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passed through the vicinity of the corner of South Division and Williams streets is a fact that is founded upon the most irrefragable proof [that is apparently where the note was found]. Mr. Smith, who found the letter, positively avers that he is not a drinking man and never owned a beer stopper in his life. Three of the night men employed by the Wallin Leather Company are very sure they saw the airship last night. In Omaha, Nebraska, preparations were under way for a large Transmississippi Exposition, so it was only logical for the great airship inventor to bid for attention there. On April 13, the secretary of the Exposition received the following tidbit in his mail: To the Exposition Director: My identity up to date has been unknown, but I will come to the front now; i.e., if you will guarantee me 870,000 square feet of space. I am the famous airship constructor and will guarantee you positively of this fact in a week. The airship is my own invention and I aman Omaha man. I wish it to be held as an Omaha invention. It will safely carry twenty people to a height of from 10,000 to 20,000 feet. I truly believe I have the greatest invention and discovery ever made. Will see you April 17, 1897 at the headquarters. [GlanndAT AO CUnenn Perhaps Mr. Clinton was aboard the ill-fated, out-of-control craft that sailed over Michigan into limbo. In any case, he didn’t show up on the seventeenth, but several UFOs and airships were busy in five states that aiake night. ; Aside from bottle openers and half-eaten lunches, a number of other odd objects were dumped by the mysterious airship pilots. A half-peeled potato fell overboard above Atchinson, Kansas, and a Canadian newspa- per dated October 5, 1896 was dropped at the feet of Daniel Gray, a farmer, in Burton, Michigan. Gray said he had been working in his field on Friday, April 23, when he heard a rumbling sound in the sky and saw a dark object rushing past. The paper fluttered down from it and ‘‘was dry and well preserved and suffered little, if any, injury in its flight from the heavens” (Saginaw, Michigan, Globe, April 26, 1897). All of these things could have been simple hoaxes, of course, but in forthcoming chapters we will describe some uneasily similar incidents that have happened in more recent years. Part of my research in the past four years has been devoted to a reexamination of the alleged UFO hoaxes, The Grand Deception / 89 [Signed] A. C. Clinton