It's strange that these people back then the way they describe this thing, using the terminology of their time. Well, I don't guess that's strange, because they had some kind of idea to go by. Kinda like in the 50's the descriptions change according to the times. I'll share something with you that happened to me when I was about 11 years old back in 68 or 69, (get ready to roll your eyes), I was playing with my brand new hot wheels play set on my front porch with another kid about 8 pm, it was around Christmas time because I had begged my mom for this thing for a while. We had the front porch light on when something caught our attention about 150' feet above the ground right over the treetops. It was 6 large red lights, approximately 25'- 30' in diameter, flying along in formation like, 2, 4, 6, I mean, this thing was big. It made no sound or wind, no vibration, nothing. We were, I guess you could say, dumbstruck. It was moving along about as fast as a person walks. We stared at the thing for about 5, 6 minutes until it disappeared over the treetops at the end of the street. He looked at me and said, do you think we should tell someone?. I said, nobody would believe us. My family did not believe in ufos. They would laugh at people who claimed to have seen a ufo and especially someone who said they had been abducted. So I knew if I told them what we had seen they would have accused me of making it up. I kept this encounter to myself for years and years and finally told my wife after we had been married for about 8- 10years. Now I knew about jets and balloons and helicopters and I was keeping a close eye on the moon flights, Apollo program. So I wasn't a dummy. This thing, whatever it was, was not something that the government admitted we have. I know what I saw because I watched it for a long time. Anyway I don't know what it was but I sure hope I find out before I die. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
As someone who has been a devoted alcoholic for almost 20 years i can absolutely assure you that alcohol will not cause you to halucinate imaginary airships.
I would 100% believe multiple airships that met tragic fates, not just because of the slightly differing descriptions but also because when the U.S. Navy experimented with dirigibles 30 years later they lost 4 out of 5.
Was that a U .S Navy airship then in 1897... WTF you going on about ..Germany lost many airships as di the USA and UK ..... but they didn't lose them in 1897 .. did they ..The video is not about losing airships is it It is about something that was seen in 1897 ...
For those who STILL do not understand. The first powered and controlled flight of an airship, also known as a dirigible, was made by French engineer and inventor Henri Giffard on September 24, 1852.
New Zealand had a run of 'mystery aircraft' sightings in 1909. Beginning in Southland and travelling up the country, making stops in both urban and rural areas, the craft were described as egg or cigar-shaped, equipped with lights and an undercarriage, and flew completely silently.
Yep, fellow NZ UFO enthusiast here. I concur about the NZ sightings. There have been attempts to debunk them as copycats of the US sightings but as far as a I know the mystery has not been solved beyond doubt. There is a theory that UFOs mimic the technology of the time but a step ahead.
Newspaper men during that time were known to create imaginative stories just to sell newspapers. I want to thank you for your hard research and work on this video. It was a mystery in 1897, but in 1904 it was on exhibit at the St. Louis world's fair. You may have noticed that the air ships sighted early in Nebraska followed the railroad. Another sighting in Hot Springs, Arkansas was reported by a night watchman who came upon the crew loading the air ship on a railroad car. Rail was the way to travel that early. Even the Wright brothers shipped their plane by rail to Kitty Hawk. One sighting that you did not mention was near one of the little towns near Waco, Texas. This one fit more comfortably into sightings of 50 or 100 years later. The farmer observed a man with small boys. Thanks
It's really cool how you made multiple different, conceptually feasible airship models which all fit the basic descriptions of the craft, and then interspersed them randomly throughout the night sky shots in the video. Brilliant idea!!
Humans always see "UFOs" that look like their own time's popular idea of advanced technology. Around WWI, when aviation was starting to become common, there were many sightings of mystery airplanes that seemed to fly too high and too fast for the technology of the times. When propellers were substituted by jets, mystery aircraft started to hover with no apparent engines. It seems unexplained flying things keep getting updated in sync with human imagination. There is a Gary Larson cartoon where a group of cavemen see a flying saucer made of ticks and stones.
@futurepig....The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel had a vision where he saw a "wheel within a wheel" and other details. Was he seeing a highly advanced aircraft but the only reference he knew was a wheel on a cart or chariot?
Did anyone notice when the one person described the backend having a snail like design and a gasoline engine feeding it? That is turbocharging!! That is something needed for engines when they get above a specific height due to the lower oxygen content in the atmosphere the higher you rise. Someone either really saw that or it was a quote by someone later on in our history that knew about the necessary forced induction in higher elevations.
Yes, I picked- up on that snail-shaped device, but didn't think of a turbo-charger per se (was thinking of somthing more exotic, like some kind of vortex generator ...). The first official patenting for a turbo-charger was 1905 in Switzerland (in the German-speaking part, near the Swiss-German border), but maybe the idea was thought of and known about prior to 1905, but was not formally patented.
The design of props was not as established back then as it was now, so a "snail like design" might have been an old style screw propeller (certain types, especially if they taper fore and aft, can look snail like).
I love the eerie atmosphere that you nailed in this video. Reminds me of some kind of show you’d see on Television on the history or discovery channel in the 90’s/00’s. Keep it weird.
Well done video! I wrote a paper on 19th century American humor. One of the things I learned was that pranking was widely practiced by adults and even whole towns as a form of entertainment. The appearance of a real airship could have been easily multiplied and embroidered upon by pranksters.
Believe it or not at this time the US was actually kinda pacifistic and funding for the armed forces was extremely low. The only branch that got any kind of funding was the Navy and it still struggled to keep up technologically with European navies and didn't have anything even comparable to the network of coaling stations that countries like the UK and France had. The modern day US with a massive military only really emerged after WWII.
My great great uncle was one of the very first US Navy pilots before WW1 and was the first Navy pilot shot at in combat and his wife ( my aunt ) was the first woman to fly over New York City. He was Lt. Richard Sauffley and my aunt was Helen O'Rear. Sauffley Field Naval base in Pensacola, Florida and the WW2 ship USS Sauffley are named for him. He also commanded one of the first American submarine. Look him up online, he makes for interesting reading.
I read online a story about a group in the c1890s in the San Francisco Bay area working on airship/aircraft projects. The group had a master craftsman of German origin who used some technique that he had presumably learned about in Europe and he wanted to keep it secret. There was some dispute between this craftsman and others in the group and the factions split, but it was only speculated that one or more factions carried on with the projects seperately. That's all I recall from reading about it online, but I think it mentioned leads to some exotic ideas on air flight and fluid dynamics being experimented with in Europe, and Argentina I think, in the mid-late 1800s.
If I remember right, Europe had a few glider clubs, where they would fly their non-motorized airplanes over and around hillsides. This was before the Wright brothers put a bicycle motor on their glider (if I remember right).
I remember reading a story about one of those coming over a farm. The 'pilot' came to the ground to ask the farmer for a bucket of water. He then returned to his craft (I don't know how) and flew off into the night.
I love this video that you did, thankyou. But there is a common misconception about something you stated. The wind does not just travel in the direction its perceived. The sky is filled with layers of wind that can travel in different directions compared to on another. Imagine the surf that you see on a shore. One could say the water is only coming in but underneath the surface its traveling out and in the case of rip currents, parallel to the shore. Staring at the sky it's not uncommon to see clouds very high up traveling in a different direction than the air hitting your face. So to see an airship traveling not in the direction of wind can be normal depending upon their altitude. The US military in WW2 learned this when bombing Japan when bombers were actually traveling backwards in some cases when compared to the ground when they entered the jet stream.
