I don’t make a habit of writing up Forteans on whom I can find no information. To this point—independent of what’s here—I’ve come across 18 names in Doubt that I cannot track. I maintain a file on them, and check their names against new information that comes in; so far have found no reliable material on them. In Fortean terms, they are damned: forgotten, untethered.
The curse also works—since I’d love to know more about them, but have found nothing reliable. Nonetheless, I’ve chosen to write them up for two reasons. First, they were very active (most of those I have not tracked have only one or two mentions in Doubt) and so help to make sense of the movement. Second, they go against the general trend seen so far of Forteans being active in the forties, then dropping out. These four started in the forties and continued their involvement with the Society deep into the 1950s.
The curse also works—since I’d love to know more about them, but have found nothing reliable. Nonetheless, I’ve chosen to write them up for two reasons. First, they were very active (most of those I have not tracked have only one or two mentions in Doubt) and so help to make sense of the movement. Second, they go against the general trend seen so far of Forteans being active in the forties, then dropping out. These four started in the forties and continued their involvement with the Society deep into the 1950s.
Frank McMahon’s name first appeared in Doubt 11 and lost in Doubt 54 (June 1957). In between, his name appeared almost fifty times. His interests were broad and typically Fortean: killer gasses, an 88 year old woman giving north, a giant sinkhole, a red-winged blackbird that returned to the same person three years in a row, lake monsters, medical mishaps, a man who never slept, rains of fish, Wonet, an unkillable felon, strange footprints, in the sand, Catholic chicanery, a rain of barley, mysterious hums, blue rain, ice falls, and a number of flying saucer reports.
There’s some evidence that McMahon was friends with Thayer, and shared a similar sense of humor. When he read that a memorial for those killed in World War II’s Pacific Theater was planned on an extinct volcano, he suggested calling it “A Night on Bald Mountain”—a reference to the music that played during the sorcerer’s apprentice section of Fantasia: The war was started by novice’s unaware of the powers that they controlled. In 1957, he drove out of New York City to get a nice view of the comet Arend-Rowland, and reported—contrary to Thayer—that it was an impressive sight. McMahon also attended the Fortean dinner in support of Garry Davis, which is what really suggests the friendship.
*****
Jack Campbell also attended that dinner, and was an even more active Fortean. His first appearance, too, was in Doubt 11, his last in number 59 (January 1959). He kept the connection with the Fortean Society despite frequent moves: he was in Florida, on the Pacific during the war, in San Francisco, Greenwich Village, London, and Paris. When he returned to New York for visits, he looked up Thayer; on passages through England, he met Eric Frank Russell. In 1954, Thayer told Russell that Campbell “has a plump young wife who cooks divinely, of Ye Olde Souff.” He protected Campbell from some of the Society’s more obstreperous personalities. When Campbell was in Paris, Thayer asked him to check in on the meetings of some Swiss Forteans— L’Association Mondialiste Interplanetaire.
Campbell called himself a “contemporary anthropologist,” which Thayer took to mean he was a “sewer digger.” He did not contribute as many items as McMahon—only about a dozen—but he was a frequent correspondent, and Thayer printed a number of his letters, which reveal some of his personality, but not enough personal details to track him. From Doubt 11:
“I have just been privileged to witness a phenomenon unparalleled, so far as I know, in the annals of meteorology. It must be admitted that my acquaintance with the annals of meteorology is singularly slight: indeed, I doubt that I should know an annal of meteorology were I to meet one on the quire [sic]: nevertheless I have a fair education for one one of my tender years, and I have never heard tell of any such marvel. So that while I may now be shooting off my face in naive enthusiasm, there is reason to believe that this account may prove of value to others who have been likewise deprived of intelligence of such a manifestation, however common it may be. It is only fair to state at the outset that, so far as I can see, the phenomenon is of no importance whatsoever.
Let me begin by giving the circumstances attendant upon our observation. We were. and had been for several days, sailing through the deadest stretch of water with which it has ever been my misfortune to deal. Every cloud effect was mirrored to perfection upon the ocean’s glassy surface; the stars were reflected with cub nicety that one could have navigated by them. The sea, the planet itself, seemed dead; it was a night that one could believe in the lost vastness of Mu lying still and dead a thousand fathoms below. It was hard to take other than archeological interest in the war to which we were going. Such a feeling one knows who treks the dead forgotten wastelands of Barsoom.
What strange eccentric date will be assigned this observation in the files at headquarters I cannot even guess; but last night (Ed. 8-29-44) at eleven forty-five P.M. (old style) L.C.T. I stood on the bridge looking out for land, which was expected momentarily, and subjecting my subordinates to my own plaintive distortion of the Solveiglied [Solvieg’s lied]. I had just relieved the deck for the mid watch, and was still getting my bearings. The moon, a day or so past the quarter, stood some fifteen or twenty degrees up off the horizon, a point off the port bow; so bright was she that one could not look at her full in the face, for all she stood so still and white.
Suddenly the sea was glazed, like a sheet of shining but unpolished tin; the round white spot upon the water glared forth all at once in a broad white ribbon of steel, an highway blazed a league and a league to the westward, till it dropped over the edge of the world. We had run into a squall, about as close to no rain at all that you could have and still call it a shower, but rain it was, and for such as it was we were grateful. It lasted for less than a minute, and then, in response to the look-out’s hail, I hotfooted it over to the other side. There on our starboard quarter was a rainbow—a white rainbow.
Now there is of course nothing theoretically remarkable about a nocturnal rainbow. Explanations of rainbows being what they are, a rainbow under such conditions is quite the normal thing. The odd circumstance about this particular field of investigation is that it has not received more publicity, if it is as common as one would suppose, or if it is as rare as one observes. Is it rarer than a comet, that one should judge it unworthy of investigation? Is it more commonplace than the aurora borealis, that one should deem it unworthy of mention? Nay. These reasons do not suffice to bury momentous tomes on 63 Cygni C or equally ponderous discussions of cyclones. The only conclusion one may draw is that the nocturnal rainbow has never before been observed. And that’s absurd.
