Most of us have heard
of the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships have mysteriously gone missing
in the Atlantic Ocean for decades. Did you know there is a similar place in
Nevada? The Nevada Triangle. In a region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Nevada
and California, 2,000 planes have been lost in the last 60 years. In this
remotely populated area of more than 25,000 miles of mountain desert, many of
the crash sites have never been found.
The Nevada Triangle
is typically defined as spanning from Las Vegas, Nevada in the southeast to
Fresno, California in the west, and to Reno, Nevada at the top. Within this
wilderness is the mysterious, top-secret Area 51. Along with the dozens of
conspiracy theories which include UFOs and paranormal activity that surrounds
the air force base, similar theories have long been considered regarding the
Nevada Triangle. One plane to go missing was that of a record-setting aviator,
sailor, and adventurer named Steve Fossett on September 3, 2007. Fossett,
flying a single-engine plane over Nevada's Great Basin Desert, took off and
never returned. After hunting for a month for the plane, the search was called
off and on February 15, 2008, Fossett was declared dead. Later that year on
September 29th, Fossett's identification cards were discovered in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains in California by a hiker. Throughout the years, many of the
missing planes were flown by experienced pilots and have disappeared under
mysterious circumstances: and their wreckage never found. The biggest mystery
is: nobody really talks about it.
It's much smaller than the Bermuda
Triangle and much more dangerous.
Not talking 20 planes or 200 planes.
In the past 60 years, the Nevada
triangle has claimed two thousand aircraft.
And we really watch that almost one
plane a week.
Yeah, and it's not just the number of
crashes in the Nevada triangle that's so strange.
It's the fact that nobody really talks
about it.
Let's find out why. A region of the
Sierra Nevada mountains between Nevada and
The Sierra Nevada Mountains California, some 2000 planes have been lost in the past 60 years in this remotely populated area of twenty-five thousand square miles of mountain desert.
Many of the crash sites are still
unknown.
The triangle is typically defined as
spanning from Las Vegas, Nevada, in the southeast to
Fresno, California in the west and up
to Reno, Nevada at the top.
The question, what's up with the
backup?
Who owns the land in the Nevada
triangle?
Most of it belongs to the United
States government.
And what's that little spot right
there northwest of Vegas?
That's Area 51.
OK, and when the plane start disappearing, the first report is 1938.
They began doing research in 1938.
Huh. But it's not just planes that
vanish, it's also people.
You know, it's really bizarre as
these disappearances aren't just casual civilian pilots that kind of got
lost.
Most of the missing planes were flown
by experienced pilots and disappeared under mysterious circumstances with
wreckage never found.
And many of those cases, the pilots
were highly trained Air Force pilots flying state of the art military
aircraft.
The most famous crash involved famous
aviator Steve Fossett, who vanished in 2007.
Steve Fossett missing.
His disappearance ignited a massive
search that led to the discovery of eight more
wrecks. Fossett was not some weekend
warrior. I mean, this guy held world records for flying solo aircraft
gliders.
He even flew around the world in a hot
air balloon, which sounds terrifying.
This guy was also an expert in
cross-country skiing, mountain climbing.
He did ultramarathons, a triathlete.
So if there's one guy who could
survive anything, it was Steve Fossett.
But on September 3rd, Fossett flying
his single engine plane over Nevada's Great Basin desert, took off and
never returned after a major search effort that lasted over a month.
He was declared dead. Then the
following year, Fawcett's ID cards were found by a hiker.
A few days later, the crash site was
located about sixty five miles from where Fossett took off. Two bones were
also found about a half mile from the crash site.
And the bones were later confirmed to
be belonging to Steve Fossett.
Where the rest of his bones.
Well, we're not sure, but most likely
animals.
B-24 Bomber crash crashed in
1943.
The bomber with a full crew, was on a
routine night training mission taking off from
Whammer Field in Fresno, and it was
supposed to fly from California to Tucson.
Gone gone, never made it.
An extensive search began the very
next day when nine be twenty four percent out to find the missing plane.
But rather than finding it, another bomber went missing.
