Adelaide’s Lost Mooring Mast Conspiracy.

Adelaide's Two Clock Towers 1939

  Recently on the Haunts of Adelaide Facebook page, I had to ban a subscriber who often made claims associated with a lost technology conspiracy theory. While I am mostly happy for people to believe whatever makes them comfortable, this gentleman’s persistence, inconsistent statements, lack of historical knowledge and context, and often, angry and illogical statements led me to ban him from the page. I thought I might address the conspiracy theory here, to hopefully educate people on some of the quirkier beliefs currently infiltrating our community.

Adelaide Town Hall 1889

  A small sub-genre of the ‘lost technology’ conspiracy, is that airships (also known as zeppelins) and sky docks, such as the one built at the Empire State Building in New York, were removed to hide an advanced technology from the human race. This is even though it is historically documented that the mooring mast is still on the Empire State Building, and the idea was discontinued due to the constant strong winds and serious safety concerns making the application impractical.[1]
One believer in the theory proclaimed that the towers on the Adelaide GPO, and the clock tower on the Adelaide Town Hall were once used for passengers to board tethered airships that could travel at great speeds in the sky to other cities.

  The first airship was invented in France in 1850 by Pierre Jullien. The first steam-powered airship flew in 1852 and was invented by Herni Giffard.[2] The first round-trip in an airship was flown by Charles Renard and Arthur C. Kribs in 1884. Renard and Kribs flew the electric motor-propelled La France for 8 kilometres. It wasn’t until after World War One that airships were capable of commercial transatlantic flights. They were considered by some as a quicker and cheaper way to cross an ocean than a ship. However, after the tragic destruction of the Hindenburg airship in New Jersey in 1937, interest in airships waned and was replaced by fixed-wing commercial aircraft.[3]

  Australia’s first airships were bought by Alan Bond in 1987 from the UK’s Airship Industries in Cardington (which Bond Corp owned).[4] They were 16-seat vehicles equipped with two Porsche 930-67 piston engines and painted in Swan Premium colours (Swan Brewery was owned by Bond.) They were sourced from the UK, and flown over Fremantle during the America’s Cup, before being utilised as a tourist attraction over Sydney later the same year.[5] Bonds airships attracted controversy after offering $200 joyrides over Sydney in 1987. The airship joyrides were short-lived after hundreds of complaints about noise, privacy and advertisements for alcohol and tobacco.[6]

  As a counterpoint to the conspiracy theory that the technology was lost, Alan Birchmore said in a 1988 interview with Anne Burns,

Airships were overlooked for so long because the technology wasn't there to make them work. They just had to wait in the queue for technology to make the tough new materials available and a brilliant designer to put them to work.[7]

Bonds airships were withdrawn from use in Australia in 1993.[8] One of those airships now flies in Japan, the other in the USA. Airships are still utilised in the USA as floating advertising billboards, further debunking the conspiracy theory of ‘lost technology’.

  The Adelaide General Post Office was completed in 1872. It took another three years before the clock was installed in 1875. The Adelaide Town Hall was opened in 1866. It was 69 years later in 1935 that former Lord Mayor, Sir J Lavington Bonython donated a clock to be placed in the tower. The electric clock was switched on in 1935.
  I am yet to see photographic evidence of any airship attached to a mooring dock on any Adelaide building. Such a grandiose event would have been documented by one of Adelaide’s many photographers of the period. “But those photos were wiped from history,’ I hear the conspirators say!
Why hide airship technology from the public, what would it achieve? Who would try and delete this part of history – the Illuminati, shadow governments? It is almost, always a ’them’, a person, government, or secret society with power, that the conspiracy theorist doesn’t trust, often for spurious personal reasons, or to feel a sense of belonging to a larger group of like-minded people.[9] I have no doubt that I’ll now be accused of being a shadow operative or whatever term is used for someone who doesn’t believe this conspiracy theory is real!

King William Street  1936

Researched and written by Allen Tiller ©2025.

 

Photographs:

Ernest Gall, King William Street, Adelaide [B 1581], Acre 203 Collection, State Library of South Australia, (1889), https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+1581

King William Street [B 6832], State Library of South Australia, (1936), https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+6832

Adelaide's two clock towers’, [PRG 287/1/8/28], Robjohns collection, State Library of South Australia, (1939), https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/PRG+287/1/8/28.

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[1] Tandy Chou, Lost Zeppelin Mooring Mast Of Empire State Building: Forgotten Sky Dock, Tourist Secrets, (2024), https://www.touristsecrets.com/travel-guide/weird-amazing/lost-zeppelin-mooring-mast-of-empire-state-building-forgotten-sky-dock/.

[2] Tim Sharp, The First Powered Airship | The Greatest Moments in Flight, Space.com (2012), https://www.space.com/16623-first-powered-airship.html.

[3] Jeremy Hsu, The Zeppelin Hindenburg: When Airships Ruled | The Most Amazing Flying Machines Ever, Space.com, (2012), https://www.space.com/16632-zeppelin-hindenburg.html.

[4] 'Bond's airship gamble', The Canberra Times, (20 February 1988), p. 4.

[5] Roger Garwood, ‘146969PD: Alan Bond with a model of the Bond Airship used during the America's Cup, Fremantle, 1987’, State Library of Western Australia, (1987), https://purl.slwa.wa.gov.au/slwa_b4797475_1.

[6] David Monaghan, From the Archives, 1987: Bond’s ‘blimps’ have Sydneysiders up in arms.’, The Sydney Morning Herald, (2022), https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/from-the-archives-1987-bond-s-blimps-have-sydneysiders-up-in-arms-20220729-p5b5ro.html.

[7] 'Bond's airship gamble', The Canberra Times, (20 February 1988), p. 4.

[8] ‘VH-HAA.’, Airhistory.net, (2020), https://www.airhistory.net/photo/266682/VH-HAA.

[9] Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Conspiracy thinking: A scapegoat is always useful, Unesco, (2021), https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/conspiracy-thinking-scapegoat-always-useful