It is believed that the term "flying saucer" in relation to UFOs was first used by American entrepreneur Kenneth Arnold, flying over the Appalachian Mountains in 1947. From the cockpit of his single-engine aircraft, he saw saucer-like objects flying in an even formation, rising and falling in response to changes in terrain. In fact, almost 70 years before Arnold, this name was given to strange flying objects by a farmer from Texas, John Martin. He observed them for about two hours on January 24, 1878 in the vicinity of the town of Denison. Martin told the press that the "saucers" flew at a high speed and in diameter exceeded the length of a railroad car."
Mysterious "airships"
It is already quite obvious that UFOs appeared in our skies long before the sighting of Kenneth Arnold, which initiated the "plate boom". Unknown flying objects were noticed by people at all times, and at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the first bursts of a large number of UFO reports were recorded. In the ufological literature, such newspaper hype is usually called a flap.
Apparently, the very first flap happened between November 1896 and April 1897. UFOs were then observed all over the world and especially in the USA, where tens of thousands of people saw them. Most of these objects were cigar-shaped. In some cases, they sent bright beams to the ground, similar to those of searchlights. This happened, for example, in 1896 in San Francisco and in 1897 in Chicago and Kansas City. However, the only aircraft in America at the time were free-floating balloons. There were no airships, and even with searchlights, on the American continent in 1897.
The second surge in reports of flights of unknown objects swept the whole world in 1909. In that year, information about unknown aircraft came from Europe, North America, South Africa, Japan and other parts of the world.
In New Zealand, since the end of July, thousands of people have observed low-flying vehicles, and in England, eyewitnesses from more than 40 cities, almost every day for five weeks (from August to September), announced the appearance in the night sky of large, elongated devices with powerful lights from below.
In July, an enormous airship-like object with five searchlights hovered over the ship St. Olaf off the west coast of England. For about 30 minutes he illuminated the deck, and then went to another ship and lit it as well.
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In December, a strange airship appeared twice over the city of Worcester (Massachusetts, USA) at night, illuminating everything around with a powerful searchlight. Something similar was seen on those nights and thousands of Boston residents.
Pilots in fur jackets
In England, one of the most famous was the case of Constable Robert Cattley. On March 23rd, in Peterborough, as soon as he stepped into the morning shift, Cattley became interested in the noise of the engine, which was heard directly above him. Throwing up his head, the constable saw a huge oblong aircraft with illuminated windows floating slowly over the rooftops. An eyewitness later said that he managed to see in them some people who waved their hands at him. Then two beams shot down from the "airship", brightly illuminating the ground, after which it began to gain altitude and swam away towards Derby.
Among other English incidents in 1909, the most impressive is the adventure of Howard Lethbridge, a 55-year-old Welsh resident, who stated that while walking through the hills of Mid Glamorgan, he came across a huge landing "airship" and its two pilots, " in some foreign language. " Above average height, they had a pleasant appearance and were dressed warmly out of season: in the semblance of fur jackets and hats. Such clothes made Lethbridge think that the "airship" had flown in from Russia. The pilots were apparently frightened by the approach of a local resident, as they hurried back to their car, which immediately took to the sky and flew away, throwing a wave of hot air over Lethbridge.
The airship of the aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont bends around the Eiffel Tower. Photo October 19, 1901
Suspected manufacturer
Recently in the United States were published reports of 11 police officers about the December event of the same 1909 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Heading before dawn on an urgent mission, they were all suddenly caught in a blinding light from somewhere above. In subsequent nights, a similar thing happened to residents of other cities in the state, and on December 23, a strange object slowly flew at low altitude over Boston.
Many inhabitants of the northwest of the United States subsequently stated that this powerful glow came from the searchlights of some elongated flying object. The mysterious night flyer appeared later, and on Christmas night, most likely, it was he who sailed over a dozen towns in Connecticut.
Many Americans then were convinced that the mysterious night visitor was the invention of the Worcester manufacturer Wallace F. Tillinghast, who just before these events announced that he intended to build some kind of special aircraft. But it soon became clear that the brainchild of Tillinghast had never been able to get off the ground. In addition, anyone who bothered to compare the various messages coming from the United States with those from other parts of the world would have guessed that no one, not even the most ingenious inventor, could answer for all these numerous heavenly miracles.
In 1909, information about the observations of such objects came from Russia. So, in July, the inhabitants of Saratov saw a large metal ball flying over the Volga upstream. In October, a cigar-shaped object swept over Odessa, made a sharp U-turn and disappeared towards the estuary. At the end of August, a huge unknown "airship" made two circles over Revel (now Tallinn) and withdrew, heading for Finland and leaving the city's population "in extreme excitement."
Wallace F. Tallinghast was going to build a special aircraft
Russia has nothing to do with it
While American newspapers wrote with great enthusiasm about encounters with such objects, in Europe they were mostly skeptical about this. Those who saw UFOs were most often ridiculed, and not only by newspapermen, but also by scientists. But after all, the reports of eyewitnesses who lived hundreds of kilometers from each other were almost identical, and this completely ruled out the possibility of mass hallucinations or "myth-making syndrome."
Strange flying objects were called the then fashionable words "airship" and "airplane", although at the beginning of the 20th century aviation was in its infancy. Airplanes, for example, did not yet have navigation devices, let alone electric generators and searchlights. These "winged ships", operating on the principle of a kite, could fly only during the day and in good weather - with a plot of a course along visually marked landmarks. Flights of unknown objects happened, as a rule, at night, and even at the most unfavorable time of the year - in winter, so these were clearly not airplanes.
In the very first publications about mysterious devices, attempts were made to give, if not scientific, then at least more or less plausible explanation of the phenomenon. Immediately, the idea arose of test flights of some kind of super-zeppelins - large airships, which were then really being developed in Germany. And therefore, when mysterious objects appeared over England, the German government immediately officially declared that they had nothing to do with it - if only because German airships were not able to fly to England and return back in one night. The Russian authorities also had to reassure the European states more than once (especially Austria-Hungary and Romania, over which flying objects were cruising) that Russian aviators did not fly over their territory.
1920s. Removal of the airship "Moscow chemist-rubber worker" from the boathouse
However, even without these justifications, experts even then, in 1909, came to the conclusion that not a single mechanism made by man could be a participant in a powerful wave of heavenly phenomena that captured the whole world. But in this case, a logical question arises: if they were not sent by people, then who?
More than a hundred years have passed since then, and the number of UFO sightings has increased exponentially. But, oddly enough, we still do not have a clear answer to the question: what kind of strange objects appear in the sky?