Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet: Cosmic Causes of the Great Chicago Fire

Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet: Cosmic Causes of the Great Chicago Fire

There is strong evidence that on October 8, 1871, Earth collided with a comet or part of a comet and that the result was not only the Chicago Fire but also two other incredibly destructive fires in Wisconsin and Michigan that had, apparently through strange coincidence, begun at the same hour on the same night. That coincidence, along with eyewitness reports of unusual aspects of the three fires, caused Ignatius Donnelly—a US Congressman and amateur scientist—to think that these events might support his theory that the massive deposits of clay and gravel existing in much of the world were not the result of glacial movement, as scientists of his day tended to believe, but had, instead, been created through a vast cosmic catastrophe: the collision of Earth with a comet. Few people accepted his interpretation of these fires in 1883. But when I read his book, I felt it deserved extensive treatment. So I began to investigate. I found the book on which he had based his theory, and it seemed to me that he had accurately extracted some unusual facts from a mass of information. Then I looked into other books containing eyewitness reports of the Chicago and Midwest fires (as they were called) and found apparently inexplicable events, conditions and circumstances that raised provocative questions. My question now is this: Did a dying comet collide with the earth on October 8, 1871, and fuel three vastly destructive fires? I can’t say that what follows here will prove conclusively that such an event took place. But the information I have found certainly raises some interesting questions, and I invite you to believe, as I do, based on the evidence, that not a cow, but a comet caused the great Chicago Fire. Mel Waskin Chicago, Illinois September, 1985