Do Boeing Planes Have Gremlins? They Wish.

[00:00:00] It's dream phone. Basically, you have to find out who has a crush on you, so you have to like call all these numbers and then that's like a recording of like, this guy's really good at sports.

[00:00:10] Is it like an actual device? Is it an actual device?

[00:00:12] Yeah, it's a phone. It's a pink phone that you dial. But yes, I had to buy it because it was one of those games that was just like too high tech for my parents to understand at the time.

[00:00:21] I always wanted Monopoly actually, but they always told me that I had no one to play with and they were right.

[00:00:27] Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin and I'm Michelle.

[00:00:37] Edwin, you're on a plane, possibly a Boeing plane.

[00:00:48] Oh, geez. That reminds me of the if it's Boeing, I ain't going.

[00:00:53] Where'd that come from? I like it.

[00:00:56] I think it was an Instagram comment.

[00:00:59] But anyway, you're a nervous flyer.

[00:01:02] This is the first time you've been on a plane in a while.

[00:01:06] You have a drink, you flip through the channels on your in-flight screen.

[00:01:11] Everything is fine. You'll be home soon.

[00:01:16] You're feeling good. You're mentally sound.

[00:01:19] Everything's fine.

[00:01:21] But yes, you did have just a little delicate mental breakdown a little bit ago, so.

[00:01:28] Which we've all been there.

[00:01:29] It's no big deal. True.

[00:01:31] That's when you see it.

[00:01:33] There's a strange creature on the wing of the plane.

[00:01:37] How could this be?

[00:01:39] You are traveling at high speeds and altitudes, and anything out there would freeze to death.

[00:01:44] You blink.

[00:01:46] The creature is now face to face with you in the window, breathing on the glass.

[00:01:53] You can see it fogging the glass with its breath as it stares you deep in the eyes.

[00:02:00] I mean, how would you feel seeing that?

[00:02:02] You know, you're almost on a plane every week, so.

[00:02:04] No, like, uh-uh.

[00:02:07] Like, what is it? Like, what does it look like?

[00:02:09] Is it like a human face? Is it like a bird?

[00:02:12] Oh, you know, I kind of like left it out.

[00:02:14] I'm going like a little goblin-esque thing.

[00:02:17] But this has got to be your mind playing tricks on you, right?

[00:02:19] Like, the doctor said don't drink on the brain meds.

[00:02:23] You get it. This is what they're talking about.

[00:02:25] So you put your drink down.

[00:02:27] You focus on your screen like you're going to just watch some TV.

[00:02:31] You know, the office reruns are playing in front of you.

[00:02:36] You take a deep breath.

[00:02:38] You shut your eyes.

[00:02:39] Another deep breath.

[00:02:43] You look back at the window.

[00:02:45] The creature is now staring at your screen, also watching the office.

[00:02:50] It feels you look at it and gives you a little smile.

[00:02:53] Then does a backflip away from the window, further down the wing.

[00:02:57] Hee-hee!

[00:02:58] It holds eye contact with you,

[00:03:02] but slowly kneels down and starts scratching at the wing,

[00:03:06] pulling and warping parts of the metal with its hands.

[00:03:10] Oh, no.

[00:03:11] Or claws. Hands or claws?

[00:03:14] You bang on the window.

[00:03:16] The thing is shredding the metal and dismantling the wing midair.

[00:03:19] The airplane's going to crash. This is bad.

[00:03:22] Obviously, you're on high alert.

[00:03:24] All anxiety through the roof.

[00:03:26] You bang on the window. You try and stop the creature.

[00:03:29] It maintains eye contact with you, pulling the wing apart

[00:03:32] with a sick smile on its face.

[00:03:35] It's like a cat in its litter box

[00:03:37] and it's making direct eye contact with you while it's doing that.

[00:03:40] And it's like strangely intimate, but also like a dominance thing.

[00:03:46] So anyway, that's what this thing is doing.

[00:03:48] It's shredding the wing.

[00:03:50] Now, I would probably push that button and call the flight attendant.

[00:03:53] You do. You call for the stewardess.

[00:03:56] You put that button.

[00:03:58] You're just like there's something on the wing.

[00:04:00] And she takes a peek.

[00:04:02] She sees nothing.

[00:04:04] And she's like, sir, I'm going to need you to calm down.

[00:04:08] And you follow her gaze to the window and nothing's out there.

[00:04:13] As she turns away, you see the creature pop up again

[00:04:17] and it waves at you and then continues to shred the wing.

[00:04:22] Geez. You're like, look, it's right there.

[00:04:24] Look, it's right there.

[00:04:25] You scream like you're just like, oh, it's right there.

[00:04:29] The other passengers are getting nervous because you're acting nuts.

[00:04:33] I think we've all been on a plane at this point

[00:04:35] where maybe someone was a little bit weird.

