Chapter 1 Puzzled by both the learned and the unlearned boom!boom! The two opponents fired almost simultaneously.Fifty meters away, a passing cow got a vain shot in the back.It has nothing to do with things. Neither opponent hit the other. Who are these two dueling gentlemen?have no idea.If they knew, maybe their names would be handed down to future generations.All that was known was that the older of them was British and the younger was American.However, if it was necessary to mark the spot where the innocent ruminant had just eaten the last tuft of grass, it would be easy, on the right bank of Nicaragua Falls, not far from the suspension bridge between the United States and Canada, three miles downstream from the falls. Miles (Note: One mile ∥ 1.609 kilometers.) Place.

The Englishman walked up to the American and said: I still think it's Reign of Great Britain (Note: British song.). No!It's "Yankee Doodle" (Note: American pop song.)!The other side retorted. Seeing that another quarrel was about to break out, a witness to the duel, perhaps for the safety of the animals, interrupted: Even if it's "The Song of the Ruler" and "The Great British Yankee", let's eat our lunch. This mixing of the titles of American and British songs was unanimously accepted.So the Americans and the British returned to the left bank of Nicaragua Falls, to Goat Island located in the neutral zone between the two waterfalls It belongs to the United States and is called American Falls.) to a restaurant on the river to have lunch.The traditional boiled eggs, ham, and cold roast beef seasoned with delicious sauerkraut have been laid out in front of them.Fragrant teas were also placed on their tables one by one. The rich fragrance of the fragrant teas would even envy the world-famous Niagara Falls.That being the case, let's not bother them.Besides, the possibility of talking about them in this story is also very slim.

Is the Englishman right, or the American right?Hard to say.In any case, the duel showed that people in the New World as well as in the Old World were fascinated by that elusive phenomenon.It's been almost a month now, and it's been driving everyone's minds up, as Ovid put it in the praise of mankind: He raised his face and looked up at the sky.Yes, perhaps not since the dawn of man on earth has man surveyed the sky so closely. The night before there had indeed been a brass horn playing over the Canadian land between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.Those who heard it said it was either "Yankee Doodle" or "Great Britain."The previous Anglo︱Saxon (Note) quarrel was caused by this.Maybe it wasn't either of those patriotic songs at all, but no one doubted the anomaly of the strange sound: how did it seem to come down from heaven?

(Note) Anglo and Saxon are two tribal groups among the ancient Germanic peoples, which combined to become the Anglo|Saxons during the 7th and 10th centuries.In modern times, it is often used to refer to the English, Scots and their immigrants in North America, Australia, South Africa and other places. Is some cherub or archangel blowing a trumpet from heaven?Could it be some merry balloonist playing that sonorous instrument so loudly blown by the goddess of fame? Bar? impossible!There were neither balloons nor balloonists in the sky at that time.What appeared under the firmament was a singular phenomenon, the nature of which was neither understood nor its source.Today it appeared over the Americas, forty-eight hours later it flew over Europe, and eight days later, it flew over Asia and over the Chinese Celestial Empire.What is this brass trumpet that blows wherever it goes, if it is not the trumpet of the Last Judgment Day?

All nations on earth, whether kingdoms or republics, are disturbed to some degree by this.It has become very important to put everyone's mind at ease as soon as possible.If you heard some strange and unexplained noises in your own home, wouldn't you immediately try to find out why?If you can't find out the reason, won't you leave this house of yours and move to another house?Yes, for sure!But now this house is the earth on which we live, and there is no way for us to leave it and move to the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, or any other planet in the solar system.So it's just a matter of finding out what's going on, which of course means what's happening in the atmosphere, not what's happening in the vastness of space where there's no air, because without air, there's no sound.Since there is a sound (the same brass horn!), it means that this phenomenon occurs in the atmosphere; the higher the altitude, the lower the density of the atmosphere, which does not cover the surface of the earth more than two miles thick (note: the former French A unit of length, one fare is about four kilometers.).

Thousands of newspapers and periodicals immediately grasped this issue, and this issue immediately became the focus of many newspapers and periodicals. They discussed it from different aspects, or clarified some facts, but this made people more confused.Reporting news, true or false, intimidating or comforting their respective readers.In this way, they both widen the circulation and enthral the already captivated people even more.The result has been political failure but satisfactory business.What exactly is going on? Overwhelmed, people turned to all the observatories in the world for advice.If the observatory can't explain it, what's the use of it?What is the use of astronomers who can divide a planet even at a distance of a hundred trillion leagues into two or three parts, if they cannot tell what causes cosmic phenomena within a few kilometers?

