Airships were just featured in one of me online newsletters:
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UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 2002
From the UFO Files...
1909: AIRSHIP FLAP BREAKS OUT IN ESSEX, UK
In addition to the USA's New England states and New Zealand's South Island, "airships"--the UFOs of a century ago--also made an appearance in UK during the year 1909. In fact, May 1909 was the peak of this early British flap.
Ufologist Carl Grove, in an article in Flying Saucer Review, described the sightings in UK during this period. Grove wrote, "The 1909 airship was a dark, cigar-shaped object carrying a rather bright 'searchlight' about a hundred feet (30 meters) in length, which maneuvered with ease. Like its 1897 predecessor, it is the behavious and not the appearance of the airship that connects it with the modern UFO phenomenon."
One of the early sightings in this particular flap took place on May 9, 1909 at Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Here is the verbatim testimony of the eyewitness, Miss H.M. Boville:
"I was closing the window of my bedroom, which faces northeast, at about 11:20 (p.m.) when I noticed a very dark object looming out of the sky, and travelling slowly from the direction of Shoeburyness. At first I thought it was the gunpowder cloud that one sees after an explosion, it was so opaque and black, and the night was too dark to enable me to see it clearly. After a few seconds, however, it crossed the sky and remained nearly stationary in front of my window. I could see the outline of a torpedo-shaped airship, very long and large. It was not more than a quarter of a mile above the houses and trees, and remained immovable for a few minutes, then rose higher, and travelled very swiftly in a westerly direction toward the coast and London, showing, as it did so, two very powerful searchlights at either end for a second or two. I did not hear any sound from the engines, as it was too far off, nor could I discern the aeronauts; but the vessel seemed to travel very steadily and smoothly."
(See Mysterious Visitors by Brinsley LePoer Trench, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1978, pages 98 and 99. See also the Evening News of London for May 15, 1909.)
(Editor's Comment: Meanwhile, in 1909, at a certain flat at 22B Baker Street, London, a small fist knocks on the door. The violin music comes to an end, and a Yorkshire voice says, "Watson, I do believe we have visitors." And as the door swings open...well, you'll find the whole story in The Remarkable Affair of the Visitors from Out of Town by John H. Watson, M.D. That is, if you can find the manuscript that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle buried in Newgrange, Ireland.)
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