The Great Airship Mystery

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31730, 13 July 1968, Page 5

The Great Airship Mystery

(Specially written for “The Press” by JOHN SPCDDING) Local aviation history has become an absorbing subject for many New Zealanders since the late Mr George Bolt’s indefatigable research proved that a South Canterbury farmer nearly headed off the Wright Brothers for first flight honours. But one early aeronautical sensation lies buried in the dusty files of 60 years ago.

It was the Great Airship Mystery of 1909—a story which filled columns of space in the papers for weeks and gave rise to wild speculation. Was it fact? Was it a wonderful hoax? Or was it the start of the flying saucers from outer space theory? The story of the first sighting in mid-July, 1909, was possibly the only “scoop" ever made by the Balclutha “Free Press.” Mysterious lights in the sky, thought to have been attached to an airship, had been seen hovering over the Wangoloa Hills, near Kaitangata. Ridicule and cross-exam-ination had failed to shake the theory that it was an airship. An airship—something which hardly existed outside the pages of Jules Verne at that time. “The story has been received with some incredulity, but the kite and the advertising balloon theories advanced have been scouted as being as wildly improbable as an airship,” reported a West Otago correspondent “Seeing that the gentlemen who witnessed the phenomenon are of unimpeachable integrity, residents are at a loss what to make of it. ‘lf it isn’t a hoax, or an airship, what is it?’ is the question being generally asked.” In England Hubert Latham was still endeavouring to fly the Channel, but over Kelso the mystery aircraft was seen again, this time in broad daylight. It had passed over the school grounds, and the children had described it as shaped like a boat, with what appeared to be the figure of a man sitting in it. The “Otago Daily Times” had got its teeth into the story and put its Kelso correspondent to work checking eyewitness claimants in the area. “No Doubt” “There is not the slightest doubt that the airship was seen at Kelso,” he wrote. “I have eye-witnesses to prove this. It is cigar or boat-shaped and is pointed at each end. It did not appear to be very long in build, but was very broad. ... It flew over and past the school grounds, turned around and went back the way it came. It was flying along very easily and had no trouble in turning. It came from the direction of the Blue Mountains and over the wooded hill above Kelso, and it seemed to make back to the mountains again. It was seen by at least five persons, and their statements are all in accord.” The following day, under the heading “The Supposed Airship,” the Kelso correspondent had another dispatch stating that “this thing” had been sighted by people on the other side erf the Blue Mountains and, later by more people on the Kelso side. All had been attracted by a bright light in the sky. Their stories were consistent and it had been a clear night. By the next night the light had been seen further south and Auckland had also staked its claim to the mystery aircraft which, according to a young inventor, could only have been an airship. Special Reporter Several persons in the country were supposed to be perfecting flying machines and it was presumed that one of their inventions had been successful and was being tested in secret. Across the world Bleriot flew the Channel and kept interest in matters aeronautical at a high pitch. Determined to get to the root of the matter, the “Otago Daily Times” sent a special reporter to Kelso and on July 29 a two-column report was filled with circumstantial

evidence. "Something—But What?” was one of the baffled reporter’s headings. , He had gone back to the first sighting of the lights in the sky and had investigated every rumour. Reports about lights had been most frequent, but several people had laid claim to clear views of the airship and finally one woman had heard the noise of it—“a dull, rolling, whirring noise, like a motor or a threshing mill." There were hosts of suggestions appearing in the correspondence columns of papers throughout the country. One writer thought that it must have been a flock of black swans, but could not explain the whirling propeller or why the flock should indulge in two circles over the township and return to its starting place. Many people thought that a local invention had been perfected and was being tested, but could not imagine how such secrecy had been maintained. Rumours Poured In A resident of the Dunedin suburb of North -East Valley saw a light like a searchlight which appeared to be attached to some sort of black body moving slowly up the valley. On the same day Mr Oswald Coates, of Christchurch, was giving a demonstration of his successful model flying machine to the governorgeneral and was proposing the formation of a syndicate to exploit his invention. Day after day the reports and rumours poured in, and a host of flying machine inventors showed themselves. Dunedin considered itself the headquarters of the mysterious aeronautical' activities. Messrs James Smith and Thomas Hemsley, of Mornington, showed the “Daily Times” a flying machine which they had built, but for which they could not find a suitable power plant The same night two youths brought into the newspaper office the remains of a fire balloon which they had found in York Place. Another man reminded the “Daily Times” that it had published a report 12 months previously on a flying machine which Mr Louis Warsaw was building. Practical jokers were hard at work, but most people seemed to think that the basic story was no hoax. One letter suggested that it was a spy machine being sent up by a German ship off the coast—although why the West Otago hinterland should have,been subjected to such close scrutiny is a matter for surmise. Another thought the airship had been built in Australia and was being used for smuggling, and urged the Government to “take urgent steps to find out whether or not enormous evasions of the Customs were possible.” “The absorbing topic of

the hour relates to airships,” said the “Otago Daily Times” in a leading article on July 31. The tone of the article was somewhat facetious, but the possibility of the airship being an actuality was not entirely discounted. The story was indeed growing. There were dozens more reports, several from further afield, and even independent drawings of the machine which had a strange similarity. Every clue was being assiduously tracked down. To a report that mysterious machinery had been conveyed to lonely Mount Nicholas, on Lake Wakatipu, there came an answer that an inventor was at work and that an airship was on his inventive agenda, but that he was far from success. A certain Mr Wragge hastened to telegraph the “Otago Daily Times” his theory that “the mysterious lights are due to two causes—local secret airship trials and cosmic luminous dust of meteoric or cometary origin.” The meteor theory, indeed, was one of the most popular, but the behaviour of the lights in the sky, apart from the fact that many reliable citizens claimed to have seen the airship, seemed to discount this suggestion. On August 6 the airship was seen near Kelso again, this time by a group of 10 hitherto sceptical workmen from Dunedin. They described it as a cigar-shaped balloon with a carriage suspended below. It had a powerful white headlight It changed altitude steadily several times as it cruised off towards the Hokonuis. Kaikoura produced an even better airship at the same time. A lone eye-witness averred that the aircraft was grey and torpedo-shaped and contained three men, one of whom shouted at him in a foreign tongue. It cruised off under perfect control. A few more vague reports drifted in, but the great airship mystery was pushed aside by the wreck of the Maori off Cape Town and the greater mystery surrounding the loss of the liner Waratah. But the story was not entirely dead. There was dwindling speculation, which was revived for a time by reports that a similar phantom airship had been sighted in Australia. No Answer That, as far as the records go, was the end of the Kelso mystery machine. Except for the fact that, long after, there came a story that a collection of rusty machine tools had been found in the bush deep in the rugged range of the Blue Mountains behind Kelso. Where had they come from? Were they actually

from the mystery airship? Was it all a gigantic hoax, and, if so, how did its perpetrators keep it so secret? Or was it some sort of mass hallucination, possibly induced by some meteorological phemomenon?

There is no easy answer to these and a host more questions. Sixty years ago the idea of airships in Otago was far wilder than current speculation that flying saucers are really migrants from another planet The Kelso mystery ship may indeed have been a colonial forerunner of today’s U.F.O.s. Or perhaps some incorrigible practical joker is still alive who will read this article and enjoy a huge joke in happy retrospect