@@nuthinasitseems5213 Don't forget that venusian light was being reflected off swamp gas. And the witnesses didn't go to college, therefore they were blind.
This was a really well researched piece. Thank you for not taking us down the visitors from outer space or the visitors from another dimension rabbit holes. Your summation sounds well considered and well supported. Please keep this sort of content coming! 👍
Nicely done. In my trilogy “He’ll Fighters From Earth” I allude to these sightings, and the people behind the ship were a group of wealthy people and their followers who wanted to get away from the rest of humanity.
Cool illustrations,- probably something similar to 'the phoenix lights' incident, which was also witnessed by many & actually photographed by a few. It happened on march 13, 1997.
Having lived in & traveled to many of these places, you couldn't imagine how rural these were and still are. Regarding the conjectured size of the airship, a 100' long airship was a roughly 2-passenger size. To carry a gondola and drive system + crew, historically it would have needed to be 600'+. Not to suggest they couldn't have hidden it but any farmer knows the difference between 200' and 600'
Loved it - particularly that gentle English humour, and the excellent graphics. I've known of these stories for a long time - one of the serious scientific journals (forget which) published a very down to earth book about early UFO sightings, from this time to the 1960's some forty years ago, and that included these tales, and others. One involved a 'super-zep' overtaking a Chicago-bound express train in broad daylight. And, as several people have commented, there were a number of British incidents, particularly in South Wales and the Pennines. American newspapers - particularly rural ones - were known to spin windies around then, certainly, as a means of entertaining their readers - Mark Twain was adept at it. But, even so, given the technological acchievments of the day, I'd not be willing to put money on the stories, either way. Anyway, do we want it proved or disproved? Its more fun to leave it as it is.
This story has always fascinated me, and in all honestly your concluding theory may very well be just what happened one-hundred-and-twenty-seven years ago in my opinion. Great video!
Theory four: It was a group of Swedish aliens that got lost trying to find the leader of Earth. Jokes aside, this is actually really fascinating. I adore rigid airships and their history, so the idea of an early aircraft inventor flying one around the country predominantly at night with a giant search light (because of course you would, even early on you'd hopefully know that flying a relatively untested aircraft at night is exceedingly dangerous without some way of at least determining how close you are to the ground) and being seen in a bunch of different places as it's tested in secret is just an incredible mental image. I wouldn't say I'm convinced, but it's reasonably plausible, of course even if it did happen a lot of the sightings are definitely not credible, but that said it wouldn't really surprise me at all if one or more of these crafts were actually flown in secret but were lost due to the inherent danger of early rigid airships and early manned flight in general. Rigid airships, while not yet commonplace, had existed for decades at that point and there was a sort of arms race to be the first person to perfect manned flight, so I'd argue that this is definitely within the realm of possibility. I agree that it would be worth looking into the missing persons records from 1897 to see if any rich people mysteriously vanished around the time, that wouldn't prove anything by itself but might add some voracity to the claims if there's anything that could tie them to these sightings. Although I'd honestly be surprised if no one's ever attempted that before, plus it's entirely possible that if there is some truth to this, then the person or persons involved might not have even been American citizens, just working in the US for purely practical reasons, whatever that may be.
Kansas City -- Kansas and Missouri each have one, They are adjacent, and the MO one has population around 509 thousand, the KS one has population around 153 thousand.
Excellent coverage of this subject! Two of the crew were actually named in one report: ""The airship is very much as reported by The News ... It consists of a cigar-shaped body about 60 feet in length ... The motive power is an immense wheel at each end, in appearance much like a metallic windmill. It is driven by an immense electric engine, which derives its power from storage batteries." The crewmen - earthlings, as it sadly turned out - gave their names as S.E. Tilman and A.E. Dolbear. They explained that they were on a test cruise in compliance with a contract they held with certain New York capitalists." Samuel Escue Tilman and Amos Emerson Dolbear and both historical figures, they both have Wikipedia pages so it adds a lot of credibility. One was a Army colonel and the other was a professor of electricity and engineering.
Except both of them lived well after the airships should have crashed and neither of them ever claimed to have worked on airships or said anything about these sightings at all. In fact Amos was involved in a legal dispute with Bell while all of this was going on so he couldn't have been flying around over the US. So really this just casts more doubt on the story.
In Waco incident two of the crewman began to discuss about Cuba and Spain just in front of the farmer, one of the man was very tall and olive tone skin,that give me the key,in fact was Spaniard,they came from NYMZA "airclub",the story is too bizarre and incredible to tell here.
Culiacan México 1967..a flying train like a tube several dozens of meters long with lighted windows with shadowy figures looking down passed just floating about 100 meters above the city at dawn just before the first lights of the morning..silently flew over without making noise..several persons witnessed the object..it sound your video very close to the thing people saw then in Culiacán...🎉😊❤
I wonder if that was a phanta Morgana, which sometimes makes boats or even cities "appear" to be floating in the distance. It's related to a "mirage" .
Excellent movie. I'm gonna have to watch it again. There's a book made into a Disney 🤮 movie. Can't remember the name, they go north and find vikings. There's also a sci-fi book called Genesis, very hard to find now, that grabs the airship sightings as part of a 150 year long story.
My Great Grandpa and his sons had a ranch in the far northern California Sacramento Valley on the westside. They had a clear view of the coastal mountains to the west. They were far away from any news source of the time and knew nothing of the airships. They were working the ranch when they spotted this large object out over the mountains heading north along the coast. They said it seemed rather large. Now they did not hear of the sightings elsewhere till a couple of weeks later after grandpa road into town to pick up the mail, newspapers and some supplies. They were surprised by the reports in the papers. They thought it had gone down in the Pacific.
Well, there's nothing implausible about an airship like that: you could almost figure they adventured their way across the country and then got blown out to sea before the big reveal or something.
I love that this started from researching Verne's albatross. I look forward to seeing how you design that flying machine too. Though if you are up for a challenge of Scale, I would also suggest you look at Verne's Standard Island in his book Propeller Island. Very fascinating craft!
I was reading about these airship sightings and other things moving around and falling from the skies around the 1800's in one of Charles Fort's books only the other day, amazing how much he documented.
Are there any records of airships being built? The fabric envelope, framework, engines...and crews to assemble it. It would have had to be built somewhere...
You'd imagine that some blueprints would also have survived somewhere. I mean we have the blueprints of all the airships we know for a fact were built.
Look up the Aurora, Texas UFO crash April 17, 1897. This was apparently one of these "airships". I did a Star Trek fan film called "The Aurora Crash" about this.
If you think about the amazement of flight at the time, it was so much more than incredible and fascinating than we understand today. The thought of floating above the ground and looking down upon the world with a view that was only dreamed about would be consuming to some. Knowing it could be done at the time and having the basic premise out in the world, I imagine that many were more than willing to try to make it happen, and some may well have.
