In the first part of the Twentieth Century, air travel was extremely limited. The Wright Brothers of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina had their first flight a mere seven years earlier. At the beginning of the second decade of the century, a strange set of events plagued East Tennessee. On January 13th, the Chattanooga Times had this report:

Many people see how strange ships pass over Chattanooga.

An unknown airship flew over Chattanooga yesterday morning around 9: 30, moving in a northeasterly direction and on a straight course, as if on a long journey. An unusual sight was seen by many people in this city. The point of departure or destination of the mysterious aircraft is unknown.Some of those who saw it described the vessel as cigar-shaped, which indicated that it was an airship. These people say that they also did not see it through the rings of cigar smoke and that they were not victims of an impossible dream.It is believed that the airship seen yesterday over the city will be at least the second to fly over this region in a few weeks. Some Chattanoogans recently saw a strange object in the sky and firmly held the opinion that it, like yesterday’s unknown visitor, was an air car.

The Chattanooga Times – page 7, January 13, 1910

The next morning, a follow-up would be posted:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 14 – Several citizens report having seen a dirigible airship which passed over the city shortly before 7 o’clock tonight […] in a southerly direction. The outline of the air craft could plainly be seen and the noise of the motors could be heard. Fast speed was being made on its trip across the city occupied […] few minutes time. The machine was under perfect control.

The Chattanooga Times – January 14, 1910

With all the talk of engines and such, a more mundane explanation would come forth and the matter was considered ‘closed’ a few days later:

“AIRSHIP” IS CAPTURED -SQUIRE BASS AND OTHERS PERPETRATED THE JOKE

Airships, aeroplanes, dirigible balloons, biplanes and aerial craft of all kinds, must take a tumble in the minds of Chattanoogans for the time being. Those things in the sky which thousands of people in this city and vicinity have been accepting as the real, genuine all-wool and a yard wide airship were not real airships at all. They were no more than toys sent up as a practical joke. The perpetrator was Squire Ed Bass and some more of the small boys out in South Chattanooga.

The Squire and a very few others who must have been “on” have had lots of fun. The gullibles whose name is legion, may have enjoyed the stunt, too, but just how much they will appreciate the humor of the situation now remaineth to be seen. It will depend largely on the temperament of the victim. A joke’s a joke, but when the victim gets wise the effect is more or less doubtful. Doubtless the joking ‘squire’s ears will burn with an exceeding warmth today, because of the many he so thoroughly fooled there will be some to express themselves plainly, forgetting the Sunday school lesson yesterday.

Murder will out, doncherknow, and other matters not as serious do not always remain a mystery. The cat has scratched and chewed her way clean out of the bag of the dirigible balloon business. Truth once more reigns supreme and sits at the tiller of the aeroplane, having ousted the spirit of humor and falsity which has been steering the airships all over the sky in the region roundabout Chattanooga.

The cat got out of the bag and the genus at the steering gear gave way to the truth yesterday when a cigar-shaped paper balloon, some fifteen feet long and four feet through, at the maximum, alighted calmly, peacefully, without shame or embarrassment, in the neighborhood of the Ninth ward fire hall.

It was not long before the presence of the strange object was discovered by the natives, and they began to congregate.

There was much interest and amusement manifested, coupled with a certain form of admiration of whoever it was who had succeeded in fooling the people for so long. For it was very apparent that in the collapsed paper structure lay the secret of the airships which had been seen over the city.Now, the good people of Highland Park who saw the paper balloon and realized its significance did not know who was back of the joke. Even before the discovery in Highland Park The Times had learned the identity of the juveniles who perpetrated the joke and was preparing to inform its readers on the subject.

Then came word that the inevitable Ninth ward had come again to the fore and had material evidence of the nature of the airships which have been causing so much commotion and talk for the last few days.My, what people in a dry town will see, and, seeing, what mountains they will make out of mole hills that come into their line of vision. Chattanooga can console itself in the knowledge that other towns, dry like Chattanooga, have been victimized lately in the matter of sky-craft. Dry Knoxville has been a seein’ airships lately. Dry Huntsville has been peering aloft to the detriment of its necks and collars at strange craft in the big dome.Amid the commotion caused by the frequent appearance of the what seemed to be an airship with a strong liking for this vicinity. ‘Squire Bass and his fellow conspirators have been saying nothing and laughing up their sleeves at the mystification of their townspeople: Like Mr. Hyde, they have stood around among the wondering victims and hearing accounts of their Dr. Jekyll doings.’Squire Bass, arch-conspirator of them all, perhaps had the biggest share of amusement in this way. It was no unusual thing for him to hear people describe the airship in the minutest detail. His amusement was in their gullibleness, and the power of their optics.

