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Airshipcat:
Date: | January 22, 1878
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Time: | Morning
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Place: | Denison, Texas
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Narratives: |
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A Strange Phenomenon
From Mr. John Martin, a farmer who lives some six miles south of this city, we
learn the following strange story: Tuesday morning while out hunting, attention
was directed to a dark object high up in the southern sky. The peculiar shape
and velocity with which the object seemed to approach riveted his attention and
he strained his eyes to discover its character.
When first noticed, it appeared to be about the size of an orange, which continued
to grow in size. After gazing at it for some time Mr. Martin became blind from
long looking and left off viewing it for a time in order to rest his eyes. On
resuming his view, the object was almost overhead and had increased considerably
in size, and appeared to be going through space at wonderful speed.
When directly over him it was about the size of a large saucer and was evidently
at great height. Mr. Martin thought it resembled, as well as he could judge, a
balloon. It went as rapidly as it had come and was soon lost to sight in the
heavenly skies. Mr. Martin is a gentleman of undoubted veracity and this strange
occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the attention of our scientists. [1]
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Major Keyhoe wrote:
"Until now, I had supposed that the term "saucer" was original with Kenneth
Arnold. Actually, the first to compare a flying object with a saucer was John
Martin, a farmer who lived near Denison, Texas. The Denison Daily News of
January 25, 1878, gives the following account:"
"From Mr. John Martin, a farmer who lives some six miles south of this city, we
learn the following strange story: Tuesday morning while out hunting, attention
was directed to a dark object high up in the southern sky. The peculiar shape
and velocity with which the object seemed to approach riveted his attention and
he strained his eyes to discover its character."
"When first noticed, it appeared to be about the size of an orange, which continued
to grow in size. After gazing at it for some time Mr. Martin became blind from
long looking and left off viewing it for a time in order to rest his eyes. On
resuming his view, the object was almost overhead and had increased considerably
in size, and appeared to be going through space at wonderful speed."
"When directly over him it was about the size of a large saucer and was evidently
at great height. Mr. Martin thought it resembled, as well as he could judge, a
balloon. It went as rapidly as it had come and was soon lost to sight in the
heavenly skies. Mr. Martin is a gentleman of undoubted veracity and this strange
occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the attention of our scientists." [2]
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According to Antonio Ribeira, in the summer of 1873, John Martin is working,
when he sees a strange machine approaching him. "When the machine is above him,
he notes that it has the form of a flying saucer." [3]
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Sources: |
- [1] "A Strange Phenomenon", article in the newspaper "Denison Daily News", Denison, Texas, Friday, January 25, 1878.
- [2] "Flying saucers are real", book by Major Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC ret., 1950.
- [-] "Operation Trojan Horse", book by John Keel, Sphere Books publisher, London, 1973.
- [2] "Ces mystérieux OVNIS", book by Antonio Ribeira, De Vechi publisher, page 449, 1976.
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Notes: | First known case where the word "saucer" appeared in conjuction with a flying object.
There is no difference remarkable with some of the modern accounts of daylight discs.
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Explanation: | Extraterrestrial craft possible, invention possible. Single witness.
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Above: the office of the Denison Daily News circa 1873. |
Brief discussion:
Expectedly, this old report misses accurate data, and no interview of the witness
is possible to obtain better information or to check the reliability of the account
or the honesty of the witness. But this old report exists, and although the precise
indications miss, it remains nevertheless than it cannot be easily interpreted in
terms of commnplace phenomena: the report lacks the description of a trail, luminosity and
the brevity which would make it possible to explain it away as a meteor;
it misses the slowlyness which could make for a balloon, only manmade flying object
of that time, it misses the context and the signs of a hoax by the witness or
of a journalistic hoax. Thus it remains an unidentified flying object that
nothing forbids to relate to more recent observations.
Investigation:
On this matter, the first and possibly the only investigation I started was
to verify the existence of the newspaper article. The first transcript of
this newspaper's article appears in Major Keyhoe's book, and I could always
personaly verify that everything the Major wrote was factual; but cross-checking
can do no harm.
I thus first wrote on December 12, 2005, to a citizen of Denison who offered
a number of interesting historical information on Denison and on
Bredetted C. Murray who founded the Denison Daily News offices
on Skiddy St., now known as Chestnut Street. Unfortunately, I could
not reach this informant.
I then wrote on the next day to a lady managing a local library. She quickly
answered that she had many issues of the Denison Daily News on microfilm, unfortunately,
the collection started just a few years too late. However she told me that she would
explore other historical resources and let me know. Indeed on December 31, 2005,
I had my answer:
The article does exist, and it appears at the correct date
on the front page of the paper, in the fifth column and lower
half of the page. A copy of the original is at the The Center
for American History (www.cah.utexas.edu) at the University
of Texas in Austin.
Counts:
Type of report: | Witness report according to local newspaper.
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Number of witnesses: | 1
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Number of named witnesses: | 1
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Witnesses occupations: | Farmer.
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Type of location: | Not indicated.
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Coordinates: | Lat. 33.76 Long. -96.54
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Coordinates precision: | Unknown.
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Description of "UFO": | Dark round object.
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Description of "manoeuvers": | Flies fast from 45° elevation when first seen to overhead and on.
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Reactions: | Interest.
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Occupants: | None.
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Occupants keywords: | N/A
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Communication: | N/A
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Language: | N/A
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Content: | N/A
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Daylight/nocturnal: | Daylight.
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Weather: | Not indicated.
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Observation devices: | None.
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Strangeness: | High.
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Reliability: | Average.
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Explanation(s) at the time: | None.
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