It was a tremendous disaster high in the sky above Central Maine on a day in 2002.

A spectacular collision took place between two huge airliners. The news was covered in detail by the Lewiston Journal, complete with illustrations.

You say you never saw that news story 14 years ago? Never saw reports on TV?

That’s because it took place in 1897 … six years before the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kittyhawk. It happened entirely in the imagination of Holman F. Day, a special writer for the Lewiston Journal.

In the March 13 edition of the newspaper, Day, 32 at the time, gave a fanciful and somewhat macabre account of a catastrophe as he thought it might occur if man and machine could actually fly. His inventive account of futuristic air travel contained much of the tongue-in-cheek humor that went into dozens of novels and hundreds of poems and short stories he penned in coming years.

Under a four-column headline, Day’s fantasy was said to have come “From Extras of the Lewiston Hourly Journal Printed Between 2:15 and 3:00 o’clock p.m., Thursday, June 10, in the year 2002.”

He came up with ideas of future aircraft and communications that were on a level with Jules Verne’s visionary literature.

Day made up descriptions of aircraft that were cigar-shaped and propelled by something similar to jet engines. He imagined that such vehicles of the sky would have much in common with marine vessels with passengers enjoying the view across the railings of outside walkways.

Here’s a sampling of the scenes from Day’s article that filled nearly a full page of that 119-year-old Lewiston Journal.

“A disastrous accident occurred in the atmosphere two miles over Gardiner this afternoon — another of the too frequent collisions between air machines of the rival lines, whose competition is just now filling the heavens with buzzing fans and whirring wings,” Day wrote.

The story’s whimsical pen-and ink drawings by an unknown artist showed people falling in a sky full of dreamed-up craft. They ranged from large capacity ships to single-seat bicycle-like contraptions. A sign on one airliner said, “In case of accident throw a rope and slide down.”

The story said, “At this hour it is not known how many were killed. A number escaped on the flying-life-preservers and are now lighting in the vicinity.”

Continuing his account, Day wrote, “The Journal’s special flying-machine ‘Zipp’ is already on the way to the scene of the accident with a full corps of artists and reporters. They will arrive at the wreck in less than 15 minutes and thereafter extras will be issued every 10 minutes until all particulars are given.”

He added this note: “”Our special pneumatic tube subscribers will receive the 3 p.m., the 3:20 and 3:48 editions, and the regular editions during the night.”

Day’s far-fetched ideas of technology in the future included an “Eidoloscope,” a long-distance automatic news meter that detected atmospheric disturbances caused by the crash.

“The two flying machines in collision are the “Jee-whizz” of the Bumblebee line between Portland and Hudson Bay and the “Hurroosh” of the New York, North Pole and Iceland route,” the report told readers. “Other flying machines and pleasure airships are flocking from all parts of the heavens to the scene of the accident.”

The story goes on to say, “A lady has just arrived from the wreck. She wore a patent, hydrogen life-preserver and reached the ground in pretty fair condition, getting a bit mussed up in a tree, but nothing to speak of. She swallowed so much wind coming down that she is blown up too tightly to express her views just now.”

It was noted that several persons who had escaped from the wrecked machines before the fatal crash came, “were drifting about among the airships on their private flying machines, telling over and over the story of the wreck.”

Day gave his account of great death and destruction in a very offhand manner.

Holman Day was later to become one of Maine’s best storytellers. He lived in the Queen Anne architectural style house at Court and Goff streets in Auburn. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and it was there that Day wrote many of the dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories for which he became famous.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by sending email to [email protected]om.