Tennessee Airship Encounters
April 20 - 28, 1907 - Dickson — Bold Spring, Tennessee, USA
For one extraordinary week in late April 1907, rural Tennessee became the setting for one of the strangest series of airship encounters in American history. Four independent witnesses, spread across several communities, described remarkably similar experiences involving mysterious airships, beautiful human-like occupants, strange music, prayers performed at natural springs, and conversations spoken in German. Whether these reports were genuine, elaborate newspaper fiction, or something else entirely, they remain among the most unusual accounts of the early twentieth-century airship era.
The first encounter occurred near Dikeman Springs, outside Dickson, Tennessee, on the afternoon of Friday, April 19, 1907. Walter Stephenson had spent the day training a pair of bloodhounds and, after a long chase, sat down on a log to rest. While catching his breath, he noticed what appeared to be a tiny speck in the eastern sky. Assuming it was nothing more than a large kite, he paid little attention to it until a strange whirring sound caused him to look
up again.
The object had rapidly approached and now hovered almost directly overhead. Stephenson realized it was a gigantic balloon-like craft unlike anything he had ever seen. As it descended, beautiful strains of music drifted through the air. Then an even stranger spectacle unfolded. Small glowing spheres burst from the craft, circled through the sky, and finally settled near Dikeman Springs.
Several unusual figures emerged from the suspended car beneath the airship. Stephenson later described them as almost angelic in appearance. Whenever sunlight broke through the clouds, their bodies shimmered with a mysterious radiance. The visitors walked to the large flowing spring, knelt together, and remained in silent prayer for more than a minute.
Believing their devotions had ended, Stephenson cautiously approached and asked who they were and what their mission might be.
One of the beings raised a visor, revealing what Stephenson described as the gentle face of a beautiful woman. She asked him a single question in German: "Haben sie Beten?"—"Did you pray?"
Almost immediately after speaking, she and her companions returned aboard the craft. The airship rose smoothly into the sky, circled briefly, and disappeared toward the west.
Stephenson later insisted that although the craft itself appeared to be some sort of human invention, the visitors seemed more like angels than ordinary people. Modern UFO researchers would likely classify them as "Nordic" humanoids—tall, attractive, benevolent-looking beings frequently reported in later contact cases. An intriguing detail is that Stephenson apparently understood German, suggesting he may have been of German descent.
Remarkably, another nearly identical encounter occurred before Stephenson's story had even appeared in print.
At 3:30 on the morning of April 20, respected farmer W. A. Smith was traveling near Bold Springs, Tennessee, when he heard beautiful music echoing through the darkness. At first he assumed a wedding celebration had simply continued late into the night. Looking upward, however, he saw an enormous balloon-like craft of unusual design.
A large enclosed car hung beneath it, illuminated by electric lights, while a brilliant searchlight projected from its front. Smith noticed no visible engine or propeller to explain how the craft moved.
Like Stephenson's visitors, the airship slowly drifted toward a large natural spring.
Smith tied his horse to a nearby tree and cautiously approached. There he observed several strangely dressed people kneeling beside the spring exactly as Stephenson had described only hours earlier. Believing they were praying, he remained hidden.
As the figures returned to their craft, one pointed toward Smith and spoke words in a language he could not understand. It may once again have been German.
The Nashville American emphasized that Smith's testimony had been reported locally nearly sixteen hours before Stephenson's account appeared in the newspaper, making it unlikely that Smith had copied the earlier story.
Only three days later, on April 23, the Nashville American reported yet another encounter.
On the evening of April 21, German immigrant Herman Schubert was working on his farm near Pleasant Spring when his fifteen-year-old son Carl called him outside. Looking skyward, they saw another balloon-like airship several hundred feet overhead. Hanging beneath it was a large enclosed car resembling an oversized stagecoach approximately thirty-five feet long with entrances on both sides.
The craft descended beside—once again—a large spring on the property.
Schubert and his son hid inside their springhouse while twelve to fourteen occupants emerged from the airship. According to Schubert, the strangers behaved with deep reverence, as though the spring were sacred ground. They silently knelt in prayer for several minutes.
