Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 vanishes
On 16 March 1962 a chartered Lockheed Super Constellation carrying 93 US soldiers and 11 crew vanished between Guam and the Philippines; no wreckage was ever found.
1962 CE · 13.70, 140.00 · status: unexplained
The account
A tanker crew reported seeing a bright explosion in the sky near the plane's route. The Civil Aeronautics Board could not find the cause; sabotage was suspected, as a sister aircraft crashed the same day.
The researched reading
A real airliner loss in which a ship saw what looked like a mid-air explosion. A bomb or a catastrophic fire is the most likely cause; the absence of wreckage keeps the exact answer out of reach.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Secret human technology | 42% | The crew of the tanker T. L. Linzen saw a bright flash in the sky and burning objects fall near the plane’s expected position, consistent with an in-flight explosion; the Civil Aeronautics Board considered sabotage possible but could not prove it, and a bomb is “covert human action” rather than secret technology. |
| Something known, misidentified | 33% | A catastrophic mechanical failure, such as a fuel-system or engine fire on a Super Constellation, would also produce a sudden explosion and no radio call. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 8% | The weather on the route was not severe; a weather-related crash is possible but less likely than an explosion given the tanker’s observation. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | The coincidence that another Flying Tiger plane crashed in the Aleutians the same day fed sabotage and conspiracy talk that is not evidence in itself. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 4% | No fabrication is involved in the core event; some retellings add claims about secret cargo. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 4% | With no wreckage found, the cause is unknown, but a mid-air explosion seen from a ship fits ordinary causes. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 3% | No unusual natural event is suggested. |
Official position: The Civil Aeronautics Board could not determine the cause; it noted the observed explosion and that sabotage could not be ruled out.