Monday, September 11, 2006

Hattie Has a Patriotic Vision

This report comes from the Daily Kennebec Journal of Apr. 17, 1918.
Mrs. Hattie Blake of South Brooksville saw a strange sight on Friday evening about 10 o'clock, when on looking out of the window at her home she noticed the sky looked very dark in the northwest, but looking out of another window saw it was a clear, starlit sky. It struck her as very odd and she returned to the other window again, looking more intently she saw in the blackest part of the sky a sort of smoky cloud which seemed to roll away and leave clear and plain to her vision the American flag. Mrs. Blake says she doesn't know what drew her almost forcibly to the window, and being alone, the other members of her family having retired, there was no one else to witness what she had seen, the flag disappearing with a waving motion as quickly as it had come. Mrs. Blake is desirous to know if anyone else chanced to see this striking sight, which seemed to appear to her as a promise of success in our great war for humanity.

2 comments:

downeast misanthrope said...

Aurora Borealis? All she'd have to see are the ribbons of light that produces, her imagination would fill in the rest.

It's very interesting, though, to read the details of this 'vision'-- in today's day & age, the virgin mary has a monopoly on weird visitations (grilled cheese, turtle shells, tree bark, etc). Ah, to live in simpler times, when secular patriotism could elicit a supernatural experience in us.

Chris said...

Aurora Borealis would be my guess. Auroras are supposed to occur frequently in March and April, would appear in the northern sky, and red, white and blue are plausible colors.

1918 seems also to have been a good year for the phenomenon. Auroras were seen on March 7 as far south as Tampa and San Antonio [Source (pdf)].