НЛО – 1915

НЛО – 1915

Статья Леонида Игоревича Влодавца, опубликованная на страницах малоизвестного ведомственного журнала, изрядно усохшего в тиражах к середине 90-х годов, прошла практически незамеченной для широкого круга интересующихся уфологией читателей. Между тем, она явилась первой популярной русскоязычной публикацией на тему волны сообщений об НЛО в годы Первой мировой войны основанной на архивных документах военных, а не лаконичных, и, как правило, скупых на факты газетных заметках тех лет.

Вряд ли бы комета Галлея приземлилась в степи и из нее вышли "черти-иностранцы". И как, с точки зрения автора комментария, можно увязять астрономическое явление и этих чертей?

На мой взгляд множественные наблюдения кометы, интерпретированные очевидцами как визит дирижаблей, сформировали на тот момент информационный фон обеспечивший саму возможность появления этой истории про "чертей" на страницах газеты, хотя и с оговоркой о сомнительности излагаемых фактов. В другое время ее бы просто проигнорировали скорее всего. Чтобы что-то утверждать более уверенно, мне следовало бы изучить подшивки ставропольских газет за 1910 год (в оцифрованном виде в сети их на данный момент нет), быть может эта история все же получила свое продолжение и разъяснение. Но рискну предположить, что всю информацию журналисты получили из третьих уст, неизвестно насколько исказившуюся в многократных пересказах. Едва ли кто-то из очевидцев побывал в редакции, особенно с учетом того, что пастухами скорее всего были деревенские мальчишки. Что могло лечь в основу этой истории? Например, кто-то просто мог увидеть остановившийся вдалеке в степи для мелкого ремонта автомобиль (на тот момент зрелище само по себе экзотическое для провинции). В пересказах, на фоне историй о пролете дирижабля над городом, проехавшей "машине" превратится в "прилетевшую", а одинокому водителю - в пятерых иностранцев, ничего не стоило. Я вам для примера могу показать результаты расследования весьма схожей по содержанию истории в Орловской губернии, в военное уже время, в ноябре 1914 года. В тот период даже самые странные слухи тщательно проверялись властями, с выездом на место событий и опросом очевидцев: 

А я вот тоже усомнюсь, что комета Галлея могла быть ответственна за наблюдения "дирижаблей", особенно в случае, когда на его борту видели четыре огня:

Утро (Харьков) 19.05.1910

Кавказ 1910 № 107. А вот дневное наблюдение, когда комета была решительно не видна.

Напомню также некоторые другие наблюдения 1910 года:

Киевлянин, 8 сентября 1910 г. Одна комета вряд ли могла отвечать за все четыре "аэроплана".

Сибирская жизнь 19 марта 1910

и т. д.

Ну тут вполне возможно, что могли попутно заметить и что-то еще, после подобных новостей люди частенько начинали сами глазеть на небо и иногда действительно им везло.

Я бы еще попробовал покрутить именно фольклорные нарративы о чертях и влияние на них научно-технического прогресса. Ну, вот есть же черти, приезжающие в карете, и этот фолькор условно классичский. Но стоит черту приехать на машине или, упаси Господь, прилететь на дирижабле - этих текстов классические фольклористы побаиваются, публиковать не решаются или оглядываются на своих коллег - если ничего такого не было, в лушчем случае запишут в "пост-фольклор" и серьезно рассматривать не будут. А между тем мотивы со спустившимися чертями с небес нам попадались несколько раз. Даже в истории, которая произошла в Мозырском уезде, обращает на себя внимание шляпа авиатора. Мне почему-то, в дополнение к белой шляпе, представляется костюм – именно так в белорусском фольклоре описан некий загадочный «панич», которого можно ассоциировать с нечистой силой. Такого человека в шляпе, порой, видят и сейчас в лесах, правда, никакого средства для перемещения по воздуху рядом нет. Однако определенной техникой они все же пользуются, например, велосипедом. Так, в д. Фаличи Стародорожского района Минской области от Зои Селицкой (1941 г. р.) мы записали историю о том, как ее в детстве преследовал «странный человек» на велосипеде в черном цилиндре и костюме: «Я оглядываюсь, и бегом бегу и бегу. Едет на велосипеде за мной. Такая шляпа цилиндром. Такое я даже и не видела таких людей, в кино не видела никаком, чтоб это […] чтоб тут такое у нас, не знаю». После девочка ходила на это место, но никаких следов от велосипеда не нашла.

