The Norfolk News airship reports of May 1909

On 15 May 1909 the Norfolk News printed three witness accounts of an airship over Norfolk, and a theory that it came from a German warship.

The Norfolk News published the article on 15 May 1909, on page 15. Brett Holman, writing at Airminded, notes that the paper appears to rely on London newspaper reports, chiefly the Daily Express, and that it gives three eyewitness accounts.

The first witness, brother-in-law to the Peterborough tradesman Herbert Neaverson, told the War Office what he had seen. Inside his Peakirk house a swishing noise passed overhead and a throbbing motor, and noticed a peculiar light from seaward. He judged it too dark to make out a shape, and he travelled to London to tell the War Office.

H. M. Boville, a woman from Southend-on-Sea, wrote that around twenty past eleven on Sunday night she saw a large black oblong object. It hung almost motionless, then rose and sped toward London, flashing a couple of brilliant lights briefly. The paper also printed a view that German expert opinion was unanimous that the airship rose from a German warship out in the North Sea and landed on it again after each flight.