Repost: The Mystery Airship
Daniel Guenther
Auszug aus
Jacobs, David Michael
The UFO Controversy in America
Indiana University Press, Bloomington, London 1975; ISBN 0-253-19006-1
S. 5-34
THE MYSTERY AIRSHIP:
PRELIMINARIES TO THE CONTROVERSY
Thousands of people in the United States in 1896 and 1897 said they saw
airships in the skies over Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West
Virginia, and Wisconsin. The sightings started in California in
November 1896 and continued until May 1897, with a break from January
to the middle of March.
The airships appeared most often as dirigible-type machines,
cylindrical or cigar shaped and driven by a motor attached to an air
screw or propeller. *1) When witnesses said they saw an airship, they
implicitly differentiated between it and a glider or a heavier-than-air
'flying machine.' Also, most people distinguished between an airship
and a balloon, which was definitely round and had a basket attached to
it. They expressed a popular belief that the solution to aerial
navigation would be through an airship rather than heavier-than-air
flying machines, which had not yet assumed the importance in the
popular imagination that they would after the Wright brothers'
experiments in 1903. Consequently, many of the early designs for the
'machine that would conquer the air' looked like dirigibles with a
passenger car on the bottom.
Descriptions of the objects varied greatly, either because the
witnesses were inaccurate or because they viewed different airships. In
Omaha, Nebraska, an airship sighting interrupted a Knights of Ak-Sar-
Ben initiation ceremony. According to the excited witnesses, the object
was 'at least eighteen inches in diameter, the reflection from which
passed along what appeared to be a steel body, the length of which
could only be estimated at from twelve to thirty feet.' In Chicago, on
April 10, 1897, the 'Chicago Tribune' reported that people observed a
slender object, seventy feet long with approximately twenty-foot wide
structures resembling wings or sails just above the body. In Mount
Carroll, Illinois, witnesses described an airship eight to ten feet
long and two or three feet high. 'A dim outline of it could be seen,
which appeared to be shaped like an egg,' in Wausau, Wisconsin. An
airship over Dallas, Texas, was 'in a luminous, hazy cloud' and had
'sails or wings outstretched on both sides of its cigar-shaped body';
'on both ends," the report said, "there were large rotating fans
projecting from the sails at an angle of about 45 degrees, the one in
front being elevated, while the one at the rear was depressed, somewhat
resembling the body of a bird.' Witnesses estimated its length to be
about two hundred feet. In Fort Worth, Texas, an airship looked like a
sixty-foot long 'passenger coach,' pointed at the ends and with batlike
wings. *2)
Witnesses repeatedly reported lights on the object, usually the first
indication of an approaching airship. Colored or bright white lights
plus an intense red or white searchlight were the most common features
of the airship descriptions. In Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, 'the white
light... ahead and a red light at the rear made the affair look like a
machine about fifty feet long and flying about 500 feet above the
earth.' The Benton Harbor, Michigan, airship had blue, red, and green
lights. Occasionally the searchlight on the airship was so brilliant
that, for example, when it appeared in Everest, Kansas, at 9:05 P.M.,
the 'full power of the wonderful lamps were turned on, and the city was
flooded with light.' Often the unusual color of the white searchlight
made it seem phosphorescent. Sometimes the lights came from the side of
the ship and moved independently of it. As thousands of gaping
spectators watched in Milwaukee, 'the machine, or whatever it
was,' hovered directly over the city hall and the lights on it moved
backward and forward, 'as if signalling to the earth.' In Guthrie,
Oklahoma, 'its outlines were indistinct, but a light was thrown out
from the front and at times there were flashes of light from the
sides.' Frank Dickson, editor of the 'Edna' (Texas) 'Progress', saw two
airships '400 feet apart communicating with each other by means of red
and green lights.' *3)
The airships' movements ranged from erratic to smooth. In Guthrie,
Oklahoma, the object 'sank almost to the ground just north of the city,
and then rose straight into the air at great speed and disappeared in
the darkness of the night.' Often the airships 'bounced' or 'undulated'
due, people speculated, to the flapping of 'wings.' For late
nineteenth-century Americans, an airship's ability to maneuver against
the wind proved that it was under control. A dispatch from Nashville,
Illinois, pointed out that 'the fact that the object traveled from the
northwest while the wind was from the southwest goes to prove it was
not a balloon.' *4)
Like all other aspects of the airships, reported speeds varied greatly,
from as slow as 5 miles per hour to as fast as 200 miles per hour.
