Legends of the GHOST BLIMP

Legends of the GHOST BLIMP

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/missing-persons-mysteries--5624803/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, friends, Steve's talkton here with you. Welcome to our
latest video. In this episode, we're going to be taking
a look into what has become not only one of
the strangest disappearances, but also one of the strangest air
mysteries ever. We bring you the Strange Saga of the
Ghost blim Join us. On the morning of Sunday, August sixteenth,

(00:26):
nineteen forty two, a US Navy blimp prepared to take
off from Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay to search
for enemy submarines. The United States had entered World War
Two only nine months earlier, but Japanese subs had sunk
at least half a dozen Allied ships off the American
West Coast. Japan's frontline combat sub the I seventeen, had

(00:47):
even shelved one of California's largest oil drilling facilities in
February nineteen forty two. That was the first time a
country had attacked the US mainland since the British shell
New Orleans in the War of eighteen twelve. As a result, blimp,
designated as L eight, carried two three hundred and twenty
five pound Mark seventeen depth charges mounted on an external rack,

(01:08):
a thirty caliber machine gun, and three hundred rounds of ammunition.
The blimp's mission was to locate and sink any Japanese
subst's crew spotted off San Francisco. The name on the
side of this blimp was L eight, so that's how
we'll continue to refer to it from here on out.
Just to simplify things. EL eight had a crew of
only two men, and they did as they always had

(01:29):
and boarded the gondola and readied themselves for takeoff. On
board were Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody and Insign Charles Ellis Adams.
Both were respected veterans, both were married, and both had
exemplary records. Ernest Cody was the senior aviator of Airship
Patrol Squadron thirty two, who graduated from Annapolis in nineteen

(01:49):
thirty eight. He was a man who was later said
to be very in control and not want to lose
his head should an emergency situation arise. Though a man
of few words, he was described as capable, brave, and experienced.
His reputation was sterling and unblemished. In fact, his commanding
officer considered him one of the most capable pilots and

(02:11):
one of the most able officers under his command. Despite
all of this, though, it was acknowledged that he was
somewhat near to the lighter than air or LTA flying.
This is the term used for flying in things like
a blimp. He hadn't been designated a naval airship aviator
until December nineteen forty one, which meant he'd only been
officially flying for just nine months. He was only twenty

(02:34):
seven years old when he arrived at Moffatt Field in
February nineteen forty two as a Lieutenant Junior grade. Ernest
Cody' spore d mustache, most likely in an effort to
appear older. Although he was technically senior to his passenger,
Lieutenant Cody was eleven years younger than Instgnt. Charles Adams
and significantly less experienced. In fact, the BLIMS pilot had

(02:55):
only seven hundred and fifty six hours of LTA flight time,
while his co pilot, Charles l at twy two hundred
and eighty one hours. But the lieutenant did have one
notable achievement under his belt. In April nineteen forty two,
he had flown the L eight to deliver precious cargo
to the USS Hornet CV eight before the ship departed
for Doolittle's raid over Tokyo. Lieutenant Cody had held L

(03:18):
eight steady over the carrier's bobbing flight deck while three
hundred pound of spare parts were lowered for the B
twenty five bombers that would be used in the attack.
That maneuver, which required a fair degree of piloting skill,
contributed to his being promoted to lieutenant senior grade two
months later. Insinnt Adams had twenty years in buying LTA craft.
A veteran of the Navy's giant rigid airship program, he

(03:41):
served aboard the Los Angeles ZR III, the Akron ZRs four,
and the Macon ZRs five. Thirty eight year old crewmen
had even been decorated by the German government for rescuing
Hindenberg passengers after the airship caught fire and crashed. Though
Lieutenant Adams was more experienced in airships than us us
in Cody, he'd only received his commission the day before

(04:02):
their August sixteenth flight. In other words, he was making
his first LTA patrol as an officer. The L eight's
flight one oh one was scheduled flight to the Farland Islands,
thirty miles west of San Francisco, then head north to
Fort Rays and south to Montera Beach before returning to
Treasure Island. The patrol would take four hours, with Lieutenant
Cody and Insint Adams expected to return to base some

