Guardian Angel, or “Third Man” Phenomenon

“We are alone in situations where we are beyond
the ability to help ourselves. And yet, somehow help is found —
like there is a hand that reaches down at that moment.”

- John Geiger, Author, The Third Man Factor and The Angel Effect

May 3, 2015 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - The term “Third Man” came from the great American poet T. S. Eliot writing about the December 1914 to May 1916 “Imperial Transantarctic Expedition” to Antarctica by explorer Ernest Shackleton and colleagues. By May 20, 1916, in a struggle to keep himself and his men alive, Shackleton and two of his team walked for 36 hours in life-threatening cold and ice to reach the whaling station, Stromness, on the north coast of South Georgia. The only equipment they had was a rope and an axe. Miraculously, all three survived what many explorers before and since think was a nearly impossible feat. What no one knew at the time is what the three men described as a powerful help they had from a mysterious presence that stayed with them through those 36 hours.