Ghosts Flying Planes?

I have been reading a very interesting book lately on UFOs and other mysterious phenomena when I stumbled across a column on fighter planes in World War II. According to somebody in the air focre, he had seen several pilots been killed and their planes carry on flying and shooting down other planes all by themselves. Some say that angels take over the planes.

If anyone has any ideas or opinions related to this, please post them below, as I am really fascinated about this and think its really strange. Maybe its not ghosts maybe it's aliens or something else.

Theres one old term I like to use when one or less persons/people are involved in a conspiracy. BULL****.

I'm sorry, it wasn't just one person that saw these planes flying by themselves, it was heaps of poeple. My bad. I also forgot to mention it was during the battle of Britain.

i`ve heard something similar, but never ghosts or angels assuming the role of fighter pilot! There is a local legend near me, that says during a great battle between 2 armies, 2 angels appeared in the sky, one white and one black, they descended to the battle field and proceeded to fight, one on each side. Eventually the white was victorious over the black and in turn the "good" army defeated the "bad"

I've had an interest in ghosts/pilots for a number of years also. There used to be more information available in the years after WW2, based on old books I've read. Most of those books are sitting on private bookshelves, forgotten, out of print now. A lot of ghost-sightings were detailed in memoirs, written by ex-servicemen on whom such incidents had left a deep impression. It's more difficult finding that sort of information these days: a lot of it has drifted into obscurity.

If you can get hold of some of Lord Dowding's books, you'd find those interesting I think. Dowding had a number of paranormal experiences during WW2 in particular and after the war, he pursued the interest, wrote about it and agitated for official recognition of the validity of post-death communication. At the time, many thousands of people claimed they had been contacted by dead loved ones who'd died during the war. Much of the information communicated in this way proved to be accurate. In the end, the Anglican Church was under pressure to comment, leading to a lengthy investigation headed by Archbishop Cosmo Lang. The 'judges' chosen were stacked in favour of scepticism, but in the end, ten of these apparently went on record as 'believers', based on the results of their investigation, and the other two claimed to be 'on the fence for the sake of balance'. During the war, medium Helen Duncan was imprisoned for establishing contact with a dead British sailor who provided information which at the time amounted to a security risk. It's said that then Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Duncan in jail and obtained information from her. After the war, Churchill arranged for Duncan's release. So there was certainly a lot of interest in the paranormal, ghosts, after-death communication etc. during and after the war years.

One of my family members was a member of the British Glider Pilot Regiment during WW2. He was killed in Normandy on D-Day, but in the weeks prior, he told members of the family that Dowding and several RAF officers and glider pilots were engaged in seances. The men were barracked on Salisbury Plain I think it was. They were restricted to barracks for several weeks prior to D-Day. The RAF pilots had a close relationship with Glider Pilots which is how my glider-pilot uncle came to be involved. According to him, dead RAF and Glider Pilots 'came through' at the seances and provided information which established their identity. They detailed the moment of their death and apparently accurately predicted who would die in the future. My uncle was informed that he'd die on D-Day. He was so convinced of the validity of the information that he told the family. He died as predicted.

During research into his death (several unexplained elements, even today) I read many books about glider pilots. Should explain that in excess of 80% of applicants to the Glider Pilot Regiment were rejected. The standards were extremely high and the training was incredibly hard. Glider pilots had to be able to fly powered and unpowered aircraft; they had to be expert in armed and unarmed combat; they had to know how to live off the land; they had to master complicated math; they had to be able to drive a variety of vehicles and possess expertise in a wide variety of firearms, possess second and third language skills, etc. Gliders were nicknamed 'flying coffins' because it was basically a one-way trip. Every operation was tantamount to a suicide mission. Most glider pilots were drawn from civilian professional ranks: chemists, medical doctors, solicitors etc., and in my uncle's case, architecture. So they were practical, of proven intelligence and demonstrable courage -- not the sort of men expected to lapse into fantasy or exaggeration about ghosts.

