Prompted by Karl Kluge, I’ve been reading Dennis Crenshaw’s “The Secrets of Dellschau” to try to work out my own angle on the mysterious Sonora Aero Club and its alleged airships. However, when Crenshaw mentions Mount Tamalpais (in connection with the 1896 Airship Flap in California), he refers to two articles from The San Francisco Call that I hadn’t previously quoted here. I’ve been relying on newspapers.com, and annoyingly it doesn’t always find the articles you want: the magic keyphrase that happened to unlock the door here was “Bolinas Ridge“.
Bolinas Ridge
Bolinas Ridge starts close to Mount Tamalpais, and has a picturesque trail that runs along it for several miles. For example, here’s an Oct 1896 story about “four ladies from the Hotel Rafael” riding along Bolinas Ridge being caught out by a sudden fog dropping, and having to spend the night in a makeshift campsite under the redwoods sitting on saddles. Other newspaper stories of Bolinas Ridge tell tales of encounters with “an enraged deer” or panther, or of forest fires, etc
More importantly (for airship historians), here’s the Call article from 19 Nov 1896 (p.1) mentioned by Crenshaw, and which was the final one of Daniel Cohen’s four early airship-flap mentions that I wasn’t previously able to dig up:
SEEN THREE WEEKS AGO.
Story Told by a Hunter Living on Bolinas Ridge
On Sunday, the first day of this month, a representative of THE CALL met on Bolinas Ridge, just to the west of Mount Tamalpais, an old hunter living there, named Brown. The old man was very nervous and started a conversation immediately by asking:
“Do I look like a crazy man?”
“Why certainly not, Mr. Brown. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” he replied, “I don’t expect anybody to believe me. To tell the truth I can hardly believe myself. But it’s an honest fact that yesterday morning, when the fog began to lift, I saw an airship right up there a couple of hundred feet over them pines.
“No, I can’t tell you much what she looked like. She didn’t show very plainly through the mist, but it was a large, dark shape with something moving on it. Don’t know whether I saw any people or not. It came on me so sudden I was almost stunned, and by the time I collected my senses she was out of sight.
“I have been kind of dazed ever since, and to have you tell me that I don’t look crazy is a great relief. But I know that what I saw was an airship.”
As the “superior” type of mirage is not uncommon to people living on the Marin hills it was thought that this was what the old man had seen, so no attention was paid to his story. The mirage effect of a large ocean vessel passing through the sky might appear to him like some new-fangled machine for navigating the air.
Perhaps the mirage is what he really saw, but in the face of the stories circulated in regard to the airship there is a probability that is what Mr. Brown really saw. Certainly he would have no object in telling such a story.
Thomas/William Jordan of San Rafael
The other Call article (23 Nov 1896, p.1) referred to a previous article I quoted here:
One of the most interesting of the corroborative stories comes from Thomas Jordan of San Rafael, who states that he found a machine-shop in a mountain fastness some months ago: that six men were working on an airship and that it would soon be completed.
In the first day’s story of the airship, as printed in THE CALL, it was stated that an old hunter named Brown of Bolinas Ridge had seen an airship floating a few hundred feet above the pine trees one morning just as the fogs were lifting from the ridge.
It seems that The Call’s journalist misremembered “William Jordan” as “Thomas Jordan” (as per the original article I quoted here).
“Strange Lights At Sea”
Incidentally, I did find one curious story in the San Francisco Examiner of 19 Jun 1894 (p.8) that might possibly have been related to the 1896 Airship Flap:
STRANGE LIGHTS AT SEA
Will-o’-the-Wisps That Deceive the Life-Saving Crews.
Flare Lights and Rockets Seen at Night Near Bolinas by the Watchers at the Point Lobos Observatory Station.
What are those strange lights at sea, those blue rockets and flare lights and flashes of yellow fire that are thrown at night from the water’s surface against the inky background of the hills that seem to crowd Bolinas into the sea?
Twice within a fortnight that have been seen by the lonely watchers at Point Lobos, and as many times they have been mistaken for signals of distress, whereupon tug boats have been sent out from the city, and these have towed one or more of the life-saving crews out to sea to search for mariners in distress.
