Gremlins

Since the coming of the “Industrial Age”, where electrical, mechanical, and communications apparatuses have come to hold modern life together, another type of haunting has emerged  in the form of the gremlin .

A gremlin is a mythological creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, popularly depicted as having a special interest in disabling aircraft. Some see the Gremlins' natures as similar to folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is seen as a modern variation on their nature. 

Although their modern incarnation is found in myths popularized by World War II airmen, claiming that the gremlins were responsible for sabotaging aircraft, John W. Hazen states that the name derives from the Old English word “gremian” meaning "to vex". The term "gremlin", as we now know it, denoting a creature that sabotages aircraft, originates in Royal Air Force slang among the British pilots. The gremlin entered the American lexicon with Grandpa's tales from World War II recounting his encounter with the gremlins afflicting his B-17 on bombing raids over Germany.  Hollywood responded by enlisting Bugs Bunny to play its gremlin exorcist. 

 

Falling Hare (1943)

Following the end of World War II the legend of the gremlin began to fade, with only occasional references to them such as in the classic “Twilight Zone” episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", in which a pre-Captain Kirk William Shatner sees a “gremlin” trying to take apart the wing of the airplane he is riding in. But, with the arrival of the computer and the internet the gremlins seem to have come back to life and along with the ability to crash airplanes have acquired the ability to crash computers.

We have all had trouble with our computers. They freeze up or shut down at inopportune moments. They suddenly delete important data for no reason. You send off an email and it arrives at its destination with the content changed and never in a good way. Some believe our computers and our smartphones may actually be possessed by dark energy spirits. 

 

There are many theories about what may be the nature of these gremlins from some Matrix like conspiracy planting bugs in the system to demonic entities riding the “ether” of the ethernet, both with the goal of influencing the unsuspecting masses.  If you need a theory to believe in you can find plenty out there.  But of course, the gremlins themselves could be planting the theories on the internet. So, you might never know what really caused the glitch, but don’t be too fast to dismiss it as only a glitch. 

Today the battle with these gemlins has entered a new arena with our increasing dependence on this realm of computers and the internet. (See: "Phantoms  In The Machine") Be they the result of poltergeist, gremlins, or malevolent transdimensional energy beings, these infections seem to be spreading  and morphing into forces that are inflaming people emotionally and causing thought wars across social media, that represent the real possiblity of turning from thought wars to actual wars that will plunge civilization into a new dark ages.

 ©2017 John Reder