It just vanished. Then in 1955 when
Huntington Lake Reservoir was drained for repairs to
the dam there it was.
The investigation to the second bomber
stated that the plane had experienced high wind
turbulence and began to lose hydraulic
pressure.
When the captain saw what looked like
a snow covered clearing, he told his crew to bail,
but only to jump. But the two soldiers
who parachuted in survived made statements that
the lake wasn't frozen.
When the plane was finally found it was resting one hundred and ninety feet below the water with its five crew members, still at their stations.
In the meantime, Clinton Hester, the
father of the co-pilot of the first missing bomber, began a private search
for his son that would last the next 14 years.
And when he died in 1959, he still
hadn't found any evidence of his son or the plane.
A year later, geological researchers
working on a remote part of the desert found.
Bomber found in Hester Lake
airplane wreckage in an unnamed lake.
Army investigators confirmed the
wreckage to be that of the first missing bomber piloted
by Second Lieutenant Willis TRV and
co-pilot by Second Lieutenant Robert Mester.
The lake is now known as Hester Lake.
Another crazy story happened in 1957.
Lt. David Steeves missing
On May 9th, Air Force Lieutenant David
Steeves was piloting a T-3 training jet taking off from Hamilton Air Force Base near San
Francisco on a flight to Arizona.
The plane disappeared after a thorough
search without success.
The Air Force declared the twenty
three year old pilot officially dead.
But fifty four days later, he
reappeared gaunt and dressed in tattered clothing.
He had made his way to a camp in the
back country of Kings Canyon National Park, east of
Fresno. He said something in the plane
exploded, so he ejected and dragging his parachute
to keep warm and injured from his
landing.
He crawled over twenty miles in
freezing temperatures for fifteen days without food or
shelter. Eventually, he came upon an
abandoned cabin where he found a few cans of food
and fishing gear. He said he survived
by fishing and hunting with his pistol.
There were some who questioned his
story, even speculating that he sold his plane to the
Russians. And Steve's always
maintained that he was telling the truth.
But he died only a few years later.
With his story still in doubt.
Why did he die?
Twenty years later, Boy Scouts on a
hike found the canopy of his jet.
Five P-40s lost in one day
So Steve was telling the truth, but
the rest of his plane still hasn't been found.
On October 4th, 1941, five military aircraft went down in
one day and one of the pilots
was Lieutenant Leonard C. Liden,
who parachuted to safety after the squadron got lost over the mountains.
He said his P4P fell within a mile of
where he landed in Kings Canyon National Park.
They find his plane?
Nope. Another famous case was Charles
Ogle, a wealthy real estate
developer who lifted off from Oakland, California, in August 1964 but
vanished on his way to Las Vegas.
Now, he was a Marine Corps trained
pilot, but he was never seen or heard from again.
And his plane, no sign of it.
This is getting weird.
Oh, it gets weirder.
On July 11th, 1986, Major Ross Mulheron flew an F 117
into a mountain near Bakersfield, California, and the cause of the crash
has never been officially revealed.
Congressional sources have said he was flying an experimental aircraft designed with special materials and structural features, structural features, a disc shaped, we don't know. So what is it that's causing aircraft to go missing within the Nevada Triangle?
Climate theory
triangle, as some claim the area's
climate creates a special type of atmosphere, a
condition that can actually rip the
aircraft from the sky.
Now, Steve Fossett case.
Well, conspiracy theorists that claim
the reason so many flights have disappeared has
something to do with Area 51, where
the Air Force is known to test secret prototype aircraft yet.
But most experts think the
disappearances are due to the geography and the atmospheric
conditions. Sierra Nevada mountains
run perpendicular to the jet stream, which creates
volatile, unpredictable winds and
downdrafts.
This weather phenomenon is sometimes
called the mountain wave, where planes are seemingly
ripped from the air and crashed to the
ground.
No. As for why so many of the crash
sites are never located, that's probably because of the complex, rugged
terrain and the heavy vegetation.
Not a during the search for Fossett.
Eight other crash sites were found.
So chances are they're all out there
hidden within the peaks and valleys of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
What is this place? I have no idea.
I got a bad feeling about this.
