Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

A true account of an experience I had while in the Royal Air Force at R.A.F Yatesbury. By Terry D. Burgoyne.

My parents were still living in Linden Close and I was still stationed at R.A.F. Yatesbury, not far from Calne, the home of Harris’s bacon factory and very near Avebury, famous for its stone circles and, more recently, for the mysterious appearances of what have come to be known as “Crop Circles”.

The R.A.F. camp now no longer exists and where it once stood there are, at the time of writing, only open fields, the village of Avebury and nearby Silbury Hill with its famous White Horse cut into the chalk that underlies the wild grassland.

On the particular night of which I write, the weather was cold and still and there was a full moon which cast its light so brightly upon the camp that everything stood out in sharply contrasted light and shadow. We did our rounds two men at a time and as my mate and I awaited our turn we sat in the guard room smoking, talking and drinking large mugs of hot, strong tea from the tea urn. The air was stale and smoky and when it came to our turn to do the rounds we were glad to get out of the guard room and breathe some fresh air.

Mike and I (I’ll call him Mike as I don’t recall his real name now) set out in our battle dress uniforms with greatcoat, webbing belt and beret. We were armed with wooden truncheons, affectionately known as “chair-legs”. We had no other weapons: certainly no fire-arms. It was our job to patrol the perimeter of the compound and check for anything unusual, occasionally going amongst the aged aircraft. We chatted with each other and commented on life and people on the camp and off. I remember that it was so cold that I was glad of my trusty greatcoat and gloves.

As we were doing our two hour stint and admiring the cold, crisp night and the beautiful, if doleful full Moon. I remember that I was telling Mike something or other when suddenly he pointed over my shoulder to one of the aircraft standing behind me and said, in what was like a whispered shout, “Hey, look up there Tel! There’s somebody in that cockpit!” I turned and looked at the aircraft, I don’t remember if it was a Halifax or a Wellington but it was a World-War-Two Bomber.

The plane, which had only the stubs of its former wings, was standing on its undercarriage, clearly visible in the brilliant moonlight which shone from above and behind it. The plane was thus a sharply defined silhouette with a metallic sheen along the upper part of the fuselage and tail-plane. Mike had drawn my attention to the cockpit and when I looked up, there, plainly visibly against the moonlight was a human figure seated in the cockpit on the starboard side which I think may have been the navigator’s side and wearing what was obviously a flying helmet as I could see a prominent bulge on either side of the figure’s head where the headphones would be. Not only that but I could clearly see a cable leading down from the helmet.

The figure did not move but appeared to be that of a person either asleep or in reflective mood. I glanced at Mike and his face had a puzzled look. His mouth hung open in disbelief. He looked at his watch and then at me, his eyebrows raised quizzically. It was just after midnight so I looked up at the figure in the cockpit and shouted, “Hey you! What d’you think you’re doing? Come on out of there!” The figure did not stir and Mike and I looked at each other puzzled. Mike whispered to me, “What’s ‘e up to at this time o’night?”

“Search me”, I said. “Maybe he’s crazy about aeroplanes”.

“Crazy about summink”, Mike said “What are we gunna do?”

“Well we’d better do something”, I said “we’ll have to investigate. After all, we are on guard duty. Tell you what, you stay here and keep an eye on him and Ill go in and see what he is up to. He’s not supposed to be in that plane. That’s for sure”.

So that is what we did. Mike stayed where he was and I walked over to the bomber and found that the door in the bullet-riddled side of the fuselage was shut. However, the bomb hatch was open as the bomb doors themselves had been removed. I crouched under the belly of the plane and hauled myself up through the bomb hatch into the interior of the plane. Once inside I gripped my “chair leg” firmly with its strap around my left wrist and started forward, banging the stick against the metal air frame. The truncheon echoed loudly within the empty fuselage as I made my way towards the port side access to the flight deck.

“Hey you, whoever, you are! Come on! Out o’ there mate!” I shouted and banged my truncheon even harder against the bulkhead.

To me, who had never been inside a World War Two bomber before, the inside of the fuselage seemed remarkably frail and “tinny” and my boots clattered loudly on the deck. I reached the access “doorway” to the flight deck and hesitated. I pressed myself against the bulkhead and held the chair leg at the ready. Once again I shouted loudly, “if you don’t come out o’ there right now matey I’m coming in!” I banged the truncheon back and forth against the metal sides of the doorway and then sprang in, ready for anything.

