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 Professor Edward Morley and Charles "Blinky" Morgan were one and the same person!

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The important thing to remember here is that Merle Rideout is drunk.

Charles "Blinky" Morgan

Professor Edward Morley

I'm as sober as I usually am on a Saturday afternoon and I can almost see what Merle's talking about just via looks (Merle will have more reasons for his conclusion). If I were drunk (or quickly heading toward that state), I think I could also dismiss all the obvious differences in the look of these two, like length of hair, head shape, super different noses, mustache bushiness, chin and subsequent dimples, and eye size (just to mention a few. If I keep going, I might have to recant on my claim that I might think they look alike if I were drunk). If I were a modern face-blind person, I might even think these two pictures were practically the same person! But even Merle must have better reasons for deciding these two old timey guys were the same person.
    Oh! Is Pynchon telling us Merle is face-blind?!

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 It was so obvious!

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You're killing me here, Pynchon! Where are your meaty sentences that go on for multiple paragraphs or pages? Stop exposing the weakness of this entire project with lines that can't really be explicated outside of the context of the rest of the work!
    *sigh* Fine. Let's talk about the single word in this sentence that matters.

"It"
Ha ha! Just kidding! Although let's clarify "it", at least. "It" here is a pronoun representing the noun "the thing that connects Blinky Morgan to the Michelson-Morley experiment".

"obvious"
The Merriam-Webster definition of obvious is "easily discovered, seen, or understood". I suppose the obviousness of a thought that takes some time (and loads of alcohol) to reveal itself might seem like a paradox because how is it obvious if it wasn't seen from the first? But the concept of something being "obvious" yet unseen until later stems from the archaic definition of it: "being in the way or in front". "How did you not notice that thing that was right in front of your eyes the entire time? The thing was archaically obvious but you didn't notice it." The word is less about something that is easily recognized from the start and more about where the thing lies (in your way; directly ahead) and yet the person still missed it. The word thusly indicates a lack of perception in the person not noticing the thing in front of them. Merle missed the connection not because it was subtle and hard to see but because his perception was off. He was a poor observer. He lacked the light needed to illuminate the night and thus the thing staring him in the face.

Don't worry! I think Merle's revelation is about to be explained in the next sentence! Hold on to your guppies!

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 Why hadn't he seen it before?

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Because he was sober. We're often warned against driving or operating heavy machinery or engaging in sexual activity while drunk because it limits the scope of our abilities to see things as they are. We're not often warned against the danger of merely thinking about stuff while drunk. But it's the same concept. It's easy to understand that your reaction times are lessened while drunk so you shouldn't drive (also your eyesight becomes fuzzier and your brain dumber). It's also easy to understand that maybe buffing a floor with a high powered buffer could get dicey. It's maybe less understandable for some how engaging in sexual activity should be limited by how drunk you or the other person is because, for loads and loads of them, getting drunk (or getting somebody else drunk) is the only way they can get laid. But if your rationality is hampered, so is your ability to recognize or give consent. But thinking?! Why, that's the easiest thing in the world to do! And it's sometimes more fun when you're drunk! Why would anybody warn against thinking at a time like that?!

I think most people have an unconscious understanding that thinking is bad when you're drunk which is why sports exists. It's a great way to get drunk while not having to think about anything but how stupid the uniforms of the team playing against your favorite team look when that team is beating the fucking pants off of your team and you can't find any other way to feel superior to them or their fans. Concerts are good for getting drunk at as well because you don't need to think while rocking out to your favorite rap or country or boy group.

I think another reason thinking while drinking is dangerous is because alcohol is a depressant and if you think too much while drunk, you're eventually going to probably kill yourself. Please don't think and drink!

"Why hadn't he seen it"
Obviously there isn't much to say about this line on its own. But that's what this blog is about so let me say just this tiny little bit: seeing is revelation. It's incorporating evidence into your understanding of the world via the medium of light. Light as illumination and knowledge and change being the theme of this book, or, at least, this section. Perhaps what Pynchon is stating here and the previous (and probably aft) sentences is that alcohol works much the same way as light. It helps one to see things, if not clearly, at least from a different perspective. Like two observers seeing two different events at differing times based on their distance from the object or their movement away or toward that object. Hint, hint!

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 One day Merle had seen the astonishing truth of the case, though admittedly he had been most of the night working his way from one Whiskey Hill saloon to the next, drinking.

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"Merle had seen the astonishing truth of the case"
This makes it sound like Pynchon's going to explain exactly the connection Merle saw between Blinky Morgan and the Michelson-Morley experiment. Nobody would blame you for rubbing your hands together, pulling your pants down to your upper thighs, pumping the lotion bottle three or four times, and getting ready for the money shot reveal. And while I, sitting here with my pants half off, don't know for sure if there's going to be a reveal because I'm reading this long ass book one sentence at a time (probably due to some early childhood brain injury), I'm hesitant to start pumping lotion into my hand because I quickly noticed the conjunction "though" which is how a grammarian shouts, "Before you begin fondling your nether regions in anticipation of universal truth revealed and/or boobies, take a second to regard the framework of the first clause by studying this second clause!"

"though admittedly he had been most of the night working his way from one Whiskey Hill saloon to the next, drinking"
See? Merle was drunk when he had this revelation so take it with several grains of salt on the rim of your tequila shot. Do teetotalers understand how truly overwhelming revelation can be when one is in an altered state? I feel like the reaction to revelation while you're sober reduces itself to a nod of the head as it's swiftly incorporated into your understanding of life and the universe around you. In an altered state, revelation becomes truly religious. The immenseness of the revelation multiplies by the grandeur of the altered state. A drunk might be, as Merle here, astonished, a pothead flabbergasted, while somebody on mushrooms or LSD might trepan themselves to let out the massive truth flow freely from their blown mind. I may not have trepanned myself but I regularly had mind blowing revelations about severely mundane things while on mushrooms or LSD which thought about later sober just made me shake my head and laugh. I'm glad I never started a cult about how the number three connects everything and triangles are the perfect shape, or how some VCRs' pause button would pause the show but then to unpause the show, you'd have to press it again instead of play. Even though, you know, the button's purpose was to PAUSE, not to UNPAUSE!

"Whiskey Hill"
Whenever I research Cleveland to read about Whiskey Hill, I just get modern mentions of Whiskey Island. I'm assuming this is the same place but things have changed due to climate change!