From: "True UFOs and outer space quaterly" nø 15, Fall 1979, 66-67
The Year 1896 Was a Vintage Year for World Changes and Scientific
Advances, But No One Was Prepared for the California Sky Show!
Flying machines were nothing more than a gleam in the
eyes of Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1896. Or were they?
Hundreds of Californians swore they saw an airship just
before Thanksgiving that year, no doubt about it. The only
question was whether what they saw came from Table
Mountain--or Mars.
It first …ppeared in Sacramento, on the day before turkey
day. Hundreds agreed that, between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. on
Wednesday the 18th, a "dark object with a huge and power-
ful searchlight which cast a bright ray upon the ground
appeared. Several persons said they heard voices singing
and observed the vessel moved slowly with a rocking. mo-
tion. Apparently the ship was cigar-shaped with four large
wings that were "worked by compressed air." The body of
the ship was supposedly made of aluminum and a powerful
searchlight on front and bottom was produced from electric-
ity." But nobody got a really good look at the ship--they
were blinded by the searchlight.
Contemporaries said it hovered over the golden dome of
the state capital, then headed off for San Francisco. The
following Monday evening, horses were frightened in the
streets of Oakland by anather sighting of the "monster of
the air," which swept its huge electric gaze over the city
before moving off toward the bay. It was sighted the same
night across the bay--in San Francisco. Both Mayor Davies
of Oakland and Mayor Sutro of San Francisco said they saw
it.
Sutro, settled in for the evening at his manor, on Sutro
Heights, of course, said his entire household saw it as it
made its way in from the ocean. Whoever was at the con--
trols was at least as playful as a seal. Probably more. Whe n
the strange craft came to Seal Rock, it turned its spotlight
down on the seals.
` That was more than the seals could take. They yelped
and barked in protest at the light and all of them dove into
the surf to duck it. Eventually the craft left and the seals
came back.
The show wasn't just for the Mayor at his eyrie home and
it wasn't just done to bug seals. Shortly after it passed over
the mayor's house, the craft was seen near Twin Peaks,
bringing cable cars to a screeching halt as conductors and
passengers alike alit from the cars to get a good look at the
"glowing giant." Later, at 9:15 p.m., it was seen by many
honest, sober citizens about 400 feet above Van Ness Av-
enue. Then it rose, lumbered over the Ferry Building, and
made off in the general direction of Oakland--again--
where many citizens spent a cold, rainy night on their
rooftops in hop‚s of catching another glimpse of this
strange invention, this craft that had baffled Leonardo da
Vinci and was still eluding the skills of the most advanced engineers, scientists and inventors of the enlightened days
of the Gay 90s.
Naturally, the press was quick to get wind of the wonder.
First on the streets was the San Francisco Call, which came
out Thanksgiving morning with a full-page account of the
eerie visitation. The headline was a sensational "Strange
Craft of the Sky," and the glowing account produced what
you might expect: zealous debunking by both the rival
Chronicle and the Examiner. "Preposterous." "Balder-
dash," said the papers which couldn't produce a strange
craft of the sky yarn of their own.
And what do you know? They were so besieged by irate
raders who had jolly well seen it themselves and what did
the Examiner and Chronicle take them for? Irresponsible?
Given to hallucinations? Liars?--that before long all the
papers in the state were flooding their readers with ink,
marvelling at the unbelievable sights in the skies of Sac-
ramento, Oakland and Frisco.
William Randolph Hearst was keeping his readership
alert to the Spanish menace in those davs, and one immediate reaction to the possibility that men were flyingaround the California skies was--well, could they be Spanish men in those, flying machine ? Another quick reaction came from the railroads, which visualized heavier-than-air craft carrying people and cargo over the Sierra Nevada mountains, for instance, in a matter of hours. Their reaction was to assign detectives to find out who built the
planes--and buy them out, no matter what the cost.
The gentlemen of the press no doubt showed some silly
reactions to the novelty--if, indeed, one existed. But here's
what John Apperson of the Willows Review had to say: "If
all is certain that has been claimed, California will bear the`
proud distinction of having a genius within her borders who
has made the first successful flying machine, for it goes
against the wind with greater ease than a bird, and is
fashioned after the shape of a condor of the Andes.
"With the advent of this flying machine comes the solu-
tion to the mystery of a visit to the North Pole; air
navigators can make a tour of the world, not in 80 days, but
in a week. It will meet with no impediments, like unto the
vessels that plow the deep, or the railroad train that crosses
the raging stream, but will glide along rapidly through
every atmosphere congenial to the night of a bird. It will be
useful in battle to observe the enemy's camp or drop dyna-
mite bombs into a hostile camp. To take it all in all, the
flying machines and airships are necessary appliances
among the rapid inventions of the nineteenth century. Man
has chained the lightning and brought it as a captive into
our homes, and now, he poses as a competitor and rival to
the night of the largest and swiftest birds."
Well, who did develop this aerial wonder, and when
would it reappear, and where? As a matter of fact, it doesn't
seem to Have showed up again at all, but let's not get ahead
of ourselves.
In due course, prominent San Francisco attorney George
A. Collins showed up at the offices of the Call, stating that
he,had been retained by a San Franciscan to secure the
patent rights on a ¡lying machine which he had put to-
gether back ~n the bush--at rugged, lonely Table Moun-
tain, neaP Oroville. Collins wasn't giving out the name of
his client. As a matter of fact, Collins and client were
properly miffed at the newspaper, they said, because the
wondrous story of the flying machine had come out too soon
spoiling the impact the builder wanted.
