Dolan Questions Credibility of 1890s Airship Wave as Newspaper Fiction

What was said

"When you get to the airship of the 1890s, you're dealing with a situation where war with Spain was definitely believed to happen. There's a lot of references to the Cuban situation in those airship sightings of 1896-97. They're in there. So you can really see that and then there's just so many of those airship sightings that are obviously tongue-in-cheek written by the writer."

UFO historian Richard Dolan has reversed his position on the famous 1890s airship wave, now believing most accounts were fabricated newspaper stories created to sell papers and comment on geopolitical tensions with Spain over Cuba. He notes that 19th century journalism had a culture of entertaining readers with fictional yarns, citing Mark Twain's early career as an example. This represents a significant shift in how one of ufology's most respected researchers views foundational historical cases.