The Case for the UFO - Varo Jessup Edition-pages

Page 147 of 165

Page 147 of 165
The Case for the UFO - Varo Jessup Edition-pages

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professional aplomb; for verily it was without doubt an erratic on the periphery of the consummately damned. Getting no response from the fount of authority, Harrison reported his discovery to the New York Tribune in a letter, and this was reproduced in the Scientific American May 10, 1879. It is to the everlasting credit of the very conservative editors that they could and did recognize this item, partially at least, for its true worth. After publication in the Scientific American, some of the more alert astronomers bedeviled Harrison for further details, while berating him for sloppy scientific reporting. Harrison, an astronomer of militantly unpretentious character, was depressed by the critics and embittered by the snubbing he received from the inner sanctum of the Naval Observatory. But he responded with a letter under the date may 20, 1879. After some sarcastic remarks anent people who always see wonders in everything celestial, he says in part: ...| did not think that the above phenomenon was anything but of a meteoric nature...and it would have been XXXXXXX to have made a great outcry. Messages sent to Professor Hall were urged by a personal friend, whom | called into the observatory to see the object; otherwise it would this day only be known to my personal friends. The coolness with which my dispatch was received at the Washington Observatory, after great inconveniences in sending it, has compelled me to regret any publicity on my part. The presumption that | found Brorsen's comet ought to have been abandoned immediately from the fact that Brorsen's comet moved a little over a degree per day, whereas this object moved with a (variable) rapidity of two minutes of Right Ascension of one minute of time, passing the comet by about four degrees...There is one fact, however, which reconciles me to it, and that is the fact that the object was seen also by Mr. J. Spencer Devoe, on Manhattanville, New York, who published a letter to that a fhn ne effect. After acknowledging indebtedness to his friend, Henry M. Parkhurst, for his interest, he gives the details of his observations: (Rate of R.A. per minute of time 2.4 North Declination 37° 37 37 37 06 Time 8h 40m PM 9 10 9 35 10 30 Right Ascension 2h 34m 3 46 5 04 7 08 3.1 2.6 11 30 2 10 37 28 37 30 15 30 2.3 Harrison concludes by hoping that Devoe will quickly publish his own observations for corroboration and confirmation, but as of the date of this writing | have not succeeded in finding any such report. The report from Devoe would be of considerable importance to the case for intelligently directed motion. Anyone reporting the reference will be making a worthwhile contribution to the Case for the UFO's. And unless we deny the veracity of Devoe, Harrison, and Parkhurst, or impugn their intelligence as observers — or both — there cannot possibly be any argument against manipulated objects of the misty or ethereal types in space. So called Ethereal types are the Old Force- Shield cooking full blast, Made good Protection. 147 POSITIONS OF OBJECT 1879, April 12 (Local Mean Time) He comments on the irregularity of motion.