Some of them declared that the craft was a biplane and that they could plainly discern the man at the steering gear, and even hear the chug-chug of the machinery. That so many people were successfully deceived by the toy balloon was due to optical delusion. Tricks which the eye will play in certain circumstances are certainly delusions and snares. In reality a 14-foot affair, the little balloon, perhaps a few hundred feet high, looked like a monster affair. And, then, too, like looking at the Pleiades, the more one looked the more there was to see.

The man in the rigging, and other details described by some, were natural consequences. ‘Squire Bass’ joke was simply that and nothing more – a practical joke. It has been the opinion of many that the alleged airship, or whatever it was, would resolve itself finally into some sort of an advertising dodge. But the worthy ‘squire has no brand of soap, panacea, cigar or breakfast food to hoist upon a purchasing public, so far as known. The craft which ambled into the camp of the Highland Parkers yesterday bore no advertisement. It was very inconsiderate of that balloon to land in an enlightened community like Highland Park, anyway.

Had it gone further the ‘squire’s joke might have lasted longer. But in the midst of thousands of wide-awake and strenuous folk it could only result in discovery and limelight. It was a case of “If we’re discovered we’re lost,” as ‘Squire Bass may have said.’Squire Bass’ balloon was not made lighter than air by the use of hot air about the prison commissioner’s job, either. The balloon which landed among the Parkites owed its powers of navigation to the gases arising from a bunch of waste soaked in some liquid, presumably gasoline, kerosene, benzine, or some other old sene, and ignited.By perpetrating such a joke upon an unsuspecting public, especially as the joke was so successful, ‘Squire Bass lays himself open to a variety of more or less succulent and pithy flings.

Any time today it will be pertinent to eject sarcasm and hitting sentences about the airship man. There will be some to say that he was trying to get high enough up to get his grasp on the prison commissioner plum. Others may hint that he was looking around for more love-smitten couples in order that he might join their two lives in one, and get a nice fee.The balloons of the Bass persuasion were sent up from the rear of Stong’s drug store, Main street. The forests, mountains and streams of the vicinity could probably divulge the landing place of the others, the ones turned loose before that which opened the Ninth warders’ eyes.

The Chattanooga Times – January 17, 1910

This may have been the end of our story, had the matter not been reviewed by none other than Charles Fort, that stalwart investigator of the unknown, and father of the Fortean Society.

THINKS OTHER WORLD AIRSHIP VISITED HERE

Charles Fort Seeks Information From Chattanoogans.

SAYS OTHER PLANETS TRY TO COMMUNICATE

Writes From London on Strange Aircraft Observed Here in January, 1910 – Author of “New Lands.”

Chattanoogans who remember the “mysterious airship” reported to have hovered over this city for three days in January, 1910, will be interested in a letter received by The Times from one Charles Fort, of 39 Marchmont street, Russell Square, London, England. Mr. Fort, who has written a “spooky” book called “New Lands,” suggests that the strange aircraft seen here was a visitor from some other planet. His letter to The Times follows:

To The Chattanooga Times:

Dear Sir – I don’t know whether you will think that the letter which I enclose is preposterous or not. I think, myself, that it so seems. But I think you will agree with me that the effect of preposterousness, or affront to preconceptions is no criterion. Of course I do not reason in the other extreme and favor an idea simply because it seems preposterous.

I hope that you will not think that I am hoaxing. My latest book, “New Lands,” which was published last October, in New York, is filled with similar data. The introduction to the book is by Booth Tarkington. Other persons, who would not be accused of being wild-minded, are interested in this new research.

If you will publish the letter, I shall be very much obliged to you. I have tried to make it interesting enough, and some new data may be forthcoming to justify considerable space, and I think that speculation upon other worlds, stimulated by the approaching opposition of the planet Mars, make the subject timely. Very truly. CHARLES FORT. 19 Marchmont Street, Russell Square, London, England, June 11, 1924.

Accompanying the above communication was the following:

According to the New York Tribune, Jan. 13, 1910, an unknown airship was seen in the sky, upon three successive days, at Chattanooga. Upon the 10th of January, it was seen traveling southward again, disappearing over Missionary ridge.

