Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned page 229

The astronomers have functioned bravely in the past. They've been good for business: the big interests think kindly, if at all, of them. It's bad for trade to have an intense darkness come upon an unaware community and frighten people out of their purchasing values. But if an obscuration be foretold, and if it then occur--may seem a little uncanny--only a shadow--and no one who was about to buy a pair of shoes runs home panic-stricken and saves the money.