UFOs and the Media

April 16, 1897

Unidentified flying objects are nothing new for the people of Vincennes. In 1897 a mysterious airship passed over the city twice on the night of Friday, April 16. According to the Vincennes Morning Commercial, the airship first appeared about nine oclock, traveling along the extreme eastern portion of the horizon: A sphere of golden light was first seen in the vicinity of the Union Depot, from down in the city. Those near the ship claimed they could clearly see the dark lines of its car, although no passengers were observed.

Many reputable citizens witnessed the flight. From his home on Burnetts Heights, Sam Judah said he could plainly see the ship with its fluttering wings, its movements resembling a side wheeler steam-boat, sailing through the air with incredible velocity.

From his doorway, where he had gone to look at his thermometer, Col. Ewing saw the light, which he at first thought was a falling star, but as it moved so slowly, soon became convinced that it was the inevitable airship. Ewing watched it for about four minutes.

Anton Simon noticed a ball of fire, moving in a north-westerly to southeasterly course, which he later realized was an airship.

Victor Schonfeld, somewhat of an expert observer, having made airships and balloons, a life-long study, and having even made several ascensions in his time, testified that this was a genuine airship.

Among many others who saw the airship were Col. M.P. Ghee, Thomas Eastham, Judge DeWolf, Will Mason, Scott Emison, Jesse Foulks, all highly reputable witnesses.

The airship first passed rapidly overhead in a southwesterly direction. An hour and a half later, it was seen again, passing over the northern portion of the city, traveling in a northwesterly direction:

The last time it seemed to pass directly over the fairgrounds (present-day Gregg Park) and traveled more slowly than in its first swift passage straight over the city.

It is thought that the navigator turned his flying machine around and started back, or that the ship landed near the city and started back.

Some say voices could be heard in the airship, and one gentleman, who saw it from Burnetts Heights says he could see a man moving about in the ship and that he appeared to be adjusting the machinery.

The Commercial concluded: Other cities have seen the airship and now Vincennes is strictly up to date'.

In fact, the Vincennes encounter was only one of some 200 sightings made by thousands of people in 19 states, during our nations first UFO flap of 1896-1897.

In his article, Close Encounters of the Earliest Kind, in the December, 1979 issue of American Heritage magazine, Ron Genini described the beginning of the flap in (where else?) California, in November of 1896. There were elements of hoax in some of the accounts, but many people believed they saw something. Many of the eyewitness accounts agreed that a traveling light or airship moved against the wind at an altitude of from 50 to 2,000 feet. It was cigar- or egg-shaped, with wing-like propellers or fan-like wheels revolving rapidly . . . and a doubly powerful arc light at its bottom center.

Soon, hoaxters got into the act, claiming to have ridden the flying machine, or to have talked with its crew, or even to have invented it. When some of these hoaxes were exposed, newspapers became skeptical, questioning the veracity or sobriety of witnesses, and making the airship the butt of jokes. After the excitement died down on the West Coast, the airship reappeared in the skies of the Midwest and South in April, 1897. In the first chapter of his book The UFO Controversy in America, David Michael Jacobs details the many sightings over Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Omaha, Kansas City, Dallas, and many other cities and towns.

Colored or intensely bright white lights were the most characteristic feature of the airship descriptions; in many other particulars the descriptions agreed with those from California--a cylindrical, or cigar-shaped body with a propeller or propellers.

As Jacobs points out, the first modern airship or dirigible was built in France in 1898, but there is no record of any American inventor producing an airship at this time. And the speeds attributed to the mysterious airship--estimated at up to 200 miles per hour--far exceeded anything possible at the time. Again, there were some hoaxters, and again the newspapers were skeptical.

In Vincennes, the evening Western Sun, having been scooped by the morning paper, wrote a kind of tongue-in-cheek parody:

The Air Ship Sails the Azure Depths like a Tongue of Light; It Floats through Space Leaving Multitudes of Worshipping People on the Earth Beneath-- Supposed to Contain Five Passengers and to be Enroute to Jacksonville, Fla.

The Sun described the effects upon the supposed superstitious inhabitants of that aristocratic colored suburb known as Idaho,who were scared to death.

A few days later the airship lent itself to advertising:

The airship seems to be an assured fact. But it is not attracting so much attention as the slashing prices that are being made on hardware and bicycles at Scott & Sons. Millers Drug Store on Main Street used the airship to draw attention to its ice cream and sodas.

There was not another sighting flap until 1946.

The chief difference was that while people in 1896-7 thought that the UFOs were man-made objects, in the modern ear the tendency is to believe that they are not of this earth.

A winged ship in the sky was how the San Francisco Call described a mysterious airship seen at Sacramento on Nov. 17, 1896. The illustration closely matches the description of one seen over Vincennes in April, 1897.

FLYING MATTRESS? -- With wings like mattress ticking, a California airship is depicted shining its light earthward. Also shown is a four-man crew in a canopied cockpit. Singing to the accompaniment of a phonograph supposedly could be heard coming from the craft.