Phantom airships and other panics

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The mystery car of Maldon

7 November 2009 in 1910s, Civil defence, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Quotes, Rumours by Brett Holman | 3 comments

Here’s an interesting inversion of my usual phantom airship scare. The Zeppelin was real enough — it was L6, raiding Essex on the night of 15 April 1915. The phantom was instead a motor-car:

Since the visit of the Zeppelin early on Friday morning the Maldon district has been full of rumours of mysterious motor-cars with flaming headlights which, passing along the highways, guided the airship to the area where the majority of the bombs were dropped.1

A ’special correspondent’ wrote that only one of the stories seems very plausible, presumably because it was the only one with several independent witnesses. Three couples — two ‘London ladies’ staying at ‘the Hut’ near Lathingdon (Latchingdon?), a Mr. and Mrs. Woods who lived at ‘the Cottage’ also near Lathingdon, and an elderly couple in Mundon, a couple of miles away. They all told a consistent story: the ladies saw the car first, the Woods’ bedroom was then illuminated by the car’s headlights, and a little later it was heard in Mundon, heading towards Maldon. Half an hour later, after Maldon was bombed, the car apparently retraced the same path but in the opposite direction, and with its headlights now much dimmer.

But there were problems with the theory. Heading into Lathingdon, the car was seen arriving from a road junction, but the people living near that junction were adamant that no car passed the junction in the direction of Lathingdon. And on the other side of Lathingdon, a policeman manning a police station was equally adamant that no car passed him either (although he did see a car coming back from Maldon, the occupants of which were known to him):

Altogether the evidence is very contradictory. If the car really existed it cannot have gone so far as Lathington police station, and there is no side road upon which it could have turned off. It may be said that the lights could have been extinguished and the car taken into one of the fields, but in that case it could never have passed through Mundon, where the inhabitants believe it went to pick up the men who, according to their firm belief, had been signalling to the Zeppelin.2

This was a common story in the aftermath of air raids. After the first airship raid on Britain (19 January 1915), inhabitants of Snettisham in Norfolk reported seeing two cars pacing the airship invader, one to the right and one to the left, with occasional flashes of light upwards or onto a significant target, such as the town’s medieval church which indeed suffered some bomb damage. A similar tale was told in nearby King’s Lynn.3
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  1. The Times, 19 April 1915, 5.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid., 21 January 1915, 10; 22 January 1915, 34; 23 January 1915, 10.

The phantom balloon scare of 1892

11 July 2009 in Before 1900, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Quotes by Brett Holman | 2 comments

Perhaps the first mass outbreak of mystery aircraft sightings took place in 1892 in Russian-occupied Poland, near the German border. The Manchester Guardian reported on 26 March that a ‘large balloon coming from the German frontier appeared about the fortress of Kovno‘. The Russian defenders fired at it, but it returned safely over the border.1 On 7 March, something similar had been seen near Dombrowa:

The balloon was coming from the south-west, and following a north-easterly direction along the Ivangorod-Dombrowa Railway, and this in spite of the fact that a north-east wind was blowing. The balloon disappeared behind the clouds, but reappeared about forty-five minutes later with a light burning (it was then half-past six in the evening), and following a course directly opposed to the former one. It is presumed that the balloon must have been provided with a highly perfected steering apparatus.2

A few days later came further reports: sightings ‘German balloons’ are now said to be ‘becoming frequent’. On 22 March a balloon was seen over a railway station at Pronshk[ol?], near Warsaw; the fortress of Novogeorgievsk; and the town of Kelets. The following day, people in Warsaw saw ‘a balloon over the city casting rays of light from an electric apparatus’. It stayed visible in the same place until 1am, when it moved to the west. A balloon ‘projecting powerful electric search lights over a large extent of country’ was seen in areas (presumably) near the Silesian border, towards evening or at night, apparently remaining motionless at a ‘great height for as long as forty minutes’.3

Clearly the Russians believed they were seeing German balloons. The Russian military fired upon one; and the New York Times reported that the Russian government intended to make a formal protest to Germany about the supposed overflights, citing ‘a breach of the military laws’.4 The Manchester Guardian suggested (on what basis, I don’t know) that ‘both the French and German military authorities are in possession of some sort of apparatus for steering balloons’.5 But we know now that this was not true. All anybody had were the usual static observation balloons, which were certainly not capable of the movement seen over Russian Poland.

