The United States had nothing flying in the air in 1896, so what was it? We might never know, or now, do we?

Publisher's Note: Read more about the history of UFOS in the 1800s by reading an excellent article by B J Booth, Before the Wright Brothers...There Were UFOs.

More UFO Sightings 1896 - Newspapers carried a growing number of reports of airship experiments, setting off the "Airship Hysteria" of 1896-97. There was an increase in airship patent applications in the late 1890s. Samuel Pierpont Langley tested his first aeroplane model on May 6, 1896. Swedish explorer Solomon Andree made an unsuccessful attempt at an Arctic balloon trip May 31. William Paul crashed his airship Albatross in September. The Sacramento Bee reported Nov. 17 that three New York men would attempt to fly an airship to California, and over the next several days hundreds of reports of airship sightings came in from people around Sacramento. Another wave of hundreds of sightings took place from January to May in 1897. Most of the sightings were at night during the winter months, started in California and spread east, and were fueled by sensationalistic newspaper stories. William Randolph Hearst published an editorial in his San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 5, 1896, critical of this sensationalism: " 'Fake journalism' has a good deal to answer for, but we no not recall a more discernible exploit in that line than the persistent attempt to make the public believe that the air in this vicinity is populated with airships. It has been manifest for weeks that the whole airship story is pure myth." (quoted in Frazier p. 20) Source: sandiego.edu.