This article was published in the daily newspaper the Nebraska State Journal, Nebraska, USA, on June 10, 1884.
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It Dissolves Like a Drop of Dew Before
the Morning Sun.
The Most Mysterious Element of the
Strange Phenomenon.
Special to The State Journal.
BENKELMAN, June 9, 1884 -- Your correspondent has just returned from the spot where the aerial visitor fell last Friday. It is gone, dissolved into the air. A tremendous rain storm fell yesterday afternoon beginning around 2 o'clock. As it approached, in regular blizzard style, most of those assembled to watch the mysterious visitor fled to shelter. A dozen or more, among them your correspondent, waited to see the effect of rain upon the glowing mass of metal. The storm came down from the north, on its crest a sheet of flying spray and a torrent of rain. It was impossible to see more than a rod through the driving, blinding mass. It lasted for half and hour, and when it slackened so that the aerolite should have been visible it was no longer there. The draw was running three feet deep in water and supposing it had floated off the strange vessel. The party crossed over at the risk of their lives.
They were astounded to see that the queer object had melted, dissolved by the water like a spoonful of salt. Scarcely a vestige of it remained. Small, jelly-like pools stood here and there on the ground, but under the eyes of the observers these grew thinner and thinner till they were but muddy water joining the rills that led to the current a few feet away. The air was filled with a faint, sweetish smell.
The whole affair is bewildering to the highest degree, and will no doubt forever be a mystery.
Alf Williamson, the injured cowboy, left yesterday for Denver, accompanied by his brother. It is feared he will never recover his eyesight, but otherwise he does not appear to be seriously injured.
There has been a continued stream of investigators here for the past two days, among them a number of members of the press. The Denver Tribune representative was among the witnesses to the evanishment.
