Mystery Airships Of The 1800’s

I found this 3 part series of articles interesting, and definitely worth the read.

The articles talk about a series of Airship/UFO sightings taking place in mostly 1896-97. Although one sighting took place in 1880. There are several eyewitness accounts, and one account is particularly interesting involving a man named Hopkins in part 3.

Into the midst of this story comes a man named C.A.A. Dellschau, who immigrated to America in the late 1840’s. Dellschau was a bit of a recluse, and spent much of the latter part of his life writing about a secretive group he belonged to who were inventors and pilots of lighter than air craft that were said to be lifted by a mysterious gas called “NB Gas”. A gift from aliens? Or invented by a member of the secretive group? Who BTW, mysteriously died after having threatened to go public with his knowledge?

Dellschau left a series of “scrapbooks” that were written in German, English, and in code. They were found by a man named Navarro in 1969 who spent years decoding and researching Dellschau’s life and claims. One being that airships were common in Germany in the mid 1800’s.

The whole story has all the elements of a good mystery, as well as a ufologist, UFO’s, and even the possibility of aliens.

These airships were the UFO’s of the 1800’s.

Mystery Airships part 1
Mystery Airships part 2
Mystery Airships part 3
The Secrets Of Dellschau
Free Energy Pioneer...

Very interesting reads. The part 3 almost reads like a Jules Verne.

Neat!

There is no coincidence. I discovered these about an hour ago:

-16 April 1897 - Downs, Illinois, USA - Six people emerged from an aerial craft.
-16 April 1897 00:03 - Danvers, Illinois, USA - Mandolin Club incident.
-16 April 1897 00:30 - Bay City, Michigan, USA - Large object high up in sky, not cloud, appeared solid. Gradually descended, around 50'-70 feet in length, red light both ends, dull red glow, conical shape. Moved rapid pace, then slowed.
-16 April 1897 01:30 - Jefferson City, Missouri, USA - Mystery airship.
-16 April 1897 02:45 - Saginaw, Michigan, USA - Cops hear drumming noise, 30 feet long cigar-shaped airship with something hanging 10 feet below it. Carried red and yellow lights. Speed 25mph to the south.
-16 April 1897 13:00 - Springfield E, Missouri, USA - Mystery airship.
-16 April 1897 15:00 - Hawkins, Texas, USA - Close encounter with a craft and its occupants. An unidentified object at close range and its occupants were observed by one witness in a clearing

www.ufodna.com...
(Scroll down a bit)

Lighter than air?

How about helium? Hydrogen?

Thanks for the links.

reply to post by Regenstorm

Seems like a lot of synchronicities have happened to me this year. And now this one.

ETA: Great link. Thanks for adding it.

I think the airship stories of the late 1800s have been established as hoaxes by unscrupulous reporters trying to bolster magazine sales.

reply to post by Klassified


Great post!

But the link has a view anomalies.

How is it those USA names and places, as well as a married couple could be reporting an ufo in around the first century?

In October 197. - Illinois, USA - An object was sighted that had an appearance and performance beyond the capability of known earthly aircraft. One object, about 10 feet across, was observed in clear weather by two witnesses, a married couple, for ten minutes.
In Fall 197. Evening - Madera, Pennsylvania, USA - An unidentified object was sighted, but with appearance and behavior that most likely would have a conventional explanation. One object was observed by one experienced male witness briefly.
14 October 197 Around 0400 - Minden, Ontario, Canada - An object was observed from a car. Telepathic phenomena were said to have occurred. One object was observed by one male 36-year-old witness (Smith).

A car? ;-)

But I do think the old stories have merit, and most of the time people actually did see things in the sky, unexplainable to them (and maybe also by us)

reply to post by EartOccupant

Anomalies indeed. I believe those should read 1897.

It would be cool if there were pictures or better descriptions of these craft to see if they are common aircraft of today. That way it would take a big chunk out of the alien designed craft ideas and make it more into the realm of top secret technology. I wonder if what we call ufo's today will be common craft 50-100 yrs from now.

reply to post by wasco2

If you could find some sourcing for that, it would be great.

reply to post by logicalthinking

If you type "dellschau" into google image, you can see some of his drawings.

reply to post by Klassified


Back when I was in college, I used the vast newspaper archives of the University of Illinois to research just that topic.
Indeed, there were many mysterious newspaper accounts of these strange lights and contraptions.
In a critical light, all of the detailed descriptions must be discounted because they tend to combine the technology of that day with what was seen. These included large driving wheels as on steam locomotives of the day, ships sails and rudders, flapping wings and gas bags.

Accounts of crashes and alien bodies, and abducted cows are to also be looked at as products of the “Yellow Journalism” of the day. Newspapers were hawked by boys on street corners in those days and sensationalism was rampant as most towns had two or more newspapers. The central Illinois joined towns of Champaign-Urbana, home of the U. of I., had two. One published an rather amazing account of a crash of one of these airships on a local farm. The account was supposedly written by a “visiting” reporter from a Chicago newspaper but printed in one of the local ones. He witnessed the remains of both ship and aliens—but no one else ever did.

Many of the stories also claimed that a local inventor had created his great new invention and was testing it out before being officially released. But those were also hot air stories.

Basically, the airships moved around about as fast as the stories from one local could be sent by telegraph to another place. After the turn of the century there were a few reports that came from Australia and some from Europe.

Match these old stories with ATS tales of Comet Elinin and you get the correct perspective in some fashion.

However, there were strange things seen in the air in those years and I do not trash them all. And interestingly, during the last twenty years of that century there were several large and bright comes, called the Sungrazers that all came from a location near Sirius. (I may mock wild stories of Elinin, but I consider comets in general as the UFO of deep space.)

reply to post by Aliensun

I have no doubt there was some sensationalizing going on back in the day. Much like now, things haven't changed much. But as you said, I definitely wouldn't trash them all. It's not always easy to know which stories had some basis in fact, and which didn't.

Originally posted by Klassified
reply to post by wasco2

 

If you could find some sourcing for that, it would be great.

Well, it's Wiki but it does have footnotes and refernces.

en.wikipedia.org...

It has come to light recently that Winston Churchill's interest in UFOs stemmed from an incident in 1912 involving and unknown object that was reported hovering over the Naval dockyard

1912 Airship here

1912 Airship and here


From British Airship Sightings

To understand the origins of the British government's interest in UFOs it is necessary tolook back to an earlier period of 20th century history. In 1909 and 1913 phantomairships - dark cigar-shaped flying objects carrying searchlights - were sighted at nightmoving over many British towns and cities. As tension grew in the build up to the FirstWorld War, newspapers and some politicians accused the Germans of sending Zeppelinairships to spy on dockyards and other strategic areas around the British coastline.In October 1912, when sightings of an unidentified aircraft were made over the RoyalNavy torpedo school at Sheerness, Essex, questions were asked in the House ofCommons. This led the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to order aninvestigation. Inquiries by naval intelligence failed to establish the identity of the aircraftbut the Germans were widely believed to be responsibl

The age old story of assuming that it only happened in the USA, when of course it didn't, it happened elsewhere as well.

Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.

The NB gas could be some substance causing a real levitation. There is nowhere
mentioned that it had been lighter than the air. One another moment into the
considerations around it is that the human scientific and technological development
as though quite intendedly has been directed in its present dead end state,
impossible to explain the UFOs, the paranormal events and the secrets of
the human mind.

In my new book, I present my translation of NYMZA, if you're interested:

EOW2:Friends From Sonora

One of my recent interviews on the subject is also currently at Radio Misterioso