Speaker 1: Hello. It's Richard mclinsmith here, very excited to announce that
Speaker 1: this May I'll be heading to Crime Con twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six in Las Vegas, the world's number one true crime event,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to see you there. From May twenty
Speaker 1: nineth to the thirty first, thousands of true crime fans, investigators, journalists, podcasters,
Speaker 1: experts and survivors will gather at Caesar's Palace and Las
Speaker 1: Vegas for an unforgettable weekend of live talks, exclusive panels,
Speaker 1: deep dives, and behind the scenes conversations. I'll be appearing
Speaker 1: throughout the weekend on Creator Row, so please come and
Speaker 1: say hello. And if you'd like to join me for
Speaker 1: my live session Treasure, Betrayal and Death in Vegas, the
Speaker 1: Ted Binyon Mystery, I'll be speaking at ten twenty am
Speaker 1: on the Saturday morning. To get tickets, head to Crimecon
Speaker 1: dot com and use promo code Unexplained for ten percent off.
Speaker 1: I hope to see you there. For centuries, a large
Speaker 1: stretch of the North Atlantic Ocean from Florida's east coast
Speaker 1: to Bermuda and the Greater Antilles Islands was known to
Speaker 1: mariners as stormy and hurricane prone but also as a
Speaker 1: place where weird things happened, where sailors might lose contact
Speaker 1: with the natural world and disappear without a trace. There's
Speaker 1: a story that in eighteen eighty one, the crew of
Speaker 1: the Ellen Austin, a cargo ship sailing from Liverpool to
Speaker 1: New York, spotted a seemingly abandoned vessel in the area,
Speaker 1: emerging from a thick bank of fog. Some of the
Speaker 1: Ellen Austin's crew as said to have boarded the ship
Speaker 1: and confirmed that it had indeed been abandoned, but all
Speaker 1: its cargo was still aboard. Having commandeered the mysterious ghost ship,
Speaker 1: a plan was made to take it with them to
Speaker 1: New York alongside the Ellen Austin, but then a bad
Speaker 1: storm blew up, separating the two ships for twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: When the ghost ship reappeared the next day, so the
Speaker 1: story goes, there wasn't a trace of its new crew.
Speaker 1: It said that the Ellenostin's captain then attempted to commandeer
Speaker 1: the vessel himself, but no sooner had he boored it,
Speaker 1: another thick and blinding fog rolled in, separating the two
Speaker 1: vessels once again. When the fog finally cleared, the ghost
Speaker 1: ship had vanished entirely and was never seen again. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, the giant transport ship USS Cyclops vanished some
Speaker 1: time after departing Barbados, taking all three hundred and six
Speaker 1: crew members with it. Its final transmission to shore before
Speaker 1: it vanished was weather fair all Well. Then, in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, the Navy ship USS Proteus, carrying fifty eight
Speaker 1: passengers and a cargo of ore from the Caribbean island
Speaker 1: Saint Thomas to Portland in Maine, was lost in the
Speaker 1: same area. Only a month later, its sister ship, the
Speaker 1: USS Scenarius, also disappeared, along with its sixty one passengers,
Speaker 1: while traveling the same route, defined as anywhere between half
Speaker 1: a million and one and a half million square miles
Speaker 1: in size, This infamous region of the Atlantic has been
Speaker 1: credited with the deaths of over eight thousand people since
Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century. At least fifty ships are known
Speaker 1: to have been lost there, often in ways that defy explanation.
