AIRSHIP STORIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2567, 30 July 1909, Page 4

AIRSHIP STORIES.

A CIRCUMSTANTIAL ACCOUNT

[Per Press association OAMARU, July 29 For several nights mysterious lights have appeared in the neighborhood or the Kakanui ranges, and these ha\ e been watched by large numbers of people, several using glasses, but all doubts as to reality were set at rest this morning, -when Mr. H. D. Bailey, a settler at Kauroo Hill and brother of the magistrate, saw the airship at o o’clock. His attention was drawn to something unusual by the restiveness of his horse in a yard, and on looking up he saw what he describes to a “North Otago Times” reporter as a shape like a boat with a fiat top speeding along something like 30 miles an hour or more. After watching tor some time he ran to obtain hi 6 glasses, but by this time the airship had disappeared over the hills. The airship was also seen by several people at Maheno, and its reality cannot therefore be doubted. If this is the same mysterious something that has been seen in South Otago and Southland, the inventor has a machine that cannot only take long flights, but moves at a great rate of speed, for the distance between the tw r o points is about 200 miles. DUNEDiA, Ju.y 29. Several people both in the city and country districts assert that they saw strange lights in the air- either last night, early this morning, or this evening, but their statements have added nothing in the direction of the solution of the question of whether an airship is hovering about these parts. Two young men, aged nineteen years, residing in Morningt-on, have lor the past few months been building an aeroplane, which is now practically completed, with the exception that the inventors have not secured a motor for it. A trial will be made shortly, however, without a. motor. A possible explanation of the mysterious .aerial lights seen here several evenings recently was -ound to-night,, when the ruins of a common toy fire balloon fell in York Place, and were' quickly seized bv a crowd of youths. INVERCARGILL. July 29.

Stories of lights in the sky continue to pour in. and speculation whets its appetite. Nothing, however, has been seen to justify any further appearance of an “airship,” and new that the sending of fire balloons has been investigated with a new joy, the difficulty of ascertaining the origin of what was originallv seen has been increased.