Evanston, Illinois: Hundreds in the Chicago area watch airship with sweeping searchlight
At 8:30 p.m. on 9 April 1897, hundreds of people in Chicago, Evanston, Niles Center and Schermerville, Illinois, saw an airship with multicolored lights and a huge white searchlight; nearly 800 watched it from Davis Street in Evanston.
Background
At 8:30 p.m., hundreds of people in Chicago, Evanston, Niles Center and Schermerville, Illinois, saw an airship bearing multicolored lights and swinging a huge white searchlight from side to side. Nearly 800 witnesses on Davis Street in Evanston watched the object, estimated to be 400 feet long. Through binoculars the outline of a structure could be seen behind the powerful light. By 9:30 p.m. the airship was last seen over South Chicago. Northwestern University astronomer George W. Hough, director of the Dearborn Observatory, told the newspapers he was sure the airship was the star Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse). The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.