Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Western entrance to Cadotte's Pass, 1855

Here’s a bit of random weirdness from the “St. Louis Globe Democrat,” October 19, 1865 (via Newspapers.com):

Mr. James Lumley, an old Rocky Mountain trapper, who has been stopping at the Everett House for several days, makes a most remarkable statement to us, and one which, if authenticated, will produce the greatest excitement in the scientific world. 

Mr. Lumley states that about the middle of last September he was engaged in trapping in the mountains, about seventy-five or one hundred miles above the Great Falls of the Upper Missouri, and in the neighborhood of what is known as Cadotte Pass. Just after sunset one evening he beheld a bright luminous body in the heavens, which was moving with great rapidity in an easterly direction. It was plainly visible for at least five seconds, when it suddenly separated into particles, resembling, as Mr. Lumley describes it, the bursting of a sky-rocket in the air. A few minutes later he heard a heavy explosion, which jarred the earth very perceptibly, and this was shortly after followed by a rushing sound, like a tornado sweeping through the forest. A strong wind sprang up about the same time, but as suddenly subsided. The air was also filled with a peculiar odor of a sulphurous character. 

These incidents would have made but slight impression on the mind of Mr. Lumley, but for the fact that on the ensuing day he discovered, at a distance of about two miles from his camping place, that, as far as he could see in either direction, a path had been cut through the forest, several rods wide giant trees uprooted or broken off near the ground--the tops of hills shaved off, and the earth plowed up in many places. Great and wide-spread havoc was everywhere visible. Following up this track of desolation, he soon ascertained the cause of it in the shape of an immense stone that had been driven into the side of a mountain. But now comes the most remarkable part of the story. An examination of this stone, or so much of it as was visible, showed that it had been divided into compartments and that in various places it was carved with curious hieroglyphics.

More than this, Mr. Lumley also discovered fragments of a substance resembling glass, and here and there dark stains, as though caused by liquid. He is confident that the hieroglyphics were the work of human hands, and that the stone itself, although but fragment of an immense body, must have been used for some purpose by animated beings. Strange as this story appears, Mr. Lumley relates it with so much sincerity that we are forced to accept it as true.

It is evident that the stone which he discovered was a fragment of the meteor which was visible in this section in September last. It will be remembered that it was seen in Leavenworth, in Galena, and in this city by Col. Bonneville. At Leavenworth it was seen to separate in particles or explode. 

Astronomers have long held that it is probable that the heavenly bodies are inhabited--even the comets--and it may be that the meteors are also.  Possibly meteors are used as means of conveyance by the inhabitants of other planets, in exploring space, and it may be that hereafter some future Columbus, from Mercury or Uranus, may land on this planet, by means of meteoric conveyance, and take full possession thereof--as did the Spanish navigators of the New World in 1492, and eventually drive what is known as the “human race” into a condition of the most abject servitude. It has always been a favorite theory with many that there must be a race superior to ours, and this may at some future time be demonstrated in the manner we have indicated.

That last paragraph reminds me of Charles Fort’s famous comment: “I think we’re property.”