The following episode features a historic article from the Nebraska History magazine.

This article may reflect the language and attitudes of its time and while it offers valuable insight into the past, may content, expressions, or viewpoints that are outdated or offensive by today's standards.

Any outdated terms do not reflect the current views or perspectives of the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Welcome to the Nebraska History podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Goforth.

Each episode we explore articles written and published in Nebraska History Magazine.

In 1897, numerous reports of an unusual phenomena in the sky describe what some thought to be a UFOA ship with multiple lights and sometimes said to have wings, was spotted at night beginning in Nebraska, then across the United States.

This episode searches for the answer through the 1979 Nebraska History Magazine article titled This Mysterious Light Called An Airship by Rodger Welsh.

A huge canoe shaped spaceship like nothing seen before approaches the small Nebraska town at incredible speed.

It's brilliant headlight dazzles onlookers who stand open mouthed before the approach of the mysterious craft.

It suddenly stops in mid air, moves abruptly up, then down sideways, forward, then backward at will in defiance of all known laws of physics.

Some viewers believe they can hear the murmur of a power source, and others detect the voices, even the laughter of the airships passengers.

All agree that there is a red light on the stern of the ship and a row of three lights on either side, and a dim green light is seen by some.

The lights dim and glare, and in their reflection the earthlings can make out the silhouette of four large wings 2 on either side of the ship's massive body.

Suddenly, the craft shoots upward and disappears toward the horizon at incredible speed.

The townsmen are left bewildered, mystified, thrilled, even terrified.

Has some new power for flight been discovered that was previously unknown to civilization?

Is it a mirage or a portent of the apocalypse?

Is it simply an elaborate hoax?

Witnesses of the strange visit take some comfort in knowing that other Nebraskans have seen the ship.

But they also know that cynics will call them drunks, fools or even charlatans.

They, too, had thought the earlier sightings of the ship have probably seen a brilliant evening star, or maybe a vagrant cloud.

But now they know differently.

It is no star, no cloud, no hoax.

It is an airship of an appearance and performance previously unknown or imagined.

Its sources and purpose are unknown.

Whole communities see the ship, use modern communications systems to trace the craft, but still there are no explanations.

Soon the Midwest is seized with the hysteria.

The craft is seen throughout the country and conversations turn to the mystery ship.

The post World War 2 flying saucer scare.

A futuristic television show?

A cheap comic book story?

No, indeed, a story straight out of Nebraska's history.

A chapter that provides one of the most exciting, if not frustrating episodes of that history.

Fiery wheels, airships, flying saucers, and UFOs have been the subject of reports from Ezekiel right up to the United States Air Force's Blue Book Project, an extensive cataloging and analysis program for such sightings, which lasted under various names from 1947 to 1969, when it was terminated without convincing conclusions.

Today, J Allen Hynek, a former member of the Blue Book staff and now one of its fiercest detractors, writes best selling discussions on the UFO experience.

The phrases he coins, for example, quote close encounters of the first, second, and third kinds.

End Quote.

Have captured the attention of popular culture markets too.

Scarcely a week's newspaper appear without official denials from world governments of their role in the UFO phenomenon, reports of further sightings, or speculations about the origin and nature of the saucers.

The purpose of this investigation, however, is not to deal with the authenticity or even the nature of the 1897 sightings, but to treat instead the nature of the newspaper reports of the period.

Charles Dana Wilbur's theory, Rain follows the plow must be considered as a factor of plains settlement, whether we now concur with the idea or not.

Similarly, whatever our current opinion of UFOs, we can scarcely deny that 1897 was a year indelibly marked by reported sightings of aerial phenomena.

If nothing else, these reports provide particular comfort for those who insist that there is indeed nothing new under the sun.

The strange sequence of events opened on February 2nd, 1897 in Hastings, where it was written.

Quote.

Several Hastings people report that an airship or something of the kind has been sailing around in the air West of this city.

It was first noticed sometime last fall when it was seen floating in the air about 500 feet above ground, and after standing nearly still for about 30 minutes it began to circle about and then took a northerly direction for about two miles, after which it returned to its starting place and sank into oblivion.

Since that time it has not been seen until last Sunday evening, when it was observed standing nearly still a few miles West of Hastings and seemingly about 800 feet in the air.

At first sight it has the appearance of an immense star, but after a closer observation the powerful light shows by its color to be artificial.

It's certainly must be illuminated by powerful electric Dynamos.

For the light sent forth by it, it is wonderful.

At 9:30 last Monday night the large glaring light was seen to circle around for a few minutes and then take a northerly direction for about 3 miles.

Then it stood perfectly still for about 5 minutes and then descended for about 200 feet, circling as it traveled in the most remarkable speed for about two miles, and then slowing up as it circled about for fully 15 minutes, when it began to lower and disappear as mysteriously as it had made its appearance.

A close watch is being kept for its reappearance.

End Quote.

The Hastings sighting was first reported in Nebraska, but not the first in the country.

A mysterious airship had been reported in Sacramento, CA the year before and it had never been satisfactorily explained.

The February 3rd comment in the Norfolk News attributed the unusual aerial sightings by hasting citizens to excessive drinking.

They wrote quote.

It would be interesting to know just what brand of liquor the Hastings correspondent drinks that enables him to see airships carrying powerful lights gyrating about through the atmosphere.

It must be a remarkable brand of goods and if it would have the effect of enabling one to see his pet mortgage floating away, we would be glad to try a few gallons or so.

End Quote.

On February 5th, 1897, the Omaha Daily Bee reported that the ship had been seen at in a Vale about 40 miles South of Hastings.

