CFI Blogs

" Very largely we shall concern ourselves with enormous fiery objects that have either plunged into the ocean or risen from the ocean", writes Fort in his The Book of the Damned. Among the many examples that he cites of luminous wheels, luminous bodies rising from the sea or hurthling through the skies, Fort tells of "...an object, described as "a large ball of fire", seen to rise from the sea, near Cape Race. We are told that it rose to a height of fifty feet, and then advanced close to the ship, then moving away, remaining visible about five minutes..."(1)

Interestingly, when scanning several 19th century Dutch newspapers for Fortean items of interest, I found that the incident that had occurred in 1887, was published beginning of the next year in the Netherlands. Sofar I located the item in two Dutch newspapers, the Texelse Courant, of March 11, 1888 and Nieuwe Amersfoortsche Courant of March 24, 1888. These clippings and my translations follow.

Texelse Courant, March 11, 1888