UFO Sightings and Crashes, Part 1

If you think that UFO sightings, crashes and cover ups are a recent thing, think again.
If it is a conspiracy, it's a far reaching one.
I like these old accounts because they can't be explained away as satellites, weather balloons, military testing etc.
I got these accounts from all over the web, but some of the best links I'm gonna list at the end.

1864 September Cadotte Pass: about the middle of last September, James Lumley was engaged in trapping in the mountains, about seventy-five or one hundred miles above the great falls of the Upper Missouri, and in the neighborhood of what is known as Cadotte Pass. Just after sunset one evening he beheld a bright, luminous body in the heavens, which was moving with a great rapidity in an easterly direction. It was plainly visible for at least five seconds, when it suddenly separated into particles, resembling, as Mr. Lumley described it, the bursting of a skyrocket in the air. A few minutes later he heard a heavy explosion, which jarred the earth very perceptibly, and this was shortly after followed by a rumbling sound, like a tornado sweeping through the forest. A strong wind sprang up about the same time, but as suddenly subsided. The air was also filled with a peculiar odor of a sulphurous character.

1878 January 25 The Denison Daily News wrote that local farmer John Martin had reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed." Martin also said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer, the first known use of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO. If true, this would pre-date the Kenneth Arnold usage.

1882 November a UFO was observed by astronomer Edward Walter Maunder of the Greenwich Royal Observatory and some other European astronomers.

1884 June 6 Holdredge, Nebraska: Holdredge's weekly newspaper, the Nebraska Nugget published a story that had occurred to some cowboys from Dundy County, of a cylindrical object that crashed on the prairie and left bits of machinery and gear wheels behind, glowing from the heat.

1884 December 13 Sorisole, near Bergamo, Italy: a shining body came down from the sky crashing onto a field in Sorisole, near Bergamo

1897 April 17 Aurora, Texas, An alleged UFO crash and burial of alien pilot, possibly explained as a hoax.

1897 April 19 Leroy, Kansas, An account by Alexander Hamilton of Leroy, Kansas supposedly occurred about April 19, 1897, and was published in the Yates Center Farmer¹s Advocate of April 23. Hamilton, his son, and a tenant witnessed an airship hovering over his cattle pen. Upon closer examination, the witnesses realized that a red cable from the airship had lassoed a heifer, but had also become entangled in the pen's fence. After trying unsuccessfully to free the heifer, Hamilton cut lose a portion of the fence, then "stood in amazement to see the ship, cow and all rise slowly and sail off." Some have suggested this was the earliest report of cattle mutilation (In 1982, however, UFO researcher Jerome Clark debunked this story, and confirmed via interviews and Hamilton's own affidavit that the story was a successful attempt to win a Liar's Club competition to create the most outlandish tall tale).

1904, there was a sighting by three crew members on the USS Supply 300 miles west of San Francisco, reported by Lt. Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Battle Fleet.

1907 Burlington, Vermont, USA: The mid-air explosion of a UFO over Burlington, Vermont, on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, is one of the strangest incidents of "the Airship Era" in ufology.

1908 June 30 Tunguska River, USSR, Large explosion, probably of a comet or meteoroid, sometimes explained as an explosion of an UFO.

1910/1915 Puglia Italy: alleged crashes.

Sources:
http://www.burlingtonnews.net/
http://www.ufologie.net/
http://www.ufocasebook.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.spacepub.com/
http://www.crystalinks.com/
http://www.tucsonshow.com/

To be continued.....