Vietnam War Mysteries We Still Can't Solve
From unexplained creatures in the jungle to a haunted apartment building in Saigon, these Vietnam War mysteries are straight out of the X-Files.
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00:00From unexplained creatures in the jungle to a haunted apartment building in Saigon,
00:04these Vietnam War mysteries are straight out of the X-Files.
00:09There are aviation mysteries of plenty, and flying Tiger Lion Flight 739 is one of the
00:14strangest ones. The cargo plane took off on March 15, 1962, departing Guam and flying to
00:20an Air Force base in the Philippines before eventually traveling on to Saigon. It carried
00:2411 crew members and 96 passengers, all of whom had military connections to either the U.S. or
00:29South Vietnam. All seemed fine for the first couple of hours, but then Flight 739 disappeared.
00:35By 8.22 a.m. on March 16, the plane and all of its passengers were officially declared lost.
00:41All efforts to unearth the truth behind the plane's disappearance over the past 60 years
00:45have proved unsuccessful. The only real clue was a report from a crew of a tanker ship who
00:50reported a bright explosion in the sky around 1.30 a.m. They saw two objects fall into the sea,
00:55but the following search recovered absolutely no debris from the flight.
00:59One theory is that the plane could have been tampered with in Guam. Another is that the
01:03plane and its passengers were actually captured. But that's not where the oddity to end.
01:07Families of those missing soldiers have spoken about their mistreatment at the hands of the
01:11U.S. government, which has long refused to add their names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
01:16and failed to provide any military service at the funerals. In recent years, a memorial was
01:21unveiled in Columbia Falls, Maine. Who knows? Maybe there's a completely logical explanation,
01:26and the government isn't up to anything nefarious.
01:28Not likely.
01:30On the surface, the Mayaguez incident just seems to be the final battle of the Vietnam War.
01:35On May 12, the Mayaguez, an American cargo ship, was attacked by Khmer Rouge forces.
01:40The crew managed to get a distress signal out, and a few days later,
01:43the U.S. sent reinforcements to save the sailors who had been taken to the nearby
01:47Cambodian island of Koh Tang. The whole thing was a huge mess. Not only were the
01:52Marines forced into a firefight against forces they weren't prepared for, they were essentially
01:56fighting for no reason. It turns out the crew was released by the Khmer Rouge just as the
02:01assault on Koh Tang began. After experiencing heavy resistance and suffering numerous casualties,
02:06which included the destruction of three helicopters, all the Marines could do was wait for
02:10rescue. Eventually, the helicopters picked them up, under the belief that all surviving Marines
02:15had been extracted. That is, until later that night, when a radio call came in and a voice
02:20asked when the next helicopter would arrive. As it turned out, three Marines — Danny Marshall,
02:24Gary Hall, and Joseph Hargrove — were still stuck on the island, but the military refused
02:29to mount a rescue operation. The three men disappeared, and to this day, no one knows
02:34exactly what happened to them. Officially, the U.S. Marines' stance is that the three disobeyed
02:38orders by not making it to the choppers on time. In 2016, the defense POWMIA accounting agency
02:45announced that they found Hall's ID card in an empty burial pit, but that did little to help
02:50solve the mystery of what happened to the three left behind. Whether or not the fates of the
02:54crewmen of Baron 52 counts as a mystery depends almost entirely on whose story you're more likely
02:59to believe. The official story says that all crew members of Baron 52 — the codename for a spy
03:04plane shot down over Laos in early February 1973 — died in the crash, and all of their remains had
03:09been identified by the mid-1990s. But many people, including the families of those soldiers,
03:14have reason to be skeptical.
03:16I don't know. Sure seems fishy.
03:20For one, the original investigation of the crash site found only four bodies. The four crew members
03:25in the back were missing, as was the rear escape door and all the parachutes. Then, there were
03:30intercepted radio transmissions and witness accounts claiming that North Vietnamese soldiers
03:34had captured four pilots near Baron 52's crash site. The whole situation prompted speculation
03:39that the surviving crew was being held captive, and the insistence by the Pentagon that the men
03:44had been killed in action only led to accusations of a cover-up. Later investigations led to the
03:49discovery of a dog tag and bone fragments, but it all seemed too convenient to family
03:53members of the missing soldiers. All of that is only complicated by the larger context.
