Lore - Episode 32: Tampered

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

Maybe it’s human pride, or maybe it’s a tendency toward superstition, but humans are very good at making excuses. When things don’t go our way or when something breaks, there always seems to be a reason for it. And apparently, those excuses have occasionally walked among us. * * * Official Lore Website Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

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so then I can invest more on what's next for Stelina. Be ready for your next step with the BMO Cashback Business Mastercard and get 10% cashback on business expenses for the first three months. Terms and Conditions Apply I grew up watching a television show called MacGyver. If you've never had the chance to watch this icon of the 80s, do yourself a favor and give it a try. Sure, the clothes are outdated and the hair, oh my gosh, the hair.

But aside from all the bits that didn't age well, McMullet and his trusty pocket knife managed to capture my imagination forever. Part of it was the adventure. Part of it was the character of the man himself. I mean, the guy was essentially a spy who hated guns, played hockey, and lived on a houseboat. But hovering above all those elements was the true core of the show. This man could make anything if his life depended on it.

As humans, we have this innate drive inside ourselves to make things. This is how we manage to create things like the wheel or stone tools and weapons. Our tendency toward technology pulled our ancient ancestors out of the stone age and into a more civilized world. Maybe for some of us, MacGyver represented what we wanted to achieve, complete mastery of our own world. But life is rarely that simple, and however hard we try to get our minds and hands around this world we want to rule, some things just slip through the cracks.

Accidents happen. Ideas and concepts still elude our limited minds. Or human, after all. Not gods. So when things go wrong, when our plans fall apart or our expectations fail to be met, we have this sense of pride that often refuses to admit defeat. So we blame others, and when that doesn't work, we look elsewhere for answers. And no realm holds more explanation for the unexplainable than folklore.

400 years ago, when women refused to follow the rules of society, they were labeled a witch. When Irish children failed to thrive, it was because, of course, they were a changeling. We're good at excuses. So when our ancestors found something broken or out of place, there was a very simple explanation. Someone, or something, had tampered with it. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. The idea of meddlesome creatures isn't new to us. All around the world, we can find centuries-old folklore that speaks of creatures with a habit

of getting in the way and making life difficult for humans. It's an idea that seems to transcend borders and background, language and time. Some would say that it's far too coincidental for all these stories of mischief-causing creatures who emerge in places separated by thousands of miles and vast oceans, a puka of Ireland, and the ibugogo of Indonesia are great examples of this. Legends that seem to have no reason for their eerie similarities. Both legends speak of small humanoid creatures that steal food and children. Both recommend not making them angry, and both describe their creatures as intrusive pranksters.

To many, the evidence is just too indisputable to ignore. Others would say it's not coincidence at all, merely a product of human nature. We want to believe that there's something out there causing the problems we experience every day. So, of course, nearly every culture in the world has invented a scapegoat. This scapegoat would have to be small to avoid discovery, and they need respect because we're afraid of what they can do. To a cultural anthropologist, it's nothing more than logical evolution. Many European folktales include this universal archetype in the form of nature spirits,

and much of it can be traced back to the idea of the daemon. It's an old word and concept coming to us from the Greeks. In essence, a daemon is an otherworldly spirit that causes trouble. The root word, deomai, literally means to cut or divide. In many ways, it's an ancient version of an excuse. If your horse was spooked while you were out for a ride, you'd probably blame it on a daemon. The ancient Minoans believed in them, and in the day of the Greek poet Homer, people would blame their illnesses on them.

The daemon, in many ways, was fate. If it happened to you, there was a reason, and it was probably one of these little things that caused it. But over time, the daemon took on more and more names. Arab folklore has the gin. Romans, the Romans, the Romans, the Romans, the Romans, the Romans, the Romans, the Romans, spoke of a personal companion known as the genius. In Japan, they tell tales of the Kami, and Germanic cultures mentioned Phylgia.

The stories and names might be unique to each culture, but the core of them all is the same. There's something interfering with humanity, and we don't like it. For the majority of the English-speaking world, the most common creature of this type in folklore, hands down, is the goblin. It's not an ancient word, most likely originating from the Middle Ages, but it's the one that's front and center in most of our minds. And from the start, it's been a creature associated with bad behavior.

A legend from the 10th century tells of how the first Catholic bishop of Yvru in France faced a daemon known to the locals there as Goblinus. Why that name, though, is hard to trace. The best theory goes something like this. There's a Greek myth about a creature named Kobelos, who loved to trick and frighten people. That story influenced other cultures across Europe prior to Christianity's spread, creating the notion of the kobold in ancient Germany.

That word was most likely the root of the word goblin. Kobold, gobold, goblin, you can practically hear it evolve. The root word of kobold is kob, which literally means beneath the earth, or cavity in a rock. We get the English word cove from the same root. And so naturally, kobolds and their English counterparts, the goblins, are said to live in caves underground. And if that reminds you of dwarves from fantasy literature, you're closer than you think. The physical appearance of goblins in folklore vary greatly,

but the common description is that they are dwarf-like creatures. They cause trouble, are known to steal, and they have a tendency to break things and make life difficult. Because of this, people in Europe would put carvings of goblins in their homes to ward off the real thing. In fact, here's something really crazy. Medieval door knockers were often carved to resemble the faces of daemons or goblins. And it's most likely purely coincidental.