It had been spotted several times, once by a pious party of 10 returning from a prayer meeting, and this obviously was a slap at the Norfolk cynic who accused those who believe they had seen the craft of drinking.

This sighting was more detailed, including a description of the lights along the side of the ship.

The onlookers heard the sounds of the engine and voices of laughter of the passengers, observers reported.

Quote.

It seemed to be conical shaped and perhaps 30 or 40 feet in length with a bright headlight and six smaller lights 3 on a side and seemed to have two sets of wings on a side with a large fan shaped rudder.

End Quote.

The modern reader might assume that Nebraskans were seeing a dirigible balloon, but such craft were only in the development stages in Europe and the East, and could scarcely have been independently developed on the plains or have flown there on a jaunt.

The speeds and control of the craft as described in the reports were not to be reached by engineers for some time round.

Hot air balloons were well known at the time and had been used in the Civil War 30 years before, but in no case did they have the kind of maneuverability of this ship that could circle, make right turns, fly upward, attain great speeds, and hover motionlessly.

On February 8th, 1897, the York Daily Times reported that an honest citizen and his daughter had spotted the lights of the mystery ship and called in a witness who swore on a Bible that he had seen what he had claimed.

Four days later, the Falls City Journal noted A spaceship reported from Elwood, KS and editorialized Quote, our people never saw such things in Nebraska, End Quote, suggesting that the mania had not reached any sizable proportions in its first two weeks.

On the same day, the Hastings Tribune wished that someone in the area would create one of the rumored spaceships, which scientists theorized was possible.

Next, the ship turned up at low altitude over Omaha.

While nothing could be discerned regarding the form of the airship, the lights were in evidence.

It was seen by several people, the chief witness being Thomas Hazel of 26th and H Streets.

Quote.

Who holds a responsible position with the Hammond Packing Company and is considered trustworthy in every respect?

End Quote The Beatrice Daily News reported on February 16th that five men had spotted the ship over that city that night before moving slowly and very perceptibly to the West.

However, the light hearted nature of the report suggests that the rumors were still not being taken seriously by all editors.

Quote.

Dick Grant has come perilously near a description of the machine in solemnly asserting that it had a tail.

Walt Scott thinks it had two eyes, while Charlie Dempster will not venture more than one whopping big eye.

End Quote.

The craft now returned to central Nebraska, and appeared nearly every night between Hastings and North Platte.

One report had sparks falling from its sides that at North Platte and another alluded to the California ship, suggesting that this might be the same craft which had crossed the mountains, a feat no balloon of the time could have accomplished.

City Clerk Charlie Prescott of Carney spotted the ship and reported it to the Daily Hub editor, who published the report on February 19th but refused to take it seriously, noting that he had once been gullible himself.

However, the same editor swallowed his pride the next day and ran a story in serious intent that the ship had been spotted by reputable people and there could no longer be doubt that something was paying nocturnal aerial visits to the town.

Indeed, sightings seem to have affected even social life.

Several airship parties will watch for the strange phenomena each evening from now on in an effort to be made to get more accurate descriptions.

Now reports were coming in frequently enough and with sufficient reliability that they had to be taken seriously.

Efforts were now begun to explain the phenomena.

It was written.

Quote.

William Weidner is another candidate for fame.

He has come forward with one more explanation in reference to the mysterious light down at Juanita, about 55 miles distant from York, there is a station agent who is such in name only in as much as his railroad duties take but a small part of his time.

This man the neighbors call a kite crank.

He flies kites of a new and remarkable kind, known to kite specialists as box kites.

They are built on an entirely different plan than for which small boys usually construct high Flyers.

They are tailless, and look at a distance more like a box than a kite, but a closer examination would reveal considerable differences between them and boxes.

The affairs, in short, are merely a series of planes built one over the other, and which are so arranged as to afford at least possible resistance to the air from an upward pressure.

The things soar aloft with wonderful ease.

At night the kite flyer attaches a light to a kite and sends it up to startle and puzzle people for miles and miles around.

The nature of this light is not very well known.

It is intensely brilliant and, Mr.

Wiedner says, looks much like an arc light.

Whether or not this light could be seen from Juanita by people of York is a question.

But there is a possibility, and a strong one too, that a bright light raised to an elevation of a couple 1000 feet could be seen over 50 miles on a bright night, although it's apparent elevation from here would not be so great as stated by those who saw the light a few nights ago.

End Quote.

Nor, one might add, would it explain fantastic speeds and traverse across the zenith.

Even though the spaceship matter had begun to snowball in 16 days since the first report, some editors continue to use the idea as a target for their wit.

The editor of the Carney Daily Hub, for example, wrote that now the light in the sky was seen every night over the city and remained unexplained.

But he also wrote, quote, Chief of Police Julian is the last gentleman who claims to have seen the airship.

He says he saw it rise in the West, sail toward the east and light near Durley Hall.

Janitor Eck refused to confirm the story of his chief and the night police object to making affidavits to anything the chief says.

End Quote The Beatrice Daily Express carried a story about a second sighting in that city on February 23rd.

Writing Quote.

It has the appearance of a greatly magnified star, with luminous rays shooting out unevenly across the disk.

There is no suggestion of an airship about it, but it has rather the resemblance of the frame of an open umbrella.

Without the cover it is Venus, and the swaying motion and peculiar rays are the results of atmospheric conditions.

End Quote.

On February 26th the Grand Island Independent carried an article from another sighting there, but explained it as the brilliant showing of Venus, the Evening Star.

The Independent reported that the airship had attracted much attention, but the Hastings Tribune had the same date.

Scoffed.

Quote.

Oh, that airship people see on high at night isn't in it with the midnight slaying crowd.

End Quote.

Now the craze was three weeks old, but there had been over 20 appearances of the craft reported in southern Nebraska and in northern Kansas.

