Description

We need to tease out to follow the Airship Hysteria of 1896-97

The general conclusion of investigators was that a considerable number of the simpler sightings were misidentification of planets and stars, and a large number of the more complex the result of hoaxes and practical jokes. A small residuum remains perplexing.

The 1896-1897 wave of sightings came in two separate phases; the first, largely in California in late 1896 and the second, in the central and eastern US during the spring of 1897.The total number of reported sightings was in the thousands; based on newspaper reports, the total number of witnesses may have exceeded 100,000

https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1990/01/…