Unable to resist his curiosity, Schubert stepped outside and addressed them.
Most ignored him, but one turned and replied in German:
"Thou hast not prayed; address us not."
Unlike Stephenson, Schubert was fluent in German and responded by asking the stranger to explain.
The mysterious figure answered:
"Our pilgrimage is not yet completed; the world will know all in time."
The being then returned aboard the craft, which ascended rapidly before flying southward.
Those cryptic words have inspired decades of speculation. Some researchers have wondered whether they hinted at future world events. Only six years later, Germany entered World War I, followed by World War II a generation afterward. Together the conflicts claimed well over one hundred million lives. Some have suggested the visitors were urging humanity to pray before those catastrophes unfolded.
Others have proposed an even more speculative possibility—that the occupants were time travelers attempting to influence history, or perhaps visitors aware of humanity's future.
The fourth and final Tennessee encounter was reported on April 28 and may have been the most extraordinary of them all.
Mail carrier Asa Hickerson was delivering mail near Nashville early one morning when he heard eerie chanting drifting through the surrounding woods. His horse became frightened, forcing him to stop his buggy.
Moments later an enormous airship glided gracefully into view and landed only fifty yards away.
Several human-looking figures emerged from the familiar suspended car carrying a long staff. Chanting as they walked in single file, they approached an abandoned oil well.
Forming a circle around it, one of the figures thrust the staff into the well three separate times after making elaborate ceremonial motions through the air. The staff, now coated in oil, was carried across the road, planted into the ground, and set ablaze.
Holding hands, the group circled the burning staff while singing as smoke rose into the morning sky.
When the ritual concluded, Hickerson gathered the courage to ask what they had been doing.
Only one of the strangers responded. Extending his hand, he spoke in German:
"Be healthy and pray."
The visitors then boarded their airship, which rose silently into the sky and vanished.
Taken together, the four Tennessee encounters are remarkable because they contain numerous consistent details. Every witness described an unusual balloon-like airship with an enclosed passenger car. Several heard beautiful or haunting music before the craft appeared. Each group of occupants performed rituals involving natural springs, and three witnesses reported conversations in German. The visitors consistently urged prayer, while one delivered the enigmatic statement that "the world will know all in time."
On the other hand, every account appeared in the Nashville American. Skeptics have long pointed out that a single imaginative reporter could have fabricated the entire series.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect is not that the beings supposedly spoke German, but that nearly every witness either understood the language or accurately repeated enough of it for translators to recognize what had been said. This could simply reflect the significant German immigrant population living in portions of Tennessee at the time.
Equally mysterious is the recurring symbolism involving springs, water, fire, music, and prayer. Were these elaborate religious ceremonies? A symbolic ritual performed by unknown visitors? Evidence of time travelers carrying out a mission? Or nothing more than an elaborate newspaper hoax?
More than a century later, there is still no definitive answer.
The original researcher who brought these forgotten reports back to public attention was Theo Paijmans in his article The Tennessee Aeronaut Flap of 1907.
There may also have been one final appearance of the same mysterious airship later that year.
Unlike the Tennessee stories, this report did not originate with the Nashville American. On September 17, 1907, the Wenatchee Daily World described an incident that had occurred the previous afternoon in Wenatchee, Washington.
Residents watched a dirigible-like craft fly roughly 900 feet above a newly constructed bridge before disappearing over Badger Mountain. Witnesses described a long cigar-shaped gas bag with a suspended passenger car and some form of propulsion beneath it.
Several people reported hearing music coming from the craft as it passed overhead.
A hunter observing through field glasses from Saddle Rock claimed he could clearly see two men and "a woman of rare beauty" inside the car.
Meanwhile, a fisherman beneath the bridge believed the airship dropped a piece of paper as it flew overhead. He watched helplessly as the note fluttered into the river and disappeared beneath the water before anyone could retrieve it.
If the Tennessee visitor's promise that "the world will know all in time" was ever explained, that message may have been lost forever at the bottom of the Wenatchee River.