No not the movie with those cute furry little creatures that turned to destructive terrors if they ate after midnight. I’m talking about gremlins in the machine. There are days when it seems like everything electrical is on the fritz. Gremlins are surely responsible. The noise my computer makes at work can only be the work of gremlins. Computers aren’t usually that loud.

According to my huge book of superstitions gremlins are devilish imps (Wikipedia puts them in the fairy class) who bombard pilots with pranks – fog the windows, clog oil and fuel lines, tamper with controls among other things. Before the days of airplanes the great-great-grandparents of the 20th Century gremlins bugged everyone. Artists have painted evil spirits similar to gremlins. Anything bad and unexplainable was attributed to these little creatures. They didn’t have the name gremlin back then though. According to Wikipedia the name originated in RAF aviators’ slang. The earliest printed use of the word was in a poem published in 1929. They were somewhat of an air force phenomena until Roald Dahl authored a novel called The Gremlins. He did of course have experience with the little creatures, having served military service in the 80th squadron of the Royal Air Force. The story was published by Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1942 and then as a picture book .

Roald Dahl may have made gremlins known to the rest of the world but pilots knew about them all along. Pilots swear they’ve seen the creatures tampering with their equipment. One crewman said he saw one just before his B-25 Mitchell bomber lost altitude, forcing him to return to base. Other eye witness accounts speak of the creatures as well. But do they really exist or are they figments of a tired brain, stress and dizzying heights?

I’m off to work. If you really, really, really want to know more about gremlins click on the Wikipedia link above to read the article. Gremlins have appeared in a lot of movies and TV shows. See if you remember any of them.

Until next time…

Cindy