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| File Name : GRAV10.ASC | Online Date : 07/18/94 |
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For many years, I have studied levity (not THAT kind) stories and anecdotes
for both organic and inorganic bodies. In all that time, this case was
never stumbled across, until now. And it needs to be listed because of
it's oddity. Imagine, being able to FLOAT in the air WITHOUT equipment.
The only problem with this fellow was that he could NOT CONTROL the effect.
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This file is from the book, 'The Enigma of the Unknown' by John Macklin.
The Man who Defied Gravity
Between 1885 and 1890, countless thousands of people trooped cynically into
a canvas booth on fairgrounds in America's mid-west and invariably emerged
convinced that they had seen the impossible. Indeed, it seems as though
they had. What they HAD SEEN - or, at least, what they THOUGHT they had
seen - was a man floating serenely in mid-air like a gas-filled balloon.
If Reynard Beck, known throughout America as "the Floating Wonder," was a
hoaxer, he was an incredibly brilliant one, for the dozens of skeptics,
doctors and scientists who had subjected him to EVERY KNOWN TEST, came away
WITHOUT EXCEPTION more bemused and baffled than when they went in.
Beck, it seemed, was a man who laughed at gravity. To enable him to lead a
normal earthbound life he needed a special belt hung with lead weights. At
night, he was lashed firmly into his bed. On one occasion when the straps
came adrift, he rose up and floated gently through an open window.
Everyone knew that MEN CAN'T FLY. The trouble was that in Beck's case,
they just couldn't PROVE IT.
Beck himself seemed utterly at a loss to explain his uncanny gift. When he
recalled the day that he began to "float," he was unable to put forward any
sort of rational explanation.
Years later, he wrote of his experience: "It was in June 1884 that I went
to bed quite normally, not dreaming that anything was wrong. When I woke
up. I felt remarkably fit and was anxious to get out of bed and start the
new day. But I did not land on my feet beside the bed - as I had
anticipated. To my utter astonishment, I remained in mid-air - FLOATING
AROUND THE ROOM."
Petrified with fright, he grabbed hold of the headboard and slowly forced
his feet down to touch the ground.
"Then I sat down on the bed and did some serious thinking, I reached for
the mirror hanging on the wall beside the bed and examined my face to see
if any radical changes had occurred to it during the night. But there
didn't seem to be anything wrong with me - and I didn't feel ill.
Tentatively, I stood up again and tried to walk around the room. To my
horror, I at once floated into the air again and remained there as though
suspended on hidden strings.
"I realized that if anyone ever found out about this, I was going to be in
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big trouble. Either I would be regarded as a freak and carted off for all
kinds of experiments, or people might get the idea that I had made a deal
with the Devil to make myself float in mid-air!"
He floated around towards his chest of drawers, dug out a belt and to this
fastened some lead weights he used for fishing. With the belt fastened
around his waist, he found that he could remain on the floor and move about
normally.
For several days, the devastating discovery worried him intensely, but
eventually, and perhaps inevitably, he soon got around to considering his
fantastic discovery in an entirely new light.
"Being able to float in the air might have all sorts of compensations. I
began to realize what a new world it would open up."
Eventually, he decided to give up his job and make his fortune. All he had
to do was set himself up as a side-show - the people would flock to see the
only man in the world who could FLOAT without artificial aids, and the
money would come rolling in!
So Reynard Beck billed himself as "the Floating Wonder" and became a side-
show. People DID flock to him by the thousands - and all he did was SIT
AND READ - but he sat FLOATING IN THE AIR while HE did so!
His brother ran the side-show and they began to make big money. But they
did not escape without trouble. On one occasion, spectators smashed up the
side-show booth, believing they had been fooled, but were frustrated
because they COULD NOT DISCOVER by what trick the Floating Wonder performed
his seemingly impossible feat!
But Beck did not just float when on exhibition. Friends testified that, in
his private life, he found it impossible to keep his feet on the ground
without help. To enable him to walk around NORMALLY, he wore the belt
weighted with several pounds of lead. Obviously, he couldn't walk long
distances with this added burden, which was not helped by the voluminous
overcoat he wore to conceal the weights.
When he sat down to eat, he strapped or tied himself into his chair,
otherwise he would float to about ceiling height and JUST HANG THERE until
someone hauled him down.
Was it a trick? For years, every known method was used in an attempt to
expose the Floating Wonder as the fraud everyone KNEW HE MUST BE.
One investigator wrote: "Before the exhibition, I thoroughly searched the
room, looking for wires, hydraulic ramps, hidden supports - anything that
might prove a clue to the mystery. I found NOTHING. While Beck sat in a
reclining position THREE FEET from the floor. I beat the air below and
above him with a cane but met with no resistance. I came, with the utmost
reluctance, to the conclusion that he WAS FLOATING UNSUPPORTED in thin
air."
After five years of touring the halls and fairgrounds - and getting rich on
the strength of it - Reynard Beck abruptly announced one day that the
uncanny gift to defy gravity had departed as suddenly as it had come.
Certainly, he never made another public appearance. He returned home to
the town of Dexter, in Kansas, and attempted to resume his life as an
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ordinary human being. But it was impossible.
"For once a man has FLOWN IN THE AIR," he wrote with the simplicity of
someone stumbling on a profound truth, "he can never be quite the same
again..."
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Vangard note
There are numerous accounts of religious ecstasy producing flight in
devout believers. Spiritualist Daniel Home was photographed floating
out of a 2nd story window as well as on many other occasions where
people saw him levitate. Home said the spirits lifted him up.
In India, at the Sifi shrine of Qamar Ali, there are two very large
boulders that are routinely levitated by visitors who touch the stone
with their index fingers and chant "Qamar Ali Dervish" in a certain
chant as instructed by the resident priest. When this happens, the
stone simply levitates. If just one finger is removed, the stone
crashes to the ground. God, I want to DO THIS, videotape and make
measurements.
In the 1920's the Kowsky/Frost experiment used a quartz crystal excited
by microwaves. The crystal expanded and levitated EVEN WITH A 1.5
kilogram weight suspended from it!
In Homestead, Florida, Edward Leedskalnin built the Coral Castle from
native coral. He did this single-handedly, without benefit of hoists or
block and tackle. The story is that he RE-DISCOVERED the secret the
Egyptians used to build the pyramids. I've been there and seen how he
cracked the stones apart with automobile leaf springs, heated up,
inserted in a crack, then cold water poured on them to POP the stone
apart. As to the way of lifting and moving these very large stones, the
word is Leedskalnin SANG to them.
An Egyptian painting showed the use of a vibrating wooden rod which
caused stone to levitate when excited by a slap with this rod.
There are numerous references such as 'stone floats in air as iron
floats in water', a reference to the Biblical levitation of an iron
axehead that had been accidentally thrown into the water. When the
priest touched the water with his staff and chanted, the axehead floated
to the surface to be retrieved.
In various occult/metaphysical books, mention is made of the NAVAZ
force, the dark side of Nature or it's equivalent. "Night is as
pregnant as Day", for the seven colors of light that we see, there are
seven 'black' colors that we cannot see. It is from these 'black'
colors that the wheelwork of the Universe is driven.
There are Fortean stories of voices coming from the sky throughout
recorded history and in one case, an anchor that was caught in a church
steeple. This anchor was attached to a rope that went up into the
clouds. A man was shimmying down the rope to release it as people
watched. They report that he seemed to have to 'swim' to get lower.
The witnesses grabbed him from the rope when he got within reach and he
appeared to be 'drowning'. The man died. So what gives?
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