Yesterday's report of an airship seen crashing in flames near Potsdam in Germany has been picked up by a number of newspapers, including the Aberdeen Daily Journal, the Dundee Courier, the Evening Telegraph, the Liverpool Echo, the Manchester Courier, the Manchester Guardian, the Standard, and the Western Times — most of which don't say anything new, as they are derived from the same Reuter wire report. However some reports do reveal that the crash occurred near the village of Caputh, and that the the two women who witnessed the apparent disaster 'saw fire spread from one end of the ship to the other. Then a sudden explosion occurred, wrapping in flame the whole ship, which plunged headlong to the ground' (Dundee Courier, p. 7). The account provided from The Times's own Berlin correspondent has some more details (p. 7; above):

The fire brigades of three villages near Potsdam, some 40 riflemen from the garrison on bicycles, and a strong force of police and of medical attendants were all engaged last night and until about 4 o'clock this morning in searching the woods south of Potsdam for a mysterious 'airship in distress,' of which two working women had brought home a sensational report. They told the beadle of their little village that they had seen at 6 o'clock in the evening [of 12 March 1913] an airship first smoking, and then flaming, in the sky. Her forecar had dropped off and had fallen burning into the wood. A few old men of the village were sceptical, but the beadle instantly gave the alarm, with the result that the reinforcements described above soon arrived on the scene. No trace of a car or of its inmates was found, but a small boy brought to the village inn the news that in one spot in the wood there had been a distinct smell of gas. It has turned out that no airship can have been in question, and the most plausible theory is that what was seen — if anything was seen — was the trail of sparks from the motor of an aeroplane. Two military biplanes flew yesterday evening over Potsdam and near the scene of the search.

In fact, it appears that the mystery has been solved already. The Daily Express reports that (p. 1):

Lieutenant Zwickau, a military airman, supplied the explanation this morning. He was flying from Leipzig to Doeberitz and was compelled to fire rockets from time to time to find his way.

Having recent experience of phantom airships, most of the British press probably expected something of the sort; though few went so far as the Liverpool Echo which runs the story under the headline 'AIRSHIP COMEDY. DISASTER PHANTASY IN GERMANY' (p. 6).

Many newspapers also report that the Aerial League of the British Empire has issued a manifesto deploring Britain's defencelessness in the air and demanding that at least £1 million be spent on catching up to France and Germany in military aviation. However, only the Manchester Courier publishes the manifesto in full, which reveals that the first of the Aerial League's eight points was about the recent mystery airship visits (p. 7):

1. The lesson of the so-called airship 'scares' in Yorkshire and elsewhere has been wholly lost upon the country, whose interest has been centred in guessing whether the nocturnal visits of foreign airships were facts or fabrications, and there is no doubt that what is reported to have happened at Sheerness on the admission of one of His Majesty's Ministers could happen again at any time of the day or night.

The lesson is, of course, that 'one foreign power alone — Germany — is known to possess at least ten airships, each capable of making flights across the North Sea, of carrying passengers, and of damaging or destroying the nerve centre of our defences', against which 'the British Empire possesses the remains of one baby airship and the framework of another' and, what is worse, 'we lack the experience which is essential for building large airships of long range and the factories and equipment for the purpose'. The signatories are Plymouth, J. E. C. Welldon, Admiral E. R. Fremantle, Lieutenant-General R. Pole-Carew, Gilbert Parker, Alan H. Burgoyne, Major-General H. T. Arbuthnot, Colonel H. S. Massy, and Stephen A. Harples [sic; actually Marples] as organising secretary.

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.

No phantom airships have been seen in the skies over Britain for the better part of a week, but it appears that one may have crashed in, of all places, Germany. The Derby Daily Telegraph carries the following story from Reuter's in Berlin (p. 3):

Eighty chasseurs of the Guards are searching for the remains of a mysterious airship which, according to peasant women's story, caught fire, exploded, and fell near Potsdam. The women, who are positive they saw the disaster, reported to the authorities, who telephoned for help. The commandant of Potsdam, with an ambulance column, doctors, fire brigades, and chasseurs searched in vain for the supposed wreck. All known airships are account for.

