Encounter Atlas
From late 1896 to mid-1897, thousands of Americans reported airships in the night sky: large, cigar-shaped gas bags with lights, propellers, sometimes wings, and occasionally a crew who spoke to the people below. Reports started over Sacramento in November 1896 and spread east through Texas and the Midwest by spring 1897.
Newspapers of the era printed wild tales, including a story that an airship crashed into a windmill in Aurora, Texas in April 1897 and its pilot was buried in the town cemetery, and a Kansas farmer's claim that an airship lassoed one of his cows. Both are now widely seen as hoaxes. No airship capable of such flights existed yet.
The wave is seen as a forerunner of modern UFO reports, with each era seeing the future technology it imagined.
Browse 10,622 US Air Force Project Blue Book case files on the map or by state.
What witnesses report
- A lit, cigar-shaped craft at night
- Searchlights sweeping the ground
- Propellers, fins or wings
- Human-looking crews
Famous cases
- 1896Sacramento sightings
Sacramento, California - 1897Aurora crash story
Aurora, Texas - 1897Cow-napping airship tale
Le Roy, Kansas
Seen the Mystery airships?
Tell us what happened. Every report is read by a person before it goes on the map, and you can stay anonymous.