Each time these errands have been fruitless, and not a trace could be found of the origin of the mysterious signals.
Two weeks ago last Sunday night the lights were first seen by the Golden Gate Life-Saving crew’s lookout on Point Lobos.
“I began to see the lights flashing about 9 o’clock in the evening,” he says, “and they continued for over two hours.” […]
“They were flare lights mostly, but I am certain there were some blue rockets fired from the same point during the evening. The lights were intermittent and a good deal like those that would be flashed from a ship in distress.
“Last night I saw the same lights again, almost in the same place, over there near Bolinas. Those hills are so black over there at night that I could see the flashes very plainly, though it was a cloudless and moonlight evening. About 9 o’clock they commenced. At times a great streak of yellow would be flashed up straight against the black hills, and I was sure they must be signals of distress from some craft or small boat in Bolinas Bay.”
[…] Some are inclined to think that the lights were signals to or from small crafts engaged in smuggling, but the most prevalent theory now is that picnickers at Willow Camp have been having bonfires and fireworks among their other sports.
Willow Camp Hotel
I’ve been trying to work out who the mysterious “Mr Brown” was. Though by 1896 Mount Tamalpais had started to become a popular summer destination for visitors, October/November would have been out of season. The report (in Cohen p.9) characterised Brown as a recluse, but was that the whole story?
One possibility is that could have been the John W. “Bill” Brown (born May 2, 1863) who owned the nearby Willow Camp Hotel on Stinson Beach in Bolinas Bay, at the foot of Mount Tamalpais. Despite its impressive-sounding name, this was simply a set of tents in the shade of the willow trees. Previously, Brown had shared the ownership with a Mr Jukes, but in 1894 he bought out the other man’s share to run the enterprise with his sister Dolly Brown and mother Lucinda. (He sold it to William Neumann in 1903-1904: Brown died in 1946 in Mill Valley.)
In this 1894 article, we can see more than a hundred people (including Miss Dolly Brown) staying at Willow Camp, and there’s a nice scenic description here (though don’t eat the mussels). From there it would have been a three-mile hike to Bolinas Ridge:
On the other hand, I have to point out that despite his proximity to the ridge, Bill Brown doesn’t sound at all like an “old hunter”: but I haven’t yet got an alternative candidate. I’ll keep looking.
Yeah…so…Crenshaw…for the interested, here’s a link to the home page for the book: https://www.secretsofdellschau.com/Dellschau-Book/index.html
Also for the interested, here’s some links to an apparently defunct blog of his:
https://thehollowearthinsider.blogspot.com/search?q=dellschau
https://thehollowearthinsider.blogspot.com/search?q=new+world+order
Soooo…form your own opinion of how large a grain of salt he should be taken with. That doesn’t mean verifiable fact claims he makes should be disregarded. It just means adjust your Bayesian prior with regard to his interpretation of those facts as you see fit.
In the “things you come across Googling for Dellschau” category, here’s a paper on an airship flap in Utah during WWI: https://www.theothersideofmidnight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Utah-Airship-Mystery.pdf
Some older write-ups that discuss Navarro’s research on Dellschau can be found in the aero[1-9].asc (text) files at http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/KEELYNET/GRAVITY/
Not sure if I linked to this in my previous Dellschau comment — includes some interesting discussion on trying to track down other named supposed members of the Sonora Aero Club: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/charles-a-a-dellschau-dreams-of-flying-the-amazing-story-of-an-airship-club-that-might-never-have-existed/274170/
Also, it’s probably worth bringing up how Dellschau gets tied into the fringe notion of a “breakaway civilization” — rather than try to explain the concept, here are some links:
https://sandienews.com/4198/showcase/the-unknown-worlds/
https://www.thehighersidechats.com/walter-bosley-nymza-the-sonora-aero-club-the-origins-of-the-breakaway-civilization/
https://supersoldiertalk.com/walter-bosley-origins-emergence-of-the-breakaway-civilization/
When going down rabbit holes, it’s useful to have some idea of where they lead to…
A more skeptical take on the Sonora Aero Club can be found at: https://airminded.org/2013/03/27/seeking-sonora/
What strikes me about the 1896-7 airship wave is the strong sense of anticipation that people had, that aircraft were or could soon be be a thing, as indeed. they soon were. By the 1980s they were a common part of life…
I was trying to think of an equivalent during our own times, such as Lesley, Peter, John and Petra the dog of Blue Peter on the now ubiquitous mobile phone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMcChLsGKWc
Alas, we’re too late and too old to do the Blue Peter code breaker challenge:
https://childrens-binary.files.bbci.co.uk/childrens-binarystore/cbbc/bp-blue-peter-codebreaker-competition-form.pdf
I can think of a few good supervillians though, which was part of the challenge!