Interesting story, I had heard something about this but not as in depth as this. People sometimes see what they want to see or what they expect to see when it is in fact something rather different. My dad was very sceptical of these stories, it wasn't that he thought people hadn't seen "something" but he believed it wasn't what they thought. He was ex RAF and had served as a gunner during WW2 and afterwards for a while as well. He used to tell me stories of gunners occasionally opening fire on their own distorted reflection in the turret plexiglass or their own aircrafts shadow on a cloud, convinced they were firing at enemy fighters which of course they expected to see. Back in 1966, someone filmed a very convincing UFO from an aicraft, dad was having none of it, its just a distorted reflection of part of the wing in the window he said, and sure enough that was exactly what it turned out to be. As a young lad who believed in aliens etc I was very crestfallen, but as I've aged I've adopted his scepticism. Having been drinking alcohol for fifty four years I can attest it doesn't make you hallucinate. Has anyone considered that this story may have been triggered by someone's encounter with an ordinary balloon? The story becoming increasingly embellished over time. Just a thought.
This was the time of Langley and the Wright Brothers too…there were definitely lots of tinkerers, so it would make sense that maybe a few here and there thought that trying the new technology of electric or gasoline engines might lead to fame or fortune if coupled with an aerostat…and we know there were successful gliders and nearly successful steam planes…so it’s really not a stretch to imagine the local mad scientist building some “flying machine” and never being heard from again…
Could you do a video on the Airship from "Robur the Conqueror"? I was always fascinated by this Jules Verne story, as it depicts a flying machine made from something we today would call carbon fiber and powered by electric helicopter lifting propellers. The novell also starts with a bunch of people reporting moving objects in the sky and even hearing music being played on board.
He said at about 1:15 that he came across the subject of this video "whilst researching the _Albatross_ of Jules Verne...." That _IS_ the airship from _Robur the Conqueror._
First, looking forward to your upcoming Albatross video. Next, thanks for this video, excellent presentation. 👍🎉 Finally, I have wonder if you’ll do videos concerning other such things as UFO sightings but perhaps also things such as The Moth-Man plus Spring-heel Jack?
The excuse for Mass hysteria has always sounded like bullshit to me, it's just a really easy way to explain away something without actually doing any work.
some of them really are just mass hysteria. but yeah i agree its really annoying when people just dismiss it outright wihtout considering the alternatives
That's how debunkers, i.e., Mick West and his ilk, still operate in modern times. Outright dismissal without evidence, or poor research and examination of what evidence they do look at...
I remember the February of 1897. The winter was harsh and snow ❄️ sparkled ✨️ like millions of pieces of broken glass. Then we heard the voices in the air above us and lifted our heads...
Is this a partial inspiration for "Columbia" in Bioshock: Infinite? The plot largely revolves around a giant Airship/floating city/world fair location built in the USA but then it "seceded" and left, it was occasionally sighted in various places including the US mainland.
Stories about airships being used in revolutions were actually something of a trope in the late 19th century so I think that's where Columbia draws its inspiration from.
Considering the penchant private Citizens have of opening fire on anything they cannot identify, or the possibility of severe weather affecting an airship even now, it is plausible to assume it was removed from the air one way or another, Rather like the experimental Avro Arrow fighter jet approaching U.S Airspace in 1957 At a speed of mach 1.9 unannounced, at the height of the cold war, Reactions will vary...Cheers.
towns would compete for crazy stories to attract visitors. this happened with many topics from monsters to ghosts to ghost ships. nothing unusual about tall tales and competition. just look at today's media...
To my ears, the (loud) background music and something about the gain level of the voice make this difficult to understand. Otherwise, it's great and very interesting, including the Mackay Quote.
date of stories fading out (May 13)--is important. In upper midwest and new england--the winter weather breaks in this 1 week period. Springtime absolutely brings on different priorities :)
Some think the mystery airships were UFO sightings, described as airships as that was what people were familiar with at the time. One crashed in a small town in Texas. The "aeronaut" is buried in the local graveyard under multiple feet of concrete.
I love reading books on paranormal and weird occurrences, and in only one of them was there a mention of these airship sightings. I figured it must have been a made up, or at least extremely exaggerated for the book, until I found your video. Also, taxing windows isn't the craziest idea. In an era before bureaucracy demanded everything in triplicate, it was hard to prove how much money someone made working, but it was easy to see someone with a mansion made more than someone living in a mud hut. So taxing based on the number of windows you had theoretically is a way to tax based on income, but in reality just made everyone board up their windows to save a buck.
Keep in mind this is the 19th century where searchlights weren't nearly as powerful as they are today. The kind of beam shown in this video is a bit of an exageration.
What was seen in 1897 was the expression of air flight that was soon to be. These airships were just an expression of what was soon to be by the Wright Brothers. It or those were a worldwide expression of what was soon to come. Were they real or an expression of world wide reality of what was soon to be. The uap phenomenon is similar to what will someday be coming. During ww2 the craft were shown to be flying in such a way as was soon to be by always seeming to be somewhat is beyond us at the time. This will always be structures and things to come and will continue to evolve in ways slightly ahead of what we are capable of at the moment. Like the Navy Tic Tacs able to fly through water as easily as through the air. This was especially graphically represented to the Navy who would clearly love to be able to drive through the air and water. I am sure as time goes along we will see that these craft will travel through the earth just as easily as through the air. It will be seen to be in the future.
There is one massive hole in the idea that this was some private enterprise venture at controlled flight: just to construct such a vehicle would have required a significant amount of cash, and the number of such people is not huge. So if your speculation is correct, and the vehicle took its backer to the grave in a crash that also killed it's designer with it, how would the sudden disappearance of such a wealthy individual, and a prominent inventor, go unnoticed?
Most probable would be a few of the crew where independently wealthy but not famous and they backed the project and that is why the lack of knowledge around the identity of the funders. Remember at the time fortunes where made and lost constantly with many gold rushes, industries, oil, rail roads, mines and other business ventures and many people preferred to hide their wealth as best as possible so as to avoid family or others that would try to take advantage. Also at this time inventors were everywhere and in all fields. The theory of private enterprise of one or multiple electric powered dirigibles at this time period is not only plausible but probable.
@RWO555 even a moderately wealthy individual going missing suddenly would have been commented on in the press of that time, and if more than one individual from the same area were to suddenly vanish with no clue, it would have generated headlines that could not be ignored. I also doubt that an electric power system capable of powering both a rigid/semi-rigid airship and a large arclight could have been lifted off the ground. In the late 1890's, generators were still large, heavy items that didn't take well to being moved. (And yes, I do know this for a fact, given that one of my fields of study was electrical engineering). So no, your theory just doesn't 'pass the smell test'.
@@andrewreynolds9371 Tho I do agree that many wealthy individuals from the same area would raise concern your hypothesis is based on the assumption that first people knew of their wealth and secondly that said people are from the same area and not from different parts of the country or from other countries entirely. And to your point about the technology of the day as an electrical engineer and historian you would be aware that electric engines did exist at the time and were used in everything from manufacturing to hosreless carriages to mass transit systems and that was public technology not taking into consideration what was being used by inventors using state of the art for the time modern technology that would have be top secret or still in the testing phase before said inventor risks a patent as this was the golden age of inventions with the wealthiest and most powerful men, countries and militaries wanting the next big break through so as to make more wealth or wield more power.
