“Modern day instances of fire ‘from the sky’.

Now, let’s read some eye-witness accounts of the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871 that coincided with the Great Chicago Fire. The passages are taken from another article by Laura Knight- Jadczyk, Comet Biela and Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. The author details how the series of devastating fires, including “fire tornadoes” were caused by the disintegration products and outgassing of comet Biela, some of the damage was caused by unexplained electric phenomena, it seems that some people and objects were affected by what appeared to be

237 Time line of the Hundred Year’s War, http://www.maisonstclaire.org 81

“radiation influx” from the sky. some details of description sound as if some objects on the ground were ‘microwaved’. Metals melting, while fabrics remained intact in the same spot. Here are some eye-witness reports:

“A spectator of the terrible scene says the fire did not come upon them gradually from burning trees and other objects to the windward, but the first notice they had of it was a whirlwind of flame in great clouds from above the tops of the trees, which fell upon and entirely enveloped everything. The poor people inhaled it, or the intensely hot air, and fell down dead. This is verified by the appearance of many of the corpses. They were found dead in the roads and open spaces, where there were no visible marks of fire near by, with not a trace of burning upon their bodies or clothing. At the Sugar Bush, which is an extended clearing, in some places four miles in width, corpses were found in the open road, between fences only slightly burned. No mark of fire was upon them;; they lay there as if asleep. This phenomenon seems to explain the fact that so many were killed in compact masses. They seemed to have huddled together, in what were evidently regarded at the moment the safest places, far away from buildings, trees, or other inflammable material, and there to have died together.”238

“Much has been said of the intense heat of the fires which destroyed Peshtigo, Menekaune, Williamsonville, etc., but all that has been said can give the stranger but a faint conception of the reality. The heat has been compared to that engendered by a flame concentrated on an object by a blow-pipe;; but even that would not account for some of the phenomena. For instance, we have in our possession a copper cent taken from the pocket of a dead man in the Peshtigo Sugar Bush, which will illustrate our point. This cent has been partially fused, but still retains its round form, and the inscription upon it is legible. Others, in the same pocket, were partially melted, and yet the clothing and the body of the man were not even singed. We do not know in what way to account for this, unless, as is asserted by some, the tornado and fire were accompanied by electrical phenomena”.239

“The intensity of the heat may be judged, and the thorough combustion of everything wooden may be understood, when we state that in the yard of one of the large agricultural-implement factories was stacked some hundreds of tons of pig-iron. This iron was two hundred feet from any building. To the south of it was the river, one hundred and fifty feet wide. No large building but the factory was in the immediate vicinity of the fire. Yet, so great was the heat, that this pile of iron melted and run, and is now in one large and nearly solid mass”.240