Тебе, Роман, была бы наверное интересна планировавшаяся в МГУ в 2020 году конференция "Газета и фольклор". Однако ее так и не провели из-за всяких короновирусных штук. Но в 2021 году к теме могут вернуться и материалы о чертях-авиаторах вполне могут занять там достойное место.

Черти в карете, на велосипеде, в цилиндре и т.д. и т.п. - самые ценные свидетельства доуфологической эпохи, на мой взгляд, которые могут приоткрыть завесу тайны западных городских легенд о "людях в чёрном" (МИБах), исчезающих и появляющихся на порогах домов своих жертв, не оставляя никаких материальных следов. Действуют они точно так же, как известные в нашем фольклоре "нечистики". Если такой нечистик-МИБ может приехать к жертве в шляпе-федоре и на кадиллаке или мустанге, то почему он не мог в начале века парить в воздухе на дирижабле, а с середины века на "тарелке"? 

Вопрос к Михаилу, известно ли что-то из американских газет об этом случае, чем закончилось расследование?

Германские аэропланы над американским военным заводом // Вечернее время. - 1916. - 24 марта (№ 1429). - С. 2.
Германские аэропланы над американским военным заводом // Ревельские известия. - 1916. - 30 марта (№ 73). - С. 3.

Было ли официальное расследование, не знаю, а все газеты в основном прекратили писать об этом после того, как выяснилось, что шутники запускали воздушные шары по типу "китайских фонариков" и обнаружения остатков воздушного шара с привязанной к нему лампой. Питер Парк написал об этом целую статью:

