June 29, 1882
Yogyakarta Sultanate
Java Island, Dutch East Indies
Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono Senapati Ingalaga Abdul Rakhman Sayidin Panatagama Khalifatullah - The Carrier of the Universe, Primary Warrior, God's Particular Servant, Priest and Caliph Safeguarding the Religion – informally referred to as Hamengkubuwono VII, was very unhappy. He’d heard the tales from his father, Hamengkubuwono VI, about the eruption of 1872, five years before his own reign had begun. It had been violent and horrible. People - his people - had died by the thousands. Today was not boding well.
Mt. Merapi roared to life again just before sunset, spraying debris over the vast majority of its flanks. A cloud of ash blasted up into the atmosphere and mushroomed out over the Java Sea to the northwest. Merapi was a restless spirit, or so the local people informed the Dutch administrators, but it was for the most part beneficent. Thus the regional governor watched intently, waiting for the amazing show to begin. It had been his policy, as well as that of the Dutch, not to dissuade any of the people from their beliefs so long as they remained loyal and quiet, and appeared to be doing the right things. Of course, the Dutch did show preference for Protestant Christianity while the Sultan encouraged Islam. There were so many religions mixed amongst the Javanese that he found the one thing they had in common was the one thing that kept the peace: their volcanoes. So, now and again, he would invite the Gatekeeper of Merapi to join him for tea and a lovely view.
The Gatekeeper had the unenviable job of predicting what Merapi might do. Several thousand people looked to him for guidance regarding staying or evacuating. It was a pressure that the Sultan could appreciate.
Thus they sat together in the growing darkness brought on by night and the ash cloud, happily sipping tea and discussing the various rituals and customs from up and down the island with an administrator from the Netherlands. The three men could not have been any further apart in dress, philosophy and language. Yet, like much of the region, drawn together by Merapi.
The Gatekeeper was a delightfully humble man with a good sense of humor, even if it tended to be a bit bleak where the continuation of the Dutch presence was concerned. Yet, there was a political line the Gatekeeper wouldn’t cross, and the Sultan respected that even more.
The mountain shook the valley and roared at the administrative city. It was becoming a bit routine, as much as any massively destructive force of nature could be taken as routine in behavior. Still, there was that time, only a decade before, where the fury of Merapi was proven in a terrible night. What neither man nor their interpreters had expected was the storm.
Against the black backdrop of the ash cloud, a perfect, white vapor grew into a single white cloud, which caught the last rays of the sun and glowed in a celestial illumination. It roiled and turned with the eruption column but never mixed into it. Larger and larger it grew. Suddenly, the ash cloud lashed out, jealous of the perfection of the storm cloud. Lightning blasted toward the storm, barely missing it. After a few minutes of this, the storm began shooting back at the ash cloud and within itself, bursting in colors of indigo and pink, yellow and fiery red.
No rain fell from the cloud. It defied the ash column by remaining separate and white.
The Gatekeeper’s teacup fell to the tiled floor, smashing into sharp pieces. For a second, and even his mature eyes saw it, the storm vanished and left in its wake the shape of a bird that slipped away into the night sky.
The Sultan and the Administrator saw the same event, seeing in it not a bird but a ship, like a clipper ship without sails. The hull was almost perfect and scores of masts reached up from the deck, but it had no sails. As fast as it had arrived, it too was gone.
While Merapi continued venting its extrusive materials into the late night, both men were left to wander home. The Gatekeeper would need to consult the Spirit of Merapi; the Administrator intended to consult the scholars of the Dutch instituted University; and Hamengkubuwono VIII was determined to take the issue straight to God. None would receive a satisfactory answer.
Reading his paper, the Administrator had an idea. In the morning he would contact a colleague in Amsterdam, to help him find an expert. An expert on what? He could say ghost ships in the sky and then promptly resign in shame. No, he needed another excuse. The Volcano. He would ask for an expert on volcanoes. Then he’d quietly task the scientist to devise a plausible answer to what was going on, and to send them home quickly before anyone asked too many questions.
The observations of the governing men were not the only ones to be made. It was only a matter of time before telegraph wires began to tap with the news. By the day after the event, the London Herald and Observer had declared the events to be cause and effect, one and the same, and perhaps … only perhaps, the work of man not God.
That was all it took to create a panic across the cities of London and Paris, through the Universities of Harvard and Munich, and in any Club or Parlor willing to take it on. Could this thing be man-made? And who would do it?
It was improbable at best. No one, not even the greatest minds, could come up with a viable way to make a floating clipper ship, which created a storm, and started volcanic eruptions. Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Impossible.
A day later, the Sultan’s personal staff found a flag hastily erected at the top of the residence. A flag of no country they knew. Black, with a gold sun, stars …
No further sightings or findings were made that month, and as the news and the eruption died down, it was all dismissed as a hoax. But as the stirrings underneath an East Indies volcanic island in the Sunda Strait shook the region, a certain nervousness began to build amongst scientists from Japan to England.