The Paranormal Pastor brings to use today a discussion of one of my personal favorite baddies, Gremlins. It is all related to problems with a Qantas flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne on Friday. Here is the first part of the tale.

I turned on the news Saturday morning and I heard a story that brought back to memory an old story. It was a frightening story that happened long ago which was both chilling and intriguing. This mornings news story is by no means as intense as the one from by gone days, but nonetheless quite frightening.

As you may have heard a Qantas flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne made an emergency landing in the Philippines on Friday (07/25/2008) after a hole appeared in the fuselage and the cabin lost pressure suddenly. One passenger as quoted by CNN reported, "There was an almighty crack, We dropped a bit in the air." According to the Associated Press the plane was at 29,000 feet when the incident happened and then the plane quickly descended to 10,000 feet. As of yet there is no explanation as to what exactly caused the hole to suddenly rip open at 29,000 feet but one report said that there might have been rust on the fuselage in a previous inspection.

Ron - I don't know if there is a relation or not, but I could see people that saw a gremlin calling it an invader from outer space.

As an update, here is something Pastor Swope (who runs the paranormal pastor blog added to his comments section that adds to the mystery of the incident.

pastor swope said...
A recent headline:
Investigator: Qantas Cockpit Flight Recording Lost During Mid-Air Crisis

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,393043,00.html

Hmmm.

Perhaps they have something odd on the recording they don't want the public to know, or did the gremlins destroy it too?

Yes, but isn't there plenty on a plane that they could mess with that would cause explosive decompression which could result in the damage?

I think we are talking about different events. You are referring to the older event that even the author himself says he cannot verify fully (although he is trying).

I was referring to the issues on the Qantas flight. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Private Dic McVay wrote:I've heard stories of gremlins carrying "explosive backpacks" and would go on suicide missions. Given if that's a true statement, its not hard to imagine a gremlin clawing along the exterior of an aircraft and detonating the backpack (the gremlin with it) and causing the hole. Food for thought I suppose.

Yeah and slightly disturbing to think about. Makes me glad I do not fly often.

I would wonder if they are doing those kamikaze missions of their own free will or if someone/something darker is forcing them.

Shortly after the first Qantas flight, another one had to make an emergency landing after they had landing gear issues.

It sounds like one of the airports over there might have a serious outbreak of gremlins.

Groom Lake, Nevada, 1986; a scientist reported a small humanoid about the size of a medium dog crawling around in the wireing passages of an experimental aircraft. During the subsequent test flight the aircraft crashed, the cause was obviously sabotage (a control wire was neatly sheared in a location where it could not have rubbed on anything), but it had to have occured in flight, and the wireing compartment where the failure occured was much to small for a human to reach where the damage to the wireing occured.

It was shortly after this time that the department I work for was founded, our first task was to investigate the area in/around groom lake, eliminate any free roaming non-terrestrial beings encountered, followed by providing training on how to most efficiently detect and eliminate the little buggers.

Debunker, please do not think we are making light of the situation. We are just open to accepting that there are things that science cannot explain. Sometimes the cause of these issues is just something most of us have never witnessed and if God is willing never will. But you can look at today's news see things like that scientists in England think they found physical proof of the existence of the Yeti.

Even you must admit that there are numerous recorded incidents where aircraft have experienced serious malfunctions or mysterious explosions that defy normal explanations. The plane that mysteriously went down in NY, the incidents we are talking about now, all the incidents that were recorded during WW2.

Yes, some can be explained as simple mechanical failure, but there are some extreme situations where multiple things, that are supposed to be resistant to failure, failed at the exact same time (or pretty close to it).

Ahh, the near mythical Debunker, at last. I love your work, let's do lunch.

The physical proof of the Yeti, well that is still being checked out by the eggheads. (I do wonder though who let the samples actually reach a lab, or if they were switched in the mail - a very easy thing to do after all.)

I would be interested to hear your take on the Yeti. Post it over on the topic and I will read it with an open mind.

As for the gremlins, I believe like all myths and legends there is some form of truth behind this. Some myths and legends started as a way to explain natural phenomenon that people couldn't explain. Others were oral histories that over time was distorted into legend. However some were cautionary tales to warn future generations of real dangers.

Gremlins as a myth started with both the Royal Air Force and their enemies at about the same time. So you have two cultures that were not really associating with each other more or less coming to the same conclusion. That there were creatures that sabotage machines, airplanes specifically. Where I am sure eventually some of the tales attempts to deflect blame from those that deserved it, that would not account for all the tales. Especially the earliest ones.

It could be that this is just a nutjob getting kicks from causing problems. It could be incompetence on the manufacturers of the planes (were they all from the same company?). I believe the authorities check those two quickly and this would be a moot story. However, there has been news of that and this apparently has been a problem for a while in that area.

But in the end Sir Arthur Conan Doyle covered the probable result our discussion best.

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.”