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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