Page 35 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition

Mystery Airships or Phantom Airships 35

Mystery Airships or

Phantom Airships

Mystery airships or phantom airships are
a class of unidentified flying objects best
known from a series of newspaper
reports originating in the western United
States and spreading east during late
1896 and early 1897. According to

researcher Jerome Clark, airship
sightings were reported worldwide
during the 1880s and 1890s. Mystery
airship reports are seen as a cultural
predecessor to modern claims of
extraterrestrial-piloted flying saucer-
style UFOs. Typical airship reports
involved night time sightings of
unidentified lights, but more detailed
accounts reported ships comparable to a
dirigible.

Reports of the alleged crewmen and from public consciousness. The airship research. The general conclusion of
pilots usually described them as human- stories received further attention only investigators was that a considerable
looking, although sometimes the crew after the 1896-97 newspaper reports were number of the simpler sightings were
claimed to be from Mars. It was largely rediscovered in the mid 1960s and misidentification of planets and stars,
popularly believed that the mystery UFO investigators suggested the airships and a large number of the more complex
airships were the product of some might represent earlier precursors to post- the result of hoaxes and practical jokes. A
inventor or genius who was not ready to World War II UFO sightings. small residuum remains perplexing.”
make knowledge of his creation public.

For example, Thomas Edison was so The Airship Wave Of 1896-1897 Specific Cases
widely speculated to be the mind behind
the alleged airships that in 1897 he "was The best-known of the mystery airship The Sacramento Bee and the San
forced to issue a strongly worded waves began in California in 1896. Francisco Call reported the first sighting
statement" denying his responsibility. Afterwards, reports and accounts of on November 18, 1896. Witnesses
similar airships came from other areas, reported a light moving slowly over
It has been frequently argued that generally moving eastward across the Sacramento on the evening of November
mystery airships are unlikely to represent country. Some accounts during this wave 17 at an estimated 1,000-foot elevation.[
test flights of real human-manufactured of airship reports claim that occupants Some witnesses said they could see a
dirigibles as no record of successful were visible on some airships, and dark shape behind the light. A witness
sustained or long-range airship flights encounters with the pilots were reported named R.L. Lowery reported that he
are known from the period and "it would as well. These occupants often appeared heard a voice from the craft issuing

have been impossible, not to mention to be human, though their behaviour, commands to increase elevation in order
irrational, to keep such a thing secret." To mannerisms and clothing were to avoid hitting a church steeple. Lowery
the contrary, however, there were in fact sometimes reported to be unusual. added "in what was no doubt meant as a
several functional airships manufactured Sometimes the apparent humans claimed wink to the reader" that he believed the
before the 1896–97 reports (e.g., to be from the planet Mars. apparent captain to be referring to the
Solomon Andrews made successful test tower of a local brewery, as there were no
flights of his "Aereon" in 1863), but their Historian Mike Dash described and churches nearby.
capabilities were far more limited than summarized the 1896–1897 series of

the mystery airships. Reece and others airship sightings, writing: Lowery further described the craft as
note that contemporary American being powered by two men exerting
newspapers of the "yellow journalism" “Not only were [the mystery airships] themselves on bicycle pedals. Above the
era were more likely to print bigger, faster and more robust than pedaling men seemed to be a passenger
manufactured stories and hoaxes than are anything then produced by the aviators of compartment, which lay under the main
modern news sources, and editors of the the world; they seemed to be able to fly body of the dirigible. A light was
late 1800s often would have expected the enormous distances, and some were mounted on the front end of the airship.
reader to understand that such stories equipped with giant wings... The 1896– Some witnesses reported the sound of
were false. 1897 airship wave is probably the best singing as the craft passed overhead.

investigated of all historical anomalies.
Most journalists of the period did not The files of almost 1,500 newspapers
seem to take the airship reports very from across the United States have been (Continued on Page 36)

seriously, as after the major 1896–97 combed for reports, an astonishing feat of
wave concluded, the subject quickly fell