SUBJECT: AERO CLUB IN THE MID 1850's FILE: UFO2870
PART 3
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November 8, 1991
AERO2.ASC
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from Fate, June 1973
Mystery Airships of the 1800's (Part 3 of 3)
By Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman
Part Three: Technology of that time does not explain these airships.
Were extraterrestrial intelligences involved?
An entirely different kind of story of an airship and its occupants
was published in the _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ for April 19, 1897,
in the form of a letter from W. H. Hopkins, a St. Louis resident
whose job as general traveling agent for the Hartford Steam Boiler
Inspection and Insurance Company had taken him to Missouri that
week.
The incident he describes had occurred, he said, on April 16:
"...I was wandering through hills east of Springfield, Mo.,
and coming to the brow of a hill overlooking a small clearing
in the valley a short distance below me I saw a sight that
rooted me to the spot... I could not believe my eyes at
first... There in the clearing rested a vessel similar in
outline to the airship shown in the _Post-Dispatch_ a few
days ago and said to have been taken in Illinois...
"Near the vessel was the most beautiful being I ever beheld.
She was under medium size but of the most exquisite form and
features such as would put to shame the forms as sculptured
by the ancient Greeks. She was dressed in nature's garb
(both were naked) and her golden hair, wavy and glossy, hung
to her waist, unconfined except by a band of glistening
Page 1
jewels that bound it back from her forehead... She was
plucking the little flowers that were just blossoming...
with exclamations of delight in a language I could not
understand.
Her voice was like low, silvery bells and her laughter rang
out like their chimes. In one hand she carried a fan of
curious design that she fanned herself vigorously with,
though to me the air was not warm and I wore an overcoat.
"In the shade of the vessel lay a man of noble proportions and
majestic countenance. His hair of dark auburn fell to his
shoulders in wavy masses and his full beard... reached to
his breast. He also was fanning himself... as if the heat
oppressed him.
"After gazing for a while I moved forward and the woman,
hearing the rustle of the leaves, looked around. A moment
she stood looking at me with wonder and astonishment in her
beautiful blue eyes, then with a shriek of fear she rushed to
the man who sprang to his feet, threw his arm around her and
glared at me in a threatening manner.
"I stopped and taking my handkerchief from my pocket waved it
in the air. A few minutes we stood. I then spoke some words
of apology for intruding but he seemed not to understand and
replied in a threatening tone and words which I could not
make out. I tried by signs to make him understand and
finally he left her... and came toward me. I extended my
hand. He looked at it a moment, astonishment in his dark-
brown eyes, and finally he extended his own and touched mine.
I took his and carried it to my lips. I tried by signs to
make them understand I meant no harm. Finally his face
lighted up with pleasure and he turned and spoke to the
woman. She came hesitatingly forward, her form undulating
with exquisite grace. I took her hand and kissed it
fervently. The color rose to her cheeks and she drew it
hastily away.
"I asked them by signs where they came from but it was
difficult to make them understand. Finally they seemed to do
so and smiling, they gazed upwards for a moment, as if
looking for some particular point, and then pointed upwards,
pronouncing a word which to my imagination sounded like Mars.
"I pointed to the ship and expressed my wonder in my
countenance. He took me by the hand and led me toward it.
In the side was a small door. I looked in. There was a
luxurious couch covered with robes of the most beautiful
stuff and texture such as I had never seen before.
From the ceiling was suspended a curious ball from which
extended a strip of metal which he struck to make it vibrate.
Instantly the ball was illuminated with a soft white light
which lit up the whole interior... most beautifully
decorated...
"At the stern was another large ball of metal, supported in a
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strong framework, and connected to the shaft of the propeller
at the stern was a similar mechanism attached to each
propeller and smaller balls attached to a point of metal that
extended from each side of the vessel and from the prow.
And connected to each ball was a thin strip of metal similar
to the one attached to the lamp. He struck each one and when
they vibrated the balls commenced to revolve with intense
rapidity and did not cease till he stopped them with a kind
of brake.
As they revolved intense lights, stronger than any arc light
I ever saw, shone out from the points at the sides and at the
prow, but they were different colors. The one at the prow
was an intense white light. On one side was green and on the
other red.
"The two had been examining me with the greatest curiosity in
the meantime. They felt of my clothing, looked at my gray
hair with surprise and examined my watch with the greatest
wonder. Signs are poor medium to exchange ideas and
therefore we could express but little.
"I pointed to the balls attached to the propellers. He gave
each of the strips of metal a rap, those attached to the
propellers under the vessel first. The balls began to
revolve rapidly and I felt the vessel begin to rise... I
sprang out and none too soon, for the vessel rose as lightly
as a bird and shot away like an arrow...
The two stood laughing and waving their hands to me, she a
vision of loveliness and he of manly vigor."
