Encounter Atlas
Historic encounters / California
25 old newspaper reports of strange things in California. Mystery airships, 1896-97 (18); Giant birds (2); Phantom airships, 1909 (2); Other strange creatures (1); Wild men (1); Sea serpents and lake monsters (1). Each links to the original page.
Mountains at the head of Capay Valley, Yolo County, California approx. · June 1891
For weeks, Yolo County papers ran yarns about a freak of nature in the mountains at the head of Capay Valley, nicknamed the What-is-It. Two more men then said they had followed the creature to its lair.
Probably a hoax or tall tale The Sacramento paper said the story may have been started deliberately.
Fresno County, California approx. · Aug. 1891
A St. Louis Republic story said reputable citizens in a Fresno County farming district swore they had seen and hunted two dragons with fifteen-foot wings and featherless bodies, which seized fowls with three snaps of their jaws.
“Winged Monsters That Devour Fowls with Three Snaps of Their Jaws”
Probably a hoax or tall tale Has all the marks of a newspaper tall tale.
Eden Township hills near Haywards and Dublin, California · Nov. 1891
Hunters and farmers in the hills of Eden Township near Haywards and Dublin had glimpsed a creature that ran like a deer. A Haywards constable finally caught him, a man who had been living wild and eating quail, and brought him to the county jail.
Hills south of Chino, California · June 20, 1896
The superintendent of Richard Gird's ranch caught a California vulture (condor) in the hills south of Chino after it had gorged on a dead cow and was too full to fly. The paper said it stood six feet tall, an inch or two taller than its captor.
“A bird of prey as tall as a man!”
Sacramento, California · Nov. 17, 1896
On a Tuesday evening, hundreds of people in Sacramento watched a brilliant white light drift over the east side of the city, rising and falling as it went. Some witnesses insisted they saw a dark body behind the light and heard voices aboard. This was the opening night of the great 1896-97 airship wave.
“It was cigar shaped.”
Sutro Heights, San Francisco, California approx. · Nov. 21, 1896
San Francisco mayor Adolph Sutro said employees at his Sutro Heights estate watched a dark mass with two lights come in over the ocean at about 500 feet, sweeping a searchlight-like beam, then turn north toward the city. Sutro said he believed an inventor had solved aerial navigation.
“these people would not try to tell me ghost stories”
San Francisco, California · Nov. 22, 1896
San Francisco attorney George D. Collins told reporters that a wealthy client had built a working airship and flown it over Sacramento, and promised a public exhibition. Papers then named a dentist, Dr. E. H. Benjamin, as the secret inventor. Collins soon backed away from his story, and no airship or inventor was ever produced.
Probably a hoax or tall tale Collins retracted much of what he was quoted as saying, and the New-York Tribune called the whole affair one of the strangest hoaxes in the country.
Sacramento, California · Nov. 22, 1896
Days after the first sighting, crowds in Sacramento again watched a large white light move quickly across the evening sky toward the southwest. One man driving a streetcar said his passengers made him stop so they could get out and stare.
“the most uncanny looking thing I ever saw”
San Jose, California · Nov. 22, 1896
A young San Jose man, Frank Everett, said he watched the airship pass high over the eastern part of the city at about 11 at night, moving toward Mount Hamilton and its observatory. Others on Santa Clara Street said they saw it too.
Oakland, California · Nov. 23, 1896
Passengers on a streetcar near Oakland watched a light in the direction of Haywards and said they could make out the outline of a craft shaped like a huge bird, throwing a beam of light ahead of it. Oakland residents talked of little else and guessed the machine was hidden somewhere in Alameda County.
“The ship resembles a huge bird in its outlines”
San Francisco, California · Nov. 24, 1896
At about 6 p.m. the cry went up on Market Street that the airship's headlight was visible high over the city, and excited crowds gathered to watch. A professor who checked with his telescope said the supposed airship was an ordinary star.
Probably a hoax or tall tale A professor identified the light as a star.
San Jose, California · Nov. 24, 1896
Three employees of the Sunset Telephone company in San Jose reported a bright light moving rapidly across the sky at about 11 p.m., heading south toward Gilroy. Two nights later more San Jose residents described lights passing over the city.