But dropping that question for the moment, let us investigate the rainbow. My breath is cheap; if it be wasted, what then? The rainbow was, as I said, white, which checks with statement that the moon gives off little if any color [sic]. One could detect, however, a pale pinkish tinge about the upper rim; and although the light blue below was lost for the most part on the grey clouds, it was quite apparent in that segment of the curve which was backed by the black sky beyond.
As the moon sank, the curve became noticeably steeper, and some twenty-five minutes later was almost semi-circular. About that time the rainbow faded, as rainbows are wont to do. I am not a proper scientist, as my main interest is in emotion rather than intellect, and it is with an effort that I catalogue objective data. Permit me to say, then, that the important thing about the lunar rainbow is that it is not strange. The solar rainbow is a soft and glorious dessert to the holiday feast of a shower. It is more than a covenant; it is fulfillment, a delight, an occasion for religious revelry. But the rainbow of the moon is as natural as a cloud or a star. It is a part of the night. One looks at it, and one is not surprised; one is merely glad. Emotionally it cannot be classified as a phenomena, anymore than the rising of the moon, or a breeze from the east, is a phenomenon. They belong to the night, and one accepts them with the proud and nameless loneliness that belongs to the nighttime.
Well, just file this away, and if you meet a monomaniac looking for an idee fixe, or a friend who wishes to be connected with an old institution which no one even sees fit to discuss, you might refer him to it.”
From Doubt 12:
“Our most recent letter from MFS Jack Campbell was written in a San Francisco hospital. The previous eight or so were dated from various nameless points on the Pacific. He has not told us the nature of his wound, but it is not in the organ or gland which accounts for his Fortean capacities and writing prowess. We like his letters so well we mean to print them all.
On 2-6-14 FS, he wrote: I have just had a very orthodox experience which I insider it my duty to relate to you, as it has bearing upon a Fortean datum cited below. This occurred a week or so ago, when our ship was lying to in a place called Lingoyen Gulf, which is a large harbour [sic] of Luzon in the Philippine Islands. We had just taken the gulf with no trouble at all; our army was then occupied with taking the shore. had the deck on the mid watch, and was pacing about idly humming the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin and admitting the beautiful pyrotechnic effects which are so indispensable to modern death, when a strange thing was brought to my attention. I was approached by one of the gunners, an intelligent lad of some scientific bent, who pointe rout that yonder destroyer which was vigorously pouring explosives into some hill not far away had remarkable guns, inasmuch as one saw the flash and heard the report at the same time. I replied Pish, man, there is nothing remarkable bout that, and referred him to the writings of Lt. Commander Rupert T. Gould, wherein is related in some detail the report of such an expedition which set out such and such a year to such and such a place with a cannon to study the speed of sound. The expedition, in case you have not the reference at your fingertips, noted to its astonishment that the report of the piece, at a range of several miles preceded their visual observations of its firing by various and considerable period of time. The lad replied that he believed no word of it, that he would not believe it even if he were to see see it with his own eyes, that he had seen it with his own eyes, and still did not believe it, as his religion, which was Science, forbade him to believe anything of the sort. I countered that I had no religion, not even Science, and that I was not allowed to believe anything at all. After debating these moral maters heatedly for awhile, we went over to the port side and watched the destroyer.
It was even as he had told me. The can was about a mile away, and laying on thick and heavy. One would hear the sharp roar of the five-inch, and an instant or so later the great flash of orange flame, and the hot projectile would arch slowly, gracefully, toward the shore cooling to red en route, till it finally disappeared altogether. And then before mine eyes a Fortean was born. I watched his mind struggling wight he datum, ejecting it again and again; but he could not debt what he saw.
It must be admitted that the interval between boom and flash was not constant. Sometimes, even the flash would precede slightly. But the variation was never more than a second, and we of course put it down to changes in wind vectors, atmospheric pressure and density, and other varying conditions. After all, we had swallowed the camel; who were we to strain at anything? and [sic] it was then that we caught on. She recommenced, and there was the flash, and the slow trajectory, but no report at all. For about six seconds. Then the report, and another flash. I stood agape, and snapped out of it just in time to prevent my young friend from cutting his disillusioned throat.
Such stupidity is, I hope, incredible. Surely I should not suggest such a thing had it not happened to me. But could that have been the case with the initial arctic experiment? (Gould, op. c.t.) Surely we cannot say for sure. But here . . .
Also I have a quartermaster, as ignorant of astronomy as a seaman can afford to be, who was amazed to find that it was not common knowledge that the moon is composed of, or at least covered with, snow, or perhaps ice. Now all I know about astronomy I get from Astounding (Stories), so that I cannot intelligently counter or even discuss this. But if there is any water on the moon it is probably ice. I can offhand think of no reason why there should not be as much water on the moon as there is on earth, proportionately. Unless you choose to argue that because of the low gravity, etc., it was all washed off in the ether drift when it was, if it was, in a gaseous state. But as I say, I cannot argue the moon; this is just a suggestion to file away, so that if Professor Ley returns from his maiden voyage and announces that the moon is made of ice, we can say ‘you call that news?’
