The mystery airship, also called the phantom airship, was an event that many people in the United States claimed to see between late 1896 and mid-1897. Most reports described seeing strange lights in the sky at night, but some people said they saw actual flying objects that looked like airships or dirigibles. These sightings are considered an early example of later stories about flying objects, such as those said to be piloted by aliens.
Descriptions of the airship’s crew or pilots often said they looked human, though some claimed they were from Mars. At the time, many people believed the airships were created by an inventor who kept his work a secret.
Some experts argue that the sightings could not have been real airships because no official records of long-range powered airships or airplanes existed in the United States during that time. It would have been nearly impossible to hide such a creation. While some early airships were tested before 1896–1897, like the Aereon in 1863 and the Avitor Hermes Jr. in 1869, the technology of the time could not have produced airships with the abilities people claimed to see. Some historians suggest that newspapers from the late 1800s, known for sensational stories, might have published fake accounts more often than modern news sources.
At first, most reporters did not take the airship sightings seriously. However, as more sightings occurred, some newspapers reported the events with curiosity, while others doubted them and criticized witnesses. After the sightings stopped, the story faded from public memory and was largely forgotten for about seventy years. In the mid-1960s, researchers rediscovered old newspaper reports and suggested that the 1896–1897 airship sightings might have been an early version of the modern UFO stories that began in the United States in the late 1940s.
Background
Before the first sightings of mystery airships, many science fiction books about airships and their mysterious inventors were published. In the United States, the Frank Reade stories by Luis Senarens were especially popular. These stories began in 1882 and often focused on airships. The Frank Reade Library, a collection of stories, included 191 tales. Senarens’ friend, Jules Verne, used the idea of a secret inventor who created a powerful airship in his novel Robur the Conqueror, which was published in the United States in 1887. In the 1890s, the science fiction writer Robert Duncan Milne had his airship stories published in newspapers in San Francisco.
The late 1800s was a time of many new inventions, including the telephone and the automobile. Many articles about both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flight were published in the late 1800s. These articles led many people to believe that a successful airship would soon be created.
On November 17, 1896, the same day the first mystery airship was spotted in Sacramento, California, the Sacramento Bee published a message that claimed to be a telegram from a New York inventor. The message said the inventor was flying his airship from New York to California and would arrive in two days.
In July 1868, a newspaper in Copiapó, Chile, reported that a "gigantic bird" with "brilliant scales" that made a metallic sound was seen flying over the town. In his 1931 book Lo!, Charles Fort discussed this report and other accounts of strange flying objects from the 1800s and 1900s. Fort noted that people in rural China might describe a real airship in a similar way. However, Fort’s book barely mentioned the airship sightings from 1896–97, even though he worked for newspapers that covered those events. In 2001, Loren Coleman described the Copiapó report as an example of strange sightings that mix descriptions of machines and animals in ways that are hard to explain.
On July 29, 1880, two people in Louisville, Kentucky, saw a flying object described as "a man surrounded by machinery which he seemed to be working with his hands" with wings on his back. A month later, a similar sighting occurred in New Jersey. The New York Times reported that the object appeared to be "a man with bat’s wings and improved frog’s legs" and that it waved its wings in response to a train’s whistle.
According to researcher Jerome Clark, airship sightings were reported in New Mexico in 1880.
Airship wave of 1896–1897
The most famous mystery airship sightings began in California in 1896. In early 1897, similar reports spread across the country, usually moving eastward. Most people saw only lights in the night sky, but some claimed to see people on the airships. Occasionally, witnesses said they saw the pilot or crew. These people often looked human, but their actions, clothing, or behavior were sometimes strange. Some even said the people were from Mars.
Historian Mike Dash studied the 1896–1897 sightings and wrote that many simple sightings were probably mistaken planets or stars. Others were likely hoaxes or jokes. A few cases remained unexplained.
During the 1896–97 wave, thousands of sightings were reported. Newspaper accounts suggest over 100,000 people may have seen the airships.
The first sightings mostly happened in California between November 17 and December 1896, with a few in January 1897. Other reports came from Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia during the same months. Many newspapers said the sightings were part of a cross-country flight by the airship’s inventor.
California cities that reported sightings included Anderson, Auburn, Red Bluff, Redding, Arbuckle, Woodland, Yolo, Chico, Marysville, Camptonville, Grass Valley, Biggs, San Leandro, San Jose, Hayward, San Luis Obispo, Acampo, Lathrop, Livermore, Lodi, Crows Landing, Manteca, Modesto, Merced, Stockton, Turlock, Visalia, Fresno, Delano, Bakersfield, Redlands, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Riverside, and Los Angeles.