@@RWO555 problems with your argument: even in 1897, travel wasn't something people did with the same frequency we do today. so the chances of a group of people from a large area coming together to do something like this are very slim. so odds are, if this were to happen, the backers would ahve to come either from a single large city, or the immediate vicinity. further, in that time frame, the concept of 'concealed wealth' was unknown. the best modern analogy to how rich people treated wealth back in the Gilded Age would be the modern saying "If you've got it, flaunt it!" as for electric motors, you are right. they weren't the small, efficient items we use today, but they were available. that said, if you'll reread what I said, I pointed out that electric *generators* were large, heavy items that did not like being moved around. and while using batteries is a possibility, they too were large and heavy items. worse, the power density of batteries of that time frame were tiny compared to modern batteries, and to power the motor of such an airship *and* a power-hungry item like a searchlight/arclight would tax any battery system. worse, how would such a vehicle recharge it's batteries away from whatever base it operated from? electricity wasn't even universally available in big cities, and was almost unknown in rural areas. so how do you hide something this large anywhere near a city while you're recharging your batteries for the next night's flight? bottom line, this whole idea just does not make sense.
@@andrewreynolds9371 Well my friend to your first point people did get together and travel for like minded ideas such as the gold rushes where people would travel across the whole county, and even from as far away as Europe and Asia, risking life and limb just for a chance at a better life. To your second point we have documented cases of many people hiding their wealth only for it to be discovered after the passing of the wealthy individual plus there is the possibility of said wealthy persons death or disappearance being only reported in a small local news paper that we are unable to find today due to fires or floods or lack of said article being digitized. We also need to take into account the possibility that the wealthy funders were not on the flight and did not report the loss as it was top secret and did not want the publicity to said technology to go public or the fact that they had made a financial mistake which could hurt their reputation. I agree that electric engines where larger, heavier and less efficient than what we have today same can be said for the batteries of the time but the fact remains that they did have the technology to make said craft fly tho most likely it would make for short flights which is corroborated by witness testimony that the craft would be seen parked either being repaired or charged and that most flights where seen only during a few hours time. As to building it in secret would easily be achieved by building said craft out in the rural country side where there would be a lack of prying eyes and news paper men and why they only flew said craft at night. As to recharging the craft may have had a wind turbine either on the craft used to extend the range of the craft or could be set up on the ground when parked or some kind of human powered recharging system. On my off grid 12v system I have an exercise bike attached to a 12v self regulated automotive alternator for winter or cloudy times when the solar cannot produce sufficient supply for my battery bank. We also need to take into account that men of the day had a "can do" "complete the goal at all costs" kind of attitude and combined with an adventurous high risk way of achieving their goals, dreams and aspirations. At this time it was normal for inventors to die and take their knowledge with them to the grave as most inventors where also the test pilots in the case of aviation..
There's a book series called "The Long Earth", where governments use airships to travel between parallel Earth. Maybe they were visitors from a technologically advanced version of Earth.
This thing sounds like something that comes out of a Wild Wild West episode but in real life. Some evil Robber Baron had all kinds of crazy technology that nobody knew about at the time but him 😮
The secretive inventor of the phantom airship, does not explain the Aurora Texas crash, or all the other sightings around the world, as far as New Zealand.
It's strange that these people back then the way they describe this thing, using the terminology of their time. Well, I don't guess that's strange, because they had some kind of idea to go by. Kinda like in the 50's the descriptions change according to the times.
I'll share something with you that happened to me when I was about 11 years old back in 68 or 69, (get ready to roll your eyes), I was playing with my brand new hot wheels play set on my front porch with another kid about 8 pm, it was around Christmas time because I had begged my mom for this thing for a while.
We had the front porch light on when something caught our attention about 150' feet above the ground right over the treetops. It was 6 large red lights, approximately 25'- 30' in diameter, flying along in formation like, 2, 4, 6, I mean, this thing was big. It made no sound or wind, no vibration, nothing. We were, I guess you could say, dumbstruck. It was moving along about as fast as a person walks. We stared at the thing for about 5, 6 minutes until it disappeared over the treetops at the end of the street. He looked at me and said, do you think we should tell someone?. I said, nobody would believe us.
My family did not believe in ufos. They would laugh at people who claimed to have seen a ufo and especially someone who said they had been abducted.
So I knew if I told them what we had seen they would have accused me of making it up.
I kept this encounter to myself for years and years and finally told my wife after we had been married for about 8- 10years. Now I knew about jets and balloons and helicopters and I was keeping a close eye on the moon flights, Apollo program. So I wasn't a dummy. This thing, whatever it was, was not something that the government admitted we have. I know what I saw because I watched it for a long time. Anyway I don't know what it was but I sure hope I find out before I die. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
I'm grateful that you shared it
They say be careful what you wish for. So, these are just giants who like to go by ET nowadays! And I grew up with a bunch of nonbelievers as well.
Thank you for sharing your account. I've seen or been part of some things that defy logic, so I completely understand.
@@Davidbirdman101 Thank you for sharing your experience. 👍
Thank you for coming forward with this, I take it seriously and believe it.
As someone who has been a devoted alcoholic for almost 20 years i can absolutely assure you that alcohol will not cause you to halucinate imaginary airships.
Thank for your efforts in name of science. Such commitment should not go unrecognized,so I will have a drink min your honor.
As an fellow alcoholic for 20 yeard as well.i agree.
L M A O
Just pink elephants that walk, isn't it?
Not even shrooms makes you hallucinage whole objects. A high fever, or alcohol withdrawals might, but you would definitely know you were not well.
I would 100% believe multiple airships that met tragic fates, not just because of the slightly differing descriptions but also because when the U.S. Navy experimented with dirigibles 30 years later they lost 4 out of 5.
The only one they did not lose was the one they got from the Zeppelin factory in Germany (the "Los Angeles").
The US Army (Signal Corps) tested it's first Dirigible in 1908. There were HUNDREDS, not 5.
Was that a U .S Navy airship then in 1897... WTF you going on about ..Germany lost many airships as di the USA and UK ..... but they didn't lose them in 1897 .. did they ..The video is not about losing airships is it It is about something that was seen in 1897 ...
@@bigbossimmotal, yes, but we are talking about the U.S.N. airships.
For those who STILL do not understand.
The first powered and controlled flight of an airship, also known as a dirigible, was made by French engineer and inventor Henri Giffard on September 24, 1852.
New Zealand had a run of 'mystery aircraft' sightings in 1909. Beginning in Southland and travelling up the country, making stops in both urban and rural areas, the craft were described as egg or cigar-shaped, equipped with lights and an undercarriage, and flew completely silently.
On our caves in New Zealands Oamaru to Omarama, are air craft like this in pigment.
Indeed. New Zealand had many sightings south island around Dunedin. Early 1900s. Well documented. Choice.🤙
Yep, fellow NZ UFO enthusiast here. I concur about the NZ sightings. There have been attempts to debunk them as copycats of the US sightings but as far as a I know the mystery has not been solved beyond doubt.
There is a theory that UFOs mimic the technology of the time but a step ahead.
Yes, this is (or was) mentioned a bit in Wikipedia on this subject.
Literally sounds like a blimp. 😂
Newspaper men during that time were known
to create imaginative stories just to sell newspapers.
