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I know a bit about what was called as the "Great Airship Flap of 1896-97". Starting in November there were a string of sightings of a cigar-shaped airship around Sacramento and San Francisco. Then, in the following February, airship sightings began in Nebraska and for the next two months proceeded across the Midwest into Michigan.
J. Allan Danelek's "The Great Airship of 1897" presents his "provocative theory" that these airship sightings were, in fact, airship sightings.
I know, that doesn't sound too amazing but the general consensus is that such a thing was beyond the technology of the day, could not have been kept secret and was probably the result of newspaper hoaxes and delusional eyewitnesses. What Danelek does is present a compelling case for how the airship was not beyond the technology of the day and, while there were certainly exaggerations and hoaxes, the core of the story was probably true.
The first third of the book talks about the events as reported in newspapers of the time. Unfortunately, Danelek offers few primary sources. He talks about reports in newspapers, mentions a few newspapers by name and occasionally has a quote, but he doesn't provide any clippings or extended quotes. In fact, his book has no bibliography or footnotes, only a short list of recommended reading. I found it hard to give a lot of weight to his presentation when I was able to find more thorough documentation on Wikipedia.
He also tends to cherry pick what news reports he talks about. There were thousands of reports all across half of the country but, by weeding those reports, Danelek makes it seem like there was a series of reports that were accurate and true and then there were all the rest. He has something of a confirmation bias in drawing that line in such a way that supports his conclusion. It's a small book (182 pages) so streamlining things is not unexpected.
But then he jumps the rails is in Chapter Three, where he says:
No, Actually, it doesn't.
I don't find the time given to this surprising, especially when you look at the back of the book and see that 10% of the entire content is devoted to other books in the publisher's catalog, including Danelek's other books, UFOs: The Great Debate, Atlantis: Lessons from the Lost Continent, The Case for Ghosts and 2012: Extinction or Utopia. While the blurbs make it seem like he's a paranormal skeptic, it strikes me that he's only taking on the vaneer of objectivity and, with his body of work and lack of bibliography, he comes into this not as an airship enthusiast but as a paranormal enthusiast trying to bill himself as something other than a UFOlogist.
Thankfully, in the next chapter where he starts trying to justify his proposal that there really was an airship, he gets back on track and drops the whole UFO thing.
That justification begins with the history of airship development and the technology in contemporary airships. In showing where other engineers and inventors were in their development it is very easy to believe that someone in California had been able to build an airship like the one described in the reports. It would have been technologically advanced, bit not so advanced as to not be able to be built in 1896. In the final analysis, this is the most convincing part of his presentation. Clearly showing that such an airship was entirely plausible goes a long way towards convincing the reader that at least some of the sightings were real amongst the many falsehoods.
Next, Danelek steps out a little further and proposes a design for the airship in a sort of thought experiment. You could imagine this thing actually being built and flying, although I'd like to see what an aeronautical engineer would have to say about it. I don't have the impression that Danelek has the engineering experience to justify his design. Maybe if his recommended reading list had something more technical than John Toland's The Great Dirigibles. Maybe if he referenced Charles Burgess's Airship Design. Maybe if the Mythbusters got a hold of it and tried building the thing. (They did an excellent job with their 1/50th scale Hindenburg.)
Finally, Danelek takes the final step with the back third of the book being a complete fictionalization of the secret airship story. While this nails the coffin on any illusions of this being a scholarly work, I did like how it makes the entire episode even more plausible, putting the events in context and allowing the reader to understand how such an undertaking could not only have been brought to fruition but how it also could be kept secret, both during and after the flap.
All in all, it is a passable introduction to the Great Airship Flap of 1896-97. The narrative presents a compelling, though not a convincing case and a search of the Internet could have provided many more of the details needed to convince the reader of of author's case. I personally am convinced that there was an actual airship that was sighted over the American mid-west, but it wasn't Danelek's book that convinced me.
Final score: {{Citation needed}}
J. Allan Danelek's "The Great Airship of 1897" presents his "provocative theory" that these airship sightings were, in fact, airship sightings.
I know, that doesn't sound too amazing but the general consensus is that such a thing was beyond the technology of the day, could not have been kept secret and was probably the result of newspaper hoaxes and delusional eyewitnesses. What Danelek does is present a compelling case for how the airship was not beyond the technology of the day and, while there were certainly exaggerations and hoaxes, the core of the story was probably true.
The first third of the book talks about the events as reported in newspapers of the time. Unfortunately, Danelek offers few primary sources. He talks about reports in newspapers, mentions a few newspapers by name and occasionally has a quote, but he doesn't provide any clippings or extended quotes. In fact, his book has no bibliography or footnotes, only a short list of recommended reading. I found it hard to give a lot of weight to his presentation when I was able to find more thorough documentation on Wikipedia.
He also tends to cherry pick what news reports he talks about. There were thousands of reports all across half of the country but, by weeding those reports, Danelek makes it seem like there was a series of reports that were accurate and true and then there were all the rest. He has something of a confirmation bias in drawing that line in such a way that supports his conclusion. It's a small book (182 pages) so streamlining things is not unexpected.
But then he jumps the rails is in Chapter Three, where he says:
"Though this remains a minority view among most airship enthusiasts, the possibility that the mysterious lights of 1897 were alien spacecraft must be considered a legitimate one."
No, Actually, it doesn't.
I don't find the time given to this surprising, especially when you look at the back of the book and see that 10% of the entire content is devoted to other books in the publisher's catalog, including Danelek's other books, UFOs: The Great Debate, Atlantis: Lessons from the Lost Continent, The Case for Ghosts and 2012: Extinction or Utopia. While the blurbs make it seem like he's a paranormal skeptic, it strikes me that he's only taking on the vaneer of objectivity and, with his body of work and lack of bibliography, he comes into this not as an airship enthusiast but as a paranormal enthusiast trying to bill himself as something other than a UFOlogist.
Thankfully, in the next chapter where he starts trying to justify his proposal that there really was an airship, he gets back on track and drops the whole UFO thing.
That justification begins with the history of airship development and the technology in contemporary airships. In showing where other engineers and inventors were in their development it is very easy to believe that someone in California had been able to build an airship like the one described in the reports. It would have been technologically advanced, bit not so advanced as to not be able to be built in 1896. In the final analysis, this is the most convincing part of his presentation. Clearly showing that such an airship was entirely plausible goes a long way towards convincing the reader that at least some of the sightings were real amongst the many falsehoods.
Next, Danelek steps out a little further and proposes a design for the airship in a sort of thought experiment. You could imagine this thing actually being built and flying, although I'd like to see what an aeronautical engineer would have to say about it. I don't have the impression that Danelek has the engineering experience to justify his design. Maybe if his recommended reading list had something more technical than John Toland's The Great Dirigibles. Maybe if he referenced Charles Burgess's Airship Design. Maybe if the Mythbusters got a hold of it and tried building the thing. (They did an excellent job with their 1/50th scale Hindenburg.)
Finally, Danelek takes the final step with the back third of the book being a complete fictionalization of the secret airship story. While this nails the coffin on any illusions of this being a scholarly work, I did like how it makes the entire episode even more plausible, putting the events in context and allowing the reader to understand how such an undertaking could not only have been brought to fruition but how it also could be kept secret, both during and after the flap.
All in all, it is a passable introduction to the Great Airship Flap of 1896-97. The narrative presents a compelling, though not a convincing case and a search of the Internet could have provided many more of the details needed to convince the reader of of author's case. I personally am convinced that there was an actual airship that was sighted over the American mid-west, but it wasn't Danelek's book that convinced me.
Final score: {{Citation needed}}
