In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

i should save this for halloween but i will never remember ... so.

Spitfire-ghosts
England is in many ways the homeland of ghosts.

Thousands of castles and old houses who have stories circling around them about lost spirits who does not seem to get peace. Everyone knows Tower of London and it's ghosts and most of us have heard stories from England which makes you shiver down your spine.


Old airports are no exception. In the aviation and historic aviations theres many stories or headless pilot ghosts, Rolls Royce Merlin sounds in the air but no plane to be seen or persons in pilot gear spotted walking around on airfields only to disappear into thin air. Here are some of those stories..

«The Ghost Mosquio and visitors from the past»

At West Malling Airfield the story goes that you can hear a De Havilland Mosquito at a specific time and date. Visitors to the airfield have reported they have been surprised by a very low flying propellor driver airplane without actually spotting it. They only hear the engines that seems to pas straight over their heads. And always at the same time and date. In 1993 a group of security guards called in from the old guard-office and said that the airfield had visitors. The adjutant at the airfield went promptly over to greet the visitor. The problem was, there was no visitors there! The guards then explained to the adjutant that the person who had arrived were in uniform with a long, gray military great coat and black gloves. The person seemed to have been quite young. Nothing special in that maybe, but the airport never really had visitors in those uniforms anymore, and great coats hadn't been trendy for many years. They never did find out who the visitor was. Could it have been an officer from world war two paying a late visit?

«Liberator and ghost planes in Germany»

At Cosford in England stands an old american Consolidated Liberator from the days of world war two. On one occasion a lucky person was given permission to enter the plane. He had been told by the airfirlds employees that mysterious things happened with the Liberator. Sometimes voices could be heard from the bomber and the radio could suddenly recieve disturbed messages. It is not known if he ever did experience any eerie things while inside the bomber.

The same person who entered the Liberator also had a strange experience sometime in the 1980's. While he was biking at a British airbase in Germany he heard several propellor engines in the air. The weather was very poor and he didn't see one airplane. It seemed to him that up to several airplanes were doing aerobatics and practised landings and take offs. Engine revs changing, steep turns, diving and climbing. He thought this was very strange and went up the control tower and asked about what was going on. Those people could on the other hand report to him that there were no airplanes over the base on the radar and no airplanes were planned for take offs or landings because of the poor weather.

«The Biggin Hill ghost Spitfire»

A ghost-Spitfire phemonon are quite common and the Spitfire-ghost at Biggin Hill is probably the most known of them all. People have reported of Merlin engines in the air even at the most terrible winter days with strong wind and low cloudbase. Many of the people reporting that they have heard the Merlin sound knows quite well how a Merlin sounds.


Biggin Hill was one of the most important airfields during the Battle of Britain and also later during the war. Tangmere airfield, known as the place where the legandary Dougles Bader operated from also has a story circling about a ghost-Spitfire that supposedly lands at Tangmere and then takes off again.

«Visitors at night»
Lots of things seems to be going on at West Malling and during one of the big airshows the place hosted during the 80's, it was not uncommon for visitors (for example the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) to park their airplanes in the old hangars with security watching over them at night. It was normal during these airshows for some of the aircrews taking part of the show to dress up in correct world war two outfits. Close to where the BBMF was parked a security guard was keeping an eye on the planes when two men appeared. They were well dressed in these sort of retro WW2 clothes. Since many people did used those clothes during an airshow weekend he didn't think much of it even it was very very late. The two men walked over to the guard and asked for the way to the officers mess. They told the guard they were late for dinner. The guard explained that there were no officers mess at West Malling and the two men thanked for his help and started to walk away from him. What then happened remains with him to this day. The two men had simply vanished into thin air, straight infront of him! They just disappeared! The guard left the hangar quickly, quite shaken up and was found some distance away from the hangar. He was very shaky and had even wet his pants. None of the BBMF crew had been in the hangar at that late moment of the day.

«The Polish pilot»

During the second world war Lindholm Park was used as an RAF airfield with Wellington bombers. It was from here some of the first raids on Berling at night took place. On one of the first of these daring missions a Wellington bomber crashed at the end of the runway and the entire Polish aircrew were lost. In the years after, stories started to go around about a figure in pilot gear asking local citizens for the way home in a foreign language.

The rumours and the story spread to the local nearby villages of Finningley and Hatfield and it was told that the crashed Wellington's tail section rose and sank in the landscape when the ghost was out walking.

During the 50's the airfield was the home of a squadron of Avro Lincoln's and the ghost were still to be seen. A mechanic working late was so frightened by the ghost that he ran from his post and was later put against a court for abondoning his post during service.

The ghost continued to scare people at the airfield and it was observerd on several occations standing beside the beds of the pilots on the base. A pilot was so scared by the ghost that everyone in the building woke up from his scream.

During the 70's a Wellington was dug up and four persons were buried at a nearby cemetary. In 1975 Ltn. Colonel Stephen Jenkins and an RAF squadron leader returned from nearby RAF Finningley when they observed a figure in pilot gear standing where the Wellington bomber had been dug out.

The history ends in the 80's when a corpse was found. It was of Polish heritage. He was never identified because of the age of the corpse. They buried him at the same place as the other four who had been found earlier. No observations have taken place since then.