The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909 - Part 1
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 the na