U.S. military said Wednesday that a U.S. Army helicopter had crashed in Iraq's western Anbar province on Tuesday, leaving two crew members missing and four injured. It did not appear the helicopter was shot down, the military said.
Sometimes when I scan articles like that in the news, sometimes buried deep inside other articles as if they were of little relevance, I wonder if gremlins are breeding.
Gremlins fascinated me long before that 1984 movie with the stupid 'Santa stuck in the chimney' story. Gremlins were mythological creatures like gnomes or trolls or fairies, but unlike the aforementioned nature loving sprites, gremlins were technologically savvy. These are small supernatural beings that sprouted not from lands of ancient times past, but from the billowing smokestacks of modern industry.
Gremlins were especially known for tinkering with aircrafts. The term 'Gremlin' was actually coined by Roald Dahl of 'Charlie and the chocolate factory' fame. He coined the phrase, but did not invent it. Many returning Air Servicemen swear they saw creatures tinkering with their equipment. One crewman swore he saw one before an engine malfunction that caused his B-25 Mitchell bomber to rapidly lose altitude, forcing the aircraft to return to base. Critics of this idea state that the stress of combat and the dizzying heights caused such hallucinations, often believed to be a coping mechanism of the mind to help explain the many problems aircraft faced whilst in combat.
Curiously, Gremlins might even be of Middle Eastern origin. Dahl's military service was in the 80th squadron of the Royal Air Force: in the Middle East. Gremlins were particularly said to be active during wartime. The do not seem to choose sides, although they may slightly be malicious. Their own curious tinkering is causing these planes to fail. They themselves may not get hurt but clearly they have only a passing interest in the passengers in the plane. (Makes me think of the 'thing on the wing' form the twilight zone episode starring William Shatner)
So whenever I see another plane going down into some wretched desert in the middle east for no apparent reason, I wonder if human folly is to blame or perhaps in times of war when countries let loose rivers of steel into the ground and in the air if that creates an ideal breeding ground for gremlins.
Also, I wonder what ever happened to that fat white kid who used to appear on 'The Cosby Show'
2026 Update
Dialing back to 2006, where Ed blames gremlins for a helicopter crash and then asks about a Cosby Show kid.
My favorite part of this is the sheer 2006 of it all. You've got a war in Iraq, 24-hour news snippets, and a man blogging from his desk about mythological creatures literally in the same paragraph as a completely unrelated television thought. Back then, a personal blog was how you dumped your brain onto the internet, and nobody had to worry about an algorithm deciding whether gremlin theory was 'engaging content.' These days if a helicopter goes down, the discourse is already on video, verified by seventeen sources, and filtered through a subscription news app with a comments section that's either gone or locked. The idea of reading a tiny wire-service brief as 'buried deep inside other articles'—now you'll see it as a push notification, a meme, and a podcast hot take within an hour. As for wondering what happened to that kid from The Cosby Show: Ed, this is why we need to ask you what you were thinking. The gremlins weren't in the helicopter; they were in your editorial transitions.
“2006 Ed, why did you close a post about war, helicopters, and gremlins with a sudden digression about a child from The Cosby Show? Did your keyboard slip into another dimension, or were gremlins editing your blog too?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, I wish I had a fancy answer, but the truth is my brain is about as organized as a junk drawer. I was sitting there thinking about gremlins and war and all that mess, and the next thing I know I'm remembering that chubby white kid from The Cosby Show, the one who used to hang around Theo and always looked like he'd just eaten a whole cake. I have no idea why. Maybe gremlins live in my head too, scrambling the wires between 'serious thought' and 'weird TV memory.' Or maybe it's just that when you stare at too much bad news, your mind grabs onto the stupidest thing it can find to keep from going under. That kid probably doesn't even remember the show, and here I am worrying about him. So no, my keyboard didn't slip. My brain slipped. Gremlins, TV reruns, whatever. Take that, foul gremlins.
