Over the years I’ve collected stories of divine intervention – not from famous authors, but newspapers that accepted story-submissions from regular people. These stories range from between the 1970s up to the 2020s and I’ve selected them to share with readers how angels work.
It is my view that angels are not “called upon”, “summoned” or “channeled” but instead work on their own, according to need. Instead, you call on the highest source which is heard by angels already routinely assigned to such tasks. I say this because I’ve yet to see any good come from “summoning angels” directly.
The stories in this article are taken from old magazine issues of “Fortean Times Magazine” and “Fate Magazine” which are open-source material on www.archive.org. The bolding in the text is mine.
Helping Hands
On two occasions, an ‘angel’ or ‘divine protector’ has apparently come to my rescue. Around the autumn of 1984, when I was about seven, a group of friends and I went on a conker-hunting adventure in a local park. Supervising us was a responsible adult whose own son was in the party. The best horse chestnut tree was high on a steep slope and, with the adult leading the way, we climbed the slope in search of the best conkers that might have fallen in the undergrowth. We spent a while collecting a bagful and were ready to set off back home. We had been right round the park and were all a bit tired.
We took a short cut and found ourselves climbing another slope towards a bridge that hung high over the stream below. This manmade slope was relatively safe – or so I thought – and was a good 6-8ft (1.8-2.4m) wide. There was a fence to our right and a sheer drop to the left. Being the smallest, I trailed at the back while the others clambered up carefully and jumped over a fence that led to a footpath and the streets of home beyond.I impatiently tried to sneak past one of the others, but was nudged out of the way by a girl in the party. I slipped and lost my footing, falling to the left and the sheer drop, which was about 50-60ft (15-18m). Nobody noticed I had slipped, and everyone else managed to jump over the fence to the footpath and safety. I was left clinging to the slippery brickwork and earth, and hanging precariously over the edge where, should I let go, I would surely fall to serious injury, or even death. Time seemed to stand still. I screamed in panic, but nobody heard me. It was rocky down below and I couldn’t bring myself to look. I clung on with all the strength I could summon and prayed to my maker for help.
Almost at once, I felt somebody grab my ankles and take my body weight. The physical sensation was very clear indeed. The hands moved down and formed a ‘ledge’ for me to stand on. But this was impossible, I thought. No one could hover 50-odd feet in the air and support my weight. Yet I felt immediately safe. I knew the ‘hands’ wouldn’t let me fall.
A brief moment later, I heard shouts from above. The supervising adult had rushed back and was lying face down on the ledge, ready to pull me to safety. If I could reach out with my arm – which had just healed after a complicated break – he’d haul me up. I knew I didn’t have the strength – or the will- to do it. Before I could build up the bottle to let go and reach up for the adult to grab me, the same ‘hands’ pushed me up with no effort at all – in fact, I felt curiously light as if levitating – and I was in the arms of my rescuer, who threw me over the fence to safety. I quietly thanked the ‘hands’ and said nothing to anyone. Whenever I walk over that bridge, which was just a few yards from where I clung on for dear life, a shiver runs down my spine.
Twenty years later, I was walking down a rolling, hilly footpath in the same park. I was listening to my Walkman, with a camera slung over my shoulder after a morning shoot. It was a bright sunny day, but the park was relatively quiet. Not wishing to waste my day off work, I’d fancied a stroll and took my camera with me. I had walked all around the park, seeing almost no one until a smiling old chap greeted me by the lake, doffing his flat cap. I said “Good morning” and went on my way.
A few minutes later, when I was walking down the hill just a few yards from the lake, I felt a hand reach out and gently push me to my left, where I clumsily rolled over, a bit dazed, and still with “Live and Let Live” by Love and Arthur Lee pounding in my ears. I looked up and saw a ‘trial’ type motorcycle speeding on down the hill. No vehicles are allowed in the park, except for the warden’s, so
I had no reason to worry about engine noise and impending danger behind me. I wouldn’t have heard it anyway because of the Walkman, and the rider wouldn’t have been able to see me ahead as I had just rounded a sharp bend. In that split second when I was pushed, the bike had whistled by only inches away. When I got up, I couldn’t see anybody around apart from the guy on the bike in the distance. Could the old chap who greeted me have been my ‘guardian angel’? It seemed weird that there had been nobody around until a few moments before the incident, when I said good morning to a stranger. The park where both incidents occurred is called Boggart Hole Clough, so named because, according to local folklore, a farmer and his family were driven off the land by a boggart, a mischievous sprite. If my rescuing hands were not those of a kindly dead relative or ‘spirit guide’, could they have been a boggart’s? Since my experiences there, I’ve always quietly asked for protection wherever I go. I don’t know who I’m asking, but I know they’ve helped me out before.
