It was a great wonder, a sign in heaven indeed, the marvelous airship that flew over the United States in the spring of 1897. And the discovery of the remarkable wave of reports it generated has provided a crucial missing link between the apparitions of older days and modern saucer stories, thanks to researchers such as Donald Hanlon, Jerome Clark, and Lucius Farish. The result of their investigations is astonishing.
In California in November 1896, hundreds of residents of the San Francisco area saw a large, elongated, dark object that carried brilliant searchlights and was capable of flying against the wind. Between January and March 1897, it vanished entirely. And suddenly a staggering number of observations of an identical object were made in the Midwest. A witness named Alexander Hamilton described it: a craft with turbine wheels and a glass section with strange being aboard looking down, a description not unlike that of Betty and Barney Hill. In March, an object of even stranger appearance was seen by Robert Hibbard, a farmer living fifteen miles north of Sioux City, Iowa. Hibbard not only saw the airship, but an anchor hanging from a rope attached to the mysterious craft caught his clothes and dragged him several dozen feet, until he fell back to earth.
Presenting in an orderly fashion all the accounts of that period would itself fill a book. My object here is only to review the most detailed observations of the behavior of the airship's occupants on the ground. But first, how did the object behave? It maneuveredvery much in the way UFOs are said to maneuver, except that airships were never seen flying in formation or performing aerial dances. Usually, an airship flew rather slowly and majestically -- of course, such an object in 1897 ran no risk of being pursued -- except in a few close-proximity cases when it was reported to depart "as a shot out of a gun." Another difference from modern UFOs lies in the fact that its leisurely trajectory often took it over large urban areas. Omaha, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other cities were visited; each time, large crowds gathered to watch the object. Otherwise, the airship exhibited all the typical activities of UFOs: hovering, dropping "probes" -- on Newton, Iowa, on April 10, for example -- changing course abruptly, changing altitude at great speed, circling, landing and taking off, sweeping the countryside with powerful light beams.
The occupants of the airship were as variously described as are UFO operators. Several reports could be interpreted to mean that dwarfs were amoung them, but it was not stated in so many words by witnesses. Alexander Hamilton says that the beings were the strangest he had ever seen and that he did not care to se them again.
The UFO's operators who engaged in discussion with human witnessed were indistinguishable from the average American population of the time. This, for instance, is the experience related by Captain James Hooton (described in the Arkansas Gazette as "the well-known Iron Mountain railroad conductor"):
I had gone down to Texarkana to bring back a special, and knowing that I would have some eight to ten hours to spend in Texarkana, I went to Homan (Arkansas) to do a little hunting. It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon when I reached that palce. The sport was good, and before I knew it, it was after 6 o'clock when I started to make my way back toward the railroad station. As I was tramping through the bush my attention was attracted by a familiar sound, a sound for all the world like the working of an air pump on a locomotive.
I went at once in the direction of the sound, and there in an open space of some five or six acres, I saw the object making the noise. To say that I was astonished would but feebly express my feelings. I decided at once that this was the famous airship seen by so many people about the country.
There was a medium-size looking man aboard and I noticed that he was wearing smoked glasses. He was tinkering around what seemed to be the back end of the ship, and as I approached I was too dumbfounded to speak. He looked at me in surprise, and said: "Good day, sir; good day." I asked: "Is this the airship?" And he replied: "Yes, sir," whereupon three or four other men came out of what was apparently the keel of the ship.
A close examination showed that the keel was divided into two parts, terminating in the front like the sharp edge of a knife-like edge, while the side of the ship bulged gradually toward the middle, and then receded. There were three large wheels upon each side made of some bending metal and arranged so that they became concave as they moved forward.
"I beg your pardon, sir," I said, "the noise sounds a great deal like a Westinghouse air brake."
"Perhaps it does, my friend: we are using condensed air and aeroplanes, but you will know more later on."
