Ep 253: The Great Mull Air Mystery
Description:
On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1975, concert violinist Peter Gibbs was just finishing dinner with his girlfriend at the Glenforsa Hotel on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The pair had traveled to this island in the Inner Hebrides four days earlier to look for hotels to purchase for his property investment company. Gibbs had rented an airplane to island hop during their holiday to use in his search, and the Glenforsa, with its adjacent airstrip, would serve as their base camp. But after dinner, Gibbs did something most of us would find odd, perhaps not for the bold World War II RAF Spitfire veteran fighter pilot; he decided to take a solo plane flight to demonstrate that night flights to the island were possible. It was supposed to be a 10-minute joyride while Gibbs' girlfriend, Felicity Grainger, waited on the unlit grass runway with two flashlights to guide him back in. No one would see Gibbs' Cessna F150H ever again. But, four months later, Gibbs' body would be found 400 feet up a rocky hillside and splayed over a fallen tree. Usually, finding the missing person in a disappearance means "case closed," but not in this case. The condition and location of Gibbs' remains would generate many more questions than answers. He didn't seem to suffer injuries consistent with falling or jumping while airborne. Nor was it likely that he would've made the arduous hike to that location after ditching in the freezing ocean. To add to the enigma, Gibbs appeared in an area thoroughly searched immediately following his disappearance and routinely patrolled by local shepherds. These baffling clues combine into what has become known as "The Great Mull Air Mystery."
Location:
The Glenforsa Airfield on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Reference Links:
“Peter Gibbs’ Great Mull Air Mystery” from TheUnexplainedMysteries.com
Accident report of Peter Gibbs’ plane from the Aviation Safety Network
Steve Punt – "Punt PI” Series 8 on “The Great Mull Air Mystery” from BBC Radio4
“This Spitfire Pilot Rams a V1 Rocket with His Plane” from The Smithsonian Channel on YouTube
“The crazy way British pilots took out incoming V-1 missiles” from the We Are The Mighty website
Newspaper clipping on Peter Gibbs’ SAR operation from The Birmingham Post, 29 December, 1975
Peter Gibbs’ military record entry from the National Archives of the UK
Peter Gibbs’ DE HAVILLAND DH.82A TIGER MOTH, G-APAW / 85263, from the Air-Britain Photo Library
PDF: Information on Peter Gibbs as a violinist from ByersMusic.com
What happened on Wednesday, December 24, 1975, from the takemeback.to website
The “Disappeared” of Northern Ireland, during the UK’s time of “the Troubles”
Teenage airplane thief Colton Harris Moore known as the “Barefoot Bandit”
Capt. Thomas F. Mantell’s P-51 Mustang aircraft’s encounter with a UFO
Peter Gibbs’ RAF Combat Action Reports:
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CREDITS:
Episode 253: The Great Mull Air Mystery. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound. Music and Sound Design by Allen Carrescia. Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher. Ed Voccola, Technical Producer. Research Support from The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2023 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.