Many years ago a British express train raced through the chilly darkness, but soon it had to slow down because of fog.
Now, being the engineer of a train isn’t easy at any time, but on this particular evening it was really hard work. Fog pressed in on the train from all sides like thick folds of heavy black velvet. Even with the powerful headlight stabbing the darkness ahead, the engineer had to strain his eyes to see the track.
The engineer wanted to be on time, because in addition to the several hundred passengers, Queen Victoria was also a passenger on this train.
Suddenly he shuddered. Dead ahead, and outlined in the brilliant beam of the engine’s headlight, stood a figure in a black cloak in the middle of the tracks waving his arms frantically! The engineer made a desperate grab for the emergency brakes and brought the express to a screeching halt.
After quieting the excited and frightened passengers the trainmen got out to investigate. They searched and called, but there was no sign of the mysterious figure who had flagged their train.
Who had he been, and why had he stopped the train?
The crewmen were puzzled. They decided someone had been playing a joke. Even the engineer was almost convinced that it had either been somebody’s poor idea of a joke or his imagination playing tricks. But he wasn’t absolutely sure.
Just to make sure, he climbed down from his cab and walked up the tracks. He stopped when the tracks suddenly ended. There, not even two hundred yards ahead of the stopped train, he found a washed-out bridge! The whole bridge had toppled into a swollen stream. If it hadn’t been for the mysterious flagman, the train would have plunged into the stream, killing many passengers and crew.
Before the train backed up to detour around the washed-out bridge, the train crew again looked for the mystery man who had saved the train. It wasn’t until the train reached London safely that the strange mystery was solved.
Lying at the base of the locomotive headlight, the engineer found a huge dead moth. Now, most people would have brushed the insect off and thought no more about it. But as he held the dead insect gently in his hand, he frowned thoughtfully.
Then he did a strange thing. He wet the wings of the moth and carefully pasted it to the glass of the headlight. Then he climbed back into the cab of his engine and switched on the light.
“Ah!” he cried triumphantly. “I thought so!” For as the bright beam stabbed ahead into the darkness, there appeared once again the “phantom” the engineer had seen earlier. But now the “arms” weren’t waving wildly. They were still.
Yes, the mysterious rescuer had been this huge moth! Somehow, in the few seconds before the train reached the wrecked bridge, it had flown into the beam of the headlight and had gotten stuck. In the dense fog the wriggling, trapped insect had resembled a cloaked figure waving his arms! An entire train and many lives had been saved by the projected shadow of a moth.
Later, when Queen Victoria was told of the strange incident she smiled and shook her head. “It was no accident, of that I am sure. It was God’s will.”
So if you’re ever in London, go to the Museum of Natural History and ask to see the “Victoria Moth.” You will be shown a huge moth enclosed in a glass case. That will be the life-saving messenger from God whom the grateful Britishers call... the Phantom Flagman!
ML-03/23/1986