In the early morning of October 5th, 1930, the British dirigible airship R101 crashed in northern France, killing 48 of its 54 crewmen and passengers. The horrific accident made international headlines and predated the better-known Hindenburg disaster by nearly seven years.
Two days later, medium Eileen J. Garrett and psychic researcher Harry Price convened a séance to channel the recently deceased Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, their original plans were quickly derailed as Garrett’s control, Uvani, made contact with someone else entirely.
The voice claimed to belong to Flight Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin of the R101 and began to relay information about the crash to the attendees. Through Garrett, he proclaimed, “The whole bulk of the dirigible was entirely and absolutely too much for her engine’s capacity. Engines too heavy.” He then went on to provide more specific details about that fateful night, including the fact that the ship was inflated by an experimental mixture of hydrogen and carbon, which was considered an “official secret.”
An investigation over the following months revealed that the weight of the airship was indeed its fatal flaw. None of Irwin’s statements were proven incorrect. It is difficult to explain how Garrett could have known so many details before the official inquiry had been conducted. In his account of the sittings, Price noted that she had no background in aviation and should not have known the terminology used. A skeptic of mediumship in general, he had specifically chosen Garrett for the séance, calling her a “first-class medium.”
The R101 séances brought Eileen J. Garrett to prominence and are often cited as one of the most credible instances of spirit communication in history.
A full transcript of the sittings is available in Box 8 of the Eileen J. Garrett Collection located in UMBC Special Collections.
