Back at the turn of the last century, some thing flew by in the night. People in town and country reported the mysterious machine and its pilots as it crossed over the United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Remembered by newspaper archives today as the Great Airship of 1896 and 1897, it appeared like something from the writings of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.
The good people of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan caught wind of the Airship when “The Copper Country Evening News” (established 1892 in Calumet on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the UP’s own peninsula that pokes 100 miles into frigid Lake Superior), printed the following article on April 15, 1897:
IT FLIES BY NIGHT
EVERYBODY PUZZLING OVER THE GREAT AIRSHIP MYSTERY
Many Say They Have Seen It -- A Reporter Claims to Have Run It Down -- A Chicago Paper Gives the Story a Terse, Old Fashioned Title.
The wonderful airship stories that have been kept in circulation for some time past are exciting a great deal of comment. Hundreds of people allege that they have seen the aerial monster. While the thousands who have not seen it are incredulous, but curious to know just what truth there is in all the rumors.
The Kansas City Times announces the discovery of a man named Stover (sic), who is the owner of an airship, which The Times believes to be the one recently observed sailing over Kanas City. The ship is called the Great Auk.
“The principle upon which the Great Auk was built,” says this paper, “was that of the aeroplane, a sufficiently hackneyed theory in aerial navigation, but the principle upon which it was propelled through the air was unique. Mr. Stoner (sic) obtained his idea from watching a sheet of paper fall through a still atmosphere from a great height. He noticed that the tendency was to describe a zigzag course as a vessel takes against the wind. He at once concluded that the shooting of the paper in one direction tended to form in front of it a slightly condensed cushion of air, which repelled the sheet, driving it toward the rarer atmosphere.
“So he built the Great Auk to travel an undulating or waving plane, as a sparrow flies, depending upon the downward tack to compress a cushion of air beneath and in front of the craft, which would hoist it upon the crest of the next wave, and so on. It was propelled by revolving fans, fore and aft, and was raised and lowered by two twin fans working horizontally upon the upper deck. The undulating movement was secured by a hinged plane of canvas in a steel frame, worked automatically. The fans and canvas plane were worked by a small engine, in which steam was generated by the burning of crude oil. The entire device was about 75 feet in length by 25 feet in width.
“The sectional aspect of the device is that of a cross, as there are really two aeroplanes -- one horizontal, the other vertical. A side view suggest the hull of a yacht with centerboard attached.”
The Copper Country Evening News article continues…
A man in Minneapolis, who has great faith in omens, says the airship mystery means war, and that blood will be spilled.
“I have not seen the airship,” said he, “but I know what it is. The red light which those people have seen is nothing but a red light, and wherever such a light is to be seen is a sure sign of bloodshed that will take place in the near future. For God’s sake let us avoid war. Let no blood be spilled on Kansas soil or anywhere in the United States. I write this because I feel that I should let the people take heed, and let us not have war. But as the sign has been seen by some very good people. I am afraid that bloodshed cannot be avoided. Some may laugh at this warning, but let them not forget it.”
The Copper Country Evening News article continues…
The Chicago Record refuses to put faith in the Great Auk. It comments on the situation in the following irreverent vein:
The airship disease with which we are at present struggling came suddenly and without warning. Chicago started it nearly a year ago with Mr. Chanute’s exhibition of mechanical birds down in northern Indiana. But Mr. Chanute’s large pine and canvas backed ducks and flamingoes were simply a sort of measles or croup in comparison with the terrible scourge of flying machines which is now ravaging up and down the country, attacking the very flower of the land and driving truth back to the bottom of her well. One has but to read the recent report from Oklahoma, Michigan, Omaha, Everest, Kan., and some of the Indian reservations to be satisfied of this.
Starting from the small and humble beginnings of the Indiana sand dunes and the toboggan chute down which Mr. Chanute used to slide his wooden birds, the plague of airships has virtually covered this country. No man is safe. According to the dispatches, one may flee from Grand Forks, N.D., in fear and trembling, because of the apparition of a large, brunette aeroplane with green eyes and a long, flowing mane and tail, and, lo, as he gets off the train at Dallas, along toward the middle of the night, his uneasy eyes, soaring heavenward, are paralyzed by the spectacle of the red, white and blue air craft which burns danger signals like an apothecary’s shop and chops around here and there in the upper ether, to the fast danger of the stars and church steeples. Or he may go to Oklahoma, and the very first thing he knows after a delegation has taken him out to show him proudly where the cyclone was he is pounced upon and held entranced by a double barreled skyship, 1897 model, with large sprockets and detachable name plate. It's unfortunate, of course, but what can be done about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Just as the world has worried through and has survived other great afflictions, so the airship lie must be lived down. It is a dreadful thing to be lied at in so many new and weird ways, but a scientific lie is always dreadful in its unique truthlessness and must be borne.
It will run its course shortly, or a new and more grotesque popular ailment will come along, and then we shall be released. In the meantime weak persons who feel that their systems will not be able to stand out against the common disorder will do well to read about Ananias and Sapphira and what became of them. Perhaps that will fortify them against the wretched malady which is devastating this country, making good people lie about cigar shaped mechanical birds and such like.
We don’t know the identity of the party or parties responsible for the Great Airship sightings of 1896-1897. And we don’t know the identity or identities of the parties responsible for the UFO reports from our day. The thing is, the thing made a dent on our consciousness of what is possible: heavier-than-air flight.
Who knew people in Chicago could hop aboard a real airship, less two decades later? Well, proof exists in the printed record and on film — both stills and movies. Click here for the story from WTTW Television about Roy Knabenshue and his dirigible.
As a journalist, I must say, “Wow!” I had no idea about the the dirigible, and I grew up on Lake Michigan across from Chicago and lived there for five years.
The St. Paul Globe published a spectacular Sunday feature on the subject of the Great Airship, “Strange Ships that Sail in the Skies,” on May 9, 1897. Readers also may enjoy the many illustrations of airships, balloons and dirigibles from before they became commonplace.
One of the interesting parallels in learning about the Great Airship and Mr. Knabenshue’s dirigible is that the language and concepts witnesses and journalists use parallel that of the modern UFO era. The objects represent technologies not too far in advance of the times. Of course, people then and now also describe absurd and marvelous machines and odd occupants who spout gibberish and profundities.
“I have not seen the airship,” said he, “but I know what it is. The red light which those people have seen is nothing but a red light, and wherever such a light is to be seen is a sure sign of bloodshed that will take place in the near future. For God’s sake let us avoid war. Let no blood be spilled on Kansas soil or anywhere in the United States. I write this because I feel that I should let the people take heed, and let us not have war. But as the sign has been seen by some very good people. I am afraid that bloodshed cannot be avoided. Some may laugh at this warning, but let them not forget it.” — an Unidentified Source in Minneapolis, 1897 (before the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II)
More details on these aspects of the UFO phenomenon will be examined in future postings.