The Times (p. 6; above) has two paragraphs about the reported visit of an unknown flying machine to Dover at about 5am on Saturday morning, 4 January 1913, evidently coming from the direction of the Continent and heading north-east. It was seen by John Hobbs, a corporation employee (i.e. a council worker), though he heard it first:
His attention was first attracted by the noise of the motors, which is well known at Dover, and on looking in the direction from which the sound came he saw a light moving at a great speed from the direction of the sea. The throb of the engines as the machine passed over the town was very distinct.
Two other men, a tradesman named Langley and Police Constable Pierce, also heard the engine sounds though apparently did not see anything. The Times's correspondent in Dover adds that the shape of the machine could not be made out, but that 'owing to the fact that it carried a light and the noise of the engines it is believed to have been an airship and not an aeroplane'. The London Evening Telegraph and Post, p. 5, has much the same story, but adds a few details: for example that Hobbs was out 'inspecting the roads as to whether they required gravelling for the safety of traffic', which isn't really useful, and that the reason why the 'noise of the motors [...] is a well-known sound at Dover' (as The Times also said) is because 'there has been so much flying' there (presumably referring to the cross-Channel traffic), which is. The Evening Telegraph also adds that 'The wind at the time was blowing nearly half a gale from the westward':
It could only have been a powerfully-engined aircraft to have flown in such a wind, and daring airmanship was also involved in the flight.
The Manchester Courier, p. 7, somewhat more precisely puts the windspeed at 'nearly thirty miles an hour'. It also says that 'police officers', plural, heard the engine whereas the Times and the Evening News mention only one, but that might just be a misinterpretation as it doesn't mention the tradesman. However, the Manchester Guardian, p. 7, also says 'police officers'. It suggests that 'the remarkable thing' is that despite the airship last being seen heading inland, 'no report of her passing or landing has been received from anywhere'.
In introducing its account of the Dover incident, the Liverpool Echo, p. 3, asks 'Are we in danger of another "phantom airship" scare?' Only time will tell.
This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of January-April 1913. See here for an introduction to the series.
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Thursday, 9 January 1913
[...] to the airship supposedly seen at Dover on Sunday, the Devon and Exeter Gazette notes, p. 4 (above), that 'similar lights have been seen on [...]
Friday, 10 January 1913
[...] number of newspapers print articles of varying length about the Dover airship mystery today, including the Yeovil Western Gazette, the Exeter Western Times, and the Lichfield Mercury. [...]
Saturday, 11 January 1913
[...] has taken notice of the airship seen at Dover, though it's almost the last item in today's issue, tucked in with a few miscellaneous [...]
Saturday, 18 January 1913
[...] pseudonymous author of 'Eddies', a regular commentary on aviation matters, is 'wondering whether the mysterious Dover "aircraft" after all is found in the suggestion that the noises were due to a motor boat', p. 71. This appears [...]
Tuesday, 21 January 1913
[...] But the Standard, the only paper to explicitly mention other scareship sightings, mentions only the Dover and Bristol Channel ones. As Dinas Powis is also in Glamorganshire, perhaps that explains the [...]
Wednesday, 22 January 1913
[...] A mysterious airship is seen at daybreak travelling from the sea in a north-easterly direction over Dover, the prevailing wind blowing half a [...]
Sunday, 2 February 1913
[...] is followed by a very brief résumé of the major sightings of the past four weeks: Dover, Cardiff, Liverpool, Aberystwyth and Manchester. Nothing new here except in the last case: the [...]
Saturday, 8 February 1913
[...] voyage in an airship. (Though it should be noted that the wind was blowing 'half a gale' during the Dover incident a month ago.) And the Sheringham sighting was of not one but three airships (or aeroplanes); [...]
Thursday, 30 January 1913
[...] Dover, Jaunary [sic] 4. Yarmouth, January 15. Bristol Channel and Cardiff, January 18 [should be January 17]. Yarmouth, January 23. [...]
Sunday, 2 March 1913
[...] airship scare almost completely, although it was in fact one of the first newspapers to report the Dover incident nearly two months ago (5 January 1913, p. 9). It has broken its silence today because, thanks to [...]