In 1985 I joined the RAF, and after initial training at RAF Swinderby, and trade training at RAF Brize Norton, my first operational posting was to a West London base, RAF Northolt.

In those days, the barracks were divided in to 6 men's rooms, and I shared a room with 5 other men. From the photo below, you can see the ‘H’ block style building with a white arrow pointing to it.

My colleagues and I shared the upper floor room, just below the arrow, (note the arrow indicates the entrance I used to access the barracks).

Satellite photo (2005) of RAF Northolt Barrack Block

There were 2 occasions I had encounters with the ‘supernatural’ – both in this barrack block!

The first time, we had not long returned from our Christmas breaks in the new year of 1986, and the 6 of us decided to equip our barrack room with a television and video recorder. To celebrate the acquisition of the said items, we organised a boys night in, watching movies, and drinking!
To ensure we did not get disturbed, we were the only ones in the whole block with TV and video! We locked the only entrance door to the room, drew the curtains, and settled in for a relaxing night. The lights were dimmed, the film begun, and an hour or so later the film came to a close.
We were seated in a semi-circle around the TV, we started on the second film. Then from behind us, we heard the locker doors begin to open slowly. When the doors were fully open, the next locker started to do the very same…..both its doors opened….very slowly! It was as if somebody was moving round the room, deliberately opening the doors to everyone’s lockers! But that was NOT possible….all 6 of us remained sitting in the middle of the room, the only entrance/exit to the room was a door behind us, which remained closed and locked! Whatever it was moved around the room, slowly opening the doors to each locker.
We sat there, open mouthed looking at each other for an explanation. Each of us open mouthed at what we had just seen. The locker doors that had been opened first, suddenly closed with a bang, together, just as if somebody had shut them in anger! The lockers rocked with the force of the doors being slammed! We all shot our looks at each other and the lockers, which had just been slammed shut. Then the next locker along did the same…we were only a matter of 4 feet away from them, when the doors on these lockers slammed shut too….with just as much force, rocking the lockers too.
Whatever it was, started to speed up, going around the room, slamming the locker doors which had been slowly opened, each locker rocking with the force of the doors being slammed! One of our number recovered enough composure to dive for the main room light switch, and as the last locker doors slammed shut, he turned on the main room lights. All the windows were still shut, the only entrance/exit door to the room was locked and bolted, and all 6 of us were white as proverbial ghosts!
With barely a word between us, we grabbed our wallets, and literally ran to the NAAFI for a few hours, taking Dutch courage, and not breathing a word to anybody else!
When we returned later that night – or truth be told, the early hours of the next morning – everything was normal, not a hint that anything strange had happened – and there was never a repeat of it to my knowledge!

However… Just a few months later, in the summer of 1986, I was returning from a full days work, entering the barrack block by the doors indicated on the photo above.

It was about half seven in the summer evening, I walked up the path to the first set of double doors leading in to the barrack block, I noticed somebody through the glass of the 2nd set of double doors coming down the stairs. Not unusual in itself, but something clicked, why was he wearing the old RAF flying uniform? He must have been around 5ft 8in tall, old pattern WWII leather flying boots, ‘hairy Mary’ RAF blue trousers, an old/worn brown leather flying jacket, and carrying a leather flying helmet in his right hand, as his left hand was holding on to the hand rail as he came downstairs… I could see from the look on his face, he had seen me through the glass; he smiled, and began to raise his hand in a gesture of a friendly greeting. I opened the 2nd set of double doors, and was about to ask him if there was a fancy dress party at the NAAFI I had not heard about, but he was gone! That was not possible! He was more than half way down the double set of stairs when we saw each other – there was no time for him to get up or down – not without me seeing him! He just vanished – right there on the stairs! Having previously been a skeptic to the existence of another world, or ghosts, I was now convinced!

I tried to find records of any men who came to grief at RAF Northolt. I did hear a story from somebody that in the days of 303 Sqn, a Polish spitfire pilot was shot up pretty badly, but made it back to Northolt in his crippled aircraft, only to crash it, and die soon afterwards. There were many brave men who died flying from RAF Northolt, but I could find no hard evidence to suggest who this could have been! But now, I do believe!