So what was going on here? This was early on in the Russo-German antagonism. The Reinsurance Treaty between the two empires lapsed in 1890, and Russia was drawing closer to France. (The Franco-Russian treaty was drafted in August 1892.) Russian troops were pouring into Poland, whether for the annual exercises or some other reason was not clear. (Germans reportedly feared an attack; the Russian foreign minister had to assure the German ambassador that the mobilisation was only precautionary.) Russia itself was still suffering from a terrible famine after a crop failure in 1891, which had claimed the lives of several hundred thousand people over the winter.

So the situation in Russia was unsettled. The phantom balloons were thought to be piloted by German spies, and there is evidence that Russian authorities were worried about espionage, just as in Britain in 1909. For example, a Russian commander is reported to have to demanded permission to expel civilians from the border areas, 90% of whom were Jews, ‘who are regarded by the Russian authorities as certain to be friendly to an invading force, and as already acting as spies for the Germans’.6 This while Jews were being ejected from St Petersburg for the Pale of Settlement. Russians felt threatened by enemies within and without.

So in my usual way I’m suggesting that fears of war, of a technologically advanced enemy and a treacherous civilian minority combined to cause a phantom balloon panic, an early episode in the Scareship Age. Russians projected their fears onto the night sky. As for what actually triggered the sightings, Venus seems a likely candidate, as it was very bright and highly visible low in the western sky after sunset at this time. That can’t explain all the sightings (it had set long before 1am, for example), but it’s undoubtedly responsible for some of them.

  1. Manchester Guardian, 26 March 1892, p. 8.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid., 31 March 1892, p. 8.
  4. New York Times, 30 March 1892, p. 5. See also ibid., 26 March 1892, p. 3.
  5. Manchester Guardian, 26 March 1892, p. 8.
  6. Ibid., 31 March 1892, p. 8.

Post-blogging the 1909 scareships: thoughts and conclusions

11 June 2009 in 1900s, Blogging, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 2 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

That’s it for the phantom airship scare of 1909. It’s been interesting for me, as I haven’t looked closely at this material since I did my 4th year thesis some time ago (the 1913 scare made it into the PhD, but not 1909). It didn’t last very long, only a couple of weeks. At first, the stories were presented as a curiosity, localised to East Anglia. It seems to have been the Conservative press which took most interest at this stage, though it seems to have been divided as to whether a British aeronaut was responsible or an airship flying off a German warship. 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 Manchester Guardian started reporting it.1 It seemed that something was going on.

But almost as soon as the phantom airships became ’serious’ news, scepticism set in. Percival Spencer announced that his family’s firm had recently sold several small airships for the purpose of advertising. Even though he gave no actual evidence of any connection between these and the scareships, it seems to have been good enough for all the newspapers examined here (bar the Norfolk News): there are far fewer stories about the ‘fly-by-nights’ thereafter, and those that do appear are sceptical or humorous. And, to be fair, real evidence of a hoax did turn up, in the form of a crashed airship and a claim that Jarrott and Letts, purveyors of fine motorcars from the Continent, had been towing it around the Eastern Counties at night as some sort of advertising stunt (which I still don’t understand, but never mind).

That doesn’t explain the Cardiff sightings, of course, nor the Irish ones nor the North Sea ones nor the (possible) Belgian ones. I don’t believe that there were actual airships involved in these cases, except perhaps the last two. No archival evidence has ever emerged of anyone flying airships over Britain at this time, whether homegrown or foreign, other than those which were well-known at the time — Willows, Spencer, the Army. Maybe meteors, maybe fire balloons, maybe luminous owls. It doesn’t much matter to me. What’s more important is why various explanations were offered and why they were accepted (or rejected).
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  1. Though perhaps, seeing as the staid old Times barely took any notice of the whole affair, the real divide was between the quality press and the tabloids: my best sources are definitely of the latter type (Globe, Standard) and it would appear they took much of their reportage from other tabloids (Daily Mail, Daily Express, which I unfortunately haven’t looked at for this period).

Wednesday, 2 June 1909

2 June 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 3 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

Punch today has a number of phantom airship items (p. 379). They’re quite amusing (to me, at least) and, in ironic vein, sum up the scare quite well. There’s pride …

We are getting on at last. In phantom airships Great Britain is now facile princeps.

