Project Nineteen and Final Mysteries

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hello, it's Richard McClain Smith here. Very excited to announce that this May I'll be heading to CrimeCon 2026 in Las Vegas, the world's number one true crime event. And I'd love to see you there. From May 29th to the 31st, thousands of true crime fans, investigators, journalists, podcasters, experts, and survivors will gather at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for an unforgettable weekend of live talks, exclusive panels, deep dives, and behind the scenes conversations. I'll be appearing throughout the weekend on Creator Row, so please come and say hello. And if you'd like to join me for my live session, Treasure, Betrayal and Death in Vegas, the Ted Binion Mystery. I'll be speaking at ten twenty AM on the Saturday morning. To get tickets, head to crimecon.com and use promo code UNEXPLANED for 10% off. Hope to see you there. For centuries, a large stretch of the North Atlantic Ocean from Florida's east coast to Bermuda and the greater Antilles Islands. was known to mariners as stormy and hurricane prone. But also Where sailors might lose contact with the natural world. And disappear without a trace. There's a story that in eighteen eighty one, the crew of the Ellen Austin, a cargo ship sailing from Liverpool to New York, spotted a seemingly abandoned vessel in the area. Emerging a thick bank of fog. Some of the Ellen Austin's crew are said to have boarded the ship and confirmed that it had indeed been abandoned. But all its cargo was still aboard. Having commandeered the mysterious ghost ship. A plan was made to take it with them to New York, alongside the Ellen Austin. But then a bad storm blew up. Separating the two ships for twenty four hours. When the ghost ship reappeared the next day. So the story goes. There wasn't a trace of its new crew. It's said that the Ellen Austin's captain then attempted to commandeer the vessel himself. But no sooner had he board it, another thick and blinding fog rolled in. Separating the two vessels once again. When the fog finally cleared. Ghost ship had vanished entirely. And was never seen again. In 1918, the giant transport ship USS Cyclops vanished sometime after departing Barbados, taking all 306 crew members with it. Its final transmission to shore before it vanished. was weather fair. Well Then in nineteen forty one. The Navy ship USS Proteus. carrying fifty eight passengers and a cargo of ore, from the Caribbean islands St. Thomas to Portland in Maine. Only a month later. Its sister ship, the USS Nereus, also disappeared, along with its sixty one passengers, while travelling the same route. Defined as anywhere between half a million and one and a half million square miles in size. This infamous region of the Atlantic has been credited with the deaths of over 8,000 people since the mid-19th century. At least fifty ships are known to have been lost there. Often in ways that defy explanation. This stretch of sea has had many names over the years. Devil C. The who do see. or the graveyard of the Atlantic. You might know it best as the Bermuda Triangle. When aircraft started to routinely fly over the area. They also began to disappear. In nineteen forty eight. A DC three commercial flight headed for Miami. Missing while flying over the area. twenty nine passengers and two crew members on board. In the same year, a British Avro Tudor plane called Star Tiger also vanished there. With thirty one people on board. No wreckage or hint of what happened to either plane was ever found. Another plane called Star Aerial, en route from Bermuda to Jamaica, lost communications with air traffic control over the very same treacherous section of ocean. The weather had been fine. And there were no indications of any problems on board. Then There is the story of Flight Nineteen. You're listening to Unexplained. And I Richard McClain. It was a cold and gloomy Decem afternoon in nineteen forty five, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Down at the high school, rows of teenagers sat quietly at their desks, as their teacher, Mrs. Taylor, Chalked up the key points from the lesson on the blackboard. Tom was suddenly pierced by a knock on the classroom door. The students looked up to see a school administrator hurriedly open the door, then dash over to Mrs. Taylor. She had a small envelope in her hand and handed it to the teacher. A look of concern spread across Mrs. Taylor's face as she took the envelope and pulled out a thin piece of paper from inside it. The students watched in silence, as the teacher's eyes quickly the notes Then something seemed to fall inside her. and her knees buckled. Catherine Taylor's eyes began to dampen. Turn away from the class. Turning back a moment later. In a shaky voice, she informed her students that regrettably, their lesson would be ending early that day. Then she quickly her belongings. And hurried out of the room. Catherine Taylor's son was Lieutenant Charles Taylor. A seasoned twenty eight year old pilot in the US Navy. Telegram she received. Informed her in