After the very thought provoking Harrier jet mystery, we now have the Lightning Mystery, but this a Mystery with a capital M.

At 22.06 hours on Tuesday 8th September 1970, Lightning XS894 lifted off the runway at Royal Air Force Binbrook; and climbed quickly into the night sky over Lincolnshire, in order to checkout a UFO alert.

At the controls of the single-seat jet fighter was an American pilot, Captain William Schafner, who was on his second tour at RAF Binbrook. He loved to fly the Lightning for he was very much at home with it.

The QRA - Quick Reaction Alert shelter that housed two Lightning jet fighters on 24-hour readiness - as shown in the photograph - were the ones that should have answered the UFO alert. Not Schafner. So why was he allowed to go on his own; for two aircraft always go, for obvious reasons. The answer is simple and logical. This was something big and orders for Schafner to take to the sky came from a top official in the Pentagon via RAF Strike Command at High Wycombe. It was the Yanks in command.

For Captain Schafner it was just another routine night exercise, he had done them many times before, but this time it was to be his last and be anything but routine; for unbeknown to Captain Schafner, that by the time he was airborne, Strategic Air Command HQ in Nebraska had ordered its B52 bombers into action and was also airborne.

Also, American Phantoms of the US Air Force based in Iceland; and British Lightnings from Leuchars in Scotland were also scrambled; and all were on Combat Air Patrol after the first UFO sighting over the North Sea, midway between the Shetlands and Norway ... The rest of this story along with other interesting, chilling and thought provoking true stories can be found in the book Ghost Stations™ Mysteries

This story has been specially formatted for the GhostStations.com Website and is intended to only serve as an example of the stories that are in the Ghost Stations books.

Published by: L'AQUILA (ANZIO Group)       Price: £9.95 each

200 pages and around 53 Photographs/Illustrations

ISBN-13: 978-1-871448-08-5