Most of the books about Glider Pilots are crammed with tension and incredibly risky exploits, but one I remember in particular was written after WW2 by an ex-Glider Pilot who'd survived D-Day and Arnhem. He said that when his glider came down in Normandy on D-Day, the load shifted and drove him and his co-pilot forward so that their legs were crushed. The nose of their glider impacted into the ground at the same moment. All around him were crashed and burning gliders. He lapsed in and out of consciousness for a few moments after impact. When he regained consciousness, he realised his co-pilot was dying before his eyes from blood loss and other injury. It was then that he saw men whom he believed to be nurses, moving from one crashed glider to the next, all over the glider-strewn field. He screamed out to them to come and help his co-pilot, but they didnt' acknowledge him. It was then that it dawned on him that the 'nurses' were actually Glider Pilots, which was strange, because on D-Day, all Glider Pilots had been instructed to make their way immediately to transport, after they'd landed, so they could be ferried back to England ready for another Channel crossing to Normandy. So why were these Glider Pilots spending time helping the wounded ?

As the injured pilot lay there in his crashed plane, some of the Glider Pilot nurses made their way towards him, stopping at nearby crashed gliders to pull men from the wreckage. He said their faces were peaceful but sad as they took away one man after another. They were clearly identifiable as Glider Pilots, but there was something misty about them. At the time, he thought the mistiness must have been caused by smoke.

When the man regained consciousness in hospital, his first thought was for his injured co-pilot. Doctors told him his co-pilot was dead. The man protested and said he'd watched the Glider Pilot 'nurses' drag his co-pilot from the cockpit, but doctors assured him there had of course never been any Glider Pilot 'nurses'. It was then that the man realised that what he'd witnessed had been the ghosts of Glider Pilots, who'd come back to help the new dead from their Regiment to 'cross over'. In other words, the ghostly Glider Pilots had come to collect their own.

The injured pilot, like many surviving Glider Pilots, distinguished himself in a professional career. He certainly had no need to go public with what he'd seen. But he said it would have been less than honest of him not to mention within his book, the ghosts he'd witnessed. He said the memory had stayed with him, very clearly, throughout many decades after the war's end.

An account that always fascinated me involved, I think, Lord Dowding. I may be wrong about that, but in any event, the account was detailed in a book written by an officer in the RAF. It began in the middle of the afternoon, while the officer was in his office at a military aerodrome in England, during WW2. Several squadrons were due to return. As he was busily engaged in paperwork, the officer heard the sound of footsteps along the corridor. Next moment, the door to his office opened and before him in the doorway stood a pilot he knew by name.

Glancing up, the officer asked the pilot -- who was still wearing flight-gear -- how his mission had gone. The pilot replied everything had gone fine and asked the officer if he was coming over to the mess for a drink.

The officer replied that he had to finish up and make a couple of phone calls. He told the pilot to go ahead and said he'd see him in the mess before much longer.

Fifteen or so minutes later, the officer entered the mess-hut and ordered a drink. He looked around for the pilot but couldn't see him. The officer had a couple of drinks and waited twenty minutes or so for the pilot. Finally he asked the bar-man if the pilot had been in earlier and left? The bar-man replied he hadn't seen the pilot in question that day.

Unable to wait any longer, the officer departed the mess-hut and made his way to the Ops Room. On the way, he ran into a group of pilots who'd just returned from a mission. They'd had a very rough time and told the officer they'd lost several planes and men. Amongst the dead pilots, they named the man who'd arranged to have drinks with the officer.

The officer protested and told the pilots they must be mistaken, because he'd seen and spoken with the pilot in question less than an hour earlier. The pilots stared at him strangely and assured him that the man in question was most definitely dead -- they said they'd seen his plane take several direct hits before spiralling in flames into the English Channel.

The officer insisted he'd seen the pilot in question and he had most definitely been alive and cheerful. The other pilots must be mistaken, he said, because the man he'd seen had not been dead; had not even been injured.

So convinced was the officer that he had seen and spoken with the allegedly dead pilot, that he pursued the matter exhaustively for several days. Everyone he spoke to assured him however that the pilot had died and his death had been witnessed by several members of the squadron.

Finally, the officer was forced to accept that the pilot was indeed dead. Yet he'd heard the dead man's foot-steps echoing normally down the hallway towards his office, and he had seen and spoken to a very much alive-appearing pilot -- who in fact had been a ghost. This is just one of the many intriguing accounts of ghost pilots that emerged during and after WW2. The officer detailed it in an official report.