Incredible? Certainly. A skeptical _Post-Dispatch_ reporter took
the letter to Hopkins' employer, C. C. Gardner. After reading it
carefully Gardner said, "That is Mr. Hopkins' handwriting and he is
now in that territory. He was also at Springfield on the day
named..." Asked if he believed Hopkins' story Gardner nodded
vigorously.
"Indeed I do," he said. "Strange as it may seem I am compelled to
believe it. Mr. Hopkins is not a romancer. He never courts
notoriety.
What he writes he has seen and he believes it is his duty to make
the facts public. He does not drink a drop. He has been connected
with this company for a long time and is most reliable. What he
writes you can publish as being absolutely true."
Other employees in the firm spoke just as highly of Hopkins. The
reporter also searched out Hopkins' wife and two daughters. "It's
the truth if he wrote it," Mrs. Hopkins affirmed, "and I believe
every word. Mr. Hopkins is a member of the Maple Avenue M. E.
Church and has many friends... He undoubtedly wishes to acquaint his
friends with the marvel he has seen and so uses the _Post-Dispatch_
as the medium of communication.
"Mr. Hopkins left home a week ago," she continued. "Before he left
he ridiculed the idea of an airship having been seen. But now I
Page 3
suppose he is convinced it is not a myth." The other-worldly
overtones of this incident hardly can be denied and it was not the
only bizarre occurrence of the period.
On the morning of April 15 a large airship moved northward slowly
over Linn Grove, Iowa, and five men followed it about four miles
into the country where it landed. But when the pursuers got within
700 yards of the vessel it spread out four monstrous wings and flew
away. As it rose its occupants tossed out two boulders "of unknown
composition."
The witnesses said the entities within the craft had the longest
beards they had ever seen and a news account of the incident
mentions "two queer-looking persons... who made desperate efforts to
conceal themselves."
The next day at Mount Vernon, Ill., the city's mayor focused his
telescope on an "airship." What he saw was something that
resembled, according to the _Saginaw Courier-Herald_,
"the body of a huge man swimming through the air with an
electric light at his back."
It goes without saying that no theory which assumed terrestrial
inventors were completely responsible for airship manifestations is
going to account for a sighting like this one.
From the _Houston Daily Post_ for April 28, 1897, comes the weirdest
case of all: "Merkel, Tex., April 26 -- Some parties returning from
church last night noticed a heavy object dragging along with a rope
attached. They followed it until in crossing the railroad, it
caught on a rail.
Looking up they saw what they supposed was the airship. It was not
near enough to get an idea of the dimensions. A light could be seen
protruding from several windows; one bright light in front like the
headlight of a locomotive. After some 10 minutes a man was seen
descending the rope; he came near enough to be plainly seen.
He wore a light-blue sailor suit, was small in size. He stopped
when he discovered parties at the anchor and cut the ropes below him
and sailed off in a northeast direction. The anchor is now on
exhibition at the blacksmith shop of Elliott and Miller and is
attracting the attention of hundreds of people."
An ancient obscure Irish manuscript, _Speculum Regali_, records
an incident that supposedly occurred in the year 956 A. D.: "There
happened in the borough of Cloera, one Sunday while people were at
mass, a marvel. In this town there is a church to the memory of
St. Kinarus. It befell that a metal anchor was dropped from the
sky, with a rope attached to it, and one of the sharp flukes caught
in the wooden arch above the church door.
The people rushed out of the church and saw in the sky a ship with
men on board, floating at the end of the anchor cable, and they saw
a man leap overboard and pull himself down the cable to the anchor
as if to unhook it.
"He appeared as if he were swimming in water."
Page 4
The folk rushed up and tried to seize him; but the bishop forbade
the people to hold the man for fear it might kill him. The man was
freed and hurried up the cable to the ship, where the crew cut the
rope and the ship rose and sailed away out of sight. But the anchor
is in the church as a testimony to this singular occurrence."
And about 1200 A. D. an anchor plummeted out of the sky trailing a
rope and got caught in a mound of stones near a church in Bristol,
England. As a mob of churchgoers congregated at the scene, a
"sailor" came skittering down the rope to free it.
According to Gervase of Tilbury's _Otia Imperialia_ the crowd seized
the intruder and "he suffocated by the mist of our moist atmosphere
and expired." His unseen comrades cut the rope and left.
We do not pretend to understand why an incident of this nature
should continually recur but its occurrence in the midst of the 1897
airship flap should prove conclusively that we are dealing with
phenomena whose implications boggle the mind.
Something astonishing, even incomprehensible, was taking place in
19th-Century America. Whatever conclusions we draw from it are
bound to be unbelievable and little more than informed guesses, for
the gaps in the story are often greater than the substance.
Throughout history innumerable groups, societies and cults have
organized -- sometimes secretly, sometimes not -- around an idea
that in one way or another they were in contact with "higher beings"
who taught them and oversaw their lives. Almost every religion
assumes its adherents were and are guided in this manner -- so do
cults of magicians, spiritualists, flying saucer contactees and many
others.
