[CNI News thanks Kenny Young of T.A.S.K. for the following unusual account from the archives of The Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, dated October 30, 1865. The story evidently originated in the St. Louis Democrat on October 19 of that year. Kenny says he heard of the story from an unidentified gentleman he happened to meet while working a UFO exhibit booth at the Cincinnati Convention Center. He said the man gave him the precise location of the story (newspaper, date and page), but he has no idea why the man knew of this obscure information. In any case, the 1865 report is fascinating, though unverifiable.]
"A Messenger from the Celestial Regions -- A Stone Falls to the Ground with Characters Engraved Upon It"
Mr. James Lumley, an old Rocky Mountain trapper, who has been stopping at the Everett House [apparently in St. Louis] 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 a 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 described it, the bursting of a skyrocket in the air. A few minutes later he heard a heavy explosion, which jarred the earth very preceptibly, and this was shortly after followed by a rumbling 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 a liquid. He is confident that the hieroglyphics were the work of human hands, and that the stone itself, although but a 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 was 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 Colonel Bonneville. At Leavenworth, it was seen to separate in particles or explode.
[Note: A fairly specific location is given for this alleged large meteorite. Both scientists and commercial meteorite hunters would undoubtedly consider this a valuable find (even without unusual markings); thus there may be some historical record of it after 1865. If you know of any information bearing on this story, please forward it to CNI News.]
Original file name: CNI - 1865 UFO Report
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