by Noe Torres
The good reverend and his wife weren’t the only ones to see the monster that night. So did two ice delivery men, Marshall McIntyre and Bill Gray, who had gotten up early to prepare their wagon for delivery rounds for later in the morning. It was about 2 o’clock in the morning as the two were preparing the wagon and all of a sudden a feeling of “awe and dread” overcame them.
Turning their heads to sky they saw a monster that they described as, “about eighteen feet long and eight feet wide and moved rapidly through the air by means of several pairs of side fins. . . . It was pure white and had no definite shape or form, resembling somewhat a great white shroud fitted with propelling fins. There was no tail or head visible but there was one great flaming eye, and a sort of a wheezing plaintive sound was emitted from a mouth which was invisible. It flapped like a flag in the winds as it came on and frequently gave a great squirm as though suffering unutterable agony.”
The two men, who said the monster hovered about three to four hundred feet in the air, were able to observe the creature for a whole hour. Eventually the two got scared, harnessed their horses, and left the area.
The next morning, when the other townsfolk heard of the sightings they laughed at the witnesses and accused them of drinking, even the Reverend! Switzer was even sent an “invitation” to come to a clinic for people who abused alcohol.
Crawfordsville residents stopped laughing the next night when the monster was seen by nearly 100 townsfolk. They probably all looked to the sky that night out of curiosity, to see if they too would witness the monster. And so they did. At one point it was said the monster swooped close to the ground and the frightened onlookers could even feel its hot breath!
After that, the Crawfordsville Monster was never seen from again. The story soon went on the wires to many other newspapers, and soon after the Crawfordsville Postmaster soon found himself buried in mail regarding the monster. Some people thought the monster heralded the end of the world, and one woman thought the monster had also been seen in Chicago.
So just what was the Crawfordsville Monster? Most people today think the monster was an Atmospheric Beast—a sort of gaseous living organism. Famous scientist Carl Sagan even speculated such creatures could exist on gas planets like Jupiter.
A Fortean investigator living in Crawfordsville, Vincent P. Gaddis, did more research on the monster than anyone and concluded, “All the reports refer to this object as a living thing -- in other words, one of the hypothetical atmospheric life forms that would figure in early theories about unidentified flying objects.”
In the 1990s, a new type of mystery animal was introduced to the world – “rods.” Rods are a small insect-like animal – basically like a stick bug with little fins along its sides - that quickly darts through the air. Most people see them on home video recordings and then use slow motion to get a clear look at the “monster.” A recent episode of the History Channel’s TV show Monster Quest theorized that perhaps the Crawfordsville Monster was a giant “rod.”
Artist’s Conception by Jared Olive
Skeptics claim that on the night of the second major sighting in 1891, two Crawfordsville men followed the monster until they finally concluded that it was really a giant flock of birds! The two men, John Hornbeck and Abe Hernley, said the birds many wings accounted for the propelling fins, and the birds many shrieks accounted for the mysterious noise. The Crawfordsville Journal further speculated that low visibility in the damp night air caused the misidentification, and that newly installed electric lights in the town caused the birds to go crazy.
While it’s tempting to shout, “Case Closed!” one must remember, while the birds’ wings could explain the many “fins,” what then would explain the single flaming eye? Otherworldly, indeed.
10. The Underwater UFO (1893)
Almost everyone knows that UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. But did you also know there is such a thing as an Unidentified Submersible Object or USO? A USO is what people call an unidentified object that is seen in or under the water. There have actually been many USO encounters in the world since 1940. Even more surprising, there were also USO sightings during the Old West.
The most interesting USO encounter of the 1800s occurred near Tacoma, Washington on July 2, 1893. The story began on a Saturday afternoon (July 1) at about 4:30 when a group of “well-known gentlemen” departed Tacoma on a boat called the Marion for a three-day fishing and hunting excursion. A newspaper article said, “The party consisted of Auctioneer William Fitzhenry, H.L. Seal, W.L. McDonald, J.K. Bell, Henry Blackwood and two eastern gentlemen who are visiting the coast.”
After several hours of fishing on the Puget Sound, the men decided to go ashore at a place called Black Fish Bay on Henderson Island, where they would camp and spend the night. As it turned out, they made camp within 100 yards of a group of men who were engaged in surveying the area.
Around midnight, one of the fishermen awoke suddenly. He later told a local newspaper, “It was, I guess, about midnight before I fell asleep, but exactly how long I slept I cannot say, for when I woke it was with such startling suddenness that it never entered my mind to look at my watch, and when after a while I did look at my watch, as well as every watch belonging to the party, it was stopped.”
He had been awakened by a very loud noise. “I was in the midst of a pleasant dream, when in an instant a most horrible noise rang out in the clear morning air, and instantly the whole air was filled with a strong current of electricity that caused every nerve in the body to sting with pain, and a light as bright as that created by the concentration of many arc lights kept constantly flashing.”
