Short (2:26) trailer of full film “The Swamp Ghost” . Short (2:26) trailer of full film “The Swamp Ghost” . Since the Swamp Ghost became somewhat of a regional attraction, Alfred didn't take too long to find the crash site. There was not even a scrap that washed ashore in the weeks after the incident either, and it seemed as if these two men had just disappeared into thin air. The exhibition of Swamp Ghost and its nose art joins a collection of more than 40 aircraft within the museum. Said Mike Gabriel: “My fervent hope was to do honor to the insignia and nose artwork that the Disney artists created back in the 1940s during the war, by doing a Swamp Ghost design that was totally convincing to the time in which the Swamp Ghost was flying. In 1943 the two crewmen were listed by the Navy as presumed dead, and to this day no trace of them has ever been found, their vanishing still a profound mystery. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:first').before(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:last')); The L-8 soared off towards Daly City, where it veered so low to the ground that it scraped over the roofs of houses, startling the occupants, as well as bouncing off of utility poles and trees. THE last surviving crew of the Swamp Ghost, navigator George B. Munroe has died in America as Papua New Guinea’s best known war relic is prepared to be shipped out of Lae today for the United States to be restored by a private collector. A locked briefcase containing secret military codes and orders that were to be destroyed in the event of capture was also still aboard, untouched and right where it should be behind the pilot’s seat. As he lined up to unleash his payload, the bomb bay doors malfunctioned. © 2009 - 2016. Ghost Mine season two contained everything one would expect to see in a Hollywood blockbuster, booby trapped tunnels, secret societies, gorgeous women, and an ending that very easily could have claimed the lives of the entire cast when the mine collapsed as they narrowly escaped its angry clutch. Why had they aborted their mission to the Farallon Islands and headed back to base without telling anyone? The mysterious vanishing of the L-8’s crew has gone down as one of the most bizarre and perplexing air mysteries of the ages, pored over by numerous authorities and amateur sleuths who have all come to absolutely no answer to the conundrum. Crew aboard the Albery Gellatin sounded the alarm and manned their positions just in case, and the crew of the fishing vessel cowered in fear of the blimp dropping bombs. Joy and Bo are no longer with us. For decades the plane was known only to a few locals in nearby areas. Divorce. In the wake of the pilotless crashed “ghost blimp,” the Navy immediately set up an investigation into the matter, calling in witnesses and any personnel directly related to the maintenance of the L-8, and a massive air and sea search of the area was carried out but nothing was turned up to explain the mysterious disappearance of the crew. The bomber is now on prominent display at the Pacific Aviation Museum. But shortly after the patrol turned north for the second leg of its journey, something very strange happened. Officially, the 13 crew and passengers - including senior traffic police officials and their families - went missing on an illegal 'joyride' on 11 June 2012, possibly for a … When the original crew was reunited with American troops, the members were immediately assigned to another aircraft and were flying again within a week, The Huffington Post reports. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul:not(:animated)').animate({'left' : '-300px'},1000,function(){}); Around this time, the crew embarked on a number of missions, usually on Lothal. But that's where the encouraging news stopped. The wreck was "discovered" by the RAAF in 1972; The aircraft will be relatively easy to recover ‘Swamp Ghost' is the last surviving intact B-17E; The crew had an arduous escape It could not be rationally explained how two experienced blimp crew could have suddenly vanished on a perfectly routine flight aboard a famously sturdy and reliable aircraft that had been deemed to be in perfect working order prior to take off, all without sending out a radio distress call and without being seen by anyone in the heavily travelled area they had been in. The crew is doing great! }). Swamp Ghost in Hawaii 2014. So, the pilot had to make a crash landing. In February 1942, after America's first heavy bomber offensive raid of World War II, a bullet-riddled U.S. B-17E bomber crash landed in a remote swamp in Papua New Guinea because it was running out of fuel. There is also the fact that at no point did any of the witnesses who had seen the blimp report having sighted anyone falling out of or otherwise leaving the L-8. One of the most straightforward theories is that they simply fell out. The 'Swamp Ghost' B-17 comes home, unveiled in Long Beach The inside of the "Swamp Ghost," a B-17 E Flying Fortress brought back to the U.S. after being stranded in a swamp in New Guinea during WWII. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:last').after(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:first')); The primary feature on the DVD tells, in documentary style, the story of this unique airplane and freezes its status in 2005. Pacific Wrecks’ Justin Taylan, a vocal critic of Swamp Ghost’s “illegal export”, said in a media statement from New York: “As if tied to its imminent export, the last living Swamp Ghost veteran, George Munroe, died last week in the US.” Born on March 21, 1918, in Moline, Illinois, Munroe graduated as an engineer, joined the US Army Air Corps and completed flight training but, due to a shortage of navigators, was assigned to that role. Aside from Kanan and Ezra, however, the fate of the other members of the Ghost crew were left pretty open-ended. The crew had two major problems: a punctured wing and the massive leaking of fuel. The National | A Site By. No bombs came, and the blimp continued to circle the area for full hour as the ships’ crews observed them through binoculars. jQuery('#shs_slider_cont').hover(function(){ clearInterval(shs); },function(){ shs=setInterval(function(){ shs_animate(); },7000); }); There is additionally the theory that they abandoned ship for some reason, but if that were the case why did they not send any form of radio transmission to that effect or deem it necessary to take their life-raft or any of their survival gear and what would cause them to have to suddenly abandon in the first place? It was assumed at the time that they were merely maintaining radio silence and it also was not particularly uncommon for blimps to temporarily lose radio contact while out on missions, so no one was particularly worried at first. Luckily, many other Star Wars stories across movies, shows and comics could pick up where Rebels.One of the more high-profile examples was Rogue One, which featured a callout to Hera serving as a pilot in the Battle of Scariff and even an on-screen cameo from her … On August 16, 1942, one such routine patrol took off from Treasure Island in the early morning hours. Swamp Ghost - episode: 412205 On February 23, 1942, following America's first heavy bomber offensive raid of World War II, a bullet-riddled U.S. B-17E bomber crash-landed in a remote swamp in Papua New Guinea. Eleven days later, the bomber departed California for Hickam Field in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This would explain all of the signs that point to whatever happened to the crew happening very suddenly. After the Feb 23, 1942, ill-fated Swamp Ghost mission, Munroe went on to fly more missions as a navigator for more than a dozen more missions. So, the crew tried to make its way back to Port Moresby, New Guineas’ capital city. The strange sight of the apparently free roving blimp floating and limping out of control was witnessed by people all over the area, and law enforcement trailed not far behind, wondering where it would inevitably come down. A giant container ship was discovered off the coast of Myanmar with no one on board and no clues as to where it came from. However, they were chased by several TIE/ln space superiority starfighters, and in the midst of the battle the shields of the Ghost were disable… The Swamp Ghost was due to return to the New Guinean capital city of Port Moresby, but there was no way that the crew could make that happen with a punctured wing and the massive leaking of fuel. Whatever was behind it, the Navy believes that it was likely not voluntary, with the Navy’s board of inquiry concluding: Careful analysis of the evidence indicates no reason for voluntary abandonment of the airship…the board therefore believes that abandonment was involuntary. var left_indent = parseInt(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul').css('left')) + item_width; Copyright © Mysterious Universe. Adding to the mystery is that none of the precautions the crew was meant to take in the event of an emergency had been taken. A check of the fuel showed that it had plenty, the radio worked perfectly, and the parachutes and lifeboat were stowed in their usual positions, as were the firearms that were aboard. Debby’s roommate at the time, James Anderson, was also killed by Mark Constantino. When it finally departed at 6:03AM, it did so minus the flight engineer, yet the mission was still considered to be on track and there were no reported problems as the L-8 soared out over the horizon headed toward the Farallon Islands, around 30 miles west off the coast of San Francisco. These are the cases that leave scant clues, very little trace of evidence, yet copious amounts of unanswered questions and bafflement. function shs_animate(){ When investigators were finally able to board that mysterious bomber that landed itself, they were left with more questions than answers. Aero Vintage Review - Swamp Ghost DVD by Scott Thompson, November 2008 [ Read review on Aerovintage] Swamp Ghost: B-17E 41-2446 was timely in 2005 when it was