Mystery airship wave
- Date
- Nov 1896
- Place
- California (from 17 November 1896), then the Midwest and Texas (spring 1897), United States
- Record
- Curated case
- Assessment
- Explained
- Evidence strength
What was reported
From November 1896 in Sacramento and through the spring of 1897 across the Midwest and Texas, newspapers carried thousands of reports of a cigar-shaped airship with searchlights, sometimes with propellers, wings or human crew, years before practical dirigibles flew in America. Almost every account survives only as a newspaper story, many secondhand, and no government investigated. Some stories were admitted inventions (the 1897 Aurora, Texas crash is the best known), and the period's 'liars' clubs' and circulation-driven press fabricated others. The two research providers behind the workbench dossier split between 'refuted' and 'speculative'; neither found an instrument record, photograph or physical remnant.
What officials concluded
No conclusion stated
No official explanation has been given.
Strongest ordinary reading
Newspaper hoaxes and fabrication, Venus and bright stars, and occasional balloons or kites, amplified by public expectation of an airship inventor
Evidence profile
- Yes: Visual
- No: Infrared
- No: Radar
- No: Video
- No: Photo
- No: Film
- No: Audio
- No: Night vision
- No: Other sensor
- Yes: Civilian
- No: Military aircrew
- No: Military ground
- No: Airline crew
- No: Sensor operator
- No: Law enforcement
- No: Scientist
- No: Astronaut
- No: Intelligence official
- No: Other
- No: Light only
- No: Orb or sphere
- No: Disc
- No: Triangle
- Yes: Cylinder
- No: Cube
- No: Other shape
- No: Physiological
- No: Physical trace
- No: Electromagnetic
- No: Sound
- No: Silent
Outside sources
- Wikipedia: Mystery airshipen.wikipedia.org
On the map
38.58° N, 121.49° W, plotted at the centre of the region named in the record
Show on the map