1897 UFO Outbreak Over Iowa

It turned out the UFO outbreak was 
nothing more than kids and overzealous
adults playing with kites and candles.

The year 1897 saw an outbreak of unidentified flying objects over Iowa.

On April 7, observers spotted a mysterious airship over Vinton at 9 PM. It swayed like a bird flying against the wind, “darting to and fro, and up and down.” After a half-hour, it was gone. At 8 p.m., it was seen flying over Nashville, Illinois, flashing a large red light.

On Saturday, April 10, the mysterious airship hovered over Waterloo. After dark, all that could be seen were two flickering white lights. And then, the mystery was solved. Five boys reeled in their kite—it was of normal size, with a long tail, and to each end of the tail, they had tied Chinese lanterns.

Even after the boys’ prank was unwound, the airship sightings continued. Two men observed it flying over H. B. Allen’s Farm at about 10:30 Saturday night. It hovered very low and seemed to rest over Fairview Cemetery—flashing green and red lights.

That one had more earthly origins. It turned out to be a switch light on the Illinois Central Railway.

People in Shell Rock joined in the act on Saturday. They saw a mysterious flickering light—that switched between red, white, and blue. It floated a few hundred feet above the town, then turned and headed toward Waterloo.

They didn’t know that some men from Cedar Falls had chipped in and bought a 25-cent balloon with red, white, and blue stripes. The wind grabbed it and carried it to Shell Rock, where the locals thought they saw the mysterious airship, not some two-bit knock-off.

Their imaginations wrote the rest of the story. There was talk of a headlight that changed colors from red to white to blue and wings, paddle wheels, and cigar-shaped objects motated by propellers.

“The boys at Cedar Falls,” said The Courier, “declared they never had so much fun in their lives for 25 cents.”

Down in Burlington, reporters for the Burlington Hawkeye did the same thing with three hot air balloons made from red, white, and blue paper. The different colors people saw were explained by which parts of the paper the light shone through.

Again, imagination did the rest of the work. A boy in North Hill Park said, “It was as big as a house.”

On Tuesday, April 13, a mysterious airship landed in A. R. Foote’s yard.

The Postal Telegraph Manager at Clinton wired Mr. Albright at Cedar Rapids. “What we all supposed to be the airship has just passed overhead with three brilliant lights about 1,000 feet above us. One light is green, one red, and one bright green.”


Iowa Falls residents believed the airship crashed into the Iowa River near there.

Shortly after dusk, they saw a “meteoric-like flash across the heavens” and the noise of a heavy body moving through the air. It crashed to the earth at a terrific speed and “immediately sunk out of sight.”

Search parties arrived shortly after the supposed crash, but no wreckage or bodies were discovered.

But explain this report from Lanark, Illinois.

“The airship came down here last night. Two of the occupants are dead. All were foreigners. The Chicago & Northwestern has run a special from Freeport loaded with sightseers.”

Everyone wanted to get in on the act. In twenty years, airplanes and balloons would be passe, but in 1897, they were a strange anomaly.

Here’s my thought, for what it’s worth. The Waterloo Daily Courier stretched an April Fool’s joke so far that it lasted the entire month.