Eerie

Goodsprings, Nevada, is a ghost town located just 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas – and it’s proving incredibly popular with tourists, with thousands flocking in each year

Located in the middle of nowhere and allegedly haunted, the ghost town of Goodsprings is far from the most obvious tourist destination.

Coupled with its proximity to the dazzling lights of Las Vegas, it would be easy for Goodsprings to be overlooked. But, despite its spooky history and sparse amenities, the town finds itself subject to thousands of visitors every year.

Just half an hour away from the city’s bustling strip and vibrant nightlife, life in Goodsprings could not be more different. Home to around 200 residents, this quiet town at the base of the Spring Mountains in the Nevada desert was once a bustling mining hub.

In its heyday in the early 1900s, it housed 800 inhabitants and boasted amenities such as a hospital, hotels and a school – which remarkably still operates today, albeit with only two pupils on its roll. However, as the ore reserves in the Goodsprings mines dwindled, so did its populace.

In 1942, the town served as the base for a special search mission following the tragic plane crash that claimed the life of actress Carole Lombard. Her aircraft crashed into Potosi Mountain, and her husband, Hollywood legend Clark Gable, anxiously awaited news at Goodsprings’ Pioneer Saloon.

It’s said that Gable’s cigar burns can still be seen on the Saloon’s bar to this day. Consequently, there’s a memorial room at the Pioneer honouring its connection to the iconic couple.

Today, Goodsprings has a somewhat eerie aura. A drive through the town on its dusty roads evokes a spooky feeling.

Often the subject of folk tales and ghost hunts, Reddit users have shared their experiences of visiting the town. One stated: “When I went to Goodsprings a few years back with my wife, it was completely dead.

“No one was outside or driving around, it looked like a wild west ghost town that time had forgotten”.

Despite its remote location, the owners of the Pioneer Saloon are eager to provide a warm welcome to visitors. Stephen Staats, also known as Old Man Liver, purchased the iconic pub in 2021 and discovered Goodsprings’ unique place in pop culture.

The town serves as the starting point for the cult classic video game Fallout: New Vegas, which features the main character revived after being buried alive in Goodsprings cemetery. Many of the game’s characters are based on real-life residents, and the Pioneer itself is featured in the game, rebranded as the Prospector Saloon.

Recognising the town’s popularity, Staats hosted a Fallout-themed event on National Video Game Day, July 8, in 2022. He expected “maybe 100 in a crazy world”, but was taken aback when more than a thousand fans showed up.

Since then, it has grown year on year, and following the launch of the acclaimed Amazon Prime Video series based off the game, 6,420 people visited Goodsprings in 2024. Fallout fans have praised the town’s atmosphere and welcoming spirit on Reddit, with one saying: “The locals love it, and it’s kind of their only form of tourism.”

Another, who visited before Staats took over the Pioneer, said: “They were incredibly friendly and welcoming both times I went, and there’s even a marble wall inscribed with the town’s residents since it’s founding, movies and TV shows that have filmed there, all sorts of stuff.”

With a second season of the Amazon Prime show greenlit and likely to be set in and around ‘New Vegas’, Goodsprings could become an unlikely destination to rival the dazzling city that casts its wide shadow over the Nevada desert.

A number of people who have visited the bone caves have been greeted by deer, with the area being labelled one of the ‘most mysterious and magical’ in the UK

The UK boasts an array of breathtaking walks, but the Scottish Highlands are particularly noteworthy. Here, you can traverse mountain paths, skirt around lochs, and explore caves or the remnants of ancient castles.

One path leads to the ominously named ‘bone caves. Situated in Assynt, close to Inchnadamph, the bone caves have been dubbed one of the “most mysterious and magical places” in the UK.

The discovery of lynx, reindeer, and polar bear bones within these caves is a testament to their past inhabitants, despite these species no longer roaming the region.

Comprising four natural limestone caves set into the high limestone cliff face of Creag nan Uamh (Crag of the Caves), they stretch about five metres deep and are just tall enough for an average person to stand upright.

These caves were once part of a larger system that has since been worn away by erosion as the valley deepened, leaving only a few intact today, reports the Express.

First documented in 1889 by Geologists Peach and Horne, the caves’ true treasures weren’t unearthed until 1928 when J. E. Cree conducted excavations.