Because of the loud noise and electric charge in the air, the witness thought that the fishermen were caught in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. But, looking up at the sky, he saw no evidence of lightning, and instead, he noticed strange lights coming from the water of the nearby bay.
1856 Illustration of a Sea Monster (Wikimedia)
By now, the other fishermen and the surveyors were awake and could also see the disturbance occurring in the water. Approaching the shore towards the frightened group was what the witness later described as “a most horrible-looking monster.”
The “monster fish,” as they called it, was 150 feet long, but the description sounds more like a giant caterpillar than a fish. The beast had a head that resembled a walrus, but with six eyes the “size of dinner plates.”
The witness also said, “At intervals of about every eight feet from its head to its tail a substance that had the appearance of a copper band encircled its body, and it was from these many bands that the powerful electric current appeared to come.”
The bizarre creature also had two horn-like protrusions sticking from its head. Since the beast was caterpillar-like, perhaps they were antennae? Even stranger, these two “horns” were spraying water that looked like “blue fire” because of its electric charge.
The newspaper account said, “The monster slowly drew in toward the shore, and as it approached from its head poured out a stream of water that looked like blue fire. All the while the air seemed to be filled with electricity, and the sensation experienced was as if each man had on a suit of clothes formed of the fine points of needles. One of the men from the surveyor’s camp incautiously took a few steps in the direction of the water, and as he did so the monster darted towards the shore and threw a stream of water that reached the man, and he instantly fell to the ground and lay as though dead.”
A second man, Mr. McDonald, rushed to help the fallen surveyor, but he too was struck by the water and fell to the ground. “Mr. McDonald attempted to reach the man’s body to pull it back to a place of safety, but he was struck with some of the water that the monster was throwing, and fell senseless to the earth. By this time every man in both parties was panic-stricken, and we rushed to the woods for a place of safety, leaving the fallen men lying on the beach.”
Even from inside the protection of the trees, the men said they could see
the monster’s glow light up the sky, and its thunderous roar could be heard for miles around. Luckily for them, the monster never came ashore and instead changed course diving underneath the water. Although it was no longer on the surface, the men could still see the monster’s glow as it traveled under the water. Eventually, its glow faded away, and the monster was never seen again.
Artist’s Conception by Jared Olive
The men made their way back to their fallen companions. Luckily, the two men were not dead, just knocked unconscious by the mysterious water.
When asked for a detailed description of the monster, one of the witnesses said, “This monster fish, or whatever you may call it, was fully 150 feet long, and at its thickest part I should judge about thirty feet in circumference. Its shape was somewhat out of the ordinary in so far that the body was neither round nor flat but oval, and from what we could see the upper part of the body was covered with a very coarse hair.
“The head was shaped very much like the head of a walrus, though, of course, very much larger. Its eyes, of which it apparently had six, were as large around as a dinner plate, and were exceedingly dull, and it was about the only spot on the monster that at one time or another was not illuminated.
“At intervals of about every eight feet from its head to its tail a substance that had the appearance of a copper band encircled its body and it was from these many bands that the powerful electric current appeared to come. The bands nearest the head seemed to have the strongest electric force, and it was from the first six bands that the most brilliant lights were emitted.
“Near the center of its head were two large horn-like substances, though they could not have been horns, for it was through them that the electrically charged water was thrown.
“Its tail from what I could see of it was shaped like a propeller, and seemed to revolve, and it may be possible that the strange monster pushes himself through the water by means of this propeller like tail.”
While this mysterious apparition may seem more like a sea monster than an unidentified object, the “creature” seemed more machine than flesh and blood. As is the case with many Old West UFO sightings, the objects were often described using the characteristics of known animals, such as birds, fish, and insects. In this case, the strange object seemed to be in the shape of an animal, but it may well have been a mechanical device.
In support of the machine theory, witnesses said the monster’s body was encircled by something that looked like copper wire. The witnesses also said the monster’s tail was like the propeller, spinning round and round.
1869 Drawing of Jules Verne’s Nautilus (Wikipedia)
Also, the six eyes, as large as dinner plates, could easily have been portholes, allowing the ship’s occupants to see outside their vessel.
This amazing story was published in the Tacoma Daily Ledger, on July 3, 1893. It appears to have been based mainly on the testimony of one of the fishermen, whose name was not given. He was not identified, except to say that he was “from the East.”
In the last mention of this mysterious eyewitness, the man told the newspaper, “I am going to send a full account of our encounter to the Smithsonian institute, and I doubt not but what they will send out some scientific chaps to investigate. Now I must be going, as I have to leave on tonight’s train, but if you need any further particulars you can obtain them from any of the party. No, I do not know who composed the survey party; all I know about them is that they are from Olympia and that they were on the island running farm lines on some disputed land.”
Although it remains a very intriguing account from the Old West, critics say that perhaps the witness made up the story for the amusement of their friends. Skeptics point out that sometimes, in the late 1800s, newspapers published wildly sensational stories in order to sell more newspapers. Some of these published stories were more legend than fact. Occasionally newspapers were even accused of publishing completely fake stories.
