The “Great New England Airship Hoax of 1909,” during which thousands witnessed strange lights in the skies over New England, may not have been a total hoax after all. At the center of the mystery was Wallace E. Tillinghast, a mechanical engineer who claimed to have invented an advanced aircraft and conducted secret night flights from his hidden workshop in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tillinghast almost certainly exaggerated the capabilities of his secret aeroplane, claiming impossible speeds, long-distance flights, and near-perfect stability years ahead of aviation technology. However, new historical research reveals strong evidence that he DID build a genuine experimental aircraft.

A major overlooked discovery is that Tillinghast actually received a real U.S. aeroplane patent in 1911. The patent drawings and descriptions reveal an innovative aircraft design incorporating unusual stability concepts that align with descriptions given by experts and reporters who claimed to have inspected his machine. The patent does not support his more fantastic public claims, but it strongly undermines the idea that the entire story was simply fabricated from thin air.

Side view of Wallace E. Tillinghast's aeroplane from his 1911 U.S. Patent.

I've written an historical deep dive exploring this case (which is too long for a Reddit post), but can be read in its entirety here, if you wish: https://thunderbirdphoto.com/f/the-great-airship-hoax-of-1909-was-not-a-hoax-not-entirely

This article traces how, in the winter of 1909, thousands across New England reported mysterious searchlights and aircraft-like objects in the sky shortly after Tillinghast publicly announced his secret monoplane. Many sightings were likely misidentified stars, balloons, or mass hysteria amplified by “airplane fever” and sensational newspapers.

Yet the story becomes harder to dismiss entirely because of the multiple credible witnesses who claimed to have personally inspected Tillinghast’s aircraft in his secret workshop outside Worcester. Their descriptions were surprisingly consistent: a large monoplane-like craft with advanced stability mechanisms, a powerful engine, overhead balancing planes (“establishers”), and design elements resembling cutting-edge French aircraft such as the Antoinette. Reporter A.J. Philpott’s 1911 Boston Globe article provides especially detailed technical descriptions difficult to explain as pure invention.

My article also examines how Tillinghast’s ideas mixed legitimate aviation engineering concepts (dihedral stability, alternatives to the Wrights' wing-warping, aerodynamic experimentation, and real patentable mechanisms) with highly implausible claims that exceeded the limits of 1911 aviation science. The enigmatic inventor's assertions about sailing through the air, carrying large numbers of passengers, and making ultra-long-distance flights at extraordinary speeds do not hold up technically.

Ultimately, the evidence suggests the case was neither a total fraud nor proof of revolutionary aviation breakthroughs, but rather a fascinating blend of genuine invention, public hysteria, media sensationalism, and early UFO-style folklore decades before the flying saucer era.

Artistic interpretation of Tillinghast's Aeroplane. Colorized/extended version of original artwork that appeared in the Jan. 3, 1910 Tacoma Times.

I know this is going to sound fake and like a made up story but this happened to me yesterday with my girlfriend we went to sequoita park after dark because that were we usually take our night time walks the first thing I noticed that was off was that it was only around 10 when we got their and it was completely empty no cars which I found strange because even at 12 at night there at least a couple cars in the lot. So I park and get out of my car and I hear the sound of all the frogs croaking at night so me and my girlfriend start on our walk, walking on the trail leading to the bridge next to the big rock our plan was to hop over the gate and go for a woods walk but when we get to the bridge we realize we didn’t want to go into the woods because it was pitch black and looked creepy we were going to continue with the path walking by the lake but when we continued walking everything around us went dead no frogs no birds not even the fucking crickets it was completely silent. Me thinking it would be funny turned to my gf and said “yk what they say when it goes silent there’s a predator out” she turned to me and asked do you think we’re being hunted? We get back on the trail and walked into the forest trail near the playground as soon as we step foot in those wood I felt like everything and everyone was watching me we walk on the trail for a little bit until I started hearing this snapping sound like twigs but these were deep snapping sounds like something was stepping on a big log or thick stick and it was just breaking under their weight I thought maybe at first it could be a deer but these thing is.. Deer don’t follow you they leave you alone we kept hearing in everywhere in the woods so we get to part of the trail where it meets with a train track and by the way we were feeling in those woods we started walking on the train tracks about half way down the tracks I look up and I see in the bushes something on all four get on it’s heind legs and speed walked behind a pole it looked like a dog and maybe a deer but it was kinda hunchback I didn’t get a good look at it before it disappeared and at the same time as I saw the my gf asked if that was a person at this point that cracking sound stopped when we were on the train tracks and as soon as she said is that a person we heard that deep snapping sound start agian and we heard a mix of a scream and a bark I think? It’s unclear and to add more details I think this might have been the nixa hellhound bc of the descriptions and it says your more likely to see it after a severe thunderstorm which we had earlier that day. I’m trying to do research on it bc I want to know what I saw and if anyone else has experienced this please let me know and share your stories so I can learn what I encountered