Cree’s exploration yielded a bear tooth, human skeletons, antlers, among other artefacts. Many of these discoveries from the caves are now exhibited at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

To access the caves, walkhighlands.co.uk provides a route that begins at a car park on the A837 between Elphin and Inchnadamph.

Several visitors have shared their experiences on TripAdvisor. One review reads: “Amazing walk, amazing scenery and a real sense of atmosphere when you arrive at the bone caves. Fairly easy most of the way, a few rocky areas.”

Another wrote: “This is a great walk, only takes about 1hour each way. Should have a stick and good shoes for walking but otherwise very simple walk. Certainly recommend this if in the area, really pretty walk and great views from the caves.”

While a third visitor commented: “These are a set of natural pre-Ice Age caves set high in a limestone cliff, where a large number of animal bones were discovered during excavation (hence the name).

“It’s a beautiful trail through a deep, secluded valley with a steep climb up to the caves followed by a sharp vertigo-inducing descent right along the edge of the cliff back to the valley. We were greeted by a deer at the end of our walk!”

For the past 30 years, Mark Gregory’s Air Salvage International (ASI) has been assessing, chopping up, disassembling, and recycling planes at the private airfield, which sits two miles from Kemble in Gloucestershire

What connects Saddam Hussein, Tom Cruise and Doctor Who? Cotswolds Airport, of course.

The mass murderer, the action star, and the BBC space drama have all starred, in their own way, at one of the most curious pieces of the aviation industry: the plane graveyard.

For the past 30 years, Mark Gregory’s Air Salvage International (ASI) has been assessing, chopping up, disassembling, and recycling planes at the private airfield, which sits two miles from Kemble in Gloucestershire.

Armed with redundancy money in the early ’90s, Mark bought his first plane and spent six months breaking it down into sellable bits. More than 1,400 aircraft later, the business is thriving and employs dozens of people to cope with the growing demand from the ever-expanding aviation industry.

READ MORE: ‘I lost my mind taking the train to Spain – there are three problems’

And there are big bucks at stake. The equivalent of a commercial jet’s MOT costs around £1 million, which is why many plane owners decide to send their ageing aircraft to Mark instead. Sometimes as much as £12 million can be salvaged from them, either in reusable parts or recyclable materials.

There are a few other strings to the business’s bow, Mark explained as he took me on a tour around the facility.

ASI puts on dramatic training scenarios for organisations including the SAS, helping them practise plane-related emergencies. One mock-up situation had Mark and his team crush a van with a plane fuselage, creating a tricky day out for the special forces, who also had to deal with hijackers and “injured” passengers on board.

The airport and its jets are also movie stars. Countless films have been shot at ASI, including The Fast and the Furious 6, World War Z, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Mission: Impossible, and Batman. You may also recognise it from small-screen appearances on The One Show, Horizon, Inside Out, Terror in the Skies, Engineering Giants, Casualty and, of course, Doctor Who.

Look closely the next time you see a dramatic plane disaster or runway scene on screen, and you might spot some suspiciously Gloucestershire countryside in the background — or even Mark’s arms.

When not making cash out of old planes or hammering away at the drum kit set up in his runway-side office, the ponytail-sporting scrap magnate can be partially seen on the silver screen, “piloting” the Boeing 727 in its latest movie escapade.

Although many of the firms that send their planes to ASI know exactly what they want back — a demand list that can stretch to 2,000 parts from a single jet — other aircraft meet less formulaic fates.

One big chunk of fuselage ended up in the shadows of The Swarm rollercoaster at Thorpe Park. Others are sent out to aviation buffs who want to decorate their homes with various bits and pieces. Through ASI’s sister site, planestation.aero, you can buy a redundant pilot’s seat for £6,000, or small sections of fuselage with a window for £150. The money raised is spent on the staff Christmas party.

Seat pockets filled with cash-stuffed wallets also occasionally bolster the coffers, although most of these find their way back to their owners.

Another offshoot of the business is crash site investigation. Although downed planes rarely make it to ASI due to the extent of the damage, members of Mark’s team are occasionally called out to inspect the aftermath of major aviation tragedies.

Their expertise in breaking aircraft down makes them particularly useful when it comes to identifying remains and helping determine what went wrong. They were part of the investigation into the Afriqiyah Airways crash in Tripoli, Libya, in 2010, which killed 104 people.

While most of the firm’s planes get broken down and flogged off — sometimes for £10 million for a single jet — Mark Gregory can’t bear to give up certain flying machines that come his way.

