Have You Seen It?

Stevens Point [Wisconsin] Journal, 12 avril 1897

The Famous Airship is Skylarking in Northern Wisconsin

The airship, which has been seen at hundreds of different points in the United States, first in California, then east of the Rockies and
recently in Chicago, has appeared in Wiscodsin [sic] and Thursday night [April 8] the natives of Wausau fell upon their faces before the aeriel [sic] mystertery [sic]. Saturday night the invention rose like a huge meteor from the woods south of Marshfield. Hundreds of people are said to have rushed wildly into the streets to get a glimpse of the mechanical monstrosity, but it did not come nearer than five miles west of the town and finally disappeared beneath the horizon in the northwest. It was lighted with a bright red light which appeared as a headlight on the cone shaped body of the ship.

The residents of Green Bay, including such authority as attorney H. O. Fairchild and E. J. Carroll of the Straubel hotel, insist that the airship passed over that city Saturday night at 10 o'clock and disappeared in the northeast. Manitowoc people also are said to have observed the ship. It also appeared in Milwaukee Sunday morning. All the reports fail to state how much the observers had been drinking before they saw the apparition.

It was reported this morning that the night operators in the Central depot saw the ship pass over the city late last night, but no one was found who could corroborate the tale.