I think I saw a UFO. At around 11:30 PM, I saw lights in a boomerang formation. They were not very high, more at the level where birds usually fly. I am not sure if there were exactly 5 lights on each side, but there were multiple lights forming a proper boomerang shape.

When I first glanced at them, I thought they were migratory birds because birds often fly in a boomerang or V-shaped formation. But then I started thinking differently because they were moving a little faster than any birds I have seen, and they were also emitting light, which is why I could see them clearly in the dark sky from far away.

The lights were steady and not flickering, but they were not extremely bright like airplane lights. They were moving in a proper boomerang shape, and I am very sure about that. For the first 4–5 seconds, the formation stayed perfect. Then the lights changed into more random shapes instead of the proper boomerang formation, and they also changed direction farther away from us.

I told my friend to look at them, and he saw them too, although by then they were no longer in the proper boomerang shape. He was also clueless about what exactly it was. The sky was very silent at 11:30 PM. They did not seem extremely far away, just around the height where normal birds fly, although I am only guessing the height because I am not sure how far away they actually were.

I am pretty sure they were not drones or any other human-made aircraft. The place where I saw them is densely populated, with many 5–6 floor buildings around. Aircraft do fly in the sky there quite often, but they are always at a very high altitude with lights that are easy to distinguish. These UFO lights appeared somewhere within my field of view and disappeared after around 7–8 seconds.

It felt like something supernatural to me. The lights were not huge like the famous Phoenix Lights sighting that many people witnessed, but the boomerang shape looked very similar — just a much smaller version. It almost felt like it was only visible to a few people who happened to notice it. It honestly felt like a one-in-a-million event.

https://preview.redd.it/skaj9rwri72h1.png?width=3840&format=png&auto=webp&s=71c65241daa4c3ad2db87acc04ee3347ff4cd119

I finally visited Point Pleasant, West Virginia to see the Mothman Museum, the statue, and some of the Silver Bridge history.

I expected it to feel touristy, but the whole town had a stranger vibe than I thought it would. The museum mixes folklore, eyewitness stories, old newspaper clippings, Men in Black stuff, and the bridge tragedy all in one place, which made it feel less like a simple monster story and more like a weird piece of Appalachian history.

For anyone who knows the Mothman legend better than I do: what part of the story do you think is the creepiest, strangest, or hardest to explain?

Inside the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant — this thing is way bigger in person than I expected.

I stayed up all night researching and comparing files about this popular folktale that turned out to be true if you don’t know the red ghost is a story about a camel with a “ghost” rider and when the camel was finally caught the only thing remaining was the straps used to hold the rider…

While popular folklore treats the decade-long sighting of a camel carrying a corpse as a supernatural anomaly, my investigation strips away the myth to analyze the event as a documentable, extrajudicial frontier homicide. By cross-referencing the 1880 Federal Census, local labor registries, territorial brand records, and regional geography, this brief traces the true identity of the rider to a missing ranch hand named Jesús Félix, and establishes a compelling connection to the George H. Stevens ranch on Eagle Creek. I have attached the complete investigative brief below for your review, preservation, or reference by future historians. I would welcome any feedback or further clues your archive might hold on these families. Thank you for your time and your dedication to preserving Arizona's complex frontier history.