But in Welsh folklore, goblins are called koblin, or more commonly, knockers. My point is this. For thousands of years, people have suspected that all of their misfortune could be blamed on small, meddlesome creatures. They feared them, told stories about them, and tried their best to protect their homes from them. But for all that time, they seemed like nothing more than story. In the early 20th century, though, people started to report actual sightings. And not just anyone.

These sightings were documented by trained, respected military heroes. When the Wright brothers took their first controlled flight in December of 1903, it seemed like a revelation. It's hard to imagine it today. But there was a time when flight wasn't assumed as a method of travel. So when Wilbur spent three full seconds in the air that day, he and his brother Orville did something else. They changed the way we think about our world.

And however long it took humans to create and perfect the art of controllable, mechanical flight. Once the cat was out of the bag, it bolted into the future without ever looking back. Within just nine years, someone had managed to mount a machine gun onto one of these primitive airplanes. Because of that, when the First World War broke out just two years later, military combat had a new element. Of course, guns weren't the only weapon a plane could utilize, though. The very first airplane brought down in combat was an Austrian plane. It was literally rammed by a Russian pilot.

Both pilots died after the wreckage plummeted to the ground below. It wasn't the most efficient method of air combat, but it was a start. Clearly, we've spent the many decades since getting very, very good at it. Unfortunately, though, there have been more reasons for combat disasters than machine gun bullets and suicidal pilots. And one of the most unique and mysterious of those causes first appeared in British newspapers. In an article from the early 1900s, it was said that, and I quote, The newly constituted Royal Air Force in 1918 appears to have detected the existence

of a horde of mysterious and malicious sprites whose sole purpose in life was to bring about as many as possible of the inexplicable mishaps which, in those days as now, trouble an airman's life. The description didn't feature a name, but that was soon to follow. Some experts think that we can find roots of it in the old English word germ, which means to vex or to annoy. It fits the behavior of the creatures to the letter, and because of that, they have been known from the beginning as gremlins.

Now, before we move forward, it might be helpful to take care of your memories of the 1984 classic film by the same name. I grew up in the 80s, and gremlins was a fantastic bit of eye candy for my young, horror-loving mind, but the truth of the legend has little resemblance to the version that you and I witnessed on the big screen. The gremlins of folklore, at least the stories that came out of the early 20th century, that is, describe the ancient stereotypical daemon, but with a twist. Yes, they were said to be small, ranging anywhere from six inches to three feet in height,

and yes, they could appear and disappear at will, causing mischief and trouble wherever they went. But in addition, these modern versions of the legendary goblin seem to possess a supernatural grasp of human technology. In 1923, a British pilot was flying over open water when his engine stalled. He miraculously survived the crash into the sea and was rescued shortly after that. When he was safely aboard the rescue vessel, the pilot was quick to explain what had happened. Tiny creatures, he claimed, had appeared on the plane. Whether they appeared out of nowhere or smuggled themselves aboard prior to takeoff,

the pilot wasn't sure. However, they got there. He said that they proceeded to tamper with the plane's engine and flight controls, and without power or control, he was left to drop helplessly into the sea. These reports were infrequent in the 1920s, but as the world moved into the Second World War, and the number of planes in the sky began to grow exponentially, more and more stories seemed to follow. Small, troublesome creatures, who had an almost supernatural ability to hold onto moving aircraft,

and while they were there, to do damage and cause accidents. In some cases, they were even sighted inside planes among the crew and cargo. Stories, as we've seen so many times before, have a tendency to spread like disease. Oftentimes, that's because of fear, but sometimes it's because of truth, and the trouble is in figuring out where to draw that line. And that line kept moving as the sightings were reported outside the British ranks. Pilots on the German side also reported seeing creatures during flights, as did some in India, Malta, and the Middle East.

Some might chalk these stories up to hallucinations, or a bit of pre-flight drinking. There are certainly a lot of stories of World War II pilots climbing into the cockpit after a night of romancing the bottle. And who could blame them? In many cases, these pilots were going to their death, with a 20% chance of never coming back from a mission alive. But there are far too many reports to blame it all on drunkenness or delirium. Something unusual was happening to planes all throughout the Second World War,

and with folklore as lens, some of the reports are downright eerie. In 2014, a 92-year-old World War II veteran from Jonesboro, Arkansas, came forward to tell a story he had kept to himself for seven decades. He'd been a B-17 pilot during the war, one of the legendary flying fortresses that helped Allied Air Forces carry out successful missions over Nazi territory. And it was on one of those missions that this man experienced something that, until recently, he had kept to himself. The pilot, who chose to identify himself with the initials LW,

spoke of how he was a 22-year-old flight commander on the B-17 when something very unusual happened on a combat mission in 1944. He described how, as he brought the aircraft to a higher altitude, the plane began to make strange noises. That wasn't completely unusual, as the B-17 is an absolutely enormous plane, and sometimes turbulence can rattle the structure, but he checked his instrument panel out of habit. According to his story, the instruments seemed broken and confused.

