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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/DetectiveFork on 2026-06-22 19:37:21+00:00. After the dawn of powered flight, many Spiritualists believed that fallen aviators continued watching over the living. Through séances and mediums, these phantom pilots supposedly warned of mechanical failures and became entwined with the tragic stories of the Titanic and the R101. By Kevin J. Guhl [OP] During the first decades of aviation, Spiritualists claimed that fallen airmen continued their mission from beyond the grave... not by flying ghostly aircraft through the clouds, but by communicating through mediums to warn living pilots of hidden mechanical faults and impending disasters. Their messages became intertwined with some of the 20th century's greatest tragedies, from the Titanic to Britain's doomed airship, the R101. At the heart of this forgotten tradition are two extraordinary episodes: the alleged posthumous warnings of pioneering French aviator Eugène Lefebvre, delivered through journalist and Spiritualist W. T. Stead, and the later claims that Captain Walter Hinchliffe continued advising England's aerial endeavors after vanishing over the Atlantic with aviatrix Elsie Mackay. The Daredevil and the Muckraker M. Eugène Lefebvre holds the sad distinction of being the second person ever killed in a powered airplane crash. Lt. Thomas Selfridge, a passenger accompanying Orville Wright on a Sep. 17, 1908 flight demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia, was the first. The Frenchman, 31 when he died, was an engineer who taught himself the art of aviation, and is commonly regarded as the first stunt pilot. As chief pilot of the French Wright Company, Lefebvre earned his reputation as a daring aviator at the first international air race, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation at Reims, in 1909. He won awards (including fourth place in the Gordon-Bennett Cup and third place for speed over the course), and performed "a series of daring evolutions" in his Wright Flyer. "Lefebvre seemed to be able to do anything he liked with his machine. With the others I saw there was always a half-nervous apprehension that they might come down at any moment. Lefebvre was able to play all sorts of tricks in the air," Chancellor David Lloyd-George said at Reims. "I saw no reason why he should not go sailing on forever." On Sep. 7, 1909, just over a week after Reims, Lefebvre was making a trial flight in a new Wright biplane at Port Aviation in Juvisy, near Paris. At about 33 feet up, the machine suddenly dipped downward and dashed to the ground, the running motor accelerating the collision. The pilot was mortally injured. The cause of the crash was suspected to be a faulty rudder control, although the airplane was so totally smashed that it was impossible to determine. But Lefebvre, it seemed, still had work to do... Lefebvre and his Wright biplane. William Thomas Stead earned his place as one of England's most influential reporters during the Victorian era. He pioneered investigative journalism and a sensational tabloid style with The Pall Mall Gazette that both increased circulation and drove public and political support for addressing social ills like child prostitution. Stead developed a fascination with Spiritualism in the 1890s, opening a London office called "Julia's Bureau" where the public could consult with clairvoyants to communicate with the departed. In the words of The New York Times, it was "a house of call for spirits, a sort of spiritist telephonic exchange." The "proprietor" of this office was Julia A. Ames of Chicago, who had been dead for 17 years. Stead claimed that Ames, who had worked for the Women's Christian Temperance Union and delved into Spiritualism during her lifetime, was one of the few souls to make good on a promise to communicate with a friend post-death as proof of the afterlife. The bureau, said Stead, was her idea, with Ames serving as the link between the spirit and material worlds. Stead said that he was at Julia's Bureau on the morning of Sep. 16, 1909, the day before he was to accompany Princess Marie Wiasemsky on a trip to Mourmelon-le-Grand (near Châlons-en-Champagne) in France. There, they would watch her son, Prince Serge Vincent de Bolotoff, conduct experimental airplane flights. Stead had just received two brief messages from Julia when the clairvoyant conveying them said, "I hear another voice speaking." . "If you go to Châlons, I am going with you," the voice spoke to Stead through the clairvoyant. "I have been dead some time. My name is Lefebvre." Stead had never heard of the deceased French pilot, who nonetheless warned, "Tell that young man [Bolotoff] not to be too daring, for it is very probable that his motor will not work normally. I do not think there will be what you call an accident, but let him carefully verify his motor; moderate his impetuousness." Interestingly, the spirit confirmed that he was speaking in French and the clairvoyant was translating into English for Stead. Ever the journalist, Stead asked Lefebvre what had caused his rapid crash. "I did not have time to think; you scarcely have time to reflect when you are falling," the aviator replied. Did he keep his presence of mind during the fall, Stead inquired? "This is what I felt," explained Lefebvre. "I was conscious that I was falling, but before reaching the ground I lost consciousness. I felt no pain, no sensation, in my physical body. It seems that my spirit was thrown out. I had a sensation of rapid rotation, then something gave way suddenly, and I found myself in the air, perceiving below me my mortal remains and the apparatus. It was not unpleasant. I noticed, too, that a very powerful being, who soothed me, was near me..." Heeding the spirit's warning, Stead phoned Bolotoff regarding the aeroplane's motor, and the aviator said he would be on guard. Stead arrived at Châlons on Monday as planned, and checked in with Bolotoff and his aircraft. The journalist later reported, "The motor, carefully verified, appeared to work very well. No one acquainted with aeroplanes thought that it could be troublesome. But at six o'clock, when M. Bolotoff mounted his seat, it was impossible to make the machine start off. Something did not work; the handle for starting the motor broke, and to our great regret the essays had to be abandoned." Stead left it to others to explain the phenomenon. Stead's venture into the era's popular Spiritualism movement had its detractors. "William T. Stead has afforded London the priceless boon of laughter," quipped The New York Times in reference to the journalist's role in operating Julia's Bureau. London's Referee balked at the poor taste in publicizing conversations with recently deceased celebrities. Wrote the Referee, "There is great indignation in France at the interview which Mr. Stead has had at the Bureau with the spirit of the late aviator, Lefebvre. The friends and relatives of the dead man strongly object to his spirit being made to say things that they are quite sure it never would have said." The Review of Reviews, founded by Stead in 1889 after he resigned his editorship of the Pall Mall Gazette, once reflected that although Stead was a highly respected journalist, he did much to undermine his influence by dabbling in Spiritualism. But, admitted the magazine, "he made as many adherents in one direction as he lost in another, and 'Julia's Bureau' was besieged." Let's briefly detour from the airborne to the maritime, as this aspect of Stead's journey is too fascinating not to share: Stead made some eerie forecasts of disaster, himself. In 1886, he wrote a short story (published in The Pall Mall Gazette) called "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic (By a Survivor)." The story is narrated by a passenger on a steamship that crosses the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool and collides disastrously with a sailing vessel in the fog. This promptly leads to a chaotic late-night scene as more than 900 passengers struggle to save themselves from the sinking steamship on eight available lifeboats that can barely accommodate 400 people. Stead ended this parable with an editorial note that read, "This is exactly what might take place and what will take place if the liners are sent to sea short of boats." In 1892, Stead published a short story called "From the Old World to the New" in The Review of Reviews, another seafaring tale but now mingled with Stead's growing interest in Spiritualism. It describes h... Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HighStrangeness/comments/1ucul48/phantom_aviators_when_dead_pilots_tried_to_warn/ |
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