Цитата

FEBRUARY 1916 LAKE SUPERIOR MYSTERY "AEROPLANES"
by T. Peter Park
The UFO phenomenon has a fascinating "prehistory" long antedating the supposed beginning of our "Age of Flying Saucers" with Kenneth Arnold's June 24, 1947 Mt. Rainier sighting.
An almost forgotten wave of "Mystery Aeroplane" sightings around Lake Superior in February, 1916, for instance, foreshadowed many familiar post-1947 themes. World War I was in full swing in Europe, and while the United States was still officially neutral, popular fears of German attack colored perceptions of unusual aerial phenomena-as fears of Russian attack or outer-space invasion colored popular perceptions of aerial anomalies after 1947. "Respectable" opinion, on the other hand, decried "mass hysteria." When a hot-air balloon with lights crashed on a Duluth dock, the police, newspapers, and "solid citizens" declared the mystery "solved" as the work of pranksters. As at Roswell 31 years later, balloons were the obvious "rational" alternative to more exotic explanations. As after World War II, "respectable" opinion blamed not Germans, Russians, extraterrestrials, or other "aliens" for violating American air space and threatening our national security, but hoaxers and sensation-mongers for spreading panic among the nervous and gullible at an anxious time.
Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota, sister cities on opposite sides of the St. Louis River at Lake Superior's western tip, were gripped by a now almost forgotten UFO wave in February, 1916. Duluth and Superior citizens reported mysterious lights and "aeroplanes" in the sky, on one occasion seeing three "men" aboard the machine. It was in the middle of World War I, and while the United States was still neutral, the mysterious "aeroplanes" inspired fears of bombing. Workers in a local munitions plant even stayed home out of fear of their factory being bombed.
Back in 1916, few people thought about extraterrestrial visitors, though H.G. Wells had already published his _War of the Worlds_, so strange aerial lights and contraptions were ascribed to secretive inventors or to foreign spies, saboteurs, or bombers. Finally, in a curious anticipation of the Air Force's response to Roswell some 31 years later, the mystery was "solved" when a couple of Duluth watchmen found the remnants of a crashed home-made toy balloon, "proving" the lights and "aeroplanes" to have been a practical joke by pranksters perpetrating a hoax.
Jerome Clark's Spring 2000 _Anomalist_ article "From Mermaids to Little Gray Men" on the "prehistory" of UFO abductions very briefly mentioned the "first credible-sounding CE3 from an American newspaper," published "in a Superior, Wisconsin, paper on February 29, 1916, during a local UFO wave." According to Clark's summary of the case, dock workers on Lake Superior around 4:30 A.M. that morning observed the passage of a large flying craft in which three "men" were clearly visible. As far as Clark knew, this was "the only report of UFO occupants to be published in the American press between 1897 and 1947, when the UFO age began" with Kenneth Arnold's sighting and the Roswell crash (Jerome Clark, "From Mermaids to Little Gray Men: The Prehistory of the UFO Abduction Phenomenon," _The Anomalist_, No. 8, Spring 2000, p. 19).
The 1916 Superior sightings have not so far been mentioned in any UFO or Fortean book or website. A quite thorough search of the UFO literature and databases in 2003 by Thomas M. Olsen, President of the UFO Information Retrieval Center in Phoenix, Arizona indicated no references to the case (e-mail Thomas M. Olsen to T. Peter Park, October 18, 2003). However, I then found some original newspaper reports of the 1916 Lake Superior UFO wave after some inquiries to Duluth and Superior newspapers and libraries. Julie Levang of the Duluth Public Library sent me photostats of "aeroplane" stories from the _Superior Telegram_, February 29, 1916, and from the _Duluth News Tribune_, March 1 and March 2, 1916.The February 29 _Superior Telegram_ story, "Mysterious Aeroplane Continues Nocturnal Trips Over Superior," is of course the article cited by Jerome Clark. The _Duluth News Tribune_ stories, "Sky Rover Is Captured at Ore Dock" (March 1) and "Air Mystery Fully Solved" (March 2) are devoted to the Roswell-style "solution" of the mystery as a crashed home-made toy hot-air balloon found by two Duluth watchmen, but mention a whole wave of sightings of mysterious aerial lights and contraptions by Duluth and Superior residents during the previous week.
The February 29 _Superior Telegram_ piece began by describing that morning's Superior waterfront sightings of a huge "aeroplane" with three "men" aboard. It continued with brief summaries of aerial light and machine sightings over Duluth and Superior the previous several nights, mentioning the wartime bombing fears inspired by the mysterious overflights. The _Telegram_ makes it quite clear that the early morning dockside sighting later mentioned by Jerome Clark was not an isolated incident, but rather the most spectacular incident in a whole wave of puzzling sightings.
Five watchmen at the Globe Elevators, the Great Northern Elevator, and the Carnegie Coal Dock on Superior's St. Louis River waterfront saw and heard an "aeroplane" with 3 lights carrying 3 passengers fly from east to west over the docks and elevators between 4:30 and 4:45 AM on the morning of Tuesday, February 29, 1916. The witnesses heard "roaring" or "purring" engine noises coming from the sky, and saw a big "aeroplane" with 3 lights and 3 "men" aboard, at a height of 600 to 1,000 feet in the air, trailing a long rope or cable with a large block or object at the end, heading up the St. Louis River and vanishing to the west. While the article did not explicitly say so, other "aeroplane" witnesses seeing the large object dangling by a rope or cable may have thought it was a bomb.