Occasionally witnesses made more accurate measurements of an airship's
speed. A railroad engineer from Burlington, Iowa, estimated an
airship's speed at 150 miles per hour by comparing it to his train's
speed. But most people could not make such estimates and simply
reported that an airship traveled slowly or 'at a terrific rate of
speed.'*5)
Sometimes people heard noises emanating from a sighted object. In
Burlington, Iowa, witnesses heard a 'hissing sound,' in Decatur,
Michigan, a 'sharp, crackling sound,' and in Cameron, Texas, a
'humming' noise. In general, though, either the objects made no sounds
or no one heard them. *6)
All the reports indicate that more than one object was being sighted,
both because of simultaneous or almost simultaneous sightings and
because of the differences in perceived details. Nevertheless, people
found it difficult to accept the idea of many airships. The 'Chicago
Times-Herald' reported, for example, that 'the 'air ship' has been seen
again - that is, in this vicinity. To be sure, it was also seen in
Kankakee, Mount Carroll and other
places at the same time, but the people in these cities must have been
mistaken - or else there is a whole flock of air ships cavorting about
through the heavens. The real 'air ship' [is] the one that was seen
here.' Another reporter, trying to explain how witnesses could report
an airship in two different places in a short period of time, theorized
that it was 'speedy' and 'covers vast areas of ground.' Once in a while
either an airship would return to the area or another airship would
appear there: a sensation ensued in Middleville, Michigan, when
citizens sighted an airship flying north at 9:00 P.M. and another one
flying east at 10:30 P.M.*7)
Often witnesses reported hearing sounds as an airship passed over them
at low altitude. Citizens in Sacramento heard voices coming from an
airship; others claimed to have heard music, and one man said he heard
someone on board say 'go up higher, or collide with the church
steeples, etc.' In Farmerville, Texas, and Galesburg, Michigan,
witnesses heard voices but could not understand them. 'Sweet strains of
music could be heard' in Fontanelle, Iowa, as well as 'the workings of
its machinery.' Observers in Belton, Texas, heard the 'passengers''
voices but could not understand them #on account of the velocity' of
the craft.*8)
>From time to time people said that items, usually letters, dropped from
the airships. The 'Milwaukee Sentinel' reported that several letters,
fastened to iron rods that were rusted from the rain, purportedly
dropped from an airship as it passed overhead: 'The suspicion that the
letters were 'planted' was not apparently well founded, for no hardware
dealers in this vicinity have sold any such rods as the letters were
wired to.' The letter supposedly stated that the airship 'Pegasus',
traveling from Tennessee to South Dakota, used steam for propulsion and
could carry as much as a thousand pounds; the airship, the note
maintained, would 'revolutionize all present methods of locomotion.'
The letter did not disclose the inventor's identity but asked the
'finder' to keep the note until a member of the Masonic fraternity
called for it. Citizens in Newport, Kentucky, also found a letter
describing an airship's traveling speed (forty miles per hour) and
other details;
'Captain Pegasus' had signed the note. In Dupont and Lorain, Ohio,
people supposedly found similar notes.*9)
Occasionally witnesses reported seeing occupants on board or near an
airship on the ground. In Lovelady, Texas, one witness saw an object
resembling a moving man in the airship's lower part. Several people in
Girard, Illinois, who arrived at a landing spot after they had seen an
airship rise and 'disappear,' found footprints which did not lead
anywhere. 'It was evident that they were made by someone who had jumped
out of the ship to repair some of the machinery on the outside.' In
Belle Plaine, Iowa, on April 15, 1897, airship witnesses reported
seeing 'two queer looking persons on board, who made desperate efforts
to conceal themselves'; the witnesses said the occupants 'had the
longest whiskers they ever saw in their lives.' Some people in Belton,
Texas, 'distinctly' saw ten passengers on board an object. Witnesses in
Sacramento reported seeing a cigar-shaped machine 'operated by four men
who sat aside the cigar and moved as though they were working their
passage on a bicycle.' In Cleburne, Texas, a man who claimed that 'he
had not touched a drop of anything except water during the evening' saw
an airship speed by 'just above the tops of the houses' with a
passenger in it. 'The passenger gave him the go-ahead sign that
brakemen give on the railroad.' Once in a while witnesses saw animals
as well. The city marshal of Farmerville, Texas, said that when the
object passed over him at about two hundred feet he could 'see two men
in the ship and something resembling a large Newfoundland dog.' He also
reported hearing the occupants talk, although he could not understand
the language, which sounded like Spanish,*10)
Clearly the strangest occurrence in these 1896-97 sightings was the
reported contacts between witnesses and airship occupants. These
frequent reports substantially influenced the thought of the period
about what the airships were and who was responsible for them.
