The Problems with Rockets

The blinkered Kelly cult members on BBM are wetting the bed over David Duftys  entirely plausible suggestion that what Const. Arthur reported as rockets in the sky above Glenrowan on the night of the siege was actually an emission of sparks that spontaneously discharged themselves from the train waiting at the ready at the station.  The Kelly cult members dont seem to be able to understand that Arthur did NOT actually describe what he saw, what he did was express a belief that what he saw were ‘rockets’  – one large and one ‘very faint’ –  of which, even then, there were several kinds. Did he mean he saw a bright explosion of colour high in the sky, did he mean he saw a streaking line of light heading up above the trees, was it something he saw above the trees or through them? Whatever he saw, he called it ‘’rockets” but we cannot say what exactly he witnessed, or whether or not his description of what he saw as ‘rockets’m was fair or not….because there are other things that go up in the sky and shower sparks…

There are in fact several good reasons why it’s perfectly legitimate to question Arthurs report : the most important one being the fact that NOBODY else ever reported seeing rockets.  Not one person. And yet, then as now, sky rockets are something that everyone’s attention is always drawn to. There were scores of people up and about that night, and sky rockets wouldn’t have been something many of them would have had the opportunity to see very often, so the fact that not one other person reported ever seeing them raises legitimate doubts about Arthurs claims –  something noted the other day by PJ Kelly, the only BBM  moderator who still has his feet on the ground. But if it was an emission from the train, that would be something people were used to seeing, that would be something nobody would feel the need to comment on if they did, and that would be something that could potentially be misinterpreted, in the urgency and the stress and chaos of the Siege, by someone with a vivid imagination, as something of greater significance than it actually was. And that would be a perfectly rational explanation of the genuine problem with Arthurs claim, that nobody else reported rockets : other people saw sparks from the train, and that wasn’t in the least unusual.


There are other reasons to be sceptical: all of the other details  about the rockets, other than the testimony of Arthur  – which was that there were two ,one large and one ‘very faint’, and that he guessed they had come from somewhere between the station and McDonells hotel – are made up. Arthur speculated – on the basis of nothing that he ever mentioned – that  the rockets were a signal to Kelly supporters, but no Kelly supporter ever said anything about rockets to anyone. Rockets didn’t figure in any Outbreak narrative till Jones added details that were given to him by a Lloyd descendant who many years later confessed he had made them up just to keep Jones happy. He was sick of people who profited from selling distorted claims about the Kelly gang and decided to just give Jones a line and see if he would swallow it. He did. Hook, line and sinker.

Additionally, given we now know for certain that the other line Jones swallowed about a Republic, and made the centrepiece of his entire Outbreak narrative, is also false, there is now no reason other than something entirely unrelated to the Siege, for rockets to be launched. There was no sympathiser army waiting in the hills for a signal.

Further, despite BBM cultists mocking the suggestion sparks could account for the phenomenon Arthur saw, the fact is steam trains DO emit sparks – which is precisely why they have spark arrestors on them – and in 1880, as has been uncovered in Blog discussions about them recently – spark arrestors were still not very effective. In 1880, they were still being developed and improved.

 

Additionally, though Arthur didn’t see where they had come from, the area that Arthur roughly indicated was where he thought they came from was exactly where the train was waiting.

 

Lastly, Arthur gave testimony to the Royal Commission about things he said he heard and saw in relation to Steele’s behaviour at the Siege, and as a result, the Commission made adverse findings against Steele and recommended he be demoted. However, when Steele objected to this finding against him, a separate three-day enquiry was established and it “unhesitatingly and unanimously” recommended that Sgt Steele be acquitted of the charges made against him. Arthurs claims were not supported or corroborated  by anyone – indeed, they were contradicted by the testimony of other police who were there –  and as a result Steele wasn’t demoted. 

 

So here’s the bottom line: as can be seen, a perfectly rational case can be made that Arthur got it wrong. It’s an argument that’s well supported by reason and by evidence, its an argument that answers many more of the unanswered questions about Arthurs almost off-hand comment that surprised the RC than does the claim that signal rockets were fired by Kelly supporters.


But if you want to insist that Arthur got it right, and that one large and one faint rocket was launched somewhere between the station and McDonells hotel on the night of the siege by Kelly supporters for a reason that we will never be able to discover, and the fact that nobody else reported seeing them isnt a problem, and Arthurs proven unreliability as an eyewitness doesn’t trouble you  – go ahead, that is your absolute right. But remember, that is ALL you can assert about these rockets – you have NO idea why they were fired, you have NO idea who fired them, there is NOTHING to link them to the Kelly gang other than the fact they were fired during the siege. Maybe a local Chinese Celebration planned for that weekend was underway? Can you be certain there wasnt? 


But seriously, please, stop your childish, triggered and contemptible mockery and hateful abuse and belittling of people who for very good reason don’t agree with you. If you have an argument to make about why you believe Arthur was right, go ahead and make it. The only things you achieve by this latest long campaign of personal attacks, ridicule and mockery of people who see it differently,  is to expose your position as weak, as blind fanaticism and yourselves as pathetic,  and stupid. The unmissable irony of course is that you are the people constantly asking for a mature debate, and patting yourselves on the back for being ‘good people’ . In my book personal abuse and hateful rhetoric directed at people  whose views you disagree with isnt something that ‘good people’ find time for.