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In This Issue...
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History
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The Great UFO Scare of 1896
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The Great UFO Scare of 1896
By Phil Reader
No, the date in the title is not a misprint. At the time of the incident in queston, Wilbur and Orville Wright were still repairing bicycles in their little shop near Dayton, Ohio. Charles Lindbergh’s parents were still dating and John Glenn’s grandparents were farming in the Midwest. It was back in a day when men were rarely little and never green.
The story began slowly, hovering almost unnoticed in the back pages of the local papers. Sailors in the dives of San Francisco’s infamous Barbary Coast began to talk about glowing spheres and saucer-like machines that they had seen rising out of the waters of the Sea of Japan or the China Sea, hovering and thence flying off. Saloon keepers and patrons of these dives were not at all surprised, “considering the quantity and quality of whiskey being passed across the bars," according to the San Francisco Call.
Though the Wright brothers’ historic flight at Kitty Hawk was still seven years in the future, by 1896 public imagination was already receptive to the prospect of flight by powered aircraft. Jules Verne had written of ships of the air, just as he had submarines and sending men to the moon. German engineer Otto Lilienthal, whose work inspired the two brothers from Dayton, had already successfully flown in a hang glider. And Samuel P. Langley, third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, had recently managed to get his Aerodrome No. 5, an unpiloted, engine-driven, heavier-than-air craft, airborne.
By the Thanksgiving holidays of 1896, the wild sailors’ story had made its way to the front pages of the newspapers in bold and brazen print. Sightings of the mysterious “airship” reached feverish heights when on Tuesday, Nov. 17, word came of sightings by “hundreds of people” in the Sacramento area. It was described as a series of electric arc lamps propelled by a mysterious force.
Reportedly traveling from north to south, it could be seen for nearly an hour. Observers speculated that the “airship” was apparently directed by some intelligent force, as it reportedly rose and descended to avoid roofs and steeples.
Not to be outdone, San Francisco had its own rash of sightings four days later. Among the large crowd that witnessed the arrival of the “airship” were policemen and firemen â€" just the sort of people not generally supposed to be given to hysteria or prevarication. Even Mayor Adolph Sutro got into the act, claiming that he too had witnessed “lights carried by airship.” Soon all eyes were turned skyward, with the large daily papers carrying lurid details of events breathlessly reported by “reliable” observers.
An attorney even came forth claiming to know the inventor of the wondrous machine. He personally claimed to have been aboard the vessel and said it was made of metal, about 150 feet long and capable of carrying 15 people. He also told of watching the ship ascend and descend in an almost vertical fashion.
Barristers in those days inspired the same instinctive mistrust as now, and the announcement quickly came under overwhelming scrutiny. Yet in spite of the fact that the barrister’s story was eventually proven untrue, the airship craze continued to grow.
On the night of Nov. 26, the unidentified flying object finally reached the Monterey Bay region where newspapers excitedly announced the citizenry had been treated to a “bright light arcing through the air,” which appeared first in Pacific Grove and then moved on to Salinas and Watsonville. It was said to have conveniently bypassed Hollister, “which was a temperance town.”
In Watsonville, an excited resident rushed into the newspaper office shouting that he had seen the airship. But this development was dashed by friends jealous of his sudden attention. They contended that he had merely seen one of “those big owls which have their home high up in the steeple of the Presbyterian church.”
The next evening, Santa Cruz was to get its long-awaited chance. The strange light put in an appearance in the skies above the coastline, hovering for a period of time over the Cliff Drive. Moments later the “craft” was reported to have crisscrossed town several times before slowly fading from sight.
As elsewhere, with the Santa Cruz County witnesses it was said that the luridness and detail of their observations seemed to be in direct proportion to the amount of alcoholic beverages recently consumed. It is perhaps enlightening to note that the overwhelming number of those sightings by the “airship clan” were in the airspace above the Front Street saloon and brothel district.
Duncan McPherson, longtime publisher of the Sentinel, glibly announced that it appeared to him that this strange new vessel was powered solely by alcohol. This sparked a verbal tiff with the competing Surf newspaper, each editor contending that other shared the same fuel source, and that his rival’s family tree had been darkened by a streak of lunacy.
Even the local judiciary became involved in the question. Superior Court Judge Lucas Smith ordered a hooligan named Jack Brodie to exit the County and remain in banishment until the “airships” return. Needless to say, Brodie was never seen in these parts again.
With an eye on the future, journalists of the day busied themselves with explanations which will seem thoroughly modern to present-day skeptics. Among these were Earth-based balloons, prepubescent pranks and, of course, the scapegoat planets Mars and Venus.
There was also one unique to Santa Cruz â€" the reflection of moonlight off of schools of sardines bouncing up to the cloud cover. Original indeed!
During the month of December, the airship hysteria of 1896 slowly faded. Not surprisingly, no definitive explanation for the mystery was ever found. But just over 50 years later, an equally elusive appearance was made in the night skies over Roswell, New Mexico, proving everything old is new again.
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