Fort
Thinks Communication Will Soon Be Established
With Other Bodies.
Proven By Eclipses
Declares That Some Nearby Planet Will Give World New Disease.
New York, Feb. 14.—Whether wireless disturbances are attempts at interplanetary communication or not, there are
astronomical bodies within 50 miles of the earth's surface which have attempted for some time to come into
communication with the earth, and such communication will be established more quickly than scientists realize,
according to Charles Fort, author of "The
Book of the Damned."
Mr. Fort believes it may be one of a number of non-luminous planets closely adjacent to
the earth's surface which is attempting to establish contact with us.
There is a large mass of data,
the scientist declares, which points to the fact that there are planets
within a few hundred, some perhaps within 50 miles of the earth's surface. Thus, for example, there have been many
unexplained eclipses which coincided with earthquakes; these incidents lead to the conclusion that some other planet
is at that time close to the earth, but that, because it is not light-reflecting, it has not yet been observed. There
are at least 30 eclipses on record which point strongly to the conclusion that a piquet passed between the earth and
the sun in such close proximity as to cause perturbations within the earth itself.
The best substantiated instances of attempts to communicate with the earth, says Mr. Fort,
are those in which luminous hieroglyphics were seen in the sky by correspondents to the American Meteorological
Magazine and to the English Mechanic. These hieroglyphics were well formed and persisted for a considerable period of
time.
Strange dangers lurk in the wake of these swiftly moving planets, according to the calculations of this scientist.
There is the danger of earthquakes, of large falling masses of collisions and even of new and hitherto unknown
diseases. Mr. Fort has collated incidents on record of falling vegetable, animal and
mineral matter, decaying and germinating plants, putrefying fishes and other substances which point to the passage
close by of other inhabited planets.
Violent Epidemics
New and virulent epidemics may fall upon the earth from some closely traveling planet,
explained Mr. Fort. On several occasions swift plagues have visited the earth. We may expect, without
doubt, that some nearby planet will give the world a new disease. It is a matter of record that putrid falling bodies
have dropped upon the earth from an undiscoverable place. And these bodies, putrid and bacteria bearing, may be
disease carriers.
Mr. Fort maintains that the Newtonian theory, although correct as far as it goes,
it fundamentally wrong in rejecting the theory of repulsion as a complement to the law of gravitation. Astronomers, he
says, are too lazy to admit the truth of repulsion because they would then be forced to make their calculations and
formulae all over again.