They first appeared as messengers in the Bible. Centuries later, they showed up in famous Renaissance paintings. Then they ended up on Christmas cards, and sometimes they were imprinted in fresh snow, surrounded by footprints from little boots. And, occasionally they made an appearance in moveies and on television. But now, they're everywhere.

They're all over magazine racks, posters and calendars. They've bombarded Hallmark stores in the form of little ceramics with chubby cheeks. They've even shouwed up as John Travolta and Denzel Washington.

Replicas of angels and stories of angels in our midst have certainly captured many Americans' - or at least the media's - attention. They have swept greeting-card shops, movie screens, television and magazine covers.

For some, this renewed interest in angels is solely based on their entertainment value. For others, they're inspiring reminders of a higher power.

"Angels are a big part of the cultural landscape," says Mark Dawidziak, a film critic for the Akron Beacon Journal. "you don't have to be religious to enjoy stories about angels. They can still touch you, reach you and inspire you."

The latest surge of media involving angels has varied considerably in the interpretations of the heavenly creatures.

Television offers the drama Touched by an Angel, the story of three human-like angels who roam the earth and take on different personae to help humans in need.

Two of Hollywood's more recent movies reflecting the angel obsession are Michael and The Preacher's Wife. In Michael, a white-winged John Travolta plays an apparently flawed angel who takes to chain-smoking, grooving to oldies and wooing females. In The Preacher's Wife, Denzel Washington portrays a charming angel in a gray trench coat who comes back to earth to fulfill his duty before he is permitted into heaven. However, he gets a bit sidetracked from his heavenly responsibilities when he falls in love with Whitney Houston, who plays the wife of the preacher whom Washington is supposed to save.

Magazines, especially, have offered Americans a variety of stories that spark curiosity about angels. People and TV Guide have featured cover stories about angel encounters and the revival of interest in the phenomenon.

Some publishers have even ventured to launch magazines dedicated specifically to telling stories about angels.

One such magazine is Angels on Earth. The publishers of Guideposts, a Christian magazine, created a spin-off publication solely for the large portion of their audience interested in stories of angel encounters.

Angels on Earth now has a circulation of more than 800,000, says Lisa Marie Rovito, an assistant editor of the magazine.

Ninety to 95 percent of the stories in the New York-based magazine are sent in by individuals who want to tell of angel encounters or of experiences that strengthened their faith.

Despite the fact that Angels on Earth is a Christian publication, not all of its readers are religious. They simply enjoy the cheerful, inspiring stories.

"It's amazing how attached to this magazine some of our readers are," Rovito says. "Everybody likes to read stories with happy endings. A lot of people like to read the stories before they go to bed."

Dawidziak says the interest in angels may have grown so dramatically because many Americans are trying to increase the spirituality in their lives.

As opposed to the 1970s, sometimes referred to as a "shallow decade," and the 1980s, during which people were absorbed in their possessions and own self-interest, the 1990s is a decade when Americans are making an effort to return to a more spiritual existence, he says.

The Rev. Chuck Graham, director of United Campus Ministries at Kent State, agrees that more Americans are seemingly searching for greater spirituality.

In the mid- to late 1980s, more an more students on the Kent campus were feeling a rise in a sense of spiritualism and religion, he says.

"Part of it has to do with what is happening in the world in general," Graham says. "There is a lot of increased anxiety."

The idea of angels protecting individuals from many of the dangers of the modern world is very comforting, he says. With concerns such as sexual diseases, the break-up of families and finding a place in the competitive job market, college students - and people in general - seem to have multiple pressures weighing on them.

"We're searching," he says. "We're looking for something to take us away from all this and to protect us from all this responsibility." Freshman Traci Marcovitaz, a member of Kent State's Hillel Jewish Student Center, says the current trend is similar to when angels first appeared in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.

"In the Bible, they were messengers and were used to communicate hope," she says. "It's basically the same happened in the Torah. The assumed presence of angels helps people believe in something. It helps people deal with everyday life and with death."

Diana Culbertson, a professor of English who teaches courses on the Bible's literature, says those who are serious about religion do not focus on angels. Angels are a peripheral issue, she says.

Believing in angels is more appealing to those who are intimidated by the more serious side of religion.

"If people want something cute and pretty that's not going to demand too much out of them, angels is a good way to go," she says. "It's kind of entertaining and curious."

But Dawidziak from the Beacon Journal says angels don't always inspire religious reflection. Thy simply make easy, effective dramatic tools to enhance the entertainment value of a film or story.

"Angels are wonderful symbolic mirrors for us," he says. "You can take an angel literally or as a metaphor."

"Often, angels become something grander that serves to inform us about the human condition. And if drama isn't informing us about the human condition, what's it doing?"

Adding to their entertainment value is the fact that angels and other supernatural beings are the only options left for heroes in a story, says Robert West, an associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communication.

He says many people today are so cynical that there is no one left to trust in the physical world. "Many people seem to think, 'I can't trust you and you can't trust me. And we can't trust the government, the president or preachers. So where do we find a positive image?"

"If people are terribly cynical and untrusting in the physical world, then why wouldn't angels have a shot?"

Margaret Dixon, a junior secondary education major and a member of United Christian Ministries, agrees. "These days, I think it's harder to trust people," she says. "If people do something that's nice or beyond the norm, people think that something is acting within them, like maybe an angel."

"However, what makes angels such accepted heroes in movies doesn't make them more believable in the real world," Culberson of the English department says. She believes that most stories told about angels, especially in the media, are simply "too cute."

"The media's representation of angels is utterly frivolous," she says. "I think their representation is to religion what frosting is to cake."

But this is not always a problem, expecially for films, Dawidziak says.

"Hollywood never does anything realistic," he says. "The depiction of police, lawyers, journalists and college students isn't realistic - it's entertainment. You don't want to go to the movies to see real life."

Although angel encounters seem to be frequent occurrences - as incidents are published bimonthly in Angels on Earth - some stories seem more likely than others, Rovito says.

She says the magazine gets letters about angels in human form and in full-fledged angel-like form, with wings and white robes. The magazine has also received stories in which angels are in the form of an animal, like a dog or a wolf. They've also been in the form of the wind and even a pink cloud.

Although she's fairly accustomed to hearing about such incidents now, Rovito says she wasn't always as comfortable with her job.

When she started working at Angels on Earth two years ago, she sensed her job was going to be a bit unusual. As an assistant editor, part of her responsibility was to go through letters and to make sure they were worthy of being published.

It seemed strange at first talking with so many people who said they had seen angels, she says.

One particular story the magazine was working on when she arrived made her a little leery. It was jointly written by a teenage girl who had been through a traumatic experience and her mother. Because of trauma, the girl had experienced seizures and other mental problems.

That's where the angel came in.

"The girl named her angel, 'George.' Hew was 7 feet tall, and he wore a white tuxedo and top hat," Rovito says. "The girl talked about flying around and dancing with him."

To Rovito, it was more likely that George was the result of the medication the girl was taking for her mental problems.

But since then, Rovito has gained more faith in the people who tell of seeing an angel.

"After talking to the authors, I realized these are real people, and they don't say they see angels every day," she says. "Plus many of them are religious, so I Believe they're faithful and they're honest."

Regardless of people's faith in angels, a belief in them has a minimal effect on their moral lives, Culbertson says. There are more important things people should be concerned with.

"When you're obsessed with angels, you don't worry about feeding the poor and working for social justice," she says.

"And those are the real issues."