Associated Press staff illustrator Noel Sickles's "artist's conception" of the crash of the USS Macon into the Pacific Ocean on 12 February 1935.

On This Day in History

A 785-Foot Airship Crashed on This Day in 1935. The Location of the Wreck Site Remained a Mystery for More Than 70 Years

The USS Macon crash brought a quick end to the U.S. Navy’s vision of “flying aircraft carriers” powered by helium gas

A Goodyear Blimp hovering above the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, California, in 1978, when the Washington Huskies faced off against the Michigan Wolverines

A Brief History of the Goodyear Blimp, Which Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary This Year

The tire company’s iconic “lighter-than-air” craft debuted in 1925 and began providing aerial coverage of events across the country in 1955

In the aftermath of the disaster and for decades to follow, numerous theories emerged. The men had been captured by the Japanese. They had been murdered by a stowaway. They had killed each other in a fight over a woman. They had simply fallen out of the blimp.

The 80-Year Mystery of the U.S. Navy’s ‘Ghost Blimp’

The L-8 returned from patrolling the California coast for Japanese subs in August 1942, but its two-man crew was nowhere to be found

A US flag flies over the captured U-858 as it receives a K-ship escort to Lewes, Delaware.

Smithsonian Voices

How Navy Blimps Beat Back German U-Boats During the Battle of the Atlantic

The destruction to convoys caused by marauding U-boats diminished dramatically once K-ships started keeping a constant vigil

Trending Today

The World’s Largest Aircraft Might Lose its Title to a Blimp

This despite having a wingspan almost as long as a football field