released; it is poignant now in 2008. All that could be ascertained was that the engines and the blimp in general were all in perfect working order. At the location of the L-8 was the fishing ship the Daisy Grey, and a Liberty ship, the Albert Gallatin, both of which observed the blimp drop flares in the area and proceed to circle the vicinity, obviously attempting to detect a possible sub in the area. He had a full team of salvagers and cameramen to oversee the process. We have two printing plants and the paper is simultaneously printed in the capital city of Port Moresby and the industrial city of Lae. Frederick “Fred” C. Eaton, Jr. had just spotted his target – a 10,000-ton enemy freighter. Similar to other reality shows about obscure jobs, including Texas Flip and Pawn Stars, Swamp Loggers followed the crew of close-knit people, some related, as they shared their business with viewers everywhere. jQuery('#shs_next').click(function(){ }); jQuery('#shs_slider_ul').css({'left':'0'}); Murder. The 13th season of Ghost Hunters premieres on April 8, marking its second straight year airing on A&E. The National is distributed five days a week from Monday to Friday. Swamp Ghost restoration at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor. However, why would two experienced blimp crew members simultaneously fall out of their aircraft, and what happened to the bodies? Frederick “Fred” C. Eaton, Jr. had just spotted his target – a 10,000-ton enemy freighter. Swamp Ghost restoration at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor. A US Navy blimp escorting a convoy in 1943. It was not until the 1980’s that efforts were made to remove the bomber from the swamp. Of course you can’t have such a strange disappearance without having talk about aliens as well, and alien abduction has absolutely been offered forth as an explanation. "Swamp Ghost" has the distinction of being the last intact and un-retired World War II-era B-17E bomber, complete with 121 bullet holes. Swamp Ghost was not with the squadron on that fateful day. The crew of nine survived, and over the next six weeks battled malaria and heat exhaustion as they made their way to safety. jQuery(document).ready(function() { David C. Tallichet’s* recovery of the B-17 High above recently captured Rabaul, New Britain, and piloting a fully loaded B-17E Flying Fortress, Capt. However, when at around 9AM radio contact had still not been achieved with the L-8, search aircraft were sent out to find it and a general broadcast was made to aircraft in the area telling them to keep an eye out for the rogue blimp. if(rcount < 3){ } jQuery('#shs_prev').click(function(){ Finally, the blimp came to a stop by crashing into a house on Bellevue Avenue, coming to rest on the family’s car as it slowly deflated from a puncture in a shower of sparks sent down by its nudge into electrical wires. Swamp Ghost - The Plane Today; Fact or Fiction? Besides the puncture and some minor damage to the blimp’s propellers from hitting obstacles the ship seemed to be in good working order. Did they abandon ship even though it was working perfectly? The outside of the gondola was completely dry, suggesting that it had not hit the sea at any time, and the ignition switches were still set to on, although the batteries seemed to be more depleted than they should have been. In the end, we may just have to resign ourselves to the fact that this is one weird case that is perhaps destined to forever elude us. On the imminent export of the Swamp Ghost, Mr Taylan said the airplane wreck was on the Lae dock awaiting export aboard the Pacific Pathfinder, most probably today. At around this same time, another witness on the ground saw the blimp and later reported that it had appeared to be “bent” in the middle. During the attack, the Swamp Ghost was hit, but the plain didn’t explode. The new guys are working out great. The search pilot lost sight of the blimp as it disappeared into some thick cloud cover, but the L-8 was seen again near a place called Mile Rock, this time by an Army P-38 pilot, who assumed it was merely heading back to base at Treasure Island. var item_width = jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items').outerWidth(); One such case revolves around the brave crew of a military blimp, who went out to sea to protect their country only for their aircraft to return to shore without them or even any sign of what could have possibly become of them. Correct and incorrect assumptions about the 'Swamp Ghost' The aircraft was named by its crew. The pilots and the flight engineer, two of 10 flight attendants, and 96 of 163 passengers died; 75 passengers and crew survived. There is also the idea that they had been involved in some sort of top secret testing of experimental radar that had gone awry. The National is the top-selling newspaper in Papua New Guinea. Not long after this sighting, at about 11AM, one of the Navy search planes that had been scouring the area for the blimp saw it soaring up to around 2,000 feet, which was the limit of it’s recommended maximum altitude and at the point where it becomes dangerous for the craft’s gas pressure. Paralysing car wrecks. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a scheduled flight from New York JFK to Miami.Shortly before midnight on December 29, 1972, the Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar crashed into the Florida Everglades, causing 101 fatalities. I think joy just became a grandparent so send her some good wishes! Correct and incorrect assumptions about the 'Swamp Ghost' The aircraft was named by its crew. shs_animate_next(); jQuery('#shs_slider_ul').css({'left':'-300px','width':item_width*total_width+10}); . During this time, the blimp made one very low pass about 30 feet over the waves, as if to get a better look at something it had seen, and at this point the crew could clearly be seen within the cockpit. There was nothing particularly strange or out of the ordinary about anything on board the L-8 except the fact that the gondola door had been unhinged and the eerie absence of anyone aboard. The crew did finally notice the situation taking place, but nowhere near in time to prevent the inevitable. THE last surviving crew of the Swamp Ghost, navigator George B. Munroe has died in America as Papua New Guinea’s best known war relic is prepared to be shipped out of Lae today for the United States to be restored by a private collector. var item_width = jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items').outerWidth(); This particular B-17 Flying Fortress (41-2446) was delivered to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on December 6, 1941-just one day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It was a very sad time for the guys. Did they meet with some unknown disaster and were so suddenly overpowered that they had no time to make preparations or send out a distress call? They survived six weeks of struggling on foot, fighting malaria and terrible heat. Headquartered in Port Moresby, it has offices in Five (5)centres: Lae, Mount Hagen, Kokopo, Madang and Goroka. The “Ghost Adventures” crew got way more than they bargained for when they grabbed their SLS and infrared cameras, EMF detectors, digital recorders and spirit box and headed to … Although it was unusual for a blimp pilot to go so high, the aircraft still appeared to be under pilot control and was flying smoothly. Most of you know that Oscar passed away a year ago. There are so many questions orbiting this strange case that it is hard to even know where to begin, and none of them have ever really been satisfactorily answered. Tags historical oddities modern mysteries mysterious disappearances mystery blimp strange disappearances unsolved mystery. The blimp was never out of sight of witnesses for very long and there was no evidence on the blimp at all that it had been attacked in any way by the enemy. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul:not(:animated)').animate({'left' : left_indent},1000, The crew was given a week's leave after spending six weeks walking out of the jungle.

jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:first').before(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:last')); }); World War II saw some of the greatest air battles in history. Right around the evening time when it happened, that’s when it really gets weird, and [my wife] Dale leaves me alone.” Rossington and the rest of the band and crew – 20 in all – survived their injuries but struggled for years with the aftermath. . "Swamp Ghost" has the distinction of being the last intact and un-retired World War II-era B-17E bomber, complete with 121 bullet holes. }else{ jQuery('#shs_slider_ul').css({'left':'-300px'}); Instead, it flew in shortly after the attack. Then, at 9AM the L-8 finished whatever it had been doing and headed off north back towards San Francisco, which was a bit odd as it had been scheduled to continue to the Farrallon Islands. When authorities arrived it was found that the cockpit was empty and there was no sign of the two men who had been aboard. It is a eerily puzzling vanishing that has evaded answers for decades and will probably continue to do so. Later analysis of Japanese documents after the war further proved that there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the vanishings. No explanation as to this sudden change of plans was given over the radio from the crew. Most of you know that Oscar passed away a year ago. . Additionally, there were no confirmed enemy subs in the area at the time, weather conditions had been favorable, and indeed even as the blimp had been in a free floating state there had been witnesses claiming to have seen people in the cockpit, although the Navy was confident that the crew had already been gone before the blimp had appeared over land. During the attack, the Swamp Ghost was hit, but the plain didn’t explode. After that, at 11:15 AM, the blimp was seen with its motors off and hovering 50 feet above the water near Ocean Beach while allegedly quite noticeably