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Dirty Rat-Bastards: Rats in horror films

Casimir Werk, grandson of the millionaire soap maker and vintner for whom Werk Road is named, saw a UFO one balmy Sunday evening in 1905. The unidentified flying object was soon revealed as an identified flying object but yielded an even bigger mystery.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [28 August 1905] Werk watched an unidentified object he believed might be an airship explode while it flew westward on the previous evening:

“Mr. Werk was standing in front of his parents’ home on La Feuille avenue, Westwood, about 6 o’clock, when he saw a peculiar formation in the sky. He secured field glasses and soon had them focused upon the object which he believes to have been an airship. He claims it was about 100 feet long and shaped like a projectile.”

While following the flying object with his binoculars, Werk watched it rock up and down like a ship tossed by waves in the ocean. It then burst into flame, the entire structure consumed, and fell from the sky, lost in the evening haze. The Enquirer was unable to locate anyone else who saw the thing, nor anyone who found any wreckage:

“The police knew nothing of the doings up above the sky line of Cincinnati, nor did the Coroner receive any report of the mangled remains of an airship operator being found within the limits of the county.”

Apparently, neither Werk nor the Enquirer reporter had read the previous Wednesday’s Cincinnati Post [23 August 1905], containing a lengthy feature about a teenage boy in Camp Washington and his attempts to build an airship capable of carrying passengers.

“Undaunted by poverty, working alone on a principle he believes will ultimately succeed, even beyond his fondest dreams; toiling only in spare hours, because he had to earn a living, James Herbert, scarcely more than 18, of 3067 Colerain-av., is building an airship, which he thinks will fly.”

The Post described how young Herbert constructed large balloons out of paper, filled them with air heated by a paraffin-fueled burner, and directed their flight by a spring-powered propeller.

On Sunday, the very day Werk saw his mystery airship, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [27 August 1905] published its own profile of young James Herbert and claimed the young inventor was inspired by a contest sponsored by the newspaper:

“James started in several years ago when a children’s contest was on in The Commercial Tribune and his drawing of an airship model and ideas of the same were accepted by The Commercial Tribune and printed with his photo.”

Herbert, according to this report, had already launched several airship models of rather impressive size:

“A few days ago one twenty feet long and seven feet in diameter was sent up from an empty lot near Herbert’s home. Its weight was fifteen pounds, and its lifting power an additional fifteen pounds. It came to earth near a large building in Lick Run, the gas having given out. It was made of heavy tissue paper.”

A Camp Washington resident informed the Enquirer [29 August 1905] that Werk’s mystery airship was among the experimental flights of young Herbert. The Cincinnati Times-Star [29 August 1905] calmed a very much relieved Werk by proving he had not been hallucinating:

“‘That’s exactly it,’ said Casimir Werk, jun., of Westwood, when the airship he saw Sunday evening was described to him Tuesday by a Times-Star reporter. ‘Yes, sir, that is just what I saw Sunday evening. No, I have not heard from young Herbert, the inventor. I never heard of him before.’”

The Times-Star interviewed James Herbert’s father, who expressed a frustrated resignation about his son’s aeronautical obsession:

“‘I’m down on this airship business. I don’t take any stock in it and pay little attention to this thing of trying to fly around in the air like birds.’ Such is the opinion of George Herbert, father of Jas. Herbert, the Colerain avenue lad who is bent on building a craft with which to navigate the upper air.”

The Enquirer chided the skeptics who refused to believe Casimir Werk:

“Those who saw fit to twit Mr. Werk yesterday for having seen what they did not will now have to back water.”

With that, James Herbert, boy inventor, fades from the annals of history. Only one additional newspaper story, printed in the Enquirer [2 September 1905], references James Herbert’s airships, but doesn’t mention him by name, identifying him only as “the young Cumminsville inventor.” That story describes two bright lights floating high above League Park – later to be rebuilt as Crosley Field – at 7:30 p.m., either remaining quite steady or traveling against a “stiff breeze.” Among the witnesses was Cincinnati Police Lieutenant John W. Scahill, who asserted that the lights were attached to a controlled aircraft and not to a kite or balloon. (The Reds were in Chicago that day, losing 3-2.)

Here is the mystery: There is no record of a James Herbert living on Colerain Avenue anywhere near this time. The censuses of 1900 and 1910 record no one by that name at all. None of the city directories from that time list a James Herbert on or near Colerain Avenue. The census and city directories do record several George Herberts, but none of them live on Colerain Avenue and none have a son named James. Additionally, the Sanborn Insurance Map for 1904 shows 3067 Colerain as a vacant lot.

The Commercial Tribune claims that James Herbert got his start in aircraft design by entering a children’s contest “seven years ago” with his portrait and a picture of an airship printed in the newspaper. In fact, the Commercial Tribune did sponsor a contest, “What Is Your Idea Of A Successful Flying Machine?”, in April 1899, six years previous. The winning entries were published on April 16 and April 23, with occasional late entries appearing later in the year. None were submitted by anyone named James Herbert.

It’s unlikely the newspapers got James Herbert’s name wrong. Miraculously, for that time, three newspapers spelled his name identically. Two newspapers cited the same address. The mystery deepens. Whatever became of Cincinnati’s airship inventor, James Herbert?

Fountain of Youth (2025)

Directed by Guy Ritchie

Fluke by James Herbert

I don't know how but a book written in the 70s about a grown man reincarnated into a dog reads like YA

First if you had watched the movie you can clearly see where the writers cherry picked for the script so my biggest surprises were that this story took place in England and his kid was a girl but I guess it was for a more American audience and the father son/boy and his dog dynamic is more compelling

In the book Fluke spends a bit of it wondering why he has memories of things that didn't happen and knowledge he shouldn't know but most of the novel he just spends his time fucking around as a dog and encountering terrible people and other animals that are more intelligent that your average animal until he decides after his friend died at the books half point and he can't live at the junkyard anymore he might as well look for his previous family then doesn't find them until page 178 of 215 pages

Honestly I could have done without the existential philosophical speculation of why living things get reincarnated in this world I don't know just think it would be better if it was a mystery left up to interpretation

So yeah I suggest you just watch the movie instead even though a scene in there scared young child me “Tomorrow you can put him to sleep. For now put him in the can” the callousness of those words and those empty cages have lived in my head for over twenty years and I cannot evict them