Editors felt obliged to print the reports and rumors, but described the luminous objects as kites or the planet Venus.

They did not like the feel of the stories, however, and continued to balance news reports with ridicule.

Immediately following an article about a sighting in Carney, The Hub, tongue in cheek, ran this on March 4th.

Quote.

While on the question of strange lights, the Hub reproduces an extract from a letter published in Good faith by the Women's Gazette of Beatrice by Anton Pallardy, a scientist from the Black Hills who recently had been visiting in Beatrice.

February 26th, 1897.

To the editor.

The airship which has been seen over Grand Island, Hastings and Beatrice is no myth.

It is a reality where it was built.

I dare not tell you more than that your readers know that to the northwest of Nebraska is a weird, lonely, and strange country known as the Malvay Terez.

There are canyons, caverns, nooks, and crannies in these Badlands that are so secret and remote from the ordinary pathways that men can and have lived there uninterruptedly for years, with nothing to molest or make afraid.

It is from these mauve Therese the airship comes.

With my three companions.

I have sailed over Nebraska in a line from the Forks of the Plat along the Little Blue Valley, and thence to Manhattan, KS, generally at night, returning to the move Torres in the early morning.

It was necessary that we should become familiar with the earth configurations lying under our aerial track.

Hence I am in your city to make some necessary investigations in order that we may obtain a title to the route over which we propose to operate our ship.

For prudent reasons I dare not describe our ship in detail to you.

Those who have seen it know its general appearance to be something like a very large umbrella with a transparent covering.

This large umbrella is immediately above a pair of wings.

These wings are expanded and contracted at the pleasure of the engineer.

Suspended above and attached to the wings are two very thin aluminum balloons containing the new gas helium.

Immediately between the wings is another smaller umbrella like affair that can be made to revolve very rapidly for a purpose I dare not disclose to you.

This, then, is the airship in brief, and its description will correspond with the observations of those who have obtained a good look at it.

Sign.

Anton Pallardy.

End Quote.

The March 2nd, 1897 Omaha World Herald carried a series of humorous explanations from various walks of life.

A jailer said.

Quote, there's different kinds of the red liquor, that which makes you see snakes and that which makes you see balloons and airships.

And quote, a railroader who felt that someone had probably mistaken train lights for a vision, and a cowboy who felt that some fellow must have just wandered off the range into a Buffalo wallowing got a little mixed up on the way as the herd was drifting.

The greatest cause for skepticism was that no one had seen this airship on the ground and that it only appeared at night.

The Adams County Democrats said.

Quote, the airship, which is reported to have been seen by so many people, does not materialize very fast.

It is funny what some people see after dark.

We have heard of people seeing snakes, but seeing airships is a whole new deal and must be caused by water diluted 40 rod.

End Quote.

There had now been nearly 30 sightings.

The Lincoln State Journal noted that some residents felt the airship was a sign that the world was coming to an end.

Serious reports were frequently accompanied with the statement, like that in the March 5th Hastings Tribune quote.

We know Bert to be a total abstainer, and we don't believe that he could stand on his head for five hours.

End Quote.

The editor of the Beatrice Daily Express heaped ridicule on the editor of the Wymore, Arbor State, for giving credence to the rumors.

Quote.

The Arbor State of Wymore swallows the whole of the hoax and implicitly believes in the airship, even going so far as to profess to have seen it.

Believing all these things, the editor of the Arbor State has the audacity to write editorials on gumption.

End Quote.

One gets the impression that newspapers were caught in a dilemma.

They didn't want to believe the nonsense.

And yet there were reports from reliable witnesses.

The Lexington Pioneer started a story on March 6 in a way that was clearly meant to draw forth from the sophisticated reader.

Unknowing smile, they wrote.

Quote.

Al Abel.

The grocery men alleges that he saw the airship Tuesday at night last.

It had a brilliant headlight and was the site to inspire one with terror.

Al was so overcome with astonishment and wonder that he walked off the sidewalk near his residence and tore off the bow and stern of his pantaloons.

End Quote.

However, a few lines later, the writer feels compelled to note that all the people who had seen the wonderful ship are strictly temperate in their habits, and their stories ought to be credible.

Now the stories began to pour in from across the state.

McCook, Fremont, Clarks and Papillion cynics became converts, it was written.

Quote, people may talk as they please about the strange light that has been reported seen in the sky so often of late and claim that those who have seen it don't know a star from an airship until they are Gray headed.

But they won't make CW Hodges believe anything of the kind until Thursday morning.

He was one of the scoffers and didn't take much stock in airships, but he talks about it now in a serious manner.

He has seen something himself.

What it was he doesn't pretend to say, other than a very bright light, and is now willing to believe that other people have not been fooled by the stars.

End Quote.

The descriptions of the airship remain constant through these first five weeks of reports.

No one else had heard noises from the ship, but the headlight and the side lights remain.

It's still hovered and darted and moved with great speed.

The ship was seen moving toward all quarters of the compass upwind as fast as downwind.

The author plotted on a map reported flight directions from the 150 sightings used for this paper, and there was no pattern other than that most flights were toward the Northwest.

There were plenty of explanations, but none of them very plausible.

Quote A gentleman said that last year someone had predicted that Carney would be destroyed by an aerial visitor who had dropped down from the clouds, begin to work in certain streets and exterminate the town.

The name of the false prophet was not given, but the fact of such idol prophecies are repeated shows of what strange speculations are indulged in over the strange light scene.

All descriptions practically agree, a fact which would tend to convince the skeptical that there must be something besides bad whiskey in the airship theory.

During the past few months there have been several reports regarding an individual in the state who is working on an airship.