03:59Baron 52 was shot down a week after the Paris Peace Agreement, which would have made the mission
04:03technically illegal. Admitting that these men were alive, and subsequently negotiating for
04:08their release, would mean admitting to running illegal spying missions. Just declaring the
04:13soldiers dead might have been the easiest way through a potentially disastrous situation.
04:19When it comes to missing persons and POWs taken during the Vietnam War,
04:22there are plenty of discussions to be had. After all, over a thousand Americans are still
04:26unaccounted for, and discussions of bringing captured Americans home tends to be a pretty
04:31hot topic. One of the stranger cases, however, has to do with the disappearance of Dr. Eleanor
04:36Ardell Vietti in 1962. Vietti acted as a medic in the war, helping South Vietnam's Montagnard
04:42population with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Things went south for her on May 20,
04:461962, when guerrilla fighters appeared in the village. They ordered Vietti to go with them,
04:51tying up two other volunteers, Archie Mitchell and Dan Gerber, in the process.
04:56All three were taken, never to be seen again, but the reasons and circumstances have remained hazy.
05:01No ransom was ever made for their return, which only added to the confusion.
05:05Higher-ups of the Christian and Missionary Alliance suspect the raid was directed toward
05:08obtaining more medical supplies. A Des Moines Tribune article from later in 1962 mentioned
05:14a captured guerrilla fighter who actually referenced Vietti directly. Reportedly,
05:18she was treating wounded Viet Cong soldiers and traveling alongside Mitchell and Gerber,
05:22all of them unharmed. A 1965 Battle Creek Inquirer article included very similar claims
05:28from Viet Cong prisoners, that all three were being shuttled from village to village to provide
05:32medical aid, but any attempts to make contact were apparently unsuccessful. She wasn't listed
05:37as presumed dead until 1991, and reports of her being seen were documented throughout the 1970s.
05:44Peace talks during the Vietnam War were a fraught, messy business, to put it very simply.
05:49If you want proof of that, it's probably worth mentioning that Washington and Hanoi officials
05:53agreed to talks in Paris in the spring of 1968, but no agreement was signed until 1973.
05:59Even then, there were plenty of attempts to feel out the possibility of peace between 1965 and 1968,
06:05all of which were shot down. And that's the context in which Operation Marigold exists,
06:10an attempt at peace dated to 1966. As far as anyone knows, this whole thing stemmed
06:15from an organization known as the ICC, meant to monitor compliance with the Geneva Accords,
06:21and was chaired by countries neutral in the Vietnam War. A Polish diplomat essentially
06:25became an intermediary between the U.S. and North Vietnam, and in June, the possibility
06:30of peace talks seemed very real. But for some reason, that channel disappeared,
06:34and for reasons just as mysterious as those behind its creation.
06:38The U.S. proceeded to blame the Polish government for lying about the possibility of peace,
06:42calling their credibility into question. But here's the thing. Later investigations indicated
06:47that Operation Marigold was a very real possibility, and the North Vietnamese were
06:52actually open to the idea of peace. The Johnson administration squandered their chances,
06:58and the reasons may never be known. An unnamed associate to the president has even been reported
07:03saying that the public would never find out, because it would be a stain on the government's
07:07reputation. Not all Vietnam War mysteries necessarily took place in Vietnam. Rather,
07:12some mysteries took place right in the United States, such as the murder of Robert Daniel Corvo.
07:17Corvo was a decorated corporal in the Marines, wounded three times during the Vietnam War.
07:22In late 1968, he was back on American soil for treatment at the Naval Hospital Philadelphia,
07:27specifically regarding psychiatric treatment for symptoms arising from combat.
07:31This was possibly PTSD, though it wouldn't have an official name and diagnosis until after the war.
07:37On the night of November 18, Corvo suddenly disappeared from the hospital,
07:40and the military labeled him a deserter, a badge of dishonor that would remain for over 40 years.
07:45The truth, though, is that his body was recovered soon after his disappearance.
07:49The authorities just didn't know it was Corvo, who'd been discovered.
07:52On the same night he disappeared, just 30 miles west of Philadelphia, a state trooper happened
07:57upon the body while on patrol. The cause of death was a single stab wound through the heart.
08:01The body was listed as a John Doe, since he was found without any identification.
08:06Not until 2012 did a DNA test reveal that it was Corvo.