Another concerned a pilot who continued to haunt a military air-field after the war had ended. The air-field had been 'moth-balled' after the war and was patrolled by security men who officially reported that the following had occurred.

One night, a security man heard the sound of someone talking loudly inside a locked, disused hangar. Unlocking the door, the security man crept inside, believing local youths were inside and up to mischief. The security man made his way to the old pilots' lockers, which is where the voice seemed to be coming from. As he crept closer, the security man could hear the sound of a man swearing in the dark. Flashing on his torch at that point, the security man caught a glimpse of a pilot, dressed in full flight-gear, rummaging around in one of the lockers and cursing wildly. The pilot was saying something about 'gloves'. When the security man called out in astonishment, the pilot simply disappeared into thin air.

The security man, in a state of shock, made his way hurriedly to the hut used by the security men between patrols. He told the other men what he'd seen.

Several weeks later, the same pilot was again witnessed in the hangar by another member of the security team. At that point, the security men decided they would only patrol in pairs from now on.

Rumours about the ghostly pilot found their way into the newspapers, at which point an ex-pilot contacted the newspaper. He said he believed the ghost to be a pilot who had been killed in WW2. This drew information from other ex-pilots, some of whom were able to supply a name for the ghost. A photo was finally discovered of the dead pilot. And others said they remembered that the night the ghost had died, he had dashed back to the lockers before his fateful flight, in order to find his spare gloves. Apparently in the unpressurised planes of WW2, a pilot's hands would soon freeze at the controls unless thick fleece-lined gloves were worn.

It seemed the dead pilot's ghost continued to return to the hangar and re-live his frantic search for his gloves, long after the night he lost his life and after the war had ended.

Other pilot ghosts have been seen and heard in the years after WW2. In a book I have somewhere, there's a photo (taken by men restoring a vintage plane) claiming to show a long dead pilot still sitting in the cockpit.

It's claimed that those who die suddenly and/or in moments of great stress, tend to reappear as ghosts.

Fascinating.i 2 have heard of many wartime ghost stories.There were many such sightings still occuring amongst old american civil war battle fields.Most notably Gettysburg,Pennsylvania.

I have this ebook that talks about how paranormal got started... Actually it's from a lawyer that wanted to make a case that can go to any court in the west and prove the case positive and win that there is life after death.

I have heard of some things in this book, such as Edison continuing his work well after his death with people who are alive to EVP's and so on. But I would like to learn more about this 'Ghost Pilot' thing. I have never heard of anything like this. Its actually quite fascinating.

And I guess we should include the 'ghosts of Flight 401', even though the pilots in question were commercial, not military.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it concerns a commercial plane that crashed in Florida (?) in the Everglades region. Several people died in the crash which was caused by instrument malfunction, from memory. Afterwards, parts of the crashed plane were salvaged and re-used in other planes.

Within planes containing the salvaged parts, ghost sightings were soon being reported by cabin-crew who saw the dead pilots of the crashed plane sitting amongst passengers. One of the pilot-ghosts was seen in the door of the microwave oven. The ghostly pilots assured cabin crew that they were there in order to safeguard the lives of those on board. Those who witnessed the ghosts were able to identify them as the pilots who had died in the earlier plane crash.

Eventually, pilots, cabin-crew, navigators etc. filed official reports of the ghostly sightings with the airline's administrators, who did their best to suppress the situation.

Several dozen airline workers eventually reported they'd seen the ghosts of the pilots. If it had been only one report, it would easily have been discounted as 'imagination', 'tiredness', 'attention seeking' etc. Similar or identical reports made by several dozen individuals however -- some of whom were deemed worthy of responsibility for flying a plane containing several hundred souls -- are far less easily dismissed as false.

A book detailing this amazing story, authored by a man named Fuller (J.G.Fuller perhaps ? ) can still be found in second-hand book-stores and garage sales. It's an interesting read. It's title, I think, is: 'The Ghosts of Flight 401' or something similar.

I wanted to bump this old thread that I found.

There is some very interesting information in the posts above me if you are interested in WW2 hauntings and ghosts.