Sometimes the contact reports were so sketchy that it is difficult to
ascertain exactly what happened, if anything did indeed happen. For
example, a report from Downs Township, Illinois, simply said that
'while [the witness] was at
work in a field, an airship alighted near him and ... six people
disembarked therefrom, remained a few minutes and conversed with him,
and then jumped aboard, ascended and sailed away.' The 'Harrisburg'
(Arkansas) 'Modern News' reported that ex-senator Harris (of that
state) encountered an airship and occupant who said he had a special
'Hotchkiss' gun on board and was thinking of going to Cuba to 'kill
Spaniards'; he offered Senator Harris a ride which the senator refused.
One of the earliest claims of a detailed contact occurred in California
in 1896. The witness told the 'San Francisco Call' that, while
searching in the woods for a deer, he had come across six men working
on an almost completed airship who swore him to secrecy; but now that
he was sure this was the airship people had seen, the witness said, he
would give a detailed description of the encounter. *11)
In 1897 witnesses reported a whole series of contacts with people
making repairs on their airships. Several 'presumably truthful'
citizens of Chattanooga, Tennessee, said they 'came upon the vessel
resting on a spur of a mountain near this city. Two men were at work on
it and explained that they had been compelled to return to earth
because the machinery was out of order. One of the men said his name
was 'Prof. Charles Davidson.' He is alleged to have said that the
vessel left Sacramento a month ago and had been sailing all over the
country.' *12)
John M. Barclay in Rockland, Texas, saw something that 'made his eyes
bulge out.' Hearing a whining noise on his farm and the dogs 'barking
furiously,' he grabbed his rifle and went outside to investigate; he
immediately noticed an airship circling his farm and then saw it land
in a pasture next to his house. When he was about 150 feet from the
ship, 'an ordinary mortal' met him and told him to lay his gun aside
because no harm was intended; the occupants wanted lubricating oil,
chisels, and a bluestone, for which they paid him. When Barclay tried
to inspect the airship, one occupant prevented him from going near it
but told him that someday they would return and take him for a ride.
The airship, Barclay said, took off 'like a shot out of a gun.' *13)
In Stephenville, Texas, some of the most prominent men in the community
- including a judge, a state senator, and a district
attorney - saw an airship which the occupants were repairing. One
witness spoke to two of the airship passengers, who gave their names as
S. E. Tilman and A. E. Dolbear; they refused to allow the witness to
come near the airship but explained that New York 'capitalists' were
financing them and that air navigation shortly would be an established
fact. Then they boarded the ship and, 'bidding adieu to the astonished
crowd assembled,' sailed away. *14)
Some people who claimed to see occupants with the airships reported
coming across them in secluded places. Judge Love and his friend, Mr.
Beatty, were fishing near Waxachie, Texas, when Beatty (while going
upstream for a better fishing spot) discovered a 'queer looking
machine' in the woods and a group of 'five peculiarly dressed men' near
it. One of the men, who spoke 'fairly good English,' explained this was
one of the famous airships and invited the witnesses to examine it. The
man told them the airship came from 'regions in the north pole' since,
'contrary to popular belief, there is a large body of land beyond the
polar seas.' He explained that his people descended from the ten lost
tribes of Israel and had been living in this inhabitable land for
centuries; the people spoke English because Sir Hugh Willoughby's 1553
North Pole Expedition party (which supposedly was lost) and United
States raiding parties had been stranded there and taught them the
language. They were forced to build airships, the leader said, because
they did not have timber for locomotives or sea ships. Now twenty
airships were sailing around the United States and Europe, he
explained, and all would meet on June 18 and 19 at the Tennessee
Centennial Exposition where anyone could inspect them. Judge Love said
good-bye to the occupants, and 'We then shook hands with the crew and
they stepped into their ship, rose in the air and started toward Waco.
The description of the ship I have given you is a very meager one, but
you can all go to the Nashville Exposition June 18 and 19 and see for
yourselves.' *15)
Similarly, when C. G. Williams walked across a field in Greenville,
Texas, a light suddenly 'frightened [him] almost out of [his] senses.'
An airship had landed near him and three men came out of it, two of
whom started to work on the 'rigging' of the ship.