One such plane is a VIP-fitted Boeing 727 that was once part of Saddam Hussein’s fleet, after he instructed Iraqi Airways to steal all of Kuwait Airways’ planes during its 1990 invasion of the country. Mark loves the historical significance of the aircraft and its classic ’80s interior.

When owned by the Kuwaiti royal family, the 189-capacity jet was stripped of its standard bum-numbing plane seats and kitted out with enough chintzy furniture to fill a retirement village. We’re talking plush velour seats with extendable footrests, cutting-edge JVC TVs built into mahogany walls, and glass vases filled with plastic roses next to still-unopened bottles of bubbly.

Before Iraqi forces swooped in and took over the Kuwaiti fleet, Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and other well-heeled royals used the plush plane to jet-set. On a patch of carpet now taken over by mould spores, the Emir would sit in a specially constructed throne, using radio equipment to issue commands to his staff from 30,000 feet.

Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous landmarks in the world, but there’s also a modern version

Stonehenge, one of the UK’s most iconic landmarks, attracts roughly 1.4 million visitors annually. The stones have evolved significantly over the millennia they’ve been standing, with the initial construction thought to date back to around 3000 BC.

Interestingly, three pits within the site are even older, dating between 8500 and 7000 BC. Throughout its existence, additional stones have been incorporated, and some removed, but it has always maintained its commanding position on the Salisbury Plains.

It’s a particularly favoured spot for Winter and Summer solstice celebrations.

Given Stonehenge’s profound impact on many people’s imaginations, it’s not surprising that replicas exist elsewhere, varying in their accuracy – a 1987 replica in Nebraska was built using vintage American cars rather than stones.

However, there is a complete replica in America, commissioned in the early 20th century by affluent entrepreneur Sam Hill, reports the Express.

In 1907, Sam acquired a settlement near the Columbia River in Washington State, which he named Maryhill after his wife Mary and his daughter, also called Mary. This is where he would later build his Stonehenge replica.

A passionate traveller, the businessman is thought to have made at least 50 trips to Europe and even several to Japan. Naturally, he visited Stonehenge during his travels.

He rubbed shoulders with the elite, including Queen Marie of Romania who honoured him with the Order of the Crown, and King Albert I of Belgium, who appointed him Commander of the Crown and Honorary Belgian Consul for Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Sam held the belief that Stonehenge was initially erected for human sacrifices, a theory that many historians now disagree with.

As a Quaker and pacifist, Sam equated the conflicts of the First World War to human sacrifice, constructing a Stonehenge replica in Washington as a tribute to Klickitat County’s fallen servicemen.

He embarked on creating this memorial, consulting top experts in archaeology, astronomy, and engineering, intending it to serve as a stark reminder of the “folly of war.”

The stones of the real Stonehenge hail from across the British Isles, some sourced locally near Salisbury Plains, while others were brought from Wales, Scotland, or possibly even further afield.

British legends even claim that some of the stones originated from Africa, carried to Britain on the backs of giants.

In the US, Hill was keen to use local Washington State stones for his replica, but when these proved inadequate, he resorted to using reinforced concrete.

Instead of modelling it on the current appearance of Stonehenge, Hill chose to design his memorial based on how Stonehenge might have looked in its complete form, with a full circle of outer stones.

Sam Hill passed away in 1933 and was cremated, with his ashes interred in a crypt beneath his Stonehenge monument.

Despite once being a thriving network link, this tiny railway station has almost been completely abandoned – except for the two trains that stop here once a week, both heading in the same direction

A tiny railway station that ‘refuses to die’ has been around for 160 years – but is hardly used at all.

Situated near Gloucestershire, on the South Wales mainline between Cardiff and Bristol, lies the forgotten station of Pilning. With no staff and just one platform, the hub has become ‘criminally neglected’ and ‘rendered virtually unusable’ due to years of poor maintenance and lack of investment.

It hasn’t been completely abandoned, and remains on official rail maps, but has become ghostly vacant. In fact, only two trains now actually stop at the station per week, both heading in the same direction – making it one of the country’s least-used railway stations.

READ MORE: New 20k-mile train to link 100 EU cities with £67 tickets – but there’s a catch

The station did see a boom in passenger numbers during the pandemic – which climbed to 710 in 2019-2020. However, the year after this number fell down to 210, the worst record since 2015/2016.

