Page Content (OCR)
Harrison's bell-shaped object was moving almost three times as fast as rotation of the earth would cause it to do. At first one hesitates to say that it was hovering, but a little mathematical deduction indicates an object merely drifting with currents of the upper air and at one hundred miles latitude would need to have but 2.4 miles per hour velocity over the ground, an at ten miles above New York and appearing in Dec. 37° north, it would be drifting only a quarter mile per hour and would have been but seven-tenths of a mile south of Harrson's observing point an therefore directly over New York Harbor. Furthermore, if the object was actually moving in a straight line, overhead, it would appear to speed up slightly when it crossed his meridian (the NS line) and this is precisely what it did. And, assuming that it shifted its position slightly so as to pass nearly over the city, its shift of a little more than half a degree of declination would indicated height of from ten to one hundred miles. Considered from ANY approach, this object appears to have been organic, intelligently operated and hovering over New York City! The New York Tribune of April 26, 1879, published a letter from Mr. Devoe, dated April 17, in which he stated that he, too, had at first thought it to be a planetary nebula like one near Beta Ursa Majoris, but he was equally astonished at the rapid pace which carried it away so fast that he could not find it again after taking time out for coffee. A little can be gained from his letter. He says the object was wonderfully brilliant, and at least the size of the Praesepe star cluster, which is a well-known naked eye object, and was brighter than Praesepe. It would, therefore, appear that it was brighter and larger as seen by Devoe than by Harrison, and if such a small difference in the site of observation could make such a difference in appearance, then the wanderer was indeed close to New York City. From Devoe's rough description of the size, this object would have been about half a mile in diameter at an altitude of eight to one hundred miles, If | can find a more accurate report of Devoe's observations, | could learn more about the size and distance of the object. Whatever this thing was, and whatever may be the accuracy of our speculations as to its speed, distance and size, it exhibited motion inexplicable except as intelligent control. There is a suggestion for us in this story of Harrison's rambling object. Professional astronomers are not spending much time, if any at all, in searching the sky for comets or cometary objects. For more than a hundred years most of this has been done by amateurs, and today very little is done by anybody. We have seen that a minimum of quantitative observation by Devoe would have enabled us to determine the distance, altitude, speed and size of Harrison's object. We do not know how many of the things there are near the earth, so why not start a UFO searching campaign among a coalition of UFO enthusiasts, amateur astronomers and radio hams? Dr. Bone's crude observation of the discoid object was of the greatest importance in confirming Dr. Gould's discovery of 1882, and the observations of Bone and Tebbutt established the great parallax which has enabled us to show the proximity of those objects. There are apparently two classes of dirigible UFO's to look for. One is the planetary, disclike things seen near the sun and moon, as by Watson and Swift, and the other is the cometary type as seen by Harrison. The cometary ones can be swept for, just as are comets, and with the identical equipment — special comet-seeking telescopes with structure, and lenses designed for that purpose. Any telescope can be used and there are many idle ones. | do not believe that large numbers of cometary UFO's will be found, although | am not sure. Observers near large centers of population, atom plants or industrial sites will probably have the most success. But while the number of expected objects is small, the searching is easier than for discs. (red is B and Jemi) 149