lost military “stuff” in the past
https://www.popsci.com/technology/lost-military-f35-drones-nuclear-weapons/sample quote
A plane called the Kettering Bug was built during World War I as an “aerial torpedo,” or a flying uncrewed bomb that would, in the fixed trench combat of the time, travel a set distance and then shed its wings to crash into an enemy position with explosive force. The war ended before the Bug could see action, but this predecessor of both drones and cruise missiles was tested as a secret weapon in the United States.
On October 4, 1918, the biplane bomb took off, and then flew off track. The US Army searched the area near its Dayton, Ohio launch site, asking the public if they had seen a missing plane. Several of the witnesses reported what appeared to be a plane with a drunk pilot, and the Army went along with those stories, saying the pilot had jumped out and was being treated. The plane, as an uncrewed weapon, had no human pilot on board. Rather than reveal the secret weapon, the Army let witnesses believe they had seen something other than the aerial torpedo. The Army found the wreckage of the Bug, recovered its reusable mechanical parts, and burned the wrecked fuselage on the spot.
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