But back in its heyday, Pilning station was thriving, boasting its own stationmaster, fourteen signalmen, six signalmen/porters, six porters, two ‘lad’ porters and a tunnel inspector. It was commonly used by Brits as a means of getting to the Severn Tunnel Junction, providing an alternative to the Aust Ferry or a long detour through Gloucester.

However, when the Severn Road Bridge opened in 1966, the station’s popularity plummeted. By 1990, its service had been slashed to just one train each way daily, during daylight hours. In 2006, this was reduced to just one train each per week, on a Saturday.

“In 2016, a real body blow – our footbridge was demolished and not replaced, leaving us with just two trains a week in one direction and none at all in the other,” Pilning Station Group, which is campaigning for the station to be brought back to life, said. “Was that the final kiss of death? No way – since then, the station’s official usage figures have shot up by a staggering 900 per cent, and our campaign for a better service and a reinstated footbridge has been steadily gathering support and momentum.”

Campaigners argue even ‘minor improvements’ to the station could make it more attractive to potential users, such as a later Saturday afternoon train that would allow passengers more time in Bristol. “A Saturday lunchtime train would enable visitors and rail enthusiasts to visit Pilning for a drink and a pub lunch at the nearby Plough Inn and catch the later train back,” they said.

“An early-morning Monday-Friday train to Bristol would give people a fast route to work or college, as an alternative to the slow and circuitous Severn Beach branch which is very crowded in the mornings. Restoration of platform lighting (removed about 30 years ago as it was allegedly life-expired) would enable trains to call again after dark.”

The eerie station has recently gone viral on social media, where it has been branded the ‘loneliest station’ in the UK. “I live next to this station,” one TikToker said. “The locals have been campaigning for years to have it reopened as we have next to no public transport links.”

Many Brits said they were interested about the forgotten hub, with one user stating: “I’m curious to visit it now.” Another agreed, commenting: “I would still go there,” while a third added: “Sounds like it needs a garden village built there as it has transport links.”

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OXNARD, Calif. — At 6 a.m. Wednesday, Juvenal Solano drove slowly along the cracked roads that border the fields of strawberry and celery that cloak this fertile expanse of Ventura County, his eyes peeled for signs of trouble.

An eerie silence hung over the morning. The workers who would typically be shuffling up and down the strawberry rows were largely absent. The entry gates to many area farms were shut and locked.

Still, Solano, a director with the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, felt relieved. Silence was better than the chaos that had broken out Tuesday when immigration agents raided fields in Oxnard and fanned out across communities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that grow a considerable portion of the state’s strawberries, avocados and celery.

The organization, part of a broader rapid-response network that offers support and counsel for workers targeted by immigration raids, was caught off guard when calls started pouring in from residents reporting federal agents gathering near fields. Group leaders say they have confirmed at least 35 people were detained in the raids, and are still trying to pin down exact numbers.

In the past week, Solano said, the organization had gotten scattered reports of immigration authorities arresting undocumented residents. But Tuesday, he said, marked a new level in approach and scope as federal agents tried to access fields and packinghouses. Solano, like other organizers, are wondering what their next move will be.

“If they didn’t show up in the morning, it’s possible they’ll show up in the afternoon,” Solano said. “We’re going to stay alert to everything that’s happening.”

While agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol showed up at food production sites from the Central Coast to the San Joaquin Valley, much of the activity centered on the Oxnard Plain. Maureen McGuire, chief executive of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said federal agents visited five packing facilities and at least five farms in the region. Agents also stopped people on their way to work, she said.

In many cases, according to McGuire and community leaders, farm owners refused to grant access to the agents, who had no judicial warrants.

California, which grows more than one-third of the nation’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts, has long been dependent on undocumented labor to tend its crops. Though a growing number of farm laborers are migrants imported on a seasonal basis through the controversial H-2A visa program, at least half the state’s 255,700 farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, according to UC Merced research. Many have lived in California for years, and have put down roots and started families.

Juvenal Solano, with Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, said Tuesday’s raids in Ventura County farm fields marked a dramatic escalation in tactics.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

Until this week, California’s agricultural sector had largely escaped the large-scale raids that the Department of Homeland Security has deployed in urban areas, most recently in Los Angeles and Orange counties. California farmers — many of them ardent supporters of Donald Trump — have seemed remarkably calm as the president vowed mass deportations of undocumented workers.