John Gustavson, watchman at the Carnegie Coal Dock, estimated its altitude at 1,000 feet adding that he had thought reports of people seeing an "aeroplane" at the Allouez section of Superior and other places were a "joke," until he himself saw the craft at 4:35 that morning. John Tullyson, head watchman at Globe Elevators, described the "aeroplane" as "flying along very fast" with a "roaring noise" about 4:30, and estimated its altitude at about 600 feet. He described it as 50 feet wide and 100 feet long, with 3 lights, one at each end and one in the middle. He saw one of the 3 "men" sitting near the front of the machine, "probably running it,"the other two a little behind him and seemingly "looking around." Two other Globe Elevator night watchmen, Carl Hanson and Frank Poto, did not see the machine which had disappeared behind an elevator, but heard its engine noise. A night watchman at the Great Northern Elevator who wished to remain anonymous heard a "purring noise in the sky" about 4:30 or 4:45 and saw an "aeroplane" passing over to the west, with 3 lights "of a sort of reddish color."
Several people in Superior and Duluth had seen "aeroplanes" or moving lights in the sky the previous evening and night, February 28th, according to the _Telegram_. About 8:30 on Broadway in Superior, _Telegram_ employees George Sims and O.A. Bergstrom, and local tailor Richard Powers, saw a moving light in the western sky, moving up and down, back and forth. "It was cloudy in the west and for that reason it could not have been a star that they saw," they told the _Telegram_. William Berg at the Superior Floral Company also saw the light moving about in the west around the same time. Northern Pacific Railroad fireman Eugene Bolanger and some other train crewmen at the South End switching yards saw a light moving about in the west that night, apparently over the steel plant. In Duluth, L.K. Johnson called the Duluth police after midnight that night to declare that he, his wife, and his mother-in-law had watched two "aeroplanes" with red lights circle over Duluth, over their own house, toward Superior, over Superior's coal and grain elevators, and finally out west. "Can't something be done?," demanded Johnson, adding "We are afraid of bombs."
At least three other Duluth residents telephoned the police that night to report seeing the machine, "each demanding that the flights be stopped, and each expressing fear of bombs." Already the previous Saturday night, February 26th, Superiorite Paul Domsch had seen moving lights over the Great Northern's Belknap Street shops and West End freight yards, through the window of his Truax Block shop. "The lights moved around and at one time seemed to be right over the roundhouse," Domsch told the _Telegram_ on the 29th. "That is all I have seen of anything that might be an aeroplane."
The whole epidemic of mysterious light and aircraft sightings had been mass hysteria set off by a few pranks, the _Duluth News Tribune_ crowed on March 1 and again on March 2 after Duluth ore dock watchmen John Dormedy and Albert Dalduc found fragments of a crashed home-made hot air balloon. If you "have seen the mysterious aeroplane," the _News Tribune_ began by sarcastically reminding its readers on March 1, then "maybe you have seen the Cardiff Giant," as "lots of people saw it years ago." He referred to the notorious 19th century hoax of a 10-foot statue buried and dug up near Cardiff in upstate New York and alleged to be a petrified prehistoric giant man. "What probably will be handed down in the annals of the Head of the Lakes as the Great Aeroplane Mystery of 1916," the _News Tribune_ proclaimed the next day, had been "cleaned up" by Dormedy and Dalduc. However, the March 2 _News Tribune_ also ran a short sidebar, "Floating Light Is Seen Above Duluth," describing a sighting shortly before midnight the previous night of a soundless aerial craft with a green light floating high in the sky slightly to the west of the city by Duluth pedestrians for several minutes before it either burned away or floated out of sight.
A bit more seriously after its snide Cardiff Giant allusion, the March 1 _News Tribune_ noted that "hundreds of people" had seen "phantom flyers a-flitting over Duluth and Superior" within a week, and "wondered and worried about them." As with post-1947 UFO waves, "numerous theories" had been "advanced to explain these sky visitors" over 1916 Lake Superior. "Some thought an attack on the Duluth steel plant was contemplated," while others were "convinced that the powder plant at Barksdale, Wis., was to be bombed."One "old timer" even suggested geese flying north from the Gulf coast, who had rested in Arkansas and got their feet smeared in the phosphorus beds there, so that they were now "wheeling their way north with their feet just like a pair of lamps," in an interesting anticipation of one "Lubbock Lights" explanation blaming birds for the mysterious lights seen flying over Lubbock, Texas for several nights in late August and early September 1951!
Other "old timers," however, scoffed at the suggestion, declaring it was "too early for northern flights." The previous night (February 29), indeed, Duluth's Police Operator Ralph Lutz received 27 calls about the mysterious aerial craft, variously bearing red, white, or green lights, some in groups of two or three flying machines, hovering and circling over Duluth and its vicinity, "threatening to scatter destruction and disaster." In West Duluth, many local residents saw a "rover" come in from the northwest around 8:30, hover over a power plant for half an hour, and disappear to the east, returning around 9:30 for its second visit. The West Duluthians agreed that the "wanderer" carried three lights, one green, one red, and one bright white light.
