ACUFO-1935-00-00-EDINBURGH-1
Sir Robert Victor Goddard (1897 - 1987), an Air Marshal, senior commander in the Royal Air Force during WWII, was known for his interest in paranormal phenomena. In his 1975 book “Flight Towards Reality”, among other claims, he told that he had a clairvoyant episode in 1935, when he was flying a mission to inspect the decommissioned Drem airfield, in Scotland. After flying through some rough weather, he emerged from the clouds to see the airfield seemingly fully operational with planes and attending crew. He noted that he observed a number of yellow planes, saying that at the time, the RAF planes were never painted in yellow color. He said one of the planes was a monoplane he could not identify, as if there were no monoplanes in the RAF at the time. He said he saw a number of mechanics in blue overalls which also did not fit with RAF operations at the time, as mechanics wore tan overalls.
In the following years the airfield Drem was reactivated as RAF Drem. Goddard said that the RAF then began painting their training planes yellow only then, and changed the mechanics uniforms to blue, exactly as he had observed years before, so that he story has been referred to as a case of time slip.
A version of his story said to have occurred near Edinburgh in Scotland astonishingly appeared in the ufology catalogue of “Humanoid encounters” by Albert Rosales, around 2016.
| Date: | 1935 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ? |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | 1966 or 1975 |
| Reporting delay: | 3 decades. |
| Country: | U-K. |
|---|---|
| State/Department: | Scotland, East Lothian |
| City or place: | RAF Drem, West Fenton. |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 1 |
| Reporting channel: | Book by the witness. |
|---|---|
| Visibility conditions: | ? |
| UFO observed: | No. |
| UFO arrival observed: | N/A. |
| UFO departure observed: | N/A. |
| UFO action: | N/A. |
| Witnesses action: | N/A. |
| Photographs: | No. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | ? |
| Sensors: |
[ ] Visual:
[ ] Airborne radar: [ ] Directional ground radar: [ ] Height finder ground radar: [ ] Photo: [ ] Film/video: [ ] EM Effects: [ ] Failures: [ ] Damages: |
|---|---|
| Hynek: | N/A. |
| Armed / unarmed: | ? |
| Reliability 1-3: | 2 |
| Strangeness 1-3: | 2 |
| ACUFO: | Not UFO-related. |
[Ref. ars1:] ALBERT ROSALES:
Location: Near Edinburgh, Scotland.
Date: 1935.
Time: Evening.
Wing Commander Victor Goddard, flew a Hawker biplane to Edinburgh from his home base in Andover England, for a weekend visit. On the Sunday before flying back, Goddard visited an abandoned airfield in Drem, near Edinburgh, this location being closer to his final destination then the airport at which he landed. The Drem airfield, constructed during the First World War was a shambles. The tarmac and four hangars were in disrepair, barbed wire divided the field into numerous pastures, and cattle grazed everywhere. It was now a farm, and completely useless as an airfield. On Monday Goddard began the flight back to his home base. The weather was dark and ominous with low clouds and heavy rain. Goddard was flying in an open cockpit over mountainous terrain without radio navigational aides or cloud flying instruments. Rain beating down on his forehead and onto his flying goggles badly obscured his vision. He thought he could climb above the clouds, but he was wrong. He made it to 8,000 feet, looking for a break in the clouds. There was none. Suddenly Goddard lost control of his plane. It began to spiral downward. He struggled with the controls. He could speed up or slow down, but he could not stop the spin. He was unsure of his location, but knew he was falling rapidly and might smash into the mountains before coming out of the clouds. The sky became darker, the clouds turning a strange yellowish-brown. The rain came down even more heavily.
Goddard's altimeter showed he was only a thousand feet above the ground and dropping rapidly. At two hundred feet and still spiraling downward, he began to see a bit of daylight through the murky gloom, but his spiral toward seemingly inevitable death was far from over. Goddard was now flying at 150 miles per hour. He emerged from the clouds over “rotating water” that he recognized as the Firth of Forth. He was still falling. Suddenly he saw directly before him, a stone sea wall with a path, a road and railings on top of it. The road seemed to be slowly rotating from left to right. The cloud clover was down to forty feet. Goddard was now flying below twenty feet and was within an instant of tragedy. A young girl with a baby carriage ran through the pouring rain. She ducked her head just in time to avoid the wingtip. Goddard succeeded in leveling out his plane after that. He barely missed striking the water after clearing the sea wall by a few feet. He was now flying only several feet above a stony beach. Fog and rain obscured all distant visibility, but Goddard somehow located his position. He identified the road to Edinburgh and soon was able to discern through the gloom the black silhouettes of the Drem Airfield hangars ahead of him, the same airfield he had visited the day before. The rain became a deluge, the sky grew even darker, and Goddard's plane was shaken violently by the turbulent weather as it sped toward the Drem hangars and into a different world. Suddenly the sky turned bright with golden sunlight. The rain and the farm had vanished. The hangers and the tarmac appeared to have somehow been rebuilt in a brand new condition. There were four planes lined at the end of the tarmac. Three were standard Avro 504N trainer biplanes; the fourth was a monoplane of an unknown type the RAF had no monoplanes in 1935. All four airplanes were bright yellow. No RAF airplanes were painted yellow in 1935. The airplane mechanics were wearing blue overalls. RAF mechanics never wore anything but brown overalls when working in hangars in 1935. It took Goddard only an instant to fly over the airfield. He was only a few feet above the ground just high enough to clear the hangars but apparently none of the mechanics saw him or even heard his plane. As he sped away from the airfield, he was again engulfed by the storm. He forced his plane upward, flying at 17,000 feet and then for a time, at 21,000 feet. He managed to return to his home base safely. Goddard felt elated when he landed. He then made the mistake of telling fellow officers about his eerie experience. They looked at him as if he were drunk or crazy. Goddard decided to keep silent about what had happened to him. He did not want a discharge from the RAF on mental grounds. In 1939, Goddard watched as RAF trainers began to be painted yellow and the mechanics switched to blue coveralls. The RAF introduced a new training monoplane exactly like the one he had seen in the flight over Drem. It was called the Magister. He leaned that the airfield at Drem had been refurbished. Another twenty seven years went by, but Goddard never forgot what had happened. He played it through over and over in his mind. It was not until 1966 that he wrote of this experience.
