Case file · Sighting
Airship over Hastings, Nebraska
On 2 February 1897 the Omaha Bee reported that an airship 'or something of the kind' had been seen west of Hastings, one of the first Midwest reports of the 1896–97 airship wave.
1897 CE · 40.59, -98.39 · status: disputed
The account
A few days later the Bee carried another sighting from Inavale, about forty miles south. The reports moved east across the Plains through March and April, ahead of the great Chicago and Michigan excitement.
The sceptical view
No witnesses were named. Historians of the wave note that bright planets (Venus was brilliant that spring), fire balloons and newspaper competition explain much of it.