ufo_data/bin/rr0/tran1909.md

• Main observation sites of "dirigibles" over England. See image at images/1909.jpg.

• **March 4, 8.25 p.m. **: In Lambourne, Birkshire, a large airship in the form of a torpedoe is seen by a named Charles Maberly over the city. The craft, which flies at an estimated altitude about 60 m, head west and is equipped of a headlamp. Once the airship is out of sight, the witness hears in the sky 3 explosions at regular intervals [London Evening News of 18 May 1909]{.source}

• 22 March: In Peterborough (Northamptonshire), Miss Gill and two other people returning from the theatre saw a dark object with a light flying over the city.

• March 23: In Peterborough (Northamptonshire), sighting of an aircraft (engraving below). A policeman by the name of P. C. Keetle testified: I was on duty in Cromwell Road and I was coming out of Cobden Street to get into that street, when I heard what I first took to be a car about 400 yards away from me. I went down Cromwell Road, expecting to see the headlights of a car, but nothing of the sort happened. Yet, I still heard the regular humming of a powerful engine, when suddenly I was struck by the fact that the sound was coming not from the road but from above it! I looked up and my gaze was then drawn to a powerful light which must have been about 350 yards above the ground. A dark body stood out against the stars (...) of rather narrow and oblong shape (...). It was moving at very high speed and, as I watched it, the engine noise gradually diminished. The craft disappeared in the direction of the North-East. All in all, I would say I saw it for about 3 minutes.

• Drawing depicting the observation of March 23. See image at images/1909-03-23_200.jpg.

• May 8th: The witness's wife, Egerton S. Free, discovers a kind of metal wheel surrounded by rubber on the side of which is written Muller Fabrik Bremen in the area flown over by the mysterious airship. The Germans are then accused of spying on the country with their already famous zeppelins. It will only be later that it will be realized that this was a target commonly used by the Royal Navy. Furthermore, this idea does not hold up due to the care taken by the pseudo-dirigibles to show themselves, to make noise and to fly at low altitude.

• May 12: Similar observation to Terrington March (Norfolk) where clicking and whistling noises are heard.

• May 14: In the North Sea, off Blyth in Northumberland, the sailors of the Norwegian ship St. Olaf saw an immense dirigible equipped with 5 searchlights floating above their boat and illuminating it as if it were broad daylight. A little later, the craft left the St. Olaf to repeat its maneuver not far away above another ship, before disappearing at full speed towards the South statement of Captain Egenes{.source}.

• May 18: Similar observation to Caerphilly Mountain (near Cardiff) where a loud machinery noise is heard.

• May 19: Similar observation in Cardiff where a mechanical wheel noise is heard.

• May 21: Britain Invaded! Aircrafts in East Anglia, Wales and the Midlands. Norwich and Southend are in a tight spot. The air fleet invading England has been very active in the night of Friday. We use the word "fleet" because, according to our correspondents, there seem to be not one, but several mysterious cigar-shaped machines with blinking lights and buzzing mechanisms. Wednesday night, they could be observed in places as different as Southend-on-Sea, Birmingham and Norwich. [[East Anglian Daily Times]]{.source}.

• June

• As he strolled across the deck of the East Danish company's cruise ship, the Bintang, Captain Gabe saw through the Malacca Strait a sphere of moving lights, below sea level. Long arms seemed to draw circles from the same center: it was so big that only part of it was visible, the other being hidden by the horizon. Captain Gabe then made sure that these lights could only have come from the sea. The Bintang itself could not emit such brightness and, above all, the light beams were too long and their origin was opposite the ship. Soon, the immense sphere slowly approached the cruise ship, fading and disappearing into the waters.

• June 16, 04:10: A long, truncated-ended bolide flew over the city of Dong Hoi (North Vietnam) emitting a bright light, following a West-East trajectory. The presence of a strong light source leads to the belief that it was a false dirigible rather than a standard cylindrical UFO M. Beljonne, Phu-Lien Observatory, quoted in L'Astronomie, 1909, pp. 519-520{.source}.

• July

• New Zealand is experiencing a wave of sightings similar to those that occurred in England the previous month. At this time, no airship flights have yet taken place in this part of the world on the opposite side of the British Isles.

• Saturday, July 23rd, 12 PM: Mrs. Russel, a teacher accompanying a group of children to Kelso (South of New Zealand), suddenly saw a kind of black flash fly over the hill on the left and apparently head straight for her. Then it suddenly veered and swerved above the trees and disappeared from her sight. She felt intense fear when she saw it. It looked like a black boat. She only saw it for a few minutes. When it arrived, it was moving at great speed but when it turned, it lost altitude and slowed down somewhat. [The Evening Star, July 30th 1909]{.source}.