(Note: i use the term ‘Professor’ with all respect. Willy Ley is probably a Fortean at heart. That he uses orthodox astrogation is more indicative of courage than bigotry. He intends to go; and risky as it may be, we must admit that standard astronomy is about the safest system he has. The Fortean Society is young. We have sown the seeds of doubt; but the crop will be five centuries in the harvesting, and Willy Ley (may he meet good fortune) cannot wait.[)]
As for this Vitic thing, have you additional data available? I have a tiny horseshoe magnet and a carbon arc terminal (I know that was spoken of as not the best, but that was in 1914 when arc terminals were probably not all they are now) and have been trying it out on the bridge force. My laboratory technique is necessarily atrocious, and I have no galvanometer, but ten or fifteen minutes holding these objects increases the pulse from five to twenty-three beats/min. Comrade Layne suggests that one’s galvanometric deflection is not particularly sensitive to autosuggestion. I have with me no charts of electrocardiac hypochondria. As for sensible effects, the damned thing gives me an headache. Usually. Just the sameI’ll like to try it with an electroencephalograph.
Appropos, a fellw [sic] here says a friend of his recommends a Copper bracelet on one arm and a Zinc band on the other to cure rheumatism. I beg your pardon? Well, I said the same thing. We are not in business to cure rheumatism.
P.S.—I am much interested in this mater of pyrotics. I should like to do some research upon it.
P.P.S.—‘pyrotics’: people who catch fire. I don’t know if the word is original or known. State known as pyrosis. (Ed. Note: ‘Pyrosis’ is heartburn in Webster, but we take the Campbell definition.)
From Doubt 26:
I have been prowling about in Sunday supplements. I realize that this is a derided and discredited fueld, and, oddly enough, one which I have not touched since I was a child. I have not abstained because of disapproval, but rather because I never bother with newspapers at all. They are full of matters of national importance which one always hears about anyway, and matters of no importance which one forgets immediately, of book reviews for the gay illiterate, advertisements for the monied bourgeois, and crossword puzzles for the feeble-minded. Now throughout this period of hearsay consciousness , I have always understood that a certain ow form of journalism, known as the Sunday supplement, was wont to twist perfectly ordinary phenomena into ghastly stories of horror and sentimentalism, dubbing this presentation ‘Popular Science’. This institution is regarded with no small contempt by the literati, and is read, forgotten, and ignored by sensible people. I never bothered to form an opinion.
So that it was with no great expectation nor belittlement that I opened this day the pages of the American Weekly of 22 October 1944. Naturally there was a variety of material there, some amusing, some innocuous, some silly, some trivial. I also noted: Fort Benning, Georgia, paratrooper jumps and hovers motionless with open ‘chute for half an hour. Released suddenly. He reports an ‘hot draught of air.’ Presumably caught in an upward current. No name, no date. Apparent lack of vertical or lateral translation unexplained; yet it were odd indeed that he meet an updraught so nicely calculated to intercept the arbitrary area of his silk with precisely the force needed to support his weight, neither lifting it nor merely retarding it. Though could be, of course. If he was caught in something else, then we have a new brand of poltergeist, one which grabs and holds rather than snatches and runs.
Navy blimps so terrified a pair of bitches belonging to farmer Kenneth Miner of North Bend, Oregon that one of them ‘keeled over dead.’ Chickens went mad, but whereas the dogs gave ‘yelps’ of ‘Terror’ the poultry seemed animated by something closer akin to narcotic exhilaration. ‘One rooster flew to a high post emitted a mighty crow, and dropped dead.’ No more details are given, so that whether the other livestock share this triumphant attitude is unknown; but: ‘it’s impossible to calm the animals when the blimps sail over . . .
Of course this may be the normal re-//402//action of lower animals to U.S. Navy blimps, even though one never hears of it. On the other hand if it is odd then it is damnably odd. Naturally I do not know how odd you have to be to get into the American Weekly.
Archeologists report three ton pigs, or rather evidences of them in prehistoric eastern Africa. And Lake Nicaragua, 105 feet above sea level, we note to be full of large sharks, only sharks so far reported dwelling in fresh water and liking it. Geologists suggest, of course, that the lake was once a Pacific inlet, later landlocked by earthquake and freshened by streams. Lake Managua close by shows no sharks. I’m an old Mu man myself, but it could have been a bay in the Atlantic. That’s not important. Ever since that man in Maryland dug him a ditch and came back and found it full of perch I have stopped wondering how fishes get where they get to. We need not bother, anyhow. The Smithsonian is investigating the matter.
Another article relays Lord Dunsany’s complaint that the Little People, being all out conscientious objectors, have blacklisted him as a bloodthirsty war-monger. There is here printed a picture, a photograph endorsed by the late Conan Doyle; a photograph of a little girl, taken by her sister, surrounded by ‘the fairies we play with every day.’ Frankly I don’t think much of it, though they’re a shapely bunch of wenches, but I thought you would like to know the existence of such a photograph, however doubtful its credentials. There are five of them, all brunette, four of them with Cupidopertic wings of various cut and design and clad in flimsy flowing drapes. Of these four one has short hair and a knee-length skirt. The other sprite wears a dime’s worth of nothing draped about her middle and blows open a double pipe resembling a clarinet. If you will pardon the expression, they are very corny; of course in a newspaper reproduction one cannot judge rthe validity of the photograph. With your facilities a print should be easily come by.
I am getting off a letter in this mail to the old farmer asking about all the particulars. Will let you know.
Time of 12 March 194 relates the case of Laurence K. Whipp, American organist and choirmaster at some Episcopal Church in Paris. The dean left in 1940, he took over the church, held it during the occupation, was interned for ten months. When we invaded Paris he gave the joint back to the dean, got his passport ready, and on Sunday 11 fe. [sic] went off to lunch at Auteuil. Bade his friends a casual adieu at 1600 and hasn’t been seen since. Of course, war is war . . .”