All ready, sir," someone called out, when the party all disappeared below. I oberved that just in front of each wheel a two-inch tube began to spurt air on the wheels and they comenced revolving. The ship gradually arose with a hissing sound. The aeroplanes suddenly sprang forward, turning their sharp end skyward, then the rudders at the end of the ship began to veer to one side and the wheel revolved so fast that one could scarcely see the blades. In less time than it takes to tell you, the ship had gone out of sight.
Captain Hooton adds that he could discover no bell or bell rope about the ship and was greatly shocked by this detail, since he thought "every well-regulated air locomotive should have one." He left a detail drawing of the machine.
We next look at the testimony of Constable Sumpter and Deputy Sheriff McLemore, of Hot Springs, Arkansas:
While riding north-west from this city on the night of May 6, 1897, we noticed a brilliant light high in the heavens. Suddenly it disappeared and we said nothing about it, as we were looking for parties and did not want to make any noise. After riding four or five miles around through the hills we again saw thelight, which now appeared to be much nearer the earth. We stopped our horses and watched it coming down, until all at once it disappeared behind another hill. We rode on about half a mile, when our horses refused to go further. About a hundred yards distant we saw two persons moving around with lights. Drawing our Winchesters -- for we were now thoroughly aroused to the importance of the situation -- we demanded "Who is that, and what are you doing?"
A man with a long dark beard came forth with a lantern in his hand, and on being informed who we were proceeded to tell us that he and the others -- a young man and a woman -were traveling through the country in an airship. We could plainly distinguish the outlines of the vessel, which was cigar-shaped and about sixty feet long, and looking just like the cuts that have appeared in the papers recently. It was dark and raining and the young man was filling a big sack with water about thirty yards away, and the woman was particular to keep back in the dark. She was holding an umbrella over her head. The man with the whiskers invited us to take a ride, saying that he could take us where it was not raining. We told him we believed we preferred to get wet.
Asking the man why the brilliant light was turned on and off so much, he replied that the light was so powerful that it consumed a great deal of his motive power. He said he would like to stop off in Hot Springs for a few days and take the hot bathes, but his time was limited and he could not. He said they were going to Nashville, after thoroughly seeing the country. Being in a hurry we left and upon our return, about forty minutes later, nothing was to be seen.
We did not heard or see the airship when it departed.
In the Chicago Chronicle of April 13, 1897, appeared the following, under the headline "AIRSHIP SEEN IN IOWA":
Fontanelle, Iowa, April 12. The airship was seen here at 8:30 tonight, and was viewed by the whole population. It came from the south-east, and was not over 200 feet above the tree-tops and moved very slowly, not to exceed ten miles and hour. The machine could be plainly seen, and is described as being sixty feet in length, and the vibration of the wings could plianly be seen. It carried the usual coloured lights, and the working of the machinery could be heard, as also could the strains of music, as from an orchestra. It was hailed, but passed on to the north, seeming to increase its speed, and disappeared. There is no doubt in Fontanelle that it was the real thing, and is testified to by most prominent citizens.
Here the airship, which had appeared to Captain Hooton as a typically mechanical contraption, takes on a more fairylike appearance. The parallel becomes even more striking in the following report, as pointed out by researcher Donald Hanlon. It is extracted from April 28 edition of the Houston Daily Post:
Merkel, Texas, April 26. Some parties returning from church last night noticed a heavy object dragging along with a rope attached. They followed it until, in crossing the railroad, it caught on a rail. On looking up they saw what they supposed was the airship. It was not near enough to get an idea of the dimensions. A light could be seen protruding from several windows; one bright light in front like the headlight of a locomotive.
After some ten minutes, a man was seen descending the rope. He came near enough to be plainly seen; he wore a light blue sailor suit and was small in size. He stopped when he discovered parties at the anchor, and cut the rope below him and sailed off in a north-east direction. The anchor is now on exhibition at the blacksmith shop of Elliot and Miller and is attracting the attention of hundreds of people.