The inventor has been located somewhere near Hastings, but he has succeeded in keeping his identity pretty well concealed.

They say he does not want his airship invention to be stolen by unprincipled individuals.

Some declare the spaceship portends dire disaster for the country.

JH McCarty of the Night Tower at the Portal station is firmly convinced that the light seen in the east is either either a mammoth kite or an airship of some kind.

End Quote.

Nor did the scoffers relent in their attacks.

It was written.

Quote A reporter wishing to get an idea of the airship from an expert this morning interviewed Tom Cass and found him a walking encyclopedia of knowledge on the subject of aerial travel.

Learning that he was to be interviewed, Mr.

Cass threw caution to the winds and talked as freely and unreservedly as a phonograph.

Did you ever see an airship?

Queried the reporter.

Never in my waking hours, was the reply.

What do you do?

Should you see one?

Well, that depends.

If I were near a newspaper man, I would keep my mouth continually closed.

If you saw one, do you think you would do anything you might afterwards be sorry for?

Was the question the reply.

I might.

If I should see an airship with snakes for passengers, I would probably take the Keely cure.

Well, what if there were no snakes?

I would question the integrity of my eyesight.

What do you think this airship is that everybody is seeing?

And talking of one of Norris Brown's air castles that floated beyond his reach and got away, Do you think anyone has ever seen it?

Yes.

Charlie Bessie saw it.

Do you want this interview published?

No End Quote.

Father William Rigg, professor of astronomy at Creighton University, Omaha, argued Quote.

I am satisfied in my own mind that the alleged airship seen about a month ago was the planet Venus.

I remember the night very well.

It was cold and the clouds were being blown along in riffs, and this will account for the deception of the star appearing to move.

The last airship was undoubtedly a balloon, which some wag had sent up to enjoy the fun the next morning.

It does not seem probable that when such men as Maxim and others who have been working on the theory of aerial navigation for years and so far have failed to solve the Riddle, that some fellow in the backwoods has been able to solve the matter.

End Quote.

The airship had now been cruising Nebraska skies for two months, and new sightings scarcely raided a column inch.

The World Herald jokingly suggested that perhaps the con man who had last year built several 100 people of $0.25 each on the pretense a flying in an airship had repented and was fulfilling his pledge, but was afraid to land until his safety from the mob was assured.

From the Auburn Granger, April 9th, 1897, came a story that is baffling in light of some of the fact that the author's name is given and there is attestation of his character.

They wrote quote, James Southard, a farmer on the bottoms north of Peru, was in Auburn on Wednesday and made this office a call.

Mr.

South or tells a story which a great many will doubt, and were it not for his reputation as a truthful man, we would hardly care to repeat the story.

He has resided in Peru precinct for the past 20 years and has always been known as a truthful and honest citizen.

Sometime during Monday a number of cows belonging to Mr.

Southard strayed away from his farm and were not missed until evening.

A hunt for the missing cattle resulted in Mr.

Southard finding himself several miles from home when darkness came on.

He soon became lost and wandered about for some time in the dense growth of the willows, becoming all the time more confused as to his whereabouts.

About two O clock in the morning he saw a light on a bar in the river, and finding a place where the bar ran into the bank, he made his way to the light.

Imagine his surprise when he found that he had stumbled on to the airship which has attracted so much attention, and has been the occasion of a great deal of speculation as to what it really was.

Of late a number of men were moving about the ship or machine, and seemed considerably surprised when Mr.

Southard appeared.

Nevertheless, they were nothing loath to talk when he had explained how he came to be there.

Something had gone wrong with the Searchlight on the ship, and not daring to proceed in the darkness, the ship had been brought down to the ground.

It is a cigar shaped about 200 feet long and 50 feet across at the widest point, gradually narrowing to a point on both ends.

Mr.

Southard was allowed to examine as much as he pleased, and all his questions were answered.

At each end of the ship is a large steel snail shell shaped device.

This, he was informed, was the apparatus by which the strange machine was propelled.

Large gasoline engines caused whichever one of these in use to revolve rapidly and to bore onto the air, dragging or pulling the ship along at a wonderful rate of speed.

The craft is loaded with several tons of dynamite and is bound for Cuba.

Spanish troops are being massed in the cities for transportation to the Philippine Islands, and it proposed to sail over these cities and drop the dynamite into camps of the soldiers and on the transport ships.

Besides destroying the camps and transport ships, it is proposed to destroy the Spanish Navy.

They expect to sail or fly for Cuba yet this week and reach there by Sunday or Monday.

When they do, Spain is likely to hear something drop.

End Quote.

This is the most extended and bizarre explanation of the craft and the most detailed sighting.

One must admire the ingenuity of either the spaceships engineers or Mr.

Southard's imagination, for it was not until a year later that airship engineers in France used a 3 1/2 horsepower gasoline engine.

The techniques of bombardment from airships, as described by Southard, were not to mature for another 20 years.

We are thus faced with the same dilemma confronting Nebraska's editors.

It seemed unlikely that such an airship could have appeared in Peru, NE, and yet it seemed unlikely that a farmer could have come up with such an accurate description without prior knowledge.

Perhaps Southridge reports were inspired by writers like Jules Verne, whose works were widely circulated in 1897.

In April, there were additional sightings northward to the Black Hills, eastward to Chicago, and South into Kansas.

The cynics and mirth makers smirked, requesting samples of the whiskey that brought such hallucinations.

The Wilsonville Review editor heard a voice from a spaceship shout.

Weaver ET Roth erbecubus.

This transcribes to subscribe for the review when spelled backwards.

An open letter was sent to the Omaha Trans Mississippi Exposition stating quote.

