The Great Airship Inventors
Fact and Fancy
In 1896, all up and down the Sacramento Valley of California, a
blinding light was seen coming from an aerial object and playing on
the ground below. The adverse weather appeared to have NO EFFECT on
the object - it sailed majestically and smoothly along DESPITE the
rain and wind, from Oroville to San Francisco and from Oakland to
Sacramento. What was this strange object with the brilliant light?
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R. Boynton, editor of the Oroville Register, thought he might have
the answer. A few years back, he recalled, there was a mining camp
called Cherokee, at the top of Table Mountain, overlooking Oroville.
Many of its workers were of Portuguese extraction. In the early
80s, he said, they worked the bluffs and celebrated big days with
balloon ascensions. Huge blazing torches would be suspended beneath
the balloons on long ropes and they would float off over the valley,
making for quite a show.
The problem is that the torches would soon burn out and the people
were now reporting a light MUCH BRIGHTER than a torch and, besides,
it was A BEAM OF LIGHT that was reported shining down. To top it
all off, the mining had stopped and the Portuguese HAD LEFT THE AREA
SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE. Still, Table Mountain WOULD make an ideal
site for secret experiments and base of operations due to its rather
inaccessible location and yet nearness to a fair-sized town.
Much has been written about these mystery airships, but little real
research has been undertaken. Most writers have relied on other
writers and their own preconceived opinions and errors have been
compounded. The first sighting is usually given as quot;sometime during
the week of Thanksgiving", but REALLY occurred during the first week
in November, the story first appeared in the papers during
Thanksgiving week. There is a possibility of an even earlier
sighting.
On September 20, 1896, an astronomer named Swift noticed a light
about the magnitude of Venus at its brightest out over the Pacific
Ocean. It was about 1 degree from the setting sun and thought to be
a new comet. The next evening it was not there. Weeks later they
mystery light would be seen to go out over the ocean several times
and disappear or come in from the ocean and head inland.
There are differing versions of the first real sighting of the
craft, but the gist of the event is as follows:
As dusk was descending on San Francisco, His Honor, Mayor Sutro,
arrived at his mansion which was West of the city and overlooked
the ocean. A light was seen coming in from the direction of the
Pacific. It passed over Seal Rocks shining its beam on the
seals, sending them complaining into the water.
One account quoted the witnesses as describing the craft as having a
bright light fore and aft and a row of smaller lights along its
side; however, this appears to have been an embellishment by the
reporter because as it leisurely sailed over Twin Peaks, all that
could be seen was a bright beam of light emitted by a dark and
formless source. Cable cars stopped and the passengers and crew
piled out to watch the wonder silently pass overhead. What was it?
Where had it come from?
November 1, 1896, the Detroit Free Press reported that in the near
future a New York inventor would construct and fly an "aerial
torpedo boat." On November 17, 1896, a telegram was reported to
have been received by the Sacramento Bee from a man in New York who
claimed that he was about to fly to California along with some
friends. He said the trip should take about two days. This might
explain the later sightings, but what about the prior sightings?
And there WERE earlier ones!
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One of the earliest man-made airship stories appeared in the Santa
Fe Daily New Mexican of March 26, 1880. It told of an enormous
airship that swept over this tiny town of Galisteo Junction. It was
cigar shaped with a tail and was driven by a huge propellor. The
occupants were described as inebriated and a couple of items were
thrown overboard - a beautiful rose fastened with a slip of fine
silk-like paper containing what was thought to have been "Oriental
characters" and a cup "of very peculiar workmanship."
The next morning the items were on display at the railroad depot.
That evening a stranger appeared, pronounced them of Asian origin
and made the "owner" a financial deal he could not refuse. The man
and objects then disappeared as would happen again and again in the
future of UFOs.
The story of C.A.A. Dellschau and the Sonora Aero Club has been
presented as the core of this series of articles. But they were not
the only ones who laid claim to the invention of the earliest
airships in the World. In "Milestones of the Air" there is
reproduced a pair of stereo photos showing Frederick Marriott's
"Avitor" airship/airplane combination, flown in California in 1869.
While Marriott was not THE man behind the Airships nearly 30 years
later, his ideas played a part in many later designs. And his
"Avitor" bore a striking resemblance to many of these later ships.
One major difference between the "Avitor" and the airships is that
the "Avitor" utilized a football-shaped gas bag and the later ships
were often described as MADE OF METAL or "Aluminum looking."
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The famous Aurora, Texas, "spaceship" crash is a good example.
While there is a good probability that this story was a hoax, it may
have some basis in fact. The following story was told to the author
and permission to tell it in print was given PROVIDED the names of
the people involved were changed.
In 1888, a 15 year old boy was living with his widowed mother and
sisters on a small farm near the now extinct town of Grundy, Texas.
While working in the garden he heard what he thought was a clap of
thunder. Before he could look up from his weeding, things began to
fall around him, hard little pieces of metal, larger pieces and many
heavy objects which struck the ground. He fled for cover in the
house.
