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This article was published in the daily newspaper The Gazette, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Wednesday, April 14, 1897.
Warning: the airship stories must not be taken at face value as "UFO sightings." Evaluation of such stories is under way here.
The strange body that passed over the city Monday evening [April 12, 1897] and that was taken by many for an airship was seen by the proprietor of the Gazette, as well as many other citizens. It came from the southeast and passed to the northwest, nearly over the center of the city at a rate of speed that must have been forty too sixty miles an hour. When about two miles northwest of the city the object seemed to change its course from northwest to due north. All that could be distinguished was a reddish-green light of great brilliancy that threw out rays on all sides and was six times as large as any star in the heavens. Airship, or whatever it may be, there is some strange skylarking about the heavens that has been seen by thousands and thousands of people in different portions of the country. What it is, astronomers ought to be getting on to it by this time. The object was first heard of several weeks ago in western Nebraska, then at different points in Kansas, then in Iowa, and Illinois, and now in Michigan. Sunday evening an object of the same description passed over South Bend and Niles.
The object, when it passed over Kalamazoo appeared to be about half a mile high. It is more likely that it was fifty and perhaps three times that many miles from the earth and is some wandering body not down on the chart. One thing is certain, it goes through space like a rocket.
