De la glace qui tombe

It has been postulated that there are "lands in the sky" from which ice falls to earth periodically. But there has never been a positioning of these lands. No one tells us what kind of lands, where they are, why ice falls from them or why ice exists on them. The lands in the sky theory is based solely on the locale of the falls and the kind of ice noted.

Read the following citations, bearing in mind our thesis that intelligence or intelligent direction does explain the selectivity of materiel and locale.

Selectivity can be intelligent or nonintelligent. The affinity of hydrogen and oxygen, which produces water, is what we consider nonintelligent selection. The direction which makes rifle bullets strike on or near a target is what we believe to be intelligent direction or selectivity.

Repetition of falls on the same pinpointed area from fixed regions above a spinning and revolving earth is incredible. But repeated showers, selectively directed by intelligence, is a probability within the grasp of the uninhibited thinker.

We list these occurrences with two thoughts: first, to show that there is a great amount of activity in space which has origins difficult to explain on the bases of Newtonian or Keplerian laws, second, they indicate that the simplest explanations common to all of these puzzles is that they originate from the actions of space contrivances or the intelligence directing such mechanisms.

The following reports are from The Books of Charles Fort:

1802: During a storm in Hungary on May 8, a mass of ice fell which was three feet long, three feet wide, and more than two feet thick.

1808: The sun suddenly turned a dull brick red on May 16. At the same time there appeared, on the Western horizon, a great number of round bodies, dark brown, and seemingly the size of a hat crown.

They passed overhead and disappeared on the Eastern horizon. It was a tremendous procession lasting two hours. Occasionally one fell to the ground. When the place was examined, there was found a film which soon dried and vanished. Sometimes, on approaching the sun, the bodies seemed to link together in groups not exceeding eight. Under the sun they were seen to have tails, Away from he sun, the tails were invisible. Whatever their substance may have been, it is described as gelatinous "sopy (sic) and jellied."

1811: Lumps of ice, a foot in circumference, fell in Derbyshire, England, on May 11.

1828: A mass of ice about a cubic yard in size fell in Candeish, India.

1829: A block of ice weighing four and one-half pounds fell at Cazorta, Spain, on June 15.

1830: A profound darkness came over the city of Brussels, on June 18, and flat pieces of ice, an inch long, fell to the ground.

1844: A block of ice weighting eleven pounds fell at Cette, France, in October.

1849: An irregular-shaped mass of ice fell at Ord, Scotland, in August, "after an extraordinary peal of thunder." It was said that this was homogenous ice, except in a small part, which looked like congealed hailstones. The mass was about twenty feet in circumference. The story, as told in the London Times, August 14, 1849, is that, upon the evening of August 13, 1849, after a loud peal of thunder, a mass of ice, said to have a circumference of twenty feet, has fallen upon the estate of Mr. Moffat, of Balvullich, Rosshire. It was said that this object fell alone, without hailstone.

1851: Ice the size of pumpkins fell in Gunfalore, India, on May 22.

1851: Masses of ice, each piece about a pound and one-half in weight, fell in New Hampshire, August 13.

1853: Masses or irregularly shaped piece of ice fell at Pouen, France, on July 5. They were about the size of a hand and described as looking as if all had been broken from one enormous block of ice.

1854: At Pourhundur, India, December 11, flat pieces of ice, many of them weighing several pounds each, fell from the sky. They are described as large "Ice-Flakes."

1857: The London Times of August 4 reported that a block of ice, described as "pure" ice, weighing twenty-five pounds, had been found in the meadow of Mr. Warner, of Cricklewood. There had been a storm the day before. As in some of our other instances, no one saw this object fall from the sky.

1860: January 14, in a thunderstorm pieces of ice fell on Captain Blackiston's vessel. "It was not hail, but irregular-shaped pieces of solid ice of different dimensions, up to the size of half a brick."

1860: In a snowstorm in Upper Wasdale, England, on March 16, blocks of ice fell which were so large that at a distance they looked like a flock of sheep.

1864: During a storm at Pontiac, Canada, July 11, pieces of ice fell which were one-half inch to two inches in diameter. What is most extraordinary is that a respectable farmer, of undoubted veracity, says he picked up a piece of ice, in the center of which was a small, green frog.

1869: Near Tiflis, large hailstones fell which had long protuberances. The most remarkable point is that a very long time must have been occupied in their formation.