sagging. While the crew of the Swamp Ghost was redeployed on a new mission, their Flying Fortress was all but forgotten, about half-submerged in the distant swamp. As he lined up to unleash his payload, the bomb bay doors malfunctioned. Two life vests were missing, but this was to be expected, as blimp crew members were required to wear them at all times when operating above water, so two missing crew naturally equated to two missing life vests. David Tallichet, an antique plane collector, who had been a World War II air pilot himself, began the huge task. David C. Tallichet’s* recovery of the B-17 High above recently captured Rabaul, New Britain, and piloting a fully loaded B-17E Flying Fortress, Capt. It doesn’t make sense. Throughout this whole time efforts were being made to try to make radio contact with the L-8 in order to know their status, but were unable to get any response from the blimp. The crew was given a week's leave after spending six weeks walking out of the jungle. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul:not(:animated)').animate({'left' : left_indent},1000, } Swamp Ghost - The Plane Today; Fact or Fiction? function(){ Another idea is that they were captured by the enemy, but at what point? });

According to the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ), the main fuselage broke into four main sections and many other smaller pieces on impact. THE last surviving crew of the Swamp Ghost, navigator George B. Munroe  has died in America as Papua New Guinea’s best known war relic is prepared to be shipped out of Lae today for the United States to be restored by a private collector. One of the common ways to hunt for these evasive steel predators at the time was the use of blimps, which did patrols over the sea and escorted freighter convoys on the lookout for trouble. These patrols often took off and landed at an airfield located on Treasure Island, situated within the San Francisco Bay, from which they fanned out to seek and destroy enemy subs with their weaponry, such as onboard depth charges and .30-caliber machine guns. ... Two years earlier, in the course of Hagen's search, something happened that fixated him on the Swamp Ghost. Indeed, it would be the last anyone would ever hear from any aboard, period. Mysterious Universe is a property of 8th Kind Pty Ltd, History-Changing Discovery of Funerary Temple of Egyptian Queen and Dozens of Mummies, Why We Don’t Get to See the Really Good UFO Documents, The Strange Story of Nikola Tesla and the Aliens, Astronomers Identify the Fastest Ever Spinning Magnetar, Argentine Rancher Believes Aliens Mutilated His Cattle, Creator of Roswell Alien Autopsy Film Comes Clean (Again? The crew is doing great! As time went on and the war ended, no one thought twice about the Flying Fortress, and it was time to go home. It never was determined why the crew would have stopped their mission after seeing the oil slick and head back to San Francisco without notifying anyone over their fully functional radio. The blimp was the Airship L-8, also called the Love-8, with a scheduled three man crew consisting of Lieutenant Ernest Dewitt Cody, Ensign Charles Ellis Adams, and flight mechanic J Riley Hill, all experienced Navy veterans, but the flight was delayed when they were told the blimp was too heavy. For a short time, the crew was based at Wheeler Field in Wahiawa and flew patrol missions for the Navy until February 1942.In February 1942, Japanese Troops invaded Rabaul on New Britain and established a base. The crew and plane of "Flight 19." They are doing well, as far as I know. He had a full team of salvagers and cameramen to oversee the process. Then the pilot spotted a perfect place to make a crash landing. Get the MegaPack collection now for this great price. The crew of nine survived, and over the next six weeks, battled malaria and heat exhaustion to make their way to safety. However, the plane never reached its destination. The Swamp Ghost was due to return to the New Guinean capital city of Port Moresby, but there was no way that the crew could make that happen with a punctured wing and the massive leaking of fuel. Some strange vanishings seem destined to forever taunt us from beyond their veil of mystery. Flight 401 crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph. But once again, only one of the reality series’ original cast members is returning for the latest batch of episodes. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:last').after(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items:first')); When the original crew was reunited with American troops, the members were immediately assigned to another aircraft and were flying again within a week, The Huffington Post reports. var left_indent = parseInt(jQuery('#shs_slider_ul').css('left')) -item_width; Swamp Loggers ended its fourth and final season in 2012, but that doesn't mean the beloved cast is forgotten. So what happened to the crew of the L-8? Why is there no scrap of evidence of where the two men went?

