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This article was published in the daily newspaper Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, USA, on 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.
Denton, Denton Co., Tex., April 14.- That Denton is not to be behind the other towns and cities in north Texas is shown by the fact that the mysterious airship, of which so much has been said and written in the past few days, has been seen here by at least two credible persons, one a gentleman, the other a lady, whose reputation for truthfulness can not be assailed.
The gentleman who saw the ship says he was standing in his yard watching with the aid of a pair of powerful marine glasses, the stars, when a shadow fell athwart the moon, obscuring it for the moment.
The sky being cloudless, he looked up to examine the cause. "I at first thought it was a meteor," said he, "but upon closer I examination discovered the unknown object to be almost stationary I and focusing my glasses on it, discovered that it was moving slowly in a southeasterly direction. At this slow rate of speed the ship continued its courses for a few minutes and then, With almost a jump started off at a terrific rate and. disappeared in the southeast, remaining in the range of my vision about twenty minutes."
"When I first ascertained the character of the object it floated about half a mile above the earth and seemed to be about fifty feet long, of a cigar shape with two great mugs thrust out from each side; a broad tail or steering sail behind and a long beak or blade resembling a cut water on a ship in front. At the point where the beak joined the main body a powerful searchlight threw its rays far into the night ahead beside which even the luminosity of the moon paled. A row of windows along the side gave out smaller lights the source of which must have been stored electricity as there was no smoke, as well as I could see very plainly, coming from the ship, not was there even a sign of a smoke stack. I do not doubt that it was an airship."
The lady above mentioned is a member of the Ariel Society, is one of the most widely read of all the ladies in town and is not one upon whom credulity anything of a hoax-like nature could be imposed. Her description, although much less explicit than the gentleman's as she was unaided by any glasses, tallies almost exactly with the account. When she saw it, the ship was bounding along through space like a balloon.
These two descriptions are better than any of their predecessors, as one of them was with the aid of powerful glasses and both of them are from people widely read and much of their readings, too of a scientific nature.
