AtDDtA1: "Sightings"

[Dave Monroe]

"'--'scuse me'--pausing to sneeze--'icicles o' snot down to our belt
buckles, goin all blue from the light of that electric fluid, 's
whirlpoolin round our heads--ahh-pffeugghh!'
   "'Oh, Gesundheit, Riley,' said Ziip, 'but last time you told that
one, it was strange voices and so forth--'
  "'We'd picked up a little galvanic halo oursleves by the time we got
here,' said Chick, 'what with the speed and all.'
   "'A-aw, that's nothin,' cried Riley, 'next to dodgin tornadoes all
day!  'You boys want real electricity, git on out to Oklahoma
sometime, get a treat for your ears into the bargain that will sure's
hell drownd out any strange voices in your neighborhood.'
   "'Speaking of voices,' said Penny, 'what have you heard about these
... 'sightings' that keep getting reported in?  Not just from crews up
in the air but sometimes even from civilians on the ground?'
   "'You mean aside from the usual,' Darby said, 'fata morgana,
northern lights, and so forth?'"
   "'Different,' Zip in a low, ominous voice,  'There's lights, but
there's sound, too.  Mostly in the upper altitudes, where it gets that
dark blue in the daytime?  Voices calling out together.  All
directions at once.  Like a school choir, only no tune, just these--'
   "'Warnings,' said Riley." (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 19)


"the light of that electric fluid"

§ 1. According to the well-known doctrine of Aepinus, commonly
referred to as the one-fluid theory of electricity, positive and
negative electrifications consist in excess above, and deficiency
below, a natural quantum of a fluid, called the electric fluid,
permeating among the atoms of ponderable matter. Portions of matter
void of the electric fluid repel one another; portions of the electric
fluid repel one another; portions of the electric fluid and of void
matter attract one another.

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/aepinus_atomized.html

It is easier to understand electricity if we regard electric charge as
a sort of fluid, like water, as scientists did for the first 200
years. Yes, it does consist of individual electrons, but those are so
small that any large charge behaves like a continuous fluid. In the
same way sand pours like a fluid, and water in a glass is usually
regarded as a fluid, even though it consists of individual molecules.

http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/welectrc.html


"galvanic halo"

Help!


"You boys want real electricity, git on out to Oklahoma"

"real electricity" = tornadoes?  Or ...?


"'sightings'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO#First_modern_reports

http://www.nwlink.com/~ufocntr/


"fata morgana, northern lights"

http://itotd.com/articles/583/the-fata-morgana-effect/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_%28mirage%29

http://www.northern-lights.no/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)


"Voices calling out together"

Cf. ...

"'Everybody who says the same words is the same person if the spectra
are the same only they happen differently in time, you dig?'" (Lot 49,
p. 116)

"'One of his many talents.'" (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 17)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114457