The Purpura Nubes

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The soft glow within tinged every wisp that passed by as the cumuli fascinated all who witnessed them, as they have since the dawn of human history. We have always been curious to the nature of these phenomena, as they seem to have a purpose unknown to us. The Romans called them purpura nubes, some claiming them to being homes to lesser gods. Some societies treated them as omens, and even built entire religions around them. The clouds seemed to defy conventional skyward behaviors, often keeping station when other clouds rushed along, storms raging. Sometimes they scooted into position, often near to events that proved momentous in the annals of history. This led philosophers over the centuries to apply anthropomorphic qualities to the nubes, believing them to be occupied by all manner of creatures, superior to Man or not.

Curiosity of a scientific nature drove some to hypothesize on the basis of what was known at their respective times. Francis Bacon once opined that they must be sentient, as they could 'think' to behave as they do, as confusing as that behavior seemed to us. In the 1770s, a certain Mr. B. Franklin, having completed a previous experiment using a kite, sought to send same all the way up to enter one of the clouds. His reasoning was that perhaps there was electrical potential hiding within, and he was intent on discovering it. After a disastrous incident that nearly took his life, Mr. Franklin sought no more to experiment with the forces of nature. He never spoke of his experience, and refused to discuss the details of the incident.

Not to allow a such a setback deter the scientific inquiry, a pair of brothers from France set themselves aloft in a new invention that used hot air to lift them into the sky. After several successful flights, the brothers Montgolfier took notice that one such cloud had hovered near the field from which they lifted. Thinking that reaching the heights these clouds occupied would garner them greater prestige than their American counterpart failed with a mere kite, they boarded one midnight, using the glow of the cloud as a guide. All went well, until their balloon neared the cloud. The elder brother, Joseph-Michel, managed to signal the ground crew to steer close enough to the cloud to reach out and touch it. It was reported that their balloon fell to the ground with a thud, and that Joseph had become comatose. Jacque-Francois, the younger brother, was in a state of confusion, babbling incoherently. Neither recovered from their near-fatal fall from the sky.

Two other brothers claimed their heavy-than-air aeroplane will one day give Mankind the opportunity to at last close the gap between us and the cloud. Their designs never got close to climbing such heights, but during several dogfights in World War I, ace flyers dared to fly close to those clouds that came near the action. Without fail, the pilots died either from mysterious mechanical failures or were shot down moments after their encounters. A famous German flying ace declared the johanniskrauteule his greatest ally and his most fearsome foe.

More recently, with the advent of the airship, one Herr Zeppelin boasted he would pierce the clouds with his latest model, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, an oversized version of his more well-known commercial airship. Much was made of this declaration, as by this time the notion of approaching one of these clouds was considered bad luck, evidenced by the few attempts made to learn its secrets. He was set to launch his airship to intercept one such cloud near New Jersey, but called it off at the last minute. When asked why, he answered nervously that some things are not meant to be known.

The nubes continued to seemingly oversee history in the making, and yet people continue to pry into their obscure affairs. A man named Goddard had tried to fire rockets to the clouds, but the few that approached them all disappeared without a trace. He ran out of money and had to abandon the project. A young Mr. Lindbergh confessed a dream to fly into one after his return from his famous transatlantic flight, but was devastated by the kidnapping of his child. The idea was never broached again.

And all this while, those of a more spiritual bent continue to warn us of the dangers of fiddling with forces beyond our ken. Not that they were any more wise, as there had been the rare occasions when a nube would envelop a mountaintop and, at such times, sycophants would rush to these locations in hopes of merging with the entities they believed lived within. Every instance saw the few who dared to get that close disappear, never to be seen again. Their fellow travelers were undeterred, convincing themselves, and others as well, that their brothers and sisters had in fact succeeded in their quests.

And now, we have such technology to not only fly an aeroplane to one of the secretive clouds, but we are prepared to photograph the proceedings and to relay in a live setting via radio a minute-by-minute description of the flight in the voice of the intrepid pilot. Many applicants eschewed the notion of the luckless history of Man's experiences with the purpura nubes, but the proverbial short straw was ultimately drawn by the aviatrix of note, a Miss Emmy May, whose curriculum vitae speaks volumes as to her skill and inclination to pilot any and every possible craft that has the design to finally learn of the ages-old secret of the purple clouds that dance at night and drive Men to distraction.