[00:04:37] I literally was on a plane on my way to Ireland

[00:04:39] and the guy next to me had a night terror in the middle of the night.

[00:04:42] So, uh, you know, yeah, you know what actually hurt somebody?

[00:04:47] Crying, singing this flight.

[00:04:49] But I was so drowsy that I just kind of ignored it.

[00:04:51] But everybody was peeking like it does make you nervous

[00:04:54] because you're like, what if something happened?

[00:04:55] Like, and you see all the flight attendants running up the aisle.

[00:04:58] It's weird. It's bizarre.

[00:05:00] Well, and it's also like, am I going to have to do something like

[00:05:03] am I going to have to stop somebody or what's going on?

[00:05:06] Like, you're going to need my belt to tie someone's arms with that.

[00:05:11] I don't know. You know, like what's going on?

[00:05:13] But anyway, the passengers are getting nervous.

[00:05:16] You're acting irrational.

[00:05:18] Don't you see it? It's right there.

[00:05:20] The plane is going to crash and we're all going to die.

[00:05:23] Oh, no, that gets you kicked out of a flight like that.

[00:05:27] You can go to jail for that, I think.

[00:05:29] The stewardess is like, sir, I'm going to need you to calm down.

[00:05:32] You're upsetting the other passengers and you won't calm down.

[00:05:36] How can nobody see this thing on the wing ripping it apart?

[00:05:40] The creature waves and smiles at you.

[00:05:42] You stand up and you run down the aisle.

[00:05:44] We've got to land this plane. It's going to crash.

[00:05:47] At this moment, an air marshal steps in,

[00:05:50] along with every other stewardess and alpha male on the plane.

[00:05:53] Someone tackles you to the ground and you feel restraints

[00:05:57] being put on you as you start to pass out.

[00:05:59] You hear over the intercom,

[00:06:01] ladies and gentlemen, we'll be making an emergency landing for a medical emergency.

[00:06:05] We apologize for the delay.

[00:06:07] You look out the window from the ground.

[00:06:10] You see the little creature looking at you.

[00:06:13] It smiles before the world finally goes black.

[00:06:17] When you wake up, the plane is on the ground.

[00:06:20] You are strapped to a stretcher being put in an ambulance.

[00:06:24] You start screaming as they shut the doors.

[00:06:27] Check the wing! Check the wing!

[00:06:32] For the remaining passengers on the plane, it's been an unnerving day.

[00:06:36] They're still on the tarmac when the captain crackles on the radio.

[00:06:40] Sorry for the delay, folks.

[00:06:42] We've just been hit with some more bad news.

[00:06:45] Maintenance has found some strange gashes to the wing.

[00:06:48] We won't be departing after all.

[00:06:50] This elicits angry groans from the passengers and the faintest giggle.

[00:07:02] My story that I just told is based on that nightmare at 2000 feet,

[00:07:06] that episode of the Twilight Zone, if you guys have ever seen it.

[00:07:10] Yeah, with William Shatner.

[00:07:12] It's a classic episode.

[00:07:13] The thing is, I'm sure Boeing would love this kind of excuse

[00:07:16] of there being like a weird little thing on the wing for what's going on.

[00:07:21] Because airline or technology,

[00:07:25] gremlins are nothing new.

[00:07:29] These folklore creatures have taken much of the blame

[00:07:32] for malfunctions in machinery around the world since World War II.

[00:07:37] Around technology, you said?

[00:07:39] Yeah, the technology gremlins.

[00:07:41] Gremlins are a specific thing geared toward technology.

[00:07:44] They're different. Interesting.

[00:07:45] That's really cool.

[00:07:46] And actually, there's a bunch of military posters that have slogans like

[00:07:52] gremlins think it's fun to hurt you.

[00:07:54] Use care always.

[00:07:56] Gremlins are floor greasers.

[00:07:58] Watch your step.

[00:08:00] Gremlins love to pitch stuff at your eyes.

[00:08:03] Wear your goggles.

[00:08:04] Wow. OK, so first time I ever hear of something like that.

[00:08:07] That's really cool.

[00:08:09] Gremlins as a concept was popularized during World War

[00:08:12] II among airmen of the Royal Air Force, RAF,

[00:08:16] described as little men that would sabotage aircraft.

[00:08:21] And I think of like a leprechaun, a Tommy knocker or goblin and imp,

[00:08:25] you know, like that kind of thing.

[00:08:27] Although in these posters, they are just like little men,

[00:08:30] tiny men that are tripping people in Greece and stuff like that.

[00:08:35] So that's just some little mischievous little.

[00:08:37] Yeah, described as little men that would sabotage an aircraft.

[00:08:41] Flight crews would blame these scissor wielding gremlins

[00:08:45] for inexplicable accidents, which sometimes occur during flights,

[00:08:48] you know, because it was a new technology at that time.