Paul Hughes, Moston, Manchester, 2004
“This kind of thing” is not unusual, it’s happened to me a few times. See it as an everyday occurrence, a default function of the Universe. There are angels who do nothing other all day than help us hapless humans and have great pleasure in doing so. It’s their job, just like you have your job.
CB Savior
In August 1987, I was living in St. Louis, Missouri, and I had to make a trip to Indianapolis for my divorce hearing. I left right after work on a Thursday evening and was travelling eastbound on Highway 70 through Illinois and into Indianapolis, listening to the radio and singing out loud as I do when I’m driving alone. All of a sudden a very clear ‘voice’ in my head said, “Turn on the CB”.
I wasn’t in the mood to listen to the CB so I just thought, well, that was weird and shrugged it off. Not 15 seconds later the ‘voice’ said, “Turn on the CB!” with an air of urgency. Again, I ignored it. A few seconds later the ‘voice’ screamed in my head “TURN ON THE CB!!” Not sure what was causing it or what to do, I turned the CB on. The first and only thing I heard was a man’s voice saying: “We have a drunk with no headlights travelling westbound in the fast lane of eastbound Highway 70. He just passed mile marker 178.”
As this was said, I looked up and saw the mile marker 177 sign. I instantly moved to the far right lane, and not more than two seconds later the drunk flew past me, heading in the wrong direction, in the lane I had just been in. I have no doubt that the warning saved my life that night.
Rhonda L Perry
This too happened to me. I was shouted at by a disembodied voice in my car. If I hadn’t been called out, I wouldn’t be alive.
Library angel
A few years back I was researching in archives, where I regularly went, normally doing transcriptions. On one occasion I was trying to find out about my grandmother, who as a 12-year-old was a pupil teacher at the local primary school. I obtained the relevant school logbook / school record and searched through without success. A fellow archivist called me over to help decipher some signatures. Returning to my own research, I found the book open at the right page. Was this down to chance or was some sort of library angel at work?
Peter Jackson, St Ives, Cambridgeshire
Yes, they also help with mundane tasks. Why? Because they like to.
Heavenly Choir Practice
When I was about 15 (around 1989) I went away with a youth group, of which I was a member, to a Bible camp at a showground in the east of England. The girl I had been sharing a tent with had been taken into hospital suddenly so I was staying there alone. It was late summer and very warm. One morning, I was woken by the Sun coming through the thin canvas of the tent. As I awoke, I became aware of some exquisite choral singing, getting steadily louder. I assumed that this was some choir practice going on in one of the halls and lay back to listen. The singing was awesome. It was very simple, consisting of only three or four words and cyclical, going round and round and round…
Eventually, I sat up and put my head outside the tent and abruptly the singing stopped. I estimate it was only around seven or eight o’clock in the morning and there was no one around except for a couple of my mates, four or five tents away, having a cup of tea and talking softly so as not to wake anyone. I called over to them and asked if they’d heard any choirs singing and they said no, looking very puzzled. Sure that I’d imagined it, I lay down in my tent again. As soon as I closed my eyes again the singing began – so many voices, joyful, soaring and pure. I got up and put my head out again – nothing but quiet!
Later in the day, one of the pastors approached me and said that one of the boys had told him I’d heard singing in my tent and told me I’d heard angels singing in a very matter-of-fact kind of way. I was stunned. I can’t explain what happened and I don’t believe someone played a trick on me. Whilst not really a follower of the traditional Christian church anymore, I’ve found this very comforting, and if proof were needed, suggestive of something else beyond our lives. It’s also left me with a strange tendency for bursting into spontaneous tears against my will when I hear certain kinds of choral singing….
Portia –, by email, 2003
The fact that only she heard it and only lying down with eyes closed shows that “receiving” required a relaxed state or that the concert was performed for or sent to her only.
Unearthly Advice
The following event happened more than 30 years ago when I lived just outside Hay-on-Wye in Powys, Wales. I must have been 17 or 18 years old at the time. In those days, it was not uncommon to see young lads fishing off the bridge at Hay on a summer evening. One day, I arrived on the bridge by bicycle along with my fishing rod, some flies, worms and lead weights in my pocket. It wasn’t the best of days. The wind was rather strong, so I weighted the line well and used some worms for bait. I was quite alone, but for the occasional car passing.
Out of the corner of my left eye, I caught sight of a man approaching down Bridge Street and onto the bridge. I was roughly in the centre of the quite long, concrete bridge. As the man approached I could see that he was a vicar or minister of some kind: grey mac, bowler hat, dog collar, white hair. He looked about 65 years old. He came up and asked if I had caught any fish and I told him I hadn’t.