Speaker 1: This stretch of sea has had many names over the years,
Speaker 1: the Devil Sea, the Hoodoo Sea, or the Graveyard of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. You might know it best as the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1: When aircraft started to routinely fly over the area, they
Speaker 1: also began to disappear. In nineteen forty eight, a DC
Speaker 1: three commercial flight headed for Miami went missing while flying
Speaker 1: over the area, with twenty nine passengers and two crew
Speaker 1: members on In the same year, a British Avro Tudor
Speaker 1: plane called Star Tiger also vanished there with thirty one
Speaker 1: people on board. No wreckage or hint of what happened
Speaker 1: to why the plane was ever found. Another plane called
Speaker 1: Star Aerial, en route from Bermuda to Jamaica, lost communications
Speaker 1: with air traffic control over the very same treacherous section
Speaker 1: of ocean. The weather had been fine and there were
Speaker 1: no indications of any problems on board. And then there
Speaker 1: is the story of Flight nineteen. You're listening to Unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was a cold and
Speaker 1: gloomy December afternoon in nineteen forty five in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Speaker 1: Down at the high school, rowse of teenagers sat quietly
Speaker 1: at their desks as they teacher Missus Taylor, chalked up
Speaker 1: the key points from the lesson on the blackboard. The
Speaker 1: calm was suddenly pierced by a knock on the classroom door.
Speaker 1: The students looked up to see a school administrator hurriedly
Speaker 1: open the door, then dash over to missus Taylor. She
Speaker 1: had a small envelope in her hand and handed it
Speaker 1: to the teacher. A look of concern spread across Missus
Speaker 1: Taylor's face as she took the envelope and pulled out
Speaker 1: a thin piece of paper from inside it. The students
Speaker 1: watched in silence as the teacher's eyes quickly scanned the note.
Speaker 1: Then something seemed to fall inside her and her knees buckled.
Speaker 1: Catherine Taylor's eyes began to dampen, and she turned away
Speaker 1: from the class. Turning back a moment later, in a
Speaker 1: shaky voice, she informed her students that regrettably, their lesson
Speaker 1: would be ending early that day. Then she quickly gathered
Speaker 1: her belongings and hurried out of the room. Catherine Taylor's
Speaker 1: son was Lieutenant Charles Taylor, a seasoned twenty eight year
Speaker 1: old pilot in the U. S. Navy. The telegram she
Speaker 1: received informed her, in stark simple detail, that earlier that day,
Speaker 1: while undertaking a routine training flight, her son had been
Speaker 1: lost at sea and wasn't likely to ever be seen again.
Speaker 1: What exactly happened to him was considered by some to
Speaker 1: be one of the strangest aviation mysteries of all time.
Speaker 1: On the morning of December fifth, nineteen forty five, conditions
Speaker 1: at the Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida were calm,
Speaker 1: with only a few isolated showers breaking to the east
Speaker 1: over the Atlantic, although weather reports warned of an incoming stormfront.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Charles Taylor, who had accumulated over two and a
Speaker 1: half thousand flying hours, including sixty one on combat missions
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, had been
Speaker 1: put in charge of a squadron of five GRIMM and
Speaker 1: TBM Avengers, a three person torpedo bomber plane. The mission
Speaker 1: of Flight nineteen was to undertake a routine navigational training
Speaker 1: flight over water from their base at Fort Lauderdale. Before takeoff,
Speaker 1: a senior operations officer briefed the crew on their exercise.
Speaker 1: It consisted of a practice bombing run over a small
Speaker 1: group of rocks near the island of Bimini in the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: just fifty six miles from base. After that, the crews
Speaker 1: were instructed to fly up over the Northern Islands of
Speaker 1: the Bahamas before turning east and returning to Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 1: But Lieutenant Taylor wasn't feeling right, having arrived late to
Speaker 1: the briefing. When it was over, he asked if he
Speaker 1: could drop out of the flight and have someone else
Speaker 1: take his place. When asked why, he didn't know exactly
Speaker 1: what to say, only that he'd just rather not be
Speaker 1: in the air that day. Perhaps it was just because
Speaker 1: he'd had a late one the night before, as some
Speaker 1: have suggested, or perhaps it was something a little less
Speaker 1: tangible that had rattled him. Despite his efforts to sit
Speaker 1: the operation out. Since Lieutenant Charles Taylor was the only
Speaker 1: qualified instructor on the base that day, there was no
Speaker 1: other option but for him to lead the exercise. It
Speaker 1: was Taylor's job to assess the performance of the thirteen
Speaker 1: students flying the other aircraft and be there to help
Speaker 1: guide them back on course if they became lost. It
Speaker 1: was a fairly straightforward exercise, given that the trainees weren't novices,
Speaker 1: but experienced flyers who'd all accumulated more hours in the
Speaker 1: air than the Federal Aviation Administration requires today for a
Speaker 1: commercial license. This exercise would mark the end of their training.