… fear …

Meanwhile, some surprise has been expressed that, although a German balloon which was taking part in the Hurlingham race attempted, in its descent, to demolish an Englishman’s Home near Bow, not a single newspaper mobilised its war correspondents.

… and profit!

THE NEW TERROR.

Mr. Punch’s Meteoritical Department has pleasure in recommending the following protective devices for use in connection with airships:–

  1. THE ENGLISHMAN’S DOME.– You can walk beneath this portable roof — light but strong, running on ball bearings, 3-speed gear — and go abroad with perfect safety. Hang your luggage on the hooks in the dome, and save cab fares. A perfect substitute for the old-fashioned umbrella.

    It will pay you to buy a Dome!

    Mr. T. ROOSEVELT writes:– “There are no airships here; but thanks a thousand times! The very thing I wanted! Close the bomb-proof door, and lions can do nothing with you. I fell off the cow-catcher last week, and wasn’t hurt any. I shall never go out again without one of your Domes. Bully!”
  2. A Cheaper Article — THE PNEUMATIC HELMET — for Glancing Shocks. Special arrangements for Heads of Families.
  3. Aviators should note this! THE SPRING SHOCK-ABSORBER. Powerful springs, held in place within our specially designed costume, extending instantly in every direction on being released. You can positively enjoy the sensation of the longest fall, and anticipate the inevitable bump with pleasure.

    Unsolicited testimonial from Mr. WILBUR WRIGHT:– “Say! I came an Orville cropper to-day, but I was all Wright. I wear your patent suit in spring, summer, and fall. Thought you might like these easy puns.”
  4. Absolutely indispensable! Our PATENT PARACHUTE TROUSERS. Expand as you descend. Air-tight seams. Rubber facings.
  5. Try our PATENT VERTICAL ACTION MACHINE GUN, and keep your rights to the Empyrean respected. Easy terms on the Maxim Hiram [sic] Payment System.

Tuesday, 1 June 1909

1 June 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Poetry, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 2 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

The new Fortnightly Review (actually a monthly, of course) is out today. Each issue opens with a review of ‘Imperial and foreign affairs’, which is usually written by J. L. Garvin, editor of the Observer and a figure of great influence in Conservative politics. Assuming that it is he who penned this Review’s review, Garvin uses the scareship episode as an excuse to attack the Liberal government. It’s part of a long excursion which takes in the recent death of novelist George Meredith (who, although a Liberal, supported conscription); the collapse of Britain’s diplomatic position (somewhat at odds with the Foreign Secretary’s opinion, it would seem); the deleterious effect of a lack of British military power on its seapower; Lord Robert’s recent statement that the Army is ’sham’; and so on. Returning to Meredith, Garvin quotes (1006) his recent poem ‘The Call’ for its evocation of how weak Britain is without a real Army to defend it:

Under what spell are we debased
By fears for our inviolate isle,
Whose record is of dangers faced
And flung to heel with even smile?

Garvin goes on to show just how debased the British are, when instead of facing the ‘real and immense dangers’ facing the nation, with a ’silent and settled resolution worthy of a great people’,

we bemuse ourselves with irrelevant hysterics about German waiters and phantom airships and secret squadrons hovering about our coasts.

Meredith would have known what to do, to steel the national nerve: introduce compulsory service!

Who can doubt that he was right, and that all the democracies of all the Britains must follow him if they mean to hold the Empire together by their united strength and severally to preserve their national liberties under a common flag.

As an indication of just how much defence issues have come to dominate the national press recently, the first five issues of the Fortnightly this year had at most one article on the topic (excluding Garvin’s column). This month there are four: ‘Our duty to our neighbour: the defence of France’ by Cecil Battine; ‘The Admiralty Board and the Army Council’ by George T. Lambert; ‘Do dreadnoughts only count?’ by Navalis; and ‘War and shipping’ by Benjamin Taylor. Nothing about airships, though, it must be said.

Monday, 31 May 1909

31 May 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 2 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

No scareships today. But the Standard carries a short article (p. 3) which shows how the airship menace could lie at the nexus of propaganda, advertising and entertainment. This summer’s weekly Brock’s Benefits, a free fireworks display produced by Brock’s Fireworks at the Crystal Palace, will present ‘a scene of an invasion drama of a novel kind’.

