Christmas Airship by Horace Smith, Tom Beardsley and Pete Zizka 12-16-2023

The Willimantic Chronicle of Dec. 24, 1909, reported the appearance of a brilliant white light in the evening skies above the city during the previous evening. Many eyewitnesses dismissed it as a bright twinkling star. Some believed it to be Halley's Comet.  Others were not too sure. Was it the Tillinghast airship? A Mr. Wallace Tillinghast, of Worcester, Mass., had been saying that he had been traveling in his "secret aeroplane," from Boston to New York and that he had a “lamp” in the plane.  The light was first noticed in the southeast, around 7:30 p.m., above the  American Thread plant, as viewed from  the foot of Railroad Street. Many bystanders reckoned that it was a long way off, maybe some 20-30 miles, and not directly over the thread mill. By 8 p.m., there were around 500 people on Willimantic’s streets peering into the night sky at the mysterious light. Many believed it to be Halley's Comet.  The local police asked people to move on. Willimantic’s finest had no idea what it could be. They ended up in deep conversation with the locals, attempting to define what was floating in the eastern skies. Because of its size and the rays it threw out, many believed it to be a powerful searchlight. It remained still for a few minutes before shooting  upwards. The mysterious craft then circled around, appearing as if someone were purposefully manipulating the controls.  Mayor Danny Dunn's tobacco and news agent store was located on Railroad Street, and as usual it was crowded at that time in the evening. Benjamin Murphy, the timekeeper on the New Haven Railroad, entered the store in a state of excitement, and called the men out to see the strange light in the sky .  Dunn also ran out of 10 Railroad Street to take a look. Dunn later told a Chronicle reporter that he would not swear it was an airship, but that it certainly did look like one. Others who saw it were of the same opinion. People doing their Christmas shopping forgot what they had come for and stood on the sidewalk and in the middle of the street looking to the east, hoping to see the return of the airship, or whatever it was. Many who witnessed the strange light said it could not have been an airship, because the buzzing of an engine usually accompanied sightings of airships. Was it a star, a comet or an airship? No one could say for sure what had hovered above American Thread’s  Mill No. 2. The concept of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, was unknown 114 years ago.  A local reporter witnessed the phenomenon. He described it thus: “The light was miles away apparently and quite high in the air. It played in the east for about 15 minutes and then vanished. Later there appeared a brilliant star in the firmament and those who had not seen the first light and saw this star were of the opinion that both lights were one and the same, but those who saw the first light said it was no star. It was too bad that the airship, if it was one, did not come nearer the city so that the people could inspect the machine.  The scoffers would then have had no ground for scoffing.”  A well-known Irish-American millworker had a lot of fun. He pointed to the bright light and said “See it? It’s the airship, stopped for repairs. The fellow running it dropped a monkey wrench overboard and it struck a man on the head, and they’ve taken him to the hospital!” The large crowds on Willimantic’s streets were in such a pitch of excitement that many believed the story to be true. The strange light was seen elsewhere in New England that evening. A Boston newspaper reported that something strange had been seen above Worcester, Massachusetts. “It was apparently the searchlight of a dirigible airship. It was also observed from villages east of Worcester. People in Massachusetts towns turned out in  throngs and viewed the mysterious  light in the heavens, shortly after it had  been seen above Willimantic. Many declared that the light had all the appearance of a strong searchlight. It was not a balloon, as it was under control, and flew into the wind. It is estimated that fully fifty-thousand people thronged the streets of Worcester watching for the reappearance of the visitor in the skies. The gaping crowds in the main thoroughfares seriously impeded the passage of trolley cars."  The New York Sun picked up the story, and reported of the mysterious dark shape with a searchlight, hovering above Willimantic. No one ever determined the true origins of the Willimantic and New England UFO of December 1909.

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