For nearly a century, there have been strange sightings of people flying through the air, or hovering anyway. Now, I'm not talking about Superman, but rather groups of people on floating platforms or rocketmen launching through the sky propelled by jetpacks. I think it's intriguing that these sightings are so very different (and more interesting, in my opinion) than classic flying saucer reports. Fortean Times surveyed these accounts of "aeronauts from the future," or hallucinations, or platforms hanging from zeppelins, or, depending on the year, maybe experimental flying platforms in development. For example, the Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee was built in 1954, but the first report referenced the Fortean Times article is from 1916 (and published decades later as a letter-to-the-editor in the Daily Mirror.) Details after the jump.
From Fortean Times:
"Aeronauts from the Future"Mr AE Whiteland described the unusual sight witnessed by his mother around 1916 or 1917, when she lived in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. One day she had gone upstairs, looked out the window, when "at a height of about 30ft [9m], eight to twelve men appeared, on what seemed to be a round platform with a handrail around it... They were wearing blue uniforms and little round hats, not unlike sailors' hats. She heard no sound from the machine as it came off the nearby marshes. It turned a bit, and went over the railway yard, to disappear behind some houses..."
The men were holding tightly on to the handrail, which was "brass, and a second rail, also of brass, was at the height of the men's knees. As she was trying so hard to take it all in, she cannot say of what material the platform seemed to be made... Mother says that she kept wondering what was making the thing move, and looked up in the sky and then at the men and then in between their legs to see if there was an engine there in the middle, but she could see nothing there. There was nothing in the middle, just a hollow, with the men around the sides."
The platform was totally silent and moved at about the speed of a running man.
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Excellent idea to test your experimental flying machine right next to low-hanging power lines.
I saw three of these Hiller flying platforms hovering above my backyard one afternoon in East Oakland, CA, circa 1959. No one believed my story for years. I finally identified the aircraft a few years ago and actually saw one at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA.
This fits in with Vallee's work -- particularly with the 1897 airship flap. Mind you, steampunk airships haven't become common yet, particularly not manned by Mark Twain lookalikes as were reported -- unless Make suddenly takes a major upshot in project complexity, we can probably argue against the likeliness of that being a time displacement thing -- and this may probably be grouped along with.
I knew a guy who built a copy of the Thiokol peroxide jetpack, but since the WTC atrocities you just can't get hi-test peroxides any more.
Looks like they are hunting for Mr Bond.
"You can run, but you cant fly Mr Bond! Now di-OHFUCKAPOWELINEAAAAAArh!!!"
In a moment of serendipity I happened to see this about a week ago. I LOVE the vintage look and sound. It's actually an authentic publicity video from the era I believe.
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/RPIF/beta/
(P.S. I hope this doesn't get posted twice, there was an error when I posted the first time :/ )
A few years ago I had to go on a trip to photograph a drawing that this old lady owned. Her address was something Hall in Cumbria. I was surprised when it turned out to be a real Hall, with sweeping driveways and a bultler to answer the door. She was watching me set up the tripod when she started to tell me a story about how her and a friend had been having tea on the terrace one morning. Suddenly from the trees beyond the garden a gentleman came flying over head, bid them a 'good morning' and flew off over her house.
Was he a paraglider? I asked. "Oh no, no parachute or hanglider, just a smart morning suit. We hadn't been drinking it was before lunch! I suppose you think I'm quite mad."
That last image is of a flying platform called the Wasp.