Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

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Aerial theatre in the time of coronavirus?

[With apologies to Gabriel García Márquez and Ben Wilkie.] It’s not that long ago that I was posting about the Australian bushfires; now it’s the turn of the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s worldwide. Social media is an essential tool in such times of crisis, but it also can be a misleading one. Here’s […]

1910s, Australia, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

A conspiracy of boodlers

The default explanation for the Australian mystery aeroplane panic of 1918 was a conspiracy theory: they were enemy aircraft, deployed by German merchant raiders operating off the Australian coast, or perhaps flying from secret aerodromes deep in the bush. Either way they were thought to be collaborating with German spies on shore, as evidenced by

Ratio of articles in the British Newspaper Archive containing the phrase ‘Le Queux’ to total number of issues, 1890–1932
1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Before 1900, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Plots and tables, Publications

Publication: ‘William Le Queux, the Zeppelin menace and the Invisible Hand’

Critical Survey has just published an early access version of my peer-reviewed article ‘William Le Queux, the Zeppelin menace and the Invisible Hand’ — that’s right, no subtitle! — here. Here’s the abstract: In contrast to William Le Queux’s pre-1914 novels about German spies and invasion, his wartime writing is much less well known. Analysis

Sea, Land and Air, February 1920, 765
1910s, 1920s, Archives, Australia, Civil aviation, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures

Alien airmen and will-o’-the-wisp bridges

Although the war had been over for more than a year by this point, in 1920 the editor of Sea, Land and Air issued a rather hysterical warning of the danger of foreign pilots being allowed to fly in Australia.1 The passenger-‘plane of to-day may be the bomber of to-morrow. It depends on the man

Junkers A.35b
1930s, Aerial theatre, Books, Civil defence, Disarmament, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

The phantom phantom air raid — II

So if there were no mystery aeroplanes over Berlin on 23 June 1933, and nobody who even saw any mystery aeroplanes, why did the German government and press say otherwise? There are three-ish reasons, that I can see. The first is the most obvious. It was strongly implied in the original English-language reports that the

1930s, Nuclear, biological, chemical, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

The phantom phantom air raid — I

On the evening of 23 June 1933, Berlin was raided by mysterious aeroplanes of unknown origin: A number of aeroplanes, which were described as being of unidentified foreign origin, are reported to have flown over the working-class areas of the city yesterday evening, and dropped leaflets and pamphlets, in which the Government was attacked. Upon

Brindejonc des Moulinais, Hendon, May 1913
1910s, Aerial theatre, Books, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

The airship non-panic of Whitsun 1914

According to David Oliver’s Hendon Aerodrome, International tension remained high during the Whitsun weekend [30-31 May] of 1914, when the country was plunged into a Zeppelin scare that resulted in severe civil flying restrictions.1 As I’ve never come across this mystery aircraft panic before — a not unknown occurrence! — I naturally got very excited,

George D. Warren, 18 November 1918
1910s, Archives, Australia, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1918 mystery aeroplanes

Monday, 18 November 1918

NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 416 is a report from Lieutenant Commander George D. Warren RANR, commanding officer, HMAS Coogee, a civilian coastal steamship requistioned by the Navy for use as a minesweeper. Warren is reporting on the results of his investigation of an aeroplane seen from a naval lookout on the northern end of King

P. J. Connolly, 3 June 1918
1910s, Archives, Australia, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1918 mystery aeroplanes

Monday, 3 June 1918

NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 836 is a report by Senior Constable P. J. Connolly regarding ‘an aeroplane flying in a Westerly direction’ seen at 9pm the previous evening at Charlton, in the Mallee region of Victoria, by William Bannon and no less than ‘eight other farmers’, who all saw the machine together: One bright white

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