>>4807210(start of part 2) He suspected that other pilots may have had similar experiences, but like him were reluctant to tell their stories for fear of being laughed at by their colleagues.
Well, a story told by one unnamed aviator to another does not carry much scientific weight. What makes this one particularly interesting is that it seems to have been anticipated a few years earlier by none other than the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle's fictional story "The Horror Of The Heights" was published in the popular weekly magazine The Strand, in its November 1913 issue. Though told with Doyle's usual vivid touches and convincing detail, it makes no pretensions to be anything other than an exciting piece of science fiction. It is a typical example of the speculative writing with which H. G. Wells and others were thrilling the reading public.
The story tells of an aviator who is determined to explore the upper atmosphere in his flimsy monoplane, a machine pretty much like the plane in which Louis Bleriot had crossed the Channel only 4 years earlier. Flying at about 12,000 metres (40,000 ft) the hero encounters
the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen..... Conceive a jellyfish such as sails in our summer seas - far larger than the dome of St Paul's cathedral. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green: from it there descended two long drooping tentacles.....
It becomes clear that these are living creatures that are inhabiting the upper atmosphere. Beautiful they may be, but they are also dangerous. They resent the intruder from Earth's surface, who barely manages to escape their evidently hostile manoeuvres.
Despite their hostility, however, he is determined to continue his explorations. Leaving behind the record of his first encounter - which provides the basis for Doyle's story - he sets off again, but this time he is never seen again. (end of part 2)
