I perhaps wouldn’t go so far as to call myself an expert but I have studied the British equivalents from the years just before the First World War, as part of my PhD research. It was actually something of a worldwide phenomenon — you may be interested in a post I wrote on the subject last year: http://airminded.org/2006/12/22/the-scareship-age/

I agree that the role of the press was crucial: along with distorting, exaggerating and sometimes fabricating stories, it passed them on to a wide audience which then went out and looked for phantom airships, and inevitably saw them. The recycling of stories that you discuss here may be another aspect, although not one I’ve seen in the British press.