Speaker 1: Before takeoff, the planes were fueled and checked for any
Speaker 1: maintenance issues, with each plane getting a clean bill of health.
Speaker 1: Except for one strange detail. All five of the bomber
Speaker 1: planes were missing their clocks, but since all the pilots
Speaker 1: were thought to have their own watches, it was decided
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be a problem, and so at two ten
Speaker 1: pm one by one Flight nineteen lined up at the
Speaker 1: end of the Naval Air Station runway at Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 1: and took off into the skies. Their crews, a mixture
Speaker 1: of Marines and naval aviators, followed a course that took
Speaker 1: them southeast over the Atlantic to the Hens and Chickens
Speaker 1: Shoals in the Bahamas. There they completed the practice bombing
Speaker 1: run without incident. Then they set a course heading southeast.
Speaker 1: They were to follow this for sixty seven miles, then
Speaker 1: turn and head northwest for another seventy three miles, which
Speaker 1: would take them past Grand Bahama Island. En route back
Speaker 1: to Fort Lauderdale, Lieutenant Taylor gazed out at the cockpit
Speaker 1: with concern at the fast approaching dark clouds that had
Speaker 1: just appeared on the horizon. Before long, the storm front
Speaker 1: was upon them, bringing heavy rain and strong westerly winds.
Speaker 1: The cloud ceiling dropped to around one thousand feet and
Speaker 1: the visibility became limited to eight nautical miles, while underneath them,
Speaker 1: the darkening sea began to froth and churn. After sixty
Speaker 1: seven miles, the squadron made their final turn and began
Speaker 1: to head back northwest. Or did they? It was around
Speaker 1: three ten pm when Lieutenant Taylor reported that one of
Speaker 1: its compasses had begun to malfunction, then the other stopped
Speaker 1: working too. Taylor radioed Marine Captain Edward Powers, the trainee
Speaker 1: pilot who was the acting flight leader, to confirm their location,
Speaker 1: but Powers, whose compass also didn't seem to be working,
Speaker 1: didn't know hen that then the compasses in the other
Speaker 1: planes began acting strangely too. Around three forty pm, Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Robert Cox, a senior flight instructor flying with a different
Speaker 1: squadron on an unrelated mission close to Fort Lauderdale, heard
Speaker 1: an unexpected crackle over the radio, followed by voices he
Speaker 1: didn't recognize. Confused, Lieutenant Cox asked the voices to identify themselves.
Speaker 1: This is FT twenty eight, came back. The reply. Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Charles Taylor's call sign as Cox later recounted Taylor explained
Speaker 1: that his squadron was currently flying over some broken land,
Speaker 1: which he identified as the Florida Keys, but their compasses
Speaker 1: were malfunctioning and they needed help getting back to Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 1: Coxed him to keep the sun to their left and
Speaker 1: just continue up the coast until they saw Miami. After
Speaker 1: that it was an easy twenty miles further up to
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale. Cox offered to fly down to chaperone them home,
Speaker 1: but Lieutenant Taylor said there was no need. I know
Speaker 1: where I am now, He said, to reassure him, don't
Speaker 1: come after me. A short time later, Lieutenant Cox noticed,
Speaker 1: to his dismay that Flight nineteen's radio transmissions weren't getting
Speaker 1: stronger as they should have done if they were heading
Speaker 1: in the right direction. They were fading. He realized then
Speaker 1: that whatever islands Taylor said he and his squadron had
Speaker 1: been flying over, they weren't the Florida Keys. Around four
Speaker 1: twenty five PM, a flurry of confused messages were exchanged
Speaker 1: between Flight nineteen and the Fort Lauderdale base, and increasingly
Speaker 1: panicked Taylor asked if anyone had radar that could pick
Speaker 1: up the group's location to help, God made them home.
