It is said, in the Scientific American, that according to the Warrentown (Va.) Solid South, a number of persons had seen white-robed figures in the sky, at night. The story in the Richmond Dispatch is that many persons had seen, or had thought they had seen, an alarming sight in the sky, at night: a vast number of armed, uniformed soldiers drilling. Then a dispatch from Wilmington, Delaware — platoons of angels marching and countermarching in the sky, their white robes and helmets gleaming. Similar accounts came from Laurel and Talbot. Several persons said they had seen, in the sky, the figure of President Garfield, who had died not long before. Our general acceptance is that all reports upon such phenomena are colored in terms of appearances and subjects uppermost in minds.
L’Astronomie, 1888-392:
That, about the first of August, 1888, near Warasdin, Hungary, several divisions of infantry, led by a chief, who waved a flaming sword, had been seen in the sky, three consecutive days, marching several hours a day. The writer in L’Astronomie says that in vain does one try to explain that this appearance was a mirage of terrestrial soldiers marching at a distance from Warasdin, because widespread publicity and investigation had disclosed no such soldiers. Even if there had been terrestrial soldiers near Warasdin repeating mirages localized would call for explanation.
(Aus “New Lands“, 1923)
