Within Delaware UFOs
Did Wilmington See a UFO Before Flight?
The 1860 Wilmington report is one of Delaware's oldest sky mysteries, but its strength depends on finding the original source.
On this page
- What the 1860 story claims
- Why the source trail matters
- Natural explanations and archival gaps
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Introduction
The 1860 Wilmington sky story is often presented as one of Delaware’s oldest UFO reports: a pale blue light over the city, a long object moving low and level, and several red glowing balls trailing behind it. The problem is that the most accessible versions are not the original newspaper item. They are later summaries that say the story appeared in the Wilmington Tribune on 30 July 1860, but the source trail is awkward: the digitised Delaware Tribune held in the Library of Congress record begins in 1867, not 1860. [HowStuffWorks]science.howstuffworks.comHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff WorksHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff Works
That does not make the story worthless. It does make it fragile. As a Delaware UFO case, its value lies less in proving an extraordinary craft and more in showing how an old sky report can become impressive through retelling when the original clipping is hard to inspect. A cautious reading keeps three things separate: what the story claims, what can be traced, and what might explain it.
What the 1860 story claims
The standard modern version says that on 13 July 1860 a pale blue light covered Wilmington, Delaware. Residents allegedly looked up and saw a long object, sometimes described as about 200 feet long, travelling on a level course about 100 feet above the city. Behind it, at intervals, were three very red glowing balls; a fourth reportedly emerged from the rear of the main object, and the formation moved towards the Delaware River before vanishing eastward. HowStuffWorks gives this version and states that the incident was “reported in the Wilmington Tribune, July 30, 1860” and lasted one minute. [HowStuffWorks]science.howstuffworks.comHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff WorksHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff Works
A later Delaware-focused roundup by Technical.ly repeats the same account and explicitly introduces it as a famous early Delaware sighting, but it does so “via HowStuffWorks” rather than by displaying or linking to a scan of the 1860 article itself. [Technical.ly]technical.lyIt's World UFO Day. Here are the top 10 UFO sightings in DelawareIt's World UFO Day. Here are the top 10 UFO sightings in Delaware That matters because most readers now meet the Wilmington story through modern paranormal, UFO or curiosity-list sources, not through a contemporaneous Delaware newspaper page they can verify.
The detail that makes the report attractive to UFO writers is obvious: the date is before aeroplanes, before drones, before satellites and long before the modern “flying saucer” era. If a reader only asks, “Could it have been a plane?”, the answer is no. But that is too narrow a question. A pre-flight date removes aircraft as an explanation; it does not remove meteors, bolides, atmospheric optics, fireworks, lanterns, newspaper exaggeration, hoaxing, misdating or later paraphrase.
Why the source trail matters
The central source problem is the newspaper title. Modern accounts commonly cite a Wilmington Tribune item dated 30 July 1860. Yet Library of Congress listings identify the Delaware Tribune of Wilmington as a weekly newspaper published from 1867 to 1877, and digitised issues are available from that later period. [The Library of Congress]loc.govSource details in endnotes. Other Delaware newspaper lists also place the Delaware Tribune in 1867–1877, while showing that Wilmington had several other newspapers around 1860, including titles such as the Delaware Inquirer, Delaware Republican and Delaware State Journal and Statesman. [Access Genealogy]accessgenealogy.comAccess Genealogy Chronicling America Historical Newspapers – Access GenealogyAccess Genealogy Chronicling America Historical Newspapers – Access Genealogy
This creates several possibilities. The cited “Wilmington Tribune” may be a mistaken title for another Wilmington paper. It may refer to a short-lived title not well represented in online catalogues. It may be a later reprint whose wording was attributed loosely. Or the date, title or both may have drifted as the story passed through UFO books and web summaries. None of these possibilities automatically disproves the reported sighting, but each weakens the confidence a reader can place in the exact wording now circulating.