"This osunds much too familiar to be taken lightly," comments Hanlon, who reminds us of the Sioux City incident -- when Robert Hibbard was dragged by an anchor hanging from an airship -- and of Drake's and Wilkin's account of two incidents that took place about 1211 A.D. or earlier. According to the Irish story:
There happened in the borough of Cloera, one Sunday, while the people were at Mass, a marvel. In this town is a church dedicated to St. Kinarus. It befell that an anchor was dropped from the sky, with a rope attached to it, and one of the flukes caught in the arch above the church door. The people rushed out of the church and saw in the sky a ship with men on board, floating before the anchor cable, and they saw a man leap overboard and jump down to the anchor, as if to release it. He looked as if he were swimming in water. The folk rushed up and tried to seize him: but the Bishop forbade the people to hold the man, for it might kill him, he said. The man was freed, and hurried up to the ship, where the crew cut the rope and the ship sailed out of sight. But the anchor is in the church, and has been there ever since, as testimony.
In Gervase of Tilbury's Otis Imperialia, a similar account is related as having taken place in Gravesend, Kent, England. An anchor from a "cloudship" caught in a mound of stones in the churchyard. The people heard voices from above, and the rope was moved as if to free the anchor, to no avail. A man was then seen to slide down the rope and cut it. In one account, he then climbed back aboard the ship; in another, he died of suffocation.
The Houston Post of April 22, 1897, has a further report:
Rockland: Mr. John M. Barclay, living near this place, reports that last night about 11 o'clock, after having retired, he heard his dog barking furiously, together with a whining noise. He went to the door to ascertain the trouble and saw something, he says, that made his eyes bulge out and but for the fact that he had been reading of an airship that was suppose to have been in over Texas, he would have taken to the woods.
It was a peculiar shaped body, with an oblong shape, with wings and side attachments of various sizes and shapes. There were brilliant lights, which appeared much brighter than electric lights. When he first saw it, it seemed perfectly stationary about five yards from the ground. It circled a few times and gradually descended to the ground in a pasture adjacent to his house. He took his Winchester and went down to investigate. As soon as the ship, or whatever it might be, alighted the lights went out. The night was bright enough for a man to be distinguished several yards, and when within about thirty yards of the ship he was met by an ordinary mortal, who requested him to lay his gun aside as no harm was intended. Whereupon the following conversation ensued. Mr. Barclay enquired: "Who are you and what do you want?" "Never mind my name, call it Smith. I want some lubricating oil and a couple of cold chisels if you can get them, and some bluestone. I suppose the saw mill hard by has the two former articles and the telegraph operator has the bluestone. Here is a ten-dollar bill: take it and get us these articals and keep the change for your trouble."
Mr. Barclay said: "What have you got down there? Let me go and see it." He who wanted to be called Smith said:
"No, we cannot permit you to approach any nearer, but do as we request you and your kindness will be appreciated, and we will call you some future day and reciprocate your kindness by taking you on a trip."
Mr. Barclay went and procured the oil and cold chisels, but could not get the bluestone. They had no change and Mr. Barclay tendered him the ten-dollar bill, but same was refused. The man shook hands with him and thanked him cordially and asked that he not follow him to the vessel. As he left Mr. Barclay called him and asked him where he was from and where he was going. He replied, "From anywhere, but we will be in Greece day after tomorrow." He got on board, when there was again the whirling noise, and the thing was gone, as Mr. Barclay expressed it, like a shot out of a gun. Mr. Barclay is perfectly reliable.
The same night, half an hour later (according to the Houston Post of April 26 and reported independently):
Josserand: Considerable excitement prevails at this
writing in this usually quiet village of Josserand, caused by a visit of the noted airship, which has been at so many points of late. Mr. Frank Nichols, a prominent farmer living about two miles east of here, and a man of unquestioned veracity, was awakened night before last near the hour of twelve by a whirring noise similar to that made by machinery. Upon looking out he was startled upon beholding brilliant lights streaming from a ponderous vessel of strange proportions, which rested upon the ground in his cornfield.