In Search Of… Glenn Miller

On December 15, 1944, big band pioneer Glenn Miller was flying from the UK to Paris to perform for soldiers. His plane reportedly vanished over the English Channel without a trace. There are many theories about what became of Glenn Miller. Some suggest that his plane was destroyed by RAF bombs jettisoned by warplanes short on fuel that were flying above Miller's single-engine plane. Another theory posits that Miller made it to Paris but died from a heart attack while having sex with a prostitute, leading the US government to let his death remain a mystery. Intrigued? For starters, check out the video above, a great episode of one of my favorite TV series. On March 7, 1980, Leonard Nimoy and team went "In Search Of… Glenn Miller."

• [oldtaku]

  Since it’s History Channel…

• [IronEdithKidd]

  I can’t even describe just how badly this show creeped me out as a little one.  Not this particular episode, but the show all together.

  • [Christopher]

    Hopefully this will help to put your inner child more at ease.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2yVZCVLK3E

    • [IronEdithKidd]

      Aww, thanks.  I think it was the sketches of the grey aliens dovetailing into a too-young viewing of War of the Worlds that really did me in.

  • [WillieNelsonMandela]

    Same here. The “Bigfoot” episode had me particularly spooked because our house was on the edge of a heavily wooded area. “In Search Of” had me convinced that it was just a matter of time before I got snatched by a Sasquatch.

  • [Kludgegrrl]

     Me too!  I watched the “In search of aliens” episode when I was a kid and for literally years would see an alien (just like a “artist’s recreation” of an alien, literally like a drawn picture on a piece of paper being held up) peering in the window at me out of the corner of my eye…  Even though I *knew* it was just my mind playing tricks on my, it really scared me.

• [tristan eldritch]

  On a vaguely related note, I discovered recently that Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926, eventually turning up in a hotel in Harrogate with no recollection of the missing days.  You can’t get any more bloody mysterious than that.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/15/books.booksnews

  • [David Pescovitz]

    Check it out!
    http://boingboing.net/2006/10/17/agatha-christies-tem.html

  • [akbar56]

    See the Doctor Who episode ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’ It explains perfectly what happened to her on those missing days. :)

• [Lucy Gothro]

  I was under the impression that Mr. Miller’s plane was accidentally shot down by British forces.

• [Matthew Petty]

  My home town of Bedford made a deal out of the fact that he took off from nearby.
  “Bedford – the town that you can’t leave”

• [Dan]

  This is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory. 

  The scenario is that Glenn Miller dies with a prostitute so instead of just saying that he had a heart attack, anywhere, they have to make up a fake plane crash? In so doing they have to make an airplane disappear, and two other people. Where were Flight Officer John Morgan and Lt. Col. Norman F. Baessell, the other people on the plane? Did they go shoot random people to make it more plausible? 

  And what evidence is there? Supposedly a journalist found documents which may or may not exist. Searching around online people dispute whether this is even what the journalist said, and the documents don’t seem to be readily available online. 

  There is no reason to believe anything other than the official story. 

  • [Halloween_Jack]

    I’m not saying that it’s plausible, but for conspiracy theory buffs, two innocent bystanders that get bumped off to support a story would be pretty minor league; look for example at some of the JFK conspiracy theories that point toward various bystanders (Abraham Zapruder, for example) that died “suspiciously”. 

• [Amelia_G]

  “There are Okies, there are crackers. Every color, every creed. And they talk the only language that the master race can read.” ???

• [AquaDad18]

  In Search Of…I’d forgotten about that show.  Great show.

• [Ian Dahlberg]

  I’m actually leaving in Oct for 6 weeks in Australia with the Glenn Miller band. A timely post :) Will have to watch…

• [mindysan33]

  It’s weird.  I’ve been reading variety, Billboard, and old Jazz magazines from this period, and everyone has this moment of silence when it’s clear he was not going to be found.  And there is a lag between the actually disappearance (one article has his wife saying that she’s confident he’ll be found) and the acceptance that he was gone…

  That’s all I have to add.  Everyone cared when Glenn Miller disappeared.  I’m sure I’ll have something more productive to say about it later in the semester when I start writing my paper on it and start interrogate the sources a bit more.

• [Katherine Hajer]

  I love how they have a disclaimer in the opening credits. Can you imagine if shows today did that? The ones for some reality shows would go on for half the episode.

• [Don Lindsay]

   >> Great show.

  Entertaining, yes. Accurate, !@#%$.  I still haven’t forgiven Nimoy.