The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Chattanooga Times, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, on June 19, 1924.
See the case file here.
Charles Fort Seeks Information From Chattanoogans.
SAYS OTHER PLANETS TRY TO COMMUNICATE
Writes From London on Strange Aircraft Observed Here in January, 1910 - Author of "New Lands."
Chattanoogans who remember the "mysterious airship" reported to have hovered over this city for three days in January, 1910, will be interested in a letter received by The Times from one Charles Fort, of 39 Marchmont street, Russell Square, London, England. Mr. Fort, who has written a "spooky" book called "New Lands," suggests that the strange aircraft seen here was a visitor from some other planet. His letter to The Times follows:
To The Chattanooga Times:
Dear Sir - I don't know whether you will think that the letter which I enclose is preposterous or not. I think, myself, that it so seems. But I think you will agree with me that the effect of preposterousness, or affront to preconceptions is no criterion. Of course I do not reason in the other extreme and favor an idea simply because it seems preposterous.
I hope that you will not think that I am hoaxing. My latest book, "New Lands," which was published last October, in New York, is filled with similar data. The introduction to the book is by Booth Tarkington. Other persons, who would not be accused of being wild-minded, are interested in this new research.
If you will publish the letter, I shall be very much obliged to you. I have tried to make it interesting enough, and some new data may be forthcoming to justify considerable space, and I think that speculation upon other worlds, stimulated by the approaching opposition of the planet Mars, make the subject timely. Very truly. CHARLES FORT. 19 Marchmont Street, Russell Square, London, England, June 11, 1924.
Accompanying the above communication was the following:
According to the New York Tribune, Jan. 13, 1910, an unknown airship was seen in the sky, upon three successive days, at Chattanooga. Upon the 10th of January, it was seen traveling southward again, disappearing over Missionary ridge.
A reason for thinking that this object was no airship of terrestrial origin, is that it was reported also from Huntsville, Ala., seventy-five miles from Chattanooga. In this period, aeronautics upon this earth was of development so small that, in the middle of December, 1909, somebody won a prize for sailing in a dirigible from St. Cyr to the Eiffel tower, Paris, and back, a distance of less than twenty-five miles.
I am spending my time collecting data that indicate that there are other, inhabited worlds, perhaps not the visible planets; not inaccessibly remote; and that explorers from them have many times been seen in the sky. In the newspapers, this work has been called "epoch-making," also otherwise, according to various opinions and emotions - "rather crazy," for instance. Of many accounts of seeming explorers from other worlds, in the sky of this earth, I pick out one that is not especial for its convincingness, but that is convenient as to date, because the occurrence was at a time when dirigible airships of this earth could not have sailed even from St. Cyr to Paris.
In the Journal des Debats (Paris) April 12, 1905, is reported a luminous object, or an object bearing lights, which had been appearing every night since April 1, over the city of Cherbourg, France. In the "Bull Soc. Astro. de France," 19-243, Flammarion says that the object must have been the planet Venus; he therefore derides the descriptions of it as having sometimes moved in various directions, saying that such supposed observations were illusions. In Le Figaro, April 13, it is said that the prefet maritime, of Cherbourg, had commissioned Commander de Kerillis, of the "Chasseloup-Laubat," to investigate. The results of this officer's investigations are published; that the object was not in the position of the planet Venus, and that it did not have the cresentic disk of Venus.
The last observations upon this object, at Cherbourg, were upon the night of the 11th. There is a datum to support the idea that something had been exploring locally over Cherbourg, and had then sailed away, and had been seen sailing away. In Le Figaro, April 15, it is said that, upon the night of the eleventh, the guards of La Blanche Lighthouse had seen something like a lighted balloon in the sky, and had started to signal to it, but that it had disappeared. It is said that the lighthouse had been out of communication with the mainland, and that the guards had not heard of the object that had been exciting the people of Cherbourg.
There are data which indicate that the observations upon an unknown vessel in the sky of Tennessee and Alabama, January, 1910, were upon something that had ben exploring in various parts of the sky of this earth. To some minds the data may seem unrelated: almost everything that has even been found out has been developed by organizing the seemingly unrelated.
In the New York Tribune, Dec 21, 1909, it is said that, at 1 o'clock, morning of the 21st, Immigration Inspector Hoe, of Boston, had seen "a bright light passing over the harbor," and had concluded that he had seen an airship of some kind. In following issues of the Tribune, and other newspapers, it is said that two nights later, the streets of Worcester, Mass., were thronged with crowds, watching "a mysterious visitor" in the sky. Upon the night of the 23rd, a dark object, bearing lights moved in the sky, over Boston. "As it flew away to the north, queries began to pour into the newspaper offices and the police stations, regarding the remarkable visitations."
Upon the night of the 24th there were no such observations reported upon anything in the sky of New England.
According to data, this may be because some exploring construction from some other world had swiftly moved across the Atlantic ocean.
In the English Mechanic, 104-71, James Fergusen, a well-known writer upon scientific subjects, writes from Rossbrien, Limerick, Ireland, that, at 8:30 o'clock, night of Dec. 24, he saw a luminous object appear above the northeastern horizon, and for twenty minutes sail southward, then turning around, retracing, and, at two minutes past nine, disappearing at the point whence it had come.
I am gathering material for as extensive an investigation of this whole subject as is possible. If readers of this newspaper, who saw the object that was reported from Tennessee,in January, 1910, will send accounts to me (33 marchmont Street, Russell Square, London, England) it may be that we can learn more about these appearances than could the Aztecs, for instance, when they heard of "moving lights at sea," and probably thought the reports preposterous, or thought that nothing but torches in canoes had been seen, or thought virtually nothing upon the subject, and they did a great deal of thinking later.
