I vaguely remember reading in one of the Fathers where it was regarded as historical, but with the comment that since all those others were taken unjustly then God took them all straight to Heaven. I haven’t read any others on that so I can’t say if it’s a minority view or not; I remember it because it seemed a really alien way of looking at things, something no one in the West would have conceived of.
Or, as one of the old Lutheran theologians suggested, given the Spirit’s involvement and the fact that Satan still qualifies as a heavenly being, there was likely a mode of presence involved that isn’t available to mundane humans like us.