08:10Shortly after, he was buried with proper military honors. As of this video,
08:14the Pennsylvania State Police are still hoping that someone will eventually come forward with
08:18more information.
08:20Life for a soldier in the Vietnam War was pretty rough, and spending a bunch of time in the heat
08:24amid conflict would be reason enough to explain some odd sightings. But when it comes to the
08:28reported sightings of so-called Rock Apes, well, it's hard to ignore the fact that a bunch of
08:33soldiers, both American and Vietnamese, reported this particular mystery. So,
08:38what exactly were these soldiers seeing?
08:40Particularly around the Sontra Peninsula, many soldiers reported being attacked by mysterious
08:45creatures that were somewhat humanoid in appearance, save their five-inch-long fangs
08:49and ape-like facial features. They stood around six feet tall and were typically pretty calm,
08:54easily navigating around the rocky terrain, until the soldiers attacked them,
08:58which incited them to hurl rocks back in retaliation.
09:01No one knew what these creatures were. No one has ever even taken a picture of them.
09:05No bodies have been found, either. Officials on both sides of the war
09:08were left scratching their heads about what their soldiers were seeing,
09:11with a Vietnamese general even ordering an official expedition to catch one in 1974,
09:16which proved unsuccessful. Scientists chimed in as well, considering various species of
09:21apes and monkeys only to come up empty on viable explanations. None of these animals
09:25actually lived in the jungles of Vietnam. In the end, everyone just had to settle for
09:29this complete lack of answers — the rock apes joining the ranks of famous cryptids.
09:34Or maybe they're aliens. Right, Giorgio?
09:37Yes, exactly.
09:39The POW situation surrounding the Vietnam War really is a complicated one,
09:43with plenty of mysteries surrounding those who went missing in action.
09:46The story of Vietnam's last POW is no exception to that. In fact,
09:50it's actually something of a particularly odd story.
09:54Charles Shelton was a pilot tasked with flying secret reconnaissance missions during the war,
09:58specifically operating over Laos. On April 26, 1965, he was sent out on a mission. Three days
10:04later, his plane was shot down, and he was captured six days after that. Shelton's family
10:08was sent a package of a few personal effects — objects that you'd think were on his person when
10:13the plane went down. This is an indication that it was likely a Black Ops mission the military
10:18didn't want anyone learning about. It became clear to them that he wouldn't be getting much help,
10:22and all they had to go on were occasional stories that he was still alive.
10:26But as the war drew to a close, his family assumed that meant he would come home with
10:30all of the other POWs. Except he didn't. On the contrary, his name was on the list of those
10:35believed to be killed in action. An official report soon said that no other soldiers were
10:39returning from Southeast Asia. His family had to accept this assumption until the Freedom
10:44of Information Act allowed for a plethora of classified documents to be released,
10:47which were filled with reports that suggested Shelton was still alive.
10:51There are reports in his file that he was shot in the legs because they were so tired of him
10:55escaping, and more reports that he just kept trying to escape afterwards.
11:00These revelations ultimately led to him being reclassified as a prisoner of war in 1984.
11:05He was, however, declared dead a decade later at the request of his children after an unsuccessful
11:09search was conducted at the site of the crash. To this day, no one knows what really happened to him.
11:15During the Vietnam War, the U.S. needed a place for its soldiers to live,
11:19and the military ended up looking towards an apartment building located at 727 Chan Hoon
11:23Sao. Originally, the tower was built in 1960 and commissioned by a millionaire,
11:28but there was something a bit disconcerting about it from the start — the fact it had 13 floors.
11:33Despite warnings from the architect, plans didn't change, and as the 13th floor was completed,
11:38strange accidents began to plague the workers. A local shaman was brought in to cleanse the
11:42building, with customs saying that burying dead bodies at each corner would keep it
11:46safe from any spiritual intruders. The U.S. Army came and went as the timeline of the Vietnam War
11:51ran its course, but strange stories have persisted even long after the American soldiers left.
11:56To this day, residents of the building have reported strange and scary occurrences.
12:01Sometimes, they hear whispers and voices around the halls. At other times,
12:04they've heard sounds that resemble those of a military parade.
12:07Perhaps most disturbingly, they've even claimed to hear screams.
12:11But the haunting isn't confined to only audio phenomenon. Some residents have claimed to
12:15have seen a couple of spirits that walked the halls — an American soldier holding
12:19hands with his Vietnamese girlfriend.