- Truckee Has 'Em Again
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- Sacramento Evening Bee November 19, 1896
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- A Correspondent Imagines That He Saw A Big Ship
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- The following communication, if the writer was not under
the influence of that terrible whiskey at Truckee, should stop all speculation
about the strange spectacle of last Tuesday night. It will prove to old
topers who gazed into the sky and saw the mysterious light moving over
the city that they did not have the delirium tremens. It will prove to
religious fanatics that the ball of fire was not a forerunner of the conflagration
to come, and it should convince doubting Thomases that the wild dreams
of Darlus Green has come true:
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- TRUCKEE, Nov, 18 - Considerable amusement was created
here when the papers arrived here and told of the consternation which prevailed
in Sacramento over the flight of a ball of fire across the city. That supposed
ball of fire was an immense glass globe lighted by electricity, and was
really the "wheel house" of a great air ship.
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- About 4 o'clock Tuesday afternoon the people of this
place were astonished to see a wonderful machine sailing through the air
from an easterly direction. After hovering above the town for a few moments,
the machine circled around and gracefully descended to the earth, lighting
in the Plaza alongside of the Ice Palace. In a short time it was surrounded
by hundreds of men, women and children. The Indians who saw the thing ran
howling in fright towards the woods. On the sides of the affair were painted
the words "meteors," and while it resembled a ship, it had great
wings similar to those of a bird. They are operated by means of machinery
worked by an electric storage battery, and the entire apparatus, which
is twenty five feet in length, is constructed of aluminum.
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- In the strange craft was the distinguished Phineas Fogg,
who is attempting to beat his around-the-world record of eighty days. He
was accompanied by three friends, who started with him from New York on
Monday morning. They landed at this place to send a telegram home to friends,
announcing they had decided to avoid San Francisco. Mr Fogg said he and
his friends enjoyed themselves by day in gazing at the country, and at
night they played poker for drinks, after setting the screws of the machine
to keep high enough up to escape church spires and mountain peaks. After
remaining here for fifteen or twenty minutes, the aerial navigators stepped
into the ship, a button was pressed, and the wonderful thing arose into
the air, glided swiftly toward the west, and barely missed McGlashan's
Museum building which is perched up on top of the big rocking stone.
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