Whatever happened to Sir Robert?
In 1935 a 38 year old RAF Wing Commander, Robert Victor Goddard (usually Victor and he wasn't Knighted until 1946, but 'Sir Robert' sounded better) was solo piloting a Hawker Hart light bomber from Edinburgh to Andover. Shortly after passing over a disused and abandoned RAF station near Edinburgh he encountered a severe storm and then a "swirling vortex" somewhere over the Firth of Forth. After recovering he found himself passing over the same airfield, but now refurbished and obviously operational.
Goddard looked down and saw yellow-painted aircraft and what he described as a modern monoplane; neither of which were then in RAF service. The mechanics he could see were wearing blue coveralls instead of the RAF brown de rigeur in 1935. The formerly dilapidated buildings had been renovated and more had been constructed.
The implication of these apparent discrepancies is that Goddard had been propelled forward in time a number of years, to the early stages of World War 2; by 1939 the airfield (then Drem) would have been populated with the Hawker Harts (by now relegated to training duties) and Airspeed Oxford monoplanes of 13 Flying Training School.
Now in the real world the explanation for this is prosaic. Firstly the story doesn't make sense. 13FTS didn't operate the aircraft Goddard described, and certainly not painted yellow. There was no corroborating evidence, just Goddard’s account, first published after his retirement in 1951. He may have misremembered the year of the incident or aspects of what he saw on the ground at the time, though he was a trained military pilot.
It's likely that after the blind flying and violent maneuvering brought on by he storm, Goddard was seriously disorientated and ended up above a completely different airfield (Renfrew Aerodrome, home to the Scottish Flying Club is a good candidate); remember aerial navigation in the 1930s was primitive (dead reckoning, map and compass and landmarks). While Renfrew is more than 100km from Drem such a navigational error in a journey of approximately 700km in a bad storm is far from impossible, especially given the sudden storm.
Goddard is a fascinating character, who really fits well into fiction or gaming set in the 1935-1965 period. He was interested in the paranormal, wrote (his 1975 book Flight Towards Reality is his best known work) and spoke about it after retirement (and there's a hint that his beliefs may have caused his early retirement, at 54, in 1951) and coined the term "ufology". Was he pushed out due to his oddities? Or to run a Secret Government Project dealing with UFOs, aliens, time travellers and such matters.
Especially after the film, The Night My Number Came Up, was released in 1955.
The "time displacement" incident (which is mentioned in numerous works on the paranormal, is only one of three odd incidents in Goddard's life.
The second occurred years before the supposed 'time displacement'. In 1919 an official RAF group photograph of his squadron was taken in early 1919 (the RAF having been formed only a year earlier), just after the Great War ended. The photograph portrayed some 200 men who'd survived the fighting. And one who didn't...
After the photo was developed, it's been placed on the squadron noticeboard so that those who wanted copies could sign up for them. However there was an extra face in the photograph; the grinning and hatless Airman Freddy Jackson, a mechanic who'd died by heedlessly walking into a spinning propeller two days before the squadron posed for
the photo and had been buried that day.
The third incident, obviously Goddard had the Weirdness Magnet disadvantage, is probably the best known as a film (the aforementioned The Night My Number Came Up, was made about it). The film is based on another strange incident that Goddard
experienced, this one in January 1946. Goddard arrived at a party in Shanghai and
overheard an officer talking of a dream in which he (Goddard) was killed in a plane crash; in the officer's dream the plane iced over and crashed on a pebbled beach near mountains, with two men and a woman on board.
Goddard himself was due to fly to Tokyo that night on a DC-3, but the details of the flight didn't match the dream. However by the end of the evening he was persuaded to take two men and a woman with him. The plane iced over and was forced to make a crash landing on the Japanese island of Sado. The crash scene, a pebbled beach near mountains, resembled that described in the precognitive dream. However, unlike the
dream no-one was injured.
Was there some lingering effect (Artron energy buildup?) from the time vortex in 1935?
