Are UFO’S
really ALIEN SPACESHIP?
THERE IS NO DOUBT
that UFO truly exists, if we go by the strict meaning of the term “Unidentified
flying object.” Whether the way sightings of UFOs over the years include alien
spaceships is questionable.
Mysterious
aerial objects have been reported since ancient times, but the trickle of
reports swelled into a flood in the ages of flight. In 1896 and 1897, for
instance, west coast residents from San Francisco to Tacoma, Washington,
reported a bright, circular shaped dirigible object wandering slowly overhead.
Sightings increased in years after World War II.
An eyewitness sketch of the "airship" over sacramento November 17, 1896
The Mystery Airship of 1896
What the strange Airship seen in 1896??
Eighteen ninety-six was marked by a strange
occurrence, an amazing phenomenon that those that saw it probably never forgot.
People, by the thousands, living across North America, from San Francisco to
Chicago, observed strange lights in the sky. The lights, reportedly an airship,
crossed the continent from west to east while the country watched.
The excitement started on November 17, 1896 in
Sacramento, California. It was a rainy, dismal night. Then, through the dark
clouds, appeared a bright light. It moved slowly west appearing to be about a
thousand feet above the rooftops. Hundreds of people saw the light including
George Scott, an assistant to the Secretary of State of California. Scott
persuaded some friends to join him on the observation deck above the capitol
dome and from there they thought they could see three lights, not one. Above
the lights was a dark, oblong shape.
The most detailed report of the evening came from
one R.L. Lowery, a former street railway employee who said he heard a voice
from above call, "Throw her up higher; she'll hit the steeple." When
he looked up he saw two men seated on a bicycle-like frame, peddling. Above
them was a "cigar-shaped body of some length." Lowery said that the
thing also had "wheels at the side like the side wheels on Fulton's old
steam boat."
Check out the Flash Film Mini Documentary on The Mysterious Airship on 1896
Strange Tale of
Sacramento Men Not Addicted to Prevarication
Viewed an Aerial
Courser as it Passes Over the City at Night.
WHAT WAS IT?
The title "airship" soon stuck. Other
papers were more reserved and reported a "mysterious light" or
"wandering apparition." A few ridiculed the stories suggesting that
the whole thing had been a hoax or the result of a natural effect like glowing
swamp gas. The story soon faded.
Then, five days after its first appearance, the
"airship" came back.
It was Sunday night and weather conditions were as
before: dark and overcast. The light appeared from the northwest and when
straight over the town, running against the wind. One witness, Jacob Zemansky,
had a small telescope and reported the lamp was "an electric arc light of
intense power." He also observed that the light didn't move in a straight
line, but seemed to bob in the wind up and down. Another witness with field
glasses, Edward Carragher, reported seeing a dark body above the light.
It took thirty minutes for the thing to cross the
city and disappear to the southwest. During this time thousands of people
observed it including the city's deputy sheriff and a district attorney.
That same night the "airship" also
appeared above San Francisco some 90 miles away. There it was observed by
hundreds, including the mayor. It cruised as far as the Pacific Ocean, above
the famous Cliff House, where its searchlight, a beam that stretched out over
500 feet, reportedly frightened the seals on Seal Rock sending them plunging
into the safety of the sea.
Over the next few days airship sightings were made
not just in California, but from as far away as Washington State and Canada.
The newspapers went wild, some supporting the idea of an airship, some
ridiculing it. Stories began to suggest that the airship was the work of a
mysterious inventor who was testing his device at night lest his ideas be
stolen. This didn't seem outrageous to most people. Balloons capable of
carrying people had been around for almost a hundred years and it seemed that
the key to powered flight might soon be discovered.
One San Francisco attorney, nicknamed
"Airship" Collins, claimed that he was
Another San Francisco attorney took his place,
though, claiming that there was not one airship, but two, and they would be
used to bomb Havana. William Henry Hart, a former attorney general, stated,
"From what I have seen of it I have not the least doubt that it will carry
four men and 1,000 pounds of dynamite." Hart's airship never was made
public either and by early December the lawyer, as well as the lights in the
sky, had disappeared from the scene.
Everything was quiet for two months. Then, on
February 2, 1897, the "airship" showed itself over the town of Hastings,
Nebraska. On February 5th it was seen forty miles further south near the town
of Invale. Reports started to flow in from all over the state. On February 16th
it was sighted over Omaha. More stories appeared. A farmer claimed he'd
encountered the airship on the ground, under repair. "It is cigar shaped,
about 200 feet long and 50 feet across at the widest point, gradually narrowing
to a point at both ends," the farmer said.
