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Edmund Swifte / Tower Of London 'Cylinder' Apparition (1817)

Edit: if memory serves it was a levitating cylinder of shifting luminous colours like a kind of ectoplasmic lava lamp :)
Can I borrow your DVD? Or were you there?

(Good grief, do you have a giant brass & ebony sled in your garage, with a massive flywheel and a set of date-dials, sitting with steam emitting from it?)
 
Memory of the Chinese Whispers account reproduced in my book , that is!!

If I'd just happened to drop in on the family for me tea and was immortal to boot I'd be on every podcast you can shake a stick at ;)

(Good grief, do you have a giant brass & ebony sled in your garage, with a massive flywheel and a set of date-dials, sitting with steam emitting from it?)

Are you spying on me? ;)

It's more a hover mower, but it's fun to pretend.
 
Actual reported experience. A pale cylinder of light appeared before the Tower's keeper and his wife in 1817. ...

The cylinder or tube of light story comes from October 1817. It involved the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose full name is variously cited as:

Edmond / Edmund - Lenthal / (numerous) - Swift / Swifte

..., his wife, and two others in the Jewel House's sitting room. The cylindrical / tubular vision - seen only by Swifte and his wife - was about as thick as his arm and hovering between a table and the ceiling.

The most detailed and elaborate account I've seen comes from:

https://books.google.com/books?id=osQ2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&dq="tower+of+london"+"crown+jewels"+swift&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1uofDnLPZAhUp2oMKHerlBncQ6AEIbjAM#v=onepage&q="tower of london" "crown jewels" swift&f=false

Ghosts of London by O'Donnell Elliot (similar title, but not the same book cited by David Plankton), Chapter I.

Here's the relevant text ...

ToL-Swift-Story-A.jpg

 
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Yes, I like to think my subconscious was answering some kind of summons or call to action.

Or it could be I just think about that Tower apparition (or Victorian orb - they were cylindrical before they were forced to go metric y'know) quite a bit.
 
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The cylinder or tube of light story comes from October 1817. It involved the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose full name is variously cited as:

Edmond / Edmund - Lenthal / (numerous) - Swift / Swifte

..., his wife, and two others in the Jewel House's sitting room. The cylindrical / tubular vision - seen only by Swift and his wife - was about as thick as his arm and hovering between a table and the ceiling.

The most detailed and elaborate account I've seen comes from:

https://books.google.com/books?id=osQ2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&dq="tower of london" "crown jewels" swift&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1uofDnLPZAhUp2oMKHerlBncQ6AEIbjAM#v=onepage&q="tower of london" "crown jewels" swift&f=false

Ghosts of London by O'Donnell Elliot (similar title, but not the same book cited by David Plankton), Chapter I.

Here's the relevant text ...


That's it! Top-drawer librarianship, EG. Thank you! :)

Pretty weird, huh? An extraordinary thing for a semi-educated early Victorian Georgian to come up with anyway.
 
NOTE: The story of the phantom tube / cylinder, as well as the oft-cited story of the Tower's phantom bear incident (ca. 1815) apparently come from Swifte's 1860 memoir.

Both these stories commonly mis-attribute the incidents' timeframes as circa 1860 (when Swifte's memoir was published; not when the incidents occurred). These timeframe errors, combined with all the variations in naming Swifte, make it difficult to reliably locate the original data. Some accounts screw up even further by claiming Swifte was the guard who saw the phantom bear and died soon thereafter.
 
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Blimey, I'd forgotten all about that alleged bear apparition. No doubt the fellow's hair turned white immediately...

It involved the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose full name is variously cited as:

Edmond / Edmund - Lenthal / (numerous) - Swift / Swifte

'Swifty', you say??
 
Regarding "The cylinder or tube of light story from October 1817."

You all can take a look at this link from 2015. I recently came across this
article while doing some research which relates to it. Has some good graphics
which may help to visualize conceptual ideas.
http://www.sci-news.com/physics/science-magnetic-wormhole-03207.html

Original Source;
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep12488

2007, Prof Allan Greenleaf of the University of Rochester and co-authors
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.183901

What seems to be taking place involved a wormhole. OK, well great you say but what exactly is a worm hole? A worm hole is thought to be a manifold in our existing space which links to another distant space. These worm holes can skirt time or space or both. Evidently they can also cross into dimensions. Though this idea isn't actually necessary as a manifold may reach across the Universe and connect to who know's what sort of world. So maybe what we have taken as other dimensions are really just other worlds beyond our comprehension.

