Odds and ends:
COMRIE SCOTLAND SKYQUAKES
From October 1839 until October 1841, nearly 250 unexplainable blasting sounds shook the skies above Comrie, Scotland. Occasionally the earth shook along with them. During a particularly strong earth tremor, a local minister named Walker reported that the sky was "peculiarly strange and alarming, and appeared as if hung with sackcloth." A dark substance fell from the sky, covering clothes, which had been set out on the grass, with a fine black powder.
Reverberations in the area varied in degree from severe to slight. The noises were described as artillery or cannon fire, and for the most part they seemed to originate in the air. Occasionally, though, rumbles from the earth could be heard. A minister living ten miles away from Comrie declared that the extreme shocks were preceded by a loud rattling noise from the sky. The sound could be heard up to forty miles away. During the two-year period, a discolored rain came down in addition to the frequent fall of black powder. At Crieff, several miles from Comrie, came a report of more substantial debris.
The mysterious booms were first noted in 1597 and intermittently after. Black powder falling was noted in 1788. In 1816, a resident of the area observed "a large luminous body, bent like a crescent, which stretched itself over the heavens." In 1830, a large stone fell at Perth, twenty-two miles away. In 1855, a Professor Shepard investigated a claim coming from the home of Sir William Murray. A young woman living there had witnessed a luminous object fall to earth. When she picked up a fragment, she immediately dropped it due to its heat. Twelve of the fragments fell in all, and all emitted a sulfurous odor. Scientists scoffed at the lump of slag because it was not considered what they called "true meteoric material."
Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009