“Why don’t you try straight down there?” he suggested. More to please him than anything else, I thought I would try the location he indicated as the current ran fast under the bridge and the water was some 40ft (12m) below. I dropped in the worm, with its heavy weight on the line, just as he started to walk back the way he came. Almost immediately, I hooked a huge chub.
I turned to call the man, but he had vanished. There was no way he could have made it across the bridge into Bridge Street in the few seconds that seemed to pass. I couldn’t lift the fish up, it was too heavy, 40ft (12m) of nylon line straining to lift it out of the water. So I jerked the line and snapped it. Then I wondered if the man had leaped off the other side of the bridge, but thankfully when I went to investigate he was nowhere to be seen. I wound up my line, jumped on my bicycle and rode up Bridge Street into Broad Street, in the hope that I would find him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
There were no other witnesses to this event and no car had come along to pick him up. I went home to tell my parents. I was adamant about what happened and have puzzled over it ever since. I don’t believe he was a ghost, as we had a short conversation. Was he perhaps from a parallel universe?
RB Williams, Brecon, Powys, 1997
You know it’s an angel when you get immediate, tangible help without mystery, weirdness or having to do something in return.
I experience things like this on a regular basis.
Angels are real, but people have difficulty discerning the different types of supernatural phenomena. This person, for instance, wondered if it’s “parallel universes”. No, it’s not. This is how angels operate. Parallel universes work differently (see my book on the subject). The mis-assignment of cause is common because most people don’t study up on spiritual topics.
Clerical Savior
I live on the southern borders of Wiltshire and before the M4 was built I frequently used to visit my old home in Pembrokeshire on a 100cc motorbike, travelling north until I hit the A40. The journey took many hours. Returning once in the autumn in about 1964, I had reached the bleak, thinly populated plateau above Gloucester when the bike broke down. No traffic and no habitation. I just pushed it along in the failing light, cursing my luck. Presently, a large lorry drew up, driven by a parson. He asked me what was wrong and said he often got a feeling when something was wrong and drove out to investigate. We loaded the bike onto the lorry, went to his vicarage to have some soup and then he drove me all the way home. His wife seemed resigned. I have always been lucky, but this was pushing the edge of reality too far.
Patrick F James Salisbury, Wiltshire
Sometimes angels pose as humans. And sometimes they send humans to do the work. Every time you do good, you are making angels jobs easier.
Last vision
I was visiting my father in hospital where he had been severely unwell. He had been improving, but on this particular day as I entered the ward, the nurses made it clear they expected him to deteriorate rapidly. I sat with him all afternoon, as I had all week. He was quite agitated and fidgeting, so I held his hand for him to know someone was there with him. I left the ward to go home, had a quick bite to eat, but as he was so unwell I felt very strongly that I should go back to visit him in the evening. I sat with him for about two hours. He was very calm and seemingly asleep. As he was so settled, I considered going home and returning early the next morning. Dad was in the far corner of a six-bed bay. As I sat with my back to the rest of the bay, I felt the air move past me as though a door had opened behind me and I was aware of several ‘people’ standing right behind me. I nearly turned around to speak to ‘a nurse’ but honestly knew that there was no nurse there. It was very clear that ‘beings of energy’ – not staff or visitors – were behind me. I silently asked them “to make Dad’s passing swift and painless” and immediately heard “Don’t worry, we’ve got him”! They had come to ‘collect’ him.
I sat and waited a further 10 minutes, but nothing happened. As it had been an exhausting and very stressful week, I wondered if I had slightly lost my mind. I left the ward having explained to the staff that I could return within 15 minutes of a phone call. I got as far as the hospital car park when the ward staff called to say I had better come back. This was approximately 30 minutes after the presence of the beings. Back with Dad, it was evident he was passing away. I sat with one hand on his heart and the other on his forehead so he would know I was there, silently thanking him for all he had done for our family and me, as he had always been a truly wonderful father. In my mind’s eye I suddenly saw an image of us as a young family playing in our local woodlands and having a lovely time. This image, although instantly recognisable, was not one I would have picked, and so I believe it to be his last thoughts, as he died straight after this. Needless to say I found this experience hugely comforting, if unexpected. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced anything like this; either the presence of beings or last thoughts-images, while witnessing the death of a loved one.
Helen Lauer, Whitstable, Kent
Again, nothing unusual, it happens every day. Anyone who has worked in a hospital or hospice for some time has heard similar stories from patients and nurses. Angels and deceased relatives routinely show up when people are dying, to pick them up. When you transition to the other side, it’s reassuring to meet nice folks and have them help you along while you get re-adjusted to the REAL world.
