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September 9th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
The Goodyear Blimp is one of the most iconic aircraft in America. For decades, the tire company’s fleet of airships have been above sporting events all over the United States, dutifully giving us those epic pictures from high above the Earth.
While most of us know about the Goodyear Blimp, few of us know how it started — or how the very first blimp was the subject of one of freakiest aviation mysteries of all time.
The first few Goodyear Blimps were part of a group of airships known as the L-class blimp. The non-rigid craft were originally built by the Goodyear company in the mid-1930s to advertise the company name. However, as the 1930s became the 1940s, the United States entered World War II and blimps were needed by the military. Plus, it wasn’t as if tire companies had too many wares to sell the general public at that point in time, anyhow.
As Popular Mechanics reports, the U.S. Navy requisitioned all of Goodyear’s lighter-than-air craft. One of these was the Ranger, which was renamed the L-8 by the military.
On Aug. 16, 1942, the L-8 took off from Naval Station Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Its mission was to look for Japanese submarines off the California coast. At the helm were Lt. Ernest DeWitt Cody, 27 and Ensign Charles Adams, 38.
We don’t know a lot about what happened next. The L-8 took off at 6:03 a.m. Then, at 11:15 a.m., according to the Museum of the City of San Francisco, it was seen drifting to shore and setting off a depth charge. Later, it crashed into a row of houses in nearby Daly City.
Here’s the creepy thing, though — neither Lt. Cody nor Ensign Adams were in the craft.
Of course, the Navy conducted an investigation, but no sign of the two was ever discovered. There was no distress call, no sign of any problem — just a ghost blimp that crashed into a row of houses. As Jalopnik notes, the aircraft’s locked door was open and the safety bar was gone. Two of the three lifejackets were gone and one of the captain’s caps was still on the controls. Beyond that, there were no clues.
“The land search is completed. The area from the spot where the blimp first touched ground and its final resting place has been thoroughly covered,” a spokesman for the Twelfth Naval District said at the time. “The Navy is positive the men were not in the ship at any time during its derelict flight over land.”
“Nothing the Navy knows now has given a satisfactory explanation of what happened,” a spokesman added.
Source:
Source Article from https://worldtruth.tv/the-creepy-unheard-of-story-behind-the-goodyear-blimp-is-too-freaky-to-believe/
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