Flying Saucers Again: Do You Believe in Them?

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

nology—and equated by some to the familiar cigar-shaped objects described in thousands of modern reports.

If you have read thus far, please don't stop because of these references to "references" which although unquestionably interesting, are dubious at best.

What follows is not legendary.

## January 12, 1838

The earliest apparently firm Pre- 1947 report turned up by my researches was made on January 12, 1838, and was referred to briefly in the 1877 "Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science": "... a report that at Cherbourg, France, on 12 January 1838, was seen a luminous body, seemingly two-thirds the size of the moon. It seemed to rotate on an axis. Central to it there seemed to be a dark cavity."

The similarity of this earliest dated UFO report to many modern reported sightings is apparent.

## Nature: 1880, 1893

The British magazine Nature, highly respected by the international scientific community, reported an unusually interesting sighting in its May 20, 1880, issue. The item on "a remarkable phenomenon observed at Kattenau, near Trakehnen (Germany)" described "an enormous number of luminous bodies" which "rose from the horizon and passed in a horizontal direction from east to west. They moved through space like a string of beads, and shone with a remarkably brilliant light."

In the May 25, 1893, issue of Nature appeared the tantalizing report on what students of UFO history call "The unknown lights of Japan." The article stated that "these globes altered in their formation . . . and . . . took the form of a crescent or diamond, or hung, festoon-like, in a curved line."

## 'Soul-Shaking Experiences'

M. Lincoln Schuster, of the publishing firm of Simon & Schuster, wrote, in his introduction to a book entitled "A Treasury of the World's Great Letters": "When any person has a soul-shaking experience, he usually can—and frequently does—write a letter about it."

A large percentage of the most amazing of the early reports were contained in startled and puzzled letters to such sober and reputable journals as the London Times; Scientific American; Nature; American Meteorological Journal; U.S. and Canada Monthly Weather Review; I'Astronomie; Astronomische Nachrichten; London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science; The Observatory—Monthly Review of Astronomy, Approved For

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saw. (There was no Project Blue Book in those days to patiently explain to them that (1) they probably saw nothing and should stop being hysterical, or (2) it was a weather balloon, a mirage, or marsh gas.)

## London Times: 1848 to 1870

Why 19th Century UFO reports, in all their varied, strange, and sometimes wildly extravagant forms, should have poured in on the ultra-conservative Times of London ("The Thunderer") is a mystery as challenging as that of UFOs themselves.

The serious treatment accorded to these reports by the great Times is, however, gratifying to look back on, since, in the 1800s, these sightings must have seemed far more incredible than they do in today's age of supersonic flight, atomic fission and fusion, close-up photography of Mars, Venus fly-bys, and instrument landings on the Moon.

Here are some selected quotations from Pre-1947 UFO reports published in the Times of London:

1848. "There they shone with a bright flickering light until about 10 o'clock, when they moved, making a slight curve westward. The speed with which they migrated was prodigious."

1859. "... a most extraordinary appearance in the sky this evening . . . has quite frightened the superstitious here. At 7:20, a brilliant red light appeared to the south by east, about half-way between the zenith and horizon . . . its shape was oblong . . . in about 15 minutes it rose to the zenith."

1867. "This (to me) extraordinary object . . . floated steadily away, northwest by north . . . threw no rays in any direction . . . and was in my sight, from first to last, about three minutes."

1869. "A brilliant luminous body sailing slowly across the lake. . . ."

1870. "A falling star would never have remained so long visible in the telescopic field."

## 'Auroral Beam'

The so-called "Auroral Beam of November 17, 1882," was the subject of a 20-page article in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. One of the 26 observers of this amazing phenomenon was the Astronomer Royal.

It was described by various observers as "spindle-shaped," "a cigar-ship," "torpedo-like," "a weaver's shuttle," and "a ball of yellowish light, with a dark something' before the bar and a dark streak where it passed."

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The compiler of the observations, Mr. J. Rand Capron, wrote: "A primary question is whether the body is really and truly part of an auroral display, or a 'meteor,' 'meteoroid,' 'cometary body,' or something allied to any of these, in contra-distinction to an 'auroral beam.'"

## 'That Airship'

Commenting on the extraordinary article, The Observatory Monthly Review of Astronomy, spoke of the sighting as "unusual and striking, not to say awe-inspiring."

Unquestionably, the most famous and most baffling American Pre 1947 UFO report was of the "airship" which, first reported over Oakland, Cal., in November of 1896, finally appeared, according to thousands of observers, including many scientists, over Chicago.

The Oakland Tribune of November 23, 1896, led off its goggle-eyed story as follows:

"That a huge airship has been hovering over Oakland for the last few nights has, in the minds of many, been conclusively proven." The dispatch stated further: "The ship resembled a huge bird in its outlines and seemed to rise and fall in its course."

The New York Herald printed a dispatch in its April 11, 1897, issue which, headlined "THAT AIRSHIP NOW AT CHICAGO," stated: "For weeks, reports have been coming in from various points between here and California regarding an airship . . . men of unquestioned veracity declare the moving object was an airship . . . some declare they saw two cigar-shaped objects and great wings. Chicago and her suburbs are intensely interested, and the subject is almost the sole topic of conversation."

The Oakland to Chicago odyssey of "that airship," or whatever it was, is well-known to UFO researchers, but I pause here to call your attention to the remarkable statement sworn to by a Kansas farmer named Hamilton—Alexander Hamilton!—of Leroy, Kan., on April 21, 1897, and attested to ("for truth and veracity we have never heard his word questioned") by neighbors of his including the justice of the peace, the sheriff, the deputy sheriff, the registrar of deeds, and other substantial citizens. Farmer Hamilton's sworn statement appears on pages 20, 21, and 22 of Mr. Edwards' book, "Flying Saucers—Serious Business." He stated that he saw ("to my utter astonishment") that "an airship was slowly descending upon my cow lot . . . until it was not more than 30 feet above the ground, and we came to within 50 yards of it . . . it consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly 300 feet long, with a carriage underneath. . . ." Hamilton reported that the airship "turned a light direction, then "turned on some unknown power" and rose, "slowly disappearing in the north-