Society

November 6, 1886. As the sky of Sacramento (capital of California) is filled with starry diamonds, in a calm and restful night... a shape suddenly appears. Inhabitants can't believe it, what stands out there before their eyes (6 years before the airplane was invented) is a UFO!

The inhabitants gather in the streets of the city, some welled up in silence, others scream at the sky that the end of the world is near. It looks like an aircraft with aluminum contours, it flies over the city, equipped with a gigantic projector that focuses on the surrounding roofs, specifies the Belgian media RTBF.

A UFO? Really? This resolutely modern word was then unknown to anyone. The witnesses of the scene spoke rather of a flying vessel, or an airship. In Sacramento, as wll as in Oakland and San Francisco, hundreds of them have seen this strange object break the celestial vault. On November 22 of the same year, it was heard that a kind of cigar, equipped with a front projector, had been seen in the dark sky, confirming the idea that there were several models of aircraft.

In police stations, questions prevailed, citizens expressed their concerns. Why this sudden air invasion? The phenomenon would repeat itself several times, while mechanization was not yet an issue in the United States.

German espionage, a few years before the First World War? Hoax? Vision of Venus or the Moon, a little too close? To this day, the mystery remains…

(MH with AsD - Source: RTBF - Illustration: Unsplash)