Those snoopy reporters of the Call noticed that one of
Collins' clients was Dr. E.H. Benjamin, a 34-year-old
bachelor, a dentist, and a dabbler with inventions. Dr. Ben-
jamin, visited late at night,idenied any connectioh with any
new-fangled tlying machines, but admitted he had a weal-
thy uncle in Oroville, and that the dentist had been visiting
him a lot lately. On the other hand, Dr. Ber~amin let drop in
a later interview, he in fac~ had been working "casually" on
a machine that might get off the ground. But he said if he
had invented anything 80 outlandish as what had been seen
in the skies around ~alifornia lately, he wouldn't be so
foolish as to admit it in public.
Reports that Oroville was the home of the airship gave
the folk of the town a healthy slug.of town lDride and the
influx of investigators and other curiosity-seeker didn't
hurt..business. But it certainly didn't sit well over in
Maryville.
The editors of the Maryville Daily Appeal weren't about
to let Oroville get away with anything. Readers in the rival
city could get the point of the needle in the following words
from the Appeal: "Oroville has.heen credited in times past
with giving to the world strange and novel ideas, but no one
ever supposed that the 'immortal fame' which the denizens
of that town have always claimed would one day come to
them, would arise in the form of an airship. The story that
has now probably been telegraphed broadcast over two
continents is to the effect that one of the many Oroville
millionaires has at,last perfected a machine that will ny
through the air. One can never tell what a`day may bring
forth. Yesterday, Oroville was a struggling hamlet; today it
it is the home of millionaires and airships."
Government agents, detectives, reporters and others
were quick to descend upon the town, a boom town in the
gold rush of 1849, but somewhat reduced in circumstances
by the turn of the century, as it says between the lines of the
Maryville paper's waspish account. The people of the tQwn
assured all,who would listen that they sure enough had
seen the airship--"plenty o' times"--but all the inv‚s-
tigators could find was a hard day of walking and climbing.
The Oroville Register's editor, R. Se. Boynton, had a clue.
A few years back, he recalled, there was a mining camp
called Cherokee--at the top of Table Mountain. Many of its
people were of Portuguese extraction. In the early 80s, he
said, the Portuguese who worlced the hydraulic bluffs in
those parts celebrated big d…ys with b…loon ascensions.
Huge blazing torches could be suspended be. neath the bal-
loons on long ropes. Sometimes they would float off, over
the valley, usually burning out before they-reached
Maryville, which never seemed to get any of the fun. But,
he said, the Portuguese were all gone from the mountain. `
And, somebody said, the torches of the airships were much
brighter than fire. .
Then along came a report of another airship; this one
alleged to have landed at Comptonville. At least, that's
what William Bull Meek wired the San Francisco
Examiner. Meek was a good ol' boy, a popular pioneer. He
swore that an airship had landed near his town and out of it
emerged a man who could not hear or talk. He told five
witnesses; Meek said, through a series of alphabetical let-
ters, that he had come from the Montezuma mountains.
That story didn't last much longer.
But Collins, the San Francisco attorney for the inventor,
maybe, was losing sleep as he tried to give the slip to
reporters and detectives. The stories improved in the even-
ings, it seems. All Collins was able,to tell anybodyi was that
he just knew what he read in the papers, that and the fact
that his cient claimed he had flown the bird all over the
state but a few minor adjustments were needed before the
patents could be applied for.
Then out came a new report, this time, believe it or not,
from Marysville. Its Daily Democrat reported, in a headline
of considerable size: "It Is Coming!" That was followed by a
letter that read: "Weather permitting, we expect to leave
Oroville Sunday at 7 p.m. and should fly over Marysville at
7:30 p.m. (Signed) the Northern California Air Ship Co."
So, along came Sunday, and the people of Marysville
found themselves on their rooftops looking. No plane. But
the Democrat had another letter on Monday: "Pirates of the
Air .. . Airship Schedule for Marysville was Waylaid in
Heavens above Honeut . . . a letter from the Captain." The
letter from the captain left most readers with the mind of a
12-year-old with the strong feeling thst a leg~or two had
` been pulled. For instance:
The airship was going along nicely, heading for Marys-
ville, when it was intercepted near Honcut by a hot air
balloon carrying three men in a basket. Flashing their
searchlight on the three, the crew of the airship was able to
recognize them as reporters from the examiner (deemed, by
the airshipmen, as "antagonistic"). An X-ray machine re-
vealed bags of salt on the floor of the baaket. The balloonists
poured the salt on the tail of the airsbip, rendering its
s~teering gears useless. The pirates hurled grindstones at
the airship, which didn't slow it down, but the Thanksgiv-
ing edition of the Marysville Appeal was also thrown and
the papers stuck in the rotary wings of the airship, bringing
it down. Heavy-handed frontier humor. Some liked it, some
didn't. The Marysville residents who spent the night on
their rooftops awaiting the airship, and some bigtown re-
-porters from San Francisco were among those who failed to
see the humor.
And there the story seems to end. Collins and Dr. Benjamin never said anything more on the subject, which was to
be forgotten in the excitement of the Spanish-American
War. Now, more than 80 years afler the appearance, or
apparition, we know no more of San Francisco's flying
machine than they did on Thanksgiving Day, 1896.