It is believed that the beginning of the UFO era was laid by the events of 1947 - the so-called Roswell incident, during which a UFO fell to Earth for the first time in modern history, and it happened near the city of Roswell in New Mexico, USA. However, as it turns out, UFO hysteria have happened before …
GHOST APPEARANCE
In the early morning of November 22, 1896, a resident of Oakland, California, amateur astronomer Kees Gilson was returning home from night observations. Accidentally raising his eyes, he saw with amazement an incomprehensible object in the predawn sky. With a surprised exclamation, he drew the attention of other people, and soon they all looked at a huge cigar with wings, emitting a bright beam of light in front …
This is how one of the most famous American urban legends about UFOs of the end of the last century was born.
LIKE FLIES HERE AND THERE RUMORS AROUND THE HOUSES
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It should be borne in mind that at that time the topic of aeronautics was very fashionable. The novels of Jules Verne and André Laurie inspired many inventors to create controlled balloons called airships (from the French dirigeable - controlled). Newspapers and magazines often wrote about the coming era of cigar-shaped giants, and the people of Oakland were convinced that they had seen the American airship. In a few days, this news spread throughout the entire neighborhood. There were also many witnesses who claimed that the object painted spirals like a kite. The rare sober voices drowned in this chorus.
For example, local astronomer Charles Berkhalter tried to prove that it was Venus, which “is not inferior in brightness to an arc lamp and moves slowly across the sky. And all theories connected with the airship are pure fiction …”When the planet looks through thin clouds, it seems that it is moving rapidly, which is facilitated by the refraction of light. And the observer's imagination can give it the most bizarre shape.
As the Oakland press began to reprint mainstream publications, "blimp fever" swept across the United States. In some places it turned into a real hysteria, and some religious sects began to prepare for the end of the world. In the end, the airship was spotted first over Chicago, and then over New York …
FACT OR MYSTIFICATION?
In the spring of 1897, a flood of messages poured in from Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. What kind of air ships have not been seen in the sky! They were strange rounded objects and balls of fire,
and some kind of luminous ghosts, and just colored overflows of light. Sometimes we even saw several luminous swarms flowing into each other. A controversy erupted between the inventors of aircrafts, each of whom argued that an unknown designer had secretly inferred and implemented his brilliant project.
There were more and more mystifiers, and the observations of the aerial ghost were overgrown with more and more details. A row of fearsome cannons looking down with their vents, multicolored flags and a crew in shimmering silver and gold uniforms were seen. They even heard the shots from the guns, reminiscent of distant claps of thunder. The most enterprising "witnesses" demonstrated the remains of an airboat they found in the form of a pile of boards, tarpaulins and linen. Allegedly, an air whirlwind tore this structure from the ship and threw it to the ground …
Alas, no one has managed to find the landing site of the mysterious air Flying Dutchman, as the New York Herald called the elusive apparatus. After all, as soon as the curious approached, the airship, or something resembling it, immediately took off. The same was true for professional astronomers. Their instruments were completely unprepared for observation just when the ship appeared on the horizon.
Soon the news of the airship spread throughout the Old World. The American aircraft aroused the greatest interest among French aeronautics specialists. After all, three years ago, the airship "France" was launched near Paris, which was able to make several successful long flights. At the same time, European balloon experts expressed deep doubts that anyone in America could create something similar.
Scientists, engineers and inventors have repeatedly tried to envision the air transport of the future. Most of all here, of course, Jules Verne and HG Wells succeeded. However, at the time of the described events in reality there was only one controlled balloon - the airship "France". It was the only vehicle with an electric motor capable of flying over many kilometers.
Naturally, if the Auckland airship turned out to be real, then the world would be enriched by another great engineering achievement. Nevertheless, the American hoax continued, because the airship was the greatest sensation! And any sensation must be constantly warmed up with new "facts". And so, near one of the farms in Wisconsin, a letter was found tied to an iron rod stuck in the ground.
The message from the mysterious "Pegasus" caused a storm of delight among the readers, and reports of new observations of the aircraft literally rained down from all over the North American continent. They even came from Europe and distant Russia, where, albeit with a great delay, they saw something similar over St. Petersburg!
The impression was that a whole squadron of mysterious vehicles soared over the entire civilized world. But there were also revelations. Thus, the Sunday issue of the New York Sun on April 11, 1897, told the story of two pranksters who launched a large ball with several colored lamps.
THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK
A few days after the first news "from the Pegasus" another sensational report got into the newspapers. Somewhere in the Midwest, near the town of Astoria, an iron arrow was found, resembling a harpoon, to which a bag was tied, covered with spots of machine oil. The package contained a letter addressed to the "King of American Inventors" himself, Thomas Edison.
In it, a certain C. L. Harris, "an electrician from Airship No. 3," informed the Electric Wizard that he had made an outstanding discovery in the history of aeronautics. In the same place, an unknown designer claimed that he had built three flying electric vehicles, on which he had already made several amazing air travels. It should be noted here that the author of the message knew his addressee very poorly. The acrimonious and quarrelsome character of the “king of inventors”, who never disdained open plagiarism and mercilessly exploited his employees, attributing to himself their findings and discoveries, manifested itself here in full.
When a reporter for the New York Herald introduced the "flying letter" to Edison, Edison decided that the myth of the electric ship had something to do with the "war of currents" that he had unsuccessfully waged with the ingenious inventor Nikola Tesla. He immediately sarcastically ridiculed the unknown "electrician KL Harris from Airship No. 3", accusing him of complete incompetence. Then the "wizard from Menlo Park," as the newsmen called him, began to assure the reporter that the whole story was pure hoax.
One way or another, but Edison's interview put an end to the airship story. This outstanding entrepreneur-inventor resolutely dismissed all possible explanations, except for one - flying objects were ordinary children's games with balloons.
Despite the gross categorical nature of the "electric sorcerer", there was a certain meaning in his criticism. The fact is that the mass of Chinese emigrants brought many amazing things to America, and among other things, flying Chinese lanterns. These surprisingly simple and at the same time entertaining toys are caps of various shapes and sizes, under which a burning tow or oil lamps are suspended from threads. Hot air lifts these glowing "balloons" upward, and from a distance they are an amazing sight.
In general, after Edison's sensational interview, everything somehow calmed down. Subsequently, many hypotheses arose to explain the "air fever of 1897". At the same time, twinkling stars, solar crowns (multiple suns), rare lunar halos (circles of light), unusual "lens" and "table" clouds were mentioned. And, of course, ordinary mirages. All these natural phenomena usually do not attract special attention, unless they coincide in time with all sorts of sensations that ufologists are spreading today.
“Air ships of 1897” was occasionally recalled in the pre-war years when all sorts of unusual UFOs appeared. Then the mention of them slipped when describing the "Martian panic of 1938" and the "plate epic of 1947". Moreover, in these cases, scientific commentators paid more attention to the psychology of the crowd, blindly believing the printed word.
However, these are completely different stories …
Oleg ARSENOV