We normally assume that the modern era of ufology began with Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of mysterious objects— later dubbed “flying saucers” by the press—over Mount Rainier, Washington, in 1947. Many, though, are surprised to learn that it actually began much earlier—during the time of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to be exact—with the “great airship flap” of 1896-97, an event which remains as great a mystery today as it was over a century ago.
For those unfamiliar with this event, it all started on the evening of November 17, 1896, when a bright light suddenly appeared over Sacramento, California, silently making its way over the city (and against the wind) before disappearing into the dark rain clouds as suddenly as it had first appeared. It was seen by literally hundreds of witnesses; and though most described it as simply a bright, slow moving light, some maintained that the light was suspended beneath a massive, “cigar shaped” vessel of considerable size. A few even claimed to spot what appeared to be oversized propellers and rudders on its undercarriage, with one man describing it as having wheels on its side like those on “Fulton’s old steam boat.”
After several repeat appearances over both Sacramento and San Francisco (once showing over both cities on the same evening), after a few weeks the reports abruptly ceased, suggesting that the mysterious visitor had departed as mysteriously as it had first arrived. Its absence was to prove short-lived, however. In early February the same mysterious light/craft was sighted across the prairie states of the Midwest, apparently making its way eastward at a slow but steady pace. Reports of the craft continued with some regularity throughout the spring of 1897 before once again abruptly vanishing—this time apparently for good.
What was the strange light seen over California that autumn and over much of the Midwest the next spring? No one knows. Debunkers, of course, maintain that the whole incident was nothing more than a hoax—a product of the “yellow journalism” of the era designed to boost newspaper sales—mixed with naiveté and a type of mass hysteria in which people imagined any light in the sky to be the rogue “airship.” Indeed, some speculation had it that the object was an especially bright appearance of the planet Venus. Such a premise, though, seems highly presumptuous. First, there is no evidence that those living a century ago were any more likely to mistake the planet Venus for an airship than we are today; in fact, it could even be maintained that those living in final years of the nineteenth century saw a considerably darker night sky, often superior to that of the casual star gazer of today. Second, it fails to explain why reports have the ship tending to move from west to east or why they would begin and cease so abruptly. Even if we assume the majority of reports were spurious or mistaken, it is curious how “mass hysteria” is capable of effecting only people living along a particular path. Further, it is uncertain how many midwesterners would have been aware of the earlier California sightings and thus be inclined to imagine the mysterious “airship” was headed their way; newspapers rarely picked up general interest stories from other parts of the country, preferring instead to stick with national headlines and stories of local interest. In this case, however, media coverage of the sightings tended to follow the appearances, not precede them as would be the expected norm if the media was simply priming the country for more stories. And, finally, would some of the largest and most influential papers of the day be so willing to compromise their journalistic integrity—and with it, their political clout—all in some feeble effort to sell a few more papers? Clearly, the mass hysteria/yellow journalism theory leaves us with as many questions as it answers.
Then there is the extraterrestrial theory so popular in some quarters today. Could the lights have been evidence of alien visitation, as some maintain? Obviously, in the era before manned flight, any light traveling through the sky was significant, making the prospect that they were not something from this world plausible. But if we are to take the many eyewitness accounts seriously (or, at least, the most reliable among them), how do we account for the fact that many witnesses described the craft as possessing propellers, wings, rudders, and undercarriages—all such appendages unlikely, it seems, to be seen on an extraterrestrial vehicle? And why did it move in a slow, ponderous fashion so in contrast to the stunning aerial feats of which modern UFOs seem capable today? The craft sounds a bit too prosaic to be evidence of alien technology, even by nineteenth century standards.
But if we assume the craft to be neither imaginary nor extraterrestrial, what is left? Only one possibility remains, and that is that the vessel seen in the skies over much of the United States in the winter of 1896-97 was a powered balloon or, more accurately, a dirigible, possibly being put through its paces by some intrepid inventor intent on bringing lighter-than-air flight to humanity.
It’s an intriguing possibility that is rarely considered by most skeptics today, who tend to dismiss the notion outright, confident in their assumption that such an explanation is inconsistent with the technological capabilities of the time. The world was still in its industrial infancy, they argue, and while many remarkable inventions had been introduced by then, most people still lived much as their forefathers did, using candles and kerosene lamps to light their homes and making their way about via carriages or on horseback. Yes, there were trains transiting the continent and steamships capable of crossing the Atlantic in a week; but in 1896 the Wright brothers were still seven years away from launching their tiny airplane, and practical, reliable travel by air was still decades in the future. Even Von Zeppelin had not yet begun experimenting on his behemoth airships, so the idea that anyone could have constructed and flown a practical airship in 1896 must remain in the realm of science fiction—or so one would think.
But how accurate is this assessment of our ancestor’s technical acumen? Can we really be so certain that the tech
nology to build an airship—even a fairly substantial one—was truly beyond the capabilities of a late nineteenth century inventor? A quick look into the history books will demonstrate how presumptuous is this belief.
The fact is that steerable airships had been constructed and successfully flown decades before the dawn of the twentieth century. Perhaps the first to do it was a Frenchman named Henri Giffard who, in 1852, built and flew an airship nearly 27 kilometers between Paris and Trappes, France at the remarkable speed for the time of ten kilometers per mile. In the 1880s, Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs built an electric powered vessel named Le France that made several successful flights; and in 1897 a Serbian timber merchant named David Schwarz built the first true dirigible, successfully test flying it over Templehoff airfield in Berlin on November 3, 1897. So, considering that airships had been under development in Europe prior to the airship flap of 1896-97, what are the chances that an American could have been among the first to succeed in creating a practical and long-range example in America—the product of which would become the source of six months of sensationalism and rumor?
