Flight and Fancy at the Turn of the Century

 It has been one hundred and eight years since the Wright brothers first historic plunge into what author Guy Murchie (The World Aloft) calls the “Ocean of the Sky.”
        One hundred years ago what we accept as simple fact today was thought of as mostly romantic fantasy and futuristic speculation.
        The Wright brothers first successful flight had been preceded by decades of predictions and fanciful tales.
        Nineteenth century visionaries saw the future of flight realized in many ways. They imagined hybrid, sausage-shaped balloons carrying ship-like appendages into the air; and mechanical birdlike flyers with flapping wings.
        Looking beyond the compass of scientific fact, turn-of-the-century writers, inspired by the “romantic fiction” of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, and illustrators of “nickel thrillers” defined the popular images of aeronauts and airships.
        It was then, during the late years of the Victorian era, that steel hulls, powerful steam engines and electric dynamos gave muscle to the ships of the world’s sea powers. In 1907 the United States boldly sent The Great White Fleet of sixteen spit-and-polish battleships on a round-the-world cruise as a show of ultimate international power.      
        The use of nautical terms to describe aeronauts and their craft clothed the improbable with familiar analogies to Victorian era naval power. That tradition has been firmly embedded in the jargon of science fiction; it persists today in the most futuristic of Star Trek adventures.
        Those nineteenth century images became so compelling that many people believed stealthy, searchlight wielding aeronauts were roaming the sky in steam-powered, electrically-energized, gasbag frigates -- particularly at night. If their home port was not of this earth, it may well have been beyond.
        Item: (The Kankakee Times, Wednesday, April 7, 1897)
        “Flying Machine in Michigan: Niles, Mich., April 3 -- In many towns in southwestern Michigan people say that last Thursday night they saw an airship. At Galesburg about 10 o’clock that night people heard a sharp, crackling sound, and saw a huge black object tipped with flame at a great distance above the earth and moving northward. Some declare they heard human voices coming from the object.”
        On April 27 the Times printed a squib offering a likely reason for a rash of nationwide airship sightings. Were the sightings due to the unusual brightness of the planet Venus, then visible in the evening sky between 7:00 and 9:30 p.m.?
       This explanation did little to dispel the belief that during winter and spring of 1897, a phantom airship appeared to be cruising eastward from the West Coast.
       In mid January there were sightings at Lodi and Acampo, California; in Kansas and Nebraska during March. “The airships were generally described as cigar-shaped, apparently metallic, with wings, propellers, fins, and other appendages,” says Ronald D. Story, editor of the 1980 Encyclopedia of UFOs. “At night, they appeared to be brilliant lights, with dark superstructures sometimes visible behind the lights.”
       At 2:00 a.m. on the morning of April 9, “the vessel had arrived in Chicago,” writes J. P. Chaplin (Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowds), “and was observed by thousands of people who stood about the streets . . . to watch its maneuvering in the early morning sky. There was general agreement among the viewers that the apparition was either an airship or some kind of floating object hovering miles above the earth. Some -- ‘men of unquestioned veracity’ -- declared it was definitely an airship. They described its shape as ‘cigar-like’ and alluded to its ‘great wings.’”
      After viewing the object through “his powerful telescope” a Northwestern University professor identified the airship as the star “Alpha Orionis.”
      In 1923, in his book New Lands, Charles Fort, a journalist who collected and published reports of weird mysteries for which science could provide no explanations, wrote a commentary on the Alpha Orionis event:
        “Upon the 28th of April, 1897, Venus was in inferior conjunction. In Popular Astronomy, 5-55, it is said that many persons had written to the Editor, telling of 'airships' that had been seen, about this time. The editor writes that some of the observations were probably upon the planet Venus, but that others probably were related to toy balloons, ‘which were provided with various colored lights.’
