It is a rare and sublime thing to find oneself in the totality of a solar eclipse. Day turns to night, stars and planets emerge from a formerly blue sky, and temperatures plummet. Words like “awe” and “amazement” might come to mind. But there’s another sensation that can lurk close behind these: terror.
Throughout history, solar eclipses have evoked not only wonder but also feelings of doom and fear. In 1831, a forthcoming eclipse caused a mild social panic in America. One newspaper reported that among the populace, there suddenly came “a kind of vague fear, of impending danger—a prophetic presentiment of some approaching catastrophe.” Some loudly predicted the end of the world was at hand. Such fears did not diminish in the face of astronomers’ assurances that what was coming was safe and natural.
Historically, humans have felt vulnerable in the face of major celestial events. The order and fixity of the universe gets wobbly. People project onto the skies their most primal fears.
When the daytime sky suddenly darkens, or when a mysterious comet careens across the heavens, a special kind of horror can creep out from the recesses of our brains. It is the existential dread of helplessness.
Comets have caused numerous waves of fear and panic, even in modern times. In 1910, the imminent arrival of Halley’s Comet caused a ruckus when a French astronomer was reported to have speculated that “cyanogen gas” from the penumbra of the comet might “snuff out all life on the planet.” Hucksters started selling anti-comet pills, gasmasks, and comet umbrellas to a gullible public.
Given this history, it’s no surprise that pop culture producers use comets and eclipses to ratchet up horror and drama.
Mark Twain, for one, took advantage.
In his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Twain’s time-traveling protagonist uses an eclipse to save himself and establish his superiority over the feudal world of sixth-century England. Inadvertently launched back thirteen centuries as result of massive head trauma, Hank Morgan finds a creative means of escaping a horrible fate. He’s captured by a local knight and sentenced to be burnt at the stake. But being an enterprising Yankee, he thinks fast.
Morgan knows something that the locals do not: He knows a total solar eclipse is coming.
The hero capitalizes on the event, warning the people that if he’s hurt, he will punish the land with calamity. Just before he’s to be executed, the moon begins to darken the sun. Twain captures the power of the eclipse in a few sharp sentences: “The rim of black spread slowly into the sun’s disk,” narrator tells us, “my heart beat higher and higher….my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.” Later: “It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky.”
As result of Morgan’s “power,” he installs himself as King Arthur’s right-hand man, and brings, among other things, firearms, bicycles, and the telegraph to the ancient world. The book is meant to be humorous, but it is actually quite dark. At the end, Morgan and his men literally blow up, drown, and electrocute thousands of opposing knights.
Another enduring classic uses an eclipse to great horrific effect. At the close of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the intrepid protagonist cascades some 30 million years into the future. Here he watches the earth die slowly, the planet’s rotation stopping, a dull slime coating the waters of a dead sea spread out before him. The sun, large in the sky and losing its heat, is suddenly crossed by the moon, or perhaps the planet Mercury. The sky blackens. “A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me.” He realizes it is time to return to his own age. His adventure is over.
Eclipses and comets are more than just natural events. We make them active players in the dramas of our daily existence. They can inspire philosophical speculations about the wonderment of the universe. But they can also inspire dread. These varied emotions need not be discrete; awe and terror are, after all, kissing cousins.
Twain, Wells, and the comet hucksters of 1910 realized that there’s power (and money) to be had in capitalizing on our all-too-human fears of cosmic calamity.
Next time an eclipse or comet comes into your life, understand that the tickle of dread you might experience has a long historical pedigree. It’s OK to be a tad fearful. You’re in good company.
References
Masur, L.P. (2001). 1831: Year of Eclipse. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
Twain, M. (1889). A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. New York, NY: Charles L. Webster and Company.
Wells, H. G. (2005). The Time Machine. London: Penguin.
Horrors from Above: Eclipses, Comets, and Human Dread
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01.05.2024
It is a rare and sublime thing to find oneself in the totality of a solar eclipse. Day turns to night, stars and planets emerge from a formerly blue sky, and temperatures plummet. Words like “awe” and “amazement” might come to mind. But there’s another sensation that can lurk close behind these: terror.
Throughout history, solar eclipses have evoked not only wonder but also feelings of doom and fear. In 1831, a forthcoming eclipse caused a mild social panic in America. One newspaper reported that among the populace, there suddenly came “a kind of vague fear, of impending danger—a prophetic presentiment of some approaching catastrophe.” Some loudly predicted the end of the world was at hand. Such fears did not diminish in the face of astronomers’ assurances that what was coming was safe and natural.
Historically, humans have felt vulnerable in the face of major celestial events. The order and fixity of the universe gets wobbly. People project onto the skies their most primal fears.
When the daytime sky suddenly darkens, or when a mysterious comet careens across the heavens, a special kind of horror can creep out from the recesses of our brains. It is the existential dread of helplessness.
Comets have........
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