Possible UFO sighting back in 1897 in British Columbia

I am sorry if I missed seeing any articles about the UFO sighting in Vancouver, British Columbia from 1897. I only noticed UFO sightings in the states in 1897 and a possible UFO crash in Texas.

BC UFO sighting Two newspaper articles (quoted one)

A Mysterious Visitor Vancouver Daily World - 14th August 1897
Have you seen the light in the heavens?..if not you are not up to date. It has been hovering in the skies above Vancouver almost every night this week, and has been viewed by many. It was last seen on Friday evening and may be on view tonight, and again it may not. Last night the strange object in the skies was noticed to the north of the city across the city traveling in an easterly direction. The luminous ball of fire or airship as some call it was closely watched. It approached with great swiftness, paused in midair, then surrounded itself with flashes of colour and moved towards the northeast. At times it looked like a ball of fire at others it had a dull lustre and small particles of fire would shoot from the great glowing mass. The sight was a great one and should be looked out for this evening. N. C. Schon of Burnaby saw the luminous body while on the steamer Rithet on Monday night. he states that it moved parallel to the sea far below the star line and looked like a bright red star surrounded by a luminous halo. It was cigar shaped and seemed to travel slowly and occasionally there seemed to drop a shower of sparks like the sputtering of an arc light. A World man saw the beautiful object from the office of the Chilean consulate under a powerful glass. Mr. Morris is for once puzzled as are many others who caught on to the wondrous spectacle. A wag suggested that it is the Klondike star pointing the way to untold wealth.

I was a little curious about this report because I didn't think there wasn't a lot of large crafts flying around in the skies back in 1897 that was man made. I found a little article on Wiki about "Mystery Airship" I'll include a couple exerts from the article. Mystery Airship

Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during 1896 and 1897.[1] According to researcher Jerome Clark, airship reports were made worldwide, early as the 1880s, and late as the 1890s.[2] Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern extraterrestrial-piloted flying saucer-style UFO claims.

The 1896-1897 wave The best-known of the Mystery Airship waves began in California in 1896.[5] Afterwards, reports and accounts of similar airships came from others areas, generally moving east.[5] Some accounts during this wave of airship reports claim that occupants were visible on some airships, and encounters with the pilots were reported as well.[5] These occupants often appeared to be human, though their behaviour, mannerisms and clothing were sometimes reported to be unusual.[4] Sometimes the apparent humans claimed to be from the planet Mars.[4] Historian Mike Dash described and summarized the 1896-1897 series of airship sightings, writing; “ Not only were [the Mystery Airships] bigger, faster and more robust than anything then produced by the aviators of the world; they seemed to be able to fly enormous distances, and some were equipped with giant wings ... The 1896-1897 airship wave is probably the best investigated of all historical anomalies. The files of almost 1500 newspapers from across the United States have been combed for reports, an astonishing feat of research. The general conclusion of investigators was that a considerable number of the simpler sightings were misidentification of planets and stars, and a large number of the more complex the result of hoaxes and practical jokes. A small residuum remains perplexing

Human airships: Some argued that the airship reports were genuine accounts. Steerable airships had been publicly flown in the US since the Aereon in 1863, and numerous inventors were working on airship and aircraft designs (the idea that a secretive inventor might have developed a viable craft with advanced capabilities was the focus of Jules Verne's 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror). In fact, two French army officers and engineers, Arthur Krebs and Charles Renard, had successfully flown in an electric-powered airship called the La France as early as 1885, making no fewer than seven successful flights in the craft over an eleven month period. Also during the 1896-1897 period, Bosnian inventor David Schwarz built an aluminum-skinned airship in Germany that successfully flew over Templehof before being irreparably damaged during a hard landing. Both events clearly demonstrated that the technology to build a practical airship existed during the period in question, though if reports of the capabilities of the California and Midwest airship sighted in 1896-97 are true, it would have been considerably more advanced than any airship built up to that time. Several individuals, including Lyman Gilmore and Charles Dellschau, were later identified as possible candidates for being involved in the design and construction of the airships, although little evidence was found in support of these ideas.

Little interesting fact: 1897 was the same year Amelia Earhart was born

Interesting read. There's some good links throughout a short thread I did on these sightings.
Mystery Airships...

