This article was published in the daily newspaper The Algona Courier, Algona, Iowa, USA, Friday, April 9, 1897.
Warning: the airship stories must not be taken at face value as "UFO sightings." Evaluation of such stories is under way here.
The air ship story which so wrought upon the mind of the Wesley correspondent to the Algona Republican this week has been thoroughly explored and its explanation is as novel as it is true. It now turns out that there was no air ship seen at all but that the mysterious object sighted floating in the heavens was in fact only a newly hatched bed bug which had crawled out onto the outer end of an eyewinker to dry and that the red-like glare of the distant light peeping through its apparent windows was in reality only the red rays of the setting sun refracted and reflected into the observer's eye by the tiny animal's tender crystal-like body. This simple explanation we trust will put at rest the aroused curiosity of the superstitious world which has been so recently excited by the Wesley correspondent above named.