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But that's where the encouraging news stopped. During one such heist, Jarrus and Syndulla decided to raid an Imperial supply convoy. Other theories are a bit more far-fetched, such as the idea that there had been a stowaway who had overpowered them and then disappeared as well, that one of the crewmen had murdered the other and then made an escape, that the two had simply gone AWOL, or that they had been hit by a rogue wave, but there is absolutely no evidence to support any of these wild ideas. In the wake of the pilotless crashed “ghost blimp,” the Navy immediately set up an investigation into the matter, calling in witnesses and any personnel directly related to the maintenance of the L-8, and a massive air and sea search of the area was carried out but nothing was turned up to explain the mysterious disappearance of the crew. The wind then blew the blimp along, and it briefly made contact with the beach before careening off back into the air to smash into a hillside to dislodge one of its depth charges before floating off over a gold course. var item_width = jQuery('#shs_slider_ul .shs_items').outerWidth(); Do you agree with the government’s decision for Fode students to attend classes fee-free? Many of the ships often have dead bodies or skeletons on board, hence the ‘ghost ship’ title, though sometimes the crew is still alive. According to the Pacific Wrecks website, Munroe will be buried at Arlington Cemetery with his wife Emily Sue. The transmission ended with the word “Standby..” It would be the last radio transmission the L-8 would ever make. Swamp Ghost in Hawaii 2014. Since the Swamp Ghost became somewhat of a regional attraction, Alfred didn't take too long to find the crash site. Explanations for sightings of Foo Fighters to UFOs are still debated, but there’s no arguing the B-17 “Ghost Bomber” incident was one of a kind. The crew's fate, in fact, is part of the plane's mystique. Aside from Kanan and Ezra, however, the fate of the other members of the Ghost crew were left pretty open-ended. It could not even be ascertained at just what point the men could have left the ship, although the Navy believes it was sometime between the last transmission and when the Pan Am pilot had seen them. } The wreck was "discovered" by the RAAF in 1972; The aircraft will be relatively easy to recover ‘Swamp Ghost' is the last surviving intact B-17E; The crew had an arduous escape ), Mysterious Encounters With Evil Gnomes, Imps, and the Tommyknockers. No SOS had been sent even though the equipment had been working, no weights had been dropped to adjust height in the case of engine failure, even though the engines worked just fine, and the parachutes and life raft had also not been deployed. The bomber is now on prominent display at the Pacific Aviation Museum. Why is it that no one ever saw any trace of anything amiss until that blimp finally came down in the middle of a suburb? He lived in retirement in northern Virginia and passed away peacefully on Jan 17, prior to his 92nd birthday. After wading through the terrible conditions, the crew caught malaria but with another stroke of luck, they were helped by a kind local man who nursed them back to health in his village. In the San Francisco Bay area of California, a whole fleet of blimps was dedicated to this purpose, which was directed from Moffett Field, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Eaton and his men were on their way back to base at Long Reach in Queensland, Australia, but they crashed into Agaimbo Swamp on February 23, 1942. The patrol was scheduled to last 4 hours, after which the L-8 would return to Treasure Island at around 10:30AM, and with fairly clear weather, good visibility, and everything appearing routine in every way, it was fully expected that the mission would be right on schedule. A little over an hour later, at 7:42AM, the L-8 gave a radio transmission stating that they had observed a suspicious oil slick approximately 5 miles east of the Farallons and were going to investigate for possible enemy activity.

function shs_animate_next(){ The year was 1942, and the seas were considered to be a dangerous place to be, prowled by enemy Japanese submarines that stalked through the cold depths of the Pacific and had sunk dozens of Allied ships along the west coast, as well as even shelling a California oil facility. In the wake of the pilotless crashed “ghost blimp,” the Navy immediately set up an investigation into the matter, calling in witnesses and any personnel directly related to the maintenance of the L-8, and a massive air and sea search of the area was carried out but nothing was turned up to explain the mysterious disappearance of the crew.