Richard J. Goodrich - Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halleys Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization

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Copyright 2023 by Richard J. Goodrich

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Goodrich, Richard J., 1962 author.

Title: Comet madness : how the 1910 return of Halleys comet (almost) destroyed civilization / Richard J. Goodrich.

Other titles: How the 1910 return of Halleys comet (almost) destroyed civilization

Description: Lanham : Prometheus, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: In Comet Madness, author and historian Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halleys Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception. The result is a fascinating and illuminating narrative history that underscores how we behave in the face of potential calamity - then and now Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022024437 (print) | LCCN 2022024438 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633888562 (cloth) | ISBN 9781633888579 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Halleys cometHistory.

Classification: LCC QB723.H2 G66 2023 (print) | LCC QB723.H2 (ebook) | DDC 523.6/42dc23/eng/20220606

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022024437

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022024438

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Mary, forever.

And for Richard Lillis Goodrich, 19382022.

Eight things a comet always brings

Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings

War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Dire Things.

OLD GERMAN RHYME

Nothing can be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

COMET MADNESS IS BASED UPON NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINE ARTICLES, AND books written in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The authors of these works were not always concerned about accurate spelling or grammar. Believing that quotations littered with sics are tedious for the reader, I have taken the liberty of correcting spelling errors and smoothing the syntax of quotations drawn from the primary sources. I have been extremely careful to ensure that my light emendations have left the sense of the quotations untouched. Occasionally, when I felt a quotation should appear in all of its ungrammatical glory, I have deployed sic to signal a deviation from twenty-first century usage.

THE POSSE RACED SOUTH FROM THE TINY TOWN OF ALINE, OKLAHOMA. Seven horses galloped beneath the frosty stars, their hooves pulverizing the sunbaked soil. The animals slowed to ford the Cimarron River and then, with Alfalfa County Sheriff Hughes in the lead, resumed their frantic dash. Ahead, the soft edges of the Gloss Mountains eclipsed the low-hanging stars.

The riders turned into a dry canyon. Hughes waved his men forward, urged his horse to a final burst of speed. Figures circled a bonfire. Forty peoplemen, women, children, members of the Select Followershad gathered in this lonely spot. Their leader, Henry Heinman, clutched a long butchers knife. The steel blade reflected firelight, an orange spike in his right hand.

That morning, Heinman had revealed Gods final message to his followers: the world would end when Halleys tail touched the planet. The heavens and earth would roll up like a scroll. All life would be destroyedunless...

Unless, imitating the rites premodern communities once employed to appease malevolent deities, Heinman and the faithful offered a propitiatory sacrifice to avert Gods wrath. The Select Followers cast lots; God chose sixteen-year-old Jane Warfield, a maiden of Aline.

And there she stood, centered among the dancers. A flowing white gown hung from her shoulders; white roses wreathed her head. A length of rough hemp rope secured her wrists behind her back, encouraging constancy.

She raised her chin. Heinman gripped the knife and stepped forward.

Stop them, shouted Sheriff Hughes, touching spurs to his winded horses sides.

And above the clearing, silver against the blackened sky, Halleys Comet hung like a Paleolithic flint blade set against humanitys throat.

What a difference seventy-five years can make in the history of a nation.

In 1910, Halleys Comet, the most famous celestial object in this corner of the universe, returned to the inner solar system. An observer, riding on the comet and peering at our planet through a high-powered telescope, would have been startled by the remarkable scientific and technological advances that had occurred since the comets previous visit. In 1835, humans still employed technology that wouldnt have surprised a Roman; seventy-five years later, the world had grown unrecognizable.

The Wright brothers flew from Kitty Hawk; a transatlantic cable passed messages between the continents; electric bulbs lit the mansions of the wealthy; Henry Fords Model T automobile was displacing horsedrawn carriages on city streets. Theoretical science, which underpinned these technological marvels, had also advanced briskly: Gregor Mendel deduced the laws of genetics; Wilhelm Rntgen discovered X-rays; Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity. The worlds thinkers made stunning leaps and laid the foundation for the worldaltering advances of the twentieth century.

Yet, despite the astonishing pace of scientific discovery and the demonstrable benefit of technological innovation, it took surprisingly little to drive some Americans back to the fears and superstitions of a prescientific world. When astronomers announced that the earth would fly through the comets taila tail that contained deadly cyanogen gasmany people succumbed to terror. For thousands of years, civilizations had regarded the comet as a portent, an omen of approaching disaster. The sudden flaring of a comet in the heavens signified the deaths of kings, the overthrow of nations, earthquakes, famines, and floods. Perhaps the comet would strike the earth, shattering the solid rock underfoot and destroying our home planet. Was it not possible, argued some, that the comet presaged the return of Christ and the end of Gods flawed creation?

Comet madness.

Astronomers attempted to allay the growing fears; Halleys Comet was a regular visitor to the earths neighborhood, not a divine death sentence. Edmond Halley had demonstrated this two hundred years earlier. The comet had slipped past the earth many times without harming the planet. There was nothing to fear when the comet returned in 1910.

Many found these reassurances unconvincing. Despite seventy-five years of scientific progressor possibly because this rapid growth had produced alienation, disorientation, and marginalizationskeptics rejected the assurances of the astronomers. Advanced thought contended with deep-seated dread. The thin ice of modernity glazed the darker waters of primordial superstition.