I want to thank you for your hard research and work on this video.
It was a mystery in 1897, but in 1904 it was on exhibit at the St. Louis world's fair.
You may have noticed that the air ships sighted early in Nebraska followed
the railroad. Another sighting in Hot Springs, Arkansas was reported by
a night watchman who came upon the crew loading the air ship on a railroad car.
Rail was the way to travel that early. Even the Wright brothers shipped their plane
by rail to Kitty Hawk.
One sighting that you did not mention was near one of the little towns near
Waco, Texas. This one fit more comfortably into sightings of 50 or 100 years later.
The farmer observed a man with small boys.
Thanks
Newspaper men of all time have done that. Remember the Orson Welles UFO panic of 1938 wich only existed in the press and never occured in reality.
Newspapermen haven't changed, have they? 😉
Hey pretty much wrote the same thing and then now I just read yours.😂
Following railways was a sure way of navigating, as were rivers and canals. Early WW1 pilots did the same.
Commenter men during this time are known to negate disruptive realities just to quell fears.
It's really cool how you made multiple different, conceptually feasible airship models which all fit the basic descriptions of the craft, and then interspersed them randomly throughout the night sky shots in the video. Brilliant idea!!
Thanks more making this video. The phantom airships are one of my favorite mysteries.
Humans always see "UFOs" that look like their own time's popular idea of advanced technology. Around WWI, when aviation was starting to become common, there were many sightings of mystery airplanes that seemed to fly too high and too fast for the technology of the times. When propellers were substituted by jets, mystery aircraft started to hover with no apparent engines. It seems unexplained flying things keep getting updated in sync with human imagination.
There is a Gary Larson cartoon where a group of cavemen see a flying saucer made of ticks and stones.
Solid holographic craft are easy to alter after all.
You just described the modern version of "fairy magic"
Swamp gas evolving. 😂
@futurepig....The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel had a vision where he saw a "wheel within a wheel" and other details. Was he seeing a highly advanced aircraft but the only reference he knew was a wheel on a cart or chariot?
@@marbleman52 He was probably tripping
Did anyone notice when the one person described the backend having a snail like design and a gasoline engine feeding it? That is turbocharging!! That is something needed for engines when they get above a specific height due to the lower oxygen content in the atmosphere the higher you rise. Someone either really saw that or it was a quote by someone later on in our history that knew about the necessary forced induction in higher elevations.
Yes, I picked- up on that snail-shaped device, but didn't think of a turbo-charger per se (was thinking of somthing more exotic, like some kind of vortex generator ...). The first official patenting for a turbo-charger was 1905 in Switzerland (in the German-speaking part, near the Swiss-German border), but maybe the idea was thought of and known about prior to 1905, but was not formally patented.
@@eurojamieAll patents are just lost or stolen technology.
The design of props was not as established back then as it was now, so a "snail like design" might have been an old style screw propeller (certain types, especially if they taper fore and aft, can look snail like).
@@jimmydesouza4375 very interesting input
I love the eerie atmosphere that you nailed in this video. Reminds me of some kind of show you’d see on Television on the history or discovery channel in the 90’s/00’s. Keep it weird.
Well done video! I wrote a paper on 19th century American humor. One of the things I learned was that pranking was widely practiced by adults and even whole towns as a form of entertainment. The appearance of a real airship could have been easily multiplied and embroidered upon by pranksters.
Sounds a lot like a 1896 Skunkworks-style 'black budget' Project.
My thought exactly.
Likely a variant on the design of Crroat David Schwarz who built two metal airships prior to this around 1895
Foreign funded gain of air flight function. It was said to be safe and effective though it's loss was sudden and unexpected.
Believe it or not at this time the US was actually kinda pacifistic and funding for the armed forces was extremely low. The only branch that got any kind of funding was the Navy and it still struggled to keep up technologically with European navies and didn't have anything even comparable to the network of coaling stations that countries like the UK and France had. The modern day US with a massive military only really emerged after WWII.
My great great uncle was one of the very first US Navy pilots before WW1 and was the first Navy pilot shot at in combat and his wife ( my aunt ) was the first woman to fly over New York City. He was Lt. Richard Sauffley and my aunt was Helen O'Rear. Sauffley Field Naval base in Pensacola, Florida and the WW2 ship USS Sauffley are named for him. He also commanded one of the first American submarine. Look him up online, he makes for interesting reading.
What a life your ancestors lived! Thanks for sharing
Amazing! Thanks for sharing!
I read online a story about a group in the c1890s in the San Francisco Bay area working on airship/aircraft projects. The group had a master craftsman of German origin who used some technique that he had presumably learned about in Europe and he wanted to keep it secret. There was some dispute between this craftsman and others in the group and the factions split, but it was only speculated that one or more factions carried on with the projects seperately. That's all I recall from reading about it online, but I think it mentioned leads to some exotic ideas on air flight and fluid dynamics being experimented with in Europe, and Argentina I think, in the mid-late 1800s.
If I remember right, Europe had a few glider clubs, where they would fly their non-motorized airplanes over and around hillsides.
This was before the Wright brothers put a bicycle motor on their glider (if I remember right).
Look up Croat David Schwarz and his metal airships, this 1897 one is likely a copy.
I remember reading a story about one of those coming over a farm. The 'pilot' came to the ground to ask the farmer for a bucket of water. He then returned to his craft (I don't know how) and flew off into the night.
Did he also give him pancakes?
@@EugeneLoreyyes pancakes
I love this video that you did, thankyou. But there is a common misconception about something you stated. The wind does not just travel in the direction its perceived. The sky is filled with layers of wind that can travel in different directions compared to on another. Imagine the surf that you see on a shore. One could say the water is only coming in but underneath the surface its traveling out and in the case of rip currents, parallel to the shore. Staring at the sky it's not uncommon to see clouds very high up traveling in a different direction than the air hitting your face. So to see an airship traveling not in the direction of wind can be normal depending upon their altitude. The US military in WW2 learned this when bombing Japan when bombers were actually traveling backwards in some cases when compared to the ground when they entered the jet stream.
Great video. I really like your animations, particularly the animated maps. It really adds atmosphere and character.
Könnte nicht damals schon ein genialer Erfinder seiner Zeit viel weiter voraus gewesen sein als wir heute glauben?
Sure, but he had better be a rich one. Building something like that back then would cost a fortune.
Another good book is The Secrets of Dellshau: The Sonora Aero Club & the Airships of the 1800s by Dennis Crenshaw.
Walter Bosley has written some good ones as well. "Empire of the Wheel II: Friends from Sonora" covers the Aero Club and the mysterious NYMZA.
Alcohol☠️and the misidentification of Venus 🌙play a part, really?
@@nuthinasitseems5213 Don't forget that venusian light was being reflected off swamp gas. And the witnesses didn't go to college, therefore they were blind.
This was a really well researched piece. Thank you for not taking us down the visitors from outer space or the visitors from another dimension rabbit holes. Your summation sounds well considered and well supported. Please keep this sort of content coming! 👍
Nicely done. In my trilogy “He’ll Fighters From Earth” I allude to these sightings, and the people behind the ship were a group of wealthy people and their followers who wanted to get away from the rest of humanity.
