What happened
The Sacramento Evening Bee reported a light like an electric arc lamp passing low over the city, seen by hundreds. Some witnesses described a large cigar-shaped body. Lowery said it had wheels at the sides and two men pedaling a bicycle-like frame, and that he heard a voice call out to steer clear of a steeple. On the same day the Bee printed a telegram from a supposed New York inventor flying his airship west. This sighting opened the 1896-97 wave, which produced thousands of reports from California to Michigan and Texas. Jerome Clark judged that many were Venus, meteors and kites, inflamed by publicity and pranksters.