A manifold has been depicted classically as two connecting funnels, connected at their tips, and one other lesser way which is a long tube with another parallel tube which connects to the primary tube. This last method mostly representing time manifolds. As in you enter a manifold of space and after a brief walk you emerge out of another manifold which is in the distant future.

So the idea here is that the two individuals whom saw this apparition were located inside the hole of a connected manifold, whereas those whom didn't see the object were standing outside the manifold, and it's only when you're inside the eye of the manifold that you can see what's in it. Much like being in the eye of tornado.
 
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This thread is being established to consolidate the scattered references to this apparition reported in 1860, and claimed to have occurred in October 1817, by Edmund Lenthal Swifte:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Lenthal_Swifte

Edmund Swifte is sometimes mistakenly cited as 'Edward' and / or 'Swift'.
 
Here is a transcription of the (uncopyrighted) relevant text from the 3rd link cited in austen27's post above.

The following tale concerns a non-humanoid materialisation, yet having sufficient energy to apparently move of its own accord. It may shed some light on the mysterious blue-white ‘power’ of the enigmatic Device [see The Device] The scene is that foreboding fortress, the Tower of London in October 1817.

At that time the Crown Jewels were housed in the Martin Tower at the north-east corner, the residence of the Keeper and his family. Edmund Lenthal Swifte was having dinner in the Sitting Room with his wife, their young son, and Edmund’s sister-in-law. The heavy curtains were drawn over the two windows, all three were doors closed, and the only light two candles on the table. The story is best told in Edmund’s own words [the italicised words are mine]:
"I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting to her lips, she paused and exclaimed ‘Good God! What is that?’
"I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure, like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table; its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure [blue]...and incessantly mixing within the cylinder. This lasted about two minutes, when it began slowly to move before my sister-in-law; then following...the table, before my son and myself, passing behind my wife. It paused for a moment over her right shoulder [Mrs Swifte could see it in the mirror opposite]; instantly she crouched down [she collapsed on the table], and with both hands covering her shoulder,...shrieked out, ‘Oh Christ, it has seized me!’ Even now, while writing [he wrote it down in 1860], I feel the fresh horror of that moment."
Edmund’s immediate reaction was to pick up a chair and swing at the strange object, which then immediately vanished, never to return. But not everyone saw the cylinder that night:
"The marvel of all this is enhanced by the fact that neither my sister-in-law nor my son beheld this appearance."
 
With regard to Swifte's cylinder, I have recently been re-reading books which contain many reports and accounts of Victorian seances and manifestations and I see a similarity. These books first describe "what the people reported experiencing" and then actually "what they medium/hosts did". The difference between the two is astoundingly huge. The driving factor is imagination and lack of comparable experience.

For example, a common thing was for the medium to have a single dot of "glow in the dark" paint on the sole of a shoe. In the dark, they would wave their foot around. This gets reported as recognisable faces, entities, balls of light and even "apparitions circling and flying around the room".

Others squeezed an orange rind over a candle (which produces sparks - try it, it's quite cool). This was reported as leaping flames and explosions of energy with people gasping in horror etc etc. People also reported seeing lights, feeling hands on them, being pulled, scratched and physically moved/lifted, pianos flying around the room etc even though nothing of the sort occurred. People reported experiencing things that didn't actually happen even though they convinced themselves that it did.

So when I hear a very vivid description of something from the 1800's, I have to frame it correctly. This was a time of immense amazement, curiosity and wonder but totally devoid of previous experience. Everything was new and even the reporting of events was new and unusual.

For example, he reports that the cylinder was there for two minutes but only he and his wife could see it. So they sat in silence, for two minutes, staring at an invisible object near the ceiling and his wife's sister didn't think this unusual or ask "What are you looking at?" Two minutes is a very long time to sit still. Try sitting still for two minutes and staring at something. I would even say that it probably lasted seconds in reality. But what could it have been?

I suggest a blue reflection from the candlelight and the cut-glass on the table. A husband passes his wife a glass of wine and water (he is seated beside her so they are close). As she takes a sip, the cut-glass reflects some light which creates a strange blue flash in front of them. As she moves the glass, the reflection seems to travel towards her and she recoils, maybe even pulling a muscle or catching a nerve in her shoulder and cries out "Oh Christ. It has seized me!"

His wife's reaction is interesting. She cried out "Oh Christ!" which wasn't her swearing, it was a call for help from God. She was scared by seeing something and as it moved towards her side of the room, was compelled to cry out.

I'm not saying that my explanation is right. I'm just saying that given the time period, previous experience and the excitability of people, we can't compare their descriptions of events to how we would describe something today.
 