Some gifted scientists and inventors have believed privately that
non-human entities helped them in their work. In the 19th Century
we believe man had neither the knowledge nor the means to build and
fly heavier-than-air machines. We are equally sure that somebody
was doing just that and according to most eyewitness reports, the
pilots of the ships appeared to be ordinary mortals.
Even if we reject Dellschau's accounts as senile raving we still
must confront the "impossible" fact of the existence of airships and
human occupants.
Taking Dellschau seriously for the moment we might postulate that in
both Germany and the United States, specifically in California and
New York, a secret cult of brilliant scientists, technicians and
inventors established contact with nonhuman agencies which told them
how to construct aerial vessels but ordered them to keep the work
under wraps. It is safe to assume the German and American branches
were in communication and about 1848 some of the Germans immigrated
to pool their efforts with those of the Americans.
Perhaps 1848 was the crucial year. Perhaps the eastern branch of
the society had decided to market the airship -- with or without the
approval of their "superiors." An advertisement appeared on the
east coast proclaiming that "R. Porter & Company" soon would have
ships for air travel.
Page 5
For some unknown reason nothing came of the plan but by the 1850's
many of the Germans had set up shop near Sonora, Calif., with the
Americans and they were to spend the next several years conducting
some incredible experiments.
Dissension and dissatisfaction no doubt developed as the group came
to realize they might never be allowed to give their "aeros" to the
world. They may have hoped that someone -- Dellschau calls him "the
right man" -- would arrive to defy the "superiors" and make the
airship public property. (Not all that public, of course. The
group stood to collect a fortune for their enterprise.)
While airships were seen over America from time to time in the years
before 1896, widespread sustained flights seem to have become
necessary in that year, for whatever reason. To maintain secrecy in
a period when airships for the first time would be observed widely
the society agreed to plant a series of conflicting and therefore
misleading claims. The ploy worked, of course.
The "superiors," the nonhuman entities, had their own ships but they
took care not to be seen while their human agents captured the
headlines. Conceivably the human beings were little more than pawns
in some cosmic game.
The weirdest incidents -- those putting airships in a paranormal
framework -- well may have been the important ones, while the more
mundane sightings were designed only to distract attention while the
nonhumans set about doing whatever they intended to accomplish.
If Dellschau was lying, then we must revise our theory only to
exclude the German and Sonora, Calif., headquarters. The existence
of a secret society in contact with nonhumans still can be inferred
from other evidence.
To pursue our initial hypothesis to its conclusion, let us suppose
that Dellschau retired to Houston late in the 19th Century, as in
fact he did, depressed and discouraged because it looked as if the
whole amazing business would remain a secret forever.
Still intimidated by the "superiors" and afraid to speak directly,
nonetheless he determined to leave the world a series of clues in
the hope that someday a "Wonder Weaver" would find them and sew the
entire dazzling fabric together.
Too much to swallow, you say? But can you think of a better
explanation?
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Vangard note...
Let us suppose that early chemical researchers did not IN FACT
find the lowest element in the Periodic Table, i.e. Hydrogen
with an atomic number of 1 and a mass number of 1.008.
According to Walter Russell, the elements follow a harmonic
Octave Progression. The chart he developed to illustrate this
progression shows 26 elements with a mass LESS than Hydrogen.
We have made contact with both Pete Navarro and Jimmy Ward, the
primary researchers into the Dellschau notebooks. Jimmy has
Page 6
confirmed that the mysterious N.B. gas was highly inflammable.
Airships using this substance to provide primary lift, posted
signs within the ship warning occupants of the explosive nature
of the N.B. gas. Smoking and any open flame could cause the
craft to be blown out of the air.
If there are as many as 26 different gases with LESS MASS than
Hydrogen, then these gases must necessarily be FAR LIGHTER THAN
HYDROGEN, thus providing more lift per volume.
Again, following this train of thought, it can easily be seen
how this gas could lift much heavier payloads with less gas.
An analogy : If a basketball were filled with N.B. gas, one
could grab the ball and be lifted into space.
Now, what if you took a pair of coveralls, sewed tubing into
the material and filled it with this gas. You could so balance
it against your natural weight that you could float like a
balloon. Add wings or some form of thrust and you could fly
quite freely in the open air.
Of course, a backpack, scooter or light airship could also be
built using the gas for lift. Propulsion is easy to achieve
while lift is more difficult. If wings or ailerons were used,
then a forward thrust would cause the ship to lift proportional
to velocity than the natural buoyancy of the N.B. gas.
The winged flying men as mentioned in the above article could
thus be accounted for without the need for paranormal or extra-
terrestrial speculations.
Jimmy Ward has courteously sent us several articles written by
Pete Navarro and himself. These will be placed on KeelyNet in
the AERO series, so pay attention class, they are most
interesting and could lead to some really wild PRACTICAL
APPLICATIONS.
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