(04:25):
time between ten and ten thirty that morning. The flight
started out as routine and there was absolutely nothing to
indicate there was anything wrong or that the two men
would meet the faith that they did that hot August morning.
Air Ship Patrol Squadron thirty two was the first LTA
unit to be established on the West Coast after Japan's
attack on Pearl Harbor. Originally part of Goodyear's fleet of

(04:46):
advertising blimps, the EL eight had been purchased by the Navy,
shipped to Moffitttfield for assembly, and commissioned on March fifth,
nineteen forty two. Love eight, as the craft was also called,
was one hundred and fifty foot long blimp, similar to
the type Goodyear flies over athletic events even today. Held
aloft by one hundred and twenty three thousand cubic feet
of helium, the blimp had a maximum diameter of forty

(05:09):
seven feet at a cruising speed of forty three knots.
It was powered by twin one hundred and forty five
horsepower Warner super Scab Type five engines. This particular airship
had a reputation as an excellent flyer. In fact, it
had just been inspected four days before the flight was
scheduled to take off on August twelfth, and was deemed
to be in fine working condition and flying order. At

(05:31):
six o three am, L eight lifted off from Treasure
Island with Lieutenant Cody at the controls. Winds were light
and variable at four knots per hour, with a ceiling
of eight hundred to one thousand feet. The day was
slightly overcast, but visibility was good at three to five miles.
He could even see the towers of the Golden Gate
Bridge in the distance. The L eight's mission that morning

(05:53):
was to patrol within a fifty mile radius of San Francisco.
Once Lieutenant Cody passed over the Golden Gate, he headed
southwest toward the Farrellan Islands. At seven thirty eight am,
an hour and a half into the patrol, he radioed
the light's position as four miles east of those Islands.
Four minutes later, he sent a second message AM investigating

(06:13):
suspicious oilslick stand by. An oil slick could indicate an
enemy subloking below the waves, so it's not surprising that
la dropped two Mark four floatlights, which is a smoke
producing flare shaped like an arrow bomb, at seven forty
two am and began scrutinizing and searching the area. When
the Liberty ship Albert Gallaton spotted Laed's smoke flares, its

(06:35):
crew sounded a general alarm and manned its guns. Soldiers
from the nearby fishing trawler named the Daisy Gray were
worried that the blimp was about to depth charge an
enemy sub and quickly pulled in its nets, but no
bombs were dropped. Instead, the L eight circled the area
for more than an hour. The blimp was close enough
to Daisy Gray that the trawler's first mate could make

(06:56):
out the two men in the gondola. One of them
had dark hair. Though Late's identification had been removed from
its outer envelope, it was still painted on the control cabin. Besides,
there was no mistaking of blimp of this type as
Daisy Gray's and the Gallatin's crews watched through binoculars. The
blimp circled at two hundred to three hundred feet, at
one point descending to thirty feet above the waves, as

(07:18):
if its crew wanted a closer look at something. Then
shortly after nine am, L eight dropped, ballast, frozed, and
headed back towards San Francisco. Since blimp's regularly patrolled the
California coast, nobody thought the L eight's movements seemed unusual,
but that would be the last time the two Navy
airmen were ever seen or heard from. EL eight had

(07:39):
broadcast its last message at seven forty two am before
circling the oil sleet. After that, wing control tried to
re establish radio contact, but without success. Squadron headquarters wasn't
total of the blimps radio silence UNTI late twenty am,
but it wasn't unusual for blims to lose contact during
a patrol. Besides, the two veteran navymen would know that

(08:01):
they had more than enough fuel to return to base.
But when the LA still hadn't responded by eight to
fifty am, two vault Os two U kingfish or floatplanes
were sent to search for the blimp. Other aircraft in
the area were also alerted to be on the lookout.
The next indication of the L eight's whereabouts came at
ten forty nine am, when a Pan American clipper pilot

(08:24):
reported seeing the blimp over the Golden Gate Bridge. He
spotted nothing wrong with the ship, which appeared to be
under control and heading back to base. At eleven am,
well the Kingfishers reported seeing L eight three miles west
of Salada Beach, rising through the overcast at two thousand feet.
A few minutes later, the blimp began to descend, disappearing

(08:45):
into the clouds. Throughout all of this nothing indicated that
the laight was not in controlled flight, but two thousand
feet was close to the blimp's pressure height, the altitude
where its valves would automatically open invent helium to prevent
its gas cells from burst. Normally, the crewmen would have
avoided surpassing pressure height, but for some reason they had

