These previously unpublished stills from a home movie shows a US military aircraft over the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church dome in September 1968. The aircraft is now believed to have been used to smuggle exiled leaders into the United States in a tight-lipped operation known as New Homeland. The photo was taken by a Ankle Thomas, a St. Augustine resident and part time semi-pro baseball player. He made the photo from his window in the Florida East Coast Railroad Hospital where he was suffering from a broken arm. The hospital was closed and the building demolished shortly after this photo was taken.
The home movie was discovered by Jackie Zemptal, a family member who was sorting through the estate of Thomas, a distant uncle. The material was left in a barn located on the Thomas property in the vicinity of Moccasin Branch.
During an 18 month period from early 1967 into 1968, the Central Intelligence Agency used the airport in St. Augustine as a point of entry for leaders from countries Central America. In each case, it is believed, as many as half a dozen political leaders were brought into the US on each flight, all of them fleeing retribution by newly emerging leftist governments in their native countries. Once on the ground in St. Augustine, the “importees” were disbursed throughout the country using the US Navy and its Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, just 30 miles to the north.