Nice one @Ringo :)

Can you give us a full reference for the book or is it one of the magician-only ones?
 
Nice one @Ringo :)

Can you give us a full reference for the book or is it one of the magician-only ones?

Well, there are loads of them and they are all sort of half and half. Most were written by magicians, exposing fake Medium acts. They usually reveal quite astoundingly ingenious methods - some of which are still used today (by me and others). Most of it is ridiculously transparent but as I mentioned above, it astounded and scared the general public back then who had never seen such wonders as:

Glow in the dark paint - SHOCK!
Static Electricity - HORROR!
Magnets - SHRIEK!
Plate lifters - FAINT!

I'd rather not reveal their titles to the Google-bot world but anyone who wants to know can Inbox me. I've already inboxed you Frides.
 
It's difficult to understand the room's layout and the diners' positions at the time of the incident. The most detailed clues are to be found in the webpage Cochise cited in post #42:

http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/07/15/the-cylinder-monster-1-the-witness-account/

... as well as this previously un-cited webpage:

http://www.ball-lightning.info/Ball-lightning/The_Strangest.html

An illustration of the room is provided in both places, though it's only a partial view.

According to the first-listed account (allegedly taken straight from Swifte ... ) Swifte was seated at the table's 'foot' (one end; not sure which one) with his son beside him. His wife and her sister sat on opposite sides of the table. Mrs. Swifte 'fronted' the chimney piece shown in the illustration, which should mean she was facing the fireplace.

Mrs. Swifte was the one who first noticed the apparition, and she apparently called out in surprise. This makes the non-observation by the son and sister-in-law odd, insofar as they would have been cued to something going on.

All accounts I've seen claim Swifte observed the apparition to move behind his wife (seated to his side). Some accounts claim his wife could only see the apparition (in its final position) in a mirror opposite her. However, the detailed description of the room in the first link above states there was an oil painting rather than any mirror on the chimney piece (i.e., above the fireplace / former fireplace).

This means it's unclear how Mrs. Swifte could or did observe the apparition behind her. Most later accounts claim the apparition paused behind her and then approached her, whereupon she shrieked, "It's seized me!"

This common version of events makes the most sense if she could somehow see its reflection and notice it approaching her.

However ...

Swifte's account (cf. the link above) specifically states there was no mirror opposite her in which she could have seen it behind her.

This leads me to wonder whether Swifte's allusions to the apparition appearing 'before' / 'behind' the persons present have been misinterpreted. In particular, I wonder whether Swifte's allusion to the apparition moving 'behind' his wife meant:

- it moved to a location behind her back / her chair, versus ...
- it moved to a position actually or prospectively at least partially occluded from view (from Swifte's vantage point)

I'm starting to believe the second version is the correct one, and Mrs. Swifte didn't see the apparition approach or hover over her right shoulder by reflection, but rather within her field of direct vision.
 
Someone who owns crystal style glass could try and replicate this?

Pour some wine and water into a crystal glass, and move it around in front of candles in a dark room.
Perhaps too later add some olive oil into the wine and water in the glass, for there may have been some remnant of oil in there which caused the light to refract in a certain way?
I regret I do not own any crystalware or fancy wine glasses.
 
I'd love to know whether the son and the sister-in-law were seated to the same side of Swifte. Phrased another way, I'd love to know if the son had been seated between Swifte and his wife (moving around the table).

If the son and SIL were to the same side of Swifte, this would lend credence to the idea the apparition was visible only from a particular viewing angle - an orientation specific to Swifte and his wife alone. It seems to me this would further lend credence to the theory the apparition could have been an optical anomaly of some sort.

It was circa midnight in October. I'd also love to know if there was any heating in effect, and if so - by what means. If the room was being heated (directly or indirectly) by (e.g.) wood or coal fire, this would open up the possibility of an elevated in-room haze that could have served as the 'projection screen' for some sort of light source or reflection / refraction.
 
I'd also love to know if there was any heating in effect, and if so - by what means. If the room was being heated (directly or indirectly) by (e.g.) wood or coal fire, this would open up the possibility of an elevated in-room haze that could have served as the 'projection screen' for some sort of light source or reflection / refraction.

My thoughts exactly. I was just pondering this idea and then I saw that you too thought of it. Maybe a haze from the fire, smoke from a badly trimmed candle, steam from the food. It's so frustrating not to know!! But if it was only visible from a certain angle, then as you say, light reflection/refraction seems likely. The swirling whiteness of it suggests blue light reflected/projected onto a white haze.
 