Speaker 1: With no such technology available at the base, Twenty other
Speaker 1: facilities were contacted from land bases to coast Guard vessels
Speaker 1: to see if anyone else could help, but thanks to
Speaker 1: some communication issues and static interference from Cuban radio stations,
Speaker 1: no one could get a handle on the planes. Around
Speaker 1: four thirty PM, Lieutenant Robert Cox lost contact with Taylor's plane.
Speaker 1: About the same time, AIRCA Rescue Task Unit four, a
Speaker 1: specialized unit for rescuing naval seamen at Fort Everglades in Florida,
Speaker 1: picked up Taylor's transmissions. By now, Taylor had taken over
Speaker 1: the lead of Flight nineteen and had instructed the squadron
Speaker 1: to fly north to see if they were over the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. They continued on that heading for thirty
Speaker 1: minutes until Taylor conceded that they likely weren't over the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico at all, and now night was descending,
Speaker 1: and neither Lieutenant Taylor or anyone else had any idea
Speaker 1: where they were. As the Naval base at Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 1: scrambled to get some assistants out to Flight nineteen, Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Taylor was asked to switch his radio to the search
Speaker 1: and rescue frequency, which would make it easier to track them,
Speaker 1: but Taylor refused since any change of frequency ran the
Speaker 1: risk of him losing contact with the other planes. At
Speaker 1: six o four p m, believing they needed to go
Speaker 1: further east before trying to head north to Fort Lauderdale,
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Taylor was overheard telling his pilots to turn around
Speaker 1: yet again and head east once more. Meanwhile, ground units
Speaker 1: were finally beginning to piece together where the squadron might
Speaker 1: be exactly. It appeared they had somehow ended up well
Speaker 1: north of the Bahamas and a long way out to sea,
Speaker 1: but by then Flight nineteen's radio transmissions were growing almost
Speaker 1: too faint to hear, and their fuel supplies were dwindling.
Speaker 1: At six twenty pm, another message came through from Lieutenant Taylor.
Speaker 1: All planes close up tight. We'll have to ditch unless landfall.
Speaker 1: When the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all
Speaker 1: go down together. Then his radio went silent. Just after
Speaker 1: seven pm, one final message was picked up, coming from
Speaker 1: one of the trainee pilots. Everything looks strange, he said,
Speaker 1: even the ocean. It looks like we are entering white water.
Speaker 1: Then all communication with Flight nineteen was lost, but things
Speaker 1: were about to get even worse. Just before seven thirty PM,
Speaker 1: two PBM Arina planes specially equipped to land on water,
Speaker 1: were dispatched from a base roughly one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: miles north of Fort lauder Dae in an effort to
Speaker 1: try and locate the lost squadron. Twenty minutes into its flight,
Speaker 1: as it neared the edges of the Bermuda Triangle, one
Speaker 1: of the Mariners and its thirteen man crew suddenly fell
Speaker 1: off radio contact. A ship in the vicinity would later
Speaker 1: report seeing a sudden burst of flames in the sky,
Speaker 1: reaching about one hundred feet in height. By the time
Speaker 1: a search team arrived at the site, there was no
Speaker 1: trace of the Mariner or its thirteen man crew. The
Speaker 1: second Mariner was ultimately forced to return home empty handed.
Speaker 1: Over the next five days, the Navy, along with the
Speaker 1: Army and Coast Guard, mounted what became the largest air
Speaker 1: sea search rescue that had ever been conducted at that time.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of ships and planes covered more than two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Mexico looking for any sign of the twenty seven
Speaker 1: missing men. Various reports of flares, strange lights, life jackets,
Speaker 1: oil slicks, and rafts being found. All turned out either
Speaker 1: to be non existent or unrelated debris. No traces of
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen and its fourteen crew members or the Mariner
Speaker 1: and its crew were found. Within days of Flight nineteen's disappearance,
Speaker 1: the Navy convened an investigation board, which focused on the
Speaker 1: testimony of those involved in the search, as central question
Speaker 1: was how could such an experienced pilot as Lieutenant Charles
Speaker 1: Taylor have so badly mistaken where he and his squadron was.
