STRANGE STORY FROM CLACTON-ON-SEA.
Mr. Egerton Free, of High Cliff, Preston Park Estate, Clacton-on-Sea, yesterday (says the "Daily Mail") made the following statement:?
On Friday, May 7, he observed what he described as a long, sausage-shaped, dirigible balloon, which man?uvred at an apparent height of 600 ft. for some minutes above the cliffs about a mile and a half north-east of Clacton?quite near Mr. Free's house. The balloon was almost over Little Holland Gap, where the troops were landed in the combined British naval and military man?uvres in 1907. The airship then passed away in a north-easterly direction towards Frinton-on-Sea and Harwich.
Next morning, Saturday, May 8, Mr. Free found on the cliffs a curious object on a pot over which the dirigible had passed in its course. It was 5ft. long, of steel and stout india-rubber, and weighed 35lb. It is now in Mr. Free's possession, and has been photographed by his permission.
The object found by Mr. Free is a stout ovoid dark grey rubber bag, between 2ft. and 3ft. in length, enclosed in a network mesh, with a stout steel rod passing through the centre of it and projecting about 1ft. from each end. One end of the rod is capped with a steel disc, exactly resembling a miniature railway-waggon buffer.
On the india-rubber bag are stamped the words, "Müller Fabrik Bremen."
The Bremen correspondent of the "Daily Mail" states that there are no Müller works in that city. The firm of Otto Moeller, patent anchor works, Bremen, have no knowledge of any such object as that found by Mr. Free.