today's story is a special one because this story was the very first one told on one of my personal favorite YouTube channels the channel is called wartime stories and basically the content is the strange dark and mysterious meets the battlefield and Beyond the host of wartime stories is Luke lman and he was a Recon Marine so very high speed and he's got a great radio voice but most importantly he fets out these totally insane stories from service members from their times All Around the Globe you know running into these unexplainable phenomenon and seeing and witnessing and being a part of things that just didn't make any sense I mean the stories he finds are terrifying and so intriguing but in addition to just wanting to plug this amazing YouTube channel I actually have another reason why I'm talking about wartime stories but you'll have to wait till later in this episode to find out why but before we get into this wartime stories inspired story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you've come to the right place cuz that's all we do and we upload once a week so if that's of interest to you the next time the like button has spent hours and hours carefully cleaning and detailing their vintage car offer to do them a favor by parking their car in their garage and when you get in there carefully back it into the garage but then instead of putting it in park just go ahead and hit the gas and smash the car into their house also please subscribe to our Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into today's [Music] story on the morning of August 16th 1942 a woman named Ida Ruby was riding her horse on a dirt path right near a beach just south of San Francisco California now during the week Ida was a telephone operator but it was a Sunday so she had time off and the way she like to spend her time off was by riding her horse along the coastline and you know looking out at the beautiful water and taking in the nature and all these unbelievable Cliffs that went down to the water I mean this was a beautiful area and every time Ida would go out and do this little ride around she would bring binoculars with her and so anytime she saw something of Interest she would stop and you know use her binoculars to see what it was like animals or things out over the water and on this particular Sunday Ida turned a corner and as soon as she did something caught her attention off to her right out of over the water and so she stopped her horse and she turned and she looked out and the sea was very calm and she could see way out just past the Horizon was what looked like this black thing kind of hovering over the water and instead of raising her binoculars right away she just kind of squinted and looked off in the direction and she quickly realized what it was it was a blimp now today when we hear the word blimp we very likely think of the goodye blimp that kind of sits over sporting events you know with the big Goodyear logo stamped on the side of it it's basically a big big balloon with a gondola that sits underneath it for the person who's driving it and passengers and that's actually exactly what Ida was seeing a big oversized balloon with a gondola underneath it but this was not a Goodyear blimp it was a military blimp because this was 1942 right in the middle of World War II and N9 months earlier the United States had joined World War II after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and ever since then Japanese submarines had been lurking off the coast of California kind of all across the West Coast out in the Pacific Ocean and occasionally they would send Torpedoes out and bomb the US Mainland and so the United States responded to this by launching this Fleet of blimps that basically were able to get really low to the water that could move really slowly and they would basically fly all along the Pacific Coastline looking for Japanese submarines they could literally go down and from their Gondola they could look down and actually see submarines and mark them for bombing runs or you know scare them off and so I like anybody else who was living on the west coast of the United States at the time was aware that there were blimps out over the ocean but it was still a fairly uncommon sight and so because of that Ida was sort of intrigued and so she raised her binoculars and she focused on this blimp and she would see something that was so strange that even 80 years later nobody can fully explain it but to really understand why what she saw was so weird we need to back up about 5 hours on the same day to about 6:00 a. m. a.
m. at a military base just north of where Ida was seeing this blimp and so at 6:00 a. m.
