Page:The Book of the Damned (Fort, 1919).djvu/290

284 According to one writer:

"There were probably 30 or 32 bodies, and the peculiar thing about them was their moving in fours and threes and twos, abreast of one another; and so perfect was the lining up that you would have thought it was an aerial fleet maneuvering after rigid drilling."

Nature, May 25, 1893:

A letter from Capt. Charles J. Norcock, of H. M. S. Caroline:

That, upon the 24th of February, 1893, at 10 p. m., between Shanghai and Japan, the officer of the watch had reported "some unusual lights."

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.