From Doubt 52:
“There come up t’other day an idea which as it might be somehow viable I here put on record with you: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to People. This organization would investigate and publicly deplore and denounce all activities which inflict cruelty upon any human being, and would agitate vigorously for measures to restrain any repitition [sic] of such acts. It would have no concern with Human Rights, Civil Liberties, the Dignity of Man, the Freedom of the Individual, or any such stuff as that; it would be solely and belligerently opposed to any practice which involves cruelty, and it would narrow-mindedly reject any excuses whatsoever. The SPCP would, in short, be modeled n the SPCA and the SPCC, which outfits are not concerned with rights and liberties of animals or children, but only with their ability to feel and their inability to resist such cruelties as may be addressed to them.
“If any Fortean wants to print himself up a letter-head and elect himself president of this thing, he has my blessing. I won’t take the job, myself. Negative Reform is not my game; but I think that the SPCP would add a brilliantly picturesque touch to the frequently dull Civil Rights composition.”
*****
Mary Winthrop Bonavia does not seem to have known Thayer, but was among the most active of Forteans. Her first appearance came in Doubt 12, her final in 54 (June 1957). Likely she lived in New York, because a number of her clippings were John J. O’Neill’s columns from the New York Tribune. She also sent in a ten page—hand-written—excerpt from Taylor Caldwell’s novel The Wide House. Cancer, and its connection to food, also seemed a concern for her.
But really Bonavia’s Forteanism was almost limitless. Thayer described her and her correspondence with the first mention of her name. It’s about all that I have on her.
“It’s a strange day that doesn’t bring s at least one letter from M F S Mary Winthrop Bonavia, and the lady’s data rage from paintings by Paul Klee and notes upon Dali, to selected pages copied by hand from Roget’s Thesaurus, and the literature of the Essene School of Biosophy. Most of this member’s criticism is levelled [sic] at ‘the Business Racket,’ under which term she lumps all but a few of the means men employ to fill their gnawing bellies. Next only to that she hates most of all the men who torture animals under the cloak of science. She is an active, ardent worker for the Vivisection Investigation League, and sends us their literature. She also sends us marked copies of The Canadian Theosophist, Consolation and The Watch-Tower. . . The New Age, and tear-sheets from various astrological magazines, the trout-fly catalog of L. L. Bean, pamphlets of the National Economic Council, George Yale--pipes and tobaccos; as well as candy and whiskey advertisements, the Farmer’s Almanac and ORGANIC GARDENING.
“This last is highly recommended to Forteans who eat, inasmuch as it concerns the Scientific beating our stomachs are made to take from the use of chemical fertilizers, insect sprays and other poisons dished out to us by the money-hungry politico-agriculturist swamis. If you grow things--IF YOU EAT--subscribed to Organic Gardening, Emmaus Penna., $2.00 per year.
“The Bonavia correspondence outside the Society must be prodigious, for we have excerpts of it from” Senators, “Psychiana" Robinson, american league for a free palestine, reader’s digest, creative press (eileen garrett) nbc and norman thomas
sends in a list of books: “Each recommendation contains a substantial quotation—with the member’s comment: comment by the philologico-numerologico-associaton method, which, under the pencil of Mary Winthrop Bonavia may well become a new science. What Dail has done for the graphic arts, and James Joyce for literature, M F S Bonavia may accomplish for psychology.”
“Her data from the Freeprez has been quite as catholic as her reading in books.”
******
Bennett—no known first name—was a Texas Fortean. He first appeared in Doubt 12, and continued through 59 (January 1959), contributing over twenty items. His Forteanism ran along familiar lines: giant birds, flying saucers, mysterious tracks, Wonet, mysterious explosions, sinking islands, scientists “ordering” people to do things, Anglican chicanery, the Geophysical Year. He seems to have had some technical background. He suggested to Thayer that a ball of smoke visible over six states might have been a plane exploded by a flying saucer, and gave the mechanics of such an explosion (Doubt 21 June 1948):
“If a Navy aircraft should meet a sonic wall or focus (man-made) say at a few thousand feet up—or—if ditto should meet the flying disk which could be a uni-lateral, uni-directional UHF beam as carrier modulated by a rotating UHF cycloform focusing at the 5th or 7th nodal point as super heat or disintegrative force—and—if this beam could be swept across the arc like a search light—subject to similar mechanical movement control—well, said airplane go up in smoke? No es rendad?
For all YS known [sic], he’s right, but one plane would hardly go up in enough smoke to be visible over six States. However—BALL OF FIRE STRIKES PLANE, was the headline of a story, events of which were occurring between London and Lisbon on the same date that Bennett wrote these observations 2-22-48 old style, a fireball struck and damaged a plane in midair.”
Bennett was also interested in organizing Forteans, a brief fad of the late 1940s. Forteans in the San Francisco Bay Area arranged themselves into a chapter of the Fortean Society—Chapter Two, acknowledging Thayer’s New York offices as Chapter One—and reported their innovation to Thayer. For a time, he was quite taken by the idea, and other regional groups formed, Chapter 3 in Chicago, and Chapter 4 in Dallas. But, like so much else, Thayer tired of the idea, and turned on it, disclaiming that any chapter had official recognition and stopping his reports on their activities. Still, while Thayer was enthusiastic, Bennett was one of the main forces behind the Dallas chapter. His report constitutes pretty much everything else that I know about him (Doubt 24, April 1949):
“Chapter Four, Dallas:
“Reported by MFS Bennett--of its first meeting 1-13-19 FS--that ‘the evening proved quite interesting to each of us, and we found that we were in agreement as to our ideas and interest in Fortean things and have decided to meet for the interim at least twice a month.
“‘We would like to find a few more here locally who are inclined along Fortean lines and may work up a small fishing campaign to see if any one will rise to the bait; of course we don’t want the so-called nuts and crack-pots, we to be those ourselves.
“‘And we agreed to no formal organization--just the group meeting and tending to the business as we saw fit with no by-laws or other impedimenta.