at this military base that particular blimp that Ida would later see was at this military base on the ground and some Navy pilots and mechanics were preparing the blimp for a routine Mission out over the San Francisco Bay to look for Japanese submarines the intended path this blimp was going to take on this day was it would leave the base and the pilot would take it over the famous Golden Gate bridge and then it would travel 28 mil to the west to to the Falon islands and then from there the pilot would go 20 mi to the north to a peninsula called Point Rees and then from there the pilot would head south along the coastline all the way back to base this whole mission profile was scheduled to take about 4 hours the pilots for this Mission were going to be a 27-year-old Navy Lieutenant named Ernest Cody and a 34-year-old officer named Charles Adams and both of them were very experienced blimp Pilots they had done missions like this many times before this was going to be a very routine mission for them and then also in addition to those two pilots there would be a Navy mechanic who would join the two pilots in case there was any malfunctions with the blimp during the mission and so everything was going to plan with this blimp that morning you know there was nothing unusual about this Mission but right as the two pilots and the mechanic were literally getting inside of the gondola to begin this Mission Lieutenant Cody looked down at the control panel inside the blimp and he noticed the blimp was way heavier than it should have been now you have to understand that the level of rigor that went into preparing these blimps for flight was really intense I mean they were weighing every little thing that was put inside of this blimp because it was a really important part of flying these blimps understanding how heavy it was and so for this to be too heavy just made no sense and so at first Cody and Adams began like tapping on the control panel thinking maybe the panel itself was malfunctioning and if they hit it hard enough the little ticker would go back to a normal weight but despite you know hitting the panel it still showed it was too heavy and so they flagged over the mechanic who was going to be joining them on the flight anyways and the mechanic looked and kind of thought for a second and then realized you know that day it had been very foggy and so it was totally possible that all this extra moisture in the air had stuck to the surface of the balloon and so collectively that had added quite a bit of weight I mean this is a massive balloon a lot of surface area lot of water now this was not some crisis at worst this was an inconvenience basically they had to wait until this moisture kind of burned off once the sun came out and then they could fly the blimp but Cody and Adams they just didn't feel like waiting this mission was so routine so simple they' done it so many times and so Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams decided that the easiest and fastest solution to this problem was simply to tell the mechanic who was going to come with them on this mission to not come with them without his weight inside of the gondola even with this extra moisture in the blimp it wouldn't matter the blimp would still be light enough to fly with just the two pilots on board the mechanic didn't care so he hopped off and then Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams took their seat seats inside the gondola and sure enough when they looked at the control panel the blimp was ready to go it was light enough and so Lieutenant Cody fired up the blimps engines and just after 6:00 a. m. that morning Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams lifted off the ground and began their routine Mission about an hour and a half later at 7:38 a.
m. Lieutenant Cody radioed back to air control saying that so far the patrol had been totally routine everything was going smoothly they hadn't seen any Japanese submarines or anything out of the ordinary and also Lieutenant Cody said they were positioned just east of the Falon Islands which meant they were exactly on course and really everything did seem to be going exactly to plan but 4 minutes later Lieutenant Cody radioed back again to air control and he said they had just spotted an oil slick down on the water so basically picture from their perspective they saw that gleaning oil sitting on top of the ocean and so at the time this often signaled that below the surface of the water under this oil slick was a submarine so this is is like a Telltale sign that the Japanese could be right here so Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams told air control that they were going to descend in the blimp down to the water and fully investigate this oil slick and then they'd report back this last transmission happened at 7:50 a. m.
a few minutes later a fishing boat named the daisy gray was gliding slowly through the water just east of the Falon Islands when all of a sudden the captain who's looking straight ahead he turned the boat and he happened to see straight ahead of him this massive blimp the same blimp Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams were in descending very quickly through the clouds down towards the water and remember this was a pretty cloudy day and so really this blimp kind of came out of nowhere and this fishing boat captain was very aware that anytime blimps were out over the water that was because they were looking for enemy submarines and this Captain realized he was heading right now straight in the direction of wherever this blimp was descending towards and so the captain looked out ahead and he saw that big oil slick on top top of the water maybe 100 yard away from him and so he put it together that oh my gosh this blimp is going to that slick that means there's an enemy submarine basically right there and so in a panic the fishing boat captain called to his crew to pull in the fishing nets and he turned the wheel as fast as he could and he hit the accelerator doing everything he could to get away from this blimp because he knew that typically what happened when a blimp came down and actually found a submarine is they sometimes dropped bombs on the submarine I