Speaker 1: The investigation concluded that somehow the compass equipment of Taylor's plane,
Speaker 1: along with at least one of the others, had failed,
Speaker 1: and that the worsening weather meant the flight crews were
Speaker 1: unable to determine their position by sight. Decided that the
Speaker 1: planes eventually ran out of fuel and ditched into the
Speaker 1: rough seas, the conditions of which were unfavorable for survival.
Speaker 1: But the report also criticized Lieutenant Taylor, concluding that he
Speaker 1: became hopelessly confused, suffering something akin to a temporary mental aberration,
Speaker 1: and was guilty of faulty judgment. What made it all
Speaker 1: the worse was that some of the lost crew were
Speaker 1: just teenagers, and many, including Taylor himself, were veterans of
Speaker 1: World War II, which had only ended three months earlier.
Speaker 1: Catherine Taylor, Charles Taylor's mother, was extremely unhappy with the
Speaker 1: Navy's official version of events. Determined to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of the mystery, she posted one thousand dollar reward
Speaker 1: almost twenty thousand dollars in today's money for information leading
Speaker 1: to the recovery of her son, wrote over two hundred letters,
Speaker 1: and conducted forty eight interviews with people involved with the
Speaker 1: rescue effort. She discovered not only was there a standby
Speaker 1: plane which could have been sent out quickly from Fort Lauderdale,
Speaker 1: but also that Lieutenant Cox, the pilot who first realized
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen was in trouble, had immediately requested, on returning
Speaker 1: to base, that he be allowed to take the plane
Speaker 1: and fly northeast, confident that he could locate the squadron.
Speaker 1: His request was denied by Lieutenant Commander Donald Paul, the
Speaker 1: officer in charge of the training flights. Commander Paul had
Speaker 1: been unconvinced of the severity of the situation and thought
Speaker 1: that sending an additional plane without an accurate fix on
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen would only complicate matters. In nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: Catherine Taylor brought her information to the Board for Correction
Speaker 1: of Naval Records and was rewarded for her tireless lobbying.
Speaker 1: The findings of the official report were changed. Lieutenant Charles
Speaker 1: Taylor was cleared of personal blame for the disappearance, which
Speaker 1: was instead attributed to reasons or causes unknown. It has
Speaker 1: been the official word on Flight nineteen ever since, and
Speaker 1: for a while the public forgot about the tragedy. That
Speaker 1: is until nineteen sixty four, when an article was published
Speaker 1: by American sci fi author Vincent Gaddis in Argossi Magazine,
Speaker 1: which noted some unusual findings. In his nineteen sixty four article,
Speaker 1: Vincent Gaddis connected a long chain of mysterious disappearances involving
Speaker 1: ships and aircraft within the triangle bounded by Florida, Bermuda
Speaker 1: and Puerto Rico, arguing that the previous one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years revealed a disturbing pattern of unexplained events. It
Speaker 1: was titled the Deadly Bermuda Triangle, and the name immediately
Speaker 1: took hold in the public imagination. The region's eerie reputation
Speaker 1: was boosted again in nineteen seventy four when Charles Burlitz,
Speaker 1: a chronicler of supposed paranormal phenomena, published The Bermuda Triangle,
Speaker 1: which quickly became a best seller. It proposed that the
Speaker 1: mysterious ship and aircraft disappearances were linked to a portal
Speaker 1: used by aliens to travel between different dimensions, and that
Speaker 1: these aliens deliberately abducted ships and planes from the triangle
Speaker 1: for study. Most incredibly of all, he claimed the activity
Speaker 1: was linked to the remnants of an ancient yet advanced
Speaker 1: civilization from the lost island of Atlantis. Burlit's claims were
Speaker 1: challenged by a number of writers, not least of all
Speaker 1: his bogus claim that one of Lieutenant Taylor's messages to
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Cox had included the line they looked like therefrom
Speaker 1: outer space regardless. In nineteen eighty four, Charles Burlitz doubled down,
Speaker 1: publishing a follow up book titled Atlantis The Lost Continent Revealed,
Speaker 1: which proposed that Atlantis had been in the middle of
Speaker 1: the North Atlantic. He alleged that a diver had located
