The Ronan pioneer. [volume] (Ronan, Mont.) 1910-1970, 1917-09-14
Now they've got it in Helena!

Now they've got it in Helena!
A number of reputable citizens
solemnly declare and aver, and are
willing to certify before a magis-
trate and make affidavit in proper
form that they have seen an airplane
or airplanes circling about the VEN
cradle peak of Mount Helena at a
late hour on various nights during
the past week.
The first man who saw it was G..
w. Maurer, president of the Judson
Mining company who said that he
was out at a late hour one night
and saw huge airplane sailing in
the clouds above the city.
"Ha! Ha-," said Mr.. Maurer's
friends, looking knowingly at him
and placing finger alongside their
respective noses.
cha! Ha! yourselves said Mr..
Maurer, "for it happens that / was
merely out late because l had been
to a card party, and my wife was
with me and she saw it, too"
Thus foiled in their efforts to
laugh the thing away, the sensation
seekers began looking further for
reputable persons who had been star
gazing and saw an airplane.
AL. Galen. Too
Next came Al. Galen, erstwhile at
torney general. who deposed that he
had gone to bed and remembered
that he had forgotten to spring the
lock on his office door, and there
fore he had got all dressed again and
had gone down town to lock the
blooming door when a huge airplane
nearly batted against the hoary tow
ers of St. Charles College and then
dived straight at him, passing so
close above his head that it nearly
knocked his hat off "Doggone it,"
Galen reported having said to him
self, eve didn't use to have those
when Jack Flannery was police chief
I'll certainly have to report that to
some one-I guess Doc. Lanstrum
would do as we'll as any one" He
then went to bed, still quite indig-
nant.
This caused a sensation among the
airplane sleuths, for Galen is recog-
nized as a conservative reporter of
events that happen during the dark
hours, but their surprise was turned
to establishment when Galen's re-
port on the appearance of the aerial
visitor was confirmed by Charlie RE
fenrath, business manager of the
Montana Record-Herald
Had Good Excuse.
The next person whom the COM
mittee found who was willing to
make affidavit to the presence Of the
airplane was Louis Thayer, telegraph
editor of the Helena Independent,
who claimed he saw it while on his
way home in the early hours of the
morning, and of course Louis, work.
ing, as he does until three O'Clock
A. M. at times, had a perfectly good
excuse for being up at that time of
night.
After some further scouting the
airplane chasers discovered that one
Brownie" Burke, we'll known char
acter, happened to have an attack OF
indigestion and stayed up quite late
to try to rid himself of it, and he,
also, saw the airplane nearly wreck
itself against the dome of the capitol
building.
The committee then back-tracked
on it's trail to find out why Charlie
Riefenrath had been up at that hour
in the morning, having forgotten to
inquire previously, but met with a
somewhat unsatisfactory reply which
the committee was unable to report
for publication.
The further the committee went,
the thicker and faster came the de-
positions, statements, affidavits and
averments of people who had seen
the airplane, until it appeared to be
a fact that a large majority of the
population of the capital had not
been to bed at all on most of the
evenings in question.
Bomb or Bottle.
Maurice Weiss, proprietor of the
Placer Hotel, alleged that he had
been out at the Helena Automobile
club, auditing the accounts of the
club about o'clock in the morning
when he heard buzzing overhead
and running to the door, distinctly
saw bi-plane flying overhead which
dropped small bomb on the Haul
ser Lake dam. On being question
ed closely, Weiss stated that it might
have been a bottle. His account of
the sky-prowler tailed with that of
the others, excepting that "Brownie'
Burke claimed that what he saw was