9781422280089

In World War I, British Royal Navy commander Harry Stoker and two other comrades made a daring escape from a Turkish prison. They traveled hundreds of miles across the rugged Taurus Mountains through intense cold. Stoker later wrote that he always felt four people were strug- gling along rather than three. He saw the invisible fourth presence as a loyal friend who was saying, “I cannot help, but when danger is at hand remember always that I am here, to stand—or fall—with you.” When a jet hijacked by terrorists struck the second tower at the World Trade Center in 2001, Ron DiFrancesco felt trapped above floors that were con- sumed with smoke and flames. But at one desperate point, he says he sensed an angel who urged him on. He felt a pres- ence that “led me to the stairwell, led me to break through, led me to run through the fire.” He felt that someone had guid- ed him, that “somebody lifted me up.” He was able to make it past the flames and eventually out to safety before the tower collapsed.

Two days after the horrific terrorist attacks in NewYork City, an excavator spotted a sign of hope amid chaos. A cross, formed from the towers’ fallen steel beams, stood strong on Ground Zero. It remains intact, a part of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

freaky PHENOMENA

14