This drawing was actually done to illustrate the 'Aldershot Ghost' incident, which was part of the Victorian Spring-Heeled Jack flap - but I felt that the depiction of a ghostly, luminous humanoid menacing a military man fit this case too well not to use it.
It is December 1919, and castle Godego’s great arsenal and stockpile of gunpowder has been left unguarded. The castle of Godego lies near the Italian town of Castelfranca Veneto. The sentries who were once posted there have fled in terror due to reported nightly visits from a humanoid apparition.
The Incident[]
According to a report made by the Milan correspondent of the Daily Press, a soldier was mounting guard over the magazine when a luminous humanoid figure appeared roughly 20ft away from him, and seemed to be issuing tongues of flame from its head.
The sentinel sounded the alarm and the entire guard team hurried to the spot, but the spectre had vanished in the time it took them to get there. However, it seemed that this entity was quite the showman, because it swiftly reappeared shortly after the arrival of the soldiers. Terrified, the whole company fired their rifles at the figure, which then instantly dissolved into a ball of flame before finally melting away into the air.
The spectre made a sequel appearance the following night, and a Sicilian soldier of the guard approached the entity along with a number of his companions, and they made an attack on the ghastly character using their bayonets. However, their furious blows struck no tangible obstacle, and instead triggered the phantom to disappear in a few moments - leaving behind a fiery halo which quickly dissipated into the atmosphere.
As a result of the bizarre occurrence, all the soldiers fled from the spot and left the depot, stuffed to the brim with explosives, completely unguarded. In the absence of actual guards, a dozen officers instead volunteered to act as temporary sentries until an official inquiry into the matter could be performed. Meanwhile, four of the soldiers who were visited by the apparition had gone completely insane, and were then confined in the military asylum.
Source[]
Ashburton Guardian (NZ), Volume XL, Issue 9187, December 22, 1919.
The above link goes straight to a digitised copy of the complete newspaper which contains this incident somewhere in its depths (!!) but I don't really want to scan through it all to find the same story that I've already written out, and so feel free to find the original copy of the tale yourself!