“‘What we want to do is to be on the ground floor in case anything develops here that is out of the ordinary and I feel that with Mr. Le-Clede [sic] on the staff of the local newspaper that we have entre into things that otherwise would be handed over to incompetents and made snafu. For instance about 5 years ago phenomena developed in a residence here that was first brought to the attention of the Sheriff and by the time his deputies and the local papers got thru with it, it looked like a bedraggled duck after the dogs had left town. The phenomena was the levitation of furniture and other articles in this residence and the emission of loud noises sounding like detonations of fire-crackers, etc.
“‘I discussed it with some of the men on the department and they told me that they witnessed enough to make the hair stand [sic]. So now if such should ever get loose here again I think that we are capable of doing the investigation and maybe we can get in before the populace gets it balled up.”
There’s some evidence that McMahon was friends with Thayer, and shared a similar sense of humor. When he read that a memorial for those killed in World War II’s Pacific Theater was planned on an extinct volcano, he suggested calling it “A Night on Bald Mountain”—a reference to the music that played during the sorcerer’s apprentice section of Fantasia: The war was started by novice’s unaware of the powers that they controlled. In 1957, he drove out of New York City to get a nice view of the comet Arend-Rowland, and reported—contrary to Thayer—that it was an impressive sight. McMahon also attended the Fortean dinner in support of Garry Davis, which is what really suggests the friendship.
*****
Jack Campbell also attended that dinner, and was an even more active Fortean. His first appearance, too, was in Doubt 11, his last in number 59 (January 1959). He kept the connection with the Fortean Society despite frequent moves: he was in Florida, on the Pacific during the war, in San Francisco, Greenwich Village, London, and Paris. When he returned to New York for visits, he looked up Thayer; on passages through England, he met Eric Frank Russell. In 1954, Thayer told Russell that Campbell “has a plump young wife who cooks divinely, of Ye Olde Souff.” He protected Campbell from some of the Society’s more obstreperous personalities. When Campbell was in Paris, Thayer asked him to check in on the meetings of some Swiss Forteans— L’Association Mondialiste Interplanetaire.
Campbell called himself a “contemporary anthropologist,” which Thayer took to mean he was a “sewer digger.” He did not contribute as many items as McMahon—only about a dozen—but he was a frequent correspondent, and Thayer printed a number of his letters, which reveal some of his personality, but not enough personal details to track him. From Doubt 11:
“I have just been privileged to witness a phenomenon unparalleled, so far as I know, in the annals of meteorology. It must be admitted that my acquaintance with the annals of meteorology is singularly slight: indeed, I doubt that I should know an annal of meteorology were I to meet one on the quire [sic]: nevertheless I have a fair education for one one of my tender years, and I have never heard tell of any such marvel. So that while I may now be shooting off my face in naive enthusiasm, there is reason to believe that this account may prove of value to others who have been likewise deprived of intelligence of such a manifestation, however common it may be. It is only fair to state at the outset that, so far as I can see, the phenomenon is of no importance whatsoever.
Let me begin by giving the circumstances attendant upon our observation. We were. and had been for several days, sailing through the deadest stretch of water with which it has ever been my misfortune to deal. Every cloud effect was mirrored to perfection upon the ocean’s glassy surface; the stars were reflected with cub nicety that one could have navigated by them. The sea, the planet itself, seemed dead; it was a night that one could believe in the lost vastness of Mu lying still and dead a thousand fathoms below. It was hard to take other than archeological interest in the war to which we were going. Such a feeling one knows who treks the dead forgotten wastelands of Barsoom.
What strange eccentric date will be assigned this observation in the files at headquarters I cannot even guess; but last night (Ed. 8-29-44) at eleven forty-five P.M. (old style) L.C.T. I stood on the bridge looking out for land, which was expected momentarily, and subjecting my subordinates to my own plaintive distortion of the Solveiglied [Solvieg’s lied]. I had just relieved the deck for the mid watch, and was still getting my bearings. The moon, a day or so past the quarter, stood some fifteen or twenty degrees up off the horizon, a point off the port bow; so bright was she that one could not look at her full in the face, for all she stood so still and white.
Suddenly the sea was glazed, like a sheet of shining but unpolished tin; the round white spot upon the water glared forth all at once in a broad white ribbon of steel, an highway blazed a league and a league to the westward, till it dropped over the edge of the world. We had run into a squall, about as close to no rain at all that you could have and still call it a shower, but rain it was, and for such as it was we were grateful. It lasted for less than a minute, and then, in response to the look-out’s hail, I hotfooted it over to the other side. There on our starboard quarter was a rainbow—a white rainbow.
Now there is of course nothing theoretically remarkable about a nocturnal rainbow. Explanations of rainbows being what they are, a rainbow under such conditions is quite the normal thing. The odd circumstance about this particular field of investigation is that it has not received more publicity, if it is as common as one would suppose, or if it is as rare as one observes. Is it rarer than a comet, that one should judge it unworthy of investigation? Is it more commonplace than the aurora borealis, that one should deem it unworthy of mention? Nay. These reasons do not suffice to bury momentous tomes on 63 Cygni C or equally ponderous discussions of cyclones. The only conclusion one may draw is that the nocturnal rainbow has never before been observed. And that’s absurd.
But dropping that question for the moment, let us investigate the rainbow. My breath is cheap; if it be wasted, what then? The rainbow was, as I said, white, which checks with statement that the moon gives off little if any color [sic]. One could detect, however, a pale pinkish tinge about the upper rim; and although the light blue below was lost for the most part on the grey clouds, it was quite apparent in that segment of the curve which was backed by the black sky beyond.
