The Great Texas Airship Mystery: Book Review

Wallace Chariton's "Great Texas Airship Mystery" appears to come at the story of the Airship flap of 1896-97 from a slightly different tack than the other books on the subject that I have read up to this point. Whereas most of the other authors began as UFOlogists of one stripe or another, Chariton came at it investigating Texas mysteries and legends in general (Missing documents from the Alamo, the escape of John Wilkes Booth, the Kennedy assassination). And one might hope that such a thing might lead to a more nuanced conclusion or at least have less of the confirmation bias that UFOlogists would bring to the topic. This is not the case.

More than 80% of the narrative contains the now typical list of newspaper reports retold, covering specifically the string of sightings in Texas during the second half of April 1897. All though this, the author drops few clues as to where this is leading or the conclusion he plans to advance. Was it a secret inventor? A mysterious aero club? A hoax by railroaders or newspapers? Mistaken identity? Martians? Chariton really doesn't say,  and only retells the stories and places them in context with other things that were going on at the close of the 19th Century.

And then we reach chapter twelve.

It is here that he relates the tale of Aurora resident S. E. Haydon, reporting to the Dallas Morning News, that on April 17th 1897, an airship flying over Aurora crashed into Judge Proctor's windmill and went down in a ball of flames. Mysterious hieroglyphics. Unknown metals and a dead pilot that “while his remains are badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.”

Given that the first sightings in Texas were less than a week before, it is obvious that Chariton left the mentioning of this particular event to the end for a reason. And even though he says at the very end that “the evidence, albeit circumstantial, seems to point to the unavoidable conclusion that S. E. Haydon pulled the leg of a lot of early Texans,” he also says that on the 100th anniversary of the event he will be traveling to Aurora on the off chance that the aliens will return searching for their lost comrade.

I can guess how that went.

Really, though, Chariton comes to no conclusion, at least, not the one he wants to admit to and certainly not one supported by the narrative. Perhaps because he is an author who focuses on Texas mysteries, he finds himself better served by ensuring that he never actually sheds light on the mysteries he is writing about. To come to a conclusion would, of course, take the mystery out of it, which would perhaps affect sales of his next book of Texas mysteries. In the very last chapter, he makes some attempt to analyze the reports, look for corroborating evidence in confirming whether or not the people telling the stories actually existed, but by that time it's too late. Without building that into the narrative for the bulk of the book leading up to this, it seems rushed and shallow. An afterthought after having done a reasonable job of actually researching the subject.

And yet again I am left wanting someone who is actually qualified to investigate this mystery to have a go at it. Not UFOlogists. Not popular myth re-tellers. I want an aviation historian. I want an aeronautical engineer. I want someone who will take all of this data, combine it with real knowledge of the technology of the day, comb through the U.S. Patent office, census and tax records as well of the news reports and put a real critical eye on this subject. The romantic in me believes there was at least one actual airship and even the skeptic in me believes that there is actually a good chance that it's true but until I can trust the credentials of the investigator, I can't really trust my own conclusions.