Comments on: Wednesday, 19 May 1909

By: Airminded · Post-blogging the 1909 scareships: thoughts and conclusions

Airminded · Post-blogging the 1909 scareships: thoughts and conclusions — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:12:02 +0000

[...] It was only when two separate sightings of the airship took place in South Wales — by dock workers at Cardiff and the Punch and Judy showman on Caerphilly Mountain — that Liberal papers such as the [...]

By: Airminded · Thursday, 20 May 1909

Airminded · Thursday, 20 May 1909 — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:38:45 +0000

[...] to feed ‹ Wednesday, 19 May 1909 • Friday, 21 May 1909 [...]

By: Airminded · Saturday, 22 May 1909

Airminded · Saturday, 22 May 1909 — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:26:18 +0000

[...] that there are ‘66,000 German reservists in our midst’. That this is being discussed in Parliament shows the ‘the nation is suffering from a severe attack of nerves’. But such panics can [...]

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:08:43 +0000

Avinash:

I think the expectations of the observers played a large role in the airship scares. It's pretty clear that they are inferring the shape from seeing a pair of lights and expecting that a dirigible balloon is strung between them.

Erik:

I'll keep an eye out, but I've already filtered out most everything not aerial. I do have some naval stuff though.

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:31:23 +0000

The whole reading your posts through ellipsis is fun, Brett. Now I'm imagining 66,000 (not a boring 60,000, 66,000!) trained German soldiers crouching in a basement in Charing Cross, waiting for the balloon to go up.
Oh, wait, it did, didn't it?
By the way, as a personal request, if you see anything related to optics and gunsights, could you pass it on? I think that this particular controversy didn't peak until 1911, but my memory is hazy.

By: Avinash Machado

Avinash Machado — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:04:09 +0000

It is interesting to note how these objects are said to be changing their shapes over the years. First they were Cigar shaped, later during the forties and fifties they were Saucer shaped and now they are Triangle shaped.