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This article was published in the daily newspaper The Times-Press, Bay City, Michigan, USA, Thursday, April 15, 1897.
Warning: the airship stories must not be taken at face value as "UFO sightings." Evaluation of such stories is under way here.
The Aerial Mystery Said to Have Exploded in Michigan
Kalamazoo, April 15 -- People of Pavilion have made some startling reports, and, if true, then the much talked of airship was not only a reality but is now a thing of the past. George W. Somers and William Chadburn, old soldiers, claim to have seen the ship on Monday evening [April 12, 1897], when they remained up until a late hour in attendance upon a sick horse. The descriptions given by them are somewhat at variance but both agree in the assertion that the apparition was illuminated at both ends and moved through space with wonderful rapidity. They had scarcely time for their observation when a dull explosion was heard and the object disappeared. They declare the report to have been like that of heave ordnance and to have been immediately succeeded by a distant sound of projectiles flying through the air. Wondering greatly, they proceeded to the house, where they passed an excited and sleepless night.
Mr. and Mrs. Wallace say they heard the explosion distinctly, but thought it was thunder. But the discoveries of the morning are sufficient to establish the veracity of the two actual observers. In one place, two miles from Scotts, there was found, a large coil of heavy wire, evidently a part of some electrical appliance. At another point a propeller blade of some very light material was discovered in a partially fused condition. Three men engaged in shingling a barn in Comstock Township affirm that, upon resuming work in the morning following the occurrence, they found their completed work covered with minute fragments which had in some instances penetrated the shingles and entered the boards beneath.