mean This Is War and so the fishing boat captain is getting away as fast as he can and as soon as he's turned around he looked back and he saw the blimp was now about 30 feet over the water and someone inside the gondola was now leaning out over the side and they dropped two things directly into the water into that oil slick and then seconds later these huge plumes of smoke were coming out of the water the person had just dropped some flares basically marking where this submarine was and so now the captain knew okay it's a submarine and the next thing is very likely going to be a bomb like a depth charge is going to be dropped right there and so again the captain's just speeding his way as fast as he can hoping that if they do drop a bomb it doesn't affect him and his crew and so after making it another couple hundred feet away from the blimp the captain again turned around expecting to see this blimp still hovering where it was because again they had just dropped flares they're preparing to do something major right there but now when the captain turned around he saw the blimp was no longer hanging out over the water the blimp was now rocketing back up into the clouds like as fast as it possibly could and before long the blimp was gone it disappeared into the clouds and there had been no bomb dropped I mean nothing really happened Beyond marking the water so it was like what's going on with this [Music] blimp some of you might know that before I became a professional strange dark and mysterious Storyteller I was in the military and while I was in the military I definitely had some pretty wild experiences all around the world but to be honest what I remember most about my time and service was not any of my own exploits but rather it was the insane stories I heard from other service members keep in mind military service members are sent to some of the most isolated desolate inhospitable places in the world and many times in those places weird things happen unexplainable things like borderline paranormal things happen in these places think being out in the middle of the ocean with absolutely nothing around and seeing lights popping up in the sky and coming out of the ocean and seeing figures up on the mountains wandering around where there shouldn't be any people I mean there are insane stories out there from service members but many of them are not necessarily told in the public they're kind of kept within the military it's like kind of part of military lore and the wartime stories YouTube channel that I mentioned at the top of this episode well Luke lman the military veteran he goes out and finds these totally bizarre stories from service members from all over the world and he tells those stories on his YouTube channel that is the premise of wartime stories and if that piques your interest well you're in luck because not only can you right now go check out the wartime stories YouTube channel but also I personally hands selected wartime stories to come under the ball in studios umbrella and we have collaborated to make a brand new weekly podcast the official wartime Stories podcast which is available right now so at the end of today's video I'm going to play the trailer for the wartime Stories podcast right at the end of this YouTube video and then after you listen to that go look up the wartime Stories podcast on any podcast platform it's free all you have to do is look up Ballin Studios and you'll find wartime stories that way or you can direct search for wartime stories click on it follow them and give them a listen it's an amazing weekly show with new episodes coming out every single Monday it's it's going to be awesome make sure you stick around till the end of this episode to hear that trailer okay back to the [Music] story meanwhile back at air control the last thing they heard from Lieutenant Cody was hey we see this oil slick down below we're going to investigate and we'll radio back when we're done and so Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams they had clearly descended down to the water because that fishing boat saw it happen but then after they rocketed back up to the clouds for some reason they never radioed back to air control and so air control is waiting and waiting they're not hearing back from Lieutenant Cody or officer Adams and finally they began hailing the two pilots to say hey what's going on you said you were going to investigate what' you find what happened but they could not get in touch with Lieutenant Cody or officer Adams and So eventually after enough time had passed and they still had not heard from these Pilots air control sent two sea planes out to that area east of the faal Islands to find the blimp and make sure the blimp was okay but when the sea planes got out there they couldn't find the blimp anywhere I mean they flew all over the place doing wider and wider circuits there was no sign of the blimp and when they looked down at the water in the same area where Lieutenant Cody had called out that slick and where that fishing boat had also seen the Slick well the Slick was gone or the sea planes just couldn't see the oil slick but the SE planes stayed on station in that area near the Falon islands for another 2 hours just flying all over the place kind of hoping to eventually see this blimp and eventually they would at about 10:30 a. m. that morning one of the sea planes spotted the blimp way way high in the sky like way higher than any blimp would ever go it is dangerously high and it was way off course but when these two sea plane Pilots began flying towards the blimp to get eyes on the pilots inside of this blimp Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams well when they got close enough the blimp just began rapidly descending like it was trying to avoid being seen by these SE planes and in fact the blimp descended so quickly that it dropped below the cloud cover and the Sea planes they couldn't move that quickly they had to do a big track to turn back around and try to go lower again but once they got below the clouds to find this blimp the blimp was gone it basically had vanished and so the SE plane Pilots called back to air control and they're like I don't know what's going on with this