As the moon sank, the curve became noticeably steeper, and some twenty-five minutes later was almost semi-circular. About that time the rainbow faded, as rainbows are wont to do. I am not a proper scientist, as my main interest is in emotion rather than intellect, and it is with an effort that I catalogue objective data. Permit me to say, then, that the important thing about the lunar rainbow is that it is not strange. The solar rainbow is a soft and glorious dessert to the holiday feast of a shower. It is more than a covenant; it is fulfillment, a delight, an occasion for religious revelry. But the rainbow of the moon is as natural as a cloud or a star. It is a part of the night. One looks at it, and one is not surprised; one is merely glad. Emotionally it cannot be classified as a phenomena, anymore than the rising of the moon, or a breeze from the east, is a phenomenon. They belong to the night, and one accepts them with the proud and nameless loneliness that belongs to the nighttime.
Well, just file this away, and if you meet a monomaniac looking for an idee fixe, or a friend who wishes to be connected with an old institution which no one even sees fit to discuss, you might refer him to it.”
From Doubt 12:
“Our most recent letter from MFS Jack Campbell was written in a San Francisco hospital. The previous eight or so were dated from various nameless points on the Pacific. He has not told us the nature of his wound, but it is not in the organ or gland which accounts for his Fortean capacities and writing prowess. We like his letters so well we mean to print them all.
On 2-6-14 FS, he wrote: I have just had a very orthodox experience which I insider it my duty to relate to you, as it has bearing upon a Fortean datum cited below. This occurred a week or so ago, when our ship was lying to in a place called Lingoyen Gulf, which is a large harbour [sic] of Luzon in the Philippine Islands. We had just taken the gulf with no trouble at all; our army was then occupied with taking the shore. had the deck on the mid watch, and was pacing about idly humming the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin and admitting the beautiful pyrotechnic effects which are so indispensable to modern death, when a strange thing was brought to my attention. I was approached by one of the gunners, an intelligent lad of some scientific bent, who pointe rout that yonder destroyer which was vigorously pouring explosives into some hill not far away had remarkable guns, inasmuch as one saw the flash and heard the report at the same time. I replied Pish, man, there is nothing remarkable bout that, and referred him to the writings of Lt. Commander Rupert T. Gould, wherein is related in some detail the report of such an expedition which set out such and such a year to such and such a place with a cannon to study the speed of sound. The expedition, in case you have not the reference at your fingertips, noted to its astonishment that the report of the piece, at a range of several miles preceded their visual observations of its firing by various and considerable period of time. The lad replied that he believed no word of it, that he would not believe it even if he were to see see it with his own eyes, that he had seen it with his own eyes, and still did not believe it, as his religion, which was Science, forbade him to believe anything of the sort. I countered that I had no religion, not even Science, and that I was not allowed to believe anything at all. After debating these moral maters heatedly for awhile, we went over to the port side and watched the destroyer.
It was even as he had told me. The can was about a mile away, and laying on thick and heavy. One would hear the sharp roar of the five-inch, and an instant or so later the great flash of orange flame, and the hot projectile would arch slowly, gracefully, toward the shore cooling to red en route, till it finally disappeared altogether. And then before mine eyes a Fortean was born. I watched his mind struggling wight he datum, ejecting it again and again; but he could not debt what he saw.
It must be admitted that the interval between boom and flash was not constant. Sometimes, even the flash would precede slightly. But the variation was never more than a second, and we of course put it down to changes in wind vectors, atmospheric pressure and density, and other varying conditions. After all, we had swallowed the camel; who were we to strain at anything? and [sic] it was then that we caught on. She recommenced, and there was the flash, and the slow trajectory, but no report at all. For about six seconds. Then the report, and another flash. I stood agape, and snapped out of it just in time to prevent my young friend from cutting his disillusioned throat.
Such stupidity is, I hope, incredible. Surely I should not suggest such a thing had it not happened to me. But could that have been the case with the initial arctic experiment? (Gould, op. c.t.) Surely we cannot say for sure. But here . . .
Also I have a quartermaster, as ignorant of astronomy as a seaman can afford to be, who was amazed to find that it was not common knowledge that the moon is composed of, or at least covered with, snow, or perhaps ice. Now all I know about astronomy I get from Astounding (Stories), so that I cannot intelligently counter or even discuss this. But if there is any water on the moon it is probably ice. I can offhand think of no reason why there should not be as much water on the moon as there is on earth, proportionately. Unless you choose to argue that because of the low gravity, etc., it was all washed off in the ether drift when it was, if it was, in a gaseous state. But as I say, I cannot argue the moon; this is just a suggestion to file away, so that if Professor Ley returns from his maiden voyage and announces that the moon is made of ice, we can say ‘you call that news?’
(Note: i use the term ‘Professor’ with all respect. Willy Ley is probably a Fortean at heart. That he uses orthodox astrogation is more indicative of courage than bigotry. He intends to go; and risky as it may be, we must admit that standard astronomy is about the safest system he has. The Fortean Society is young. We have sown the seeds of doubt; but the crop will be five centuries in the harvesting, and Willy Ley (may he meet good fortune) cannot wait.[)]
As for this Vitic thing, have you additional data available? I have a tiny horseshoe magnet and a carbon arc terminal (I know that was spoken of as not the best, but that was in 1914 when arc terminals were probably not all they are now) and have been trying it out on the bridge force. My laboratory technique is necessarily atrocious, and I have no galvanometer, but ten or fifteen minutes holding these objects increases the pulse from five to twenty-three beats/min. Comrade Layne suggests that one’s galvanometric deflection is not particularly sensitive to autosuggestion. I have with me no charts of electrocardiac hypochondria. As for sensible effects, the damned thing gives me an headache. Usually. Just the sameI’ll like to try it with an electroencephalograph.
