UFOs: 1921/2
"the meteor that wasn't" ?
On December 29, 1921, an excited reader in Mandeville wrote to the Gleaner about a 'most wonderful astronomical sight'.
It is intriguing, in the context, that the correspondent uses the initials 'E.S.P.' These initials, standing for Extra-Sensory Perception, had been in use from the late 19th century.
A response, suggesting a possible explanation of what had been seen, was printed on January 3, 1922:
On January 5, 1922, the original writer accepted that the 'meteor' was a fire balloon:
A few days later another writer from Mandeville said that the fire balloon was set off at a Catholic Garden Party held at the 'Barracks Grounds' on Boxing Day. The letter is mostly illegible, and I have so far not found any reference to that Garden Party. Still it seems fairly clear that the UFO was a fire balloon. The question then is - what was this fire balloon tradition that seems to have existed in Jamaica from perhaps the 1880s at least into the 1930s?
lights in the sky