HC addendum.
Source: http://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/37
The yellow color scheme was in wide-spread use from 1918 to 1939 for RAF training planes; it was believed that yellow would make the aircraft stand out in the sky. Goddard was in error in claiming that no trainer plane was pained yellow in 1935.
We are told Goddard was flying a Hawker biplane of the Royal Air Force.
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The source on www.llewellyn.com indicated by [ars1] returns an “article not found” error page; though www.llewellyn.com does exist.
This Website describes itself as “New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901” and lists its topics as “Alternative health, Angels, Astral Projection, Astrology, Chakras, Cryptozoology, Ghost hunting, Intuition, Kabbalah, Magic, magick, Meditation, Paganism, Personal haunting stories, Psychic abilities, Psychic development, Reiki, Reincarnation, Shamanism, Spirit Guides, Spiritual Enlightenment, Tarot books, Tarot card decks, UFOs, Witchcraft, Yoga.”
It sells items related to these topics.
Sir Robert Victor Goddard, KCB, CBE, DL (1897 - 1987) was an Air Marshal, senior commander in the Royal Air Force during WWII.
He is known for his interest in paranormal phenomena; he claimed to have witnessed a clairvoyant incident in 1946 on which the feature film The Night My Number Came Up (1955) was later based.
Goddard later claimed to have had a clairvoyant episode in 1935, at RAF Drem, in Scotland. He claimed that he had been flying a mission to inspect the airfield at Drem which was decommissioned at the time. After flying through some rough weather he emerged to see the airfield seemingly fully operational with planes and attending crew. He noted that he observed a number of yellow planes, one being a monoplane he could not identify. He also saw a number of mechanics in blue overalls which also did not fit with RAF operations at the time as mechanics wore tan overalls. In the following years the airfield at Drem was reactivated, the RAF began painting their training planes yellow, it is claimed, and changed the mechanics uniforms to blue, exactly as Victor had observed years prior. Victor's account of this event has been referred to as a potential real time slip.
Goddard argued for this experience and extrasensory perception and other paranormal phenomena in his book “Flight Towards Reality” (1975).
There are numerous sources about Goddard's stories and claims; but clearly, they had nothing to do with UFOs, and the experience claim in this file is not a UFO experience and not a close encounter of the third kind.
Below: Victor Goddard in 1941, portrayed by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale.
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Goddard claimed that the RAF had no monoplane aircraft in 1935.
In reality, the RAF had used the Bristol M.1 Monoplane Scout fighter of the First World War already.
There was also the Fairey Hendon monoplane, the first all-metal bomber, put into service in 1934 in the Royal Air Force.
There were actually also many monoplane experimental planes in the RAF before 1935: The Handley Page HP20 (1921), the de Havilland DH29 Doncaster (1921), the Bristol Bullfinch (1921), the “Wren” (1923), the Blackburn R.2 Airedale (1925), etc.
By November 1918, the West Fenton airfield had been renamed Gullane Aerodrome and with the post-war demobilization the airfield was vacated in 1919. From 1933 to 1939, the airfield, later called RAF Drem, saw occasional use by visiting squadrons.
It was at this time, while stationed there in 1934, that Victor Goddard had his paranormal vision of the airfield as it might appear in the then future 1939.
Because it is known that from 1933 to 1939, this airfield did have occasional visits by RAF planes, some of which were already painted in yellow color, the story likely does not have anything really paranormal about it.
The overall being of blue colors instead of tan color could just mean that the people he saw were not mechanics but pilots; which makes more sense on a decommissioned airfield.
Not UFO-related.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | April 30, 2024 | Creation, [ars1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 30, 2024 | First published. |