So, on these beautiful summer nights, countless sticks of all kinds, big, small, and monocular.The binoculars are all aimed at the sky, how many eyes are stuck behind the eyepieces of these telescopes of different strengths and specifications?It is impossible to estimate.There are hundreds of thousands to say the least.There are probably ten times, or even twenty times more stars seen in the sky than with the naked eye. Such a spectacle has never been seen before, perhaps even when a solar or lunar eclipse is observed at the same time from all places on the earth. Many observatories have responded, but all are very simple and vary.Thus began the civil war in academia in the last weeks of April and the first weeks of May.

The attitude of the Paris Observatory was very cautious, and all its departments did not express their opinions.They frankly admitted that the mathematical astronomy room did not bother to observe at all, the meridian observation room found nothing, the physical observation room saw nothing, the geodesy room saw nothing, the meteorological room saw nothing, and the calculation room saw nothing. saw nothing.The Montsouris Observatory and the Saint-Maur Geomagnetic Station are equally frank.The Bureau of Longitude has the same respect for truth.Not to mention, the French are frank (Note: In French, French (Francais) and frank (franc) have the same root.).

The attitude of the provinces is more positive.Perhaps in the night sky on May 6th and 7th, there was indeed a bright light generated by electricity that lasted no more than 20 seconds.Similar bright lights also appeared on the southern peak between 9:00pm︱10:00pm; between 1:00am︱2:00am.De.This kind of light has been seen by the Meteorological Observatory of Dome; at two to three o'clock in the morning, this kind of light has been observed on the Vendou Peak in Provence; when this kind of light appeared in Nice, it was already three or four in the morning; In the Lenoir/Alps, between Boom and Lake Leman, this light is only seen when the sky turns white at dawn.

Obviously, one cannot deny all these observations.It is certain that in this short period of several hours, different platforms must have observed this kind of bright light one after another.This may be emitted by several light sources passing through the Earth's atmosphere.If it is the same light source, this light source must be able to move at a speed of nearly two hundred kilometers per hour. So, is there anything out of the ordinary that no one has seen in the sky during the day? there has never been. Someone must have heard the sound of the horn through the atmosphere, right? From early morning to evening, the brass trumpet never sounded at all.