[00:08:52] And some people say this actually tracks back to World War

[00:08:54] I, but apparently there's no documents per se,

[00:08:58] because this was like a part of the campaign in World War II.

[00:09:03] This was part of the folklore in World War II,

[00:09:05] especially among British soldiers and the British Air Force.

[00:09:09] Gremlins were also thought at one point to have enemy sympathies,

[00:09:13] but investigations revealed that enemy aircraft had similar

[00:09:16] and equally inexplicable mechanical problems.

[00:09:19] As such, gremlins were portrayed as equal opportunity tricksters,

[00:09:23] taking no sides in the conflict, but acting out of their

[00:09:27] their own mischievous and self-interest.

[00:09:31] See, they don't pick sides.

[00:09:33] They just go against everyone.

[00:09:36] Yeah, they're just little shits.

[00:09:41] It is argued that this like folklore became morale boosting during the war.

[00:09:46] And it might have even helped win the war because gremlins were a form

[00:09:50] of deflecting blame being the scapegoat, which became super important

[00:09:54] to morale during the war because it's far easier to blame

[00:09:58] a fantastic comical little creature

[00:10:00] that it is to blame a member of your own squad.

[00:10:03] If, say, your oil leaks out of your plane,

[00:10:08] instead of being mad at Johnny, you could be mad at a little gremlin

[00:10:13] that sabotaged you clearly.

[00:10:16] That's kind of nice.

[00:10:17] I know the gremlin lore actually spread beyond the Royal Air Force

[00:10:21] by author Roald Dahl.

[00:10:24] His story gremlins sold 50,000 copies in 1943.

[00:10:29] Dahl had his own experience

[00:10:31] in an accidental crash landing in the Western Desert when he ran out of fuel.

[00:10:36] It was there that he wrote his first children's novel, The Gremlins,

[00:10:40] in which the gremlins were the tiny men who lived on RAF fighters.

[00:10:45] And then this went on to inspire.

[00:10:47] There's the movie Gremlins.

[00:10:49] There's the Simpsons episode.

[00:10:51] I mean, obviously, the Twilight Zone episode that I talked about earlier.

[00:10:54] And it's like too many things to mention as like that spread

[00:10:57] that gremlins folklore everywhere.

[00:11:00] But also, there were a lot of men coming home from the war

[00:11:04] who were said to have encountered gremlins.

[00:11:06] Whoa, like actual encounters?

[00:11:09] Yeah, like actual encounters that tinkered with their equipment.

[00:11:12] One crewman swore he saw one before an engine malfunction

[00:11:16] that caused his B-25 Mitchell bomber to rapidly lose altitude,

[00:11:20] forcing the aircraft to return to base.

[00:11:22] Folklorist John W.

[00:11:23] Hazen likewise offers his own alleged eyewitness testimony

[00:11:28] of these creatures describing an occasion where he found a parted cable

[00:11:32] which bore obvious tooth marks in spite of the fact

[00:11:36] that the break occurred in the most inaccessible part of the plane.

[00:11:39] At this point, Hazen states he heard a gruff voice demand,

[00:11:45] How many times must you be told to obey orders

[00:11:48] and not tackle jobs you aren't qualified for?

[00:11:51] This is how it should be done.

[00:11:53] Upon which Hazen heard a musical twang.

[00:11:57] Twang.

[00:11:58] And another cable was parted, so another cable broke after.

[00:12:03] What?

[00:12:04] Yeah, gremlins are weird.

[00:12:06] They just hate technology.

[00:12:08] They want to destroy it and they make things go wrong

[00:12:11] and everything that is technological.

[00:12:13] I mean, it's so interesting to see this come up.

[00:12:15] Number one, it's used for morale during the war.

[00:12:17] But also, this type of description

[00:12:21] of this type of creature would not exist without the Industrial Revolution,

[00:12:25] without machinery.

[00:12:27] There's no such thing as a gremlin in machinery.

[00:12:29] Jeez, it just sounds creepy though, like to see...

[00:12:32] On the William Shatner Twilight Zone episode,

[00:12:35] it's like a man in an ape costume.

[00:12:37] I guess it struggled a little bit with visuals back then,

[00:12:39] but, and people actually believe this?

[00:12:41] Critics, of course, claim that, you know,

[00:12:43] the stress of combat, the dizzying heights would cause hallucinations, right?

[00:12:48] I mean, you're in a plane at war.

[00:12:50] That makes sense, yeah.

[00:12:51] It makes sense that it might have been a coping mechanism.

[00:12:55] Just to help explain the problems that happen during combat

[00:12:59] when something goes wrong.

[00:13:00] So yeah, it makes sense.

[00:13:01] Like the fumes...

[00:13:03] The fumes.

[00:13:04] Not exactly the most safe environment to be in.