My identity up to date has been unknown but I will come to the front row IE if you guarantee me 3,700,000 square feet of space.

I am the famous airship constructor and will guarantee you positively of this fact in a week.

The airship is my own invention and I am in Omaha.

Man I wish it to be held as an Omaha invention.

It will carry 20 people to a height from 10,000 to 20,000 feet.

I truly believe I have the greatest invention and discovery ever made.

We'll see you April 17th, 1897 at the headquarters.

Signed AC Clinton.

End Quote.

The exposition directors took the note with a grain of salt, but did show up at the suggested meeting place.

AC Clinton, signer of the note, did not appear.

Throughout April, descriptions of the airship remained fairly constant.

A few saw flames and fireballs or heard muffled engines, but usually the ship was canoe shaped, had the customary 4 wings, moved smoothly, quickly and apparently under full control of the pilot.

The Hastings Republican editor remained caustic.

Opening 1 news story with the line quote.

Another man has had snakes in his head and is seeing airships and other things.

End Quote.

But in Omaha, World Herald editorial of April 10th gave some credence to the airship phenomenon.

They wrote quote.

A number of newspapers that are now making merry over the foolishness of the people who have mistaken Venus for an airship may soon be called upon to announce that they knew all this time that an airship had been perfected.

In this day and age it is not the part of wisdom to decry an alleged invention.

Bulk called Cyrus McCormick a fool when they learned that he was trying to invent a machine that would bind grain as fast as cut.

The man who invented the telephone was laughed at when he said he had a machine that would carry articulation over hundreds of miles of wire.

And the world stopped whirling when Edison invented the phonograph.

Now we have the kinetoscope, the teleautograph, the electric motor, and the hundred other things that are forbearers would have thought impossible or of the devil.

And why not an airship?

Of course, Maxim the great inventor has failed to make a successful one, but our greatest inventions were not made by skilled inventors.

That mysterious light may be the long sought for navigator of the air.

If it is, the fact is not surprising.

End Quote.

The population of young Nebraska was only a bit over 1,000,000 in 1897, and the fact that several 1000 people had now seen the mysterious ship represents A substantial proportion.

Every day the newspapers carried notices of new visits to towns that had previously not had the chance to view the wander, while other towns like Hastings and Omaha had sufficient reason to establish a schedule so common was the night visitor.

It was clearly established that some airship sightings were pure hoaxes, for example, the Wymore Arbor State, which had previously been a firm proponent of the reality of the craft, emitted on April 16th.

Quote The airship seen by the Exarbons at Omaha Monday night is now declared a balloon, and the guilty man who sent it up had confessed to the joke.

End Quote The Fremont Herald noted on April 18th.

Quote It has developed that the Waterloo, IA airship is a most cleverly constructed fake, about 40 feet long, 20 feet wide, 12 feet high, put up by a practical joker during the past week and brought out Thursday night.

End Quote Perhaps the most difficult task for the researcher is separating tongue in cheek newspaper reports from those intended to be objective.

For example, the following report from the April 16th, 1897 issue of the Albion Weekly News is clearly a spoof.

They wrote.

Quote.

Last Sunday Burt Disher and Marcus Bullock went to Cedar Rapids to endeavor to find out, if possible, at what point the Flying Machine landed after leaving Saint Edward on Thursday night.

Mr.

Disher is very reticent in regard to the matter, but Mr.

Bullock, who likes nothing better than to see his name in print, gave us a history of the trip.

Soon after leaving the Rapids to come home about 3:00, when about 3 miles this side of that place, we observed a bright light in the sky which seemed to be rapidly nearing the ground.

It soon began to take on form and finally we could see what the thing was like.

It was about 37 feet and three inches long and 11 feet and 13 inches wide.

In shape it looked a great deal like Jake Long's and Connie Egan's hats.

It struck the ground about 3 inches from us and we went over to where it was.

When we arrived all we could find was a man standing there.

We asked him where his airship was, and putting his hand in his vest pocket, he brought out a queer looking arrangement which he informed us was the ship, and that whenever he landed he compressed the machine so that people could not find it.

Bert gave him a cigarette and we came home.

End Quote.

On the other hand, what is 1 to make of a report like the following from the Table Rock?

Argus, April 16th, 1897.

They wrote.

The mysterious airship was seen in Table Rock Tuesday night by reputable citizens.

It was going from the southeast to the northwest and seem to be about 20 by 40 feet in size and so brilliantly lighted that it lighted the sky for a great distance around it over Table Rock.

It was going very slow, seemingly almost at a standstill, as though something unusual was transpiring on it.

There were windows in the side, and the passengers seem to be hurrying to and fro about its compartment.

Just how many persons were aboard could not be ascertained even with the aid of a powerful glass brought into operation.

But there were at least 2 ladies in the company, one of whom seemed to have her hands fastened as though chained to the seat and the other seemed to be waiting on her, while the figure of a man holding a huge revolver and sitting directly opposite her left the impression on the minds of onlookers that there was foul play aboard.

Suddenly the windows darkened and at the same instant the ship shot out of space so rapidly that in the space of a few seconds it was out of sight and the awe stricken crowd looked at each other terror stricken.

It is safe to say most of them fell into a disturbed slumber when they went to sleep, while visions of the beautiful prisoner on the mysterious airship build their dreams.

Those who vouch for this story are among the most reliable citizens and are not given to imbibing bug juice and lay no claims to vivid imaginations.

And the Argus gives the story for what it's worth.

End Quote.

Checking only a limited number of Nebraska papers.

Between April 16th through the 22nd, sightings were reported at Clark's Clay Center, Havelock, Harrison, Lyons, Hastings, NE City, North Platte, Portal, Juanita and Franklin NE Vasila, Waterloo and Jefferson in Iowa Pier, South Dakota, and one location in Illinois.