In 1935 a 38 year old RAF Wing Commander, Robert Victor Goddard (usually Victor and he wasn't Knighted until 1946, but 'Sir Robert' sounded better) was solo piloting a Hawker Hart light bomber from Edinburgh to Andover. Shortly after passing over a disused and abandoned RAF station near Edinburgh he encountered a severe storm and then a "swirling vortex" somewhere over the Firth of Forth. After recovering he found himself passing over the same airfield, but now refurbished and obviously operational.
Goddard looked down and saw yellow-painted aircraft and what he described as a modern monoplane; neither of which were then in RAF service. The mechanics he could see were wearing blue coveralls instead of the RAF brown de rigeur in 1935. The formerly dilapidated buildings had been renovated and more had been constructed.
The implication of these apparent discrepancies is that Goddard had been propelled forward in time a number of years, to the early stages of World War 2; by 1939 the airfield (then Drem) would have been populated with the Hawker Harts (by now relegated to training duties) and Airspeed Oxford monoplanes of 13 Flying Training School.
Now in the real world the explanation for this is prosaic. Firstly the story doesn't make sense. 13FTS didn't operate the aircraft Goddard described, and certainly not painted yellow. There was no corroborating evidence, just Goddard’s account, first published after his retirement in 1951. He may have misremembered the year of the incident or aspects of what he saw on the ground at the time, though he was a trained military pilot.
It's likely that after the blind flying and violent maneuvering brought on by he storm, Goddard was seriously disorientated and ended up above a completely different airfield (Renfrew Aerodrome, home to the Scottish Flying Club is a good candidate); remember aerial navigation in the 1930s was primitive (dead reckoning, map and compass and landmarks). While Renfrew is more than 100km from Drem such a navigational error in a journey of approximately 700km in a bad storm is far from impossible, especially given the sudden storm.
Goddard is a fascinating character, who really fits well into fiction or gaming set in the 1935-1965 period. He was interested in the paranormal, wrote (his 1975 book Flight Towards Reality is his best known work) and spoke about it after retirement (and there's a hint that his beliefs may have caused his early retirement, at 54, in 1951) and coined the term "ufology". Was he pushed out due to his oddities? Or to run a Secret Government Project dealing with UFOs, aliens, time travellers and such matters.
- As an aside in my Who gaming Goddard was the man behind 'Chunky' Gilmore and the ICMG. They occasionally meet over an excellent lunch in those of-so-comfortable armchairs of the Hourglass Club.
Especially after the film, The Night My Number Came Up, was released in 1955.
The "time displacement" incident (which is mentioned in numerous works on the paranormal, is only one of three odd incidents in Goddard's life.
The second occurred years before the supposed 'time displacement'. In 1919 an official RAF group photograph of his squadron was taken in early 1919 (the RAF having been formed only a year earlier), just after the Great War ended. The photograph portrayed some 200 men who'd survived the fighting. And one who didn't...
After the photo was developed, it's been placed on the squadron noticeboard so that those who wanted copies could sign up for them. However there was an extra face in the photograph; the grinning and hatless Airman Freddy Jackson, a mechanic who'd died by heedlessly walking into a spinning propeller two days before the squadron posed for
the photo and had been buried that day.
- Alas there are no extant copies of this photograph. Obviously They suppressed it.
The third incident, obviously Goddard had the Weirdness Magnet disadvantage, is probably the best known as a film (the aforementioned The Night My Number Came Up, was made about it). The film is based on another strange incident that Goddard
experienced, this one in January 1946. Goddard arrived at a party in Shanghai and
overheard an officer talking of a dream in which he (Goddard) was killed in a plane crash; in the officer's dream the plane iced over and crashed on a pebbled beach near mountains, with two men and a woman on board.
Goddard himself was due to fly to Tokyo that night on a DC-3, but the details of the flight didn't match the dream. However by the end of the evening he was persuaded to take two men and a woman with him. The plane iced over and was forced to make a crash landing on the Japanese island of Sado. The crash scene, a pebbled beach near mountains, resembled that described in the precognitive dream. However, unlike the
dream no-one was injured.
Was there some lingering effect (Artron energy buildup?) from the time vortex in 1935?
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