Cool illustrations,- probably something similar to 'the phoenix lights' incident, which was also witnessed by many & actually photographed by a few. It happened on march 13, 1997.
As with most things strange the story starts in California is just fantastic and true
Having lived in & traveled to many of these places, you couldn't imagine how rural these were and still are. Regarding the conjectured size of the airship, a 100' long airship was a roughly 2-passenger size. To carry a gondola and drive system + crew, historically it would have needed to be 600'+. Not to suggest they couldn't have hidden it but any farmer knows the difference between 200' and 600'
This has always fascinating me. An amazing little mystery.
Loved it - particularly that gentle English humour, and the excellent graphics. I've known of these stories for a long time - one of the serious scientific journals (forget which) published a very down to earth book about early UFO sightings, from this time to the 1960's some forty years ago, and that included these tales, and others. One involved a 'super-zep' overtaking a Chicago-bound express train in broad daylight. And, as several people have commented, there were a number of British incidents, particularly in South Wales and the Pennines.
American newspapers - particularly rural ones - were known to spin windies around then, certainly, as a means of entertaining their readers - Mark Twain was adept at it. But, even so, given the technological acchievments of the day, I'd not be willing to put money on the stories, either way.
Anyway, do we want it proved or disproved? Its more fun to leave it as it is.
This story has always fascinated me, and in all honestly your concluding theory may very well be just what happened one-hundred-and-twenty-seven years ago in my opinion. Great video!
I cant believe I never heard of this phenomenon!
Great investigation and visuals
Theory four: It was a group of Swedish aliens that got lost trying to find the leader of Earth.
Jokes aside, this is actually really fascinating. I adore rigid airships and their history, so the idea of an early aircraft inventor flying one around the country predominantly at night with a giant search light (because of course you would, even early on you'd hopefully know that flying a relatively untested aircraft at night is exceedingly dangerous without some way of at least determining how close you are to the ground) and being seen in a bunch of different places as it's tested in secret is just an incredible mental image. I wouldn't say I'm convinced, but it's reasonably plausible, of course even if it did happen a lot of the sightings are definitely not credible, but that said it wouldn't really surprise me at all if one or more of these crafts were actually flown in secret but were lost due to the inherent danger of early rigid airships and early manned flight in general. Rigid airships, while not yet commonplace, had existed for decades at that point and there was a sort of arms race to be the first person to perfect manned flight, so I'd argue that this is definitely within the realm of possibility.
I agree that it would be worth looking into the missing persons records from 1897 to see if any rich people mysteriously vanished around the time, that wouldn't prove anything by itself but might add some voracity to the claims if there's anything that could tie them to these sightings. Although I'd honestly be surprised if no one's ever attempted that before, plus it's entirely possible that if there is some truth to this, then the person or persons involved might not have even been American citizens, just working in the US for purely practical reasons, whatever that may be.
Kansas City -- Kansas and Missouri each have one, They are adjacent, and the MO one has population around 509 thousand, the KS one has population around 153 thousand.
A tax on windows??? God God man, that's daylight robbery.😂😂😂
They tried to tax windows in America too... but Bill Gates fought hard against it
@@futurepig👍 Good.
i think it was supposed to target bigger houses and mansions or something
Nice one.
@futurepig I'm sorry, lm a little slow. The penny has just dropped regarding Bill Gates and Windows.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Excellent coverage of this subject! Two of the crew were actually named in one report: ""The airship is very much as reported by The News ... It consists of a cigar-shaped body about 60 feet in length ... The motive power is an immense wheel at each end, in appearance much like a metallic windmill. It is driven by an immense electric engine, which derives its power from storage batteries."
The crewmen - earthlings, as it sadly turned out - gave their names as S.E. Tilman and A.E. Dolbear. They explained that they were on a test cruise in compliance with a contract they held with certain New York capitalists." Samuel Escue Tilman and Amos Emerson Dolbear and both historical figures, they both have Wikipedia pages so it adds a lot of credibility. One was a Army colonel and the other was a professor of electricity and engineering.
Except both of them lived well after the airships should have crashed and neither of them ever claimed to have worked on airships or said anything about these sightings at all. In fact Amos was involved in a legal dispute with Bell while all of this was going on so he couldn't have been flying around over the US. So really this just casts more doubt on the story.
In Waco incident two of the crewman began to discuss about Cuba and Spain just in front of the farmer, one of the man was very tall and olive tone skin,that give me the key,in fact was Spaniard,they came from NYMZA "airclub",the story is too bizarre and incredible to tell here.
I recall Anton Wilson speculated this was the invention of the Hell Fire club in Texas.
Culiacan México 1967..a flying train like a tube several dozens of meters long with lighted windows with shadowy figures looking down passed just floating about 100 meters above the city at dawn just before the first lights of the morning..silently flew over without making noise..several persons witnessed the object..it sound your video very close to the thing people saw then in Culiacán...🎉😊❤
I wonder if that was a phanta Morgana, which sometimes makes boats or even cities "appear" to be floating in the distance.
It's related to a "mirage" .
That just sounds like an aircraft with its engines turned off.
Master Of The World comes to mind with Vincent Price
Excellent movie. I'm gonna have to watch it again. There's a book made into a Disney 🤮 movie. Can't remember the name, they go north and find vikings. There's also a sci-fi book called Genesis, very hard to find now, that grabs the airship sightings as part of a 150 year long story.
There were several airship sightings around the UK around this time.
My Great Grandpa and his sons had a ranch in the far northern California Sacramento Valley on the westside. They had a clear view of the coastal mountains to the west. They were far away from any news source of the time and knew nothing of the airships. They were working the ranch when they spotted this large object out over the mountains heading north along the coast. They said it seemed rather large. Now they did not hear of the sightings elsewhere till a couple of weeks later after grandpa road into town to pick up the mail, newspapers and some supplies. They were surprised by the reports in the papers. They thought it had gone down in the Pacific.
Well, there's nothing implausible about an airship like that: you could almost figure they adventured their way across the country and then got blown out to sea before the big reveal or something.
What a great premise for a Hollywood blockbuster, plus no superhero’s. Thanks
Probably.
Be.spoilt.by.stupid.love.story
Are.even.worse.bank.robbery
Get.away
No. No hollywood.
I love the what-ifs this channel discusses. Yet, I am confident those airships sighting are just a foreshadowing of later Ufo sightings.
I love that this started from researching Verne's albatross. I look forward to seeing how you design that flying machine too.
Though if you are up for a challenge of Scale, I would also suggest you look at Verne's Standard Island in his book Propeller Island. Very fascinating craft!
I was reading about these airship sightings and other things moving around and falling from the skies around the 1800's in one of Charles Fort's books only the other day, amazing how much he documented.
Somehow I’ve never heard of this one. Thank you for covering it!
Are there any records of airships being built? The fabric envelope, framework, engines...and crews to assemble it. It would have had to be built somewhere...
You'd imagine that some blueprints would also have survived somewhere. I mean we have the blueprints of all the airships we know for a fact were built.
Plays like a fever dream. You didn’t even discuss the passengers and crew described on the airships.
Look up the Aurora, Texas UFO crash April 17, 1897. This was apparently one of these "airships". I did a Star Trek fan film called "The Aurora Crash" about this.
