Slightly Odd Fitchburg

Greetings, chaps! It is once again I, Wallace E. Tillinghast! The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909 – Part 2 Last time, ( you can read part 1 here ) we were talking about the explosion of airship sightings around the world, with a whole lot of them happening in the United States. There were some in Arkansas, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and many other places, with some of the reports being as simple as seeing a light high up in the sky and others being about as detailed as they can get. So, we have the world going crazy for flying machines and Wallace Tillinghast was the only person claiming responsibility. When the newspapers finally started looking for legitimate answers that didn’t involve Martians, guess who they contacted. "We'll see you again in the 50s, bro." Reporters showed up at Wallace’s door, only to be turned away by his wife. She just told them all that “[Wallace] knows his business. He will talk when the proper time comes.” She also may or ...

Excerpt from the Boston Herald – December 13, 1909 “WORCESTER, Dec. 12–Wallace E. Tillinghast of this city, vice-president of a manufacturing company here, made public a story today [that] he invented, built, and tested an aeroplane capable of carrying three passengers with a weight limit of 600 pounds, a distance of about 300 miles with a stop to replenish the supply of petrol, at a rate of 120 miles an hour. He refuses to say where his flying machine is as he wants to enter into Boston contests next year as a sure winner…” The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909 The late 19 th and early 20 th centuries were a great time for UFO sightings. Not only was there nothing to do except stare up into the sky until TV was invented, but this was also when this newfangled thing called “aviation” was on everyone’s mind. The Wright brothers, two bicycle men out of Illinois, made their first sustained flight on December 17, 1903.   A few years before that, in 1895, a German guy by th...