Thread by @mrjeffknox

#ufotwitter #ufohistory #airships #BeforeArnold
Today In UFO/Airship History - Thousands See Airship
December 22, 1909 - Worcester, Mass.
1/6:30 p.m. Many residents of Worcester, Massachusetts, see a “brilliant ray” emitted by a large black object 1,000 feet high in the

2/southwestern sky. After circling over the town, the object heads to the west, where it is seen over Marlboro. It returns to Worcester between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., flying at low altitude and sporting a searchlight. One policeman thinks he sees enormous wings; others detect one or

3/ two figures inside. The airship is attributed to a Worcester businessman named Wallace E. Tillinghast, who has told the Boston Herald on December 12 that he has invented a heavier-than-air monoplane and has made more than 100 test flights at night to Boston and New York City.

4/But Tillinghast never offers his aircraft for public viewing, and people gradually realize it is a hoax. [Eberhart]
Sources:
“Tells of Flight 300 Miles in Air,” Boston Herald, December 13, 1909, p. 1;
“Airship Seen in Two Cities,” Boston Globe, December 23, 1909, p. 1;

Sources:
Jerome Clark, "UFOs, 1900–1946", The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pg.1165;
Thomas E. Bullard, The Myth and Mystery of UFOs, pg.114;

Stephen Whalen and Robert E. Bartholomew, “The Great New England Airship Hoax of 1909,” New England Quarterly 75, no. 3 (September 2002) :466–476;
jstor.org/stable/1559788

Thomas Bullard's Airship File, pg.270-273.
[Contains more news clippings of Airship articles at the time]
files.afu.se/Downloads/Book…

Thomas Bullard's Airship File, pg.274-277.

Thomas Bullard's Airship File, pg.278-279.

Robert Bartholomew wrote an article for the New England Skeptical Society called 'Two Mass Delusions in New England : Light Bulb” Mania of 1897, and the Great Airship Hoax of 1909-1910'

theness.com/index.php/two-…