In the United Kingdom, opinions are divided.There is no consensus among observatories.While the Greenwich and Oxford Observatories agree that there is nothing, their views are vastly different. One said: This must have been caused by a visual error. Another said: That must have been caused by a hearing error. So they started arguing again and again.Either way, it must be an illusion. The dispute between the Berlin Observatory and the Vienna Observatory came close to complicating their relationship.Russia, through the director of the Berkova Observatory, proved to them that both sides were right; the difference in judgments on the nature of this phenomenon was entirely due to the differences in opinions of each person.What is impossible in theory may happen in practice. Observations in Appenzell, Sautis Observatory, Rigi Plateau, Gabrisch District, Observatory St. Gozel, Observatory St. Bernard, Observatory Rellier, Observatory Sampron, Zurich in Appenzell, Switzerland It is undoubtedly advisable for the Observatory, the Tyrol, and the Somblik Observatory in the Alps to reserve their own views on this phenomenon that everyone cannot verify. But observers at the Vesuvius weather station in Italy, the Etna Observatory at the former Casa Ingles, and Monte Cavo did not hesitate to conclude that it was a physical phenomenon, since they had One day it was seen as a swirl of gas, and another night it looked like a shooting star.As for what it was, they had no idea. In fact, scientists have begun to tire of this mysterious thing, but those humble and ignorant people are still obsessed and feared by it.According to the wisest laws of nature, such persons, whether past, present, or future, will constitute the great majority of the world.If it hadn't been for the night of the 26th and 27th at the Kontorkeno Observatory in Finnmark, Norway, and the night of the 28th and 29th at Isfjord in Spitsbergen The observatories, the Norwegians and the Swedes, both confirmed that, in the northern lights, there had been an aerial monster like a giant bird, and astronomers and meteorologists had long since needn't worry about it.Although its structure was difficult to determine at that time, at least one thing is indisputable: it once ejected many particles like a bomb explosion. In Europe, people are more than happy to believe the observations from Finnmark and Spitsbergen observatories.However, the fact that the Swedes and the Norwegians were able to reach a consensus on such an ordinary issue is the most extraordinary thing about this matter. In South America, from Brazil, Peru to La Plata; in Australia, from Sydney, Adelaide to Melbourne, all the observatories, especially the Australians, are laughing at this so-called discovery. All in all, only one director of the Meteorological Office is positive about this question, despite all the sarcasm that an answer to it might invite.This is a Chinese, the director of Xujiahui Observatory.This observatory was established on a plain less than ten leagues from the sea, where the view is wide and the air is pure. He said: What everyone is talking about is probably just an aircraft, a flying machine. This is simply a joke! If the debates in the Old World were raging enough, it is not difficult to imagine the situation in the New World, which has the largest area in the United States. Everyone knows that Americans have always been straightforward in doing things, going all the way to the end and reaching the goal.Therefore, all the observatories in the United States expressed their opinions to each other without hesitation.The reason they didn't throw binoculars at each other's heads was because they were afraid they would have to find new binoculars when they needed one. The Washington Observatory in the District of Columbia, the Cambridge Observatory in Massachusetts, the Dartmouth University Observatory in Connecticut, and the Ang.The Arbor Observatory debated this issue very fiercely, at a stalemate.The issue they disputed was not the nature of the object being observed, but the precise time when that object was observed.Although the trajectory of this mysterious moving object was not high above the horizon, they all believed that they saw it on the same night, at the same time, at the same minute, and at the same second.With such distances from Connecticut to Michigan, and from Massachusetts to the District of Columbia, simultaneous observations of the object from both locations seemed impossible. Dudley of Albany, New York, and West Point of West Point.Buente published a record of the object's latitude and longitude coordinates, thereby negating the opinion of their colleagues. It was later discovered that these observers were mistaken. What they saw was an asteroid passing through the middle atmosphere, and it could not be the flying object everyone was talking about.And, how could an asteroid blow its horn? As for the horn, it would be a waste of effort to insist that the loud and clear sound of the horn heard with one's own ears was an illusion of hearing.In this case the ear is not necessarily more error-prone than the eye.People must have seen it and heard it.On the dark night of the 12th︱13th, observers at the Yale campus of the Sheffield University of Technology wrote down a short sentence of the music, in R major, four beats, every note and every beat are in harmony with "Expedition" "Song" (Note: A famous French patriotic song.) is exactly the same. Hurrah!The jokers said, what band in France is playing in the air? Just making a joke doesn't mean the question has an answer.So says the Boston Observatory, founded by the Atlantic Steel Company.In academia, the observatory's views on astronomy and meteorology have come to gain weight. Also speaking at this time was the Cincinnati Observatory.This observatory is located on Mount Lucourt and was established in 1870 by Mr. Kigur's generous donation. It is famous for its double-star micrometry technology.Its director solemnly declared that it must be a certain object, a certain moving body, which appeared in different places in the atmosphere within a relatively close time, but the nature, volume, speed, and orbit of this moving object cannot be determined for the time being. Just then, the New York Herald, a newspaper with a huge circulation, received a letter from an anonymous reader: It should be recalled that a few years ago, in southern Oregon, La Began.De.The battle between the two heirs of Lagrenara, the French doctor Saran from Franceville and the German engineer Mr. Schulz from Stallerstadt. No one will ever forget the dreadful missile that Mr. Schultz fired to destroy Franceville.Once this missile hits, this Faqing city will definitely be razed to the ground. It will be recalled that, owing to the uncalculated initial velocity of the missile when it came out of the muzzle of the gigantic cannon, it flew out at a speed sixteen times higher than that of ordinary shells; So much so that it could not fall back to the ground and became a satellite orbiting the earth endlessly. Why is the object everyone is talking about not the objectively existing missile? What a clever reader of the New York Herald!So what's up with the brass?Mr. Schultz doesn't have brass horns on his missiles! So, all these explanations explain nothing, all these observers are inaccurate. The hypothesis of the Director of Xujiahui Observatory has not been denied.But this is a Chinese point of view! Don't think that the public in both the old and new continents are tired of talking about it.No!The debate became more and more heated, and it was impossible to reach a consensus at all.However, there have been periods of lull during this period.After a few days, the object, whether it was a shooting star or something else, was never heard of or heard of the trumpet sounding in the sky.Could it have fallen somewhere on earth where it would be hard to find, say into the ocean?So is it lying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, or on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean?what is going on? However, from June 2 to 9, a series of new situations have appeared one after another, and it is absolutely untenable to explain that this is a cosmic phenomenon. In eight days, on the spire of St. Michael's Tower in Hamburg, on the tallest spire of St. Sophie Mosque in Turkey, on the metal top of the bell tower of Rouen Cathedral, at the end of the Munster Valley in Strasbourg, in the United States On the head of the Statue of Liberty at the mouth of the Hudson River and on the Washington Monument in Boston, on the roof of the Five Hundred Arhats Hall in Guangzhou for the Chinese, on the seventeenth floor tower of the Danshuer Temple for the Indians, and on the cross of St. Peter's Church in Rome, On the cross of St. Paul's Church in London, England, on the sharp corner of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, on the lightning rod of the 300-meter-long iron tower (Note: the Eiffel Tower) built during the Paris Exposition in 1889, There is a flag waving at the top of all these inaccessible summits. The banner was made of a black tulle, decorated with stars, and in the center was a golden sun.