Paranormal Events in World War I

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**Easy E**

For a bit of fun, and to start doing some work on a Possible Wierd World War I, I was looking around for paranormal activity during the Great War. Here is some fo the ideas I have found so far, but would love for you to add folklore you have heard:

1. The Disappearing Battalion of Gallipoli
2. Angels of Mons
3. Bowmen of Mons
4. St. George/Michael at Mons
5. Various Ghosts/Guardian Angels saving soldiers lives
6. The wildmen/Ghouls of no-man's land
7. Hellhound of Mons
8. Mystery Orbs in the sky
9. "The Valkyrie" or " Lady Sopwith"
10. Red Baron vs. the Flying Saucer
11. Phantom Cavalry chasing Ghost French Infantry

If you want to share or add onto any of these let me know. I am also interested in additional paranormal events from the Great War, especially once you move away from the Western Front.

Thanks for your help.

**reds8n**

sorta related :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Corpse_Factory

**oldravenman3025**

Easy E wrote:
For a bit of fun, and to start doing some work on a Possible Wierd World War I, I was looking around for paranormal activity during the Great War. Here is some fo the ideas I have found so far, but would love for you to add folklore you have heard:

1. The Disappearing Battalion of Gallipoli
2. Angels of Mons
3. Bowmen of Mons
4. St. George/Michael at Mons
5. Various Ghosts/Guardian Angels saving soldiers lives
6. The wildmen/Ghouls of no-man's land
7. Hellhound of Mons
8. Mystery Orbs in the sky
9. "The Valkyrie" or " Lady Sopwith"
10. Red Baron vs. the Flying Saucer
11. Phantom Cavalry chasing Ghost French Infantry

If you want to share or add onto any of these let me know. I am also interested in additional paranormal events from the Great War, especially once you move away from the Western Front.

Thanks for your help.

Considering the pure misery and hell that was the Great War, I'm not surprised that there were paranormal instances reported by people on the front.

**jhe90**

Angels, ghostly encounters. Men meeting men who where Ment to be dead.

There was so much tradagy, death, pain and loss who knows.

**konst80hummel**

There is also a tale about some Russian garrison that the Germans used gas on. The garrison poisoned with flesh melting charged out and set the germans to flight.
Now if only i could remember where I came upon this tale. i think it was in one of The Great War specials in youtube.

**jhe90**

I Don, t know much Ww1 but there's a few tales like a soldier guided a truck through a minefield in WW2.

This was a afternoon. They arrived back at checkpoint/position.

The man died that morning.

Strange things happen.

**DarkTraveler777**

People also create fictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons

On 29 September 1914 Welsh author Arthur Machen published a short story entitled "The Bowmen" in the London newspaper the Evening News, inspired by accounts that he had read of the fighting at Mons and an idea he had had soon after the battle.

Machen, who had already written a number of factual articles on the conflict for the paper, set his story at the time of the retreat from the Battle of Mons in August 1914. The story described phantom bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt summoned by a soldier calling on St. George, destroying a German host.[1] Machen's story was not, however, labelled as fiction and the same edition of the Evening News ran a story by a different author under the heading "Our Short Story". Additionally, Machen's story was written from a first-hand perspective and was a kind of false document, a technique Machen knew well. The unintended result was that Machen had a number of requests to provide evidence for his sources for the story soon after its publication, from readers who thought it was true, to which he responded that it was completely imaginary, as he had no desire to create a hoax.

A month or two later Machen received requests from the editors of parish magazines to reprint the story, which were granted.[1] In the introduction to The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War (1915) Machen relates that an unnamed priest, the editor of one of these magazines, subsequently wrote to him asking if he would allow the story to be reprinted in pamphlet form, and if he would write a short preface giving sources for the story. Machen replied that they were welcome to reprint but he could not give any sources for the story since he had none. The priest replied that Machen must be mistaken, that the "facts" of the story must be true, and that Machen had just elaborated on a true account. As Machen later said:

It seemed that my light fiction had been accepted by the congregation of this particular church as the solidest of facts; and it was then that it began to dawn on me that if I had failed in the art of letters, I had succeeded, unwittingly, in the art of deceit. This happened, I should think, some time in April, and the snowball of rumour that was then set rolling has been rolling ever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to a monstrous size.
— Arthur Machen, Introduction to The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War[1]

Around that time variations of the story began to appear, told as authentic histories, including an account that told how the corpses of German soldiers had been found on the battlefield with arrow wounds.[1]

**Easy E**

jhe90 wrote:
I Don, t know much Ww1 but there's a few tales like a soldier guided a truck through a minefield in WW2.

This was a afternoon. They arrived back at checkpoint/position.

The man died that morning.

Strange things happen.

Yes, WWI has many of those types of stories.

