From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 10:45:52 -0500
Archived: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:55:23 -0500
Subject: Re: Military Fliers - Flying One-Man Platforms


>From: Martin Shough <parcellular.nul>
>To: <post.nul>
>Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 11:26:53 -0000
>Subject: Re: Military Fliers - Flying One-Man Platforms

>>From: Terry Colvin <fortean1.nul>
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
>>Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 23:56:40 +0700 (GMT+07:00)
>>Subject: Military Fliers - Flying One-Man Platforms

>This is an old mystery that has made me scratch my head for
>years - the curious nexus of synchronicities that connects 1897-
>1909 mystery airship reports, mediaeval chronicles and the
>"Aldeburgh platform" seen over Suffolk in 1916 (date recollected
>in the 1960s by the elderly witness, whose name incidentally was
>Whiteland, not Whitehead ).

>What is the connection? To refresh Listers' memories, in brief:

>A Texas newspaper in 1897 published an account of an airship
>that had been seen by people on their way home from church. It
>was too high to see more than a strange shape with lights but it
>was trailing an an anchor on a rope which caught on a railroad
>track, and a man "small in size" in a light blue uniform or
>"sailor suit" shinned down the rope, cut it, and the thing
>sailed away. The churchgoers recovered the anchor and it went on
>display in the local blacksmith's shop.

>The 13thC Irish 'Speculum Regale' has an account of a ship in
>the sky whose anchor caught in the porch of St Kineras church,
>Cloera. A man came down the rope looking as though "swimming" in
>the air and the churchgoers tried to grab him but the bishop
>said to let him go. He scurried back up and cut the rope. The
>anchor was kept and displayed in the church.

This isn't much of a mystery, Martin. A few April 1897 papers
noted the medieval legend. Shortly thereafter, some enterprising
Texas correspondent incorporated the tale into a contemporary
airship sighting.

Business as usual, in other words, for the freewheeling
'journalism' of the period.


Jerry Clark