Under construction
This site presents summaries of sightings of phantom airships (or ’scareships’) which took place in Britain between 1909 and 1913, along with copies of the primary sources (ie newspaper articles), and maps showing where the sightings took place.
The catalogue is based upon research undertaken for a fourth year history thesis I completed in 2004. It is by no means a comprehensive listing of all phantom airships seen in Britain; but it is a comprehensive listing of those mentioned in primary sources available to me for selected periods.
You can navigate the catalogue by using the categories list on the home page, or the by archives list on the righthand sidebar, or you can jump right in to the first sightings in March 1909. You can then use the calendar at the top of the sidebar to move between days or months.
From time to time, I post related articles on my main blog, Airminded, under the category “phantom airships and other scares”. In particular, The Scareship Age attempts to give an overview of worldwide mystery aircraft waves in the quarter century before 1918, while The Sheerness Incident examines the most important single phantom airship sighting.