The Hamilton Hoax

The following story has become a staple of UFO literature over the years - despite being an admitted and witnessed hoax:

This report is from a man named Alexander Hamilton, member of the House of Representatives in 1897.

Le Roy, Kansas, 1897: "Last monday night, about 10:30" wrote Mr. Hamilton, "we were awakened by a noise among the cattle. I arose, thinking that perhaps my bulldog was performing some of his pranks, but upon going to the door saw to my utter astonishment an airship slowly descending upon my cow lot, about forty rods from the house.

"Calling my tenant, Gid Heslip, and my son Wall, we seized some axes and ran to the corral. Meanwhile, the ship had been descending until it was not more than thirty feet above the ground, and we came within fifty yards of it.

"It consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly three hundred feet long, with a carriage underneith. The carriage was made ofglass or some other transparent substance alternating with a narrow strip of some material. It was brilliantly lighted within and everything was plainly visible - it was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together, but we could not understand a word they said.

"Every part of the vessel which was not transparent was of a dark reddish color. We stood mute with wonder and fright, when some noise attracted their attention and they turned a light directly upon us. Immediately on catching sight of us they turned on some unknown power, and a great turbine wheel, about thirty feet in diameter, which was slowly revolving below the craft began to buzz and the vessel rose lightly as a bird. When about three hundred feet above us it seemed to pause and hover directly over a two-year-old heifer, which was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence. Going to her, we found a cable about a half inch in thickness made of some red material, fastened in a slip knot around her neck, one end passing up to the vessel, and the heifer tangled in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose and stood in amazement to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest.

"We went home but I was so frightened I could not sleep. Rising early Tuesday, I started out by horse, hoping to find some trace of my cow. This I failed to do, but coming back in the evening found that Link Thomas, about three or four miles west of Le Roy, had found the hide, legs and head in his field that day. He, thinking someone had butchered a stolen beast, had brought the hide to town for identification, but was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the soft ground. After identifying the hide by my brand, I went home. but every time I would drop to sleep I would see the cursed thing with its big lights and hideous people. I don't know whether they are devils or angels, or what, but we all saw them, and my whole family saw the ship, and I don't want any more to do with them."

The Truth

According to Jerome Clark, noted UFO historian:

"In 1976 I conducted an investigation of the story and talked with the editor of the Yates Center, Kansas, newspaper, which then ran a short article urging anyone who knew anything about the story to contact me. I heard from a woman whose mother had been at the Hamilton household in April 1897, when Alex pulled up and jokingly took his wife about the tall tale he and friends (members of a local liars club) had concocted. One of the friends was the editor of the local paper. In 1943 the editor, looking back on his career, remembered the hoax and the circumstances of its creation.

"My expose first appeared in the February 1977 issue of Fate. (I also write about it on page 17 of my 1996 book High Strangeness [UFO Encyclopedia #3].) Subsequently, Eddie Bullard found a letter from Hamilton in a Missouri newspaper, the Atchison County Mail (May 7, 1897), in which Hamilton cheerfully acknowledged that he'd made up the tale."