This mysterious account was sent to the editor of the New York Herald:
Zanesville, Ohio - April 5, 1873: A most extraordinary phenomenon was observed near the village of Taylorsville, a few miles from this city. About a week ago, Mr.Thomas Inman, whom your reporter can vouch for as a respectable farmer of unquestionable truth and veracity, related the circumstance to the writer, and with his son, who was also an eye witness, is willing to make oath to the truth of this statement.
One evening about two weeks ago, while Mr. Inman and his son, a young man, were returning to their home from Taylorsville, they saw a light which they describe as looking like a "burning brush pile", near the zenith, descending rapidly towards the earth, with a loud roaring noise.
It struck the ground in the road a short distance from them. The blazing object flickered and flared for a few moments and then faded into darkness, as a man dressed in a complete suit of Black, and carrying a lantern emerged from it. The man walked a few paces and stepped into a buggy, which had not been observed before, by either Mr. Inman or his son.
There was no horse attached to his supernatural vehicle, but no sooner had the man taken his seat that it started to run, noiselessly but with great velocity, along the highway, and this it continued to do until it reached a steep gully, into which it plunged, when buggy, man and lantern suddenly disappeared as mysteriously as they came.
This phenomenon is certainly an extraordinary and unexplainable one, and sounds more like the vagary of a crazed brain than anything else. But both Mr. Inman and his son, who are sober men and not given to superstitious notions, agree precisely in their statements and maintain that they are strictly true. If it was an optical delusion, super-induced by a meteor or “Jack o’ lantern,” is it not strange that the same fancied appearances could be conjured up in the minds of two men at the same time? Here is a chance for scientists to explain the fantastical optical and other illusions and delusions which follow in the train of, and are suggested by, some strange and unexpected sight or occurrence. W. A. Taylor.
So what is the writer referring to? Was this an otherworldy craft descending to the Earth, of which appeared a humanoid of some type? Could it have been a 'time travel' machine? What was the 'horseless' craft...a propulsion or hover-type land rover? The writer of the letter was Zanesville historian and journalist William Alexander Taylor, a well-respected member of the community, who was related to former U.S. President Zachary Taylor.
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