I would also point out this passage from Swifte's 1860 letters to Notes & Queries:

I am bound to add, that, shortly before this strange event, some young lady-residents in the Tower had been, I know not wherefore, suspected of making phantasmagorial experiments at their windows, which, be it observed, had no command whatever on any windows in my dwelling. An additional sentry was accordingly posted, so as to overlook any such attempt.

See, for example:

http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/07/15/the-cylinder-monster-1-the-witness-account/

This edition of John Timbs' Romance of London: Supernatural Stories (1864 or 1865):

https://books.google.com/books?id=e...page&q=swifte cylinder phantasmagoria&f=false

In other words, the appearance of the cylinder had been preceded by reason to believe others on the grounds had been experimenting with a magic lantern or similar projection technique.

Additional notes relating to the possibility of Swifte's apparition having been generated via phantasmagoria can be found in Timbs.
 
NOTE: Swifte's cylinder apparition is often linked to a story of a Tower guard having encountered an apparition of a bear (or similar fearsome animal) and dying of fright the day following his sighting. This bear incident is often presented as having occurred closely following the cylinder apparition episode.

If you read through the section of Timbs' account (drawn from Notes & Queries; see link above), you'll find that a George Offor stated the bear apparition affair occurred in January 1816 (circa 1.75 years before the cylinder apparition).

Offor's account also states the guard who saw the bear apparition fell as a result of the encounter. This suggests a physical injury, in contrast to most retellings' allusion to the guard dying of shock / fright alone.

Swifte's response to Offor clarified that the guard died 2 or 3 days after the sighting rather than the day following the encounter.
 
Another item that bothers me is the wife's second outcry ("O Christ! It has seized me!").

Later retellings often give the impression the apparition approached or descended upon Mrs. Swifte. Some claim it appeared to intersect / touch her on her shoulder (to which both her hands allegedly moved in uttering the 2nd outcry).

Swifte's own account makes no mention of the apparition touching / intersecting Mrs. Swifte. He stated it passed over her right shoulder, at which point she "... crouched down, and with both hands, covering her shoulder, she shrieked out ..." He'd stated it passed behind her rather than (e.g.) onto or through her. This suggests she was sitting to Swifte's right, and her right shoulder was the one farther away from him.

As noted above, I suspect Mrs. Swifte observed the apparition coming toward her and passing out of sight over her right shoulder - if she saw it moving at all.

I emphasize this last bit because the only mention of the apparition's movement comes from Swifte himself. He doesn't clearly describe when he had risen out of his chair. He'd certainly done so by the time he picked up the chair and "... struck at the wainscot behind her ..." He most probably had to move laterally in getting out of his chair and raising it to strike. If the apparition had been an optical anomaly in a relatively static position above the table it could have been his own movement that gave the appearance the apparition was in motion.

This notion is further supported by the fact Swifte claimed the apparition darted across the table away from his wife and disappeared toward the far window recess / niche immediately upon her 2nd outcry and his striking at it with his chair. His own striking motion (whatever it was) could have given the impression of such sudden movement in the opposite direction by changing his viewing angle.

There's no mention of Mrs. Swifte having corroborated his description of the apparition's exit / disappearance.
 
One more thing ... I wonder whether Mrs. Swifte's outcry ("It has seized me!") - if accurately related at all circa 42 years later - may have represented an archaic phrasing connoting her reaction to her own shocked emotional / somatic state rather than an interaction with the apparition.
 
I have been browsing through the fascinating 10-part exploration of this tale on the Bizarre History blog.

Part IX gives us a lurid, erotic variation on Mrs Swifte's experience. Attributed to a "late-19th Century" source, which no one has ever seen, it seems more likely to have been a product of Colin Wilson's imagination. Maybe he was riffing on the phallic implications of a glass cylinder?

Which brings us to this:

19th_Century_Nailsea_Glass_Rol_as790a271b-2.jpg

More pictures and a description here.

It's not a dildo but a glass rolling-pin. Blue and white seem to be the standard colours; the linked page reveals that many had corks or stoppers and could be filled with fluid or dry goods. The date given for this example is 1800 - 30, which nicely fits the story. This one is not really "as thick as an arm" but there were other sizes, no doubt!

Given the potential for these love-tokens to be put to more violent use, we might begin to imagine a nasty "domestic." followed by a "gaslighting" in which Mrs Swifte did not dare to say who held the rolling-pin! Others, at this date, may well have affected a diplomatic blindness. The main reason to object to this is the fact that the story seems to have been revived with great pride by Swifte himself at intervals.