Many expected that Trump would find ways to protect their workforce, noting that without sufficient workers, food would rot in the fields, sending grocery prices skyrocketing.

But this week brought a different message. Asked about enforcement actions in food production regions, Tom Homan, Trump’s chief adviser on border policy, said growers should hire a legal workforce.

“There are programs — you can get people to come in and do that job,” he said. “So work with ICE, work with [U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services], and hire a legal workforce. It’s illegal to knowingly hire an illegal alien.”

Ventura County strawberry fields had far fewer workers Wednesday, a day after federal agents targeted the region for immigration raids.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

California’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, issued a joint statement Wednesday decrying the farm raids, saying that targeting farmworkers for deportation would undermine businesses and families.

“Targeting hardworking farmworkers and their families who have been doing the backbreaking work in the fields for decades is unjustified and unconscionable,” Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff said in their statement.

The California Farm Bureau also issued a statement, warning that continued enforcement would disrupt production.

“We want to be very clear: California agriculture depends on and values its workforce,” said Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau. “We’re still early in the season, with limited harvest activity, but that will soon ramp up. If federal immigration enforcement activities continue in this direction, it will become increasingly difficult to produce food, process it and get it onto grocery store shelves.”

Arcenio Lopez, executive director of MICOP, said he is especially concerned about the prospect of Indigenous workers being detained, because many cannot read or write in English or Spanish, and speak only their Indigenous languages. The organization’s leaders suspect that many of those detained Tuesday are Indigenous, and are rushing to find them before they sign documents for voluntary deportation that they don’t understand. They’re urging that anyone who gets arrested call their hotline, where they offer legal assistance.

Rob Roy, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Association, said he has been warning growers since November that this time would come and providing training on their legal rights. Many know to ask for search warrants, he said. But that still leaves undocumented workers vulnerable on their way to and from work.

“I think overall here, they’re fairly safe on the farms or the building,” Roy said. “But when they leave work, they’re very concerned.”

Elaine Yompian, an organizer with VC Defensa, said she is urging families to stay home, if possible, to avoid exposure.

“We actually told a lot of the families who contacted us, if you can potentially not work today, don’t go,” Yompian said, adding that they are able to provide limited support to families through donations they receive.

Families whose loved ones have been detained are struggling to understand what comes next, she said.

“People are terrified; they don’t know at what point they’re going to be targeted,” Yompian said. “The narrative that they’re taking criminals or taking bad people off the streets is completely false. They’re taking the working-class people that are just trying to get by.”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

A ONCE loved family destination has fallen into ruin with mice running around and mould growing on slides.

A TikToker revealed the eerie insides of the now abandoned waterpark in a haunting video.

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Footage shows the park in Northern Ireland fallen into ruin with mice seen running around where children and families once played.

The water slides that the attraction was once known for are now falling apart and covered in mould.

Left to rot when it was closed down in February 2020 the park has remained untouched since.

Haunting footage shows the once bright and vibrant attraction completely abandoned, dark and damp.

The facilities have all been left frozen in time with abandoned building explorers the only recent visitors.

It seems almost as if people left in a hurry with the park being nearly exactly as it was when it was open.

Social media users were left feeling nostalgic by the footage with many recalling fond memories of Waterworld.

The park has never been put on the market after it was suddenly closed more than five years ago.

TikToker Jaimie, who explores abandoned buildings for fun and shares footage with his followers, recently visited the park.

He has also explored several other abandoned sites across Ireland and has built a following from the videos of his explorations.

Unsettling footage of Waterworld shows a mouse darting across the bottom of an empty pool.

Video also shows clips of the sauna which looks eerily identical to how it did when the site was open.

Waterworld was also home to a bowling alley which was also left abandoned and frozen in time.

The lanes are left dim and unlit, abandoned exactly as they were five years ago.

Bowling balls still sit ready to be rolled having been left in the facility when it was emptied.

The entire facility was left dark with only the torches of the TikToker and his pal to light it.

The local council has been urged to focus on the sale of the abandoned site.

Social media users noted that the centre still looks to be in a semi decent condition.

Local councillors keep an eye on the abandoned leisure centre, asking for updates on the facility.

Jamie’s video received over 180,000 views on TikTok.

Most were left asking if the waterpark would ever open again with the eerie footage sparking a wave of nostalgia.