Speaker 1: a massive submerged pyramid near the Bahamas, but would not
Speaker 1: reveal the coordinates. He also claimed that an island had
Speaker 1: emerged from the Atlantic Ocean in eighteen eighty two, complete
Speaker 1: with bronze artifacts, but the log of the ship which
Speaker 1: discovered it had been destroyed in the London Blitz during
Speaker 1: World War II. His outlandish claims were based on evidence
Speaker 1: that was flimsy at best and non existent at worst,
Speaker 1: but by then outlandish speculations surrounding the Bermuda Triangle were
Speaker 1: embedded in the zeitgeist. In Steven Spielberg's nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the crew of
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen was shown reappearing after being abducted by aliens
Speaker 1: decades after their disappearance without having aged. The so called
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle also became the subject of numerous television programs
Speaker 1: and appeared in the lyrics of songs by artists ranging
Speaker 1: from Fleetwood Mac to Barry Manilow. The story of Flight
Speaker 1: nineteen even featured in an episode of Scooby Doo. Then
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen ninety, it seemed as if
Speaker 1: the mystery of Flight nineteen had finally been solved. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, former helicopter pilot Vietnam veteran and aviation investigator
Speaker 1: John Meyer believed that he'd found one of the missing
Speaker 1: Avenger aircraft from Flight nineteen. Starting out in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: Maya scrutinized the squadron's flight plan, radio transmissions, and the
Speaker 1: weather on the day of the disappearance, convinced that he
Speaker 1: could find the sunken airplanes. Part of his conviction came
Speaker 1: from reports by two ships that claimed to have seen
Speaker 1: distress flares within five hours of each other. The sightings
Speaker 1: occurred in an area when no search aircraft were believed
Speaker 1: to be operating shortly after Flight nineteen vanished. Three days later,
Speaker 1: another ship spotted some blinking lights on the water, but
Speaker 1: discounted them as coming from another vessel. Meyer believed they
Speaker 1: were from Flight nineteen and calculated that one of the
Speaker 1: planes came down into the sea thirty miles off the
Speaker 1: Florida coast near Cape Canaveral. Meyer also discovered that one
Speaker 1: of the Flight nineteen planes, piloted by Captain William Stivers,
Speaker 1: had been taken out in the morning before taking off
Speaker 1: again as part of Flight nineteen without being completely refueled,
Speaker 1: meaning it may well have ditched in the ocean before
Speaker 1: the other four planes. Maya also spent calculated that at
Speaker 1: least some of the crews had ditched successfully and were
Speaker 1: alive in the water for some time, but it was
Speaker 1: only after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff
Speaker 1: from Cape Canaveral in January nineteen eighty six that the
Speaker 1: possibility of finding a Flight nineteen aircraft became a reality.
Speaker 1: Some of the Shuttle debris had fallen in the same
Speaker 1: area where Meyer believed the first Flight nineteen plane had ditched.
Speaker 1: NASA was forced to launch a massive underwater search and
Speaker 1: salvage operation to recover the wreckage of Challenger. During that operation,
Speaker 1: the recovery team detected what appeared to be the wreck
Speaker 1: of an aircraft submerged beneath four hundred feet of water. However,
Speaker 1: believing it to be a twin engine DC three, they
Speaker 1: ignored it. But for John Meyer, it was just too
Speaker 1: much of a coincidence, and so in August nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: Meyer and an associate, Larry Schwartz, formed Project nineteen. Together
Speaker 1: with the assistance of the NBC TV show Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 1: They convinced Harbor Branch Oceanographic for HBO, who'd overseen the
Speaker 1: search for the Challenger, to take another look at the
Speaker 1: apparent plane wreck. This time they sent a camera down
Speaker 1: to investigate it properly. Incredibly, it wasn't a DC three
Speaker 1: after all, but a TBM avenger like the planes of
Speaker 1: Squadron Flight nineteen. HBO also succeeded in bringing the casing
Speaker 1: of one of the plane's engines to the surface, but sadly,
Speaker 1: no identifying marks could be found on it. But on
Speaker 1: reviewing the footage, something was found etched onto one of
Speaker 1: the plane's wings what looked like the number two zero nine.
