John A. Keel WHY UFOS

Five years before Professor Bonilla's embarrassingobservation, a farmer in Texas reported seeing a largecircular object pass overhead at high speed. His name wasJohn Martin, and when he told a reporter from theDennison, Texas, Daily News about it, he made history ofsorts by describing it as a "saucer." The date of his sightingwas Thursday, January 24, 1878. His neighbors probablycalled him Crazy John after that, never realizing that hewas not the first, and certainly would not be the last, to seewhat had been up there all along.In April, 1897, thousands of people throughout theUnited States were seeing huge "airships" over their townsand farms. Scores of witnesses even claimed to have metand talked with the pilots. According to the New YorkHerald, Monday, April 12, 1897, a news dealer in RogersPark, Illinois, took two photographs of a cigar-shapedcraft. "I had read for some days about the airship," thenews dealer, Walter McCann, was quoted as saying. "But Ithought it must be a fake."Because so many people were coming up with airshipstories, and many of them were even signing affidavitsswearing to the truth of what they had seen, newspapermennaturally turned to the greatest scientific authority of thetime, Thomas Alva Edison."You can take it from me that it is a pure fake," Edisondeclared on April 22, 1897. "I have no doubt that airshipswill be successfully constructed in the near future but... itis absolutely impossible to imagine that a man couldconstruct a successful airship and keep the matter a secret.When I was young, we used to construct big colored paperballoons, inflate them with gas, and they would float aboutfor days. I guess someone has been up to that fine game outwest."Whenever an airship is made, it will not be in the formof a balloon. It will be a mechanical contrivance, which willbe raised by means of a powerful motor, which must bemade of a very light weight. At present no one hasdiscovered such a motor, but we never know what willhappen. We may wake up tomorrow morning and hear ofsome invention which sets us all eagerly to work within afew hours, as was the case with the Roentgen rays. Thensuccess may come. I am not, however, figuring oninventing an airship. I prefer to devote my time to objectswhich have some commercial value. At the best, airshipswould only be toys."