Soon the airship had been sighted all over the
mid-west including in Texas, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. More stories about
encounters with the crew on the ground appeared. Finally in April the
excitement reached it's zenith when the "airship" arrived in Chicago.
On April 11th a photograph of the thing was reportedly taken, probably the
first UFO photo in existence. Some experts pronounced the photo to be fake.
On April 15, near Kalamazoo, Michigan, there were
reports that the airship had crashed and exploded. "They declare the
report to have been like that of heavy ordnance and to have been immediately
succeeded by a distant sound of projectiles flying through the air,"
Despite this, airship sightings continued for a few
more days. Some expected the thing to continue on to the east coast, but
instead reports about it suddenly faded and by the end of April the flap was
over.
So what was it? What was this thing that had
apparently been seen by thousands of people across the west and mid-west? There
were no airplanes then. The Wight Brothers didn't make their first, short
flight till 1903. Neither did a working model of a powereddirigible, which airship descriptions most closely resemble,
exist.
One likely culprit is the planet Venus. At the time the sightings started it was prominent in
the sky. When the sightings stopped it was becoming increasingly less visible.
Venus is the brightest object in the sky, except for the Sun and Moon, and
under unusual atmospheric conditions can appear to move, blink, or look like
multiple colored lights. It well may have been responsible for many of the
reports.
What about the many stories with people meeting the
crew or seeing the airship crash? It's hard for us to imagine, in our day and
age of radio and television, how much a part of 19th century entertainment
centered on the tall tale and the hoax. Journalistic hoaxes, even in the largest
newspapers, were standard fare. Readers were expected to guess about which
stories were true and which were fictional. Almost every small town had a
"lair club" where tall tales were swapped. (Alexander Hamilton's
famous "Cownapping" storycame
out of the airship flap). As a result of these two institutions almost any
unusual tale in a 19th century newspaper can be in doubt.
In addition, as today, practical jokers did not
hesitate to send balloons lighted with candles into the sky, or kites with
lanterns, if they thought they could put one over on the public. Others may
have created "crash" sites complete with debris. One newspaper, the
PeoriaTranscript, sent up lighted, colored, paper balloons to
"test" people's imaginations. A number of "airship" sightings
was the result.
So if we remove the misidentifications and hoaxes
from the airship phenomenon is there anything left? Could it have been an
extra-terrestrial spaceship? One of the most striking things about the airship
flap was that almost none of the stories surrounding it have anything to do
with extra-terrestial beings. (The story of a crash of a Mars airship at Aurora, Texas, was an exception). The airship was piloted by
"plain" Americans and designed by the human mystery inventor.
So what about the final possibility? Was there
really a mysterious inventor who secretly built an airship and flew it around
the country? Certainly the public had been primed to accept such a story.
Science fiction in this era often used the "mystery inventor" as a
character. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea featured
a mystery inventor, Captain Nemo, who constructed a submarine. Verne's later
book, Robur the Conqueror, featured a mystery inventor that built
an airship and the similarities between the book and some of the airship
stories are uncanny. Robur was published about ten years
before the wave of airship sightings.
If there was a real airship genius why didn't he
ever make his invention public? Could he have really kept the construction of a
flying machine out of the press? Was he really ten years ahead of his
contemporary inventors?
If he did exist he certainly was successful in
hiding his secret. It remains unknown even today.
.jpg)
In
1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold spotted a formation of bright objects skipping over
the Cascade Mountains.” They flew like a
saucer would if you skipped it across the water, “He told reporters. Though the
objects the saw were crescent-shaped, the term “flying saucer” took hold in the
public mind.
On june 24, 1947 Arnold was flying from chechalis, Washington to
Washington to Yakima, Washington in a Call Air A-2 on a business trip. He made
a brief detour after learning of a $5,000 reward for the discovery of a U.S
Marine Corps C-46 transport airplanes that had crashed near Mt.Rainier. The
skies were completely clear and there was a mild wind.
After few minutes before 3:00 pm at about 9,200 feet (2,800m) in
altitude and near Mineral, Washington, he gave up his search and started
heading eastward towards Yakima. He saw a bright flashing light,m similar to
sunlight reflecting from a mirror. Afraid he might be dangerously close to
another aircraft, Arnold scanned the skies around him, but all he could see wa
a DC-4 to his left and behind him, about 15 miles (24km) away.
