On this day in conspiracies

Antoine shoots a very large wolf (the 'Wolf of Chazes') near the Abbaye des Chazes. Roughly the size reported for the Beast, it is examined, stuffed, and sent to Versailles; Antoine is richly rewarded and declared to have slain the Beast.

RMS Olympic collides with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight, tearing two holes in her starboard hull and twisting a propeller shaft.

Over six days, a Navy minesweeper offshore of San Francisco sprays clouds of Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii, plus fluorescent cadmium-zinc sulfide particles, to be carried inland by the fog and wind.

The Santa Ana Register publishes one of the photographs; the story is picked up by national wire services. The paper's photographer persuades Heflin to bring in the originals to be copied. Heflin says he sought no publicity or payment.

Cynthia Hind, a Zimbabwe-based UFO researcher and regional MUFON representative, interviews children at the school and collects their drawings. She reports that the pupils broadly told her the same story, and her write-up circulates the case among UFO researchers.

The National Declassification Center at the US National Archives publishes the declassified Project 1794 planning records online. The vivid design goals, a Mach 4 saucer, draw international headlines and renew the argument that secret military discs, not aliens, were behind Cold War UFO reports.