• Tuesday 27th July: Some young boys were playing on the beach at Kaka Point, [when they]{.source} saw a huge bright object moving in the air. It seemed about to land... The boys, thinking it was attracted to their lantern, left it on the beach. The ship then hovered around the rocks of the old boating base and came almost to their level. It disappeared shortly after. According to them, it was as big as a house. [ [Clutha Leader of Balclutha, South Island, New Zealand]{.source}. A journalist from the Daily Times even went to Kelso to meet the witnesses: We separately interviewed all the students who saw the ship and asked them to draw what they had seen. The degree of resemblance between the 6 drawings was simply extraordinary.

• Thursday, July 29th: There are no less than 6 remarkable observations in New Zealand between 12 PM and 12 AM. 3 of them mention "cigar-shaped" flying objects or aircrafts, all equipped with projectors, headlights or colored lights. Another one, made by inhabitants of Mount Rochefort and Christchurch, concerns a UFO shaped like a "cone". As for the last two observations, they refer to lights whose aerial behavior defies natural laws.

• A cigar-shaped object appears multiple times above Dunedin and smaller towns along the Otago Coast of South Island (New Zealand) [[UFO Roundup 4-36]{.source}.

• Friday, July 30th, 5am: 2 men working in the Waikaka Valley, a few km North of the town of Gore (South of New Zealand), suddenly spot an unknown flying object in the shape of a rather narrow boat hull, with a projector at each of its ends. It loses altitude and circles above the river for several minutes. What is remarkable according to the witnesses is the strangeness of its maneuvers: the airship seems to be able to brake and accelerate suddenly, a bit like a fly, according to F. Green's expression, one of the 2 witnesses. They also claim to have seen the silhouettes of 2 people on board.

• August

• The airships move from South to North of the archipelago, where they manifest themselves.

• August 3: He (the witness) was riding near the racecourse (of Waipawa) when his horse became unruly. He discovered that the cause of this behavior was the presence of a large torpedo-shaped craft hovering overhead. The aircraft, he said, was painted gray and three people were visible on board. One of them shouted something to him in an unknown language. The vessel rose to a great height, lit up lights at its bow and stern, then, after making a circle, disappeared behind a hill. That same night, another inhabitant saw a boat-shaped craft at a high altitude emitting a powerful hum [[Hawkes Bay Herald, August 6, 1909]]{.source}.

• 5-8 August: Observation of a light above Goulburn (New South Wales, Australia), of blue color and performing back and forth in the night.

• August 9: Observations abruptly cease in New Zealand.

• August 13th, 11 PM: In Glen Innes, witnesses can follow with binoculars the evolution of a UFO resembling an upturned roof whose lower part was lit up, and which directs a beam towards the ground.

• September

• The phenomenon reappears in New Zealand for a few appearances, then completely disappears.

• September 1st, 4:30 PM: An object resembling an aircraft was observed above Gore around 4:30 PM. It was moving in a wavelike fashion towards Tapanui Hills and gradually disappeared on the horizon above Kelso. The witnesses were two well-known people from Gore and their account is authentic. They described the object as a cigar with some kind of vehicle attached to it, but were unable to see its occupants. It remained visible for a few minutes before disappearing at a high speed. Other inhabitants of the town also observed the curious machine. Between 5:45 PM and 6 PM, it was also seen above the hills to the East of Otaraia. [The New Zealand Herald, September 10, 1909]{.source}

• December 22: 6 years after Kitty Hawk, newspapers from New York to Chicago are astonished by reports coming from all over the country regarding a huge flying aircraft seen by thousands of people. It crashed to the West of Chicago, but was never found. The story made national headlines in the major newspapers of the country.

• December 24th: Wallace Tillinghast, a resident of Worcester (Massachusetts) decides to make a publicity stunt taking advantage of the event. Vice-president of a factory, he declares to have built a monoplane, running on gasoline, capable of transporting him and two mechanics. The lair of the mysterious vessel had finally been discovered! 14 men working for Paul Morgan, from the Morgan Construction Company of Worcester, were assigned to a secret task... two years ago, Morgan paid 15000$ for an airplane of a Swedish aviator. It is probably this machine, perfected with the help of Tilinghast, that was seen flying over New England. [[Wilimantic Chronicle of Connecticut]{.source}. But other newspapers are more skeptical.