Bartee Haile
A breathless farmer burst into the Stephenville office of the Dallas News on Apr. 17, 1897 and excitedly announced, “I have found it!”
“Found what?” asked the local correspondent for the big-city paper.
“Found the airship the ‘Dallas News’ has been talking about!”
The mysterious airships, presumed to be plural because of the many sightings, were the talk not only of Texas but the western half of the country. First observed over Sacramento, California on Nov. 17, 1896, the phantom fleet had since moved steadily eastward reaching the Lone Star State in early April 1897.
The initial report came from Denison, where a man claimed to have spotted a “brilliantly illuminated” object while walking home at three o’clock in the morning on Apr. 5. His attention attracted by a strange “swishing” sound, he looked up to see one of the incredible intruders a quarter of a mile above him.
Nine nights later, a “machine” with a bright light resembling that of a locomotive passed over Weatherford. Later that evening, the same or a similar craft visited Corsicana according to several prominent citizens. In the opinion of a doctor, “it was certainly not a meteor, for the reason that the light was intermittent appearing to come and go.”
Neither these first-hand accounts nor the hundreds of others in Texas and elsewhere could be explained by man-made craft. The Wright brothers’ breakthrough at Kitty Hawk was six years in the future, and balloons were still rare and restricted to daylight ascents.
The inhabitants of Farmersville got a much closer look on Apr. 15. “Fully two-thirds of the citizens were out looking at what they supposed to be a large planet or meteor” but “in a very few moments…the queer thing was almost hanging over the city.”
The city marshal said the contraption came within two hundred feet of the ground, and he could plainly see three occupants – two men and a big dog. Another observer swore he heard a clearly visible trio singing the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.”
That same night 75 miles to the west, the Texas and Pacific operator at the Cresson depot on the outskirts of Fort Worth saw what he described as “the top of a passenger coach…long and pointed at both ends with (a) powerful searchlight in the front (and) several smaller ones on the side.” “This is dead straight,” he said without a trace of doubt. “I am now convinced there is something in this airship business.”
Most of Granbury had turned in for the night on Apr. 16, while the editor of the Hood County Truth continued to drill the volunteer rifle company. The citizen soldier was so shaken by the sudden appearance of an “air machine” that “he ordered the company to fire on the object, which it did.”
On the 17th, the aforementioned farmer provided the Stephenville representative of the “Dallas News” with details of the most amazing encounter to date. Early that morning, he had come upon an airship “on the ground.” Two strangers, who introduced themselves as the pilot and the engineer, told the Texan they had been forced to land in order to make emergency repairs.
The farmer hurried into town, rounded up 23 individuals and led them back to the site “to view the aerial monster.” The members of the well-behaved mob included two newspapermen, three judges, the district attorney, the mayor and three physicians.
Although the travelers refused to allow the delegation on-board the cigar-shaped contraption, apparently powered by a pair of metallic windmills, they spoke at length about their “experimental trip.” Working under contract to “certain capitalists of New York,” the cloud-hoppers rated their adventure “a great success” and predicted “that in a short time the navigation of the air will be an assured fact.”
With that the two thanked the throng for their interest and hospitality, cranked up the flying cigar and floated away on a southwesterly heading toward Comanche.
At almost that exact hour, a Waxahachie judge was having a close encounter of his own. The jurist and a fishing companion happened upon “five peculiarly dressed men…stretched out full length on some furs” and puffing on their pipes.
Parked close-by was an airship roughly half the length of the Stephenville vessel but considerably wider and with room enough for all the conveniences of home. The judge’s impression of the accommodations was based not upon speculation but a guided tour of the interior on which he saw “bunks, cooking department (galley), gasoline stove” and other necessities of life in the Gay Nineties.
These passers-by also hailed from the North – the North Pole. They provided a crash course on the history of their “splendid country” from the original settlement by the wandering tribes of Israelites to the accidental arrival of several “lost” polar expeditions.
The rash of UFO sightings in the Stephenville area in the early years of the current century, 200 in a two-month period, is nothing to sneeze at but hardly the first of its kind. Judging from the newspaper accounts of the 1890’s, unidentified flying objects are a common sight in North Texas. second fiddle.
Read all about the early years of the oil frenzy in “Texas Boomtowns: A History of Blood and Oil” Order your autographed copy for $24.00 by mailing a check to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393.