Being from BC, that was an interesting read......
The Texas crash or the anomalous object about the same time in Aurora Texas, as well as other reports seem to inicate the airships were partly from outworld places......
UFO BC is a website dedicated to other BC sightings if yer interested.

Originally posted by stirling
Being from BC, that was an interesting read......
The Texas crash or the anomalous object about the same time in Aurora Texas, as well as other reports seem to indicate the airships were partly from outworld places......
UFO BC is a website dedicated to other BC sightings if yer interested.

The article of the UFO story in BC is actually from UFO BC. If you go into Historical Reports you will find the article. I'm from BC as well and have been poking around different places. www.ufostalker.com is also a good site too. It has an interactive map so you can see where different sightings have been.

I saw the Texas crash on an episode of UFO Hunters a while back. When I was looking around online for information after reading about the BC UFO sighting and I punched the year into google and saw that the US had a lot of sighting too that year.

I always find UFO sighting from 1900's and back really fascinating.

I've never heard of that Van sighting either, so thanks for an interesting thread. I used to read all the recent sighting reports from UFO BC, but it seems to have gone idle some time ago. Here is a link to Brian Vike's Canada UFO website, it keeps updates of sightings across Canada including obviously BC.

canadaufo.blogspot.ca...

Vike is from Houston originally i believe, B.C. definitely has its share of the strange. UFO BC is also where i learned of the surrey corridor.

At 4:00 PM on the 15th of October 1974, a young man called David Knutsen noticed from his apartment window in Whalley, two RCMP officers. These men were in the parking lot watching the sky. Looking in the same direction David saw a disc shaped object. Having recently received a camera for this birthday he used it to take a rather impressive picture that a short time later was displayed on the front page of the Vancouver Sun. However, on further inquiry it was declared that no police officer had viewed this craft.

Not believing this statement I placed an advertisement in a local Surrey newspaper seeking further additional witnesses. In four days I had sixteen phone calls. No one wanted to talk for five minutes, they all wanted to talk for hours, principally about their own sightings or experiences. Not one of them was able to confirm what David had seen and photographed (apart of course, from the "non-existent" police officers). After the fifth phone call I realized that most of these calls were coming from an area between Scott Road, (120th Street) and King George Highway, (134th Street). Both of these roads are principal thoroughfares running north to south and are parallel. The distance separating them is approximately two miles. More significant is the fact that right down the center of this area are Hydro transmission lines and sub stations. Although these are purely arbitrary boundaries the fact remains that from then on we researchers became acutely aware of the existence of the "Surrey Corridor", as it later became known.

Scott Road is the North Delta, Surrey boundary. Remarkably, the majority of our local reports over the past twenty years have been reported from the east side of 120th Street. Astonishingly, almost no reports come in from South Delta, (i.e., Ladner, Tsawwassen) which, strangely enough, have their own noticeably outstanding set of Hydro transmission lines.

Not only are the reports we receive constant in number, but quite varied in content. Daylight sightings are frequent, I myself witnessed a white disc in the sky one Sunday morning, whilst I and my wife visited an ailing friend. This was from close to Bear Creek Park where many reports seem to emanate.

The night the Persian Gulf War officially ceased we had a report of two triangular shaped objects cross King George Highway at the ninth floor level of a thirteen story apartment building! Another remarkable feature of this area is the large number of visitation/abduction stories that have emerged from around the Bear Creek Park and Newton area. Predictably, we find that many of the unfortunate "experiencers" live close to or alongside either transmission towers or electrical substations.

It is also a noticeable fact that numerous reports emerge from the Guildford area which is probably around two miles east of the imaginary boundary line of King George Highway, as the UFO flies. In the past twenty two years I have met and heard from a great many people, young and old, who recount sightings of their own that have taken place within the described corridor, certainly over a hundred.

All this came about because of an alert young man and his birthday gift. Incidentally, a closer examination of David's photograph appears to show a SECOND object located higher in the sky. Thinking back on this chain of circumstances, I can't help but speculate as to whether that was the very first? and very last? sighting that David had. Fifty years of research has taught me that few witnesses have only one such event in their lives. Should you happen to read this David, please give me a call and bring me up to date.

My granny used to live in Surrey.

the 'Surrey Saga Continued...' at this link; www.ufobc.ca...