The scenery is a thousand feet in length, and represents a peaceful English village. Territorials are seen drilling with a newly invented gun which, it is claimed, will put an end to any likelihood of invasion by airships. A spy is captured, but he escapes and signals to the enemy. Airships are then seen hovering around, and eventually foreign troops are landed, and a desperate fight ensues, involving the partial destruction of the village. The British troops emerge triumphant.

Invasion, spies, airships, explosions, destruction and a British victory. What more could you ask for?

There’s also a long report (p. 5) on the record-breaking flight by the new Zeppelin II (LZ5):

The greatest feat in the history of aerial navigation has been accomplished by Count Zeppelin to-day in his new aerial warship, Zeppelin II., by a flight from Manzell, on the Lake of Constance, to Bitterfeld, a distance of about 300 miles as the crow flies.

It stayed aloft for an incredible 24 hours (which is important to remember when people like me tell you that the the first night flights were not carried out until the following year), though it didn’t quite make it to Berlin as was rumoured. Interestingly, given the description of the phantom airships in Britain, the Zeppelin is described as carrying searchlights:

From various telegrams received in Berlin from different towns along the route describing the excitement caused by the appearance of the airship with its searchlights, it became evident that the rumour was not without foundation.

Impressive as this flight is, a distance of 300 miles would not nearly be enough to fly from Germany to Britain (even setting aside the fact that Zeppelin II’s first flight was only a few days ago). But the Count is getting there.

Speaking of phantom airships …

30 May 2009 in Interviews, Links, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics by Brett Holman | 1 comment

Last year I was interviewed by Dan Vergano, science reporter for USA Today, for an article he was writing for Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine on the 1909 phantom airship wave. It’s finally been published, in the July 2009 issue, and can also be read online. It’s a lively and engaging overview of the episode, and features quotes from such experts on airships (both real and imaginary) as Robert Bartholomew, David Clarke and Guillaume de Syon. Go have a read!

Saturday, 29 May 1909

29 May 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 4 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

This week’s issue of Flight carries a short piece about ‘Phantom airships and scare headlines’ (p. 318). It’s scornful of the credulity of ‘a certain section of the Press’, since ‘it was evident from the very first that either a practical joke was being played or that a bold advertising scheme was on foot’.

The lengths to which speculation of the wildest kind were allowed to go was neither beneficial to the new industry [i.e. aviation] nor calculated to enhance the dignity of the British public in the eyes of foreign nations.

Usefully, Flight reveals the name of the company which operated the Dunstable airship, now generally assumed to have been the cause of the airship scare. For some reason the other newspapers I’ve looked at are silent on this point (perhaps they object to giving free publicity). According to Mr C. D. Clayton:

The airship which has been causing considerable comment by its mysterious passages turns out to be Sizaire Mors airship of Messrs. Jarrott and Letts, Ltd., and which was found wrecked on Chalk Hill Down, Dunstable, in the early morning of May 25th, being discovered by L. White, who has been rewarded with the sum of £5.

Jarrott and Letts were a fairly well-known and long-lived motor firm which sold Crossleys and Lorraine-Dietrichs. Later they sold Bugattis too. The reference to ‘Sizaire Mors’ suggests some connection to the French Sizaire-Naudin car manufacturer, but what exactly that might be, I don’t know. Flight doesn’t explain who C. D. Clayton is, but in 1910 he is to be found organising a Spencer airship flight over London to promote a new acetylene generator (!) So he’s probably the creative genius behind this whole affair.

The airship and the owl. Interesting speech by the Mayor / Norfolk News, 29 May 1905, 7

After its sterling effort last week, the Norfolk News only has one reference to scareships today. It comes from a speech by the Mayor of Norwich, Walter Rye, to the Norwich Miniature Rifle Club on Tuesday night (p. 7). (What is it with miniature rifles?) At the tail end of a long speech on the virtues of miniature rifle shooting, the evolution of firepower, and playing with toy soldiers, the Mayor turned to current events:

Referring to the airship topic, his Worship said it was ridiculous for the Germans to suppose the English nation to be in any way scared. Englishmen were simply interested in the matter. What it would all result in he could not say. Perhaps this mysterious airship would ultimately turn out to be a big piece of advertisement. (Laughter.) To say that we were afraid of the Germans was simply rubbish. A year ago there was far more discussion in the newspapers over the mysterious owl than had occurred through the mysterious airship. (Loud laughter.) The only point was whether they did not come within the same category. (More laughter.) However, the mystery remained to be solved.

