A bizarre spate of “Airship incidents” in 1907 Tennessee

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

Theo Paijmans, an infrequent visitor and critic to this blog – one of my favorite human beings – has contributed much to the UFO literature and I found several inserts inside Albert S. Rosales’ Humanoid Encounters: The Others Amongst Us 1900-1929, one in his series of Humanoid Encounters books, which I encourage you to buy and read (Amazon).

Starting on page 60 Theo recounts four airship (balloon) sightings from 1907 cited as The Tennessee Aeronaut Flap of 1907 derived from area newspapers

The accounts, all from different dates in April of 1907, tell of witnesses, in several communities, observing craft that looked like airship balloons with gondolas from which debarked parties of “queer-looking persons [women and men] in strange garb” that gathered around local springs (and in one instance, a well) to seemingly pray.

(In the well incident, one of the party members thrust a wand into the well from which oil was extracted. The wand was then stuck into the ground and became enflamed.)

The “praying” balloon passengers mostly spoke in German and left, saying such things as “Be healthy and pray.”

What are we to make of such reports?

These aren’t instances of mass hysteria – the communities involved are not interconnected except as members of the state (Tennessee).

The stories were presented by newspapers as actual journalistic news items apparently.

What does Theo attribute the accounts to? Are they fictive? Or actual, as related by the press?

The stories came about eleven years after the so-called Airship sightings, elsewhere, in 1896.

The reports intrigue, certainly if true as related and even if they are imaginary tales promulgated for other reasons: mercenary, prankish, space-fillers, et cetera.

RR