The date for this event is not given, but it must have been very recent since the Derby Daily Telegraph's report is dated today, and an abbreviated version appears in the Dundee Evening Telegraph in the stop press section (p. 1).
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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.

There is very little phantom airship news today. The Exeter Western Times reports on the airship seen over London on Friday night (p. 4):

An airship hoax has been worked on a London crowd. A smithfield [sic] porter, realising how little a thing will attract a crowd, stood for a few seconds looking intently up into the sky. Gradually his example was followed by others, and when he declared that he both saw and heard an airship above Farringdon-street, they agreed. Some went so far as to state that they occasionally saw flashlights. When he had collected a great crowd the porter quietly disappeared, well satisfied with his test of the credulity of the people.

This is very similar to the Chronicle's account as quoted by the Globe, but there are some significant differences. For example here the porter is said to have claimed 'that he both saw and heard an airship', whereas the Chronicle said nothing about hearing; similarly the Chronicle said nothing about any 'flashlights'. More significantly, the Western Times apparently has access to the porter's mental state, since it tells its readers how he 'realis[ed] how little a thing will attract a crowd' and that he was 'well satisfied with his test of the credulity of the people'. Perhaps that's journalistic invention or a rhetorical flourish; but it does raise the question of how this story of the porter hoaxing a crowd arose in the first place. It seems unlikely that it would have come from somebody in the crowd, so perhaps it was the porter himself who told the press. That would at least explain the Western Times's knowledge of his thought processes. But given the degree of egotism this would involve, the story's veracity may be questioned.

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.

For the first time, a phantom airship has been seen over the very heart of London, 'A full week behind the provinces', as the Daily Express says (p. 1). Previously, no reports came from closer than Croydon (South London) or Hendon (North London), about a month ago. Yet relatively few newspapers seem to be interested in the story. The Daily Mirror, surprisingly in view of its sceptical attitude towards the whole subject, is one, though its account is brief. More substantial (and identical) reports appear in the Irish Times, the Liverpool Echo, and the Dundee Courier, which last says (p. 5; above):

Reports received from a number of independent sources go to show that mysterious aerial lights were observed over central London between 7 and 7.30 last evening [7 March 1913] by a large number of persons

The sky is described as being 'overcast' and 'inclined to be misty', thus ruling out the 'possibility of sky-gazers being misled by a bright star'. But otherwise, 'little definite can be said'.

A large crowd collected in St Bride Street on the report that the much-talked-of 'mystery airship' had arrived over London, Several persons declared that they had seen a bright light in the sky immediately over the thoroughfare, and one or two affirmed that they had made out the body of an airship, the envelope, according to their statements, being of a whitish colour.

Shortly afterwards what was evidently 'the same strange light', 'variously described as a "searchlight" and as an occulting light of the headlight type', was seen from Paternoster Row, 'suggesting that the airship, if airship there really was, had the dome of St Paul's as its objective'.

A lift attendant employed in a Ludgate Circus office stated that his attention was attracted by a bright flash across one of the windows on the topmost floor of the building in question.

He ran to the window, and gathered the impression that a searchlight was being operated from some elevated position to the south of London, but he could see no airship, and the flash was not repeated.

A youth who claimed to have seen the airship from Paternoster Row stated that the flashing of a light into the roadway from a point directly above him caused him to look up, when he made out something moving slowly and irregularly overhead carrying a light, which was obscured every now and again, at the rear end.

Though it should be noted that while Paternoster Row is adjacent to the cathedral, the claim in the Dundee Courier's headline that the airship 'is Stated to Have Flown Over St Paul's Cathedral' seems to be only an inference, as nobody actually says they saw that happen. The article's conclusion is that 'it seems possible that a flight may have been made around St Paul's, the aeronauts, whoever they were, approaching the Cathedral from the north-west and leaving in a south-westerly direction'.
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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.

