The Airship Sightings of 1897: A Hard Look
(2009) by Dennis Crenshaw
Part 1 The Press Coverage
April 10, 1897: One Day During
The Great Airship
an answer to those who ridicule the newspaper men of the times
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Source;
Archived Newspaper Excerpts*
& Commentary by Dennis Crenshaw
*A
special
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This series is a study of one day during the Mysterious 1897 Airship flap. I used articles from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Star from April 10th, 1897 as a research tool. However, keep in mind that these are only two of the hundreds of newspapers across the country during 1896 and 1897 reporting about the movements of these unidentified flying machines and the aeronauts who flew them. For comparison of other news on this day in history I
quote
We start with the April 10, 1897 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In that
issue
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... It is general belief than an airship is floating over the states of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas. This belief is entertained by men of scientific attainments as well as those not so well versed in the field of natural philosophy.
... The rumor that a strange aerial body had been seen became current a fortnight ago and was laughed at. ...
... Within the first few days the evidence that something unusual is moving midst the clouds has become so conclusive and has so much corroboration that wiseacres have ceased to jibe ...
When I first started studying the airship sightings from just before the turn of the 20th century I found that most investigators were of the mind that the stories in newspapers of the day were mostly jokes or hoaxes. The other reason given for these stories being in the newspaper was that it was a slow news day and the airship stories were used
However, after reading hundreds of actual airship reports from the newspapers of the day I have to disagree with this assessment. I'll concede that is was probably true that some small western town newspaper editors did try and pull the wool over their readers eyes once in a while, say on April Fools Day or such. But in general I don't believe there was as much of that going on as some would have us believe. After all the people back then were not dummies. In 1897 newspapers were the only sources of news. Actually more people read newspapers then than do today ... as a matter of fact more people read back then. Period. (But that's another story).
It's very important to the reader or viewer of any media to have confidence in the truth of the information and news they receive. It's true today and it was true in the 1800s. In reporting the news of the day newspapers have to maintain a certain amount of creditability in the eyes of their readers. Newspaper owners know this. They check and recheck facts before running controversial material, not because they necessarily care about what they are reporting, but because that's what it takes to attract and keep readers. And it's the all important readership of a publication that attracts the lifeblood of any reporting organization, advertisers . No creditability, no readers. No readers, no advertisers. It's that simple.
Just as today, newspapers one-hundred plus years ago were expected by both readers and advertisers to report a true view of the news. I don't believe that newspaper owners would have maintained their creditability for long if their organization made up stories just to sell newspapers . Especially news reports with facts that can be easily checked and disputed by others. As an example of this long-term creditability I offer the longevity of our study paper. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is still around today 111 years since these reports of airships in the sky. Their readership didn't grow nor did the newspapermen keep their readership and advertisers all these years by making up the news just to joke around; or by putting a fast one over on their readers.
According to the skeptical argument against the fact that the flying machine stories were reports of real objects in the sky is that one of the reasons that editors and reporters back then made up stories was because it was a slow news day and they had to fill the newspapers pages. That's an easy one to disprove. Let's take a look at the front page of The New York Times on that day in 1897 when the St Louis Post-Dispatch used over 3/4ths of its front page reporting the sightings of mysterious airships.
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April 10th 1897
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Gen. Fullerton's Body Found
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Discovered by a Farmer Eight Miles Below the Bridge Where He Lost His Life
Wheeling, West Va., April 9 - The body of Gen. Joseph S. Fullerton of St. Louis who was killed in the railroad accident on the Baltimore and Ohio Road, near Oakland, Md., some weeks ago, was found this morning in the Youghiogheny River ...
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Although I don't have access to the complete April 10th 1897 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch I do have the front page. It seems to me that common sense dictates that this story... the story of one of St. Louis' most famous and prominent citizens' body being found after being missing for almost a month ... a story extensively covered across the nation prior to this and featured on the front page of The New York Times this day ... would have taken up most of the front page of his hometown newspaper. Unless, of course, the editors of the St. Louis-Post Dispatch felt the airship story was of more immediate importance. Or would you have me believe the owners and editors of the St. Louis-Post Dispatch would rather use their front page to fabricate a joke story about mythical flying machines instead of reporting that one of their city's most prominent citizen's body had finally been found?
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Other news of note from the front page of the April 10th, 1897 issue of The New York Times:
A body of 1,500 or more irregular Greek troops crossed the Turkish frontier yesterday morning at Krania and engaged the Sultan's forces .... The entire Turkish Army is ready to move to the front and the war is likely to become general ...
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This war had been escalating for some time and is another factual news story that should have been on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that day. In fact, war was declared the next day, April 11th, 1987.
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Here are a few more reports of interest from the front page of the New York Times that day:
There was a huge scandal going on; Something having to do with $823,000 dollars lost by the University of Illinois after the suspension of the Globe Bank. ...Warrants were issued for the arrest of three officers ...
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Mrs.
Leland Stanford
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A cyclone swept across a section of Alabama and Georgia yesterday ...
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As the above articles prove it's easy to document the fact that April 10th, 1897 wasn't a slow news day by any stretch of the imagination. And for a certainty the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would have received all of these stories and more by telegraph. That's not even looking at the local news. However, for some reason the editorial department decided to run with the airship mystery as the front page lead. And then use 3/4 of their front page to report it. Why?
There can only be one simple answer. They had to believe that the mysterious airship story was the most important news of the day and they reported it to their readers and advertisers as such.
The next step of course is to locate the facts that made these seasoned newspaper men believe such a far-out tale. ....
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