SPECTRAL AIRSHIPS OF OTHER DAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 153, 24 July 1909, Page 4

SPECTRAL AIRSHIPS OF OTHER DAYS.

The mysterious airship that is' supposed to have been careering about the sky over East Anglia recently liad its counterpart, curiously enough, in about Uie same locality, precisely two hundred years ago'(says a Mimic paper). hi 17011, which was quite seventy years 'before the firnt balloon ascent took place in England, a "Hying ship' was said lo have 'been seen in die sky above the Norfolk fens. Several people observed it at different times and places, *nd one enterprising individual even made a drawing of it, which was reproduced in one of the newspapers of that date. SHAPED LIKE "A MONSTER SAI'SAGE. Of course, it may have been all imagination, or it was possibly a hoax. But the detailed descriptions of the aerial craft, coupled with the illustration, suggest at least the possibility that even in those distant days some enterprising individual or other had evolved an aeroplane of the now familiar boxkite typo, and was experimenting with it under cover of darkness. • In 1810, again, what we should now designate a dirigible balloon was reported to be hovering over Kent. Tt was, said those who professed to have observed it, "shaped like a monster sausage," and was guided apparently by means of wings or sails 'which stuck out before and 'behind. There is some reason to think that this may. have been the machine with which a certain French aeronaut named Illanchard was 'experimenting about this period, and with which lie certainly did, upon at least one occasion, cross the English Channel. PEOPLE SAW THE "LA PATRIE." In this connection, too, it is worthy of notice that when the French Government airship La Patrie broke loose from l-.er mooring in November, 1007, and was supposed to have been carried by the wind ovc r England and the north of Ireland, scores of people either pretended or really believed that t.licy had seen her in the clouds aibove localities where she could not possibly then have been, having regard to the direction of the prevailing air currents. Which merely goes to prove that in this age, as in .all others, there exist folk who are only too ready to let their imaginations run .away with them.