The Mystery Plane!

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain is here speaking. Welcome on board Flight 914! Kindly fasten your seatbelts and adhere to the no smoking sign as we will be taking off in 5 minutes. Once we reach our cruising altitude, we will serve refreshments to all passengers. Our flight duration is expected to be 37 years. I hope you have a delightful journey.

What would happen if you went on a vacation to a different city and unexpectedly found yourself in a different country altogether? I suppose those who are more adventurous might even enjoy such a change in plans, but most of us would be confused. Even the most daring of explorers would probably be surprised to learn they had been flying for nearly half a century.

Pan American Flight 914 departed from New York on a sunny day, destined for Miami, Florida, on July 2, 1955. The 57 passengers aboard were eagerly anticipating the warm beaches and palm trees of their destination. The plane took off smoothly but after 3 hours had passed, it had not arrived at the expected airport. The control tower in Miami noticed that there were no approaching aircraft on their radars and no distress signals were received. When the New York tower was contacted, they provided a puzzling response: Flight 914 had disappeared from the radars while in mid-air. The evidence suggested that the plane was lost as it had vanished from both radar and radio contact. The DC-4 aircraft simply vanished without a trace, leaving no evidence of its whereabouts or the people on board. Investigation efforts began immediately. The flight path took the plane over a section of the Atlantic Ocean, leading to speculation that it could have crashed along the way. Despite search and rescue teams being deployed and the Coast Guard scanning the waters, no remnants of the lost plane were discovered. Investigators were left without answers, causing distress to the grieving relatives. Eventually, an official statement was released stating that the plane had crashed, resulting in the loss of all lives on board. However, despite the official declaration, the true fate of Flight 914 remained unknown. It would take 37 years before any further information emerged.

In Caracas, Venezuela, on September 9, 1992, Juan de la Corte, an air traffic controller at the Caracas airport, began his shift as usual. He settled into his seat and observed the ongoing flights while sipping his coffee. Suddenly, something unusual occurred. A new blip appeared on the radar seemingly out of nowhere. It was puzzling to witness an aircraft emerge so abruptly, as if it had materialized or intentionally evaded radar detection. De la Corte double-checked the readings, initially suspecting an error, but they proved to be accurate. Soon, he and his colleagues visually confirmed the presence of the aircraft. Within a span of 10 minutes, the aircraft came into view. At first, it seemed like an ordinary airplane to the air traffic control team. However, upon closer inspection, they realized it was an outdated DC-4 McDonnell Douglas passenger plane, still equipped with propellers instead of modern turbines. Although these planes were still occasionally used, they had become obsolete and were mostly replaced by newer models. This strange sighting was just the beginning of an even more perplexing situation. The confusion escalated when the pilot of the mysterious aircraft contacted the control tower and inquired in English, "Where are we?" De la Corte, being in charge at the time, responded by informing the pilot they were approaching the Caracas airport and asked about their intended destination. The pilot's response left everyone stunned; he stated that they were Pan Am Flight 914 heading from New York to Miami, Florida, with a crew of four and 57 passengers on board. This revelation left air control bewildered. How could a Pan Am flight be over 1,100 miles away from its intended destination, and how did it end up there? De la Corte promptly posed further questions to the pilot, only to be baffled by the pilot's next statement. The pilot claimed that their flight was scheduled to land at the Miami airport at 9:55 am on July 2, 1955. The control tower fell into an eerie silence. To avoid compounding the confusion, air control approved the plane for landing. Although De la Corte questioned his own sanity, it was imperative to ensure the safety of the people on board the enigmatic aircraft. Ground units were immediately dispatched to assist the plane and its passengers, and it landed without incident. Once the tense situation had eased slightly, Juan could no longer suppress his curiosity. He cautiously questioned the pilot, saying, "Do you realize today is May 21, 1992?" The ensuing pause confirmed that it was a grave mistake to mention the date. As the ground crew approached the airplane, the pilot's bewildered voice came over the radio, asking, "What are you talking about?" Upon hearing this, De la Corte concluded that security guards would need to be sent to escort the passengers and crew. Unexpectedly, as the guards approached, the pilot made a decision that caught everyone off guard. The captain's panicked voice echoed through the radio, ordering them to stay away and announcing an immediate departure. Without waiting for clearance, the pilot restarted the engines, taxied to the runway, and accelerated for takeoff. Despite Juan's desperate pleas over the radio, warning of the dangerous situation unfolding, the pilot did not respond. The aircraft swiftly ascended into the sky, visible for a brief period before appearing only as a blip on the radar, and then... it vanished once more. The air control tower, including Juan de la Corte and his colleagues, were left shell-shocked. They had witnessed an aged airplane materialize unexpectedly, with the pilot reporting their destination as Miami, only to disappear again as if it had been a collective hallucination. No evidence of the plane's existence could be found thereafter, leaving the events of that morning in Caracas unexplainable to this day.

There’s much dispute about the credibility of this event. Back in 1985, a tabloid called Weekly World News was the first to cover this story, and yes, I’ve just said 1985 — seven years before the most popular version appeared. Later, the same newspaper retold the story twice more, only with other details, and with 1992 set as the date of a time-traveling aircraft appearing in the future. The picture of Juan de la Corte, the air traffic controller in Caracas, also differed from the 1985 original. So the story was largely announced fake, and it became a sort of an urban legend. However, the legend still lives, and many sources retell it in their own way. Some even go as far as to say that the passengers of the plane eventually returned to their homes, and strangely, none of them looked a day older than 37 years prior, while everyone they knew grew old at a humanly pace. They say doctors examined the pilot, the crew, and the passengers but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary — the people were healthy. This part doesn’t look even remotely credible, though, because no solid piece of evidence can be found about 61 people returning from a decades-long flight. One thing that keeps popping up on the Internet and piquing the interest of paranormal enthusiasts is a small pocket calendar that somehow was left on the Caracas airport runway when the notorious plane took off. The thing about it is that it’s from 1955, and it allegedly remains the only artifact of that weird encounter. There are still people who claim the calendar is real, but once again, there’s no actual proof of its existence. Ah well, who knows, maybe it’s just a tall tale, an urban legend indeed; or it could be a huge conspiracy to hide the fact that time travel is possible. I guess we’ll never know.