This article was published in the daily newspaper The Daily Northwestern, of Oshkosh, USA, on November 20, 1897.
Warning: the airship stories must not be taken at face value as "UFO sightings." Evaluation of such stories is under way here.
Prof. Wiggins now declares that the aerolite that recently fell near Binghamton came from Mars. He says that there are hieroglyphics plainly stamped upon it. He assumes therefrom that the Martians believing, from their observations and knowledge of the heavenly bodies, that the earth is peopled with human beings, have written a message to their nearest celestial neighbors on what we here call an aerolite, and have sent it to us. This would be very nice of the Martians, if we could reconcile the assumption with the known laws governing the universe. Were it not for that force which we call attraction of gravitation, we might possibly imagine, if we could not fully certify, that the Martians wrote their message on this mass of mineral, placed it on a huge catapult or some engine of that sort and, taking a straight aim at the great star the distance which we call earth, pulled the trigger and sent the charge flying toward this sizzling planet. We might almost believe that if the Martians could fire such a message at us we ought to be able to fire back and return the message, although our spelling might puzzle some of the most expert and scholarly philologists of Mars. Perhaps we may expect Prof. Wiggins to fully explain how the Martians got this aerolite into space and on a bee line to the earth. Perhaps, when he has done this he will be able to suggest ways and means by which we may send back our acceptance to this possible invitation to attend the coming foot ball game between the mule drivers along the grand canals and the interior university team which has cardinal for its color. At any rate Prof. Wiggins' latest declaration, that this most recent visitor from space is a message from Mars, awakens all sorts of interesting musings that may serve to relieve the mind from the straln of earthly politics and street railway contentions.
Prof. Wiggins has again emerged from his retreat, this time to propound the theory of the St. Louis disaster. He claims that the storm was attracted to that point by the net work of telegraphic and electric light wires.
