Ultima Thule is from the latest Economist cover.
What are these fuckers up to?
I have a perfectly clear sky out here in the SouthWest, I will see if I can see it
Brush it off man and get back to the Glorking
Another anon turned me onto this incident either last night or the night before as we were talking about AZ being mysterious.
1956 Grand Canyon airplane crash a game-changer
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - In the mid-1950s, air travel was a shadow of the highly advanced operation of checks and rules seen today. The skies were largely uncontrolled, and pilots outside major U.S. cities relied on sight to avoid catastrophes.
Then, two commercial airplanes crashed over the Grand Canyon in June 1956, killing all 128 people aboard in the deadliest aviation disaster of the time and helping spur an overhaul to flight safety. A country already grappling with increasingly busy skies pressured Congress for major changes to improve air traffic control and radar systems and to create a federal agency to regulate it.
"It really did underscore for the general public, for the first time, that much of the air space in America was uncontrolled at that time," said Peter Goelz, former managing director for the National Transportation Safety Board. "Once you got up to 20,000 feet and beyond the terminal radars, it was see and be seen."
Grand Canyon National Park will mark the designation of the crash site Tuesday as a National Historic Landmark in a ceremony overlooking the gorge on the east end where the wreckage was scattered over 1.5 square miles. Some of the victim's remains never were identified, and most of those that were have been buried together in mass at cemeteries at the Grand Canyon and the northern Arizona city of Flagstaff.
The United Airlines Douglas DC-7 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation both left California on June 30, 1956, eventually cruising at the same altitude - 21,000 feet - after the TWA pilot requested to fly above the clouds. Shortly before 10 a.m., both pilots reported to different communications stations that they would be crossing over the canyon at the same position at 10:31 a.m.
The Salt Lake City controller who had that information was not obligated to tell either of the pilots they could be on a crash course. It was the sole responsibility of the pilots to avoid other aircraft in uncontrolled airspace.
At 10:31, a message from the United flight was later determined to be: "Salt Lake, United 718 … ah … we're going in." The TWA flight was not heard from again.
The investigative agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board, determined simply that the pilots did not see one another. The agency speculated that the pilots were treating passengers to views of the Grand Canyon while flying through scattered cloud buildup.
Meanwhile, pressure mounted on Congress to move faster to make air travel safer. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Airways Modernization Act, and airliners were required to have flight data recorders. What's now known as the Federal Aviation Administration began operating late that year.
Continued in link
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1956-grand-canyon-airplane-crash-a-game-changer/
TL;DR version
Mid air commercial airliner collision killing 128 passengers spawned the Federal Aviation Administration.
There was even an "official story" from the White House, if I remember right, that took many months to make it to the Press.
Sounds pretty damn familiar, eh?
I have looked into those strange mysteries, just didnt want to lump it in with that article/incident as I'm not the best digger.
But totally agree anon, there is something really strange about The Grand Canyon, and all of AZ as far as I'm concerned.
I hope somebody else can do a deep dive and really connect some dots