(09:06):
apparently ignored this restriction. The next reported sighting of the
L eight was an Army P thirty eight pilot who
spotted the blimp near Mile Rock. He noticed nothing amiss,
assuming it was headed to Treasure Island, a few minutes later,
Richard Qualm, an off duty seaman headed for a day
at the beach, was driving along the Coastal Highway between
San Mateo and San Francisco when he spotted the L

(09:28):
eight in the distance and noticed that the blimp was
bent in the middle. Qualm stopped to snap a photograph.
His film would soon be confiscated by the authorities. At
approximately eleven to fifteen am, five hours after the L
eight had left Treasure Island, the blimp approached the shore
at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, about a mile south
of Fort Funston. A solitary bayther noticed the blimp hanging

(09:51):
fifty feet off shore. This person noticed that the blimp's
motors were eerily silent. The L eight's bag was sagging
noticeably as it moved broad side to the wind, only
fifty feet above the water. The blimp touched down briefly
on the beach, then moved inland until its gondol hit
the side of a hill, packing the starboard engine with
dirt and leaves and bending its propellers. The blow also

(10:14):
knocked one of the depth charges loose, which rolled down
hill before coming to the stop. Suddenly, three hundred and
twenty five pounds lighter. The L eight then rose cleared
the embankment and disappeared from sight. Sunday morning, golfers at
San Francisco's exclusive Olympic Club stopped to watch the blimp
limp by overhead. They probably didn't realize that the mating

(10:34):
depth charge could only be detonated by water pressure, which
is why they gave it a wide berth. One club
member reported having seen a parachute descending from the L
eight while the blimp was still offshore, and he wasn't
the only one to see something of the crew. Seventeen
year old see E Taylor told the San Francisco Call bulletin,
I put my binoculars on it and could see figures

(10:56):
inside the gabin. By that time, thousands of people were
watching the blimp float inland. Members of the Daily City
Fire Department, who were burning brush on a nearby hill,
gave chase and were soon joined by local police, Good Samaritans,
and what the press described as a posse of lookie loose.
The L eight then descended toward Daily City, a suburb

(11:16):
two blocks south of San Francisco's county line, striking the
roofs of several homes. Ethel Appleton heard the blimp's drag
line scrape across the rooftop instinctively grabbed her eight year
old daughter, concerned for their safety. When Richard L. Johnston,
who was polishing his car in front of his house,
noticed the partially deflated blimp overhead, he rushed to protect

(11:36):
his mother. At eleven thirty am, the L eight came
to rest in the middle of the four hundred block
of Bellevue Avenue. You couldn't have lifted it down any
easier than it dropped on Bellevue, said Deputy Marshall Shawn
Wood of Daily City's Fire Department. This wasn't exactly true, though,
as the blimp's cabin actually bumped its nose into utility
pole in front of the Johnston home, breaking off the

(11:58):
cross arm. The force of col swung the blimp's tail
into the electrical wires, sending a shower of sparks to
the ground. Fortunately, the L eight's fuel supply for the
engines didn't ignite, but its envelope was punctured and the
airships led to the ground, tail first, slowly deflating atop
Johnson's freshly waxed car. One of the first people on
the scene was William Morris, a volunteer fireman who lived

(12:20):
next door to Johnston. It was a miracle she didn't
catch fire when she struck those telephone wires, Morris commented.
The l eight nded the hood of Morris nineteen twenty eight,
Dodds sedan and Bennett's headlight. Morris rushed to aid the
blimp's crew as sirens blared and the air filled with
escaping helium, but when the fireman picked inside the gondola,
he was surprised to find that the door was opened

(12:42):
and nobody was in the cabin. Daily City fireman Thomas
O'Brien also found the gondola empty, but noticed that the
door of the cabin was latched open and the microphone
for the Bogan Hailer, a loudspeaker system used to communicate
with surface ships, was dangling outside the doorway. Fireman soon
surround the blimp, slashing its civil open and effort to
free the crew they thought must be trapped inside, but

(13:05):
they saw no sign of Lieutenant Cody or usn atoms.
As a precaution, authority set up a perimeter around the
crash site and Farming lashed the remaining depth bomb to
the gondola. Later that day, forty men from nas moffatt
Field and another fifty from a nearby army post set
out to locate the missing depth charge. They had retrieved
it by three pm, but unfortunately, the two men who

