The next few pages will help start off newbies to the wild and weird world of UFO's. We've located this information on the net and, while it's pretty well put together, we don't agree completely with ever word. However, it is useful information, and we don't have time to re-invent the wheel. We will be updating, correcting and constructing this area often.
Introduction to the Airship wave of 1896
From November of 1896 to mid 1897, there was a wave of sightings across the United States of lights in the sky. These lights were said to be from some type of airship. This was more than four years before the first recorded flight of an airship on Earth. This has led a number people to believe that this wave of sightings was the result of UFO activity over the U.S. This is probably incorrect.
There is a very high degree of probability that these sightings resulted from test flights of one or more airships being built at the time. By carefully analyzing sighting reports of the time, it might be possible to outline a general flight path of at least one airship. The problem with this approach is that at the time, telegraphs were new and many small town telegraph operators might have invented airship sightings in order to transmit them up and down the telegraph lines.
Also, many newspapers, always on the lookout for sensational stories, might have invented these stories as well. In this section, we have tried to include only those reports which seem to have some basis in fact. Another possible theory which has been put forth is that the airships really were UFO's but that the people of the time used the only words that they knew to describe what they were seeing. In other words, they tended to describe UFO's as airships. This is called cultural tracking.
USA 1897 Merkel, TX
Throughout the airship wave of 1896-97, there are several reports of airships trailing anchors across the ground as they flew. One such report comes from Merkel, TX where a man found an airship with an anchor caught on a railroad rail. There was a person descending the rope in order to cut the anchor free. After the airship had gone on its way, the anchor was retrieved from the rail and became an exhibit in the local blacksmith's shop.
USA 1897 Barclay, John M.
On April 21, 1897, John M. Barclay's attention was drawn to an airship by its whining noise and the barking of his dog. He watched the airship circle several times and then land. The most striking feature of the airship was its bright light. A man disembarked from the airship and approached Barclay, asking for tools, equipment and oil, offering American money in exchange.
Mr. Barclay went into town and purchased the items. He returned and gave them to the man from the airship who called himself Smith. After a short repair time, the airship lifted off and sped away at high speed. Another report from the same area and about thirty minutes later came from a man named Frank Nichols who reported hearing a deep whirring noise and seeing a brilliant light in the sky.
USA 1897 Benjamin, Dr. E.H.
During the airship flap of 1896-97, there was much speculation as to the origin of the airship(s). Many people believed that the airships were the invention of men who were ahead of their time. One likely candidate was a Dr. E.H. Benjamin, a dentist who was identified by an attorney named Collins who stated that he was representing Dr. Benjamin. As likely as this sounds, it must be remembered that during the time of the airship wave, the hobby of trying to identify the inventor was quite widespread.
USA 1897 Hamilton, Alexander
In April of 1897, a Kansas farmer named Alexander Hamilton was awakened one night by a loud noise coming from one of his fields. When he went out to see what it was, he saw a strange sight. An airship which he described as being cigar shaped and about 300 feet long was attacking his cattle. A rope had been lowered from the undercarriage of the airship and had lassoed one of his cattle around the neck and was flying off with it. The following morning, another farmer found the remains of the cow in one of his fields. Apparently, the crew of the airship had butchered the cow and dropped the remains overboard.
USA 1897 Hibbard, Robert
In March of 1897, Robert Hibbard, a farmer near Sioux City, Iowa, found an airship with its anchor dragging along the ground. Somehow he became entangled in it and was dragged a considerable distance before he was able to free himself. There was apparently a farmer who watched as one of his cattle became entangled in and airship anchor in a similar fashion.
USA 1897 Hough, Professor George W.
During the airship wave of 1896-97, Professor George W. Hough of the Deerborn Observatory at Northwestern University announced that he believed that the current airship wave was attributable to mis-identifications of the star Alpha Orionis. This explanation seems a little unlikely given the sheer number of reports of a large, flying structure and the detailed sightings that some people made of the craft(s).
USA 1897 Humbert, Pierre
There is a report of an SOS which was dropped from an airship. Three crew members including Pierre Humbert of Boston, MA and C.D. Novina placed a note in a bottle and threw it at a witness on the ground. The note said that the airship had not been able to land for more than two weeks since landing in Kansas and that they had run out of food. It appeared that they had lost control of their vehicle and did not know whether they would survive the rest of the flight. It was not clear what the observer on the ground was expected to do. There is no report of an airship crashing anywhere in that year, so the final disposition of the crew is unknown.
USA 1897 Mclenore, Deputy Sheriff
On May 6, 1897 a deputy sheriff in Arkansas by the name of McLenore was riding horseback with Constable Sumpter when they witnessed an airship landing. It began as a bright light in the sky which disappeared and then reappeared closer to the ground. The airship was cigar shaped and about 60 feet long. The officers rode near where the ship had landed and saw several people moving around near it.
When the officers asked who they were and what they were doing, it was explained to them that they were traveling across the United States in the airship. The officers inquired about the bright light and how they saw it go on and off. They were told that the light used a lot of power and they only used it when they had to. Given the credibility of the witnesses, this is probably a true account.
USA 1897 Pennington, E.J.
During the airship wave of 1896-97, there was much speculation as to the origin of the airships. One likely candidate was E.J. Pennington who developed an airship in 1891. The first acknowledged flight of an airship was in 1901, however, there is proof of the existence of the Pennington airship as it was seen resting on the ground in Brown county Indiana. This airship could not have accounted for all of the sightings, however, it was in all likelihood, responsible for a large number of them.
USA 1896 W.A. "Martian"
The Sacramento Bee, a local newspaper printed a letter from an alleged Martian known as W.A. which stated that the Lord Commissioner of Mars had sent one of his electric aircraft on an exploratory mission to earth and that it was this that people were seeing around the country. This was an obvious hoax which was printed for amusement. The writer of the letter made it apparent that he was, himself, from Mars.
USA 1897 April 17
In the small town of Aurora, Texas, on April 17, 1897, it is said that a strange airship came crashing to the ground, exploding upon impact. The single occupant of the craft was supposedly a Martian and the crashed vehicle was said to contain papers covered with a strange sort of hieroglyphic text. The body of the "Martian" is supposedly buried in a local cemetery and this airship case is widely regarded as a hoax. There is one piece of interesting evidence which came to light much later, however. A small piece of a peculiar metal alloy was found at the site many years later and resisted attempts at metallurgy. The fragment was sent to the McDonnell Aircraft Company for further analysis.
USA 1896 Sacramento, CA
On November 17, 1896, the daughter of the Mayor of Sacramento at that time, reported seeing a rather large glowing globe moving over Sacramento. Other witnesses of this sighting reported the object to be moving against the wind at an altitude of 400 feet. There was an impression of machinery behind the light which suggested there was a huge dark colored object. There were other reports at this same time of voices being heard from the object and even the sighting of a crew inside the craft.