But what of the technological hurdles such a premise presents? While it is assumed that many of the materials and technologies needed to construct a practical airship were unavailable in 1896, the facts speak otherwise. First, the new lightweight metal, aluminum—essential in constructing the craft’s airframe—was available in commercial quantities in the 1890’s. Second, all the power plants we know of today—steam, the internal combustion engine, and the diesel, as well as electric motors—were all available in 1896; and, while still in their infancy and underpowered by modern standards, with a bit of ingenuity, any of them might have been refined enough to push even a fairly substantial craft through the air at a decent speed for several hours at a time. Difficult, I admit, but not impossible. With proof of concept already having been demonstrated decades earlier, the prospect of building a viable airship was simply a matter of acquiring the proper materials—certainly something within the capabilities of an 1896 inventor with adequate resources—and a building large enough to house the vessel.
I explore this very possibility in some detail in my book, The Great Airship of 1897, in which I lay out the case that it is entirely conceivable that someone—or, more likely, a small consortium of individuals with the resources to build a financially viable airship—may have been responsible for the whole affair. It would have taken some deep pockets and the services of a cutting-edge inventor or engineer—along with the facilities to house the whole affair in some secret locale—to make it all work, but it was certainly within the realm of possibility. How this might have been done and, more importantly, who might have done it, is purely speculative of course, but the idea is an intriguing one to consider.
Of course, the prospect does present a few problems of its own. For example, if some intrepid inventor did go through the trouble of procuring the elements required to make his airship a reality, why don’t we know about it? After all, aviation pioneers of the era were known for their public exhibitions; and the size of such an enterprise would be difficult to keep secret for long in any case, so why no evidence of airship manufacturing on the West Coast in the 1890’s?
While at first this appears to be a valid consideration, it becomes less inexplicable once we consider the circumstances. The last half of the nineteenth century was a time not only of remarkable technological advances, but of tremendous competition as well, especially among inventors. The drive to be the first to the patent office was almost cut-throat in nature, with stolen ideas and even sabotage not unheard of. Additionally, they had to deal with pressure from investors eager to see a quick return on their money and, finally, they had the press—which could always be counted on to prematurely proclaim each new gadget a success or failure—to deal with. Considering that a single crash could easily scare away the necessary capital needed to continue working, it is understandable why this consortium would have wanted to work in secret.
And if that was the case, then California would have been the perfect place to work: it was still remote enough to guarantee privacy and yet it was near enough to rail lines and a major seaport to make it ideal. Further, in that San Francisco boasted the largest number of millionaires of any city west of the Mississippi at the time, it was also a perfect locale from which to secure investors. As such, it isn’t difficult to imagine that a reclusive and possibly even eccentric inventor might have been able not only to find the required investment capital to build and operate an airship, but also secure locales where the necessary facilities could be constructed and operated in secrecy. Certainly, doing so should have been no more difficult to accomplish than it would have been for Bell or Edison— contemporaries of the era. It was simply a matter of having the necessary equipment shipped from the east coast to San Francisco, where it could be assembled in privacy and hidden from the general public and the media among the barren hills of central California.
But if this mysterious inventor wished to work in secret, why then compromise that secrecy by flying over the largest cities in California and appearing to thousands of witnesses? Simple: the craft not only needed to be test flown over long distances—making the chances of it being seen by multiple witnesses almost guaranteed—but its appearance could have been intended to send a message to the vessel’s investor(s) that the ship was coming along quite nicely. Clearly, at some point the craft was going to need to be unveiled to the general public; perhaps the sightings of November and December of 1896 then were just a sneak preview.
But then how do we account for the shift in locale? If the craft was built and flown in California, how does it end up being seen over the Midwest a few months later? I always found it especially interesting that there was a two-month break between the California sightings in 1896 and the sightings in the Midwest that following spring. Isn’t it possible that after initial test flights were completed, the inventor was ready to unveil his new airship in the most
spectacular fashion imaginable by over-flying America? Of course, he couldn’t have flown it over the Rocky Mountains, especially in winter, but couldn’t he have had the craft dismantled, transported by train over the treacherous Rocky Mountains, and then reassembled in Nebraska to continue its mission of over-flying the country? Consider how the growing attention of the public would have made acquiring new investors simple once the craft landed on the east coast in front of a stunned media.
If that’s the case, then what happened? Why no landing in New York or Washington to demonstrate to the entire world that the age of the airship had arrived? It’s uncertain. Perhaps the craft came to an ignoble end or was struck by tragedy. A Kalamazoo paper did, after all, report in an April, 1897, edition that the craft was seen to explode nearby; and since it was likely filled with highly flammable hydrogen, such a possibility cannot be ruled out.
In any case, whatever became of the remarkable craft and its crew remain an unsolvable mystery, but it should, however, be enough to demonstrate that our knowledge of the past may be less complete than we assume. Perhaps there are many such failures strewn across the sands of time of which we are unaware, and in that may be the most intriguing part of the entire mystery. And who knows, perhaps one day, one of them will be accidentally discovered to demonstrate to the world that technological genius is not confined to our era, but may have been a constant in humanity’s march toward the stars; and that we once may have had our very own Archimedes under our very noses—or, in this case, over our very heads—but we just failed to notice him.
J. Allan Danelek is an author from Lakewood, Colorado, who has been writing on various paranormal and speculative science subjects since 2005. He can be contacted through his website at www.ourcurious world.com.