Karl: I’m not exactly endorsing Crenshaw, but have you seen the price of the other Dellschau books? A cipher guy has to start somewhere, you know. 😮
In many ways, the central question is one of non-Dellschau evidence – Dellschau goes far beyond merely unreliable, reaching into the realms of deceptive, shuffling, and just plain imaginary (if not actually hallucinatory).
For example, I don’t personally believe anyone in 1857 or so was called “Lamar Ollray”. But I did find an engineer in Placerville, El Dorado, California called “Lewis M. Elroy”, born ~1831 in New York.
Is this the actual pattern here? That Dellschau is presenting some kind of history through a kaleidoscopic lens, one that we might only reconstruct through insane levels of forensic effort? Or did he just dream it all up from a room in Texas, everything from Mennis’ dog to NYMZA?
Nick, I’m just pointing out some of the more…colorful…places the Dellschau rabbit hole can wind up, e.g. “breakaway civilization” conspiracy theories:
https://supersoldiertalk.com/walter-bosley-origins-emergence-of-the-breakaway-civilization/
https://www.thehighersidechats.com/?s=dellschau
https://sandienews.com/4198/showcase/the-unknown-worlds/
Karl: it is indeed a colourful old rabbit hole. I suppose I’m just being boring old Nick looking for actual evidence, but what’s a guy to go, eh? 😁
Karl: I should also add that in the second half of the Dellschau book, Crenshaw spends most of the time with his head down nutty rabbit holes.
re: “Lamar Ollray”. Elmer/Elmar O’Leary? – journalists don’t always cope well with strong dialect or accents.
Nick, I’m not being facetious when I say that if trying to chase down supposed members of the Sonora Aero Club is what is currently floating your boat (or, in this case, airship), then by all means do so. Lord knows how many hours I’ve sunk into chasing after various curious historical hobby horses over the years (heck, just the Voynich alone).
On the other hand, I would hate to see you go all Nick Cook on us (if you don’t get the reference, read his _Hunt for the Zero Point_).
Karl: I have a couple of Nick Cook books here, and pleased be assured that that’s not my destination or even direction of travel. If the Sonora Aero Club has some kind of genuine (non-Liars’ Club) basis, it’s certainly well-concealed. 😮
Worth mentioning:
‘In 1866 Frederick Marriott of San Francisco formed
The Aerial Steam Navigation Company with the goal of building and operating large steam-powered airship between New York and California.
‘By 1869, Marriott had constructed a 37′ (12m) long prototype named the Hermes Jr. Avitor, after the fleet-footed Roman messenger god who flew through the air on winged sandals. The prototype carried no pilot and was powered by a 1-horsepower steam engine. Buoyant lift was provided by a hydrogen-filled envelope, with stabilizers and elevator surfaces attached to allow for controlled flight. The vehicle was successfully tested at Tanforan, near modern-day San Francisco International Airport. The aircraft completed a circular flight of approximately 1 mile and was recovered successfully.’
The Hiller Aviation Museum. https://www.hiller.org/event/avitor/
Mark Twain visited during construction, and no less than Emperor Norton endorsed the project. Unfortunately the model burnt– steam engines and hydrogen are not a marriage made in heaven– and the company was unable to raise further funding.
Karl: that whole “breakaway civilization” thing reads like a Nazi steampunk conspiracy fanfic, reading too much of that in one go could do some serious mental damage. =:-o
(Sorry for the delay in responding, your comment got snatched by the spam filter.)