That same night, however, John Dormedy and Albert Dalduc, night watchmen at Duluth's Missabe ore dock, had seen fragments of one of the flying machines, a homemade toy balloon, drop on the end of the dock. For over a week, since the "first rumors of the phantom sky-riders started to make their rounds," the _News Tribune_ (March 1) quoted Dormedy, he and Dalduc had been watching the mysterious yellow lights leaving the earth somewhere on the Wisconsin shore every night, rising gradually, and disappearing in one direction or another. Around 10:30 on the night of February 29, they closely watched one of the "celestial wanderers" start on its "celestial cruise" and disappear toward the west. Soon they saw a second light leave the ground at the same point where they had seen the first one. However, instead of bearing westward, it came straight across the bay toward Dormedy and Dalduc. They could hear the roar of the engine exhausts and the excited shouts of the passengers. "Something was going wrong," Dormedy told the _News Tribune_. A "sheet of flame" surrounded the wildly circling and swooping machine, which landed on the end of the dock, 100 yards from Dormedy and Dalduc. "Scared badly," the watchmen rushed out to "pick up the maimed and mangled victims, no matter what their nationality might be," and take them to the hospital. However, "there was nothing but the machine left." The "aviators" were "gone completely." Dormedy and Dalduc found only "a cute little wire frame, a few fragments of tissue paper, and some charred excelsior," the remnants of "a toy balloon, a big one...but a tissue paper one just the same." It "brought back memories of the last Fourth of July celebration," Dormedy remarked.
When Superior was informed that night of Dormedy and Dalduc's solution of the mystery at the Duluth ore dock, people immediately began tracing the balloons, and by 1 A.M. on the morning of March 1 they had succeeded, according to that day's _News Tribune_. A number of toy balloons had been taken from the Russell Brothers' store, and sent up from a vacant lot in the rear. It was not known how many nights the "gang" had been sending them up, but it was done before the previous night, one of them admitted. F.S. Beers, manager of the Dupont munitions factory near Washburn, was quoted as regretting that anyone would play such pranks, which were causing much trouble at his plant. "Our employees are getting letters from parents, wives, sweethearts and friends urging them to abandon their jobs and hurry home before the plant is blown up," Beers complained, so that they were "unable to do their work." Beers found it "utterly absurd" to "suppose that if a representative of a belligerent nation wished to destroy the plant, he would advertise his approach by flying night after night over the country with everyone talking about seeing his machine." Beers believed the "lights" were "nothing more or less than toy balloons." He made these statements "hours before developments proved his guess the true solution."
Beers' theory was "borne out" by Hayward police chief Andrew Hanson, who saw some burning waste fall from a flying light he was watching, and "undoubtedly" considered the "falling flame" part of the "stuffing" of the balloon. "But at any rate residents of the Head of the Lakes may sleep in peace now," the _News Tribune_ concluded. Despite "roarings of engine and lines trailing bombs, and trios of passengers," the sightings had "simmered down to less than nothing." It was "Some prank, neighbors!"
"Air Mystery Fully Solved: Dock Watchmen Recover Remnants of Big Paper Balloon From Ice," was the next day's _News Tribune_ headline. The "Great Aeroplane Mystery of 1916" had been "cleaned up to the last remnant" the previous afternoon (March 1) by Dormedy and Dalduc, the dock watchmen "who blew the first hole in the aeroplane scare." Late on the afternoon of March 1st, they had ventured out on the ice of the channel opposite end of the dock, and brought in the main framework of the balloon, fragments of which had landed on their dock on Tuesday night, February 29th. "The red and green lights are explained," the article remarked. The framework of the balloon was about 5 feet high, 3 feet wide at the top, and constructed of heavy wire. The paper that had evidently covered the balloon was completely burned off. A small red lantern was suspended by a thin wire 8 feet from the bottom of the framework. The glass globe was not even broken by the fall, though the framework was slightly bent. The "contrivance," the _News Tribune_ continued, "hangs in the dock office and the watchman cannot pass it without giving vent to a hearty laugh."
Even after the "solution" was published in the previous day's _News Tribune_, the article remarked, there had still been "those who maintained it couldn't have been a balloon because it sported a red or green light." Now, however, "gone absolutely are the ‘war-scare' advocators," while "happy indeed are the scoffers and the ‘I told you so's.'" Few now would "even admit they ever believed an aeroplane or aeroplanes were skylarking around Duluth and Superior." They "knew they were balloons all the time." Dormedy and Dalduc were quoted as declaring the balloon was a type not to be found in stores, but home-manufactured to be sturdy and withstand buffeting by the elements. They believed it was made and sent up as a prank by watchmen employed on some of the boats wintering in the harbor.
The _News Tribune_ also quoted a local storekeeper, R.A. Mannheim, who had sent up two balloons on February 17th to amuse his boys. Further investigation revealed the fact that, "about a week ago" (i.e., around February 24th), a resident of Iron River, Wisconsin had purchased three balloons in Superior and taken them away with him. However, the "watchmen who saw an aeroplane with three passengers, and distinctly heard the roar of the engine" on February 29th were "still sticking to the story," according to the _News Tribune_. "Maybe after all, there is an aeroplane hanging around," the article concluded, "but it is in an off season."

