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Seven years before the Wright Brothers’ first
flight, Americans were boggled by strange objects in the sky. The phrase
“unidentified flying object” hadn’t been invented, so
many observers called them “airships.”
The Great Airship Wave of 1896-1897, which has
spawned books and contemporary UFO studies, started in November 1896 when
an airship with a bright light was seen in Sacramento, Calif., says Thomas
“Eddie” Bullard, a librarian at Indiana University, folklorist,
and UFO author who researched the phenomenon extensively. “The story went out that someone had invented a
successful flying machine, and reports of this airship, or at least its
supposed headlight, spread up and down California and into Nevada,”
he says.
Sightings continued westward, until they hit Illinois
in April. Illinois reported the most sightings of any state, Bullard says.
From Cairo to Chicago, newspapers reported sightings
of “a gigantic aerial boat” or an “air ship” with
colored lights.
“Airships in the sky appear to be all the
rage,” the Illinois State Journal reported on April 12, 1897.
“Monday night the mysterious air ship which has
been seen in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, paid a visit to
Lincoln [Illinois],” said the April 13, 1897 Lincoln Daily Courier. Fifty
people standing on Pulaski Street saw the “rapidly moving,
V-shaped” ship. “It came toward Lincoln with a headlight as
large as an arc electric lamp.”
The same day, Springfield’s Illinois State Register spoofed the
sightings in a shameless commercial twist. “The airship that has been
causing so much mystery . . . has finally been discovered and found to have
been the advertising medium of that great and standard work . . . the
genuine Encyclopaedia Britannica.” The “article” encouraged readers to
buy the Encyclopedia at the Register’s special rate. Two days later, however, “hundreds” of
Springfieldians, including some of its elite and state legislators, saw the
airship. “A number of persons standing on the corner of
Fifth and Monroe streets about 7:30 o’clock last evening saw a large,
brilliant light in the heavens. The light was moving rapidly and was at a
great height,” the April 16 Register said. Some observers climbed to the “roof
garden” of the Odd Fellows building (one of Springfield’s
tallest buildings at that time, located at the southeast corner of Fourth
and Monroe streets) to get a better look. The day before, Adolph Winkle and John Hulle
(spellings varied) reported that they had seen the airship land and talked
to its passengers. “Of course, no one believed the story,”
retorted the April 16 Register. The Decatur paper seemed to take them seriously,
though. Its April 16 Daily Republican said: “Farmhand John Halley and local vineyard owner
Adolf Wenke said that it landed three miles west of the city along the
Jefferson street road. They said a long bearded man emerged and inquired
where he was. Inside the car was seated another man and also the
scientist’s wife. He said they usually rested during the daytime in
remote parts of the country in order to conceal the vessel’s huge
wings. When they asked the scientist his name, he smiled and pointed to the
letter M, which was painted on the side of the car. After bidding the
farmers farewell, he pressed a button and the ship flew off.”
Airship sightings died out the next month. Theories about the sightings varied: drunken
observers, hoaxes, planets or stars mistaken for ships, and Martians.
However, many people hoped that they were proof that Americans had finally
invented a flying machine.
In Solving the 1897
Airship Mystery (Pelican Publishing Co.,
2004), author Michael Busby explains his unique conspiracy theory: that the
airships were real, funded by magnate George Hearst (William Randolph
Hearst’s father), who used them to get the U.S. entangled in the war
with Cuba. Bullard says the sightings were “hot air”:
“There are no genuine UFOs among the 1897
airships. . . . Many honest and reliable people reported a light in the
sky, but their description of how the light sank slowly toward the horizon
makes it clear they were looking at Venus or another heavenly body. Other
honest people reported a structured object with lights, moving in a manner
and direction no heavenly body could manage, but these people were the
victims of a hoax. What they saw was a fire balloon [hot air] . . . a form
of Fourth of July ‘firework’ available in drug stores year
’round. A follow-up of sightings . . . often revealed the jokesters
or reported the burnt-out carcass of the balloon had landed in some
farmer’s field, now and then starting a fire.”
The remaining sightings were lies, he says, concocted
by locals or — gasp! — the press for the sake of entertainment and sales.
Contact Tara
McClellan McAndrew at TMcand22@aol.com
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 4, 2008.