For Delaware UFO history, this is the key lesson. A nineteenth-century newspaper claim is strongest when a researcher can inspect the original page, confirm the date, identify the column, see whether the piece was local reporting or a reprinted filler item, and compare it with other papers from the same week. Without that, the Wilmington case remains a cited story rather than a verified primary-source case.
The tempting meteor comparison
One natural comparison is the Great Meteor Procession of 1860, a rare astronomical event seen on 20 July 1860, one week after the Wilmington date usually given. NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day describes Frederic Church seeing a spectacular string of fireball meteors crossing the Catskill evening sky on 20 July 1860, while Walt Whitman also wrote of a “meteor procession”; later research by Donald Olson, Russell Doescher, Marilynn Olson and Ava Pope connected the painting, poem and newspaper reports to a rare Earth-grazing meteor procession. [Astronomy Picture of the Day]apod.nasa.govSource details in endnotes.
The similarity is striking but not conclusive. A meteor procession can produce multiple bright bodies moving along a similar path, and nineteenth-century observers could describe such events in language that sounds artificial to modern readers. Space.com reported that the 1860 meteor event was heavily documented in newspapers and magazines at the time, despite later being largely forgotten. [Space]space.comWalt Whitman Meteor Mystery Solved by Astronomer Sleuths | SpaceWalt Whitman Meteor Mystery Solved by Astronomer Sleuths | Space That is important because it shows how a spectacular natural event can produce dramatic reports without involving a craft.
However, the date mismatch cannot be ignored. The well-studied meteor procession was on 20 July 1860, while the Wilmington story is usually dated 13 July. A simple “it was the Great Meteor” explanation would need either a misdated Wilmington report, a reprint published later with confusion about the sighting date, or a separate event a week earlier. The comparison is useful because it supplies a plausible natural class of phenomena, not because it neatly solves the case.
Natural explanations and archival gaps
The most cautious explanation is not a single debunking claim, but a range of ordinary possibilities that fit parts of the story better than others. A low, level, 200-foot object only 100 feet above a city sounds difficult to reconcile with a meteor if taken literally. But old sky reports often contain estimated sizes and heights that are not measurements; they are impressions made without reference points, instruments or modern aviation experience.
Several possibilities deserve attention:
- Meteor or bolide fragments. The red glowing balls, sparks and short duration resemble language often used for fireballs, especially if an object fragmented.
- Meteor procession. The “train” of multiple lights is compatible with a rare procession, though the accepted 1860 event falls on 20 July rather than 13 July. [Astronomy Picture of the Day]apod.nasa.govSource details in endnotes.
- Fireworks or pyrotechnics. The phrase “sparkles after the manner of a rocket”, preserved in later summaries, points towards a comparison that nineteenth-century readers would understand without invoking machinery. [HowStuffWorks]science.howstuffworks.comHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff WorksHow Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff Works
- Newspaper embellishment. The most dramatic details — exact height, length, intervals and formation behaviour — are precisely the kinds of details that require the original clipping before they can be weighed fairly.
- Later retelling drift. Modern summaries quote each other, and Technical.ly’s Delaware roundup explicitly routes the story through HowStuffWorks rather than presenting a primary source. [Technical.ly]technical.lyIt's World UFO Day. Here are the top 10 UFO sightings in DelawareIt's World UFO Day. Here are the top 10 UFO sightings in Delaware
The missing piece is not simply “more witnesses”. The missing piece is a stable primary text. A useful archival check would look for Wilmington papers in late July and early August 1860, not only under “UFO” language but under headings such as meteor, fireball, luminous phenomenon, strange light, aerial phenomenon, rocket, sky, comet or atmospheric. It would also check whether newspapers outside Delaware reprinted a Wilmington item, because nineteenth-century papers often exchanged short curiosities across state lines.
What this case means for Delaware UFO history
The Wilmington story belongs in Delaware’s UFO history, but with a warning label. It is old, locally placed and vivid. It also has a source problem serious enough to stop it being used as strong evidence for an extraordinary object. The case is best treated as an unresolved historical sky report whose present form depends on secondary transmission.
