WEBVTT - Season 09 Episode 21: Triangled Veils 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.040 Hello. It's Richard mclinsmith here, very excited to announce that 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.520 this May I'll be heading to Crime Con twenty twenty 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.719 six in Las Vegas, the world's number one true crime event, 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.120 and I'd love to see you there. From May twenty 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:16.760 nineth to the thirty first, thousands of true crime fans, investigators, journalists, podcasters, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.400 experts and survivors will gather at Caesar's Palace and Las 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.280 Vegas for an unforgettable weekend of live talks, exclusive panels, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.800 deep dives, and behind the scenes conversations. I'll be appearing 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.120 throughout the weekend on Creator Row, so please come and 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.080 say hello. And if you'd like to join me for 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.879 my live session Treasure, Betrayal and Death in Vegas, the 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.840 Ted Binyon Mystery, I'll be speaking at ten twenty am 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.800 on the Saturday morning. To get tickets, head to Crimecon 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.280 dot com and use promo code Unexplained for ten percent off. 0:00:45.640 --> 0:01:01.960 I hope to see you there. For centuries, a large 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.520 stretch of the North Atlantic Ocean from Florida's east coast 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.440 to Bermuda and the Greater Antilles Islands was known to 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.760 mariners as stormy and hurricane prone but also as a 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:18.000 place where weird things happened, where sailors might lose contact 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:22.840 with the natural world and disappear without a trace. There's 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.840 a story that in eighteen eighty one, the crew of 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.440 the Ellen Austin, a cargo ship sailing from Liverpool to 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.319 New York, spotted a seemingly abandoned vessel in the area, 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.399 emerging from a thick bank of fog. Some of the 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.120 Ellen Austin's crew as said to have boarded the ship 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.240 and confirmed that it had indeed been abandoned, but all 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.040 its cargo was still aboard. Having commandeered the mysterious ghost ship, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.000 a plan was made to take it with them to 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.680 New York alongside the Ellen Austin, but then a bad 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.000 storm blew up, separating the two ships for twenty four hours. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.760 When the ghost ship reappeared the next day, so the 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.080 story goes, there wasn't a trace of its new crew. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.799 It said that the Ellenostin's captain then attempted to commandeer 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.960 the vessel himself, but no sooner had he boored it, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.120 another thick and blinding fog rolled in, separating the two 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.600 vessels once again. When the fog finally cleared, the ghost 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:26.320 ship had vanished entirely and was never seen again. In 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:31.520 nineteen eighteen, the giant transport ship USS Cyclops vanished some 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.400 time after departing Barbados, taking all three hundred and six 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.519 crew members with it. Its final transmission to shore before 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:44.800 it vanished was weather fair all Well. Then, in nineteen 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.240 forty one, the Navy ship USS Proteus, carrying fifty eight 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.680 passengers and a cargo of ore from the Caribbean island 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.120 Saint Thomas to Portland in Maine, was lost in the 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.440 same area. Only a month later, its sister ship, the 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:05.440 USS Scenarius, also disappeared, along with its sixty one passengers, 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:10.480 while traveling the same route, defined as anywhere between half 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.280 a million and one and a half million square miles 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.880 in size, This infamous region of the Atlantic has been 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.320 credited with the deaths of over eight thousand people since 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.200 the mid nineteenth century. At least fifty ships are known 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.200 to have been lost there, often in ways that defy explanation. 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.640 This stretch of sea has had many names over the years, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.640 the Devil Sea, the Hoodoo Sea, or the Graveyard of 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.000 the Atlantic. You might know it best as the Bermuda Triangle. 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.120 When aircraft started to routinely fly over the area, they 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.960 also began to disappear. In nineteen forty eight, a DC 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.960 three commercial flight headed for Miami went missing while flying 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.440 over the area, with twenty nine passengers and two crew 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:04.040 members on In the same year, a British Avro Tudor 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.400 plane called Star Tiger also vanished there with thirty one 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.960 people on board. No wreckage or hint of what happened 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:16.000 to why the plane was ever found. Another plane called 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.280 Star Aerial, en route from Bermuda to Jamaica, lost communications 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.880 with air traffic control over the very same treacherous section 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.320 of ocean. The weather had been fine and there were 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:32.120 no indications of any problems on board. And then there 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:37.080 is the story of Flight nineteen. You're listening to Unexplained, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:49.159 and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was a cold and 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:54.400 gloomy December afternoon in nineteen forty five in Corpus Christi, Texas. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.520 Down at the high school, rowse of teenagers sat quietly 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.320 at their desks as they teacher Missus Taylor, chalked up 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.640 the key points from the lesson on the blackboard. The 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.080 calm was suddenly pierced by a knock on the classroom door. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.440 The students looked up to see a school administrator hurriedly 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.200 open the door, then dash over to missus Taylor. She 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.920 had a small envelope in her hand and handed it 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.880 to the teacher. A look of concern spread across Missus 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.200 Taylor's face as she took the envelope and pulled out 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.360 a thin piece of paper from inside it. The students 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.800 watched in silence as the teacher's eyes quickly scanned the note. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.799 Then something seemed to fall inside her and her knees buckled. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.599 Catherine Taylor's eyes began to dampen, and she turned away 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.400 from the class. Turning back a moment later, in a 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.640 shaky voice, she informed her students that regrettably, their lesson 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.080 would be ending early that day. Then she quickly gathered 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:01.040 her belongings and hurried out of the room. Catherine Taylor's 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.040 son was Lieutenant Charles Taylor, a seasoned twenty eight year 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.440 old pilot in the U. S. Navy. The telegram she 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.560 received informed her, in stark simple detail, that earlier that day, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.560 while undertaking a routine training flight, her son had been 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.960 lost at sea and wasn't likely to ever be seen again. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.359 What exactly happened to him was considered by some to 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.760 be one of the strangest aviation mysteries of all time. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.680 On the morning of December fifth, nineteen forty five, conditions 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.360 at the Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida were calm, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.640 with only a few isolated showers breaking to the east 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.320 over the Atlantic, although weather reports warned of an incoming stormfront. 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.280 Lieutenant Charles Taylor, who had accumulated over two and a 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.520 half thousand flying hours, including sixty one on combat missions 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.800 in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, had been 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.720 put in charge of a squadron of five GRIMM and 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:06.240 TBM Avengers, a three person torpedo bomber plane. The mission 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.600 of Flight nineteen was to undertake a routine navigational training 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:15.840 flight over water from their base at Fort Lauderdale. Before takeoff, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.600 a senior operations officer briefed the crew on their exercise. 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.640 It consisted of a practice bombing run over a small 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.120 group of rocks near the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.360 just fifty six miles from base. After that, the crews 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.200 were instructed to fly up over the Northern Islands of 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.200 the Bahamas before turning east and returning to Fort Lauderdale. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.800 But Lieutenant Taylor wasn't feeling right, having arrived late to 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.360 the briefing. When it was over, he asked if he 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.920 could drop out of the flight and have someone else 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.280 take his place. When asked why, he didn't know exactly 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.520 what to say, only that he'd just rather not be 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.160 in the air that day. Perhaps it was just because 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.560 he'd had a late one the night before, as some 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.200 have suggested, or perhaps it was something a little less 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:16.600 tangible that had rattled him. Despite his efforts to sit 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.520 the operation out. Since Lieutenant Charles Taylor was the only 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.720 qualified instructor on the base that day, there was no 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.760 other option but for him to lead the exercise. It 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.680 was Taylor's job to assess the performance of the thirteen 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.080 students flying the other aircraft and be there to help 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.880 guide them back on course if they became lost. It 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.280 was a fairly straightforward exercise, given that the trainees weren't novices, 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.120 but experienced flyers who'd all accumulated more hours in the 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.440 air than the Federal Aviation Administration requires today for a 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.360 commercial license. This exercise would mark the end of their training. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.920 Before takeoff, the planes were fueled and checked for any 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.720 maintenance issues, with each plane getting a clean bill of health. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.840 Except for one strange detail. All five of the bomber 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.640 planes were missing their clocks, but since all the pilots 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.559 were thought to have their own watches, it was decided 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.920 this wouldn't be a problem, and so at two ten 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.040 pm one by one Flight nineteen lined up at the 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.160 end of the Naval Air Station runway at Fort Lauderdale 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:30.360 and took off into the skies. Their crews, a mixture 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.079 of Marines and naval aviators, followed a course that took 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.480 them southeast over the Atlantic to the Hens and Chickens 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.920 Shoals in the Bahamas. There they completed the practice bombing 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.960 run without incident. Then they set a course heading southeast. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.920 They were to follow this for sixty seven miles, then 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.720 turn and head northwest for another seventy three miles, which 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.040 would take them past Grand Bahama Island. En route back 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.960 to Fort Lauderdale, Lieutenant Taylor gazed out at the cockpit 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.800 with concern at the fast approaching dark clouds that had 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.319 just appeared on the horizon. Before long, the storm front 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.320 was upon them, bringing heavy rain and strong westerly winds. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.240 The cloud ceiling dropped to around one thousand feet and 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:23.400 the visibility became limited to eight nautical miles, while underneath them, 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:28.680 the darkening sea began to froth and churn. After sixty 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:32.400 seven miles, the squadron made their final turn and began 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:37.240 to head back northwest. Or did they? It was around 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.960 three ten pm when Lieutenant Taylor reported that one of 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.079 its compasses had begun to malfunction, then the other stopped 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:51.000 working too. Taylor radioed Marine Captain Edward Powers, the trainee 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.760 pilot who was the acting flight leader, to confirm their location, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.840 but Powers, whose compass also didn't seem to be working, 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.560 didn't know hen that then the compasses in the other 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:18.080 planes began acting strangely too. Around three forty pm, Lieutenant 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.000 Robert Cox, a senior flight instructor flying with a different 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.320 squadron on an unrelated mission close to Fort Lauderdale, heard 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.280 an unexpected crackle over the radio, followed by voices he 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:36.560 didn't recognize. Confused, Lieutenant Cox asked the voices to identify themselves. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.600 This is FT twenty eight, came back. The reply. Lieutenant 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.800 Charles Taylor's call sign as Cox later recounted Taylor explained 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.280 that his squadron was currently flying over some broken land, 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.479 which he identified as the Florida Keys, but their compasses 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:59.240 were malfunctioning and they needed help getting back to Fort Lauderdale. 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.520 Coxed him to keep the sun to their left and 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.040 just continue up the coast until they saw Miami. After 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.800 that it was an easy twenty miles further up to 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:13.679 Fort Lauderdale. Cox offered to fly down to chaperone them home, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.240 but Lieutenant Taylor said there was no need. I know 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.280 where I am now, He said, to reassure him, don't 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:24.920 come after me. A short time later, Lieutenant Cox noticed, 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:29.240 to his dismay that Flight nineteen's radio transmissions weren't getting 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.959 stronger as they should have done if they were heading 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.800 in the right direction. They were fading. He realized then 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.240 that whatever islands Taylor said he and his squadron had 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.040 been flying over, they weren't the Florida Keys. Around four 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:49.200 twenty five PM, a flurry of confused messages were exchanged 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:54.319 between Flight nineteen and the Fort Lauderdale base, and increasingly 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.880 panicked Taylor asked if anyone had radar that could pick 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.640 up the group's location to help, God made them home. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.400 With no such technology available at the base, Twenty other 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.920 facilities were contacted from land bases to coast Guard vessels 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.920 to see if anyone else could help, but thanks to 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:17.800 some communication issues and static interference from Cuban radio stations, 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.000 no one could get a handle on the planes. Around 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:28.640 four thirty PM, Lieutenant Robert Cox lost contact with Taylor's plane. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.680 About the same time, AIRCA Rescue Task Unit four, a 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.680 specialized unit for rescuing naval seamen at Fort Everglades in Florida, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.880 picked up Taylor's transmissions. By now, Taylor had taken over 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.120 the lead of Flight nineteen and had instructed the squadron 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.280 to fly north to see if they were over the 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.200 Gulf of Mexico. They continued on that heading for thirty 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.240 minutes until Taylor conceded that they likely weren't over the 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.880 Gulf of Mexico at all, and now night was descending, 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.439 and neither Lieutenant Taylor or anyone else had any idea 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:14.679 where they were. As the Naval base at Fort Lauderdale 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.679 scrambled to get some assistants out to Flight nineteen, Lieutenant 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.360 Taylor was asked to switch his radio to the search 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.640 and rescue frequency, which would make it easier to track them, 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.840 but Taylor refused since any change of frequency ran the 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.880 risk of him losing contact with the other planes. At 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.880 six o four p m, believing they needed to go 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.359 further east before trying to head north to Fort Lauderdale, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.440 Lieutenant Taylor was overheard telling his pilots to turn around 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:48.160 yet again and head east once more. Meanwhile, ground units 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.400 were finally beginning to piece together where the squadron might 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.400 be exactly. It appeared they had somehow ended up well 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.560 north of the Bahamas and a long way out to sea, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.480 but by then Flight nineteen's radio transmissions were growing almost 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.800 too faint to hear, and their fuel supplies were dwindling. 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:11.680 At six twenty pm, another message came through from Lieutenant Taylor. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.440 All planes close up tight. We'll have to ditch unless landfall. 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.120 When the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:26.120 go down together. Then his radio went silent. Just after 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.160 seven pm, one final message was picked up, coming from 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.720 one of the trainee pilots. Everything looks strange, he said, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.320 even the ocean. It looks like we are entering white water. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:46.080 Then all communication with Flight nineteen was lost, but things 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:51.080 were about to get even worse. Just before seven thirty PM, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.360 two PBM Arina planes specially equipped to land on water, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.640 were dispatched from a base roughly one hundred and fifty 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.320 miles north of Fort lauder Dae in an effort to 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.800 try and locate the lost squadron. Twenty minutes into its flight, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.280 as it neared the edges of the Bermuda Triangle, one 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.000 of the Mariners and its thirteen man crew suddenly fell 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.360 off radio contact. A ship in the vicinity would later 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.160 report seeing a sudden burst of flames in the sky, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.320 reaching about one hundred feet in height. By the time 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.000 a search team arrived at the site, there was no 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.160 trace of the Mariner or its thirteen man crew. The 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.320 second Mariner was ultimately forced to return home empty handed. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.680 Over the next five days, the Navy, along with the 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.360 Army and Coast Guard, mounted what became the largest air 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.800 sea search rescue that had ever been conducted at that time. 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.880 Hundreds of ships and planes covered more than two hundred 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.080 thousand square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.400 of Mexico looking for any sign of the twenty seven 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:03.680 missing men. Various reports of flares, strange lights, life jackets, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.720 oil slicks, and rafts being found. All turned out either 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.359 to be non existent or unrelated debris. No traces of 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.120 Flight nineteen and its fourteen crew members or the Mariner 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:27.840 and its crew were found. Within days of Flight nineteen's disappearance, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.679 the Navy convened an investigation board, which focused on the 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.000 testimony of those involved in the search, as central question 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.040 was how could such an experienced pilot as Lieutenant Charles 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.919 Taylor have so badly mistaken where he and his squadron was. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.679 The investigation concluded that somehow the compass equipment of Taylor's plane, 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.560 along with at least one of the others, had failed, 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.120 and that the worsening weather meant the flight crews were 0:17:56.200 --> 0:18:00.879 unable to determine their position by sight. Decided that the 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.040 planes eventually ran out of fuel and ditched into the 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.520 rough seas, the conditions of which were unfavorable for survival. 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.359 But the report also criticized Lieutenant Taylor, concluding that he 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:20.440 became hopelessly confused, suffering something akin to a temporary mental aberration, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.159 and was guilty of faulty judgment. What made it all 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.600 the worse was that some of the lost crew were 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.439 just teenagers, and many, including Taylor himself, were veterans of 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.880 World War II, which had only ended three months earlier. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.439 Catherine Taylor, Charles Taylor's mother, was extremely unhappy with the 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.440 Navy's official version of events. Determined to get to the 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.960 bottom of the mystery, she posted one thousand dollar reward 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.679 almost twenty thousand dollars in today's money for information leading 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.360 to the recovery of her son, wrote over two hundred letters, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.040 and conducted forty eight interviews with people involved with the 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.560 rescue effort. She discovered not only was there a standby 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.320 plane which could have been sent out quickly from Fort Lauderdale, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.919 but also that Lieutenant Cox, the pilot who first realized 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.000 Flight nineteen was in trouble, had immediately requested, on returning 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.600 to base, that he be allowed to take the plane 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.600 and fly northeast, confident that he could locate the squadron. 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.359 His request was denied by Lieutenant Commander Donald Paul, the 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.480 officer in charge of the training flights. Commander Paul had 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.960 been unconvinced of the severity of the situation and thought 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.439 that sending an additional plane without an accurate fix on 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:45.600 Flight nineteen would only complicate matters. In nineteen forty seven, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.240 Catherine Taylor brought her information to the Board for Correction 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.840 of Naval Records and was rewarded for her tireless lobbying. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.119 The findings of the official report were changed. Lieutenant Charles 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.080 Taylor was cleared of personal blame for the disappearance, which 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:07.000 was instead attributed to reasons or causes unknown. It has 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.080 been the official word on Flight nineteen ever since, and 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.960 for a while the public forgot about the tragedy. That 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.960 is until nineteen sixty four, when an article was published 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:23.600 by American sci fi author Vincent Gaddis in Argossi Magazine, 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:38.880 which noted some unusual findings. In his nineteen sixty four article, 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.960 Vincent Gaddis connected a long chain of mysterious disappearances involving 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.639 ships and aircraft within the triangle bounded by Florida, Bermuda 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.359 and Puerto Rico, arguing that the previous one hundred and 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:57.760 fifty years revealed a disturbing pattern of unexplained events. It 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.919 was titled the Deadly Bermuda Triangle, and the name immediately 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.760 took hold in the public imagination. The region's eerie reputation 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:11.119 was boosted again in nineteen seventy four when Charles Burlitz, 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.400 a chronicler of supposed paranormal phenomena, published The Bermuda Triangle, 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.840 which quickly became a best seller. It proposed that the 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:25.040 mysterious ship and aircraft disappearances were linked to a portal 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.720 used by aliens to travel between different dimensions, and that 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.800 these aliens deliberately abducted ships and planes from the triangle 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:38.320 for study. Most incredibly of all, he claimed the activity 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.880 was linked to the remnants of an ancient yet advanced 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:47.560 civilization from the lost island of Atlantis. Burlit's claims were 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.600 challenged by a number of writers, not least of all 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.159 his bogus claim that one of Lieutenant Taylor's messages to 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.280 Lieutenant Cox had included the line they looked like therefrom 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:04.120 outer space regardless. In nineteen eighty four, Charles Burlitz doubled down, 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:09.720 publishing a follow up book titled Atlantis The Lost Continent Revealed, 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.919 which proposed that Atlantis had been in the middle of 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.719 the North Atlantic. He alleged that a diver had located 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.520 a massive submerged pyramid near the Bahamas, but would not 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.479 reveal the coordinates. He also claimed that an island had 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.320 emerged from the Atlantic Ocean in eighteen eighty two, complete 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.520 with bronze artifacts, but the log of the ship which 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.200 discovered it had been destroyed in the London Blitz during 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.879 World War II. His outlandish claims were based on evidence 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:44.399 that was flimsy at best and non existent at worst, 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.560 but by then outlandish speculations surrounding the Bermuda Triangle were 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:55.359 embedded in the zeitgeist. In Steven Spielberg's nineteen seventy seven 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:59.040 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the crew of 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:03.400 Flight nineteen was shown reappearing after being abducted by aliens 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:09.200 decades after their disappearance without having aged. The so called 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:14.160 Bermuda Triangle also became the subject of numerous television programs 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:17.480 and appeared in the lyrics of songs by artists ranging 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.359 from Fleetwood Mac to Barry Manilow. The story of Flight 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:26.240 nineteen even featured in an episode of Scooby Doo. Then 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.280 in the summer of nineteen ninety, it seemed as if 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:40.159 the mystery of Flight nineteen had finally been solved. In 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:46.119 nineteen ninety, former helicopter