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Pan Am 103 produced the largest crime scene in UK history, covering 845 square miles just over the border as debris and human remains fells out of the sky

New BBC drama series, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, has stunned viewers with its depiction of the shocking events of December 21 1988 and the devastating aftermath.

The deadliest terrorist incident to have occurred on British soil hit Lockerbie when a bomb exploded in the cargo area of the plane. All 259 people aboard the plane died and 11 on the ground lost their lives on December 21. The debris covered 845 square miles- more than 2,000 square km, spread over the border into Northumbria creating the largest crime scene in UK history.

Boeing 747 Clipper Maid Of The Seas had taken off from Heathrow and was less than two hours into its flight to New York and Detroit when passengers perished within seconds of the blast over Lockerbie, which is located in Dumfries and Galloway, south-western Scotland.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 dramatizes the Scots-US investigation into the attack, the effect it had on victims’ families and how it impacted Lockerbie’s locals.

The six part series also highlights that lobbying by UK and US-based family groups resulted in “key reforms, from strengthening travel warning systems and tighter baggage screening, to people-centred responses to major disasters”.

So what happened that fateful a day when residents of a small Scottish town prepared for the holiday time with loved ones, while Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the skies above them?

READ MORE: Sex Education star’s horror over terrorist attack that killed 270 people

That evening at around 7.10 pm, resident Donald Bogie heard a sound that became so loud that he said it became “almost unbearable”. Then suddenly it went eerily quiet. He ran out of his house and saw flames. The streets were on fire, lawns were on fire, homes were on fire. Bodies lay everywhere.

Over in a field lay the body of a young man who was only wearing his underpants because the rest of his clothes had been torn off during the fall. Beside him was an undamaged bottle of Chivas Regal.

Farmer Kate Anderson told the Mirror how the cockpit of Pan Am flight 103, landed 50 yards from her remote cottage. The bodies of Captain James Bruce MacQuarrie, his copilot and the flight engineer were found still strapped into their seats. There were 98 bodies that rained on her land that evening.

Speaking in 2018 on how she and other locals tried to help in the horrifying aftermath she said: “It felt like you were living in a film. Your human resources kicked in. You did what you could to help.

“There were families who were devastated. The poor soldiers who spend Christmas day picking up bits of bodies – many of them suffered afterwards,”

Recalling the start of the nightmare, she described how it was ferociously windy: “It was blowing a hoolie that night. We heard an explosion. We later realised it was the sound of the plane hitting Lockerbie, ” she remembers.

“We could hear the bang from three miles away and could see the mushroom from the explosion. We knew it was fuel. I thought it might have been a petrol station. We could hear something whistling, so we went inside.

“There was another bang, and the electricity went off. We could see something white in our field when we went back outside. It was the cockpit, and it was about 50 yards from our house.”

Kate and her husband Kevin approached the shattered plane. She said: “It was silent. There was no sign of life. We looked inside, and there were several bodies in there, but you just knew that none of them were alive.

“There were bodies all over our farm. We later found out 98 bodies landed in our farm that night.”

Local police officer Michael Gordon was on the phone chatting to a friend when he heard a strange rumbling sound outside.

In a 2003 television interview, Michael recalled: “The weather that night was a bit wild, there was a strong wind. From my window, I could see Lockerbie as my house sits up on a hill and I heard this noise above the noise of the wind..”

He at first assumed it was a jet fighter plane as the military were known to practice in the area. He then described how he saw objects falling from the sky before seeing a fireball hurtling straight towards Lockerbie.

“When it hit, I could hear the most horrendous explosion, and I could hear the tiles on the roof of my house lifting. “

The explosion cut all telephone lines and the water supply. The fire department was able to put out all the fires within seven and a half hours using milk wagons, which were quickly filled with water and driven to the many burning pieces of wreckage.

Michael went out to help find survivors. He recalled: “Everything was on fire. I was jumping around – it was difficult to move without feeling my trousers burning.”

In the morning light, the full horror of what happened could be seen clearly. On the southern edge of the town was a huge crater with 1500 tonnes of rock and earth that had been blasted out of the ground.

Several houses on the ground in the direct path of the fireball Michael saw had been vaporised. The main plane wreckage fell on Lockerbie – both wings and its midsection – 150 tonnes of machine descending up to 500 knots speed to create the crater.