stark, simple detail. that earlier that day, while undertaking a routine training flight, Her son had been lost at sea. and wasn't likely to ever be seen again. What exactly happened to him? is considered by some to be one of the strangest aviation mysteries of all time. On the morning of december fifth, nineteen forty five, Conditions at the Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were calm, with only a few isolated showers breaking to the east over the Atlantic. Although weather reports warned of an incoming storm front. Lieutenant Charles Taylor, who'd accumulated over two and a half thousand flying hours, including sixty-one on combat missions in the Pacific Theater during World War II, had been put in charge of a squadron of five Grimman TBM Avengers. A three person torpedo bomber plane. The mission of Flight 19 was to undertake a routine navigational training flight over water. From their base at Fort Lauderdale. before takeoff. A senior operations officer briefed the crew on their exercise. It consisted of a practice bombing run over a small group of rocks near the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. Just fifty six miles from base. After that, the crews were instructed to fly up over the northern islands of the Bahamas before turning east and returning to Fort Lauderdale. But Lieutenant Taylor wasn't feeling right. Having arrived late to the briefing. When it was over, he asked if he could drop out of the flight and have someone else take his place. Why? He didn't know exactly what to say. Only that he'd just rather not be in the air that day. Perhaps it was just because he'd had a late one the night before, as some have suggested. Or perhaps it was something a little less tangible that had rattled him. Despite his efforts to sit the operation out. Since Lieutenant Charles Taylor was the only qualified instructor on the base that day, There was no other option but for him to lead the exercise. It was Taylor's job to assess the performance of the thirteen students flying the other aircraft. Be there to help guide them back on course if they became lost. It was a fairly straightforward exercise. given that the trainees weren't novices, but experienced flyers who'd all accumulated more hours in the air than the Federal Aviation Administration requires today for a commercial licence. This exercise would mark the end of their training. Before takeoff, the planes were fueled and checked for any maintenance issues, with each plane getting a clean bill of health. Except for one strange detail. All five of the bomber planes were missing their clocks. But since all the pilots were thought to have their own watches, it was decided this wouldn't be a problem. And so at two ten PM One by one, flight nineteen. Lined up at the end of the Naval Air Station runway at Fort Lauderdale. And took off into the skies. Crews, a mixture of marines and naval aviators, followed a course that took them south east over the Atlantic, to the hens and chickens shoals in the Bahamas, There they completed the practice bombing run without incident. Then they set a course heading south east. They were to follow this for 67 miles, then turn and head northwest for another seventy-three miles. which would take them past Grand Bahama Island, en route back to Fort Lauderdale. Lieutenant Taylor gazed out of the cockpit with concern at the fast approaching dark clouds that had just appeared on the horizon. Before long, the storm front was upon them. Bringing heavy rain and strong westerly winds. The cloud ceiling dropped to around a thousand feet. and the visibility became limited to eight nautical miles. While underneath them. The darkening sea began to froth and churn. After 67 miles, the squadron made their final turn and began to head back northwest. They It was around 3.10 pm when Lieutenant Taylor reported that one of his compasses had begun to malfunction. Then the other stopped working too. Taylor radioed Marine Captain Edward Powers, the trainee pilot who is the acting flight leader, to confirm their location. Powers, whose compass also didn't seem to be working. Didn't know either. Then the compasses in the other planes began acting strangely too. Around three forty PM. Lieutenant Robert Cox. A senior flight instructor flying with a different squadron. On an unrelated mission close to Fort Lauderdale. Heard an unexpected crackle over the radio. Followed by voices he didn't recognize. Confused, Lieutenant Cox asked the voices to identify themselves. This is F T twenty eight, came back the reply. Lieutenant Charles Taylor's call sign. As Cox later recounted, Taylor explained that his squadron was currently flying over some broken land. Which he identified as the Florida Keys. But their compasses were malfunctioning. and they needed help getting back to Fort Lauderdale. Cox advised him to keep the sun to their left, and just continue up the coast until they saw Miami. After that, it was an easy twenty miles further up to Fort Lauderdale. Cox offered to fly down to chaperone them home. But Lieutenant Taylor said there was no need. I