(13:28):
were originally aboard, Lieutenant Ernest Cody and Ensign Charles Adams,
were still nowhere to be found. How two naval officers
vanished from one of the most heavily trafficked areas between
San Francisco and the Farland Islands, while their blimp was
being tracked by ships and planes, not to mention civilians
on the ground, remains a mystery. Words soon surfaced that

(13:50):
warm coffee and a half eaten sandwich had been found
in the control car, a rumor that later proved to
be untrue, but a hat belonging to one of the
crewmen was discovered resting on the flight controls and the lights.
Radio was in perfect working order. So why hadn't the
men communicated they needed help or reported what it was
that was happening to them. They had full use of

(14:11):
their radio to be able to give a detailed log
of events, even if they were in grave danger or
came across perilous conditions. They were perfectly able to call
for help and or backup should they have had the need,
so why hadn't they An inspection soon revealed that all
three of Laight's parachutes were still on board, along with
its single life raft. Two of the blimps five smoke

(14:33):
bombs were missing, but those who were accounted for because
the crew had used them to mark the oil slick
mentioned previously. A briefcase containing classified material was found behind
the pilot's seat. It was noted that the light's engines
were in perfect working order, The ignition switches were on,
and the blimp's instruments and flight controls operated normally, with

(14:54):
four hours of gas remaining in the fuel tanks. In
other words, there was nothing, so however, wrong with the light,
except that it lacked a crew. True, two of the
three life jackets carried on board were missing, but regulations
required the two men to wear life jackets while patrolling
over water. It's not surprising that these life jackets would
disappear along with them. All parts of the subsequent investigation

(15:18):
point to the fact that there was nothing at all
about the blimp that was not in full working order,
They had ample fuel, they had full use of their
radio and broadcasting equipment, and their engines were in great
working condition. What in the world could possibly happen to
Ernest Cody and Charles Adams? And how quickly would it
have had to happen in order for them to have
gone from being perfectly fine and completely on course to

(15:41):
not communicating and then disappearing without a trace. It seems
there wasn't even time for them to do anything or
call for anyone. But how is this possible? Did the
thought not occur to them as something took them by surprise?
Now this is all speculation as to this very day.
There's not a single question about this bizarre and seemingly
unexplainable series of events which led to the disappearance of

(16:03):
two decorated and honored veteran Navy men, which have been
answered no answers at all in the slightest since the
event took place. Despite that many many investigations into all
aspects and areas of the disappearance by several different top
ranking officials working for several higher up government agencies, the
only thing that was slightly strange was that the blimp's
batteries were drained and part of its fuel supply had

(16:26):
been dumped. Normally, a blimp wouldn't dump fuel unless it
needed to increase buoyancy in a hurry. Since the L
eight didn't seem to have that problem, it wasn't clear
why fuel had been lost and its engines idled. The
US Navy immediately launched an extensive search for the two
missing men, air raid wardens and San Mateo County Highway
Patrol and spent the night combing the area where the

(16:48):
light had drifted ashore. For the next three days, Navy
ships and planes, assisted by the Coast Guard, searched the Pacific,
but despite calm seas and good visibility, there was still
no sign of the men anywhere. The Navy notified the
men's wives that they were officially listed as missing. Asked
whether the L eight could have been attacked by the enemy,

(17:10):
a Navy spokesman responded, that's very remote. Moffatt Feel's commanding officer,
Commander Donald M. Mackie, said that he was at a
complete loss to explain the mystery, and a second spokesman
echoed his assessment. Nothing the Navy knows now has given
a satisfactory explanation of what happened. Two days later, the

(17:30):
Navy convened the Board of Investigation under Commander Francis Connell.
This seven day inquiry took testimony not only from Navy
personnel but from civilians, had eventually established that no fire,
no submersion, no misconduct, and no missiles struck the L eight.
Witnesses from the Daisy Gray and the Gallaton testified that
during the time they ever watching the blimp, its crew