Even so, the existence and familiarity of such domestic objects at that date does tend to take away those anachronistic images of fluorescent tubes and lava lamps! :)
 
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Swifte was eighty-three in 1876, when his story was the subject of an enquiry in Notes & Queries. He responded in person with a first person account which adds a few details to the version above from some ten years before.

It is clearly transcribed on this blog. so I won't paste it here.
The URL originally cited here is dead, as is the Devil's Penny website / blog.
See later post for the salvaged Swifte documentation.

Here is the full text of the Swifte article originally cited via the dead link.
8th of September, 1876 Notes and Queries 10, 2nd S. (245)p.192

GHOST IN THE TOWER

I have often purposed to leave behind me a faithful record of all that I personally know of this strange story; and K.B.'s inquiry now puts me upon consigning it to the general repertory of "N. & Q." Forty-three years have passed, and its impression is as vividly before me as on the moment of its occurrence. Anecdotage, said Wilkes, is an old man's dotage, and at eighty-three I may be suspected of lapsing into omissions or exaggerations; but there are yet survivors who can testify that I have not at any time either amplified or abridged my ghostly experiences.

In 1814 I was appointed Keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower, where I resided with my family till my retirement in 1852. One Saturday night in October, 1817, about "the witching hour," I was at supper with my then wife, our little boy, and her sister, in the sitting-room of the Jewel House, which - then comparatively modernized - is said to have been the "doleful prison" of Anna Boleyn, and of the ten bishops whom Oliver Cromwell piously accommodated therein. For an accurate picture of the locus in quo my scene is laid, I refer to George Cruikshank's wood-cut in p. 384 of Ainsworth's Tower of London; and I am persuaded that my gallant successor in office, Colonel Wyndham, will not refuse its collation with my statement.

The room was - as it still is - irregularly shaped, having three doors and two windows, which last are cut nearly nine feet deep into the outer wall; between these is a chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and (then) surmounted with a large oil picture. On the night in question, the doors were all closed, heavy and dark cloth curtains were let down over the windows, and the only light in the room was that of two candles on the table. I sat at the foot of the table, my son on my right hand, his mother fronting the chimney-piece, and her sister on the opposite side. I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she paused, and exclaimed, "Good God! what is that?" I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure, like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table: its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure, like to the gathering of a summer cloud, and incessantly rolling and mingling within the cylinder. This lasted about two minutes; when it began slowly to move before my sister-in-law; then, following the oblong shape of the table, before my son and myself; passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment over her right shoulder (observe, there was no mirror opposite to her in which she could then behold it). Instantly she crouched down, and with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, "Oh, Christ! it has seized me!" Even now, while writing, I feel the fresh horror of that moment. I caught up my chair, struck at the wainscot behind her, rushed up stairs to the other children's room, and told the terrified nurse what I had seen. Meanwhile, the other domestics had hurried into the parlour, where their mistress recounted to them the scene, even as I was detailing it above stairs.

The marvel - some will say the absurdity - of all this is enhanced by the fact that neither my sister-in-law nor my son beheld this "appearance," - as K. B. rightly terms it, though to their mortal vision it was as "apparent" as to my wife's and mine. When I the next morning related the night's horrors to our chaplain, after the service in the Tower church, he asked me, might not one person have his natural senses deceived? And if one, why not two? My answer was, if two, why not two thousand? an argument which would reduce history, secular or sacred, to a fable. But why should I here discuss things not dreamed of in our philosophy?

I am bound to add, that, shortly before this strange event, some young lady-residents in the Tower had been, I know not wherefore, suspected of making phantasmagorial experiments in their windows, which, be it observed, had no command whatever on any windows in my dwelling. An additional sentry was accordingly posted, so as to overlook any such attempt.

Happen, however, as it might, following hard at heel the visitation of my household, one of the night sentries at the Jewel Office was, as he said, alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the door; he thrust at it with his bayonet, which struck in the door, even as my chair dinted the wainscot; he dropped in a fit, and was carried senseless to the guard-room. His fellow-sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him the moment before awake and sober. Of all this, I avouch nothing more than that I saw the poor man in the guard-house prostrated with terror, and that in two or three days the "fatal result," be it of fact or of fancy, was - that he died.

My story may claim more space than "N. & Q." can afford: desiring to be circumstantial, I have been diffuse. This I leave to the Editor's discretion: let it only be understood, that to all which I have herein set forth as seen by myself, I absolutely pledge my faith and my honour.

EDMUND LENTHAL SWIFTE.
SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130913184009/http://www.devilspenny.com/
 
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