The Eldritch Fireball of Candelaria (Part 1)

From the Nevada State Journal, February 6, 1894, “Last Thursday night the people of Candelaria were startled by a dazzling flash of light….The explosion was followed for three or four minutes by a terrible ripping and hissing noise and the afrighted people expected to see the very sky with its bright stars come down on their heads.”

The explosive boom brought the whole town outside and with it, talk of who saw it and what was its cause. At first the people though one of the mining companies powder bunkers had gone up, but that wasn’t the case.

As it disintegrated in earths upper atmosphere, it screamed a death knell of metallic thunder for three minutes, before skipping off the rocky crags of hillside to the south and east, disappeared beyond the horizon. Many said it might have come to rest in nearby Summit Springs others remained uncertain.

Three men volunteered to track it down and after a day and a half, riding and cutting sign, the trio rode up a small rise in the Nevada plain, where they could look down at Mud Lake. Not only was it the site of the impact, the water had become overly endowed with an unnaturally green-hued slime.

Comments

Leave a comment