       “The first group of our data, I take from dispatches to the New York Sun, April 2, 11,16, and 18. First of April -- ‘the mysterious light’ in the sky of Kansas City -- something like a powerful searchlight. ‘It was directed toward the earth, traveling east at a rate of sixty miles an hour.’ About a week later, something was seen in Chicago. ‘Chicago’s alleged airship is believed to be a myth, in spite of the fact that a great many persons say that they have seen the mysterious night-wanderer. A crowd gazed at strange lights, from the top of a downtown skyscraper, and Evanston students declare they saw the swaying red and green lights.’ . . . There does not seem to be an association between this object [the Chicago sighting] and the planet Venus, which upon this night was less than three weeks from nearest approach to this earth. Nevertheless this object could not have been Venus, which had set hours earlier. Prof. Hough, of the Northwestern University, is quoted -- that the people had mistaken the star Alpha Orionis for an airship. Prof. Hough explains that astronomeric effects may have given a changing red and green appearance to this star. Alpha Orionis as a northern star is some more astronomy by the astronomers who teach astronomy daytimes and then relax when night comes. That atmospheric conditions could pick out this one star and not affect other brilliant stars in Orion is more astronomy. At any rate the standardized explanation that the thing was Venus disappears.”
        Fort notes other sighting:
        “April 16 -- reported from Benton, Texas, but this time as a dark object that passed across the moon. Reports from other towns in Texas: Fort Worth, Dallas, Marshall, Ennis, and Beaumont -- ‘It was shaped like a Mexican cigar, large in the middle, and small at both ends, with great wings, resembling those of an enormous butterfly. It was brilliantly illuminated by the rays of two great searchlights, and was sailing in a southeasterly direction, with the velocity of the wind, presenting a magnificent appearance.’”
        No satisfactory explanation for these 1897 sightings exists. Story says: “Aviation historians state that craft such as were reported were not operational in the United States during the late 1890s. . . . One is forced to admit that the strangers in the skies of 1897 remain as much of a mystery to us as they were to our ancestors.”
        Tales of turn-of-the-century phantom airships read like flying saucer stories of the 1950s and ‘60s. Back in 1897 there were claims of landings, fake photographs of airships, sighting of “aeronauts,” etc.
        One of the more bizarre 1897 reports detailed a sighting on April 17 at Aurora, Texas. Writes Ronald D. Story (The Encyclopedia of UFOs):
        “A huge silver-colored, cigar-shaped object . . . came in low over the Aurora town square, zoomed north above Judge J. S. Proctor’s house, which was located on a hill, struck the judge’s windmill and exploded.” A Signal Corps Service Officer is said to have identified the dead pilot as a Martian!
         Public curiosity about the planet Mars had been titillated by Percival Lowell’s observations of so-called Martian canals from his observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, and his published speculation that the canals were artificial. The following year, 1898, H. G. Wells would publish War of the Worlds, the story of a Martian invasion of Earth.
        On 23 April, 1897, cattle rustling aeronauts allegedly made off with a calf belonging to a Leroy, Kansas, rancher. The hide, head and legs were found several miles away. This story and the Aurora, Texas, incident were proved later to be hoaxes.
        J. P. Chaplin (Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowd) points out that controlled balloon flights had been made since 1852. “Many of the devices employed by inventors in their attempts to overcome propulsion problems are even more fantastic then some of the details in the airship reports of 1897,” said Chaplin. “There can be little doubt that these pioneer experiments provided an aura of credibility to the reports of an airship cruising over the Midwest.”
        An example of one of these fantastic devices is remembered by author Rupert T. Gould (More Oddities and Enigmas), who as a young man saw a machine in a Paris museum that looked ”like a huge black bat.” It was the creation of Clement Ader; a steam-driven, man-carrying flying machine named Eole. Gould said the strange machine was officially tested in 1897, “before representatives of the French Army, at Satory near Paris.” The test failed.
        Our next local phantom airship sighting is recorded in The Kankakee Daily Republican, Wednesday, April 29, 1908:
        “STRANGE LIGHT SEEN IN SKY; IS IT AN AIRSHIP? W. S. Taylor and family North Harrison Avenue, have been seeing things at night.
        “A couple of weeks ago, C. I. & S. employees who work nights reported a strange light in the skies above. W. S. Taylor and family also saw it. Last night the Taylor family noticed again.
        “Was it an airship?
        “Or a balloon?
        “Or were they just seein’ things at night?
        “The railroad employees swear it was an airship and say they could see the men in it. Mr. Taylor and his family say it was too far away to distinguish what it was, but it looked like a balloon.