As Williams began to write down what was happening, the third man
interceded: 'See here, young man, don't give this thing away. We are
experimenting with this vessel.... We expect to revolutionize travel
and transportation.' The visitor explained that he had been
experimenting with flight in a little town in New York State. He and
the other two men had intended originally to take a short trip, but the
flight went so well that they decided to keep going and soon found
themselves over Indiana; they were returning home in a few days to make
some improvements on the ship. They used electricity to get the airship
off the ground and wind power (to turn the large wheel in front of the
airship) once in the air, the visitor said. He predicted that in a
short while people would hear from him and there would be a 'full
description of the modern wonder, the airship.' The visitor said that
if Williams would mail some letters for him, without copying the
addresses, in return the visitors would come back and take him on a
ride to South America.*16)
Perhaps the most baffling of all contact stories concerned a man named
Wilson. The first incident occurred in Beaumont, Texas, on April 19,
1897. J. B. Ligon (local agent for the Magnolia Brewery) and his son
Charles noticed lights in the Johnson pasture a few hundred yards away
and went to investigate. They came upon four men standing beside a
large, dark object; one man asked Ligon for two buckets of water. Ligon
consented and then questioned one of the men, who said his name was
Wilson. The man explained that he and his companions were traveling in
a flying machine; they had taken a trip 'out on the gulf' and were
returning to a 'quiet Iowa town' where the airship and four others like
it had been made. Wilson explained that electricity powered the
propellers and wings.*17)
The next day, April 20, Sheriff H. W. Baylor of Uvalde, Texas, went to
investigate a strange light and voices in back of his house and
encountered an airship and three men. One of the men gave his name as
Wilson from Goshen, New York. Wilson inquired about C. C. Akers, former
sheriff of Zavalia County, whom Wilson said he had met in Fort Worth in
1877 and wanted to see again. The surprised Sheriff Baylor replied that
Captain
Akers was now at Eagle Pass in the customs service and that he often
visited him. Wilson, somewhat disappointed, 'asked to be remembered to
the captain on the occasion of his next visit.' The men from the
airship wanted water and requested their visit be kept secret from the
townspeople. Then they boarded the airship, and 'its great wings and
fans were set in motion and it sped away northward in the direction of
San Angelo.' The county clerk also saw it as it left the area. One week
later (on April 27) the 'Galveston Daily News' printed a letter from C.
C. Akers, who said he had indeed known a man in Fort Worth named
Wilson, who was from New York, educated, and about twenty-four years
old. Akers said Wilson 'was of a mechanical turn of mind and was then
working on aerial navigation and something that would astonish the
world'; Wilson, Akers theorized, seemed to have enough money to work on
his inventions, and 'having succeeded in constructing a practical
airship, would probably hunt me up to show me that he was not so wild
in his claims as I then supposed.' Akers concluded by saying: 'I have
known Sheriff Baylor many years and know that any statement he may make
can be relied on as exactly correct.' The next reported incident with a
man named Wilson occurred in Kountze, Texas, on April 23. An April 25
article in the 'Houston Post' said that two 'responsible men' observed
an airship which had descended for repairs; the occupants on board gave
their names as Wilson and Jackson. *18)
The 'Houston Post' published an account of an incident that purportedly
occurred in Josserand, Texas, on April 22, and that was similar to the
Wilson incidents, although the name was not mentioned specifically. A
whirring sound awakened Frank Nichols, a prominent farmer, who looked
out his window to find 'brilliant lights streaming from a ponderous
vessel of strange proportions' in his cornfield. 'With all the bravery
of Priam at the siege of Troy,' Nichols went outside to investigate.
Before he could get to the object, two men accosted him and asked for
some water from his well: 'Thinking he might be entertaining heavenly
visitants instead of earthly mortals permission was readily granted.'
The men invited Nichols to visit the ship, where he talked freely with
the crew of six or eight individuals. Although
'in his short interview he could gain no knowledge of its [the
airship's] working,' crew members told him that the ship's motive power
was 'highly condensed electricity.' This airship was one of five that
they had built in a small town in Iowa with the backing of an immense
stock company. The 'Houston Post' article concluded by saying: 'Mr.