Appropos, a fellw [sic] here says a friend of his recommends a Copper bracelet on one arm and a Zinc band on the other to cure rheumatism. I beg your pardon? Well, I said the same thing. We are not in business to cure rheumatism.
P.S.—I am much interested in this mater of pyrotics. I should like to do some research upon it.
P.P.S.—‘pyrotics’: people who catch fire. I don’t know if the word is original or known. State known as pyrosis. (Ed. Note: ‘Pyrosis’ is heartburn in Webster, but we take the Campbell definition.)
From Doubt 26:
I have been prowling about in Sunday supplements. I realize that this is a derided and discredited fueld, and, oddly enough, one which I have not touched since I was a child. I have not abstained because of disapproval, but rather because I never bother with newspapers at all. They are full of matters of national importance which one always hears about anyway, and matters of no importance which one forgets immediately, of book reviews for the gay illiterate, advertisements for the monied bourgeois, and crossword puzzles for the feeble-minded. Now throughout this period of hearsay consciousness , I have always understood that a certain ow form of journalism, known as the Sunday supplement, was wont to twist perfectly ordinary phenomena into ghastly stories of horror and sentimentalism, dubbing this presentation ‘Popular Science’. This institution is regarded with no small contempt by the literati, and is read, forgotten, and ignored by sensible people. I never bothered to form an opinion.
So that it was with no great expectation nor belittlement that I opened this day the pages of the American Weekly of 22 October 1944. Naturally there was a variety of material there, some amusing, some innocuous, some silly, some trivial. I also noted: Fort Benning, Georgia, paratrooper jumps and hovers motionless with open ‘chute for half an hour. Released suddenly. He reports an ‘hot draught of air.’ Presumably caught in an upward current. No name, no date. Apparent lack of vertical or lateral translation unexplained; yet it were odd indeed that he meet an updraught so nicely calculated to intercept the arbitrary area of his silk with precisely the force needed to support his weight, neither lifting it nor merely retarding it. Though could be, of course. If he was caught in something else, then we have a new brand of poltergeist, one which grabs and holds rather than snatches and runs.
Navy blimps so terrified a pair of bitches belonging to farmer Kenneth Miner of North Bend, Oregon that one of them ‘keeled over dead.’ Chickens went mad, but whereas the dogs gave ‘yelps’ of ‘Terror’ the poultry seemed animated by something closer akin to narcotic exhilaration. ‘One rooster flew to a high post emitted a mighty crow, and dropped dead.’ No more details are given, so that whether the other livestock share this triumphant attitude is unknown; but: ‘it’s impossible to calm the animals when the blimps sail over . . .
Of course this may be the normal re-//402//action of lower animals to U.S. Navy blimps, even though one never hears of it. On the other hand if it is odd then it is damnably odd. Naturally I do not know how odd you have to be to get into the American Weekly.
Archeologists report three ton pigs, or rather evidences of them in prehistoric eastern Africa. And Lake Nicaragua, 105 feet above sea level, we note to be full of large sharks, only sharks so far reported dwelling in fresh water and liking it. Geologists suggest, of course, that the lake was once a Pacific inlet, later landlocked by earthquake and freshened by streams. Lake Managua close by shows no sharks. I’m an old Mu man myself, but it could have been a bay in the Atlantic. That’s not important. Ever since that man in Maryland dug him a ditch and came back and found it full of perch I have stopped wondering how fishes get where they get to. We need not bother, anyhow. The Smithsonian is investigating the matter.
Another article relays Lord Dunsany’s complaint that the Little People, being all out conscientious objectors, have blacklisted him as a bloodthirsty war-monger. There is here printed a picture, a photograph endorsed by the late Conan Doyle; a photograph of a little girl, taken by her sister, surrounded by ‘the fairies we play with every day.’ Frankly I don’t think much of it, though they’re a shapely bunch of wenches, but I thought you would like to know the existence of such a photograph, however doubtful its credentials. There are five of them, all brunette, four of them with Cupidopertic wings of various cut and design and clad in flimsy flowing drapes. Of these four one has short hair and a knee-length skirt. The other sprite wears a dime’s worth of nothing draped about her middle and blows open a double pipe resembling a clarinet. If you will pardon the expression, they are very corny; of course in a newspaper reproduction one cannot judge rthe validity of the photograph. With your facilities a print should be easily come by.
I am getting off a letter in this mail to the old farmer asking about all the particulars. Will let you know.
Time of 12 March 194 relates the case of Laurence K. Whipp, American organist and choirmaster at some Episcopal Church in Paris. The dean left in 1940, he took over the church, held it during the occupation, was interned for ten months. When we invaded Paris he gave the joint back to the dean, got his passport ready, and on Sunday 11 fe. [sic] went off to lunch at Auteuil. Bade his friends a casual adieu at 1600 and hasn’t been seen since. Of course, war is war . . .”
From Doubt 52:
“There come up t’other day an idea which as it might be somehow viable I here put on record with you: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to People. This organization would investigate and publicly deplore and denounce all activities which inflict cruelty upon any human being, and would agitate vigorously for measures to restrain any repitition [sic] of such acts. It would have no concern with Human Rights, Civil Liberties, the Dignity of Man, the Freedom of the Individual, or any such stuff as that; it would be solely and belligerently opposed to any practice which involves cruelty, and it would narrow-mindedly reject any excuses whatsoever. The SPCP would, in short, be modeled n the SPCA and the SPCC, which outfits are not concerned with rights and liberties of animals or children, but only with their ability to feel and their inability to resist such cruelties as may be addressed to them.
“If any Fortean wants to print himself up a letter-head and elect himself president of this thing, he has my blessing. I won’t take the job, myself. Negative Reform is not my game; but I think that the SPCP would add a brilliantly picturesque touch to the frequently dull Civil Rights composition.”