The ‘mysterious owl’ must be a reference to the luminous owls which were seen in Norfolk in 1907 and 1908, causing no little controversy (and even making the pages of the New York Times). I’m surprised that nobody has drawn any connection before now, actually.

His Worship’s assertion that the British were unafraid of Germany sounds a bit like mere bluster, when Andrew Bonar Law, a senior Conservative politician, is quoted on p. 12 as saying (in a speech at Anerley, attacking the government’s Unemployed Bill)

Give Germany the command of the English Channel, and she would strike us down, and strike us down utterly, before we could defend ourselves.

Solution: a ’stronger naval programme’. Mind you, according to the leader on the page opposite, Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, has created a ‘cloudless foreign horizon’ by waving ‘the wand of the enchanter’. So who knows what to think.

Friday, 28 May 1909

28 May 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 2 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

There was nothing about phantom airship in yesterday’s papers. Nor is there anything in today’s, for that matter. But there is a curious story in the Globe concerning the ‘Wokingham airship’ (p. 11):

A mysterious and closely-locked shed near the large public school at Wokingham has for some time past given rise to rumours of an airship under construction, and now investigation has confirmed the report.

This sounds like exactly the sort of home-grown airship some have argued were the cause of the scareship sightings! But don’t get too excited, because it’s not actually an airship, but an aeroplane — of sorts:

The airship, however, proves to be a flying machine, controlled by rudder. It has no gas bag, and is driven by an 80-h.p. petrol engine, weight 5½ cwt, while its propeller is capable of 1,200 revolutions a minute. The shape is that of an elongated cigar, with the ends telescoping upon the centre. When extended the length of the machine is 140ft. long, 20ft. wide, and 31ft. high. Electric light is generated from the petrol motor, and among its features are self-balancers and hammocks.

On second thoughts, it does sound a bit like a scareship, with its cigar shape and electric lights. Then again, it hasn’t actually flown yet:

The trials will shortly commence, and the inventor is understood to be in touch with the military authorities.

And while I’m not an aeronautical engineer, but I’d wager a very large sum of money on it never flying. This must be the Wokingham Whale, a very ambitious but completely misguided attempt to build an aircraft capable of long-distance travel (it was even to have toilets!) The fuselage was built, but that’s as far as it got. But it does show the sort of thing people had in mind when they spoke of secretive inventors, and also reminds us just how unrestrained aeronautical designs (especially amateur ones) could be in the early years of flight.

Wednesday, 26 May 1909

26 May 2009 in 1900s, Periodicals, Phantom airships and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1909 scareships, Quotes by Brett Holman | 7 comments

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of May-June 1909. See here for an introduction to the series, and here for a conclusion.

AN EARLY SILLY SEASON / Punch, 26 May 1909

The mighty Punch weighs in on the phantom airships today. Above is a rather wonderful full-page cartoon by Bernard Partridge, playing on the notion that the stories are part of the annual ’silly season’ (usually in summer, still a month away):

The sea-serpent: “Well, if this sort of thing keeps on, it’ll mean a dull August for me.”

Interestingly, Partridge’s own politics are very conservative, but his critique of the role of the press here — the newspaper hoarding the sea serpent is peering at through his pince-nez is for the Daily Scare — would sit quite comfortably with any radical.

Punch also has another, more heavy-handed, piece on the scareships under the title ‘The everywhere ship’ (p. 369), but it’s really just a much more drawn out version of the equation of cigar-shaped objects from Germany with German cigars, as the Globe had done with greater concision yesterday. (It’s quite possible that Punch hit the streets a day or two earlier than its publication date suggests, so the Globe might have been inspired by Punch.) Much funnier, to my mind, is ‘The secret of the Army aeroplane’ (p. 366) by A. A. M., who is none other than A. A. Milne. It’s nothing to do with the scareships, but rather a deadly-accurate parody of the spy novels of William le Queux, whose Spies of the Kaiser is currently to be found in all good bookstores (and most of the bad ones too). In fact, it reads so like le Queux that it suggests that Poe’s Law could be reformulated for the Edwardian ‘enemies in our midst’ genre: it’s only because it’s in Punch that I know it’s a parody!

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