That distinction is important for the wider Delaware project. Later Delaware cases can be judged against police reports, airport activity, military context, National UFO Reporting Center entries, local news coverage or multiple witness accounts. The 1860 Wilmington case sits in a different category: pre-aeroplane, newspaper-era, and probably reachable only through archival work. Its age makes it interesting, but its age also makes it easier for errors in title, date and wording to accumulate.
A balanced judgement would be: Wilmington may have had a notable sky report in July 1860, but the case is not yet well sourced enough to call it one of Delaware’s strongest UFO incidents. Its real importance is methodological. It reminds readers that “before powered flight” is not the same as “beyond natural explanation”, and that the strength of an old UFO story depends less on how strange it sounds than on whether the original source can still be found, read and checked.
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Endnotes
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Source: science.howstuffworks.com
Title: How Stuff Works UFOs in the 19th Century | How Stuff Works
Link: https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ufo-history4.htm -
Source: technical.ly
Title: It’s World UFO Day. Here are the top 10 UFO sightings in Delaware
Link: https://technical.ly/professional-development/its-world-ufo-day-here-are-the-top-10-ufo-sightings-in-delaware/ -
Source: apod.nasa.gov
Link: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100722.html -
Source: space.com
Title: Walt Whitman Meteor Mystery Solved by Astronomer Sleuths | Space
Link: https://www.space.com/8530-walt-whitman-meteor-mystery-solved-astronomer-sleuths.html -
Source: apod.nasa.gov
Title: apod search
Link: https://apod.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?tquery=Meteor -
Source: apod.nasa.gov
Title: archivepix Full
Link: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepixFull.html -
Source: archivesfiles.delaware.gov
Title: Democracy In Delaware
Link: https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/ebooks/Democracy_In_Delaware.pdf -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84026822/?st=holdings -
Source: loc.gov
Title: The Library of Congress Delaware tribune (Wilmington, Del.),
Link: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026822/1875-07-15/ed-1/?st=gallery -
Source: accessgenealogy.com
Title: Access Genealogy Chronicling America Historical Newspapers – Access Genealogy
Link: https://accessgenealogy.com/america/chronicling-america-historical-newspapers.htm -
Source: spacewar.com
Title: Space War The Walt Whitman Meteor Mystery
Link: https://www.spacewar.com/reports/The_Walt_Whitman_Meteor_Mystery_999.html -
Source: Wikipedia
Title: Meteor procession
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_procession -
Source: unexplained-mysteries.com
Link: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/378364-the-delaware-ufo-incident-in-1860/page/2/ -
Source: catalog.hathitrust.org
Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009559603 -
Source: jstor.org
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26553407 -
Source: trove.nla.gov.au
Link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/249642933
Additional References
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Source: youtube.com
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoJUsaTknNwSource snippet
UFO Sightings from 1900's to 1930's Noe Torres...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: Year of Meteors
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKf-2nhIGrISource snippet
Airship Mystery of 1896 and 1897 (Mystery Airships, UFOs) - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World...
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Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/titles/ -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026822/1869-08-19/ed-1/?st=text -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn84026822/1869-01-07/ed-1/seq-1/ -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84020594/1874-12-30/ed-1/?st=pdf -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn84026822/1869-08-26/ed-1/seq-3/ -
Source: loc.gov
Link: https://www.loc.gov/item/sn97070605/ -
Source: facebook.com
Link: https://www.facebook.com/Baringodailynews/posts/a-straight-moving-object-marked-with-sparks-of-different-colors-spotted-in-the-s/1147726384024610/ -
Source: facebook.com
Link: https://www.facebook.com/twistedlimbsandcrookedbranches/posts/remarkable-ethereal-phenomenonfrom-our-correspondentderry-journal-wednesday-13-m/1396585033780212/
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