Around it, there was debris and human remains. Elsewhere In the ruins of homes, people searched for the bodies that fell out of the sky.

One shellshocked resident told one of the many TV crews that descended onto the quiet town that her street “looked like a scene out of hell.” The mid-section of the Boeing 747 fell from the sky onto Ella Ramsden’s home in Park Place. In astonishing luck the 60-year-old survived the crash – as she ran carrying her Jack Russell to the kitchen – the only part of her home that remained standing.

Ella’s dog Cara, her budgie, and even her pet goldfish survived. Ella and Cara were pulled out of the window in her kitchen door that she had broken with a frying pan. The next day, the budgie was found fluttering about the ruins and the goldfish were still swimming in their tank amid the rubble.

Ella had been tidying up after a visit by her son and two young grandsons when she heard a deafening noise and flashes of red. Speaking to the Mirror in 1998 on the ten-year anniversary of the tragedy Ella said: “The house started to come in over me. Suddenly the stars were above me. I smashed a window in the kitchen and screamed for help. People ran round to the front, but there was no front any more.

“For me, it was only losing a house. For so many others it was a loss beyond imagination.”

Ella’s family was grateful she lived for another 22 years after Lockerbie. She died in 2010. Over 60 bodies were reportedly recovered from Ella’s house and garden. It was reported that among them was US passenger Lorraine Buser – who was found sat strapped to plane seat 35C on the remains of the roof.

Lorraine, who was pregnant, was one of three members of an American family who died. There were 12 children under the age of 10 who perished that night. The youngest fatality was nine weeks old.

Normally, only four policemen worked in the Lockerbie region, but by Thursday morning there were 1,100 working alongside 1,000 soldiers, firemen and volunteers.

The youngest police officer, Colin Dorrance, then 18, saw a farmer driving a pick-up truck carrying debris from Pan Am 103 and, in the front seat, was the body of a young girl.

“It was the body of a child he’d found in a field at the back of his farm, ” he recalled in a 2018 interview.

“It was a young child under the age of five. It looked as though they were asleep; it wasn’t obviously injured, and it was just a shock to realise it was a passenger from Pan Am 103.

“At the time it all happened so fast. There were hundreds of passengers brought into the town hall.” The retired police officer later discovered it was a child by the name of Bryony Owen who was 20 months old. Bryony was travelling to the United States with her mother Yvonne Owen from Wales, to spend Christmas in Boston.

The first bodies were brought to the town hall, but people then started bringing them to the ice rink because it was the only place big and cold enough to store so many bodies.

Reportedly, more than half of those living in Lockerbie and the surrounding areas at the time who witnessed the terrible events and aftermath suffer from PTSD.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the bombing. The former Libyan intelligence officer was found guilty of mass murder in 2001.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 continues tonight on BBC1 at 9pm

If you hear this word whilst you are on a flight, it might mean that one of your fellow passengers has died on board – and cabin crews have a whole host of codewords like this

Cabin crews have a lot to deal with as they take care of passengers during their flights. In addition to keeping everyone happy and well-fed, they occasionally have to deal with more major crises, but flight attendants are known to use secret codewords to ensure that they don’t panic any of the other passengers.

One phrase, in particular, can mean, if you hear it whilst travelling, that someone on the plane has sadly died – and the staff are trying to let each other know what’s going on, whilst keeping the situation under wraps from the passengers.

The code words regularly used for a death mid-flight are “Angel” or “Code 300.” These words allow discretion while the crew deals with the sad situation and ensure that no excess attention is drawn or alarm is generated amongst those on the flight.

Travel experts at Wander have put together a list of in-flight codes and phrases that passengers may encounter on a flight, but do not know what they mean. Whilst most flights go smoothly, on others there can be some issues where flight crews need to communicate with each other secretly, so as not to alert passengers.

There are a number of other in-flight codes and phrases that passengers may hear when on a flight.

If a traveller hears ‘Squawk 7500’ or ‘Hotel’, it means that a hijacking is in progress. As a passenger, if you hear this either mentioned by the flight crew or air traffic control, it signals that there is a potential security threat on the flight. Usually, the aircraft’s transponder will send a signal with this code to alert authorities that the plane is in danger.

Another alert is ‘Code Yellow’. A ‘Code Yellow’ indicates a minor medical situation, such as a passenger feeling lightheaded or nauseous. While not an emergency, it allows crew members to discreetly monitor a situation and assess whether they need any assistance.

