“Dad [later] commented that the scene felt very strange,” said Hastings. “He and his friends continued looking on with great interest as the nameless visitors took whatever it was they had removed from the vehicle and assembled the pieces.”

“You can imagine how his imagination soared suddenly. They saw fire and smoke and heard loud noise as some object shot up into the air,” Hastings said, recounting what his father told him. “Dad and his friends shook their heads at each other, completely baffled by what they had just witnessed, and they continued sledding like you would expect them to.”

Goddard wrote in his notebook that the rocket “rose 41 feet & went 184 feet, in 2.5 secs.” The next day, he added, “Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until it cleared the frame, and then at express train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate.”

“It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, ‘I’ve been here long enough; I think I’ll be going somewhere else, if you don’t mind,’” he wrote.

Nell’s “salvation”

Nell, which gained its name from the title character of the then-contemporary play “Salvation Nell,” found its salvation in pieces.

Hastings, as recounted by his son, recalled watching as the “strangers in dark coats ran through the snow, gathered up what it was they had brought and set on fire, and they put the pieces back into their vehicle.”