Interestingly, the famous Jules Verne novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, was published in French in 1869 and in English in 1873. The novel is about an eccentric inventor who builds the world’s first submarine. To the sailors who see it, the vessel appears to be a huge sea monster.
So was the Tacoma USO a real mechanical monster, or was it a hoax that should have never been published as a true news story? Regardless of whether it is true or not, the story remains the 19th century’s most fascinating account of an underwater submersible object.
11. The Mysterious Airships of 1896
As the 19th century was coming to an end, the world was changing. The time of the Old West was coming to an end. Railroads were opening up the entire country to settlement. Machines were being used more and more in business and industry. In 1896, automobiles, called “horseless carriages” were starting to become common. Telephone systems were expanding. Also in 1896, America’s transcontinental railroad was completed, and the first x-ray machine was unveiled.
As far as air travel, hot-air balloons were in use in 1896. Also, experiments had begun on adding petroleum engines to balloons. But, engine-driven balloons did not become common until after 1900. Airplanes were born in 1903 after the Wright brothers made their successful test flights at Kitty Hawk.
But, before all this, in November 1896, people all over California and Washington State began seeing strange airships in the sky. Since most people had read about airships that several inventors were working on in Europe, the objects they saw in the sky were called “airships.”
In reality, many of these objects were clearly not balloons at all. Many of them were metallic looking. Some were flat, instead of blimp-like. Some of them travelled much too fast to be balloons and made some very strange maneuvers. Also, in several cases, strange humanoid beings were seen in or around these ships. If these airships had been seen in our time, they would have been called unidentified flying objects.
The first documented sightings took place on several nights in November 1896 in Sacramento, California. Witnesses saw a strange, glowing light in the sky that appeared to be attached to the bottom of some sort of flying ship. People could not really make out any details about the ship itself, but the glowing light was very frightening to them. Newspaper headlines talked about the “mystic flying light” and the “phantom airship.” Although the phenomenon was mainly observed in Northern California, occasionally, it was seen as far south as Los Angeles.
The November 22, 1896 edition of The San Francisco Call quoted witnesses who said the UFO “appeared to descend gradually and regularly, as if under perfect control.” One witness said, “There is no doubt in my mind that it was an airship supplied with electric lights and well-manned.”
Sketch Published in San Francisco newspaper, 11-22-1896
Especially interesting in the descriptions was the bright light at the bottom of the ship. It was pointed toward the earth below as the object coasted overhead. A witness said, “The machine was brilliantly lighted, and … the lower light shed a large arc on the ground as it passed over, while the headlight could be seen for a great distance ahead of the machine.”
In many later sightings, such as in the 1950s and 1960s, UFOs were often observed shining a bright light down to the Earth below as they passed overhead. In some cases, light beams from a UFO were seen lighting up the entire landscape below for miles ahead of the ship.
Also on November 22, two Methodist ministers, Reverends H. Copeland and John Kirby, observed a red “fireball” with white lights on the front and back. They saw it near Knight’s Ferry, California, about 40 miles east of Modesto. They watched as the UFO rose up into the air, then descend and skim along the ground, and finally disappear from sight.
Typical Headlines during Airship Scare
But the most incredible of all the 1896 airship sightings came on November 25, near Lodi, California. While travelling in a horse-drawn carriage, Colonel H. G. Shaw and Mr. Camille Spooner saw three very tall beings standing alongside the road. In the dist
ance behind them, a huge, cigar-shaped UFO hovered quietly over a body of water.
In an article in the Stockton Evening Mail, Colonel Shaw said, “Looking up we beheld three strange beings. They resembled humans in many respects… still they were not like anything I had ever seen… They were possessed of a strange and indescribable beauty.” Shaw added that they wore no clothes, but their bodies were covered by soft, fine fuzz. “They were seven feet in height and very slender. I noticed, further, that their hands were quite small and delicate, and that their fingers were without nails. Their feet, however, were nearly twice as long as those of an ordinary man, though they were narrow, and the toes were also long and slender. I noticed, too, that they were able to use their feet and toes much the same as a monkey; in fact, they appeared to have much better use of their feet than their hands.”
Artist’s Conception (Wikimedia)
As for other features, Shaw said, “Their faces and heads were without hair, the ears were very small, and the nose had the appearance of polished ivory, while the eyes were large and lustrous. The mouth, however, was small, and it seemed to me that they were without teeth.”
They were also extremely light. Shaw said, “As one of then came close to me I reached out to touch him, and placing my hand under his elbow pressed gently upward, and lo and behold I lifted him from the ground with scarcely an effort. I should judge that the specific gravity of the creature was less than an ounce.”
Shaw attempted to communicate with the creatures. He said, “I asked where they were from. They seemed not to understand me, but began – well, ‘warbling’ expresses it better than talking. Their remarks, if such you would call them, were addressed to each other, and sounded like a monotonous chant, inclined to be guttural.”