Man Solves Decades Old Mystery

Mar 28, 2025

“Ron, you need to get up on that roof before this leak gets worse,” commands Amanda, his wife.

“Okay honey. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

The next day he decides to get up there in the morning. It will be cooler. The stifling heat won’t be hitting the roof until late morning.

He grabs the ladder from the garage and sets it up on the east side of the house. As he ascends, he hears Amanda yell, “Be careful.” She’s always looking out for him.

He lifts his legs off the end of the ladder and onto the roof. The roof slopes from front to back at the top. He is careful to keep his balance. One time he slips and puts his hands on the roof. He walks gingerly toward where the leak is coming from. The carpet in the hallway was collecting water at a great clip.

He locates a section of the roof where the tiles are missing. A few months ago, there had been a hurricane. They had received high winds but nothing close to hurricane force winds. He figured this must have been when these tiles flew off. The wood underneath was rotted. Having just witnessed this area that was affected, he decided to check out the whole roof. There might be other areas that they didn’t know about yet. The last thing he needed was the wife to start telling him there were more leaks.

As he moved toward the west side of the house, he saw one of the large ponds in the area. He had driven by that pond for years. It was on the way out of their little abode. The water was never so clear as it was this day. He thought he noticed something in the water. He couldn’t be sure though.

He called down to his wife.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Can you get me my binoculars?”

“Why?”

“I need to look at something.”

“What?”

“Just go get them please.”

A few minutes later, she returned with the binoculars.

“Throw them up here,” he said while standing near the ladder.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She threw them up there and he caught them.

He carefully walked back over to the other side. With his binoculars, he was able to zoom in on the area. He knew his eyes weren’t deceiving him. He saw the object up close now.

“Amanda!” he yelled.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I knew I saw something.”

Amanda is bewildered as he yells.

He runs back toward the ladder, slipping on the sloping roof. He falls down and his hand and the binoculars hit the roof. He lets out a groan. He’s now crawling toward the ladder. He throws the binoculars down to his wife.

As he descends the ladder, he tells her what he saw. He tells her something else too.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

He runs back into the house leaving the ladder propped up against the house. Amanda follows him carrying the binoculars.

He immediately goes to his laptop. He pulls up the website archive of his local newspaper. They have digitized the newspaper going back to 1923. He researches what he thinks it is. He finds the year he is looking for.

“I found it,” he tells Amanda.

“Now what?”

“I’m calling the police.”

“911. Do you need police, fire or ambulance?” the dispatcher says.

“Police.”

“Okay. What’s going on?”

He explains that he was up on his roof and noticed something in a pond.

“What is it sir?”

“I think it’s an airplane.”

“An airplane?”

“Yes. One went missing in the area in 1963.”

“That’s a long time ago.”

“Tell me about it. The pilot was a veteran of the Korean War.”

“Was this a military plane?”

“No. It was his own plane.”

“How do you know this?”

“I researched it on our local newspaper archive site.”

He provides his address and the location of the pond.

The dispatcher advises him she is sending officers to the pond now. He tells her that he will meet them there.

The police arrive on scene. Ron points out where he saw the object.

He tells them about the newspaper article and the pilot that went missing with his plane.

Police divers are brought in to swim to the location for a better inspection. They confirm there is a plane in the water. They find it rusted. A body is found inside.

In the next few days, a plan is initiated to get the plane out of the water. As the plane is hoisted out of the water, it is bent up. Obviously, there was a huge crash.

Dental records have to be used to identify the pilot. The pilot is identified as David McKenzie, a Korean War Army pilot, who went missing in 1963.

Ron is interviewed by the local journalists. They are calling him a hero. He doesn’t think he is. He just saw something and reported it.

They tell him that the family probably thinks he’s a hero for bringing closure to them after all this time.

“David was the hero, not me,” he says.