On this day in conspiracies

NLB Superintendent Robert Muirhead, who had personally appointed the missing men, arrives to conduct the official investigation. He documents severe storm damage at the west landing, more than 100 feet above the sea, and finds that two sets of oilskins are gone while a third, MacArthur's, remains behind.

When the sisters fail to come home, their mother, Loretta Grimes, reports them missing. A ground search begins the next day. Within days it expands into a full-scale effort involving hundreds of police officers, colleagues from surrounding suburbs, and hundreds of volunteers.

Around 9 p.m., Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and her grandson Colby are driving home toward Dayton on FM 1485 near Huffman when they see a large, diamond-shaped object above the pines periodically shooting flame from its underside.

News of the encounter breaks publicly. Wire reports, including United Press International, quote FAA spokesman Paul Steucke and note that a controller tracked an unidentified target near the flight, drawing national and international attention to the case.

Reporter Linda Godfrey, assigned by the Walworth County weekly The Week, publishes her first article compiling the sightings. Initially skeptical, she reports being impressed by the witnesses' sincerity and consistency. The piece draws immediate regional and then national attention.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office receives an anonymous letter enclosing two photographs of a large primate crouched at the writer's back porch, said to be raiding apples on successive nights. The writer suggests an escaped orangutan, not a Skunk Ape. These become the famous Myakka photographs.

The US State Department calls the remarks 'horrific and reprehensible.' Chavez's speculation is widely reported by CNN, NPR, the BBC, and others as conjecture rather than an accusation backed by evidence.

After a month-long trial in Manhattan, a jury convicts Maxwell on five of six counts, including sex trafficking of a minor and multiple conspiracy charges. She is acquitted on one count of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.