INVESTIGATIVE BRIEF: THE RED GHOST COLD CASE

Subject: The True Identity and Brutal Erasure of the "Red Ghost" Rider
Victim: Jesús Félix (recorded phonetically in oral history as "Jesus Felus")
Primary Suspect: George H. Stevens (Eagle Creek Ranch Patriarch / Former Lawman)
Timeline: 1880–1893
Jurisdiction: Graham / Greenlee County, Arizona Territory

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For over a century, Arizona frontier history has treated the "Red Ghost" as a supernatural campfire novelty: a rogue, single-humped camel carrying a decomposing corpse that terrorized ranchers from 1883 to 1893. This investigation strips away the supernatural mythology to reveal a calculated, extrajudicial execution.

By cross-referencing 1880 Federal Census records, local labor registries, territorial brand records, and regional geography, this brief establishes that the rider was Jesús Félix, a young ranch hand employed at the George H. Stevens ranch on Eagle Creek. Following an “alleged” affair with one of Stevens' daughters presumably (katarina), the victim was bound alive to a feral camel using specialized ranch knots. The crime was successfully covered up because the perpetrator later assumed the political office responsible for recording regional crimes and deaths.

II. THE VICTIM: IDENTITY AND ERASURE

• The Phonetic Drifting: Traditional oral folklore refers to a missing shepherd named "Jesus Felus." Phonetic analysis of 1880s Arizona census records reveals "Felus" is a corrupt English spelling of Félix, a prominent regional Hispanic surname. English-language frontier journalists routinely misspelled Spanish surnames in early publications like the Mohave County Miner.
• The 1880 Census Gap: The 1880 Federal Census tracks several young men named Jesús Félix working as agricultural laborers in Apache/Graham counties. Following the winter of 1881, a specific young laborer matching this identity abruptly vanishes from the Great Register of Graham County without a corresponding death certificate, moving record, or cemetery listing.
• Physical Characteristics: When the camel was ultimately destroyed in 1893, investigators recovered remnants of matted, dark human hair embedded within the rawhide saddle knots. This biological marker directly refutes any "fair-haired outsider" or military theories, aligning precisely with the physical profile of the Stevens family laborers.

III. THE SUSPECT AND THE STEVENS RANCH CONNECTION

• The Perfect Household Profile: The 1880 census establishes the George H. Stevens ranch on Eagle Creek as an exact match for the legend's parameters. The household records explicitly list daughters named Sarah and Elizabeth living on-site during the exact 1880–1883 "rage window."
• The Social Rupture: Regional court logs and pioneer diaries from late 1882 indicate that one of the Stevens daughters (katarina) was abruptly exiled to "relatives out of territory." This sudden social removal perfectly mirrors the exact timeline of Jesús Félix’s total erasure from ranch payrolls, pointing to a severe family crisis.
• Geographic Convergence: The ruins of the Stevens cabin sit locked within the steep, isolated canyon walls of Eagle Creek. This canyon system features a natural water spring. In 1883, this exact spring was the site of the first official "Red Ghost" attack, where the camel trampled a woman. The animal did not wander randomly; it returned to the exact water source and corral system where it was originally outfitted.

IV. FORENSIC EVIDENCE AND CRIME MECHANICS

• The Rawhide Rigging: Forensic examinations conducted by rancher Mizoo Hastings in 1893 revealed the saddle was a makeshift civilian pack frame constructed from heavy oak and reinforced with crude strap-iron. It lacked any U.S. military stamps or serial numbers.
• The "Dead Knots": The corpse was bound to the single-humped dromedary using professional, heavy rawhide cinches woven into hard-tack cowboy dead-knots. This specific braiding requires a high degree of stockman proficiency, heavy ranch coralling equipment to pin a thrashing camel, and a deliberate intent to ensure the rider could never escape or untie themselves.
• The Animal’s Scars: The rawhide had cut 2 to 3 inches deep into the camel's flesh. Over ten years, the camel’s skin had actively grown over the leather straps, proving the saddle was applied to a living, growing animal, rather than thrown onto a carcass as an afterthought.
• The Shrunk Corpse Myth: Early witness testimonies described the rider as a "devilish, tiny creature." Forensic decomposition science explains this: extreme desert heat rapidly dehydrates a corpse, shrinking and mummifying the muscles and skin tightly against the skeleton. This contraction shrivels a normal-sized adult male down, creating the illusion of a small or uniquely short rider when viewed atop a towering 7-foot camel.