[00:13:07] So hallucinations?

[00:13:09] Possible.

[00:13:11] I don't know.

[00:13:11] I bet Boeing would love to attribute all their problems with the Max

[00:13:16] to the gremlins, don't you think?

[00:13:18] It would be a really nice get out of jail free card.

[00:13:20] I need to check my flight right now.

[00:13:22] Yeah, you don't want to be on a Max, dude.

[00:13:24] I think it's a Max.

[00:13:25] That's bad news.

[00:13:27] But anyway, I just want to link back to the iconic William Shatner episode

[00:13:31] of The Twilight Zone because there's an episode of The Muppets

[00:13:34] where Miss Piggy sees a gremlin on the outside of the airplane

[00:13:37] through the window.

[00:13:38] All those are references to the same thing?

[00:13:40] Yeah, all of it's referencing that episode.

[00:13:43] But anyway, William Shatner is sitting next to her on the plane

[00:13:45] and as he claims that he's been complaining about the gremlin for years,

[00:13:50] but nobody does anything about it.

[00:13:54] Which I love.

[00:13:55] Oh, I found it.

[00:13:56] It's Nightmare at 20,000 feet.

[00:13:58] Yeah, it's an iconic episode.

[00:14:00] I mean, it's in The Simpsons.

[00:14:02] Bart sees a thing on a plane and like no one believes it.

[00:14:06] I mean, like it's a reference for everything.

[00:14:09] A lot of Twilight Zone episodes are like that.

[00:14:13] They're just so ingrained now.

[00:14:17] Rod Sterling is a very good writer.

[00:14:19] At the end, they recognize it was the guy that I guess

[00:14:22] at the end of your story, but the wing.

[00:14:25] So at the end of the story, they just take him away in a straight jacket

[00:14:28] and they do find the damage, but they don't like acknowledge that he was right.

[00:14:33] He's lost his mind.

[00:14:34] That sucks.

[00:14:35] But OK, that's why it's relevant that he has had a mental breakdown

[00:14:39] already because he's already delicate.

[00:14:41] So he's got to be taken away.

[00:14:43] But yeah, I just love that William Shatner is sitting next to Miss Piggy

[00:14:47] and like validating her seeing the gremlin on the.

[00:14:51] That's a creepy image, though, the Twilight Zone.

[00:14:54] Oh, yeah.

[00:14:55] Cover or whatever, like just the main image of the thing looking at the window.

[00:14:58] That's a huge window.

[00:15:00] I know. Well, it's a huge gremlin.

[00:15:03] Gremlin is like a man in a thing.

[00:15:06] Yeah, I think he'd like the Twilight Zone stuff.

[00:15:08] You know what gremlins or what I think of like the wind

[00:15:11] is in goblins and all those things are known to be very mischievous

[00:15:16] creatures that mess around, hide your stuff, hide your keys.

[00:15:20] Drop things like they just they just want to mess with you.

[00:15:23] So it makes sense that the gremlin idea.

[00:15:26] But gremlins for me are creepier, like creepy looking.

[00:15:29] I know there's also that movie.

[00:15:31] Well, just gremlins, I guess, where it's like gizmo and which

[00:15:35] they're cute and that gremlins are cute there.

[00:15:38] Oh, geez.

[00:15:39] Now, I just remember that weird, ugly one.

[00:15:41] And they turn into you feed them after.

[00:15:43] Is that is that the feed?

[00:15:44] Yeah, you feed them after midnight or something like that.

[00:15:47] And then they turn into that weird thing.

[00:15:50] Or you get them wet.

[00:15:51] Uh huh. Yeah.

[00:15:52] Apparently in the Roald Dahl lore, it's like, oh, what do gremlins eat?

[00:15:58] Postage stamps.

[00:16:01] I'm just like, wait, so they ride on Royal Air Force planes

[00:16:05] and then they eat postage stamps?

[00:16:07] It's like on the wing.

[00:16:08] Yeah. Wait, I'm not understanding.

[00:16:11] How does this work?

[00:16:12] I guess that does sound like a hallucination

[00:16:14] if you really think about it.

[00:16:17] Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense.

[00:16:18] But I mean, look, hey, it helped win the war.

[00:16:21] That's all they need. That's good.

[00:16:23] Yeah. Thank you, gremlins for your service.

[00:16:26] Yes, they do.

[00:16:28] Morale boosters that are gremlins.

[00:16:30] It's like pizza parties.

[00:16:31] Yeah, just like pizza parties.

[00:16:33] Yeah.

[00:16:35] Anyway, what are we going to talk about next week, Edwin?

[00:16:38] I don't know.

[00:16:39] Think it'll be a surprise.

[00:16:43] Scary Mystery Surprise is hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias.

[00:16:48] This podcast was edited and sound designed by Sarah Voorhis-Wendel, a VW sound.