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As a kid in Connecticut, I hoped to meet the pirate William Thompson—an ancestor of mine, I thought. He spelled Thomson the wrong way (with a P) but pirates weren’t known for their literacy. Another mitigating factor was that he died in 1825. Regardless, if you’re eight, you can stare out to sea and believe there’s a pretty good chance your pirate ancestor’s masts might appear on the horizon, and that he might row ashore and say to you, “Kid, I need you to go on an adventure to get gold.�

Twenty years later, this was basically the premise of my first novel, : A land-lubbing accountant’s life is anything but exciting until his estranged pirate father shows up after twenty-some years in jail and says, “Let’s hit the sea, lad, there’s treasure to be got.� And the adventure is under weigh.

Today I’m thinking: Why not actually get a pirate treasure?

Here are our clues: In 1820, Jose de San Martin was leading his rebel forces toward Lima. The Spanish colonists occupying Lima were worried he’d seize the gold and jewels they’d earlier seized from the natives, including solid gold roof panels worth $12 million (in 1820!) and a life size jewel-studded golden Virgin Mary. So the Spaniards hired then-trustworthy British sea captain, William Thompson, to stow the treasure on his brig Mary Dear, sail around for a few months until San Martin had moved on, then return the haul to Lima. The Spaniards sent a few of their men along to make sure Capt. Thompson stayed trustworthy. Thompson and his crew killed them all and turned pirate.

Almost immediately, dozens of Spanish men-o�-war were scouring the Seven Seas for the Mary Dear. The well-known roof panels and the life-size jewel-studded virgin would’ve been tough to fence under the best of circumstances; Thompson and his first mate secured the loot in a cave on an uninhabited island three hundred miles west of Costa Rica. They planned to return for it when things cooled off. Problem was, they died of Yellow Fever. The rest of the crew was caught by a man o� war and sent to hang out with Davy Jones.

The island is now called Cocos, and it’s still uninhabited. Thompson did draw up a map. Copies of it are around because, over the years, numerous people have tried to find the treasure, including Franklin Roosevelt on two separate expeditions. The cave was clearly marked on the map, but no one ever located it because of severe shoreline erosion. Likely the cave is now covered by ocean floor.

The thing is, none of the previous expeditions had the advantage of the sonar technology commonly found on modern dive ships. If you’ve got that sort of rig, talk to me. Alternatively we can acquire one somehow.

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In 2009, I went to various Nevada military bases as part of a CIA-led tour. I saw Area 51 and, in the form of the image below, Exhibit A in the case for the existence of extraterrestrial technology at the Area.

The CIA wants this technology to remain secret, I learned from Michael Schratt, the aerospace historian who rose to prominence among UFO believers with the publication of the saucer photo. Why the secret? Said Schratt, “Because it will make every man, woman and child on the planet energy independent.�

To my surprise, during a follow-up interview, Schratt admitted to me that the picture in fact is, “a computer-generated forensic composite� that he commissioned.

Here's the undoctored original:

Read more: is the Huffington Post story I wrote based on this experience.

For  a comprehensive history of the U-2, A-12 and YF-12 development at Area 51 (save "anything that might still be classified or that could be of use to our enemies," as one of the site's retired CIA curators puts it), check out .

For hundreds of photos of spyplanes and other aircraft, check out my album.

Click for a compendium of SR-71 Blackbird photos. Or read a (worth 92 pictures).

February 8, 2014: In the mountainous Paktika province of Afghanistan�

An AH-64 Apache helicopter was overwatching patrols retrieving airdropped supplies�

Then this happened�

"Thankfully," to an International Security Assistance Force official, "no one on the ground was injured and both members of the aircrew survived.

Related Links: .

For more plane porn, check out my album.

Click for a compendium of cool Blackbird photos. Or read a (worth 92 pictures).

If I were watching a sci-fi movie in which, each time a spaceship reached the speed of sound, it caused a conic vapor cloud, I'd figure the filmmaker liked computer-generated effects too much. But those cones are real, the result of something called the Prandtl-Glauert singularity. Truth is stranger than science fiction.