Nichols lives at Josserand, Trinity County, Texas, and will convince
any credulous [sic] one by showing the place where the ship
rested.'*19)
The last reported sighting that might involve a man named Wilson -
because of its similarities with the other Wilson stories - occurred in
Deadwood, Texas. In its April 30 edition, the 'Houston Post' published
a letter describing the event. At about 8:30 P.M., H. C. Lagrone heard
his horses, which were 'old gentle stock,... snorting, running and
bucking around like a drove of bronchos on a regular stampede.' Going
out to see what was happening, he saw a bright white light circling
around the fields nearby and illuminating the entire area; eventually
the light descended and landed in a field. Lagrone thought this might
be the much publicized airship and went to the landing spot. He found a
crew of five men, three of whom entertained him while two others went
for water with rubber bags. The men informed him that this ship was one
of five that had been flying around the country recently and was the
same one that had landed in Beaumont a few days before; these ships
were 'put up' in an interior town in Illinois. But the men were
reluctant to say anything about the inner workings of the ship because
'they had not yet secured anything by patent.' They did say they
expected to set up a factory in St. Louis and 'at once enter into
active competition with the railroads for passenger traffic.' The crew,
Lagrone noted, 'was careful not to forget earthly things even though
traveling in the heavens. They were well supplied with edibles of all
sorts - like-wise drinkables; had a good supply of beer and champagne,
also had a full supply of musical instruments.' Lagrone also reported a
curious sidelight to this sighting: the airship passed close to a
religious camp meeting and some of the participants who saw the craft
'went into paroxysms of alarm' while others thought it was a messenger
from God. *20)
Perhaps the most famous occupant incident during the 1896-97 wave of
sightings took place in Leroy, Kansas, on or about April 19, 1897.
Alexander Hamilton, his son Wall, and his tenant Gid awoke to cattle
noises. Going outside they discovered - to Hamilton's 'utter amazement'
- 'an airship slowly descending over my cow lot about forty rods from
the house.' The cigar-shaped object was three hundred feet long with a
carriage made of 'panels of glass or other transparent substance
alternating with a narrow strip of some other material'; a large
searchlight and smaller red and green lights were attached to it. As it
descended to thirty feet above ground and the witnesses came to within
fifty yards of it, Hamilton could see 'six of the strangest beings I
ever saw' inside. The occupants were 'jabbering' but Hamilton could not
understand anything. Then the witnesses noticed that a heifer was
attached to a red 'cable' emanating from the airship and also was
caught in a fence. Unable to free the heifer, the witnesses cut the
fence and 'stood in amazement to see ship, cow and all rise slowly and
sail off.' The next day a neighbor recovered the calf's hide, legs, and
head a few miles away. *21)
Hamilton was deeply affected and complained that when he tried to sleep
he 'would see the cursed thing with its big lights and hideous people.'
Distressed by the incident, Hamilton later said, 'I don't know whether
they are devils or angels or what but we all saw them and my whole
family saw the ship and I don't want any more to do with them.' The
newspaper that carried Hamilton's account also printed an affidavit
from eleven prominent community members, such as the postmaster,
sheriff, justice of the peace, banker; it said they had known Hamilton
"from 15 to 30 years' and 'believe his statement to be true and
correct.' Eight days later a similar affidavit appeared in the
'Burlington' (Kansas) 'Daily News.' *22)
All these varied reports of occupants agreed on one detail: each
described them as ordinary human beings and not as creatures from
another world. These descriptions played a major role in molding
contemporary thought about the airship. The public seemed convinced
that if an airship existed, a secret
inventor, perhaps named Wilson, must have made it. This is how the
public thought an airship would probably be developed.
--
Just the Cases - UFO sightings database
http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~thomasg/ufodb.htm
Holger Isenberg
> THE MYSTERY AIRSHIP:
> PRELIMINARIES TO THE CONTROVERSY
>
> Thousands of people in the United States in 1896 and 1897 said they saw
> airships in the skies over Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Nicht ungewöhnlich, wenn man bedenkt, daß z.B. schon 1883 nahe Paris
ein elektrisch angetriebenes Luftschiff flog:
http://www.pilotundluftschiff.de/Tissandier.htm
Und im Jahr 1872 startete das erste mit Gasmotor betriebene Luftschiff:
http://www.pilotundluftschiff.de/vor_1900.htm
1888 dann das erste Luftschiff mit Benzinmotor.
Die Sichtungen waren also real, wie bei fast allen UFO-Sichtungen auch heute
und die UFOs waren, wie auch heute noch, geheime Testflugmaschinen.
--
Holger Isenberg
H.Ise...@ping.de
http://mars-news.de
Herlu
>Thousands of people in the United States in 1896 and 1897 said they saw
>airships in the skies over Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado,
s. dazu auch die links
ufo crash 1865
airship 1897
bei herlu, ufo
happy surf herlu, from hamburg, de; gate to the world
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