Papers consulted were the Omaha World Herald and B Hastings Republican, Nebraska City News, North Platte Telegraph, University Place Times, and the Juanita Herald.

The phenomena was now nearly three months and 150 sightings old, and while the reports of the craft were proliferating, explanations were keeping pace.

Stromsburg had a visit from an aircraft on April 13th, but the excitement died down when it was found that pranksters had launched a hot air balloon quote with a rod across the bottom to which were attached to lanterns and quote.

It was worth noting that witnesses claimed that they had seen the huge body and the rudder and wings of the craft, as had been reported at other sightings.

Witnesses of the visit to Harrison near the Wyoming border on April 18th reportedly were able to discern the form of the ship and could so clearly see two passengers that they tentatively identified 1 as Albert Whipple, who had disappeared from Crawford after robbing the Crawford Baking Company.

Whipple had told a friend that he was working on an airship and that someday he would startle the world.

Many believed this solved the mystery that it was really an airship, and that it's inventor, a fugitive from justice, was afraid to land in daylight and make his wonderful invention known.

Lest anyone be impressed by the certainty of this account, it should be noted that another witness asserted that the ship resembled a huge man with wings.

Others were so certain that it was a metaphor that a party set out to the Butte, where it had disappeared, to search for the pieces.

By now the existence of something had become so accepted.

The editor of the Fremont Herald read another's assertion that there was no ship and everybody should have known it, and wondered what he had been drinking.

But thousands of Midwesterners who believe wholeheartedly in the mystery airship must have done so more in spite of plausible explanations than because of them.

They wanted to believe, and reports continued to pour in with bewilderingly diversity.

The North Platte Daily Telegraph carried an article on April 20th, 1897, that the airship had again been spotted and an explanation was advanced for its presence.

John Lemasters, a local Craftsman and inventor, told Telegraph reporters that he had been visited a week before by two mysterious looking gentlemen who made a bargain with him to devise a working model of an idea that they had wanted to enlarge on.

Lemasters agreed to the arrangement and in secrecy they drew their plans for him and he executed them in miniature.

Described by Lemasters as a box 3/4 inch square with four windows, one on each side of red, green, amber and white colored glass.

Over each window and arm 6 inches long, projected to which was attached a fan or wing like attachment.

The men complimented Lemasters on his work and lack of unwelcome inquisitiveness.

They packed the box silently, folded their tent, and disappeared.

The Lincoln Evening Post on April 21st, 1897, proclaimed that the Riddle had been solved and that the countless thousands who have watched the Ariel specter in its travels over the Mississippi Valley can feel assured that they were not suffering hallucination of sight or guilty of drinking a poor brand of bitters.

The Post had come into possession of a letter dated April 20th, 1897, addressed to the editor into whose hands this note falls, and sent from the airship Pegasus.

It read Quote.

The great problem of aerial navigation is at last solved, and a mighty stride forward is at hand for humanity.

After having traveled twice across the American continent, I have completed the half of the third journey from the southern part of West Virginia to the Pacific Coast.

I do not wish to describe the mechanical workings of my air machine until I file letters patent in Washington and the larger cities of Europe.

Suffice at this time to say that the prime sustaining agency is a long Oval balloon pointed at both ends and containing 30,000 cubic feet of a certain gas, not hydrogen.

The whole airship wane when balloon inflated not more than 2500 lbs with a supporting power of 1200.

After having worked on for almost three years on my place in southern West Virginia, thought to be a crazy recluse by the simple Mountaineers, I have been rewarded beyond all of my most sanguine hopes.

In the length of time that I have been afloat, about 42 days, I have lived seemingly a whole century of ordinary life.

Nor would I forgo this rapturous delight for that of a whole century of ordinary existence.

At noon today I rose to an elevation of nearly 2500 feet in search of a more direct current, but found none so favorable as the one I'm in now.

I can choose my current, and should I find all against me, I can make good headway with the propeller.

I experience at times considerable discomfort with the cold and dampness, but do not find any difficulty in breathing at the high altitudes, with the exception of a slight constriction of the chest.

I do not approach the earth except during the night time.

Sometimes passing over cities and towns.

The people seem to catch sight of the ship when I drift near the earth.

I wonder what they think it is.

Do they realize that it is the Pegasus, the first to navigate space?

Signed JF Califan, captain of the Pegasus.

End Quote.

The envelope in which the note came had the request written on it that it be delivered to the editor of the largest newspaper in whatever town that it happened to be.

Since it had been mailed at

10:30 that morning, the editor assumed that the envelope had been found and mailed earlier that day.

The writing was written hurriedly in pencil, but, as the editor observed, showed the captain to be thoroughly educated.

Another smaller note, tucked into a corner of the envelope, was in a feminine hand quote, evidently put in without the captain knowing it.

It read darkly.

Another letter is dropped, haunted, but nothing more was found.

Unregenerate skeptics continued to suggest that whatever airship there might be was made of such stuff as came out of a whiskey bottle, while others found the occasion to lampoon Nebraska's rising Democratic politician.

They said the craft was a project of the government, most likely buoyed by hot air generated by such experts as William Jennings Bryan.

The Ainsworth Star journal of April 22nd, 1897, anticipated crop dusters by some decades in suggesting possible agricultural applications of such an aircraft, they wrote.

Quote, don't get too high from the ground or let your machine run faster than a mile a second.

You may not hit the right spot when sewing grain.

Don't sew on days when the wind is blowing harder than at a rate of a mile a minute, or your grain may drop on someone else's farm.

All fields should be at least 5 miles long and six rods wide.