However, many of the ghost stories were not so helpful. The following is a fictional exchange between a couple of wounded soldiers and a third comrade who has stumbled upon them. The first two have been seeing a blue bonnetted old women flitting about in No-Man's Land and question what they are seeing. The third sees her and the following exchange occurs:

"Do you see her too?"

"Yes, the old woman int he blue bonnet?"

"Yes, coming this way?"

"Yes, I see her. My God!"

"What? What is it?"

"That is my mother!"

Then, we took cover as a whistle heralded the approach of an incoming shell. The three soldiers took cover as best they could. It was then that the two injured soldiers saw the third disintegrated by a direct shell burst.

Not all ghosts in WWI were there to help. Many of them heralded death and ruin. How very WWI of them.

**jhe90**

Easy E wrote:
jhe90 wrote:
I Don, t know much Ww1 but there's a few tales like a soldier guided a truck through a minefield in WW2.

This was a afternoon. They arrived back at checkpoint/position.

The man died that morning.

Strange things happen.

Yes, WWI has many of those types of stories.

However, many of the ghost stories were not so helpful. The following is a fictional exchange between a couple of wounded soldiers and a third comrade who has stumbled upon them. The first two have been seeing a blue bonnetted old women flitting about in No-Man's Land and question what they are seeing. The third sees her and the following exchange occurs:

"Do you see her too?"

"Yes, the old woman int he blue bonnet?"

"Yes, coming this way?"

"Yes, I see her. My God!"

"What? What is it?"

"That is my mother!"

Then, we took cover as a whistle heralded the approach of an incoming shell. The three soldiers took cover as best they could. It was then that the two injured soldiers saw the third disintegrated by a direct shell burst.

Not all ghosts in WWI were there to help. Many of them heralded death and ruin. How very WWI of them.

Yeah WW1 the benchmark for general death. Ruin and inhumanity.

Hundreds of thousands died not to even move a front line 10 feet.

**Necros**

I don't know if it was more of a WWII thing.. but what about Foo Fighters? not the band... I think I read somewhere that's what some pilots called UFOs back in the day

**jhe90**

Necros wrote:
I don't know if it was more of a WWII thing.. but what about Foo Fighters? not the band... I think I read somewhere that's what some pilots called UFOs back in the day

Yeah there's quite a few reports from the red barron to the cold War. Not sure who has claims are ture or others that are just people wanting clock's and views.

**oldravenman3025**

It's said by Joseph Kilna MacKenzie, writer and performer of the lament "Sgt. MacKenzie", that when Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie finally succumbed to his wounds, at his home his picture fell off of the wall. Joseph's great-grandmother had seen this, and said to his grandmother "Oh, my bonnie Charlie's dead". A few days later, they got official word that he was KIA.

Sad and chilling at the same time.

**Easy E**

Necros wrote:
I don't know if it was more of a WWII thing.. but what about Foo Fighters? not the band... I think I read somewhere that's what some pilots called UFOs back in the day

Foo-Fighters are WWII, but in WWI they did report "Flaming Onions" that would fly around airplanes and accelerate and decelerate at amazing speeds.

In addition, the Red Baron is claimed to have shot down a UFO!

**usernamesareannoying**

Ghost stories are great.
Heck, My Grandma would spin yarns about a spectral locomotive that would rocket past the farm where she grew up.

**Easy E**

I also recently learned about the following:

--Missing crew of the Zebrina:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebrina_(ship)

--A u-boat was attacked by a sea monster:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_UB-85

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3862842/SOLVED-mystery-World-War-U-Boat-condemned-depths-savaged-sea-monster.html

**Alpharius**

Easy E wrote:
Necros wrote:
I don't know if it was more of a WWII thing.. but what about Foo Fighters? not the band... I think I read somewhere that's what some pilots called UFOs back in the day

Foo-Fighters are WWII, but in WWI they did report "Flaming Onions" that would fly around airplanes and accelerate and decelerate at amazing speeds.

In addition, the Red Baron is claimed to have shot down a UFO!

I'd never heard that one - that's awesome!

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/did-fighter-ace-the-red-baron-shoot-down-a-ufo-071844622.html

Of course:

The story is highly dubious, however - given that Waitzrick didn’t share his story until 80 years after the event, and chose to do so in the U.S. tabloid Weekly World News.

Still, whatever!

**BaronIveagh**

Unterseeboote UB-65.

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-haunted-submarine-of-world-war-i/

Not mentioned in the article, but a few years back this happened:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-34680131

**Easy E**

Another, different Sea Serpent and U-boat story....

http://blogs.forteana.org/node/93

**Insurgency Walker**

Didn't Hitler believe he had been saved by god from a shell that landed in his position during WWI?

**BaronIveagh**

Insurgency Walker wrote:
Didn't Hitler believe he had been saved by god from a shell that landed in his position during WWI?

I doubt it was God, and if he did believe that, he had some strange ways of showing it. I seem to recall a Nazi edict to remove the crosses from churches and replace them with swastikas.