pilot Vietnam veteran and aviation investigator 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:49.320 John Meyer believed that he'd found one of the missing 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:54.480 Avenger aircraft from Flight nineteen. Starting out in nineteen eighty two, 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.639 Maya scrutinized the squadron's flight plan, radio transmissions, and the 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.720 weather on the day of the disappearance, convinced that he 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.760 could find the sunken airplanes. Part of his conviction came 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.320 from reports by two ships that claimed to have seen 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:13.119 distress flares within five hours of each other. The sightings 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.600 occurred in an area when no search aircraft were believed 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:21.520 to be operating shortly after Flight nineteen vanished. Three days later, 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:25.280 another ship spotted some blinking lights on the water, but 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:29.879 discounted them as coming from another vessel. Meyer believed they 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.960 were from Flight nineteen and calculated that one of the 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:36.159 planes came down into the sea thirty miles off the 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:41.400 Florida coast near Cape Canaveral. Meyer also discovered that one 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:45.639 of the Flight nineteen planes, piloted by Captain William Stivers, 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:48.920 had been taken out in the morning before taking off 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:53.160 again as part of Flight nineteen without being completely refueled, 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:56.720 meaning it may well have ditched in the ocean before 0:24:56.840 --> 0:25:01.199 the other four planes. Maya also spent calculated that at 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:04.520 least some of the crews had ditched successfully and were 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:07.960 alive in the water for some time, but it was 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:12.040 only after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:15.600 from Cape Canaveral in January nineteen eighty six that the 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.399 possibility of finding a Flight nineteen aircraft became a reality. 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:22.880 Some of the Shuttle debris had fallen in the same 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:26.960 area where Meyer believed the first Flight nineteen plane had ditched. 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:31.280 NASA was forced to launch a massive underwater search and 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:36.400 salvage operation to recover the wreckage of Challenger. During that operation, 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:40.160 the recovery team detected what appeared to be the wreck 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:45.360 of an aircraft submerged beneath four hundred feet of water. However, 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:48.760 believing it to be a twin engine DC three, they 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:52.520 ignored it. But for John Meyer, it was just too 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:57.159 much of a coincidence, and so in August nineteen ninety, 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:03.120 Meyer and an associate, Larry Schwartz, formed Project nineteen. Together 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:07.520 with the assistance of the NBC TV show Unsolved Mysteries. 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:12.760 They convinced Harbor Branch Oceanographic for HBO, who'd overseen the 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:15.560 search for the Challenger, to take another look at the 0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:19.640 apparent plane wreck. This time they sent a camera down 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:24.640 to investigate it properly. Incredibly, it wasn't a DC three 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:28.960 after all, but a TBM avenger like the planes of 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:35.680 Squadron Flight nineteen. HBO also succeeded in bringing the casing 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:39.480 of one of the plane's engines to the surface, but sadly, 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:43.280 no identifying marks could be found on it. But on 0:26:43.400 --> 0:26:46.879 reviewing the footage, something was found etched onto one of 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:52.240 the plane's wings what looked like the number two zero nine. 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:57.840 Captain Stivers's plane was numbered seven three two zero nine. 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:02.120 The similarity was striking, but not enough to convince Ted Darcy, 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:05.800 an ocean salvage specialist who was brought in to provide 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:09.679 a second opinion. Although he confirmed it was indeed an 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:14.720 avenger from the era of Flight nineteen's disappearance, Darcy suspected 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:17.119 it was a plane that was known to have crash 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:21.320 landed on the aircraft carrier USS Solomons before later being 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:25.520 dumped overboard. But when Meyer looked into the history of 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:30.280 the USS Solomons, he was convinced Darcy was wrong. Not 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:33.600 least of all because the crash on the USS Solomons 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:44.800 didn't happen anywhere near the area in question. In August 0:27:44.960 --> 0:27:48.840 nineteen ninety one, a year after discovering the Avenger off 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.640 the coast of Cape Canaveral, John Meyer and Project nineteen 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:57.399 were broke. After a decade investing everything he owned in 0:27:57.400 --> 0:28:01.160 pursuit of solving the Flight nineteen mystery. It exhausted all 0:28:01.200 --> 0:28:04.239 his money and energy. The only thing that could make 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:06.800 any of it worth while was to prove once and 0:28:06.840 --> 0:28:09.040 for all that he really had found one of the 0:28:09.080 --> 0:28:14.000 missing plans. To that end, he and Larry Schwartz convinced 0:28:14.080 --> 0:28:18.200 Marine Land, a local marine park, to funder complete extraction 0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:21.720 of the mystery plane wreck with the intention of clarifying 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:25.000 the exact number etched into the wing, on the one 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:28.720