About 30 seconds after
seeing the first flash of light, Arnold saw a series of bright flashes in the
distance off to his left, or north of Mt. Rainier, which was then 20 to 25
miles (40 km) away. He thought they might be reflections on his airplane's windows,
but a few quick tests (rocking his airplane from side to side, removing his
eyeglasses, later rolling
They flew in a long chain, and Arnold
for a moment considered they might be a flock of geese, but quickly ruled this
out for a number of reasons, including the altitude, bright glint, and
obviously very fast speed. He then thought they might be a new type of jet and
started looking intently for a tail and was surprised that he couldn't find any.
They quickly approached Rainier and then passed in front, usually appearing dark in profile against the bright white snowfield covering Rainier, but occasionally still giving off bright light flashes as they flipped around erratically. Sometimes he said he could see them on edge, when they seemed so thin and flat they were practically invisible. According to Clark Arnold said that one of the objects was rather crescent shaped, while the other eight objects were more circular, but initially Arnold's descriptions were they resembled saucers skipping on water, no mention of them actually looking like saucers.
At one point Arnold said they flew behind a subpeak of Rainier and briefly disappeared. Knowing his position and the position of the (unspecified) subpeak, Arnold placed their distance as they flew past rainier at about 23 miles (37km).
They quickly approached Rainier and then passed in front, usually appearing dark in profile against the bright white snowfield covering Rainier, but occasionally still giving off bright light flashes as they flipped around erratically. Sometimes he said he could see them on edge, when they seemed so thin and flat they were practically invisible. According to Clark Arnold said that one of the objects was rather crescent shaped, while the other eight objects were more circular, but initially Arnold's descriptions were they resembled saucers skipping on water, no mention of them actually looking like saucers.
At one point Arnold said they flew behind a subpeak of Rainier and briefly disappeared. Knowing his position and the position of the (unspecified) subpeak, Arnold placed their distance as they flew past rainier at about 23 miles (37km).
Using a dzus
cowling fastener as a gauge to compare the nine objects to the distant
DC-4, Arnold estimated their angular size as slightly smaller than the DC-4,
about the width between the outer engines (about 60 feet). Arnold also said he
realized that the objects would have to be quite large to see any details at
that distance and later, after comparing notes with a United Airlines crew that
had a similar sighting 10 days later (see below), placed the absolute size as
larger than a DC-4 airliner (or greater than 100 feet (30 m) in length).
Army Air Force analysts would later estimate 140 to 280 feet (85 m), based
on analysis of human visual acuity and other sighting details (such
as estimated distance).
Arnold said the
objects were grouped together, as Ted Bloecher writes, "in a diagonally
stepped-down, echelon formation, stretched out over a distance that he later
calculated to be five miles". Though moving on a more or less level
horizontal plane, Arnold said the objects weaved from side to side ("like
the tail of a Chinese kite" as he later stated), darting through the
valleys and around the smaller mountain peaks. They would occasionally flip or
bank on their edges in unison as they turned or maneuvered causing almost
blindingly bright or mirror-like flashes of light. The encounter gave him an
"eerie feeling", but Arnold suspected he had seen test flights of a
new U.S. military aircraft.
As the objects passed Mt Rainer, Arnold turned his plane southward on a more or less parallel course. It was at this point that he opened his side window and began observing the objects unobstructed by any glass that might have produced reflections. The objects did not disappear and continued to move very rapidly southward, continuously moving
As the objects passed Mt Rainer, Arnold turned his plane southward on a more or less parallel course. It was at this point that he opened his side window and began observing the objects unobstructed by any glass that might have produced reflections. The objects did not disappear and continued to move very rapidly southward, continuously moving
The U.S military took such sightings seriously
in those Cold War Days. The Air Force set up a series of investigation from the
1940’s to the 1960’s, the most famous of which was Project Blue Book. It
concluded that 94 percent of some 12,000 sightings could be attributed to
natural causes, such as the planet VENUS, meteors, or ordinary aircraft. Six
percent were unexplained. .jpg)
Certainly, some UFO photographs were hoaxes,
with examinations revealing wires holding up the pie plate-like saucers.
Nonetheless, the unexplained sightings led some sober scientist, including
astronomer J. Allen Hynek, to believe that a few visitors might indeed be
extraterrestrial. Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies has been joined by other
organizations in tracking UFO reports. The jury is still out on whether these
unexplained objects represent alien aircraft, but most scientists, seeing no hard
proof, are skeptical.
Connections! Former President
Jimmy carter has seen a UFO. While governor of Georgia in 1969, Carter-and
other witness-saw a bright in the western sky moving forward and backward.
Carter reported it to a committee on aerial phenomena .
Linkage: Harold_nesmith@yahoo.com