Stranger still are "plainbows," created when the vapor acts like a prism on the light passing through, breaking it into the colors of the spectrum. For an actual scientific explanation, you can click . Or check out these pix.

Here are some garden-variety light-refracting vapor pix, all of which are real except one—see if you can pick out the fake.

For more plane porn, check out my album. Click for a compendium of cool Blackbird photos. Or read a (worth 92 pictures).

Please help me decide on a lawnmower:

Choice 1) The cordless EGO Power+ mower is the most powerful rechargeable mower on the market and the first to match or surpass the performance of premium gas-powered models. About $450. It's perfect for our yard/needs.

Choice 2) The Skycutter: It cost more than $1,000. The battery only lasts about 10 minutes. It barely makes a dent on grass. But it flies. (video below)

A Canadian Air Force F/A-18 Hornet loses all control while conducting an air-show practice flight at an Alberta airport. As it happened, the Bee Gees' song Staying Alive was playing over the public address system at the time.

The pilot lands safely.  As U.S. Air Force photographer Gerald R. Massie said after the 1944 crash-landing of his B17, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one."

Here's the video, from NBC:

Related: To learn how to land a plane if your pilot bails, leaving you to crash, read .* Click for SR-71 Blackbird photos. And for more plane porn: .

*If you're going to read Twice a Spy, it pays to read first. (You'll learn what to do if your helicopter experiences catastrophic engine failure mid-air and your pilot, a CIA officer with early-onset Alzheimer's, has forgotten the procedure.)

Debuting in the early 1960s with Mach 3.2 speed and an 85,000-foot ceiling, the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane was universally regarded as the greatest aircraft in history.

By the 1980s, there was sentiment to relegate the Blackbird to history, because its imagery and radar data couldn't be used in real time. And as then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney lamented, operating the Blackbird cost $85,000 per hour. Which put the kibosh on Lockheed's planned Mach-5 SR-71 replacement, shown below.

But at least, soon, we'll have the Mach-6 :

To learn more about the SR-71, check out . Click for a compendium of cool Blackbird photos. And for more plane porn: .

You may have seen this F-14 photo—which is real. It was taken aboard the USS America in 1989. All the online rumors that "the insane maneuver" got the pilot time in the brig, a suspension, and/or court-martial: Just rumors. In fact, the pilot, Navy Captain Dale "Snort" Snodgrass, was asked to perform the maneuver again the following day, in a demonstration at sea. The resulting photo is shown below.

from

Snodgrass later co-authored a book, , in which he explains the maneuver:

“It’s not risky at all with practice� It was my opening pass to a Tomcat tactical demonstration at sea. I started from the starboard rear quarter of the ship, at or slightly below flight deck level. Airspeed was at about 250 knots with the wings swept forward. I selected afterburner at about ½ miles behind and the aircraft accelerated to about 325-330 knots. As I approached the ship, I rolled into an 85 degree angle of bank and did a 2-3 g turn, finishing about 10 � 20 degrees off of the ship’s axis.�

For tons more plane/drone/rocket pix, see the album.

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There have been since 2006. The Navy's X-47B is a tailless, saucer-like stealth unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) designed by Northrop Grumman for carrier based operations in—you guessed it�2006.

Actually its first flight wasn't until 2011. If you want the full story, click . The skinny is that high-subsonic X-47B, with a wingspan of 62 feet, has an unrefueled range of 2,100 nautical and two weapon bays for up to 4,500 LB of ordnance.

Without further ado, here are some pix and a 16-second vid that's worth watching:

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The Titanium Goose is the two-cockpit trainer version of Lockheed's A-12, the predecessor to the . First flown in 1962, it's now on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Without further ado, here are a bunch of photos:

Kelly Johnson prior to the first check ride in the Titanium Goose with Lockheed test pilot Lou Schalk

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