Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery

by Michael Busby

This investigative report outlines the course of these sightings and offers an explanation based on period documentation.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Dan Pfeiffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should serve as a model for the analytical approach to investigations into events consisting hard to establish factual accounts collected from disconnected sources. Long have I desired to find a book that employs the methods utilized by the author, a former US Marine and electrical engineer with a record of achievement in the field of avionics. The author thus has credence in his research methods and conclusions. At least in my assessment he does. And what is to be concluded? Merely that a group of adventurous, well funded inventors, professionals and Civil War veterans invented and flew a small fleet (up to 9) of gas and electric powered airships several years before the Wright Brothers tinker toy aeroplane ever lifted into the air. Hundreds of newspaper accounts, eyewitness reports, census records and patent documents were gathered in the research effort of this book. This includes extensive tables of sightings indexed by time, place, direction and includes maps of the possible flight paths and speed calculations. The author builds his case for the existence of such craft, indeed built by inventive men, not aliens; by reprinting an extensive sampling of the newspaper reports of 1897 peak sighting period from April to May of the year. Knowing that often the "official" version of history is often shaped to fit the narratives of certain authoritarian interests, this reader is convinced this merry band of aerial ruffians and self styled prometheum sky gods tested, flew, landed and in some instances crashed their ships using chemical formulas and batteries likely known to energy experts today but not employed commercially due to the inefficiencies inherent in this manner of producing energy. In other words, it's damn expensive! This is a fascinating and compelling book that demonstrates that the history of human ingenuity as we have been taught may be only a small part of the wholeness of truth. If so, it is truly a world of wonder in which we are blessed to reside.

[dallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like reading about great mysteries, and I found Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery by Michael Busby very enjoyable to read. The information is presented in an easy-to-handle, chronological format.
Documents from 1897 tell of people seeing airships in the night skies with sightings from the Western United States to the Mid-West. The U.S. government was not providing much explanation to the public, therefore speculation grew that the sightings were either covert governmental operations or - even more unsettling - visitors from another planet.
This book focuses mainly on the sightings in Texas using detailed reports and accounts from period documents and newspapers. The author presents these documents in an order that traces the course of sighting patterns that lead to the mystery of the entire situation.
Busby’s educational and military background, as well as his experience as a contract engineer and avionics systems test engineer for Lock Martin Aeronautics, offer credibility and authenticity to his work.

[Christopher Heckman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raises more questions than it solves.

In the year described above, mysterious flying aircraft were spotted across the country. Were they aliens? Were they inventors? Were they hoaxes?

The author weeds through the Texas sightings by printing the original articles and commenting on them, which separates some chaff from the wheat. However, I was disappointed that very few of the articles outside of Texas were discussed. (The author provides a list of newspapers that had at least one report; there are quite a few, so maybe he can be forgiven.)

Busby also tends to repeat himself over the course of the book, and he needed a better proofreader, because he repeated the same typographical errors; "quiet Iowa village" became "quite Iowa village" quiet a few times. (I mean [i]quite[/i] a few times. Now he's got me doing it ...)

He manages to put together a narrative explaining these sightings: tests of several craft, the crash in Aurora, Texas, when one of the ships ran into something (windmill or windlass) and exploded, the search for said airship, and the gradual disappearance.

The book, however, goes into speculation, tracking down how the players in the airship sightings were related to each other; how, where, and when they probably met; and Busby supposes that the airships all eventually crashed, and the project was abandoned without anyone going to a newspaper and giving the whole story (which would have been the definitive article on the topic).

Busby also drops a major bombshell: An artist (a retired butcher) named Charles Dellschau started painting pictures of airships, including coded messages and references to the Sonora Aero Club and an organization known only as NYMZA (maybe standing for "New York ..." ?). Dellschau worked for twenty-three years to produce all of this, but what does it mean? Was there a secret society of airship inventors, going back as far as the 1850s? Busby only prints one image out of this collection (and in black and white, at that). In all fairness, Dellschau might be the topic of another book, but Busby only teases us with this information.

[Frederick Heimbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is valuable for its research and the conclusions the author based on that research. Turns out he thinks he can confidently identify the inventors of the various airships (yes, there were at least 5) roaming the U.S. in 1896-1897.

Unfortunately, the book is not well organized. The first two-thirds of the book is mostly full quotations of newspaper articles. This material should have been summarized, with longer quotes put in appendices. The author is asking the reader to reconstruct along with him his detective work. As a reader, I didn't sign on for that.

In fact, I'm tempted to advise the reader to jump straight to the 66% mark.

However, the conclusions are so important, I can't knock the rating down any farther than 4 stars. Definitely a recommended (partial) read.

[Joe Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author pursues the earthly answers to this airships mystery that plagued Texas in 1897. His answers are very interesting and well worth the read. Sadly, his lacks reference notations to where he found most of his information that could be used check his sources or try to follow up on some additional leads. I really would like to know more about the airship inventor named only, Rich, and his experimentations with aerial torpedos (bombs) from airships. Because of his poor referencing, I should give it a much lower rating, but overall I still enjoyed his opinions about this.

[Bradley Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listen to my discussion about this book at the Of Books & Booze podcast!

[Robert Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent investigation skills. Story and connections laid out with clarity. An enjoyable, enlightening and even inspiring read. Highly recommend.