Public interest grew when a young San Francisco lawyer named George D. Collins told newspapers he had been contacted by someone working on the world’s first practical airship. The man claimed the airship was nearly finished near Oroville, California. Collins said the lights over Sacramento were test flights before the invention was revealed. This explanation seemed reasonable and was widely covered in newspapers. However, after Collins’ statement, rumors spread, and the airship became the biggest news in northern California. As sightings increased, Collins faced ridicule and was mocked in cartoons. Newspapers nicknamed him “Airship” Collins. He later denied his claims and disappeared. Collins had suggested a local dentist, Dr. E.H. Benjamin, was the inventor. Dr. Benjamin denied any connection but was also harassed by the press and eventually left town.
Around the same time, William Henry Harrison Hart, a former California Attorney General, claimed to represent the airship’s inventor. Hart gave more outlandish details, saying there were two airships, one in California and one in New Jersey. He later claimed a third airship was being built to bomb Havana, Cuba. Hart named Dr. Catlin as the inventor and Dr. Benjamin as the assistant. Like Collins, Hart later changed his stories and stopped talking to newspapers. It is unclear how much Hart and Collins were involved in the sightings.
In December 1896, the San Francisco Examiner published an editorial by William Randolph Hearst, who criticized the media for spreading fake stories. He called the airship sightings a myth.
The California wave ended in December 1896, but in February 1897, mysterious lights were reported over western Nebraska, starting a larger wave of sightings across the American Midwest. This wave lasted until May 1897, with a few reports in June.
Newspapers nationwide covered the California sightings, but the Midwest and eastern states paid less attention. The California wave ended in December, except for a few sightings in January 1897.
Sightings continued in the Midwest and East in May 1897, with one notable report in Texas in June. Witnesses saw two airships, which was rare during the 1896–97 waves.
In 1909, mystery airship sightings in New England were likely caused by a hoax by Wallace Tillinghast, who falsely claimed to have flown a “heavier-than-air” craft from Worcester to New York City. Similar sightings occurred in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe, including the UK, where a hoax by M.B. Boyd may have triggered the wave. By 1909, airship technology had advanced, with powered airships like Zeppelins being built. There were 47 powered flights that year, and many news articles about aeronautics, making airship claims seem plausible.
Later reports came from the UK in 1912 and 1913.
Jerome Clark noted that after 1897, airship sightings were not remembered as clearly in history. For example, the 1909 sightings were widely reported, but few people today recall the events of just over a decade earlier.
Possible explanations
During the 1896–97 wave of mystery airship sightings, many people tried to explain the phenomenon. Some suggested the lights were misidentified stars, planets, or meteors. Others thought the lights came from swarms of lightning beetles or were the result of pranks, such as balloons or kites with lanterns or candles. A noted astronomer, Professor G.W. Hough, director of the Dearborn Observatory, believed the lights were from Alpha Orionis, a bright star in the constellation Orion. Other astronomers thought witnesses might have mistaken Jupiter, Venus, or Mars for the airship. Some sightings were later proven to be hoaxes, such as balloons or kites launched by people playing jokes.
David Michael Jacobs noted that many arguments against the airship idea came from people who doubted the witnesses’ claims. However, he believed many stories were created by reporters as part of fake news. Newspapers like the San Francisco Call and the San Francisco Examiner accused each other of making up airship stories. During the 1890s, newspapers often used exaggerated or humorous writing styles, which made some stories easy to recognize. In some cases, the writers even claimed they were writing from an insane asylum to signal their stories were fake.
Some authors argued that the airship sightings were real accounts of working man-made airships. Steerable airships had been flown in the United States since 1863, and many inventors were designing airships and aircraft. Thomas Edison was wrongly suspected of being behind the airships, so he issued a public statement denying any involvement.
In 1884, French officers Arthur Krebs and Charles Renard successfully flew an electric-powered airship called La France. In 1897, an airship designed by David Schwarz in Germany flew over Tempelhof Field.
In his 2004 book Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery, Michael Busby studied old newspaper accounts and found evidence suggesting three separate airships flew over Texas. He concluded these airships were built in Iowa by people originally from California. Busby theorized one airship crashed near Aurora on April 17, 1897, another crashed near the Gulf Coast shortly after, and a third may have flown to New York and crashed at sea on May 13. Two other airships built in Iowa crashed in Michigan and Washington state, and the pilots likely died.
In The Great Airship of 1897 (2009), J. Allan Danelek argued the airship was built by an unknown person, possibly with funding from a San Francisco investor, as a prototype for future passenger airships. He showed how the airship might have been built using materials and technologies available in 1896, including drawings and technical details. Danelek suggested the airship was built in secret to protect its design and investors. He also noted that sightings began in California and later moved to the Midwest, possibly because the inventor tested the airship along railway lines for support. Danelek believed the sightings stopped in mid-April 1897, possibly because the airship crashed, ending the project and turning the sightings into myths.
In 1896 and 1897, some newspapers suggested the airships were extraterrestrial. The Washington Times reported in 1897 that the airships might be "a reconnoitering party from Mars," and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested the airships were "visitors from Mars, fearful of invading the planet." In 1909, a letter in the Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) claimed the airships were "atomic-powered spaceships" from Mars.