A Strange Sight.
[excerpt]
PARIS, Tex., June 15. Buckhorn, a full-blood Cherokee Indian who lives near Tahlequah, who has the reputation of a man of veracity, relates the following as a fact, which was witnessed by himself and six others:
On last Saturday night [June 4] we had a little dance at a neighbor's house, and on Sunday morning as we started home myself and five others we saw in the west a yellow cloud rise, having all the appearance of a thunder head. This cloud had an apparently tumbling motion. When the cloud got nearly overhead one of the boys said: "Look at that strange sight in the heavens." We looked up and saw a wonderful sight indeed. By this time the front edge of the cloud had passed the zenith moving north, and directly in the rear of the front edge there were eight brilliant stars or meteors moving in the same direction in which the storm cloud was moving. There were two rows of these meteors and four stars or meteors in a row, making eight meteors in a row. These meteors moved along slowly, and at regular intervals would appear to quickly revolve or tumble, and at the moment of the tumbling motion brilliant flashes of yellow light would emit from them. By the time we had got about 250 yards away these eight meteors had disappeared toward the northeast. Then two others were seen near the earth, apparently a little above the tree tops. One of these last named meteors seemed to be coming straight toward us. These eight meteors, together with the two in the rear, moved apparently about two feet and then quickly tumbled and emptied flashes of brilliant yellow light. This occurred on the morning of June 5, 1892, about 6 o'clock. Starr Crittenden, one of Buckhorn's crowd who saw this phenomenon, confirms the statement with this addition, however, that the meteors were seen through a black cloud that moved in front of the yellow cloud. He also says that there were eight of these stars and that they threw out flashes of brilliant yellow light. One of the eight persons who saw this sight was Mrs. Pumpkin, who saw it from her home near by.