MYSTERIOUS AIRSHIP.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 797, 21 April 1910, Page 3

MYSTERIOUS AIRSHIP.

—-* —• SEEN IN THE FIJI GROUP. APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. . (By TelecraDh— Special Corresnondent.) Auckland, April ]3. A curious story of the visit of a supposed airship to some outlying islands of the Fiji group is told in a letter by Miss Eva Hennings, received by Mr. G. Hennings, of Remuera, yesterday. According to the young lady,, a party of strangers were seen cruising about in the vicinity of Loma Loma, and on an attempt being made to get into communication with them, they disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. Miss Hennings tells her story thus:—• • "We are more up-to-date than Auckland' now, because we have seen an airship before you. Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon on March 17, Beatty (a native) sighted a funny black sail on the 'water between Naitaba and the mainland. She said, it was the schooner Dewdrop, and called me to see it. Looking at it, I said: 'No; it is not a schooner.' Taking the glass, I called to Uncle William to see it. He had a look, and his eyesight not being very good, said: 'I don't know what it is., It may be a wreck.' I then looked, and almost dropped the glasses, and shouted, 'A flying machine!' I could see the wheels (juite plainly, and it was going at an incredible speed. Beatty had a look, and, not knowing what a flying machine was, only described it as I did. In about five minutes it travelled. the distance of eight miles, and anchored at a Bniall -island called Kibobo, about six miles from us. Uncle then sent' the whalehoat with three men and a note, at about three o'clock, and they set out to pull and soil also. After that we saw another flying very high, and in the opposite direction. "The boat returned at noon on March 18. Malakai said they only arrived at the middle island at seven in the evening, and slept there. Early that morning they pulled to the small island where we saw the airship anchor. Arriving on, the beach, he saw the print of hobnailed boots. He followed the prints up into the grass, where the visitors' seemed to have sat down and had a smoke, for bits, of cigarette papers were lying about and there, was also a bit of German paper, which the boy picked up and then lost again. But he knew German print, having sera, uncle's papers. Malakai could not riake out how many persons .had beerf on this uninhabited rock, because they seemed to walk on each other's tracks (Indian file), but their footprints were plainly seen. ■ The night they slept there they saw a light far across the water, and believed-it to be:from the airship. '. f

, "The' Loma Loma magistrate rode .out oh March 19, and was informed about it.. He at: once wrote to tho Colonial Secretary. It had evidently not been seen from Suva or Levuka, or. the steamer which came, the same day would have brought the news, so perhaps we are the first to have seen an airship in Fiji.