A reason for thinking that this object was no airship of terrestrial origin, is that it was reported also from Huntsville, Ala., seventy-five miles from Chattanooga. In this period, aeronautics upon this earth was of development so small that, in the middle of December, 1909, somebody won a prize for sailing in a dirigible from St. Cyr to the Eiffel tower, Paris, and back, a distance of less than twenty-five miles.

I am spending my time collecting data that indicate that there are other, inhabited worlds, perhaps not the visible planets; not inaccessibly remote; and that explorers from them have many times been seen in the sky. In the newspapers, this work has been called “epoch-making,” also otherwise, according to various opinions and emotions – “rather crazy,” for instance. Of many accounts of seeming explorers from other worlds, in the sky of this earth, I pick out one that is not especial for its convincingness, but that is convenient as to date, because the occurrence was at a time when dirigible airships of this earth could not have sailed even from St. Cyr to Paris.

In the Journal des Debats (Paris) April 12, 1905, is reported a luminous object, or an object bearing lights, which had been appearing every night since April 1, over the city of Cherbourg, France. In the “Bull Soc. Astro. de France,” 19-243, Flammarion says that the object must have been the planet Venus; he therefore derides the descriptions of it as having sometimes moved in various directions, saying that such supposed observations were illusions. In Le Figaro, April 13, it is said that the prefet maritime, of Cherbourg, had commissioned Commander de Kerillis, of the “Chasseloup-Laubat,” to investigate. The results of this officer’s investigations are published; that the object was not in the position of the planet Venus, and that it did not have the cresentic disk of Venus.

The last observations upon this object, at Cherbourg, were upon the night of the 11th. There is a datum to support the idea that something had been exploring locally over Cherbourg, and had then sailed away, and had been seen sailing away. In Le Figaro, April 15, it is said that, upon the night of the eleventh, the guards of La Blanche Lighthouse had seen something like a lighted balloon in the sky, and had started to signal to it, but that it had disappeared. It is said that the lighthouse had been out of communication with the mainland, and that the guards had not heard of the object that had been exciting the people of Cherbourg.

There are data which indicate that the observations upon an unknown vessel in the sky of Tennessee and Alabama, January, 1910, were upon something that had ben exploring in various parts of the sky of this earth. To some minds the data may seem unrelated: almost everything that has even been found out has been developed by organizing the seemingly unrelated.

In the New York Tribune, Dec 21, 1909, it is said that, at 1 o’clock, morning of the 21st, Immigration Inspector Hoe, of Boston, had seen “a bright light passing over the harbor,” and had concluded that he had seen an airship of some kind. In following issues of the Tribune, and other newspapers, it is said that two nights later, the streets of Worcester, Mass., were thronged with crowds, watching “a mysterious visitor” in the sky. Upon the night of the 23rd, a dark object, bearing lights moved in the sky, over Boston. “As it flew away to the north, queries began to pour into the newspaper offices and the police stations, regarding the remarkable visitations.”

Upon the night of the 24th there were no such observations reported upon anything in the sky of New England.

According to data, this may be because some exploring construction from some other world had swiftly moved across the Atlantic ocean.

In the English Mechanic, 104-71, James Fergusen, a well-known writer upon scientific subjects, writes from Rossbrien, Limerick, Ireland, that, at 8:30 o’clock, night of Dec. 24, he saw a luminous object appear above the northeastern horizon, and for twenty minutes sail southward, then turning around, retracing, and, at two minutes past nine, disappearing at the point whence it had come.

I am gathering material for as extensive an investigation of this whole subject as is possible. If readers of this newspaper, who saw the object that was reported from Tennessee, in January, 1910, will send accounts to me (33 marchmont Street, Russell Square, London, England) it may be that we can learn more about these appearances than could the Aztecs, for instance, when they heard of “moving lights at sea,” and probably thought the reports preposterous, or thought that nothing but torches in canoes had been seen, or thought virtually nothing upon the subject, and they did a great deal of thinking later.

In their book, Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds, Brad & Sherry Hansen Steiger connect a larger timeline of “Sightings” of the same thing that those in East Tennessee spotted starting with the airships of 1897, including reports in December of 1909 in New England. Wallace Tillinghast would come forward stating the many witnesses were seeing his “heavier than air machine” but could not produce such a vehicle for inspection.

We could devote an entire blog on the various sightings of 1896-7, thankfully there are many recaps of events, and show that for at least a decade, these types of sightings were not uncommon in North America, especially the South, where there were fewer natural explanations.

So were the East Tennessee sightings mere paper balloons (or Chinese Lanterns)? We may never know, what is known is that history repeats itself in the sky, and we should always look up.