By making them in that shape, you can save time and seating.

Never use less than 12 cultivators or about 10 disc harrows at one time.

In that way, by using log chains and fastening your cultivators to your airship, you can put in your crop by making one round trip.

The whole thing may be accomplished by one man, 12 cigars and a pint of whiskey.

No stop is needed for food or water.

End Quote.

And the April 22nd, 1897 Northern Nebraska Journal of Ponca kept its readers abreast of the controversy by publishing abstracts of editorial comment from daily newspapers around the country, some of its scathing, none of it written by true believers.

While the cynics became more vocal, the believers became more credulous.

The disclosure of hoaxes now and then must have disillusioned a few proponents of the yes, there are so airships faction, but there is evidence that occasionally scoffers saw the light.

Written Quote.

For some time the papers have been given accounts of the airship floating through space in different parts of the country.

We have read these accounts and in our superior wisdom laughed at the idea of people being so far carried away by their imagination as to mistake a brilliant star for an airship.

But pride goeth before a fall, and we are humiliated, for out of the mouths of our own people we are condemned.

On Tuesday night, the mysterious airship was seen hovering over our little city by several citizens.

End Quote.

The April 25th, 1897 issue of the Omaha World Herald might as well have been labeled Airship Edition, for it carried 3 major and totally contradictory articles on the airship mystery.

The first, issued by His Royal Majesty King Exarbin, the third King of Quivaria, the Omaha's fictional monarch, pronounced the aerial light indeed real and fabricated by his court for the wonder of his subjects.

His Sublime Majesty said it was of aluminum and could carry 20 men.

The second, a more serious treatment of the phenomenon, recalled that a Clinton, a case inventor by nature, violin maker by necessity, had two years previously submitted to prominent Omahans plans for an airship and power source, which he now obviously put into application.

The World Herald noted the similarity between his name and that of AC Clinton, an applicant to Omaha's Trans Mississippi Exposition for space for his airship, and suggested that the letter had perhaps been genuine.

The third article in the World Herald carries an account of a flying machine that is more easily disposed of.

It read Quote in the office of GW Suex, the Omaha patent solicitor, may have seen plans of an airship that, it would seem, very nearly solves the problem of aerial navigation.

The invention is that of Henry Heinz, of Elkton, SD.

In this connection it would be not at all strange if it turned out that the people of Nebraska reported to have seen an airship, had really seen the Heinz airship, as Elkton is little more than 200 miles from Omaha.

The invention, as described by Mr.

Suex is thought to be very nearly duplicated, though mechanical means the flight of a bird.

The invention embodies an elongated aerial car, entirely enclosed, provided with a steam engine to drive a shaft provided with a buoyant propeller.

Extending upward from this aerial car are 10 hollow posts which are secured at their upper ends to an elongated cigar shaped balloon which is to be propelled point forward.

Upon these 10 posts are 10 parachutes so arranged that they reciprocate in a vertical plane.

They are in belt connection with a driving shaft within the car and are made to operate alternately.

It would not be at all surprising if inventor Heinz had constructed an airship which could be made commercially and profitable.

End Quote.

Yes, it would have been surprising the solicitors enthusiasm to the contrary, many imaginative airship builders applied this principle to various craft and some of them attained A heady altitude of 12 inches in between the bone jarring Bronco like leaps that the vertically driven Pistons occasioned.

And a few managed to bounce 10 or 15 feet in random directions before the navigator decided to abandon the craft and rescue his spine, or before the would be aircraft collapsed in a jerking pile of broken machinery.

The airship dominated conversation, political, religious, social, military and casual.

In Grand Island, it was suggested that the city siren be blown at the next sighting to alert the entire population.

The crowning of new nights in the pageantry of Ex Arbin and Omaha centered on the airship theme.

The Democrat leaning World Herald theorized that the reason the craft never landed was that it had failed to find a good Western Republican.

For the election of 1900, the Hastings Daily Republican suggested that the airship be added to Uncle Sam's Navy, in view of the fact that it had never yet run aground.

The Beaver Valley Tribune, apparently dissatisfied with the state government, reported that the airship was seen in Lincoln, and the man who was engineering the green light held his nose as they passed over the Capitol building.

An Arkansas preacher, according to the Fremont Herald, said that the airship was the temple of the Tabernacle of the testimony, and that the third Angel is now pouring out from his vial upon the rivers and the fountains of the water.

This explained to his satisfaction.

Recent floods prolonged and clear sightings of the craft in Nebraska city's Bluffs provided new grist for the enthusiasts mill they wrote.

Quote Instead of being cigar or balloon shape, it is said to be the exact shape of a shad minus head and tail.

The metal is aluminum bound around within thin strips of steel.

On each side of this are two large wings which are fixed to knuckle and socket joints.

The wings can be moved up or down, backward or forward, or in any direction.

This makes the ship rise or fall without any loss of gas.

2 motors, one electric and the other NAFTA, give the motive power.

It is said that from the stern there is a propeller at least nine feet in diameter, which has a maximum revolution of 900 turns a minute.

The shad shaped portion is filled with hydrogen gas, having a pressure of 27 lbs and the lifting capacity of 1800 lbs.

The passenger car underneath the ship is 9 feet long, 4 feet wide and three feet deep.

It is made of bamboo and aluminum strips which combine strength and lightness.

The navigator is said to carry provisions in the shape of canned goods and compressed biscuits.

Aluminum vessels comprise the culinary utensils.

Several presumably truthful citizens of that section who were in the city today have given the foregoing account of the vessel.

They say that they came upon the vessel resting on top of a bluff in a cleared place in the timber 6 miles South of the city, last Wednesday night.

Two men were at work on it and explained that they had been compelled to return to earth because the machinery was out of order.

