Phantom Airships of the 19th Century

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2021

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the winter of 1896, a spate of airship sightings spread out from California, stampeding across the United States until, in the Spring of 1897, they hit a wall in the midwest, after a brief flirtation on the East Coast. The sightings totalled in their tens of thousands and many included fantastical descriptions of both the ship and the people riding it. As the ships flew from state to state, the stories often grew bolder in their claims until they were heavily dovetailing with the science fiction of the day. With airships still incapable of sustained flight in 1896, were any of the sightings true? Or were the witnesses seeing something else in the sky? Are some of the more outrageous stories, actually far closer to the truth than they may at first seem, or was the whole affair just one big medley of lies, hoax and misidentifications? SOURCES Evans, Hillary & Bartholomew, Robert (2009) The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behaviour. Anomalist Books, Texas, USA Cohen, Daniel (1981) The Great Airship Mystery: A UFO of the 1890s. Dodd, Mead & Co. New York, USA. The San Francisco Examiner (1896) Nations May Yet Fight In The Air. 16th Feb 1896, p.32. San Francisco, USA. The Record Union (1896) What Was It? 18 Nov 1896, p.4. Sacramento, USA. The San Francisco Call (1896) Claim They Saw A Flying Airship. 18 Nov 1896, p.3. San Francisco, USA. The San Francisco Call (1896) Strange Craft Of The Sky. 19 Nov 1896, p.3. San Francisco, USA. Sacramento Bee (1896) Air Ship Or What? 19 Nov 1896, p.1. Sacramento, USA. The San Francisco Call (1896) A Winged Ship In The Sky. 23 Nov 1896, p.1. San Francisco, USA. The San Francisco Examiner (1896) Airships Now Fly In Flocks. 25 Nov 1896, p.5. San Francisco, USA. The Evening Mail (1896) Three Strange Visitors. 27 Nov 1896, p.1. Stockton, USA. The Nebraska State Journal (1897) An Airship or Ill Omen. 23 Feb 18977, p.5. Nebraska, USA. The Leavenworth TImes (1897) Like The Sea Serpent. 28 Feb 1897, p.1. Kansas, USA. The Times Herald (1897) Not An Airship. 10 Apr 1897, p.1. Michigan, USA. The Times Herald (1897) Airship In Michigan. 13 Apr 1897, p.8. Michigan, USA. The Evening Times (1897) The Airship Coming Here. 13 Apr 1897, p.5. Washington, USA. The Boston Globe (1897) Airship Was A Hoax. 15 Apr 1897, p.6. Boston, USA. San Francisco Chronicle (1897) How The Airship Drops Letters. 19 Apr 1897, San Francisco, USA. The Dallas Morning News (1897) A Windmill Demolishes It. 19 Apr 1897, Texas, USA. ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the winter of 1896, a spate of airship sightings spread out from California,
0:05.3	stampeding across the United States until, in the spring of 1897,
0:10.3	they hit a wall in the Midwest after a brief flirtation on the East Coast.
0:15.6	The sightings totalled in their tens of thousands, and many included fantastical descriptions of both the ship and the people riding it.
0:24.0	As the ships flew from state to state, the stories often grew bolder in their claims,
0:29.1	until they were heavily dovetailing with the science fiction of the day.
0:33.4	With airships steering capable of sustained flight in 1896, were any of the sightings, though, actually true.
0:40.8	Or were the witnesses seeing something else in the sky?
0:44.3	As some of the more outrageous stories actually far closer to the truth than they may at first
0:49.4	seem, or was the whole affair just one big medley of lies, hopes and misidentifications.
0:56.6	This is Dark History's, but the fact is the worst in fiction.
1:04.4	Hello and welcome to Dark History's season 5 episode 4. It's great to be back and I hope
1:09.7	this finds you all well. Before we start this week's episode, I just want to say a big thank you
1:14.3	to everyone who supports on Patreon. I'm like right on the cusp of 500 patrons, I think 496 right now,
1:22.3	which is just madness. I just really want to say thank you really. I won't go into it too heavily.
1:31.7	I think Long & Do is release like a Patreon bonus, and I'll talk a bit more in there about
1:37.9	how the money is affected the way this show works, but just now, just to keep it quick,
1:44.4	I just want to say, the show is over the years that the money from the Patreon has fundamentally
1:50.8	changed the way this show works and the way I can make the show to say that it's
1:57.2	as it is today because of the patrons is no small fee. I can say I do run advertisements. They
2:03.8	don't even pay for my hosting fees. So it really is in thanks to the patrons that all the things
2:10.8	that have happened over the years have managed to be got through and the show is where it is today,
	...

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