1877: Ice as large as men's hands killed thousands of sheep in Texas on May 3.

1880: In Russia, June 14, red hailstones, blue hailstones and gray hailstones fell in profusion.

1882: A mass of ice weighing about eighty pounds fell from the sky near Salina, Kansas, in August. Mr. W.J. Hagler, a North Santa Fe merchant, collected it and packed it in sawdust in his store.

1882: Pieces of ice eight inches long and an inch and one-half thick fell at Davenport, Iowa, on August 30.

1883: A lump of ice the size of a brick, weighing two pounds, fell in Chicago, on July 12.

1883: There was a storm at Dubuque, Iowa, on June 16. Great hailstones and pieces of ice fell. The foreman of the Novelty Iron Works stated that in two large hailstones, melted by him, were found small living frogs.

The pieces of ice which fell at that time had a peculiarity as bizarre as anything in this book. They seemed, evidently, to have been motionless for a long time floating somewhere.

There could be no more perfect description of ice suspended in meteoric orbits.

1886: In a small town in Venezuela, April 17, hailstones fell, some red, some blue, and some gray.

1887: In Montana, in the winter, snowflakes fell which were fifteen inches across and eight inches thick. (Snowflakes?)

1889: Intense darkness at Aitkin, Minnesota, April 2; sand and "solid chunks of ice" fell.

1889: At East Wickenham, England, on August 5, an object fell, slowly, which was about fifteen inches long and five inches wide. It exploded, but no substance was found from it.

1891: Snowflakes the "size of saucers" fell near Nashville, Tennessee, on January 24.

1893: A lump of ice weighing four pounds fell in Texas, on December 6.

1894: From the Weather Bureau of Portland, Oregon, a tornado was reported on June 3. Fragments of ice fell from the sky. They averaged three to four inches square and about an inch thick. In length and breadth they had smooth surfaces and "gave the impression of a vast field of ice suspended in the atmosphere, and suddenly broke into fragments about the size of the palm of the hand."

Crystal, Ice in Great Curved sheets is used at odd times as a Gigantic Lens for closeobservation of Humankind or Merely for amusement.

1897: Rough-edged, but smooth surfaced pieces of ice fell at Manassas, Virginia, August 10. They looked much like the roughly broken fragments of a smooth sheet of ice. They were two inches across, and one inch thick.

1901: On November 14, lumps of ice fell during a tornado in Victoria, New South Wales, which weighed a minimum of one pound each.

1908: A correspondent wrote that, at Braemar, Switzerland, July 2, when the sky was clear overhead and the sun was shining, flat pieces of ice fell. Thunder was heard.

1911: Large hailstones were noted at the University of Missouri. They exploded like pistol shots. The reporter had seen a similar phenomenon at Lexington, Kentucky, eighteen years before.

The entire report below, from the Science Record of 1876, is worthy of note.

At Potter Station, on the Union Pacific Railroad, recently, a train was just pulling out from the station when a storm commenced and in ten seconds there was such a fury of hail and wind that the engineer deemed it best to stop the locomotive. The "hailstones" were simply great chunks of ice, many of them three or four inches in diameter and of all shapes: squares, cones, cubes, etc., and the first "stone" that struck the train broke a window and the flying glass severely injured a lady on the face, making a deep cut. Five minutes later there was not a whole pane of glass on the south side of the train, the whole length of it. The windows of the Pullman cars were of French plate three-eighths of an inch thick, and double. The hail broke both thicknesses and tore the curtains to shreds. The wooden shutters were smashed and many of the mirrors were broken. The deck lights on top of the cars were also demolished. The dome of the engine was dented as if pounded with a heavy weight, and the woodwork of the south side of the cars was ploughed as if someone had struck it all over with sliding blows of a hammer. During the continence of this fusillade, which lasted fully twenty minutes, the damage amounted to several thousand dollars and several persons were injured.

Note, particularly, the size and shapes of the "hailstones." This was obviously not a hailstorm. Winds strong enough to have torn mountain icesheets to bits and carried them across the country, would have lifted the train from its tracks. Note, too, the suddenness of the attack.

A more definite case of meteoric ice could scarcely be imagined.

Lest we fall into the trap of suspecting these reports merely because of their age, I shall depart from my desire to draw upon material reported before the present flying saucer phenomenon, and reproduce this letter in Fate Magazine, August, 1950.