Angels are at your service when you know it and when you don’t.
One human error is to rely on higher powers to do things for you that you can do yourself. This is not how it works. Have you ever heard the expression “God helps those who help themselves?” That’s how it works.
Angels in the School Library
In 1973, I was a school librarian in Miami, Florida. One afternoon a siren wailed close by. I raised one of our second-story windows and the clerk, Dot, and I looked into the street below us. An ambulance had stopped and two medics were stooped over a small, crumpled figure lying on the ground behind a school bus. A group of people crowded around, watching. From the bits of conversation that drifted upward, we gathered that during the lower grade dismissal, the bus had backed into Narcisso, a rambunctious second-grader.
Suddenly Dot exclaimed, “He’s dead – I think I heard them say he’s dead.” She repeated it agitatedly. Feeling devastated, I turned from the window. Suddenly all sound ceased and it was as if I were in another dimension. I gazed around the library in awe. The room had filled with ghostlike beings clothed in gowns of soft white light. One or two of these adult-sized spirits stood close behind each of the 20-some children who were browsing or studying. I knew intuitively that they were guardian angels and that they were dedicated to the boys and girls in their care.
Two third-grade boys approached me in need of assistance. Although I could plainly see their mouths moving, I could not hear a word they were saying. I was in a beautiful mystical space and I wanted to remain there. I knew I was needed, however, so with tremendous effort, I forced myself to concentrate on the boys in front of me. Suddenly, with a jolt, things were back to normal. The spiritual beings disappeared from my sight. The busy hubbub of the library returned and I could hear the boys’ requests.
Later, in the school office, I was told that Narcisso had not died. Both of his legs had been broken, but otherwise he was all right. In a few months he was back at school, as lively as ever.
Seeing the guardian angels standing behind the children was a wonderful, uplifting experience. I now believe that we each have an angel or guide to help us along life’s way.
Carolyn Dignan, Delray Beach, Florida September 1996
It’s common for angels to intervene to bring people back to life if “their time hasn’t come yet”. Your moment of death is nothing to worry about. If it’s time, it’s time. And if it isn’t time, you won’t die. But if you die, you may have get a beautiful and thrilling escort.
Something Pushed Me
My story begins years ago, in the fall of 1929, when Los Angeles was on the verge of a financial crisis. Business, however, went on as usual but loan companies refused to extend the time of payment on second mortgages, or increase first mortgages on residential property. At that time my home had two mortgages the second a trust deed for about $2,500, which was due in less than a month. All my efforts to renew it or increase the first mortgage failed.
The loss of any home is a disaster to those concerned. But I was the sole support of myself and a teenage daughter. I earned just enough to pay our living expenses, taxes, and monthly house payments, and so had cause for worry.
Fortunately, shortly before the scheduled foreclosure proceedings were to begin, a friend who had sold some property in another state offered to lend me the money to pay off the second mortgage on my home and trust me for the necessary security. He gave me his personal check on an out-of-state bank.
The next day I went downtown to deposit his check in a bank considered the soundest financial institution in town. The president, a highly respected citizen, had a fine reputation as a trustworthy and shrewd business man and the bank building itself was splendid, inside and outside. When I entered the bank a man in an expensive uniform helped me locate the clerk in charge of new accounts. Then I stood for some time behind a long line of depositors who also were opening new accounts.
Finally, I was first in line and I told the clerk that I wanted to open a new account. He asked for my name and address, filled out the deposit slip, then gave it back to me with a pen so I could endorse my check for $2,500.
There were 10 people behind me waiting impatiently for an opportunity to open new accounts. I took the pen and had begun to write my first name when something pushed me away from the clerk’s window- pushed me so hard I almost lost my balance.
Frightened, I dropped the pen, picked up my check and ran swiftly from the bank while everyone in the building stared at me as if I suddenly had lost my mind.
Once outside, I breathed deeply and didn’t care what anyone thought about my flight. Then I went directly to the loan company and endorsed my check as suggested and made arrangements to give my friend the proper security. A week or so later, Los Angeles newspapers carried big headlines announcing that the president of the bank from which I bad fled had shot himself because of unwise investments and mismanagement. It was the stock market crash of 1929. The bank closed its doors and never reopened them. Depositors lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their checks bounced everywhere. But my home was safe, thanks to my invisible friend who pushed me away from the new accounts window.
Clara R. Lain, Burbank, California March 1966
Conclusion
It’s good to tell stories like this, provided they are authentic. The more you share real stories of divine intervention, the more people lighten up and know there is a cosmic order and a dimension-of-reality that is above this one and from which it’s extremely easy to intervene on any matter whatsoever. Make the world a better place by sharing your stories.
