Santa Claus Is Coming to Town in a Mystery Airship
On Christmas 1896, holiday traditions merged with the craze of proto-UFOs that had been sweeping the skies over the United States.
By Kevin J. Guhl
A wave of mystery airship sightings emerged above California in November 1896, ultimately working its way eastward across the U.S. during the first half of 1897. Occurring just seven years before the Wright Bros. soared over Kitty Hawk, this weird epidemic immediately presaged the dawn of powered flight. Numerous newspapers recorded encounters with everything from strange lights to large propellered craft hovering in the night-time sky. The pilots were theorized to be secretive inventors testing prototype craft, although in some cases they were said to be visitors from other worlds. In many ways, the phenomenon is eerily similar to the mystery drones that began buzzing New Jersey and other states in the last couple months of 2024. In 1896, the mystery airships made such an impact on the public consciousness in California that they infiltrated the most jolly of holidays—Christmas, itself!
At the Methodist church in Vallejo, Santa Claus made an unexpected entrance, said to have arrived on an "airship." To the shouts of mingled surprise and welcome from the children who filled the church, J. Hartman in the guise of St. Nick entered through a window at the peak of the ceiling and slid down a rope to join the festivities below. Meanwhile, Police Judge Campbell rode in as Santa on a bicycle to entertain about 500 kids at the First Christian Church at 13th and Jefferson streets in Oakland. Santa nearly took a header off the bike several times until Rev. Edwards Davis leapt forward and wrestled the wobbly, two-wheeled steed to a halt. Santa disembarked near the Christmas tree at the pulpit and told the crowd, "I'm a little late, but it's all right. I've had a long, hard ride. At 5 o'clock I left my workshop, just above Sitka, Alaska. Now I am going to tell you a secret. I'm the mysterious inventor of the airship. I've just come in on it from the North, stopping at Vancouver, New Westminster, Portland and other places, where I filled up boys' and girl's stockings—good boys and girls. I was delayed, because I lost a feather out of one wing of my airship. At Portland I caught a seagull, got a feather out of his wing, put it in my machine's wing and came flying along. Why, I take a fly every night across the bay to my Berkley home. This airship business is a great thing. I am going to take a long trip tonight if I do not lose any more feathers. And do you see these whiskers, children? Well, they are all mine and known as the finest in the land." Santa then distributed presents to the old and young and rode off on his bicycle into the rain... presumably to rendezvous with his airship.
The mystery airship made its appearance over, fittingly, Santa Cruz at 9:30 a.m. on Christmas morning. Spectators gathered to observe the hovering craft, which was shaped like a torpedo, about 10 feet long and entirely red. On each side were wings and at the stern was a propeller which revolved in the wind. It was the work of boys from the Y.M.C.A., who suspended their handcrafted Christmas decoration from two poles on the top of the organization's building. Weather permitting, they planned to light the Christmas airship in the evenings.
Jake H. Ring, a druggist in Ferndale, placed a model airship in his store's front window. "Take a look at it," urged the Ferndale Enterprise, "for he sails tonight—Christmas night—for the planet Mars."
Fiel's Variety Store in Folsom advertised, "Have you seen the airship? We have it, filled with candies!" Apparently another model airship, every 25-cent purchase at the store earned the customer a guess at the number of sweets within, the closest guess winning a large supply of Christmas goods.
Of course, what would Christmas be without a genuine airship sighting? However, it happened all the way across the country—as the reindeer flies—near Wilmington, Delaware.
Ezekiel Sergeant, a "grizzly" farmer and milkman from Brandywine, claimed to have seen an airship sailing through the air shortly after daybreak. It was filled with people and illuminated with multi-colored lights. Music drifted down from the brass band that played onboard, and some of the passengers were singing melodies. Sergeant and a helper had just finished milking the cows and were returning to the farmer's house holding "buckets brimful of the foaming liquid" when they were stunned by the spectacle. The airship was about a half-mile up and floating toward the northeast. A powerful searchlight beamed from the vessel, revealing it to be a huge machine shaped like a fish, "with wide-spreading wings and a mighty tail."
While the two men watched, something crashed to the ground just outside the doorway, flying glass scattering in every direction. Suddenly, the airship extinguished its lights and turned about, making a complete circle and darting off to the southeast. Sergeant and his helper scoured the ground for the missile which had fallen from the clouds. After a few minutes, they discovered a broken bottle that displayed the name "J. Krause & Co., Salt Lake City Utah." While the top of the bottle had broken, the label and lower part remained intact. Inside was a slip of paper that contained the following message:
On board the air-ship Icarus. Thursday afternoon, December 24, 1896. The air-ship Icarus, Captain James Dashiel, with Thomas Murphy as companion, et al., Salt Lake City 10 P.M. Tuesday, December 8, bound for Cuba. Wind due east, blowing at the rate of sixty miles an hour. At an altitude of one mile we found a steady current. Machinery working to a charm. All well. Provisions sufficient for a week longer. Will land in the neighborhood of Jacksonville, Fla. Send word, collect, to Hatcher & Mills, bankers, 720 South Second Street, Salt Lake City, Utah.
JAMES DASHIEL, captain.
THOMAS MURPHY.
Sergeant brought the bottle and message into Wilmington, where it caused quite a stir. He entrusted the airship evidence to Anton Hauber of Sixth and Shipley streets, where it was to be further examined.
The Icarus being bound for Cuba reflects an article that ran in the San Francisco Call on July 19, 1896, detailing a daring plan to support the Cubans against the Spanish in the former's war of independence. A Frenchman, Captain E. Lagrifoule, had supposedly improved upon aerial navigation innovations discovered by Dr. Rufus Gibbon Wells and was about to begin work on an airship that could carry 125 men, 1,000 rifles, a half million rounds of ammunition, ingredients to make dynamite, and medical supplies. Lagrifoule planned to construct the airship in a secluded grove in Florida before sailing to Cuba's aid. It was to consist of a boat-shaped car, 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, held solidly between a cluster of five balloons inflated with a secret, lighter-than-air gas "made of chemicals by electric power." An immense screw propelled the ship, and sails aided in steering. The aluminum car would have nine windows on each side and "a series of long, narrow openings, closed with aluminum bars, which runs around the upper guard, which runs around the upper deck of the boat." Inside would be comfortable accommodations, an electrical engine room and kitchen, bedrooms, a smoking room and observatory. Water was captured from the clouds. Lagrifoule boasted that the airship could deposit men and arms in Cuba before lifting safely away from enemy fire. This, he believed, would bring a quick end to the war. It is unclear what became of this doomsday vessel, but the Cuban War of Independence waged on through 1898.
Back in California, a loud explosion rocked the business district of Chico at about 9:40 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Police and amateur detectives had to spend their Christmas day tracking down evidence of the mysterious blast. According to the Chico Daily Enterprise, "One prominent citizen suggested that maybe the air-ship passed over Chico and let fall one of those deadly dynamite shells in our midst, but if such is the case we have heard of no damage resulting. Another 'maybe' was that the steam boiler on the air-ship had blown up, but this theory can not be held for the reason that the ship does not use steam power."
Of course, not everyone was caught up in airship mania that Christmas. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote:
Solved at Last.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Now we all know what you are,
Up above the world so high—
You're an airship in the sky.
Happy Holidays, Humans!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.
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Original article posted at:
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