Angels-GREMLINS

Gremlins are technological fairies, associated particularly, but not exclusively,
with airplanes. Traditional fairies, who are usually thought of as
connected with nature, are said to dislike technology, but gremlins seem
to have adapted to the modern age. Some sources claim that gremlins are
spirits of the air, others that they live underground around airfields.
While description varies, they are usually pictured as being about a foot
tall, green in color, with large fuzzy ears, and webbed feet (with which to
cling to airplane wings). They sometimes go about naked, or may be
clothed like aviators, with suction cups on the bottoms of their boots.
At the beginning of the air age, aircraft struck the human imagination
as quasi-mystical devices, at once of earth and of the celestial
regions. Aviators’ vague (and not-so-vague) fears stimulated overactive
imaginations to perceive prankish spirits who let air out of tires,
stalled engines, bored holes in the side of airplanes, bit through cables,
and emptied gas tanks (gremlins were said to drink petrol).
The term “gremlin” originated from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. While
first perceived aboard British military aircraft during the second world
war, they did not receive their name until 1939. During that year, a
British bomber squadron stationed in India was experiencing a rash of
what seemed like sabotage against their aircraft. Never able to locate
human culprits, they resorted to blaming damage to the pranks of spirits
they came to call gremlins.
Gremlins did not, however, always work against the best interests
of the craft on which they stowed away—some incidents of miraculous
rescue have, for instance, been attributed to the action of these technological
fairies. It should also be noted that gremlins have moved
well beyond the aviation field and into other areas of technological
activity, from factories to computers.