Правда, не все согласились с тем, что увиденное можно было объяснить только воздушными шарами:

Цитата

Racine [Wisconsin] Journal-News, March 3, 1916

SUPERIOR STILL CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN AEROPLANE

SUPERIOR, Wis., March 3. - Employees at the Great Northern ore docks and at the Carnegie coal dock on Thursday [March 2] continued to insist that they had really seen an aeroplane and many Superior residents are unwilling to believe that toy balloons explain the mysterious object seen soaring over the city.  They called attention to the fact that the machine disappeared in the west.  According to official records of the weather department, this would have been impossible had the object been a toy balloon, as the wind was from that direction and blowing a stiff gale, too.

Были и сообщения о посадках:

Цитата

Janesville [Wisconsin] Daily Gazette, March 4, 1916

SUPERIOR AIRSHIP MYSTERY NO MYTH

Farmer Actually Talks With Three Aviators When Machine Alights in His Field at Night

(BY ASSOCIATED PRESS.)

Superior, Wis., March 4. - F. A. Porter, a farmer residing near Hines, reported to the sheriff that last night a large aeroplane landed in a field adjoining his home.  When he went out to investigate, one of the three men in the machine met him and asked him to keep away, he says.  According to Porter, the aeroplane rested in his field half an hour, while aviators made repairs. It then sailed away in the direction of Superior.

В общем, история сложная, как и все массовые наблюдения тех лет.