One of the men said his name was Professor Charles Davidson.

He is alleged to have said that the vessel left Sacramento a month ago and has been since sailing all over the country and quote the reality now began to catch up with the airship mystery.

Experimenters were everywhere with schemes, ideas and some minor successes with small lighter than air objects, and the Wilbur and Orville Wright age of heavier than air motorized craft was only six years hence.

A Professor Barnard gave exhibitions at the Nashville, TN Exposition with his airship.

It was considered the most wonderful invention of the age.

Once, after floating to a landing 12 miles east of town, he issued this statement.

Quote.

I find I can manipulate the machine right or left, even in a light wind.

This is certain.

I cannot go directly against a wind of 8 miles an hour with muscular power as at present arranged, but by cutting across obliquely I can make progress in the direction desired.

End Quote.

The Hastings Republicans sniffed that the Nashville craft invariably was brought back on a lumber wagon.

It was more complimentary to the less ambitious experiments of Professor Lloyd McLean of nearby Juanita, who sent aloft and airship kites and flags.

Quote Lookout for Mclean's airship July 3rd.

The local committee are negotiating with Professor McLean with view of securing his flock of kites.

As a July 3rd feature.

He will float a 30 foot flag at a height of 1000 feet.

McLean is the original airship inventor.

End Quote The down to earth Hastings Tribune could not, however, let the spaceship frenzy rest without poking fun one last time at the true believers, they wrote.

Quote Wednesday night at the westbound train number 3 Burlington had run about 5 miles West of Kennesaw.

Engineer Johnson saw a red light which was being swung to and fro across the track as a warning of danger.

Cautiously approaching the light, he came to a dead stop.

During these days of washouts it does not take much of A danger signal to stop a train.

An engineer, Johnson wondered if there had been a cloudburst in the vicinity.

He was soon relieved of any fears upon that score by a man with a red light approaching the engine and asking whether he could borrow a bushel of coal.

Johnson asked what in the world he wanted to do with so much coal.

Out upon that houseless piece of Prairie, the man said, Just look out the South side of your cab, and you will see the airship, about which there is so much wonder these days.

Sure enough, there was the mysterious wonder.

Mr.

Johnson had no time to stop and examine the machine, but told the fireman to fill the man's basket with coal.

While the filling of the basket was going on, the engineer of the airship asked, What kind of coal do you use?

Mr.

Johnson replied, Why, Newcastle, of course.

Where?

Upon the engineer of the airship, said Newcastle be damned, do you suppose I could trust myself up a mile in the air and depend on that stuff for steam?

Well, not much.

I'm sorry to have stopped you.

I will go out to a farmers field and get some corn stalks and straw.

So long, old man, End Quote.

And so long it was to the Nebraska Mystery Ship.

What indeed was the phenomenon?

Was it a fake?

The Hastings Tribune hinted darkly on May 7th Quote The Tribune is on the ground floor to know that this is the biggest fake ever published.

End Quote.

And it should be remembered that the first news reports of the airship in Nebraska came from Hastings.

Was it merely A trumped up story on a slow Newsday that exploded into hysteria?

It seems unlikely that the airship could have been a prototype of a dirigible or airplane.

Where could it have taken off and where could have it landed?

Tennessee reports indicated the Nashville craft was unmaneuverable even in the hands of the best engineers.

European flying machine developers had attained nothing that could approach the described characteristics of the American airship, which moved in all directions under total control and could fly swiftly or even against the wind, if witnesses could be believed.

Was it purely a figment of an imagination?

Hundreds of people saw the ship at the same time and concurred in descriptions.

Independent descriptions were virtually identical.

The ship's course was traced with the Telegraph.

In the incomplete data discovered, there were nearly 200 sightings reported.

It seems only appropriate that some credence be given this mass of evidence, much of it volunteered by persons who faced cruel ridicule.

Other possibilities lie open, and although unattractive to the scientist and historian, they are all the more tantalizing for the folklorist.

And yet the material is not, to my mind, the stuff of folklore.

What is perhaps most fascinating about the 1890s flying saucer scare is that accounts of them were not passed on to the next generation.

One would think tales of the supernatural extraterrestrial, if that makes up what they were, could be the kind of material that makes up the legend, the wander tale or belief tale, But that has not been the case in the investigation.

I have yet to find a single airship narrative in oral transmission.

They died with the people who experienced them.

Of the thousands of people that I've mentioned to this, not a single one had heard of the Flying machine syndrome, except from newspaper research.

Why should something so controversial that captured the imagination of a large audience?

Fade away so totally.

There are at least three possible explanations.

One, as noted, the wonder of fantasy, or at any rate mystery, was eclipsed by the unlikelihood of reality.

2 The mood of the time may have been, as it is today, very difficult for witnesses reporting flying saucers.

Such was the case centuries ago when sailors reported the impossible feat of sailing against the wind or three.

Whatever it was that people observed may have ceased to appear.

Yet perhaps the field of folklore is nonetheless the place for the study of the phenomenon.

Folklorists have long examined the occult and the mysterious, whether truly folklore or not, as background for the traditional tale.

Moreover, folklorists have rarely been reluctant to approach what is labeled by others as superstition.

For folklore, the substance as well as the field proceeds from the view that there are things that we do not know, while the popular practitioner of scientific methodology has all too often suffered from the arrogance of not realizing that most scientific statements are ultimately only these and subject to revision.

Thank you for listening to the Nebraska History Podcast.

To learn more about Nebraska History Magazine, to listen to more podcasts, or to support our podcast by becoming a member of the Nebraska State Historical Society, go to history.nebraska.gov/podcast.

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Until next time, I'm Chris Goforth.