On December 22, 1909, six years after Kitty Hawk, the first flight of a man made aircraft, newspapers from New York to Chicago were astounded by national reports of a huge airship flying across the nation and seen by thousands.
During this wave of sightings, it is said that such an "airship" crashed west of Chicago, but was never found. The story was front-page news in the nation's major newspapers.
This is all I know on this case so far.