'Angel' which saved British troops in WW1 may have been UFO

An ‘Angel’ which many British soldiers credited with saving their lives in one of the first, brutal battles of World War I may not have been sent from heaven after all – but from the stars.

UFO authors suspect that the famous “Angel of Mons” – described as either St George, St Michael, angels, or crowds of angelic warriors, may in fact have been extraterrestrial.

Many soldiers credited the strange apparitions with saving their lives – and it became a staple of parish magazines. The battle had been one of the first in which the British faced the Germans – and despite retreating, only 1,600 lives were lost.
           
It’s clear that the soldiers themselves believed that something supernatural had intervened.

In Harold Begbie’s On the Side of the Angels, he quotes an anonymous Lance-Corporal who testified that during the retreat on 28 August 1914: “I could see quite plainly in mid-air a strange light which seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection of the moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighbourhood. The light became brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in the centre having what looked like outspread wings, the other two were not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the centre one. They appeared to have a long loose-hanging garment of a golden cloak.”

The story became almost a cult at the time. Books on it were published – as it ‘proved’ that God was on Britain’s side. Poetry celebrated the Angelic intervention: “They knew that holy angels/Were fighting on their side,” said one by Dugald MacEhern. These circulated widely in parish magazines.

Brigadier-General John Charteris wrote in a letter, “…then there is the story of the ‘Angels of Mons’ going strong through the 2nd Corps, of how the angel of the Lord on the traditional white horse, and clad all in white with flaming sword, faced the advancing Germans at Mons and forbade their further progress.

Charteris was said to work covertly for British intelligence – adding weight to the idea that battlefield hallucinations had been warped for political reasons.

Others claim that the story is simple fiction. The popular author Arthur Machen claimed that this legend was created by his fictional ‘The Bowmen’ story published in The Evening News, 29 September 1914.

Nigel Watson, author of the upcoming book ‘UFOs of the First World War’ says, “Even today the legend is swathed in controversy. Theories about it range from it being a myth based on Machen’s story, the product of hallucinations due to stress and exhaustion, real angelic visitations, ghosts, swamp gas, airships or alien UFOs projecting or shaping themselves to the expectations of the witnesses.”

‘UFOs of the First World War: Phantom Airships, Balloons, Aircraft and other Mysterious Aerial Phenomena’, History Press, November 2014.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/UFOs-First-World-War-Mysterious/dp/0750959142