Mysterious airships of the late nineteenth century

Ufologists find many references to UFO sightings that occurred before 1947, when she was born UFOlogy. In the article about the UFO phenomenon is an indication of the types of objects most frequently encountered in these early evidences:

• Ghost ships and Ghost towns, the most famous of them is the famous "flying Dutchman", which was first mentioned in the literature appeared in 1795 in the book "a Trip to Botanical Bay" (eng. "A Voyage to Botany Bay"). However, stories about encounters with the likes of "ghosts" appearing in the sky, went among the people and informed.
• Mysterious airships ("mystery airships"). References to them began appearing in the late 19th century in the American press.
• Aircraft-ghosts (foo fighters). Evidence began appearing in the 1940-ies.
• The rockets-ghosts ("ghost rockets"). In 1946 more than 2,000 rockets Ghost was seen over Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Then, such objects have been observed in other countries, mostly European.

If you do not take into account "the Ghost ships", which can be attributed to simple mirages, it becomes apparent that the other types mentioned UFOs represent technical devices. The evolution of the terrestrial aircraft was described in our article the History of Aeronautics, aviation and space exploration, but there was not traced connection between the appearance of UFOs, described by witnesses in certain historical periods, and development of Aeronautics at the time.

In this article we will try to consider in more detail information about mysterious airships ("mystery airships").

As we have said, mention of these UFOs began to appear in the American press in the late 19th century. The reporters called them "mysterious (or imagined) by the airship" and "air ships". Rush of messages about them in the Newspapers of the United States of America occurred in 1896-1897 years, although well-known ufologist Jerome Clark argues that information about such objects appeared around the world since 1880-ies.

Here are a few examples, which opened the era of mass surveillance cigar-shaped objects:

November 17, 1896 in Sacramento (CA). An eyewitness described a cigar-shaped object with a suspended "nacelle", and a couple of "wheels" on the side, similar to the steamship. In it, he saw two people sitting on something similar to a Bicycle frame, and torque pedals.

22 Nov 1896 residents of Oakland (CA) observed in the sky, cigar-shaped object. The newspaper "the Oakland Tribune" (Oakland tribune) writes about this incident: "this item when it was noticed, it seemed, floated in the sky over San Leandro. He moved quickly, making about 20 miles per hour. It first flew on Northwest, then quickly turned to Keywords and soon disappeared."

In the newspaper "the San Francisco Call" in November of 1896, was published illustration of a mysterious aerial vehicle.

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Since looked these mysterious objects? According to eyewitnesses, they were elongated or ovoid form, their size did not exceed 90 meters, and their speed against the wind was about 30-40 km/h. Also, according to eyewitnesses, almost all of them were equipped with propellers and blades. Sometimes witnesses describe objects with something similar to the cab at the bottom. From them came a hissing, rattling, and sometimes even conversations, singing and laughter. At night these unidentified objects covered the earth with the light of spotlights and flickering colored lights. Some of the witnesses said about the appearance of these objects humanoid creatures.

In these descriptions it is possible to draw Parallels between UFOs and airships. Though at that time scientists and science fiction writers, of course, assumed the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, but most people still believed that such devices are the product of human activity, stepped far forward in their scientific pursuits.

Consider in more detail the technical evolution of airships.

Active development of Aeronautics began with the launch of "Montgolfier" ("Montgolfière"). It was a balloon with a shell filled with hot air, which are called by the names of the inventors - the Montgolfier brothers. The first model is similar fit was submitted in August 1709 scientist Bartolomeu de Guzman. And the first public demonstration flight of the Montgolfier balloon took place in Annonay (Annonay, France) the marketplace 5 June 1783. The Protocol States that the ball rose to a height of 500 meters and stayed in the air for about 10 minutes, flying as 2 kilometers.

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The first flight of the Montgolfier on 5 June 1783

Next was the balloon of Charles, who could rise to the height of 2,000 m, on 7 January 1785, made the first journey across the sea (the balloon was piloted by Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard). Despite the fact that these ships have not yet been manageable, they have been successfully used during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 years for reconnoitering enemy positions, the movement of people and goods.

The author of the concept of the airship is Jean Baptiste Marie Charles Meunier. According to his project that was supposed to be an apparatus in the form of an ellipsoid, and its handling was to be achieved through three propellers rotated manually by the efforts of 80 people. However, this project was never realized.

The first aircraft of cigar-shaped form, with a length of 44 meters and a diameter of 12 m, was constructed in 1852 Henri Giffard. It was the first controllable blimp, named the Airship Giffard. He had a screw, the wheel and steam engine. Changing the volume of the gas in the balloon by use of a ballonet, it was possible to adjust the height of the flight of the airship, so he suggested the two shells — external (primary) and internal.

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The Giffard airship, 1852

In 1884 he was made the first fully controllable free flight French military dirigible with an electric motor La France.

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Airship La France in the hangar. 1884.

After proof of viability of airships soft design engineers began to develop aircraft stronger and more durable. In 1899, construction began on the first of the airships-zeppelins. The first flight of a Zeppelin took place on 2 July 1900.

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Zeppelin over the Summer garden

It is believed that the era of airships ended in 1937, when landing in Lakersthe burned a German passenger airship-liner "Hindenburg". This incident and the earlier disaster of the airship "Winged Foot Express" on July 21, 1919 in Chicago, which killed 12 civilians, negatively affected the reputation of airships as a reliable aircraft. Filled with explosive gas airships rarely burned and suffered the accident, but the disaster caused much greater destruction in comparison with the aircraft at the time. Public outcry from the disaster of the airship was far higher than from a plane crash, and an active use of airships has been discontinued.

Although the era of airships passed, they are still used in different countries for different purposes: advertising, patrol roads, observation of public order, public entertainment, etc. In connection with the rarity of the use of such structures, they are still UFOs.

Undoubtedly, some cases meeting with such UFOs are a hoax, some the result of mass hysteria on the background of interest, fueled by the media, but something probably even atmospheric phenomenon (for example, clouds of unusual shape). To ascertain the true nature of an object need to consider each case individually, what we are doing in the Archive section. While a large number of aircraft attributed to a UFO to the UFO phenomenon at that time, can be considered conventional airships.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»