The A44 crosses the shoulder of Pumlumon between Ponterwyd and Llangurig, one of the loneliest main roads in Wales. At Eisteddfa Gurig, a farm at the head of the pass, paths climb up towards the summit of Pumlumon Fawr.
Drivers on this stretch have reported seeing an aircraft of wartime type flying extremely low, fifteen or twenty feet above the ground, near the road, and then not being there. The story is told on the Everything Aberystwyth site, which calls it a bomber, and says wreckage was found near old mine workings.
The Cambrian News connects the sighting with a real crash. On 11 September 1945, just after the end of the war, a USAAF Lockheed F-5E, serial 44-24229, a photo reconnaissance version of the P-38 Lightning, came down on Pumlumon Fawr, and its pilot, Second Lieutenant Xenophon Eugenedes, was killed. The link between the crash and the phantom is local interpretation, and the witnesses are unnamed. The pilot was a young man who died far from home, and his loss is the real part of this story.
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