After things stopped falling, he went back outside and walked over
to a large object on the ground, which moved, and proved to be a
man. He was badly hurt, having fallen quite a distance to earth.
His mother and sisters arrived and helped him move the man into the
house, out of the hot Texas sun.
The people at Grundy heard the noise and some men rode out from town
to investigate. At the farm they found out about the "man who fell
from the sky." Some doubted, some laughed; yet they all had a look
at this man. And they told the mother and her children that the man
was not to be moved until the Sheriff could be summoned to the farm.
The Sheriff was not at Grundy and it would take a couple of days to
fetch him. The man regained consciousness that evening and he spoke
to them, but they could not understand his language. They offered
him food, but the only things he accepted were water and a piece of
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melon. A few hours later he died. The family was afraid to move
the body until the Sheriff came, so they wrapped him in a blanket
and left his body on the bed.
The Sheriff did not show up the next day, but several hundred people
from Grundy and the surrounding countryside did. The riders had
told everyone in sight about the man out at the farm and they came
in wagons, on horseback, and on foot to see him. The people
crowding in at the window flattened the garden and what people
didn't trample, the horses did. All day long people showed up,
needing water for their horses. They emptied the tank and pumped
the well dry.
When night fell, the family slipped the body out of the house and
buried it away from the house along with the things the man had with
him. The well went completely dry and, having no reserve water, no
food left in the garden, and no money to have a new well dug, the
family was forced into abandoning the farm.
This story may be considered a pure figment of the imagination, but
several years later, in 1944, this teen-age boy, now an elderly man,
told the story to some friends. Their faces must have shown doubt
because he suddenly rose, left the house and returned a few minutes
later with several pieces of metal, one he handed out for
examination and the rest he placed on the wood stove.
The first piece was very light, about 1/2 inch thick and, roughly,
6" by 9", concave on one side, convex on the other. The edges
looked like they had been "torn", with a crystal structure at right
angles to the face. The metal was a silver-gray color. It could
not be scratched with a file nor dented with a hammer, even on the
edges.
The old man then took the pieces of metal from the stovetop with his
bare hands and passed them around. It was heavier than the first
piece and of smaller dimensions. It was a dark bluish color. And
it was NOT hot, although it had laid on the stove top long enough to
be VERY hot! Though of obvious different composition, this piece
could not be scratched or dented either. When his friends commented
that they must be pieces of some new metal for airplanes, the old
man laughed and said he'd had those fragments since HE WAS A KID!
They were some of the pieces he had picked up when the man fell from
the sky. He also said that many of those who had come by had also
picked up pieces, but he did not know if any of them were still
around. He DID know that there were still pieces to be found around
the old farm.
(While the author has not personally visited the site nor knows
of its EXACT location, he was in contact with a gentleman who
said he had found it in North Texas near the Panhandle. (Near
Amarillo or Canyon, possibly...Vangard)
There were no buildings there, only traces where they had once
stood. He also found a few small pieces of shrapnel-like
metal slightly buried in the soil. But before a full report
could be made or the metal tested, he died in a traffic
accident and his wife threw the fragments away along with his
notes.
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Anyone who has information about strange fragments of metal
from this area or is interested in pursuing this story
personally, please contact me through KeelyNet (info at
beginning of this file).)
As mentioned previously, the Grundy airship and the Aurora airship
stories have a number of points in common. We may never know
whether they are two different stories or one based on the other.
With the 3-ring circus atmosphere at Aurora, the destruction caused
by over-zealous "investigators", as well as the harassment of the
citizens, it is no wonder people began to deny the event ever took
place and claimed it was a hoax from the beginning!
But was it entirely a hoax? Could there have been some truth in it?
Could there be a stranger's body buried somewhere in the cemetery?
Maybe not an Alien but A HUMAN BODY belonging to an airship inventor
who spoke a language other than English? To prevent the same things
from happening in the Grundy story, the names of the families
involved and their present whereabouts have been withheld, pending
further investigation. The town of Grundy no longer exists and had
not for many years, so no ones privacy will be invaded by divulging
ITS name.
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More down to Earth, so to speak, are the following stories :
The Galveston Daily News of April 29, 1897 reads:
"It may be that those people out west who for the last six
months have been filling the papers with accounts of a
mysterious airship which they have seen in the sky are not
monumental liars after all. It is possible that experiments
now being made by the U.S. Government with a view to producing
a genuine air ship may be responsible for their visions.
"For several years the government has had in its employ a well-
known aeronaut, who gets, it is said, a salary of $10,000 a
year, and constant work and experiment have been going on at
Fort Logan, near Denver. A profound secrecy has been
maintained as to what has been accomplished, even Army
officers themselves only getting vague inklings of what is
going on."
