SUBJECT: RUSTLERS FROM MARS FILE: UFO2284
On April 23, 1897, Kansas newspaper, the Yates Center Farmer's Advocate,
reported an incredible story. On the evening of April 19, local rancer
Alexander Hamilton, his son, and a hired man saw a giant cigar-shaped ship
hovering above a corral lnear the house. Hamilton claimed that in a carriage
underneath the structure were "six of the stranest beings I ever saw." Just
then, the three men heard a calf bawling and found it trapped in the fence, a
rope around its neck extending upward. "We tried to get it off but could not,"
Hamilton said, "so we cut the wire loose to see the ship, heifer and all, rise
slowly, disappearing in the northwest."
The next day, Hamilton went looking for the animal. He learned that a neighbor
had found the butchered remains in his pasture. The neighbor, according to
Hamilton, "was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the
soft ground."
Hamilton's statement was followed by an affidavit signed by a dozen prominent
citizens who swore that "for truth and veractiy we have never heard
[Hamilton's] word questioned." In the following days, his story was published
in newspapers through out the United States and even in Europe.
Ufologists rediscovered the account in the early 1960s, and the story
rebounded to life through books and magazines. In 1976, however, an elderly
Kansas woman came forward to say that shorly before the tale was reported in
the Farmer's Advocate, she had heard Hamilton boast to his wife about the
story he had made up. Hamilton belonged to a local liars' club that delighted
in the concoction of outrageous tall tales. According to the woman, "The club
soon broke up after the 'airship and cow' story. I guess that one had topped
them all."
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