One of the many mysterious tales from World War II is a particular favorite for aviation

nuts.

The story goes that after completing its bombing mission against Germany, an American

B-17 returned to its base in England, along with its squadron and landed safely.

But when nobody got out of it, crews ran over and found not a single person on board.

The Phantom bomber had done the impossible, landed itself.

So the story goes anyway.

Might there be more to it?

The Phantom Fortress is today on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

The Phantom Fortress.

And War II was, among many other things, the source of some of the world's greatest stories.

But among these tales of adventure, heroism, sacrifice, and terror are a few other types

of stories that slip through the cracks, including ghost stories.

One of these concerned a famous bomber, a B-17 flying fortress, said to have returned

from a mission over Germany, navigated back to Britain with its squadron, and then executed

a perfect landing.

There's nothing unusual about that, but when ground crews observed nobody getting out

of the plane, they went to check on it themselves and found it empty.

The B-17 had apparently flown its mission without an air crew.

Books of ghostly tales now tell the story of the Phantom Fortress.

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