THE PEOPLE OF THE MOON (1895) – Written by Tremlett Carter. An unnamed narrator, a scientist of some sort, sees a glowing 18 inch object floating in the sky. A bird who makes physical contact with the glowing orb is killed by the object’s electric charge.
Our narrator jury-rigs a means of grounding against the electricity and hauling the orb down to his laboratory. The object slowly reaches room temperature and ejects from its interior a book written in an unearthly alphabet.
The anonymous narrator’s friend Professor Hector Goss visits him in the midst of all this and excitedly tells our protagonist about a secret society that he belongs to. Goss and his fellow society members have been performing scientific research by directing the astral/ spiritual bodies of hypnotized human guinea pigs.
Before dying, their most recent test subject visited the moon in his astral body and saw a city on the dark side of Earth’s satellite. He also spotted life – humanoid AND dragon life. Professor Goss jumps to the conclusion that the unearthly book that Nameless Narrator holds came from the moon.
Conveniently, Nameless and Goss had previously devised a fool-proof system of deciphering any and all languages so they translate the mysterious book and learn all about the beings on the moon. Continue reading
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