There is little overt mention of phantom airships in today’s newspapers, but quite a few allusions. They all accompany the news, published in all the major papers, that last night the Secretary for War, Colonel Seely, introduced to the House of Commons an Aerial Navigation Bill to amend the 1911 Aerial Navigation Act. The bill […]
Two new airship reports today. First, from the Liverpool Echo (p. 6, above): Between eight and half-past eight last night [7 February 1913] at least a dozen people in London-road, Northwich, observed a bright light in the sky, and were emphatically convinced that it proceeded from an airship. Rays seemed distinctly to emanate from the
The provincial press is still catching up with the South Wales mystery airships today. In fact, most of it still catching with from the sightings from the weekend — the Exeter Western Times (p. 6) and Lichfield Mercury (p. 2) have versions of the article published in the Standard on Monday about the airship seen
Today is another big day for phantom airships in terms of press coverage. They are mentioned in at least four big London dailies as well as two major and three minor provincial dailies. The reason is yet another airship report from South Wales, where it was seen by many people last people. How many? Well,
While searching for images to illustrate my Wartime article, I came across this German propaganda poster from 1918. It ultimately didn’t make the cut but I think it’s very interesting. The seaplane soaring into the top left of the poster is a Friedrichshafen FF.33; in fact it is the very one which scouted for the
The Manchester Guardian has a summary (p. 5, above) of the weekend’s airship sightings in South Wales (which is also published in the Derby Daily Telegraph, p. 3). The Guardian repeats the suggestion, made in the Standard and the Globe yesterday, that ‘the craft belongs to someone in Devonshire or Somersetshire, and that experimental flights
No less than three new phantom airship reports in today’s papers: two from South Wales, which is fast becoming scareship central, and one from Croydon in the south-east of England. To take the last airship first, as the Daily Express says, ‘This is the first time that it has been reported so near London’ (p.
The Daily Express and the Standard both carry articles today trying to make sense of the phantom airship sightings, each framed very differently. The article in the Express begins by asking (p. 5; above): Is a German airship making flights by night over England? That is a question which is being asked by many people
A new mystery airship report today, from a new part of the country — ‘the coast of Mid Wales’ (Daily Express, p. 1; above): An ‘Express’ correspondent at Aberystwyth states that it was seen by country people approaching the village of Chancery, a few miles south of Aberystwyth, at 8.25 on Saturday night [25 January
A somewhat atypical phantom airship report appears in today’s newspapers. It’s from the suburbs of one of the great cities, Liverpool. With a population of around three quarters of a million, Liverpool is more than three times the size of the biggest city to have previously reported a mystery aircraft, Cardiff. According to the Standard,