Looking for an answer to the mystery, he glanced out the right-side window and then froze. There, outside the glass of the cockpit window, was the face of a small creature. The pilot described it as about three feet tall, with red eyes and sharp teeth. The ears, he said, were almost owl-like, and its skin was gray and hairless. He looked back toward the front and noticed a second creature, this one moving along the nose of the aircraft. He said it was dancing and hammering away at the metal body of the plane. He immediately assumed he was hallucinating.

I can picture him rubbing his eyes and blinking repeatedly like some old Looney Tunes film, but according to him, he was as sharp and alert as ever. Whatever it was that he witnessed outside the body of the plane, he said that he managed to shake them off with a bit of fancy flying, and that's his term, not mine. But while the creatures themselves might have vanished, the memory of them would haunt him for the rest of his life. He told only one person afterwards, a gunner on another B-17.

But rather than laugh at him, his friend acknowledged that he too had seen similar creatures on a flight just the day before. Years prior, in the summer of 1939, an earlier encounter was reported, this time in the Pacific. According to the account, a transport plane took off from the air base in San Diego in the middle of the afternoon and headed toward Hawaii. On board were 13 Marines, some of whom were crew of the plane, and others were passengers. It was a transport, after all.

About halfway through the flight, while still over the vast expanse of the blue Pacific, the transport issued a distress signal. After that, the signal stopped, as did all other forms of communication. It was as if the plane had simply gone silent and then vanished, which made it all the more surprising when it reappeared later outside the San Diego airfield and prepared for landing. But the landing didn't seem right. The plane came in too fast.

It bounced on the runway in rough, half-hazard ways, and then finally came to a dramatic emergency stop. Crew on the runway immediately understood why, too. The exterior of the aircraft was extensively damaged. Some said it looked like bombs had ripped apart the metal skin of the transport. It was a miracle, they said, but the thing even landed at all. When no one exited the plane to greet them, they opened it up themselves and stepped inside,

only to be met with a scene of horror and chaos. Inside, they discovered the bodies of 12 of the 13 passengers and crew. Each seemed to have died from the same types of wounds, large, vicious cuts and injuries, but almost seemed to have originated from a wild animal. Added to that, the interior of the transport smelled horribly of sulfur and the acrid odor of blood. To complicate matters, empty shell casings were found

scattered about the interior of the cockpit. The pistols responsible, belonging to the pilot and co-pilot, were found on the floor near their feet, completely spent. 12 men were found, but there was a 13th. The co-pilot had managed to stay conscious, despite his extensive injuries, just long enough to land the transport at the base. He was alive but unresponsive when they found him

and quickly removed him for emergency medical care. Sadly, the man died a short while later. He never had the chance to report what happened. 13. Stories of the Gremlins Stories of the Gremlins have stuck around in the decades since, but they live mostly in the past. Today, they are mentioned more like a personified Murphy's Law, muttered as a humorous superstition by modern pilots.

I get the feeling that the persistence of the folklore is due more to its place as a cultural habit than anything else. We can ponder why, I suppose. Why was sightings stopped after World War II? Some think it's because of advancements in airplane technology, stronger structures, faster flight speeds, and higher altitudes. The assumption is that, sure, Gremlins could hold on to our planes,

but maybe we've gotten so fast that even that's become impossible for them. The other answer could just be that the world has left those childhood tales of little creatures behind. We've moved beyond belief now. We've outgrown it. We know a lot more than we used to after all, and to our thoroughly modern minds, the stories of Gremlins sound like just so much fantasy.

Whatever reason you subscribe to, it's important to remember that many people have believed with all their being that Gremlins are real, factual creatures. People we would respect and believe. In 1927, a pilot was over the Atlantic in a plane that, by today's standards, would be considered primitive. He was alone, and he had been in the air for a very long time, but was startled to discover that there were creatures in the cockpit with him.

He described them as small, vaporous beings with a strange otherworldly appearance. The pilot claimed that these creatures spoke to him, and kept him alert in a moment when he was overly tired and past the edge of exhaustion. They helped with the navigation for his journey, and even adjusted some of his equipment. This was a rare account of Gremlins who were benevolent, rather than metal sum or hostile.

Even still, this pilot was so worried about what the public might think of his experience that he kept the details to himself for over 25 years. In 1953, this pilot included the experience in a memoir of his flight. It was a historic journey, after all, and recording it properly required honesty and transparency. The book, you see, was called The Spirit of St. Louis, and the man was more than just a pilot. He was a military officer, an explorer, an inventor,

and on top of all of that, he was also a national hero because of his successful flight from New York to Paris. The first man to do so, in fact. This man, of course, was Charles Lindbergh. This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released.

Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on, all over in one central place. The World of Lore.com slash now.

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