*****
Mary Winthrop Bonavia does not seem to have known Thayer, but was among the most active of Forteans. Her first appearance came in Doubt 12, her final in 54 (June 1957). Likely she lived in New York, because a number of her clippings were John J. O’Neill’s columns from the New York Tribune. She also sent in a ten page—hand-written—excerpt from Taylor Caldwell’s novel The Wide House. Cancer, and its connection to food, also seemed a concern for her.
But really Bonavia’s Forteanism was almost limitless. Thayer described her and her correspondence with the first mention of her name. It’s about all that I have on her.
“It’s a strange day that doesn’t bring s at least one letter from M F S Mary Winthrop Bonavia, and the lady’s data rage from paintings by Paul Klee and notes upon Dali, to selected pages copied by hand from Roget’s Thesaurus, and the literature of the Essene School of Biosophy. Most of this member’s criticism is levelled [sic] at ‘the Business Racket,’ under which term she lumps all but a few of the means men employ to fill their gnawing bellies. Next only to that she hates most of all the men who torture animals under the cloak of science. She is an active, ardent worker for the Vivisection Investigation League, and sends us their literature. She also sends us marked copies of The Canadian Theosophist, Consolation and The Watch-Tower. . . The New Age, and tear-sheets from various astrological magazines, the trout-fly catalog of L. L. Bean, pamphlets of the National Economic Council, George Yale--pipes and tobaccos; as well as candy and whiskey advertisements, the Farmer’s Almanac and ORGANIC GARDENING.
“This last is highly recommended to Forteans who eat, inasmuch as it concerns the Scientific beating our stomachs are made to take from the use of chemical fertilizers, insect sprays and other poisons dished out to us by the money-hungry politico-agriculturist swamis. If you grow things--IF YOU EAT--subscribed to Organic Gardening, Emmaus Penna., $2.00 per year.
“The Bonavia correspondence outside the Society must be prodigious, for we have excerpts of it from” Senators, “Psychiana" Robinson, american league for a free palestine, reader’s digest, creative press (eileen garrett) nbc and norman thomas
sends in a list of books: “Each recommendation contains a substantial quotation—with the member’s comment: comment by the philologico-numerologico-associaton method, which, under the pencil of Mary Winthrop Bonavia may well become a new science. What Dail has done for the graphic arts, and James Joyce for literature, M F S Bonavia may accomplish for psychology.”
“Her data from the Freeprez has been quite as catholic as her reading in books.”
******
Bennett—no known first name—was a Texas Fortean. He first appeared in Doubt 12, and continued through 59 (January 1959), contributing over twenty items. His Forteanism ran along familiar lines: giant birds, flying saucers, mysterious tracks, Wonet, mysterious explosions, sinking islands, scientists “ordering” people to do things, Anglican chicanery, the Geophysical Year. He seems to have had some technical background. He suggested to Thayer that a ball of smoke visible over six states might have been a plane exploded by a flying saucer, and gave the mechanics of such an explosion (Doubt 21 June 1948):
“If a Navy aircraft should meet a sonic wall or focus (man-made) say at a few thousand feet up—or—if ditto should meet the flying disk which could be a uni-lateral, uni-directional UHF beam as carrier modulated by a rotating UHF cycloform focusing at the 5th or 7th nodal point as super heat or disintegrative force—and—if this beam could be swept across the arc like a search light—subject to similar mechanical movement control—well, said airplane go up in smoke? No es rendad?
For all YS known [sic], he’s right, but one plane would hardly go up in enough smoke to be visible over six States. However—BALL OF FIRE STRIKES PLANE, was the headline of a story, events of which were occurring between London and Lisbon on the same date that Bennett wrote these observations 2-22-48 old style, a fireball struck and damaged a plane in midair.”
Bennett was also interested in organizing Forteans, a brief fad of the late 1940s. Forteans in the San Francisco Bay Area arranged themselves into a chapter of the Fortean Society—Chapter Two, acknowledging Thayer’s New York offices as Chapter One—and reported their innovation to Thayer. For a time, he was quite taken by the idea, and other regional groups formed, Chapter 3 in Chicago, and Chapter 4 in Dallas. But, like so much else, Thayer tired of the idea, and turned on it, disclaiming that any chapter had official recognition and stopping his reports on their activities. Still, while Thayer was enthusiastic, Bennett was one of the main forces behind the Dallas chapter. His report constitutes pretty much everything else that I know about him (Doubt 24, April 1949):
“Chapter Four, Dallas:
“Reported by MFS Bennett--of its first meeting 1-13-19 FS--that ‘the evening proved quite interesting to each of us, and we found that we were in agreement as to our ideas and interest in Fortean things and have decided to meet for the interim at least twice a month.
“‘We would like to find a few more here locally who are inclined along Fortean lines and may work up a small fishing campaign to see if any one will rise to the bait; of course we don’t want the so-called nuts and crack-pots, we to be those ourselves.
“‘And we agreed to no formal organization--just the group meeting and tending to the business as we saw fit with no by-laws or other impedimenta.
“‘What we want to do is to be on the ground floor in case anything develops here that is out of the ordinary and I feel that with Mr. Le-Clede [sic] on the staff of the local newspaper that we have entre into things that otherwise would be handed over to incompetents and made snafu. For instance about 5 years ago phenomena developed in a residence here that was first brought to the attention of the Sheriff and by the time his deputies and the local papers got thru with it, it looked like a bedraggled duck after the dogs had left town. The phenomena was the levitation of furniture and other articles in this residence and the emission of loud noises sounding like detonations of fire-crackers, etc.
“‘I discussed it with some of the men on the department and they told me that they witnessed enough to make the hair stand [sic]. So now if such should ever get loose here again I think that we are capable of doing the investigation and maybe we can get in before the populace gets it balled up.”
