Established in February 1913, the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF) station at Montrose was the first military aerodrome in the United Kingdom.

Maverick Irish pilot Lieutenant Desmond Arthur (1884-1913) was based there. He was killed in a plane crash on 27 May 1913.

Over the course of World War I, it became apparent that whisky and rum were not the only spirits at the bar of the Scottish base. The ghost of Lt. Arthur was reputed to haunt the vicinity of the officers’ mess.

According to one eyewitness account, the apparition of the aviator ‘glided up to the door of the old aerodrome bar and then vanished’. Many other personnel based at the base repeatedly saw the ghost of Arthur around the bar.

The official investigation into the crash said rather callously that he was ‘killed by his own foolishness’. It was after the publication of this report that the sightings began. It was Arthur’s old pal Charles Grey (1875-1953) who believed that the Irishman had returned to haunt his old station because of the disparaging findings of the inquiry.

The new inquiry blamed the crash on a poorly repaired plane.

After one last sighting in January 1917 the ‘Montrose ghost’ was apparently never seen again.