know where I am now, he said to reassure him. Don't come after me. A short time later, Lieutenant Cox noticed to his dismay that Flight nineteen's radio transmissions weren't getting stronger. as they should have done if they were heading in the right direction. They were fading. He realized then the whatever islands Taylor said he and his squadron had been flying over. They weren't the Florida Keys. Around four twenty five PM. A flurry of confused messages were exchanged between Flight 19 and the Fort Lauderdale base. An increasingly panicked Taylor asked if anyone had radar that could pick up the group's location to help guide them home. With no such technology available at the base. twenty other facilities were contacted. from land bases to coast guard vessels, to see if anyone else could help. Thanks some communication issues and static interference from Cuban radio stations, no one could get a handle on the planes. Around four thirty PM Lieutenant Robert Cox lost contact with Taylor's plane. About the same time, Air C Rescue Task Unit four, a specialised unit for rescuing naval seamen. at Fort Everglades in Florida, picked up Taylor's transmissions. By now, Taylor had taken over the lead of Flight 19 and had instructed the squadron to fly north to see if they were over the Gulf of Mexico. They continued on that heading for 30 minutes, until Taylor conceded that they likely weren't over the Gulf of Mexico at all. And now night was descending. And neither Lieutenant Taylor. or anyone else had any idea where they were. as the naval base at Fort Lauderdale scrambled to get some assistance out to Flight 19. Lieutenant Taylor was asked to switch his radio to the search and rescue frequency. Which would make it easier to track them. Taylor refused, since any change of frequency ran the risk of him losing contact with the other planes. At six oh four PM believing they needed to go further east before trying north to Fort Lauderdale. Lieutenant Taylor was overheard telling his pilot to turn around yet again. and head east once more. Meanwhile, ground units were finally beginning to piece together where the squadron might be exactly. appeared they had somehow ended up well north of the Bahamas, and a long way out to sea. By then, Flight 19's radio transmissions were growing almost too faint to hear. And their fuel supplies were dwindling. At 620 p.m., another message came through from Lieutenant Taylor. All planes close up tight. We'll have to ditch unless landfall. When the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together. Then his radio went silent. Just after seven PM One final message was picked up. Coming from one of the trainee pilots. Everything looks strange, he said. Even the ocean. It looks like we are entering white water. Then all communication with flight nineteen. Was lost. But things were about to get even worse. Before seven thirty PM. PBM Arena Plains. were dispatched from a base roughly a hundred and fifty miles north of Fort Lauderdale. In an effort to try and locate the lost squadrant. As it neared the edges of the Bermuda triangle, One of the mariners and its 13 man crew suddenly fell off radio contact. A ship in the vicinity would later report seeing a sudden burst of flames in the sky. Reaching about a hundred feet in height. There was no trace of the mariner. Or its thirteen man crew. The second mariner was ultimately forced to return home empty handed. Over the next five days, the Navy, along with the Army and Coast Guard, mounted what became the largest air sea search rescue that had ever been conducted at that time. Hundreds of ships and planes covered more than 200,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Looking for any sign of the twenty seven missing men. Various reports of flares, strange lights, Life jackets, oil slick, and rafts being found. All turned out either to be non existent or Or unrelated debris. No traces of Flight nineteen and its fourteen crew members. Or the Mariner and its crew. We're found. Within days of Flight 19's disappearance, the Navy convened an investigation board, which focused on the testimony of those involved in the search. A central question was how could such an experienced pilot as Lieutenant Charles Taylor Have so badly mistaken where he and his squadron was. The investigation concluded that somehow the compass equipment of Taylor's plane, along with at least one of the others, had failed. And that the worsening weather. The flight crews were unable to determine their position by sight. They decided that the planes eventually ran out of fuel. Ditched into the rough seas. the conditions of which were unfavourable for survival. But the report also criticised Lieutenant Taylor. Concluding that he became hopelessly confused. Suffering something akin to a temporary mental aberration. and was guilty of faulty judgment. What made it all the worse was that some of the lost crew were just teenagers. Many, including Taylor himself, were veterans of World War two, which had only ended three months earlier. Catherine Taylor, Charles Taylor's mother. was extremely unhappy with the Navy's official version of events. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. She posted a thousand dollar reward. Almost twenty thousand dollars in today's money for information leading to the recovery of her son. Wrote over two hundred letters. and conducted forty eight interviews with people involved with the rescue effort. She discovered. Not only was there a standby plane. Which could have been sent out quickly from Fort Lauderdale. But also that Lieutenant Cox pilot who'd first realised Flight nineteen was in trouble. had immediately requested on returning to base that he be allowed to take the plane and fly north east, confident that he could locate the squadron. His request was denied by Lieutenant Commander Donald Poole. The officer in charge of the training flights. Commander Paul had been unconvinced of the severity of the situation. and thought that sending an additional plane, without an accurate fix on flight nineteen. Would only complicate matters. In 1947, Catherine Taylor brought her information to the Board for Correction of Naval Records and was rewarded for her tireless lobbying. The findings of the official report were changed. Lieutenant Charles Taylor was cleared of personal blame for the disappearance, which was instead attributed to reasons or causes unknown. been the official word on flight nineteen ever since. And for a while, the public forgot about the tragedy. That is until nineteen sixty four. When an article was published by American sci fi author Vincent Gaddis in Argossi magazine. Which noted some unusual findings. In his 1964 article, Vincent Gaddis connected a long chain of mysterious disappearan ships and aircraft within the triangle bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Arguing that the previous fifty years revealed a disturbing pattern of unexplained events. It was titled The Deadly Bermuda Triangle. and the name immediately took hold in the public imagination. The region's eerie reputation was boosted again in nineteen seventy four. When Charles Burlitz. Chronicler of supposed paranormal phenomena. Published the Bermuda Triangle. Which quickly became a bestseller. proposed that the mysterious ship and aircraft disappearances were linked to a portal used by aliens to travel between different dimensions. and that these aliens deliberately abducted ships and planes from the triangle for study. Most incredibly of all, he claimed the activity was linked to the remnants of an ancient, yet advanced civilization. From the lost island of Atlantis. Claims were challenged by a number of writers. Not least of all his bogus claim that one of Lieutenant Taylor's messages to Lieutenant Cox had included the line. They look like they're from outer space. Regardless, in 1984, Charles Burlitz doubled down. Publishing a follow-up book titled Atlantis The Lost Continent Revealed. Which proposed that Atlantis had been in the middle of the North Atlantic. He alleged that a diverse had located a massive submerged pyramid near the Bahamas. But would not reveal the coordinates. He also claimed that an island had emerged from the Atlantic Ocean in eighteen eighty two. complete with bronze artifacts. But the log of the ship which discovered it had been destroyed in the London Blitz during World War II. His outlandish claims were based on evidence that was flimsy at best, and non-existent at worst. Then Outlandish speculations surrounding the Bermuda triangle were embedded in the Zeitgeist. In Steven Spielberg's nineteen seventy seven film Close encounters of the third kind. The crew of Flight 19 were shown reappearing after being abducted by aliens, decades after their disappearance, without having aged. The so called Bermuda Triangle also became the subject of numerous television programmes. and appeared in the lyrics of songs by artists ranging from Fleetwood Mack to Barry Manilow. The story of Flight nineteen, even featured in an episode of Scooby Doo. Then in the summer of nineteen ninety. It seemed as if the mystery of flight nineteen had finally been solved. Former helicopter pilot. Vietnam veteran and aviation investigator John Meyer. believed that he'd found one of the missing Avenger aircraft from flight nineteen. Starting out in nineteen eighty two, Meyer scrutinized the squadron's flight plan. Radio transmissions, and the weather on the day of the disappearance, convinced that he could find the sunken airplanes. Part of his conviction came from reports by two ships that claimed to have seen distress flares within five hours of each other. The sightings occurred in an area where no search aircraft were believed to be operating shortly after Flight 19 vanished. Another ship spot some blinking lights on the water. but discounted them as coming from another vessel. Maya believed they were from Flight 19. and calculated that one of the planes came down into the sea, thirty miles off the Florida coast, near Cape Canaveral. Meyer also discovered that one of the Flight 19 planes, piloted by Captain William Stivers, been taken out in the morning before taking off again as part of