Welcome to the first of an ongoing series! This one has no end in sight. Each post in this series will be going over a specific haunting. Instead of linking each post, I’ll just specify that all posts can be found under the tag “Case Files.” The images used in this post (except for the header) do not belong to me, but the sources I pulled them from are linked at the bottom.
On May 27, 1913, 29-year-old Lieutenant Desmond Arthur went up in a B.E.2 biplane at the RAF Montrose (now the Montrose Air Station Museum) in Angus, Scotland. At around 2,500 ft, one of the plane’s wings folded up. It isn’t clear whether Lt. Arthur was thrown or jumped from the plane. Either way, he fell from 2,000 ft and died instantly, shattering every bone in his body and leaving an impression in the ground.
Lt. Arthur’s funeral attracted a lot of attention. This was the first air base in Great Britain, and the first airplane accident on the newly built base. After he was laid to rest, operations continued as normal until Autumn of 1916. After initially determining the cause of the crash was an accident, rumors began that it could have been prevented if not for Lt. Arthur’s own reckless flying.
Around this time, nearly everyone located on the base, Desmond Arthur’s former home, had begun to see a full bodied apparition roaming around in full military flying gear. Each time, the apparition would disappear into thin air. Additionally, there was a general uneasy feeling among the soldiers. One even reported waking up startled in the middle of the night to find Lt. Arthur sitting at the edge of his bed, disappearing shortly after.
After more investigation, the military determined that the wing of the plane had been broken previously, and an unknown person had shoddily attempted to repair it. Neither the break nor the flawed repair were reported or documented, and Lt. Arthur could not have prevented the accident.
The official conclusion was published, and this led to the final sighting of Desmond Arthur in 1917, allegedly in the mess throwing papers on the fire. I’m not sure if the papers were related, but I’m choosing for my own fun to believe that the papers he burned were the records of his flying leading up to the accident to be reckless.
There is one more detail to Lt. Arthur’s story. On his shattered body, they uncovered a locket, cracked down the middle but mostly intact, with a young woman’s picture on it--presumed a girlfriend of Arthur’s. The girl was fourteen years old.
The good news is--her family confirmed that even though they had been out on a few dates, they were chaperoned at all times. Not great news, but it makes it a little easier to swallow.
Lt. Arthur named the girl in his will, leaving her the majority of his savings--around one million dollars. She grew up well taken care of and eventually married another RAF pilot, hopefully one her own age.
The story of Desmond Arthur is far from the last thing that occurred at the RAF Montrose. To this day, people claim to hear footsteps, door handles turning, and see unexplained specters of pilots and even planes. These sightings began with the onset of World War II and have continued ever since.
Although people are quick to label any apparition seen as Desmond Arthur, there is no definitive evidence there have been any real sightings of him since 1917.
Additionally, in 2008, a team of paranormal investigators checked out the museum. Although they came to no profound discoveries, they did determine that the reported sounds of old planes flying overhead are actually created by the sound of traffic passing over the nearby bridge.
The more recent haunting at the museum involving their World War II era home display interested me the most. In this small recreation of a 1940s home sits a radio that several witnesses claim will pick up broadcasts featuring Winston Churchill and often the Glen Miller Orchestra--broadcasts clear enough to be identified. They typically begin at random and last up to thirty minutes at a time.
It is important to note that this radio is not connected to electricity in any way. The haunting drew so much concern to the museum that technicians and radio experts were hired to investigate the radio. Technicians opened the back of it up and reported nothing but cobwebs and dust.
Other radio experts, on examination, could also find no explanation for the vintage broadcasts. They told the museum that it could be possible, if there was a powerful transmitter near the area. But, there wasn’t. They found no identifiable source. In fact, the radio was aging so quickly that plugging it in and turning it on would cause sparks to fly. It simply was not possible for the radio to pick up current broadcasts, let alone broadcasts from World War II.
Such is the story of Desmond Arthur and the Montrose Air Station Museum. It’s a location to put on a list, and since it seems there have been no investigations conducted publicly in the last seventeen or so years, it may still be a great area of research.
Sources/Further Reading:
Radio Ghost Mystery at Former RAF Station
Montrose Air Station Heritage Center
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