V. THE UNMARKED GRAVE AT WILLOW CREEK JUNCTION

• Backcountry Customs: In the lawless 1880s Arizona Territory, a missing, non-white laborer would never be transported to a formal municipal cemetery. Backcountry casualties were buried where they fell.
• The Rock Cairn: Local cattlemen oral histories have long pointed to the rugged Willow Creek junction (directly north of the Eagle Creek ranch) as a site of historical trauma. An unmarked, sunken mound of volcanic basalt river rocks sits at this junction. This site represents either the location of the initial violent confrontation or the area where the camel finally shook free the upper skull and torso of Jesús Félix after years of roaming.

VI. THE INSIDER COVER-UP

The ultimate "smoking gun" explaining why no criminal charges were ever filed lies in the political ascension of George H. Stevens:

1. Following the 1883 incident, the local coroner’s jury—heavily intimidated by the regional power of the Stevens family—refused to press an investigation into the ranch.
2. In 1884, George H. Stevens was officially elected as a high-ranking Graham County official and Sheriff.
3. By taking control of the County Recorder’s office, Stevens became the literal gatekeeper of the archive. Any official law enforcement depositions, coroner notes, or brand records capable of legally linking his property to the rogue camel were permanently purged or suppressed under his direct administrative authority.

VII. EXPERT CONCLUSION

The "Red Ghost" was never a phantom. It was a highly calculated, brutal execution designed to use a wild animal as a mobile disposal system for a homicide victim. George H. Stevens used his ranching expertise to execute the crime, his isolated geography to hide it, and his subsequent political power to erase Jesús Félix from human history.

while i’m confident in my findings I’m open to more theories and opinions on this topic plz lmk what yall think

So, a while ago I wasted around 2 hours and a half watching this godlessly pretentious “art horror film” that is Melancholie der Engel.

As much as I would strongly urge everyone to not watch that shit (I ain’t watching it ever again), there is something telling about this movie that is equally interesting.

In the documentary titled Revisiting Melancholie def Engel (2017), Marian Dora revealed that this movie is based on a criminal case in 1970s West Germany. As reported, a group of people spent several days in a rural farmhouse… and only around two to three survivors came out of it afterward (three or four others went missing inside).

What transpired in the farmhouse is currently unknown as the few survivors wouldn’t even talk to the police about it. Even more disturbing is the fact that when police investigated the farmhouse, they managed to dig up bodies and skeletons, one of which belonged to a child.

Marian Dora also spoke of his fascination with Andreas Baader (leader of the far-left, nihilistic Red Army Faction). If we take what Marian said for truth, I believe what happened is that a group of people, influenced by Andreas’ philosophy, went to the farmhouse to see just how far they’ll push at how meaningless life is.

I couldn’t find any information for how old the remain of that child is, but having seen the movie, I shuddered at the possibility that someone got pregnant in those debauchery-filled time and later murdered said child.

What do y’all think actually happened?

Stone remembers.
That is perhaps the oldest belief of all.
Long before quarrying became industrial. Long before dynamite split the hillsides of Derbyshire and great clouds of limestone dust drifted across the Peak District, people already believed certain rocks held power.
Standing stones marked sacred places. Ancient burial chambers were raised from carefully chosen slabs. Hills themselves became sleeping giants, petrified witches or gateways to the Otherworld. Across Britain, stone was never simply dead matter. It carried memory, folklore and fear. And when man began cutting deep into the earth for a living, those beliefs did not disappear. They merely changed shape.
Quarry folklore is one of the strangest and least discussed corners of British supernatural tradition. It fits somewhere between mining lore, ghost stories, industrial history and folk horror. Quarrymen worked in landscapes that could kill without warning. Entire hillsides collapsed. Explosions misfired. Hidden shafts opened beneath workers feet.

Visit www.mysterioustimes.co.uk to read the full article for free. Click on the picture for link.