What do a Battleship, 1950, mud, high tides, a Hudson River Ferry, a T-shirt, and a UFO all have in common?

要了解它们如何互连，让我们从密苏里州号航空舰（BB-63）开始。1950年，这艘船已经因参加第二次世界大战而闻名，因为结束战争的投降是在她的甲板上签署的。密苏里州被她的船员昵称为“强大的莫”，但在新闻报道中，她也被称为“大莫”。当她设法陷入一个强大的大混乱时，她很快就会辜负他们两个名字。

一切始于1950年1月17日。她的队长威廉·布朗（William D. Brown）是战舰的新手，他刚刚在12月加入了船员。虽然他是一名经验丰富的海军军官，但他以前的命令是潜艇和驱逐舰，自第二次世界大战结束以来，他就一直在担任岸上职务。尽管布朗上尉在弗吉尼亚州的沿海地区进行了几次短途旅行，但他实际上对战舰不熟悉，这将是他第一次带她去巡游。

The Navy had set up an acoustic range to capture the signature sounds made by ships and it was close to MISSOURI’s departure point. Captain Brown had been asked to take a previously unplanned trip through the range on his way out, and he was told that buoys had been set up to mark the area. This was important since the range was very close to shallow water.

事情开始很快出错。事实证明，一些浮标已被删除，并且没有使用该信息更新导航图。并非所有船舶的军官都知道将密苏里州穿越该范围的计划，其中一些人只在战舰朝那个方向前进之前就听说过。另一个复杂的是，该范围区域靠近一个钓鱼通道，该通道也标有浮标。

Brown spotted what he thought was the marker for the right edge of the acoustic range and ordered the battleship to the left of the buoy. He ignored warnings by the navigator and the executive officer’s attempts to alert him, not realizing until much too late that he had made a mistake. Even though the tide was unusually high that day, MISSOURI was heading into the fishing channel and shallow water.

At 8:17 am, the “Mighty Mo” hit a sandbank in the Chesapeake Bay, about a mile and a half from Thimble Shoal Light and a mile off Old Point Comfort. The battleship, traveling at 12.5 knots, plowed 2,500 feet into the sandbar, bottoming out the ship and lifting her out of the water about seven feet above the waterline.
Now the ship was stuck just off the Army base at Fort Monroe, close to Thimble Shoals Lighthouse, the shipping channel, and within sight of the Naval Base.

Within a couple days, articles would start appearing in newspapers all across the country that “Mighty Mo” or “Big Mo” had grounded. These articles were quickly followed by reports of multiple failed attempts to free the battleship over the next two weeks. Bringing not only amusement to the onlookers and readers, but also quite a bit of humiliation to the Navy. Army personnel, finding the entire situation hilarious, discovered a new hobby. Partaking in the amenities of the Fort Monroe Officer’s Club while writing letters and composing telegrams containing suggestions on how to free the battleship. The public also got involved and sent suggestions too. The Navy was inundated with ideas, including one from a five-year-old boy in Indiana who told them they just needed to fix the bottom of the ship so she could float again.

在使用大量拖船，军用船只，小型爆炸费，疏ed，大电缆和其他方法进行了无数次失败的尝试之后，密苏里最终于1950年2月1日在另一个异常高的潮汐中进行了重新爆炸。即使释放了船，笑话仍在继续。在1950年的大部分时间里，每当发生大量泥浆时，昵称“ Mo”再次出现。情况是“大莫”，就像一架飞机从冰冷的跑道滑入泥泞的飞机。一辆模仿“大莫”或两艘船的汽车在同一天在新泽西州泥泞的泥泞中搁浅，释放它们的努力被称为“大型行动”。

So now on to April 1950, the ferryboat and a point on the Hudson River in New York. There, two cities are located across from each other on the river. Newburgh, located in Orange County, and just one and a half miles away, Beacon in Dutchess County. Both cities are about 55 miles from the New York metropolitan area. The Newburgh-Beacon Ferry system provided transport between the two cities with three commuter ferries named ORANGE, DUTCHESS, and BEACON. Usually, two of the three boats were in service at the same time, each moored at the opposite side of the river and they passed each other in the middle during their runs. The first run of the day began around 7am and it took about 15 minutes to reach the other side of the river.阅读更多