Speaker 1: Captain Stivers's plane was numbered seven three two zero nine.
Speaker 1: The similarity was striking, but not enough to convince Ted Darcy,
Speaker 1: an ocean salvage specialist who was brought in to provide
Speaker 1: a second opinion. Although he confirmed it was indeed an
Speaker 1: avenger from the era of Flight nineteen's disappearance, Darcy suspected
Speaker 1: it was a plane that was known to have crash
Speaker 1: landed on the aircraft carrier USS Solomons before later being
Speaker 1: dumped overboard. But when Meyer looked into the history of
Speaker 1: the USS Solomons, he was convinced Darcy was wrong. Not
Speaker 1: least of all because the crash on the USS Solomons
Speaker 1: didn't happen anywhere near the area in question. In August
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, a year after discovering the Avenger off
Speaker 1: the coast of Cape Canaveral, John Meyer and Project nineteen
Speaker 1: were broke. After a decade investing everything he owned in
Speaker 1: pursuit of solving the Flight nineteen mystery. It exhausted all
Speaker 1: his money and energy. The only thing that could make
Speaker 1: any of it worth while was to prove once and
Speaker 1: for all that he really had found one of the
Speaker 1: missing plans. To that end, he and Larry Schwartz convinced
Speaker 1: Marine Land, a local marine park, to funder complete extraction
Speaker 1: of the mystery plane wreck with the intention of clarifying
Speaker 1: the exact number etched into the wing, on the one
Speaker 1: condition that it was indeed the plane that Meyer believed
Speaker 1: it to be. And so John Meyer returned with Unsolved
Speaker 1: Mysteries and Project nineteen to that spot, thirty miles off
Speaker 1: the shore of Cape Canaveral, and watched with excitement as
Speaker 1: the wreck was steadily brought up from the ocean floor.
Speaker 1: But just as it was nearing the surface, a cable snapped,
Speaker 1: sending it plummeting back down into the ocean depths. As
Speaker 1: it sank, the wing snapped off, never to be seen again.
Speaker 1: What was left of the plain was eventually secured and
Speaker 1: brought back to Marineland. For the next few weeks, John
Speaker 1: Meyer spent twelve hours a day combing every inch of
Speaker 1: the wreckage for any identifying marks, but after the best
Speaker 1: part of fifty years lying on the ocean floor covered
Speaker 1: in coral sponge and barnacles, anything that might prove it
Speaker 1: was Captain William Steves's plane had long since disappeared. Eventually,
Speaker 1: John Meyer was forced to concede that it probably wasn't
Speaker 1: Stivers's plane after all, and that might well have been
Speaker 1: that until something else extraordinary came to light. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, in an episode of the History Channel's Greatest Mysteries,
Speaker 1: it was revealed that in December nineteen forty five, like
Speaker 1: all the loved ones of the men who disappeared with
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen, the family of Sergeant George Panessa received a
Speaker 1: telegram to say that he'd been lost at sea and
Speaker 1: was presumed dead. But then a few weeks later they
Speaker 1: received another telegram, this time supposedly from George himself. It said,
Speaker 1: you've been misinformed about me. I'm very much alive, Georgie.
Speaker 1: George Panessa was never heard from again. Had he made
Speaker 1: it back alive and then for some reason disappeared into
Speaker 1: a life of anonymity. Was he communicating from another dimension
Speaker 1: or was it simply a hoax? It seems for now
Speaker 1: at least, the answer to that question, and what exactly
Speaker 1: happened to the rest of Flight nineteen remains unexplained. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McLean Smith.
Speaker 1: Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained. As an Avy
Speaker 1: Club production, the pod created by Richard McLain smith. All
Speaker 1: other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and
Speaker 1: audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase
Speaker 1: from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please
Speaker 1: subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation or a story of your
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