General

The Ghost L-8 Blimp: Navy Crew Mysteriously Disappeared

Published

3 years ago

April 13, 2021

Ghost ships have been a facet of history since humans first began to explore the world’s vast oceans. Vehicles lost under mysterious circumstances, ghost ships evoke a sense of mystery and loss.

One such lonely vessel haunted the Arctic for decades, before being lost to the endlessly churning icebergs. There are hundreds of similar stories, ships and crews lost to the enigmatic waters.

But ships are not the only vehicles that can become ghosts. One of the strangest stories of ghostly vehicles comes out of World War II.

Blimps were used for a variety of purposes during the war, from reconnaissance to anti-submarine patrols to protection from dive bombers. They were useful because they could hover in place for long time periods and could also fly for long distances without needing to refuel.

In 1942, one such blimp, an L-8, went on a patrol off the California coast, never to return. What happened to the blimp, and her crew, remains an enduring mystery to this day.

A foggy morning

The morning of Sunday, August 16, 1942 was a foggy one. When the Navy blimp was set to take off from Treasure Island, her crew was reduced from three to two, owing to the increased weight caused by the mist that had settled on the skin of the balloon.

So, Lt. Ernest DeWitt Cody, the pilot, and Ensign Charles E. Adams took off that day, while Aviation Machinist’s Mate Third Class James Riley Hill remained on the ground. The decision would save Hill’s life.

Ernest Cody and Charles Adams

When the L-8 took off on its anti-submarine patrol, everything seemed normal. An hour and a half into the flight, Lt. Cody radioed back to base saying that they had seen a possible oil slick that warranted investigation. No further communications were heard from the doomed blimp.

At 11:15, witnesses saw the blimp floating in from the ocean, near San Francisco. The blimp drifted further to Daly City, where it was losing altitude.

It hit a bluff, and dropped a depth charge on a golf course. It hit roofs and a car before settling down on Bellevue Avenue. When rescuers rushed to assist the stricken crew, they found the cabin empty.

An enduring mystery

Investigators found that the life raft and parachutes were still in the cabin. The life jackets were missing. For some unknown reason, the pilot had set the motor to idle, and propped open the door.

The radio still worked, so there was a mystery as to why, if something went wrong, the pair didn’t call for help. Some believed that they were captured by an enemy submarine.

Others believed the crew got into some sort of fight and fell out of blimp. Still another story was that one member of the crew fell and accidentally pulled his would be rescuer down into the ocean.

The blimp finally came to rest atop Richard Johnston’s freshly waxed car in Daly City, Calif., just south of San Francisco. (National Archives)

Some have suggested that the two men were killed by a stowaway or abducted by a UFO or that they simply — somehow — fell out of the blimp.

There have even been “sightings,” including one by the mother of Lt. Cody, who claimed to have seen her son in Phoenix a year later with his eyes looking “peculiar, as though he were suffering from shock or a mental illness.”

But all these “suggestions” have remained just that — unproven suggestions.

In the end, despite the best efforts of navy and private investigators who have been examining the incident for the last 75 years, our knowledge of what happened to Cody and Adams remains the same as it was in 1942 when a navy spokesman admitted “Nothing the navy knows now has given a satisfactory explanation of what happened.”

After the war, it was returned to Goodyear, where it was put into storage before eventually being rebuilt in 1968 as one of the famous Goodyear Blimps, where it flew over Houston, Texas until it was retired in 1982.

The fate of the L-8’s crew remains a mystery, and probably always will.

Sources: Levy, Joan, “Daly City’s ‘Ghost Blimp’ remains mystery.” Archives.smdailyjournal.com. December 19, 2005. The Daily Journal. January 17, 2016; Price, Mark J. “’Ghost’ blimp mystery lingers.” Chron.com. August 18, 2002. The Chronicle. January 17, 2016

General

Experts Declare Experimental Cancer Vaccine Based On mRNA Technology Is ‘Safe and Effective’

Published

4 weeks ago

March 24, 2024

A new cancer vaccine based on Covid mRNA vaccine technology
which has yet to be clinically tested has already been declared “safe
and effective” by the British government.

Known as ‘LungVax’,
the new vaccine is being developed by the University of Oxford, the
Francis Crick Institute and University College London, and is expected
to be the first of a huge range of new cancer vaccinations available in
the near future.

Research scientists developing the ‘groundbreaking’ lung cancer
vaccine claim it will be effective in preventing up to 90 per cent of
cases by training the immune system to locate and attack early signs of
disease.

Lung cancer cells look different from normal cells due to having ‘red
flag’ proteins called neoantigens. The LungVax vaccine will carry a strand of DNA which trains the immune system to recognize these neoantigens on abnormal lung cells.

It will then instruct the immune system to destroy these cells and stop lung cancer.

Professor Tim Elliot, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Cancer
is a disease of our own bodies and it’s hard for the immune system to
distinguish between what’s normal and what’s cancer.

‘Getting the immune system to recognize and attack cancer is one of the biggest challenges in cancer research today.”

Elliot admitted the new vaccine is based on technology used to create the Covid vaccine.

‘This research could deliver an off-the-shelf vaccine based on
Oxford’s vaccine technology, which proved itself in the Covid pandemic.

Remarkably, given the disastrous health consequences for those
vaccinated with the experimental Covid vaccines, Eilliot praised the
mRNA roll out as a success.

‘If we can replicate the kind of success seen in trials during
the pandemic, we could save the lives of tens of thousands of people
every year in the UK alone.’

Researchers have been granted up to £1.7 million from Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation.

The team will receive funding for the study over the next 2 years to
support lab research and initial manufacturing of 3,000 doses of the
vaccine at the Oxford Clinical BioManufacturing Facility.

If successful, the vaccine will move straight into a clinical trials,
involving those at biggest risk of disease, such as current and former
smokers who currently qualify for targeted lung health checks in some
parts of the UK.

General

TV Host Demands Gov’t ‘Take Control’ of Elon Musk’s X To ‘Shut Down’ Conspiracy Theories

Published

4 weeks ago

March 24, 2024

Elon Musk’s X must be “shut down” by government because dangerous “conspiracy theories” are spreading on the social media platform, according to British TV host Jeremy Vine.

“If there any argument to say, and this will sound crazy, but
China does it, we’ve got to now take control of Twitter and shut it down
for the time being,” said Vine.

Vine made the comments earlier this week during a heated debate
regarding speculation surrounding the health and whereabouts of Kate
Middleton, the Princess of Wales.

‘We’ve now got to take control of Twitter’…..???????????? ⁦@elonmusk⁩ pic.twitter.com/GonHWCr90c

— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) March 20, 2024

Boomers have become obsessed with speculating that Middleton has died or is severely unwell and that the Royal Family is hiding it because she hasn’t been seen in months after an operation.

The manipulation of a series of photo of Middleton and her children also only served to fuel the rumors, as some sources close to the princess claimed she had been murdered by the royal family.

However, instead of dismissing the whole issue for what it is, a pointless distraction that will disappear once Middleton makes a public appearance around Easter, Vine called for draconian measures.

Modernity report:

Ah yes, the Communist dictatorship of China, which shuts down the Internet to clamp down on dissent and enhance its repression of undesirables.

That’s definitely who we should be mimicking, Jeremy.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, Vine’s show was a platform for some of the most vulgar, authoritarian drivel imaginable.

One show asked if children who are unvaccinated should be banned from schools or made to wear special badges.

Another asked, “Is it time to ban the unvaccinated from traveling?”

Vine has made a name for himself as being a dutiful amplifier of regime messaging, while his annoying side hobby of biking around London looking to film confrontations with motorists has also angered many.