       “‘We saw it one night a couple of weeks ago,’ said one of the Taylor family today. ‘And last night we saw it again. It was off in the northwest. All we could see was a light. It looked like a toy balloon.
       “‘The first time we saw it, it was sailing along smoothly, but last night it was windy and the light kept bobbing back and forth.’”
        May 15, 1908: “AIRSHIP IS SEEN AGAIN. The airship -- strange light -- the spot in the heavens -- or what ever you want to call it, was seen again last night.
        "It was seen by several people in various parts of town.
        “Mrs. Mary McFarlan, and family, 168 Washington Avenue, saw the strange object in the skies shortly after 9 o’clock, and insist it was an airship. They watched it through a field glass as it came from the east, sailed over where they stood and disappeared in the northwest.
        “It was plainly visible to the naked eye and is described by one who saw it as looking like a large light, red on one side and yellow on the other.
        “Miss Leah Ollis who lives on North Greenwood Avenue also saw it while on her way home last night. She says it looked like a star, only much larger and lighter colored.
        “Miss Martha Birr is another who saw the strange light.”
        Journalist Charles Fort (Strange Lands) reports that during the summer of 1908 sightings of mysterious lights in the sky also had come from Bristol, Conn., “and later from Pittsfield, Mass., and from White River Junction, Vt. ‘In all these cases, however, no balloon could be found, all known airships being accounted for.’”
        Fort also wrote that in December of the following year, 1909, the New York Tribune reported “a ‘mysterious airship’ had appeared over the town of Worcester, Mass., ‘sweeping the heavens with a searchlight of tremendous power.’ It had come from the southeast, and traveled northwest, then hovering over the city, disappearing in the direction of Marlboro. Two hours later, it returned. ‘Thousands thronged the streets, watching the mysterious visitor.’ Again it hovered, then moving away, heading first to the south and then to the east.”
        The Kankakee Daily Republican, Monday, February 14, 1910: “SAW AN AIRSHIP. The train crew of No. 90, on the C. I. & S. consisting of Conductor Sid Williams, Brakeman J. F. Roach and F. C. Andrews, while on their eastbound trip at North Liberty, Ind. Sunday night, passed beneath an airship bound in the opposite direction. Brakeman Roach was enabled by its searchlight to see the hands on his watch clearly enough to tell what time it was.”Tuesday, February 15, 1910: “AIRSHIP, OR WHAT? IS THE QUESTION. Others Who Saw It Sunday evening -- Lights of Blue and Red Sailing In sky.
         “Was it an airship that passed over the eastern part of Kankakee early Sunday evening, or what was the blue and red light seen traveling through the heavens, by members of the train crew on the Chicago, Indiana and Southern railroad and also by several farmers living east of the city -- which light could be plainly seen from the ground, and whose rays illuminated the surface of the earth enough to enable telling time by one’s watch.
        “On seeing the mention of the light in Monday night’s Republican, Mrs. Charles Saville, residing two and one-half miles east of Kankakee on the Exline Road, called up this office this morning to state that she was sure she had seen the ‘boat with wings’ soaring through the air.
        “Said Mrs. Saville today: ‘I don’t recollect just what time of the evening it was but anyhow, I had occasion to go out in the back yard Sunday evening, and as I left the back porch I noticed a peculiar light and shadow traveling over the orchard.
        “‘At first I was considerably puzzled as to what could be causing it to be so light. The light seemed to be disappearing to the east. On looking toward the skies, I saw what appeared to be a ball of fire. It was reddish white and also east a bluish glow over the orchard. It was really good and light. When I first noticed it I did not think such a thing as an airship, but I am now certain that it must have been. It was traveling fast and when I first saw it, it did not appear very high, but as it traveled to the east, it appeared to be getting higher and higher.
        “‘I could not notice any outline of an airship, for the lights were unusually strong and bright and the night was dark.’”
        As in the case of the 1897 airships, there are no satisfactory explanations for these sightings in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Note: A just published book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Bases by Anni Jacobsen, Little Brown and Company, 2011, offers explanations of some of the sightings beginning in the 1950s.