The Great Mull Air Mystery

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2023

⏱️ 118 minutes

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Summary

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."

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0:00.0	Listen to the astonishing junk drawer exclusively at patreon.com slash astonishing legend times and dates our scots cryptidite
0:08.6	He was really fascinated with house sideways that got by the way
0:11.5	I'm going to publicly shame you scores of persons in the streets dropped unconscious and several of them died the best fear
0:18.0	Oh the best fear yes, of course. Do you need to change your perspective?
0:20.9	I don't think you're supposed to remember past lives also check for notes for an autograph sometimes
0:26.4	There's one in the no yeah and when her grandmother died she and her sister fought viciously over this ring
0:33.0	And nobody other than you folks will ever see it again. There's cosmic chokers after me
0:40.2	Estonishing legends would like to thank mint mobile hello fresh our contributors at patreon.com and you our listeners for making tonight's show possible
0:50.4	The island of mall of the western coast of Scotland
0:53.2	has been inhabited in one way or another for over 11,000 years and anything that old is bound to have its mysteries
1:01.9	There's even a stone circle at lock buoy of the southern coast of mall thought to date back to the Bronze Age
1:08.2	The origin of that stone circle is not the only mystery of the island though
1:12.9	In fact, it's home to one of the greatest aviation legends of all time the great mall air mystery
1:19.2	Just before Christmas in 1975 pilot musician and real estate investor Peter Gibbs traveled by ferry to mall with his girlfriend
1:29.2	Lesty Grancher
1:31.2	Gibbs was an experienced 55 year old former World War II Spitfire pilot
1:36.6	He traveled there to look at investment properties in the nearby Isle of Sky
1:41.1	On Christmas Eve he had dinner including a few drinks with Felicity at the Glen Force hotel
1:47.2	where they had been staying since December 20th
1:50.1	The Glen Foresa has its own unlicensed and unlit grass runway and is a well-known aviation destination
1:57.7	After that me all he decided he wanted to go out and take a solo flight and assess now that he had rented from the hotel manager earlier in the week to scout some of the properties he was interested in
2:08.5	That night Peter Gibbs took off into history
	...

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