The phantom airship stories are starting to spread politically and geographically. So far only conservative newspapers have taken much interest in the 'fly-by-night', and so far it has only been seen in Norfolk and nearby areas. Both of these limitations make some sense: national defence is a particular concern of conservatives, and a single airship might conceivably have been the cause of all the sightings in the course of a few weeks' worth of test flights from a nearby secret base. But now the Liberal Manchester Guardian has its first report (p. 7) on the mystery airship, and it's from Belfast! The full text of the telegram from Belfast is as follows:

Wonderment but feebly expressed the feelings of over a score of Belfast people residing in different districts, who just after dusk last night witnessed the manœuvring of a strange aerial visitor as it passed over the southern suburbs of the Irish commercial capital, and which, high in the heavens, sped swiftly in a north-easterly direction towards the Irish Sea. The accounts of those whose attention was attracted to the strange visitant substantially agree as regards the main incidents of the mysterious occurrence.

Probably between two and three thousand feet high, a brilliant moving light was first observed about ten o'clock in the direction of Collin Mountain. It moved speedily onwards, occasionally dipping towards the ground, but always keeping at a high altitude. As the remarkable visitor came more directly over Belfast it was just possible in the gloom to distinguish a cigar-shaped object leaving no doubt in the minds of the observer that the strange spectre was an airship. That someone was on board the occasional flashing of a red light conclusively proved. All the spectators are agreed as to the brilliant headlight of the visitor.

When fairly off the residential parks off Malone Road, it slackened speed, sailing slowly but steadily. Then, rising majestically, it disappeared in the darkened eastern sky.

So what are we to make of this? Belfast is a long way from East Anglia; it's stretching credulity that the same airship could have flown from one place to the other without being seen. (Nobody has even flown the English Channel yet, let alone the Irish Sea.) So are two separate inventors making test flights? Two separate German warships launching airships on reconnaissance flights? One of each? Something else entirely?

The Manchester Guardian's London correspondent also discusses (p. 6) the mystery (though was evidently unaware of the Belfast sighting at the time of writing). They think that, although there has been some hoaxing going on ('One or two messages have been crude impostures' -- I'm not sure what this refers to, unless it is the strange object found at Clacton), the whole affair is 'too stupid to be only a hoax when it is done so woodenly'. And 'so many quite uncomical people like doctors and lawyers and so forth' have seen or heard something strange that there is a feeling that 'flight must be going on'. But the correspondent doubts the popular theory that some inventor is testing their airship at night to avoid detection. Not that secretive inventors are improbable -- the Wright brothers, who visited London recently, prove otherwise -- but that it is 'incredible that any man can be successfully using an airship by night'. (Again, no aviator has successfully carried out a night flight.) 'No, it really will not do as an explanation' -- but no alternative is offered.

There was also some parliamentary scareship activity yesterday. After the War Minister, Richard Haldane, was questioned by a Conservative MP on German funding for airships and whether Britain intends to follow suit, a Liberal backbencher, Horatio Myer (Lambeth North), asked Haldane the following:

Will the right hon. Gentleman, in any Report he may circulate, tell us about a certain dirigible supposed to be hovering about our coast?

That's from the online Hansard. According to the report in The Times today (p. 7), Myer's question was followed by laughter. Haldane gave no answer, which means that even though Haldane and Myer are from the same party, this is not a Dorothy Dixer (to use an Australian anachronism). Perhaps it was intended to make the preceding questions on airship funding look ridiculous by association?

On page 9 of the London Standard today is a short article entitled 'ELUSIVE AIRSHIP'. Evidently the story is not quite new, for it begins:

The mystery of the elusive airship still continues to attract attention, and the belief is gaining ground that there is some foundation to the various reports. Obviously something has been seen and heard at night in the sky, usually at places in East Anglia, Clacton, Southend, Peterborough, Lincoln, Ipswich, to quote only a few instances.

But this is the first time that the Standard has made mention of this mystery (at least in May), so the writer appears to assume that the reader will be aware of the story from other newspapers. There is a new sighting (or rather hearing) to report, however, at Windsor made by Patrick Alexander, 'the well-known expert on aeronautics, who is not likely to make a mistake'. One night recently -- the date is not given -- he 'heard at night sounds apparently of an airship in motion'. Alexander thought it was the Army airship but this is not thought capable of such a 'bold exploit'. Which is probably true: Baby, the only airship possessed by the government at this time, was not a very robust craft and was not flown much until rebuilt as Beta in 1910. The Standard has another idea:

One "explanation" is that some one owns an airship, and is trying it at night. It is known that there are one or two under secret construction in the country, but the difficulty is, given the relatively short period of darkness, to see how it avoids being detected in the early dawn.

This is not implausible. 1909 was at the dawn of the air age, and many people were trying to build aeroplanes and airships. One of the most successful of the latter were the Willows airships, designed and built by E. T. Willows of Cardiff. He was between airships at this time, however: Willows No. 2 was not to fly until November, and besides Wales is a long way from East Anglia. But who knows, maybe some hardy inventor was testing their contraption over Windsor a few nights ago.

That's the only phantom airship story in today's papers, or rather in the sample of papers I've examined. Although it's only a small article, it is on page 9, in the middle of the paper, which more or less took the place the front page in today's newspapers. So it's not unimportant, either.

What else is going on today? Just below the 'elusive airship' story is another brief article reporting that the Wright brothers have sold 14 of their aeroplanes (first publicly demonstrated in 1908) in Europe: 10 in France, 2 to Austria, 1 to Germany and 1 to Britain. But the Standard is clearly more interested in the lengthy report of its special correspondent in Germany, who has toured shipyards in an effort to ascertain just how many dreadnoughts are under construction there (nine, it looks like). This, of course, is an echo of the great dreadnought panic which took place in March, when there was a violent political and press frenzy over claims that Germany was accelerating its naval construction and so might, conceivably, overtake the Royal Navy at some point. This then raised the prospect of a German invasion of Britain -- or at least it did for Conservative papers like the Standard.

Other newspapers -- again, at least the Conservative ones -- have a similar mix of reports on defence and aviation issues. The London Globe, for example, has articles on the global naval balance (Britain has 53 battleships to Germany's 32), a successful flight by the (singular) Army aeroplane (it flew as far as 1200 feet in one hop, reaching a height of 50 feet), the upcoming Frankfurt aeronautic exhibition (where various German cities will offer prizes to encourage progress), and a statement by Wilbur Wright on the future of aviation (of little use for military purposes at the moment). There's clearly already a discourse going on about the role aircraft will play in war. But so far, however, the 'elusive airship' is not being framed as any sort of threat to the nation; it's merely a curiosity.