A strange bird over Copiapó

If you're moderately aware of the stories making news around the world, you are probably familiar with the name Copiapó.
It is the place where the recent global heart-arresting telenovela about 33 miners trapped - and then spectacularly rescued -in the copper mine of San Jose took place.

It turns out, however, that Copiapó had made headlines once before, more than 140 years ago.

On March 18th, 1868, the local newspaper El Constituyente published the contents of a letter received by the editors two days earlier.

It spoke of an unidentified flying object - at first thought to be a huge bird - that caused significant terror and consternation among those who saw it.

Incredibly, the letter was signed by the director of the local copper mine (even more incredibly called "Fantasma" - 'phantom', 'apparition'), for it was there that the "bird" appeared.

The letter claimed that the thing was witnessed, shortly after 18:00 in the evening, by the miners who had just finished their shift.

If you read Spanish, you're in luck.
Here is a very nice article about it, complete with an artistic rendition of the "bird" and facsimile of the article. (A facsimile of the letter would have been even nicer, but I doubt it still exists.)

El caso de Copiapó

And here is a brief description of it, published in the July 1868 issue of The Zoologist:

"A STRANGE BIRD"

Copiapo, Chile, April 1868:

"Yesterday, at about five o'clock in the afternoon when the daily labours in this mine were over, and all the workmen were together awaiting their supper, we saw coming through the air, from the side of The Ternera a gigantic bird, which at first sight we took for one of the clouds then partially darkening the atmosphere, supposing it to have been separated from the rest by the wind.

Its course was from north—west to south—east; its flight was rapid and in a straight line. As it was passing a short distance above our heads we could mark the strange formation of its body.

Its immense wings were clothed with something resembling the thick and stout bristles of a boar, while on its body, elongated like that of a serpent, we could only see brilliant scales which clashed together with metallic sound as the strange animal turned its body in its flight."

Very interesting, especially if you're into UFOs (whatever they are in each case).

I am not.
I have seen many strange things in the sky myself, and I wouldn't be surprised at all even if a massive "spaceship" appeared.
It's just that I do not dwell on this particular modern mystery.

Why am I writing about it, then - and in a blog dedicated to dimensional anomalies, to boot?

Because of an idle thought - and it really is no more than that - that occurred to me as I was reading the report about that 1868 vision at Copiapó.

Could it be that the miners of 1868 saw this?

A Chilean Army helicopter carrying the rescued miners to the hospital.

"its flight was rapid and in a straight line... On its body, elongated like that of a serpent, we could only see brilliant scales which clashed together with metallic sound as the strange animal turned its body in its flight."

P.S. You know the drill - no pun intended - so do come back in the near future to check for any edits.

The Other One

Bilocation is a phenomenon that has always fascinated me.
How can a person be seen at two (or, heavens forbid, more!) locations at the same time?

Some explain it with "astral travel".
But this explanation does not make sense when the "original" is fully awake and conscious and engaged in perfectly mundane activities at the time.

Is it a matter of perception?
Clearly.
But clearly there is something for the others to perceive.
There have been numerous cases where there were plenty of witnesses attesting the vision of a person who was known - and also witnessed by others - to be at a different location at the time.

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the famous and controversial Capuchin monk, is just one such example.
And of course, there are many stories regarding the weird phenomenon of the Doppelgänger.

One of the most famous such cases is the story of Emélie (often spelled Emilie) Sagée, the French-born school teacher from Livonia (an ancient land, today divided between Latvia and Estonia), whose strange case was described by Robert Dale Owen in the first edition of his book Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1860).

The events supposedly took place in 1845 - 1846, at a boarding school called Neuwelcke (or perhaps situated in a place of that name), around "a mile and a half from Wolmar" (Valmiera, in Latvian).

Here's a short version of the account, copied verbatim (and gratefully) from here:

Most of her students in 1846 and 1846 often witnessed Sagee’s doppelganger. The double would often mimic the young woman’s movements, be very active while Sagee remained motionless, and appear healthy during times that Sagee was known to be ill.

One time, all the students in the school saw Emilie Sagee working in the school’s gardens at the same time that they could see her sitting in a chair in the room with them! When two of the more courageous students attempted to interact with the image in the chair, they discovered an “odd resistance in the air surrounding it.”
Ms. Sagee never did see her own double.

She didn't, but she did feel increasingly faint - or so the story goes.
And it is an interesting story. Dale Owen heard it from Julie von Guldenstubbé, the second daughter of the then famous Baron von Guldenstubbé (more about him below), who was one of Sagée's pupils and purportedly had witnessed the phenomenon herself.

The ruins of a castle in Valmiera (Wolmar, in German)*
Borrowed from this lovely website.

If you're interested in this topic, you were probably familiar with this story.
But you may not have read the original account of it.

Well, now you can.
Here it is, free of charge, thanks to the Internet Archive.

Why a Livonian school-teacher lost her situation

(yes, she was kicked out, on top of everything)

I find this book particularly valuable because it includes the author's tentative explanations and thoughts about such spacetime - or perception? - anomalies.

So, make sure you read the entire book, when you can, not just this story.
(And notice the quality of the language, of sheer literacy, compared to today's books on the subject - not to mention internet postings on various forums.)

However, after perusing the various editions of the book (there were eight of them, I believe, from 1860 to 1891), there is an interesting question lingering in my mind: why is this story to be found in the first edition only?

There is no answer implicit in this question.
I have no idea.

I have no doubts about Mr. Dale Owen's personal integrity - judging by his writing, he strikes me as an intellectually honest man - yet I cannot help but think, was perhaps his witness found to be less than reliable?

The Guldenstubbés were an interesting lot. The Baron himself was an eminent "spiritist", a passionate adherent of spirit-summoning and "direct writing", which was quite in vogue at the time. (You can read about his vision of a "ghost in the tower" here.)

Surely Dale Owen was not only aware of this - it is probably why he got in contact with him and his daughter in the first place - but clearly thought there was good reason to consider the Baron's daughter a reliable witness.
(A thought occurred to me while reading about the Guldenstubbés: is it possible that it was Miss Julie only who saw the teacher's "double" and the other girls thought they did, too?
This sort of contagion is by no means as extraordinary as it may sound.
However, it was just a thought. If you read the story carefully, it seems clear that there was more to it than mere "contagion".)

Or was something else amiss?

We may never know.
But it doesn't really matter, because the question here is: can such things be?
And there have been simply too many well documented cases to dismiss their existence.

For a tentative explanation I'll refer you to a section in the same Dale Owen's book, "The Counterpart Appears Where the Thoughts or the Affections Are?" (p. 857/858, immediately following the account of Emélie Sagée).

As for Padre Pio, according to the website above, "the closest he ever came to an explanation of bilocation was to say that it occurred 'by an extension of his personality'."


You'll find many other similar accounts in the book.
But if you prefer visual information, then skip the various video sites, overflowing with spurious material, and aim straight for art: rent Krzystof Kiewslowski's unforgettable film The Double Life of Veronique - and enjoy.



* This structure has nothing whatsoever to do with the story itself, but it is such an evocative photo (oh, those clouds!) that I just had to include it.
I did try to locate the erstwhile "Pensionat Neuwelcke", but all to no avail. All I found out was that "Neuwelcke" would be Melbarži, in Latvian. There are at least two of those, and none of them is "a mile and a half from Wolmar".