On this day in conspiracies

In the early hours, the B-25 flying Davidson and Brown back to California catches fire and crashes near Kelso, Washington. Both officers are killed; two other men aboard parachute to safety. Rumors immediately attach the crash to the fragments the officers were carrying.

Oklahoma-based UFO and mystery researcher Hayden Hewes, who had examined the footprint casts and camped on the hill, holds a press conference speculating that the creature could be an unknown, Neanderthal-like hominid. No specimen or definitive evidence is presented, and the flap fades as summer ends.

At the retrial, with the residue evidence excluded, a jury acquits Barry George. Cleared after eight years in prison, he is exonerated of the murder. No other person has been charged since, and the case remains open and unsolved.