If a serious but non-life-threatening emergency occurs while on a flight, passengers may hear ‘Peter Pan’. The phrase indicates that something is wrong onboard the flight, which could be mechanical trouble or a medical emergency, but it also signals that the flight is not in imminent danger.

‘Mermaid’ is a nickname used for a passenger who deliberately sprawls across empty seats. This behaviour is particularly common on flights with spare seats, where a passenger may stretch out to try and claim the extra space. Last year, one passenger got into an argument with another passenger over an empty seat, as she was told she wasn’t ‘allowed’ to sit in it despite nobody paying for it.

The woman needed to move seats because something was wrong with hers, and a flight attendant informed her she could move to an empty seat in the row across from her own. When she tried to sit in it, however, the woman sitting next to the empty chair told her she “wasn’t allowed”—despite nobody having booked it.

‘Code Adam’ is not used onboard planes but in airports to indicate a missing child. If an announcement is made for a ‘Code Adam’, staff will begin searching the airport while securing exits to prevent abductions. At an airport, ‘Code Bravo’ may also be used to signal a general security alert.

Finally, while ‘VIP’ is usually used to refer to a ‘Very Important Person,’ in the airline industry, it can sometimes refer to a ‘Very Irritating Passenger.’ Crew will sometimes use the code to refer to a traveller who is making excessive demands, complaining a lot, or generally being difficult without violating any specific rules.

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Actor George Wendt, who starred in the beloved Cheers TV series, has passed away at the age of 76, and he has a famous Ted Lasso nephew he’s sadly leaving behind

George Wendt, the legendary actor who has sadly passed away at the age of 76, is related to a major Ted Lasso star.

The actor, who was best known for his role as Norm Peterson in the iconic sitcom Cheers, died peacefully in his sleep at his home, his family confirmed.

A representative told the Hollywood Reporter: “George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him. He will be missed forever. The family has requested privacy during this time.”

During his notable career, the American star delighted viewers on Saturday Night Live, portraying Bob Swerski, one of the fervent superfans often seen crowding around Coach Mike Ditka’s diner, passionately rooting for “Da Bears.”

READ MORE: George Wendt dead: Cheers icon’s family pay tribute to Norm Peterson actor

He also boasted an impressive back catalogue of film appearances, gracing screens in Dreamscape (1984), House (1985), Fletch (1985), Gung Ho (1986), Plain Clothes (1987), Never Say Die (1988), Guilty by Suspicion (1991), Forever Young (1992) and the pop culture hit Spice World (1997).

But away from work, George spent time with his doting family, including his wife Bernadette Birkett and their three children: Hilary, Joe, and Daniel. He also leaves behind his nephew, Jason Sudeikis, who plays the lead role in the hugely popular TV series Ted Lasso.

While appearing on an episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast, George gushed over his pride for his famous nephew. The Cheers star shared: “Proud especially, you know, not only of the success, but he’s solid. Have you read profiles and stuff? I mean he is such a mesh, so smart, so thoughtful. I mean, it all comes out in the show. Right?”

There has even been a touching link between the finale of Ted Lasso and the final episode of Cheers – a homage to the uncle and nephew duo.

During the season three finale of Ted Lasso, bartender Mae straightens a framed photo of Apache leader Geronimo at the Crown & Anchor. The subtle but touching scene was inspired by the ending of Cheers, which saw a similar picture and a small gesture from Sam.

Marked by heartbreaking coincidence, the news of George’s death comes precisely 32 years after the last episode of Cheers graced our television screens. With a run of 275 episodes under his belt, the actor garnered six Primetime Emmy Award nods for his beloved role as the beer-chugging regular, Norm.

On X, formerly Twitter, tributes poured in from fans mourning their favourite TV bar patron, with one writing: “George Wendt, beloved for his role as Norm on Cheers, has died at 77. With a beer in hand and a heart of gold, he made millions feel like regulars. A true legend of TV comfort and comedy.”

Another wrote: “Rest in peace to George Wendt, responsible for Norm Peterson, one of the most iconic sitcom characters of my lifetime. Cheers big guy. Rest easy.”

A third also shared a touching tribute: “RIP George Wendt. You were a big part of my childhood and the impact you had on society was positive and substantial. We are sad to see you go, but know you will be in a better place. Thanks for the laughs.”