blimp but it's way off course it was way up in the sky now it's somewhere down below but we can't find it we got to get in touch with Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams there's obviously something wrong but air control would try over and over again to get in touch with these Pilots but neither Cody nor Adams ever responded they had just gone totally radio silent and at the same time this chaos with this blimp is happening Ida Ruby the woman at the beginning of the story was riding her horse on that dirt path near the beach just south of San Francisco and she looked out over the water and she saw that blimp and so Ida Ruby she stops she raises her binoculars and she looks at this blimp and after she focuses her binoculars she realizes there's obviously something wrong with this blimp the actual balloon portion of the blimp which said Navy on it had collapsed so much in the middle that you couldn't even read the word Navy it was all crumpled together because again the balloon is like deflated and also she saw that this blimp appeared to just be kind of listing as if the wind was blowing it and it was not being directed by the pilots inside and this blimp appeared to be getting blown directly towards Ida and so she lowered her barnoculars and she looked out with her naked eye and sure enough this crumpled up blimp that was still afloat but clearly was not doing too well was getting closer and closer and closer to her and as it was it was getting lower and lower to the ground and she's starting to worry it's going to smash into her but right as this blimp was about to pass basically right over her head she raised her binoculars one more time and she got a clear look inside of the gondola where Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams would have been now Ida Ruby has no idea who's supposed to be inside of the blimp and who isn't or even what they're doing but she definitely recalled exactly what she saw inside of that Gondola and that's the thing that has troubled everybody for so many years because what she saw was three people inside of that Gondola and if you recall that Gondola only ever contained two people it was Lieutenant Cody and officer Adams but now Ida Ruby is looking up and clear as day there are three people in that Gondola even though at no point was there three people it didn't leave with three it didn't come down and take more people on board it made no sense that there were three people inside of that Gondola again Ida Ruby wouldn't have known that but when that information got passed this was like how could that be and so after seeing the three men inside of this blimp Ida lowered her binoculars and watched in horror as this deflated blimp drifted just above her you know like practically arms length above her and kened over the cliffs behind her and smashed into the ground and then seconds later Ida began hearing Sirens going off in Daily City which was located right behind her that was the nearest town and so as the blimp came in for a crash landing in Daily City it scraped across a couple of residential rooftops and hit a couple power lines before kind of coming to a stop in the middle of the street now the blimp didn't like explode or catch on fire or anything it just kind of crumpled to the ground and nobody got out of it it just kind of stopped and it was there right in the middle of the street and very quickly First Responders rushed to this blimp because there have been so many reports of this deflated blimp looking like it was about to crash and so they had been tracking it and here it was and so they ran up to this blimp but at some point one of the First Responders ran up to the gondola itself where the door was slightly open and they opened it up hoping to find there would be some survivors inside but when he looked inside at this relatively small space there was nobody in there and there was no sign that anybody had been in there there was no blood or anything it was just an empty Gondola but remember minutes before not even Ida Ruby had clearly seen three people inside of that Gondola so to go from three people to none in the space of like you know a couple hundred feet as everybody's watching this thing come into crash land in Daily City like where could they have gone and even weirder was when they looked inside of the gondola they discovered that basically everything was functioning perfectly fine it was unclear how it became deflated because again all the controls inside of this thing were working just fine and also like the parachutes were still inside of this Gondola like if you're going to jump out you need a parachute but they were in here and also the life raft it was still inside of the gondola it was like there was nothing wrong with the blimp and so this whole situation made no sense the Navy would launch an exhaustive investigation into what happened with this blimp and the only explanation the Navy came up with was well it looks like officer Adams and Lieutenant Cody just fell out of the blimp at the exact same time and they disappeared into the ocean however both Pilots were wearing life preservers and would not have taken those off that was like absolutely 101 for being a pilot of one of these blimps and so they would have had these life preservers on and even if they had fallen out and perished they would have floated to the surface or if they landed on land they would have likely been found I mean the entire route they had been on was heavily scrutinized and searched but the bodies were never found and then also the Navy could not explain how Ida Ruby clearly saw three people absolutely like 100t away from her inside of that Gondola like she had no reason to lie about that she was just saying yeah I looked up saw three people saw it crash into Daily City she didn't know there was supposed to be two people like she was just calling what she saw but the Navy had no explanation and so in the years that have followed this blimp crash in Daily City it's been dubbed the ghost blimp story and loads of theories circulate about what could have happened here some people say that you know the reason there was all that extra weight at the beginning of the mission profile at 6:00 a.
m.