(17:52):
was aboard, the engines were running, and they saw no
one fall from the cabin. Somewhat ironically, the Gallatin would
be sunk in Jane Gruary nineteen forty four by I
twenty six submarine operating in the same waters where the
L eight had been patrolling two years before. Despite calling
thirty five witnesses forth for this inquiry, they could find
no answers to even the most basic questions. Why did

(18:15):
they stop broadcasting if the radio was working, what caused
the two men to leave their airship seemingly in mid flight,
and what happened between the time they spotted the oslick
off the Farlands at seven forty two am and the
point when the L eight came a short ocean beach
around eleven fifteen am. There are many theories as to
what could have happened to Lieutenant Cody and insignt Adams,

(18:38):
but we have no way of proving or really disproving
any of them. Some say they were captured by Japanese submarine,
others that they respies for the Japanese government and rendezvous
with an eyeboat to escape. A stoleway had overpowered the
two men and then somehow vanished as well. Their disappearance
was an a wof scheme gone awry. One crewman murder

(19:00):
the other over woman and dumped his body, then fell
overboard himself. A rogue wave swept both men away, and
the L eight had temporarily dipped into the ocean, washing
away both men. Again, those are just some of the
wild theories put forth. There are even some who believe,
in fact, maybe many who believe this last theory, and

(19:21):
that's that the two men were abducted in flight by aliens.
According to researchers and historians who have covered this strange
disappearance extensively in the years since it happened, one of
the most puzzling things to investigators was why the light's
crew failed to broadcast a radio message after citing the
oil slick at seven forty two am, And if one

(19:42):
of the crew had fallen from the cabin while investigating
the oil slick, why didn't the other man radio for help.
If both men were still on board when the L
eight headed back to San Francisco around nine AM, what
led to their disappearance Later, Otto Gross, who had been
researching the disappearance of Laight's crew since two thousand and nine,
believes he's found the answer. His theory, which is detailed

(20:05):
at his website, ghostblimp dot Com, is that the blimp
had been secretly testing experimental radar and poorly shielded microwaves
overpowered the men, causing them to tumble out the cabin.
Otto Gross's claim is speculative, however, since no hard proof
has ever been uncovered that the L eight was testing
any kind of experimental equipment on that doomed flight. Remember, too,

(20:28):
there were top secret documents left inside the cabin. Whatever
caused this disturbing disappearance probably occurred between their last radio
broadcast and when the PanAm crewman spotted the blimp above
pressure height at ten twenty am As the Navy's Board
of Inquiry concluded, careful analysis of the evidence indicates no
reason for voluntary abandonment of the airship. The Board therefore

(20:51):
believes that abandonment was involuntary, as the findings from the
Naval inquiry suggest. There may have also been issues with
the safety latch on the L eight's door. Doubts as
to the fastening the safety locket take off and adequacy
of the latch suggests the possibility that the latch might
have been released accidentally, permitting the passenger to fall out.

(21:12):
Failure to use the radio or the life draft might
indicate the pilot hoped to recover his passenger very quickly.
The fact that both engines were stopped might be explained
by the pilot's attempt to slow the airship while heading
into a very light breeze. The open door latched full forward.
The microphone and radio headset hanging out the door lend
credence to this theory. In such an attempt, the pilot

(21:36):
himself might have gone overboard. No other adequate explanation offers
itself for the abandonment of an airworthy airship. The L
eight was quickly repaired and resumed duty as a training vessel.
When World War Two ended, the Navy returned the blimp
to the Goodyear Tir and Rubber Company, which refurbished its
cabin and renamed the Aircraft America. The blimp traveled around

(21:57):
the nation tellviising sporting events from nineteen sixty nine until
nineteen eighty two, when it was retired in two thousand
and three. Goodyear donated the control card to the Naval
Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, where it was restored. It
is now on display in the same configuration and markings
that had in August of nineteen forty two. The two

(22:18):
men were pronounced legally dead a year after their disappearance,
and their wives and families never received any kind of
answers at all regarding such as sad and tragic, not
to mention the very strange disappearance of these two honored
and dedicated naval officers. Well, folks, there you have it.
What do you think happened? I'd love to hear your

(22:39):
theories about the ghost of Blim leave them in the
comments section, but please be friendly and respectful. Meanwhile, be
good to yourselves at each other, Stay safe out there
As for me, I'll see you a little farther down
the trail. I'm Steve Stockton and i'll talk to you
next time.