Hell, I remember newspaper article reports of cigar shaped craft in the early '60's.
Thank you for the video. I remember hearing a bit about this some years ago, but you've found all the stories of the airship and put it in one spot
It was what the Americans heard that drove fear into their hearts:
"KIROV REPORTING."
The USSR did not exist in 1897, nor did radios.
If you think about the amazement of flight at the time, it was so much more than incredible and fascinating than we understand today. The thought of floating above the ground and looking down upon the world with a view that was only dreamed about would be consuming to some. Knowing it could be done at the time and having the basic premise out in the world, I imagine that many were more than willing to try to make it happen, and some may well have.
Damn, if it's real, then it could be a buried great history of the first ever try of cross-continental flight by a manned aircraft.
Excellent content as always. Many thanx 👍👍
I started watching this video, thought of Robur The Conqueror, and you immediately mentioned the Albatross- coincidence?...
_I think not!_
Adore this video, would love more content like this!
Interesting story, I had heard something about this but not as in depth as this. People sometimes see what they want to see or what they expect to see when it is in fact something rather different. My dad was very sceptical of these stories, it wasn't that he thought people hadn't seen "something" but he believed it wasn't what they thought. He was ex RAF and had served as a gunner during WW2 and afterwards for a while as well. He used to tell me stories of gunners occasionally opening fire on their own distorted reflection in the turret plexiglass or their own aircrafts shadow on a cloud, convinced they were firing at enemy fighters which of course they expected to see. Back in 1966, someone filmed a very convincing UFO from an aicraft, dad was having none of it, its just a distorted reflection of part of the wing in the window he said, and sure enough that was exactly what it turned out to be. As a young lad who believed in aliens etc I was very crestfallen, but as I've aged I've adopted his scepticism. Having been drinking alcohol for fifty four years I can attest it doesn't make you hallucinate. Has anyone considered that this story may have been triggered by someone's encounter with an ordinary balloon? The story becoming increasingly embellished over time. Just a thought.
I did not know of this. I like your theory of al three, that makes sense.
This was the time of Langley and the Wright Brothers too…there were definitely lots of tinkerers, so it would make sense that maybe a few here and there thought that trying the new technology of electric or gasoline engines might lead to fame or fortune if coupled with an aerostat…and we know there were successful gliders and nearly successful steam planes…so it’s really not a stretch to imagine the local mad scientist building some “flying machine” and never being heard from again…
Could you do a video on the Airship from "Robur the Conqueror"? I was always fascinated by this Jules Verne story, as it depicts a flying machine made from something we today would call carbon fiber and powered by electric helicopter lifting propellers. The novell also starts with a bunch of people reporting moving objects in the sky and even hearing music being played on board.
I saw a 1960s movie version of that book, starring Vincent Price, and this video instantly reminded me of it.
Would be great
He said at about 1:15 that he came across the subject of this video "whilst researching the _Albatross_ of Jules Verne...." That _IS_ the airship from _Robur the Conqueror._
@@davidbirr2718 Yup, wrote the comment before I got to that part of the video, really looking forward to him covering the subject.
First, looking forward to your upcoming Albatross video. Next, thanks for this video, excellent presentation. 👍🎉 Finally, I have wonder if you’ll do videos concerning other such things as UFO sightings but perhaps also things such as The Moth-Man plus Spring-heel Jack?
Me pareció interesante y entretenido, el sonido y la voz fuerte y clara. Gracias.
People finally seeing UFO as airships compared to the ships and chariots, wheels etc of older UFO sightings.
With the advent of mobile phones I am waiting for the surge of acurate videos of ufo's hitting the net!
The excuse for Mass hysteria has always sounded like bullshit to me, it's just a really easy way to explain away something without actually doing any work.
Yes. That fulfills a purpose. Deal with it.
@@Frogstomp27 keep your mind closed I'm shure it will take you far.
some of them really are just mass hysteria. but yeah i agree its really annoying when people just dismiss it outright wihtout considering the alternatives
Sounds like your mind just close
That's how debunkers, i.e., Mick West and his ilk, still operate in modern times.
Outright dismissal without evidence, or poor research and examination of what evidence they do look at...
The Michael Busby book on this subject is a fantastic read, and well researched.
I remember the February of 1897. The winter was harsh and snow ❄️ sparkled ✨️ like millions of pieces of broken glass. Then we heard the voices in the air above us and lifted our heads...
Is this a partial inspiration for "Columbia" in Bioshock: Infinite? The plot largely revolves around a giant Airship/floating city/world fair location built in the USA but then it "seceded" and left, it was occasionally sighted in various places including the US mainland.
That’s what I thought!
Stories about airships being used in revolutions were actually something of a trope in the late 19th century so I think that's where Columbia draws its inspiration from.
Brilliant video
Considering the penchant private Citizens have of opening fire on anything they cannot identify, or the possibility of severe weather affecting an airship even now, it is plausible to assume it was removed from the air one way or another,
Rather like the experimental Avro Arrow fighter jet approaching U.S Airspace in 1957 At a speed of mach 1.9 unannounced, at the height of the cold war, Reactions will vary...Cheers.
I had already scrolled down into the comments - you successfully Quozzed me!
towns would compete for crazy stories to attract visitors. this happened with many topics from monsters to ghosts to ghost ships. nothing unusual about tall tales and competition. just look at today's media...
I remember reading about this topic during my middle/high school interest in UFOs; I've since grown very skeptical of the ET explanations.
You might want to check out the Tillinghast airship of 1909 over Worcester Massachusetts, flying all the way to New York.
Great One!! Thanks!
Cool video and a subject i'd never heard of before.
Though I noticed a crashed Airship is a feature of Red Red Redemption 2.
Well done! I clicked like and I subscribed.
To my ears, the (loud) background music and something about the gain level of the voice make this difficult to understand. Otherwise, it's great and very interesting, including the Mackay Quote.
Were any wildfires reported in those areas that could have been a crash that would have destroyed/hidden the evidence?
*_"After all, the press and the media of today would never lie to us now, would they."_*
🤭🤭🤭
date of stories fading out (May 13)--is important. In upper midwest and new england--the winter weather breaks in this 1 week period. Springtime absolutely brings on different priorities :)
At a few points, I found that the music was a bit too loud. Great video, though, on a subject that is not widely covered. Two thumbs up 👍 👍
It was also seen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I used to have a copy of the local newspaper article, but it’s been lost over the years.
It must have been Robur :-)
This is exactly like the UFO craze in the US of the 1950’s. 🤔
Some think the mystery airships were UFO sightings, described as airships as that was what people were familiar with at the time.
One crashed in a small town in Texas. The "aeronaut" is buried in the local graveyard under multiple feet of concrete.
I love reading books on paranormal and weird occurrences, and in only one of them was there a mention of these airship sightings. I figured it must have been a made up, or at least extremely exaggerated for the book, until I found your video.
Also, taxing windows isn't the craziest idea. In an era before bureaucracy demanded everything in triplicate, it was hard to prove how much money someone made working, but it was easy to see someone with a mansion made more than someone living in a mud hut. So taxing based on the number of windows you had theoretically is a way to tax based on income, but in reality just made everyone board up their windows to save a buck.
