed in the heavens between Palestine and Dallas, Texas. Dr. J. D. Boon, professor of astrophysics at Southern Methodist University, stated that no comet or stellar phenomenon of any kind had been scheduled to appear. One witness, a newspaper editor, described the appearance as "a narrow, bright shaft of light, absolutely stationary and vertical, an exact replica of a sword."

In February, 1936, the "phantom light of Ringold" (near Pasco, Wash.) was reported. It was a mysterious light, drifting widely and often along populated highways where it had caused motorists to drive into ditches, and many citizens of high repute had sworn to its authenticity. It vanished when approached, and all efforts to find a plausible explanation resulted in failure.

A ghost scare in a mine near Bishop, Va., was reported in dispatches of Jan. 18, 1937. Officials of the Pochahontas Fuel Company, owners of No. 34 Mine, were trying to lay the scare that had caused