Charles Fort & UFO's

Charles Fort's books challenge science and question our ideas of reality. Fort didn't invent the term "UFO", but he was certainly the first person to investigate and write about UFO's. Consider this UFO sighting, one of many reported in The Book of the Damned:

"In Nature, 37-187, and L'Astronomie; 1887-76, we are told that an object, described as 'a large ball of fire', was seen to rise from the sea, near Cape Race. We are told that it rose to a height of fifty feet, and then advanced close to the ship, then moving away, remaining visible about five minutes. The supposition in Nature is that it was 'ball lightning', but Flammarion, Thunder and Lightning, p. 68, says that it was enormous. Details in the American Meteorological Journal, 6-443--Nov. 12, 1887--British steamer Siberian--that the object had moved 'against the wind' before retreating--that Captain Moore said that at about the same place he had seen such appearances before."

What could this report be describing? Some type of meteorological or natural phenomenon? Was it ball lightning? A comet? An illusion or mirage perhaps? Fort recorded 1000's of sightings and other strange phenomena.

Read more about Charles Fort on the Wikipedia website.