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New Lands – Charles Fort

There is a triangular region in England, three points of which appear so often in our data that the region should be specially known to us, and I know it myself as the London Triangle. It is pointed in the north by Worcester and Hereford, in the south by Reading, Berkshire, and in the east by Colchester, Essex. The line between Colchester and Reading runs through London.

October, 1661 - The earliest of the accounts that I have read of the quakes in the general region of Worcester and Hereford (London Triangle) that associated with appearances in the sky, was published by two church wardens in the year 1661, as to occurrences of October, 1661, and is entitled, A True and Perfect Relation of the Terrible Earthquake. It is said that monstrous flaming things were seen in the sky, and that phenomena below were interesting. We are told, "truly and perfectly," that Mrs. Margaret Petmore fell in labor and brought forth three male offsprings all of whom had teeth and spoke at birth. Inasmuch as it is not recorded what the infants said, and whether in plain English or not, it is not so much an extraordinary birth such as, in one way or another, occurs from time to time, that affronts our conventional notions, as it is the idea that there could be relation between the abnormal in obstetrics and the unusual in terrestrics.

Feb. 18, 1884, at West Mersea, near Colchester, a loud report was heard (Nature, 53-4).

22nd of April, 1884, centering around Colchester, occurred the severest earthquake in  England in the 19th century. For several columns of description, see the London Times, April 23. There is a long list of towns in which there was great damage: in 24 parishes near Colchester, 1,250 buildings were damaged. One of the places that suffered most was West Mersea (Daily Chronicle, April 28).
There was something in the sky. According to G. P. Yeats (Observations upon the Earthquake of Dec. 17, 1896, p. 6) there was a red appearance in the sky over Colchester, at the time of the shock of April 22, 1884.

The next day, according to a writer in Knowledge, 5-336, a stone fell from the sky, breaking glass in his greenhouse, in Essex. It was a quartz stone, and unlike anything usually known as meteoritic.

The indications, according to my reading of the data, … are that perhaps an explosion occurred in the sky, near Colchester, upon Feb. 18, 1884; that a great explosion did occur over Colchester, upon the 22nd of April, and that a great volume of débris spread over England, in a northwesterly direction, passing over Worcestershire and Shropshire, and continuing on toward Liverpool, nucleating moisture and falling in blackest of rain.

From the Stonyhurst Observatory, near Liverpool, was reported, occurring at a 11 A.M., April 26, "the most extraordinary darkness remembered"; forty minutes later fell rain "as black as ink," and then black snow and black hail (Nature, 30-6).
Black hail fell at Chaigley, several miles from Liverpool (Stonyhurst Magazine, 1-267).
Five hours later, black substance fell at Crowle, near Worcester (Nature, 30-32).
Upon the 28th, at Church Stretton and Much Wenlock, Shropshire, fell torrents of liquid like ink and water in equal proportions (The Field, May 3, 1884).
In the Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 11-7, it is said that, upon the 28th, half a mile from Lilleshall, Shropshire, an unknown pink substance was brought down by a storm.
Upon the 3rd of May, black substance fell again at Crowle (Nature, 30-32) .

In Nature, 30-216, a correspondent writes that, upon June 22, 1884, at Fletching, Sussex, southwest of Colchester, there was intense darkness, and that rain then brought down flakes of soot in such abundance that it seemed to be "snowing black." This was several months after the shock at Colchester, but my datum for thinking that another explosion, or disturbance of some kind, had occurred in the same local sky, is that, as reported by the inmates of one house, a slight shock was felt, upon the 24th of June, at Colchester, showing that the phenomena were continuing. See Roper's List of Earthquakes.

Nov. 2, 1893 - At 5:45 P.M., Nov. 2, 1893, a loud sound was heard at a place ten miles northeast of Worcester, and no shock was felt (Nature, 49-245); however at Worcester and in various parts of the west of England and in Wales a shock was felt.

Jan. 25, 1894 - According to James G. Wood, writing in Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8, at 9:30 P.M., Jan. 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than 20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something else occurred: according to Denning (Nature, 49-325) it was in several places, near Hereford and Worcester, supposed to be an earthquake. But, at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8) was seen the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.

 Feb. 10, 1896, a tremendous explosion occurred in the sky of Madrid: throughout the city windows were smashed; a wall in the building occupied by the American Legation was thrown down. The people of Madrid rushed to the streets, and there was a panic in which many were injured. For five hours and a half a luminous cloud of débris hung over Madrid, and stones fell from the sky.

Dec. 17, 1896 - In the English Mechanic, 74-155, David Packer calls attention to "a strange meteoric light" that was seen in the sky, at Worcester, during the quake of Dec. 17, 1896. I should say that this was the severest shock felt in the British Isles, in the 19th century, with the exception of the shock of April 22, 1884, in the eastern point of the London Triangle. There was something in the sky. In Nature, 55-179, J. Lloyd Bozward writes that, at Worcester, a great light was seen in the sky, at the time of the shock, and that, in another town, "a great blaze" had been seen in the sky. In Symons’ Met. Mag., 31-180, are recorded many observations upon lights that were seen in the sky. In an appendix to his book, The Hereford Earthquake of 1896, Dr. Charles Davison says that at the time of the quake (5:30 A.M.) there was a luminous object in the sky, and that it "traversed a large part of the disturbed area."  Shocks had been felt before midnight, December 17, and at 1:30 or 1:45, 2, 3, 3:30, 4, 5, and 5:20, and then others at 5:40 or 5:45 and at 6:15 o'clock.
The phenomena associate with an opposition of Mars. Dec. 10, 1896—opposition of Mars.