Somehow this sounds familiar in today's UFO world. Who this well-
known aeronaut really was, was not divulged, but papers across the
country listed dozens of POSSIBLE inventors of the mystery airships,
among the many named included the following partial list :
George Jennings - Fresno, California
W. H. Warren - Hayward, California
John A. Horen - San Jose, California
Anton Pallardy - Beatrice, Nebraska
H. John O. Prease - Omaha, Nebraska
Clinton A. Case (A.C. Clinton) - Omaha, Nebraska
Charles Clinton - Dodge City, Kansas
Harry Tibbs - Louisville, Kentucky
Edward J. Pennington - Mount Carmel, Illinois
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C. Devonbaugh - Vandalia, Illinois
Valney Stewart - Brule, Wisconsin
Other names tossed around included :
J. F. Calipha George Francis Train
Prof. Charles Davidson Albert Whipple
Three names are not included in the above lists :
C.A.A. Dellschau - the central character of this series of
articles,
Mr. Wilson - the pilot of an airship reported in the first
of this series and his equally mysterious
"rich Uncle", and
Dr. Benjamin - and HIS uncle.
Early in November, 1896, a Bay Area attorney had received assurances
from an inventor, who wished to remain anonymous, that the problems
of air travel had been solved, George D. Collins let it leak out
that the mystery craft seen over Sacramento and the surrounding
countryside was the invention of his new client. He later stated
that $100,000 and five years had gone into perfecting the 150 foot
machine and that he had been "favored with a demonstration at a
secret location." By the 22nd, his home and office were overrun by
reporters and just plain snoopers, pressing him for details.
Backed into a corner, Collins admitted that the craft was hidden in
a barn in Berkeley during the daylight hours and that a Dr. Benjamin
had something to do with the builiding of it. "Dr. Benjamin" turned
outo be E. H. Benjamin of Ellis Street, a 34-year old bachelor,
dentist, and dabbler with inventions and recently from somewhere in
Maine. He denied any knowledge of this ship. He did admit he had
frequently visited an unnamed uncle at Oroville and that he had
privately confided to friends that he had invented something which
would revolutionise the world.
Government agents, detectives, reporters and railroad men were quick
to swarm over Oroville especially when they heard Benjamin say that,
if he HAD invented the craft, he wouldn't be so foolish as to admit
it in public. The uncle was never found nor was any evidence that
an airship had been built there as claimed.
Attorney Collins, hounded by reporters, the curious, and the
outright cranks, changed his story completely and denied ever having
ANY knowledge at all of the craft. The Patent Office in Washington,
D.C., was flooded with inquiries about Collins application.
Disclaimers were returned instead.
"Aluminum Benjamin", as he became known probably because several
close witnesses claimed it looked "like aluminum", complained to the
press that he had to move to escape the curious and that eating in
public restaurants proved to be impossible because throngs would
quickly gather to stare, giggle, and gesture at the windows of the
establishment. He feared his mind would soon become unhinged.
Benjamin finally fled the area leaving what personal effects he had
behind in his apartment.
In the meantime, Collins had been fired for talking too much and
slowly faded out of the picture. W. H. H. Hart now came forward
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claiming that HE was in secret communication with the inventor.
Hart was a former State Attorney General, a bearded, distinguished
looking gentleman and one of the most respected men in California.
In the 1907 issue of the National Cyclopedia of American Biography,
it was stated that Hart was the discoverer of "the only mine in the
world in which osmium is found in metal form....in large
quantities." The metal was used chiefly in the manufacture of
electric storage batteries. One of the chief features of these
aircraft were their powerful SEARCHLIGHTS that could turn night into
day from hundreds of feet above.
Hart also stated that while he knew very little about the airship
THERE, he had been concerned with its sister ship IN THE EAST for
some time. He refused to say much about either ship and nothing
about the inventors or where the ships were built or housed.
Sightings became rare and with no NEW news, the story was dropped -
unsolved!
Then in the April 12, 1897, issue of the Chicago Journal appeared a
brief item. It stated that Oscar D. Booth of 158 South Peoria
Street firmly believed the strange object seen was indeed an
airship. It seems Mr. Booth was ready to build one himself and was
merely waiting for the return of the Secretary of the Booth Flying
Machine Company whose name, by the way, was E. H. BENJAMIN!
Coincidence? Coincidences abound in the story of the Great
Airships. A few have been brought out in this article. Another in
the following.
Several times and in different parts of the country witnesses have
stated that they had met the captain/or crew of the local airship
and had been informed the craft had been to THE MONTEZUMA MOUNTAINS.
In researching the Dellschau material, he, too, mentioned flying to
the MONTEZUMA MOUNTAINS, but no map could be found showing any such
mountains. Finally, two old maps were found. One Mexican map shows
a range of mountains in the southern part of California just below
San Francisco that bear the label MONTEZUMA MOUNTAINS. (The exact
peaks have not yet been identified with today's labelling.)
A second old map shows another Montezuma Mountains. This one in New
York. It is now, ironically, a wild fowl preserve and is not too
far from Goshen, New York, the alleged home of the mysterious "Mr.
Wilson" and HIS uncle!