The flight deck was empty. There was no sign of anybody there at all. The pilot’s seat was empty and so was the navigator’s. As I remained there for a moment in a crouched position. I fancied I heard a roaring noise like a distant.swarm of angry bees in my ears but this may have been due only to my surprise and consternation. I straightened up and looked about me and through the cabin’s canopy I saw Mike still standing on the concrete strip outside. A chill ran though me as I though how nobody could have got past me in this cramped space and anybody running along the deck of the fuselage would have made a hell of a racket and in case, nobody had or could have passed me through that narrow doorway without my noticing. I retraced my steps along the fuselage quite perturbed at what had happened. Mike and I had both seen the figure in the cockpit. In fact it was Mike who had seen the figure first and had drawn my attention to it. I just could not figure it out. I reached the bomb hatch and jumped down to the ground below. As I drew closer to Mike I could see that he was shaking all over.

“What’s up?” I asked him. His words came out shakily and his face looked even paler than before. It was almost white and this was not due to the moonlight. “What’s the matter?” I insisted. With an effort he pointed to the now empty cockpit and almost gasped, “That man! That figure! As soon as you climbed into that plane he…it….just vanished. One minute ‘e was there and then…..gone”.

I could hardly believe this. I had seen what I thought must have been a ghost before and had been frightened. This seemed similar but instead of being afraid I was more amazed and intrigued. This time I had a witness. No! I was the one to be the witness because Mike had seen it first. If he hadn’t pointed it out to me I would never have seen the thing. This made me feel somehow bolstered by the experience, even excited, happy!

I grasped Mike by his arm and said gently, “Listen Mike, Take it easy. Calm down. Don’t forget we’re on guard”. In a moment or two more Mike was visibly recovering.

“Cor Jesus” He said, “That really scared me!”

“I can see that”. I said with a smile “Have you never seen a ghost before?”

“Nah!” he said. “I never believed in ‘em before. But now….Cor! What a turn up for the book!”

We still had about another half hour to go before we finished our round of guard duty and we looked around the immediate area of the aircraft and, finding nothing more unusual and no sign of any other person around, we continued on our way.

As we walked on in the moonlight Mike said, “I suppose we better report this, right?” “Yep” I said, “Everyone has to make a report at the end of guard duty, even if there’s nothing to report.”

Well the time came for the changing of the guard and we duly reported back to the guardroom. The next two for guard duty were talking to the others as we went in and one of them looked up and said “How’d it go? Any I.R.A?” Mike, still with no colour in his cheeks, said “Nah, only a ghost.” Then he began to tell the others about our experience. Just then our duty Flight Sergeant came out of his office and apparently heard what we were talking about. “That’s enough of that!” he snapped. “You two”, he said, pointing to the two airmen who were next for duty, “Get a move on!”

The two went outside, peered back through one of the glass panes in the door and raised their eyebrows high while opening their eyes wide in a stage gesture of frightened reluctance to go.

The flight Sergeant gestured to me and Mike to come over and fill in the report form. I was given the form and I began to give a written account of everything that had happened during our round of guard duty. The flight Sergeant, who was reading what I wrote over my shoulder, tapped me on the arm and said “Yes all right. I think you’d better come into the office and finish that in there.”

Mike and I entered the office and when I had completed the report the flight Sergeant leaned heavily on the edge of the desk and regarded us for a moment with a very earnest expression. “Right,” he said at last, “sign that both of you and I have to tell you now that you must say nothing about all this to anybody on or off camp. That’s a Station Standing Order.”

Mike and I looked at each other puzzled and then back at the Flight Sergeant who added, “The C.O. issued this order himself and he said that if anybody ever mentioned this business to anybody he’d have their guts for garters!” The only hint as to why such an order had been issued in the first place was given us by the Flight Sergeant himself as he added, “You see, you blokes are not the first ones to report seeing what you saw. Not by a long shot”

Text revised and modified by the author Terry D. Burgoyne, this day, 5th September 2005

Written by Terence David  Burgoyne, Copyright 2009