The Nevada Triangle

 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.