Phantom airships attract relatively little attention in the press today. For the first time in more than a week there are no new sightings to report. Stale (and slightly garbled) news about the Grimsby box kite and the City of Leeds and Othello sightings appear in the Aberdeen Journal and the Western Gazette, while the Manchester Courier once again republishes old content for the benefit of the tiny proportion of its readers who haven't yet read about Captain Lundie's encounter with a dark airship near Grimsby. At least a leading article in the Standard is original in its phrasing, if not in its content. It attacks what it calls 'The anti-defence crusade' of Radicals, for whom 'it really seems as if the mere mention of national defence in any form [is] a source of annoyance and irritation' (p. 8). One important 'Ministerial' newspaper 'talks about "the jingoes of the air" and sneers at the "new and attractive theme" which the aerial peril has provided for them (p. 8).

It has been the cue of these critics all through to maintain that the airship 'scare' was all nonsense, though the hasty publication of the Home Secretary's schedule is a significant testimony to its reality. How many foreign aircraft have passed over these islands during the past few months is doubtful; but that some have been taking a look round at our strategic bases is very well known to the Admiralty.

The Standard, of course, slips in another attack on the new aerial navigation regulations on the basis that there is currently no means of enforcing them. This is also the theme of a leading article, entitled 'The Flying Dutchmen', in the Irish Independent, which paraphrases (sympathetically, though stopping short of endorsement) the argument of 'a section of the English Press' that the regulations are 'absolutely useless if intended for the protection of Great Britain' (p. 4). Among its sources may be the Daily Express, for like that paper it misunderstands the regulations in thinking that they 'only become operative if the airship lands at any of the prohibited areas of British territory':

Thus, if the German airships are really spying out the land the regulations can have no effect unless in case of accident to one of their airships which would compel a landing.

Hence the demand of 'a million sterling for the immediate expansion of the British air fleet'.
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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.

The Dundee Courier today has a long article providing more details of the airship seen by Captain Lundie and the crew the City of Leeds off Grimsby — 'It was travelling at a fast rate, and somewhat resembled a shark in shape' (p. 5) — and the Daily Express has an even longer, more reflective piece. Its 'Special Correspondent' makes the case that this is 'The most convincing proof so far of the truth hidden behind the clouds of rumours of the flights of unknown airships over the North Sea and the east coast' more persuasively than previous attempts, though still hardly conclusively (p. 5; above). Captain Boothby, the assistant marine superintendent at Grimsby who was the recipient of Lundie's original report, believes 'that the statement could certainly be confirmed beyond any doubt':

'That it was an airship — a cigar-shaped dirigible of large size that Captain Lundie saw, I also am certain,' continued Captain Boothby. 'He had ample opportunity for seeing it, and his experience would prevent him mistaking anything else for an airship.

This 'experience' appears to be Lundie's (doubtless many) years at sea; there is no suggestion that he is in any way familiar with airships or aeroplanes. And while other members of the crew did see it — among them Second Officer Williams and the ship's cook, who describes seeing 'a dark shape floating by high in the moonlight' — it is Lundie's 'precise, carefully detailed, statement' alone that represents 'evidence that can hardly be doubted, and the importance of which, once it is admitted to be true, cannot be easily over-estimated':

It proves that under all the wild rumours of 'scareships,' of practical jokes with fire-balloons, and the tales of untrained or imaginative gazers by night who mistake fiery stars for dirigibles' 'flashing searchlights,' there is a solid foundation for the fears of an airship invasion, which all expert airmen agree will very soon be not only quite possible, but extremely probable.

The Express's correspondent spent the weekend touring 'the Yorkshire coast from Withernsea round the sweep of Bridlington Bay to breezy, hilly Scarborough' (all places where phantom airships have been seen), 'the stretch which may be one of the widest "open doors" of England when aerial progress makes Great Britain an island no longer'.

All round the coast and in the great ports of Hull and Grimsby, as well as in the scattered villages and fashionable seaside resorts I have heard stories of the airship, but behind the light jests and the half doubting guise in which the many wildly improbable stories were recounted, there was apparent a feeling that those mysterious airships might be in some cases a reality — a reality to be dreaded and proved against at any cost. The fear that flies by night is over Yorkshire.

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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.