Surely not Venus, never heard of searchlights coming from Venus.
Shhh we don't want the humans 2 know lol .
Keep in mind this is the 19th century where searchlights weren't nearly as powerful as they are today. The kind of beam shown in this video is a bit of an exageration.
What software did you use to make the map pin animation ca. 09:57 (and elsewhere)?
Great material. This issue is widly explored by UFO fans but the explanation may be as simple as you pictured it 😊. Thanks!
I prefer to think it was part of some unknown steampunk adventure than saved the world.
Nikola Tesla having fun with another of his many inventions.
What was seen in 1897 was the expression of air flight that was soon to be. These airships were just an expression of what was soon to be by the Wright Brothers. It or those were a worldwide expression of what was soon to come. Were they real or an expression of world wide reality of what was soon to be. The uap phenomenon is similar to what will someday be coming. During ww2 the craft were shown to be flying in such a way as was soon to be by always seeming to be somewhat is beyond us at the time. This will always be structures and things to come and will continue to evolve in ways slightly ahead of what we are capable of at the moment. Like the Navy Tic Tacs able to fly through water as easily as through the air. This was especially graphically represented to the Navy who would clearly love to be able to drive through the air and water. I am sure as time goes along we will see that these craft will travel through the earth just as easily as through the air. It will be seen to be in the future.
But it does not explain the one that crashed and they buried the pilot in the local cemetery..in Texas I believe...😮
Left out information
Can't have that info in there!
Is that a true story or just a local legend?
I have family in Hudson MI - it's a small town. I've not heard of this before!
There is one massive hole in the idea that this was some private enterprise venture at controlled flight: just to construct such a vehicle would have required a significant amount of cash, and the number of such people is not huge. So if your speculation is correct, and the vehicle took its backer to the grave in a crash that also killed it's designer with it, how would the sudden disappearance of such a wealthy individual, and a prominent inventor, go unnoticed?
Most probable would be a few of the crew where independently wealthy but not famous and they backed the project and that is why the lack of knowledge around the identity of the funders. Remember at the time fortunes where made and lost constantly with many gold rushes, industries, oil, rail roads, mines and other business ventures and many people preferred to hide their wealth as best as possible so as to avoid family or others that would try to take advantage. Also at this time inventors were everywhere and in all fields. The theory of private enterprise of one or multiple electric powered dirigibles at this time period is not only plausible but probable.
@RWO555 even a moderately wealthy individual going missing suddenly would have been commented on in the press of that time, and if more than one individual from the same area were to suddenly vanish with no clue, it would have generated headlines that could not be ignored. I also doubt that an electric power system capable of powering both a rigid/semi-rigid airship and a large arclight could have been lifted off the ground. In the late 1890's, generators were still large, heavy items that didn't take well to being moved. (And yes, I do know this for a fact, given that one of my fields of study was electrical engineering). So no, your theory just doesn't 'pass the smell test'.
@@andrewreynolds9371 Tho I do agree that many wealthy individuals from the same area would raise concern your hypothesis is based on the assumption that first people knew of their wealth and secondly that said people are from the same area and not from different parts of the country or from other countries entirely. And to your point about the technology of the day as an electrical engineer and historian you would be aware that electric engines did exist at the time and were used in everything from manufacturing to hosreless carriages to mass transit systems and that was public technology not taking into consideration what was being used by inventors using state of the art for the time modern technology that would have be top secret or still in the testing phase before said inventor risks a patent as this was the golden age of inventions with the wealthiest and most powerful men, countries and militaries wanting the next big break through so as to make more wealth or wield more power.
@@RWO555 problems with your argument:
even in 1897, travel wasn't something people did with the same frequency we do today. so the chances of a group of people from a large area coming together to do something like this are very slim. so odds are, if this were to happen, the backers would ahve to come either from a single large city, or the immediate vicinity.
further, in that time frame, the concept of 'concealed wealth' was unknown. the best modern analogy to how rich people treated wealth back in the Gilded Age would be the modern saying "If you've got it, flaunt it!"
as for electric motors, you are right. they weren't the small, efficient items we use today, but they were available. that said, if you'll reread what I said, I pointed out that electric *generators* were large, heavy items that did not like being moved around. and while using batteries is a possibility, they too were large and heavy items. worse, the power density of batteries of that time frame were tiny compared to modern batteries, and to power the motor of such an airship *and* a power-hungry item like a searchlight/arclight would tax any battery system. worse, how would such a vehicle recharge it's batteries away from whatever base it operated from? electricity wasn't even universally available in big cities, and was almost unknown in rural areas. so how do you hide something this large anywhere near a city while you're recharging your batteries for the next night's flight?
bottom line, this whole idea just does not make sense.
@@andrewreynolds9371 Well my friend to your first point people did get together and travel for like minded ideas such as the gold rushes where people would travel across the whole county, and even from as far away as Europe and Asia, risking life and limb just for a chance at a better life. To your second point we have documented cases of many people hiding their wealth only for it to be discovered after the passing of the wealthy individual plus there is the possibility of said wealthy persons death or disappearance being only reported in a small local news paper that we are unable to find today due to fires or floods or lack of said article being digitized. We also need to take into account the possibility that the wealthy funders were not on the flight and did not report the loss as it was top secret and did not want the publicity to said technology to go public or the fact that they had made a financial mistake which could hurt their reputation. I agree that electric engines where larger, heavier and less efficient than what we have today same can be said for the batteries of the time but the fact remains that they did have the technology to make said craft fly tho most likely it would make for short flights which is corroborated by witness testimony that the craft would be seen parked either being repaired or charged and that most flights where seen only during a few hours time. As to building it in secret would easily be achieved by building said craft out in the rural country side where there would be a lack of prying eyes and news paper men and why they only flew said craft at night. As to recharging the craft may have had a wind turbine either on the craft used to extend the range of the craft or could be set up on the ground when parked or some kind of human powered recharging system. On my off grid 12v system I have an exercise bike attached to a 12v self regulated automotive alternator for winter or cloudy times when the solar cannot produce sufficient supply for my battery bank. We also need to take into account that men of the day had a "can do" "complete the goal at all costs" kind of attitude and combined with an adventurous high risk way of achieving their goals, dreams and aspirations. At this time it was normal for inventors to die and take their knowledge with them to the grave as most inventors where also the test pilots in the case of aviation..
There's a book series called "The Long Earth", where governments use airships to travel between parallel Earth. Maybe they were visitors from a technologically advanced version of Earth.
A collaboration between Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett.
I've wondered if this is a possible explanation for UFOs. Provided any of them are real.
@@mpetersen6We only need one to be real
What these were were early UFO sightings. At a time before the modern phenomenon, post WW2 had begun.
1897! Wooden spaceships were all the rage.
Well yeah. It was either wood or iron/steel. Wood is lighter. Most early planes were wood frames covered with fabric.
This thing sounds like something that comes out of a Wild Wild West episode but in real life. Some evil Robber Baron had all kinds of crazy technology that nobody knew about at the time but him 😮
19:11 I think the first airship designed by Santos-Dumont, made its first takeoff attempt in February 1898,
The secretive inventor of the phantom airship, does not explain the Aurora Texas crash, or all the other sightings around the world, as far as New Zealand.