Flight 19. Without being completely refueled. meaning it may well have ditched in the ocean before the other four planes. Maya also speculated that at least some of the crews had ditched successfully and were alive in the water for some time. But it was only after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, shortly after lift off from Cape Canaveral in January 1986, so the possibility of finding a flight nineteen aircraft became a reality. Some of the shuttle had fallen in the same area, where Maya believed the first Flight 19 plane had ditched. NASA was forced to launch a massive underwater search and salvage operation. During that operation, the recovery team detected what appeared to be the wreck of an aircraft. beneath four hundred feet of water. However, believing it to be a twin engine DC3, they ignored it. But for John Meyer, it was just too much of a coincidence. And so in august nineteen ninety Meyer and an associate, Larry Schwartz, formed Project 19. Together with the assistance of the NBC TV show Unsolved Mysteries, they convinced Harbour Branch Oceanographic, or HBO, who'd overseen the search for the challenger. to take another look at the apparent plane wreck. This time they sent a camera down to investigate it properly. Incredibly, it wasn't a DC three after all. TBM Avenger. Planes of squadron flight nineteen. HBO also succeeded in bringing the casing of one of the plane's engines to the surface. But sadly no identifying marks could be found on it. But on reviewing the footage. Something was found etched onto one of the plane's wings. like the number two zero nine. Stevers' plane was numbered seven three. two zero nine. The similarity was striking, but not enough to convince Ted Darcy. An ocean salvage specialist who was brought in to provide a second opinion. Although he confirmed it was indeed an Avenger from the era of Flight nineteen's disappearance. Darcy suspected it was a plane that was known to have crash-landed on the aircraft carrier USS Solomon's, before later being dumped overboard. But when Meyer looked into the history of the USS Solomons, He was convinced, Darcy was wrong. Not least of all, because the crash on the USS Solomons didn't happen anywhere near the area in question. In August nineteen ninety one. A year after discovering the Avenger of the coast of Cape Canaveral John Meyer and Project 19 were broke. After a decade investing everything he owned in pursuit of solving the flight nineteen mystery. It exhausted all his money and energy. The only thing that could make any of it worthwhile was to prove once and for all that he really had found one of the missing planes. To that end, he and Larry Schwartz convinced Marineland. A local marine park. With the intention of clarifying the exact number etched into the wing. on the one condition that it was indeed the plane that Maya believed it to be. And so Meyer returned with unsolved mysteries and Project 19 to that spot. Thirty miles off the shore of Cape Canaveral. and watch with excitement as the wreck was steadily brought up from the ocean floor. But just as it was nearing the surface, a cable snap. Sending it plummeting back down into the ocean depths. As it sank. Wing snapped off. Never to be seen again. What was left of the plane was eventually secured and brought back to marine land. For the next few weeks, John Meyer spent twelve a day. Combing every inch of the wreckage for any identifying marks. But after the best part of fifty years lying on the ocean floor, covered in coral, sponge and barnacles, anything that might prove it was Captain William Stivers' plane. had long since disappeared. Eventually, John Meyer was forced to concede that it probably wasn't Stivers' plane, after all. And that might well have been that. Until something else extraordinary came to light. In 2021, in an episode of the History Channel's Greatest Mysteries, it was revealed that in December 1945, Like all the loved ones of the men who disappeared with flight nineteen. The family of Sergeant George Banessa. received a telegram to say that he'd been lost at sea. Then a few weeks later. They received another telegram. This time, supposedly from George himself, who It's it. Being misinformed about me. I'm very much alive. Georgie. George Banessa was never heard from again. had he made it back alive, and then for some reason disappeared into a life of anonymity. Was he communicating from another dimension? Or was it simply a hoax? It seems for now at least the answer to that question. And what exactly happened to the rest of Flight Nineteen? Remains. I'll next plain. This episode was written by Diane Hope. and Richard McClain Smith. Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained is an AV Club production podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast including the music. are also produced by me. Richard McClain Smith. Unexplained the book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts. and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story of your own you'd like to share. 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