This story is about a classic example of somebody being in exactly the wrong place at precisely the right time. Our story opens in the Siskiyou National Forest in northern California.

Forest rangers are surveying the damage after wild fires destroyed thousands of acres of trees. The inspection team came across the body of a deep sea diver. That’s right - a diver in full gear. He was wearing a wet suit with a hood, flippers, and an air tank harness. The air tank was found 25 yards from the diver’s body.

According to the autopsy report, the diver died from massive trauma. Every major organ in his body was ruptured. Almost every bone in his body was broken. Investigators questioned hundreds of witnesses for nearly a month before putting together this scenario:

So intense was the fire that it created its own weather system - sucking in oxygen to feed itself. Winds within the area of the conflagration approached 100 miles per hour.

Firefighters and equipment were brought in from far outside the area. The Air National Guard volunteered to help by dumping massive amounts of water on the fire area. Try not to get ahead of me here.

Meanwhile, Luckless Leon was part of a diving party in the Pacific Ocean off Point St. George. They’d put out buoys marked with red flags and white diagonal stripes - the standard “divers present” warning. These flags are meant to alert water craft, not aircraft.

Imagine what must have gone through Leon’s mind when he was scooped up out of the ocean by a giant water bucket, then flown over to the Kalamath Mountains and dropped. It hurts to even think about it. But that’s what investigators say happen to Luckless Leon.