The L-8 ghost blimp
The Navy airship L-8 lifted off from Treasure Island on 16 August 1942 with two crewmen and came down in Daly City, California, with both men gone.
Smithsonian Magazine reports that the Navy blimp L-8 left Treasure Island, in San Francisco Bay, at roughly six in the morning on 16 August 1942. Ensign Charles Ellis Adams was aboard with Lieutenant Cody, whose full name was Ernest DeWitt Cody. Mental Floss says the patrol route went toward the Farallon Islands, then south to Montara and home again. Three crew had been scheduled, yet Cody ordered the third man, James Riley Hill, off the airship.
Wikipedia records that at 11:15 a.m. the blimp reappeared off Ocean Beach near Fort Funston and touched the ground there, which damaged it. It went on drifting across San Francisco and came down on Bellevue Avenue in Daly City. Smithsonian Magazine says bystanders reported the airship empty. A few of them tried to hold the blimp down, yet it lifted once more and floated on toward Daly City.
Wikipedia states that the two crewmen have never been found.
"L-8, later renamed America and popularly known as the "Ghost Blimp", was a United States Navy L-class airship whose two crewmen disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on August 16, 1942. At 11:15 a.m., several hours after the airship lifted off from Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, L-8 reappeared off the shore of Ocean Beach near Fort Funston. L-8 briefly made contact with the ground at Ocean Beach, causing damage to the airship, then drifted over San Francisco and crashed on Bellevue Avenue, Daly City. No traces of its crewmen, Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody and Ensign Charles Adams, have ever been found."
- The 80-Year Mystery of the U.S. Navy's Ghost Blimp, Smithsonian Magazine (2022)
- L-8: The Ghost Blimp Whose Crew Disappeared, Mental Floss