Santa Rosa, California · Nov. 24, 1896
Airship fever reached Santa Rosa when a bright light appeared at 7:30 p.m. and hundreds of people went out to watch. It seemed to move east, vanishing with a dull red glow and then reappearing, and some were ready to swear it had huge wings.
Los Angeles, California · Nov. 25, 1896
Los Angeles papers reported that the famous airship had apparently crossed the Tehachapi range, after a book dealer and two other residents described a moving light. Within days, people up late in the San Fernando Valley described strange lights near the hills on three nights running.
Haywards (Hayward), California · Nov. 26, 1896
A Haywards man named Mohr said he watched the airship rise from a canyon near his place, fly toward San Francisco and come back, and believed it was kept near Lone Tree Cemetery. Three well-known Haywards citizens gave their own account of the same lights.
Sacramento, California · Nov. 30, 1896
In a Sacramento saloon, a man named Pat Nunan entertained the stove-side crowd with a long account of being lured aboard the airship and taken for a ride. The paper printed it as a comic yarn.
Probably a hoax or tall tale Told and printed as a saloon yarn.
Robinson's Ferry, Calaveras County, California approx. · Nov. 30, 1896
Around the time the airship was said to have flown south, people at Robinson's Ferry in Calaveras County reported two mysterious lights moving high over the mountains.
Oakland, California · Dec. 1, 1896
Case Gibson, a young Oakland electrician and the son of a school superintendent, told reporters he had seen the airship at close range and gave a detailed description of it in flight. Students at Stanford also reported a light they took for the airship.
Beach north of Pacific Grove, Monterey County, California approx. · Dec. 2, 1896
Two Pacific Grove fishermen said an airship about sixty feet long and made of metal landed on the beach some fifteen miles north of town, and that they talked and ate with its three crewmen. The paper sent a correspondent to look for evidence.
Probably a hoax or tall tale No evidence of a landing was reported; it reads as a tall tale.
Fresno, California · Dec. 3, 1896
George Jennings, part owner of the bar at Fresno's Grand Central Hotel, said a stranger came in claiming to be the airship's inventor and told him the craft had been caught by an air current and was now somewhere in Fresno County.
Stanford Heights, San Francisco, California approx. · Dec. 3, 1896
A San Francisco story, reprinted in Kansas, said a 40-foot airship of galvanised sheet steel sailed over Twin Peaks, lost control and plunged into a gulch near the Corbett road, bruising its two crewmen. Reporters described its twisted propeller.
Probably a hoax or tall tale A homemade contraption or a newspaper stunt; nothing like it flew in 1896.
Oakland and Alameda, California · Dec. 5, 1896
Mysterious lights floated over Oakland and Alameda one night, one shooting up over Piedmont and drifting into the clouds, followed by others. A Washington paper reprinted the story under a joking headline about airships appearing in flocks.
Probably a hoax or tall tale The papers treated it as a joke; such lights were often paper fire balloons sent up by pranksters.
Off Long Beach, California · Feb. 17, 1909
Guy Griffith, James Harvey and three other fishermen in the launch Reta said that some miles off the coast they saw a sea serpent 40 feet long, with a brown head as big as a small barrel, eyes like a man's fist and a large dorsal fin, swinging its head like a snake. Papers noted that Long Beach was a dry town.
Salton Sea, Imperial Valley, California · June 3, 1909
At twilight, people in Imperial and Brawley watched for an aeroplane seen the night before cruising over the Salton Sea, and some guessed at a secret aircraft factory in the San Jacinto wilds. Within days, papers reported it had been a mirage.
Probably a hoax or tall tale Explained at the time as a mirage.
San Francisco Bay area, California · Aug. 12, 1909
For two days, Bay Area residents reported an airship's lights swinging across the sky a few hundred feet up. Astronomer R. Tracy Crawford of the University of California said the two lights were Venus and Jupiter.
Probably a hoax or tall tale Explained by an astronomer: the planets Venus and Jupiter.
Newspaper pages: Library of Congress, Chronicling America (US newspapers published before 1927 are in the public domain). Text search: American Stories (Dell, Bryan, Carlson and others, CC BY 4.0). Summaries are our own. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).