19th century sci-fi airships: could they fly?

IAwesome ... electromagnetism, hutchison effect ...

That video claims that drone can "stay aloft some 60 miles above sea level." Now that's the video I want to see!

I am not sure they could fly, but the people then were very much obsessed by then - even in advertising:

Fascinating that each of these concepts include those parasol shaped devices. At first I thought maybe they were acting as parachutes to impede descent so the propeller could keep it aloft, but I like the idea of them being antenna.

what's curious though is that the colorized photo at the end makes them look solid, where as it's ambiguous in the b&w drawings if they are solid on top or it's just open cables making that cone shape.

• I wonder if they are meant to be ornithopters like this example which has similarities.

Perhaps they spun or pumped up and down.

The Middle Ages seem to be full of UFOs, the sightings published in the wiki:

• 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg - Wikipedia
• 1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel - Wikipedia
• The Comet Book (1587)
• Augsburg Book of Miracles - Wikipedia

They don't seem to convince much, in the absence of more definitive images, then if you take a look at medieval art, they were more direct in showing these flying devices.

This time I refer to a medieval monastery in Romania, right next to Dracula's house, you can see paintings showing flying devices. Some that although my pictures are blurry look just like these flying boats.
And I don't know what to think about them not knowing it was technology and pointing it out as doomsday signs, if true, it's like Europe was under attack during this time and people wrote about signs in the sky (meteors, red crosses, glowing spheres, etc.) in battle, even crashing. So what nations were really fighting and why were people really so ignorant of this technology? it is pure narrative to give a story to certain art that sometimes the author of such works is not known.

Gothic church built in 1289 with baroque interior, which in the past was part of a Dominican monastery.

• Biserica Mănăstirii · Strada Cetății, Sighișoara 545400, Romania