Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Archive for February, 2009

I recently wrote a piece about the multi-colored entities described as “walking tree stumps” witnessed by young Kathy Reeves in Newport, Oregon in 1966. (Newport, Oregon: A “New” Port(al)?

A Bigfoot sighting in 1999, in McMinnville, Oregon (home of the famous Trent UFO photos; the town hosts an annual UFO Festival every May, this May will be the 10th one) reminded me of the Reeves case thirty years earlier. While not the same kind of event, and not on the coast (McMinnville is approximately a hundred miles from Newport on the coast) the following story does describe the Bigfoot type creature as a “walking tree.”

Date: February 2 1999
Time: night
Several campers at an isolated ranch were sitting around a campfire when they heard some noises in the brush. They went to look and found some weird footprints and followed them. They went through the woods and into a meadow and saw a huge bizarre creature resembling a walking tree, except for the head. The creature was walking through the meadow at a very fast pace. It scurried away as they shone a flashlight at it. Later that night the campers saw a bright light shoot over the area at high speed.

HC addition # 3380
Source: Filer’s Files # 6
Type: D?
High Strangeness Index: 6
Reliability of Source: 7
Comments: The location is indeed the scene of the famous 1950 photographs of farmer Paul Trent.

Source:

1999 HUMANOID REPORTS
Compiled by Albert Rosales
http://www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1999.shtml

McMinnville, Oregon is known for those two famous photos of a UFO taken by Paul Trent in 1950. That case is a classic in UFOlogy. After all these decades, the photos still hold up as being good evidence; no signs of hoaxing have been found.

The Hotel Oregon in McMinnville hosts the annual UFO Festival every spring; this year is the 10th anniversary of the festival (Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16) with Linda Moultan Howe, Stanton Friedman and Kathleen Marden presenting. Promises to be a very good gathering, and I’ll be sharing more about it at the time.

It seems that McMinnville has a generally weird history outside of UFOs. According to the Ghosts of America site, there are all kinds of ghostly apparitions that appear in various spots in the McMinnville area.

The Shadowlands Haunted Places has a brief entry about the Mack theater in McMinnville having an eerie presence by the women’s restroom, including cold spots. The Mack theater is across from the Hotel Oregon. And it’s said the Hotel Oregon itself is haunted. So it looks like I’ll have ghost hunting to add to my itinerary this May!

photo credit: Mack Theater, Oregon Historical County Records Guide
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/county/images/scenic/ohrp/scenicyamhill4.htm

The Oregon coast, and in particular the Lincoln county area (Waldport, Yachats,Newport, Toledo,) has its share of UFO events. The Reeves case in the 1960s is a classic; complete with strange multi-colored lights, three very odd high strangeness furry entities walking across a field, UFOs, . . . and I’ve been wondering off and on through the years if a lot of these sightings, including the Reeves case (where UFOs were seen all over the area, not just at their home on Pioneer Mountain just outside of Newport near Toledo) weren’t due to military/naval projects.

Naveed at Naveed’s Realm had an interesting post recently about hidden bases in Oregon, including the Oregon coast:Hidden Bases in My Locale…Oregon!

In today’s paper I read the following:Lawmakers voice concerns about expanded Navy training along coast Oregon’s congressional delegates say the fishing fleet’s safety is among the issues that need more time for public input, by Wintston Ross.

FLORENCE — Submarines can sink fishing boats, hooking into the nets of midwater trawl boats and rolling the vessels like an alligator in a swamp. Lincoln County Commissioner Terry Thompson said he knows of at least eight boats downed by subs off the West Coast in the decades he’s been a fisherman. He has lost five friends in such incidents, he said.

“One boat hooked into a submarine and got dragged sideways, at 6 knots,” Thompson said. “The crew was sitting at the back deck and the captain was at the wheelhouse. Only one crewman lived to tell the story.”

So when Thompson found out recently that the Navy was planning on expanding the training it does in a 126,000-square-mile swath of the Pacific Ocean between Washington and California, he wanted to make sure the military has Oregon’s fishing fleet in mind.

The navy was very quiet about their plans, taking area residents by surprise and not giving much time for citizens to speak their minds about such plans. Among other things, whales are in danger from the Navy’s exercises.

And it seems the navy’s been around in that area for some time:

Many people may not know the Navy trains out there in the first place, even though it’s been going on since the early 1900s

and includes exploding bombs underwater, firing missiles and 5-inch naval guns, and doing high-intensity sonar testing.

Naveed found that one underground base in the Lincoln County area;

here we go, the first base in Oregon that I found is located around the Lincoln City area (on the gorgeous Oregon Coast) in the Van Duzer Corridor. There people have seen everything from weird lights to army bases somewhere in the woods. One couple apparently even had some missing time out in that area, which tends to be a good sign of alien abduction.

It’s quite possible some of the UFO and anomalous related events were, and are, due to naval and other military actions on the coast.

It’s no surprise Oregon has its share of Bigfoot encounters; including paranormal Bigfoot events. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the town of MIllersburg, Oregon, (about forty five miles north of Eugene) experienced some very strange events involving a white Bigfoot or “BHM” (Big Hairy Monster) with a lot of high strangeness surrounding the encounters.

The creature was called the “Creature of Conser Lake,” also the “Ghost of Conser Lake” (because of its white color) and the “Monster of Conser Lake,” the lake’s name was Conser at the time, but isn’t called Conser Lake anymore, the name has been changed and is on private property. I’m not revealing the name of the lake out of respect to the owners.

Reported as a bigfoot type creature; about seven feet tall, bipedal, white shaggy fur, the creature mystified Millersburg residents for over a year. The story begins with a story of a UFO or strange light crashing into Conser Lake in either 1959 or 1960. Soon after the strange light crashed into Conser Lake, a Millersburg truck driver was understandably startled to find a white, shaggy furred bigfoot type creature trotting along beside his truck as he was driving down the road. The driver, a mint farmer, was going about 35 miles an hour; the creature was easily keeping pace with the moving vehicle.

The creature was described as being about seven feet tall. The mint farmer described the creature as a “shaggy gorilla.” Local Bruce Hamilton remembers the creature in Conser Lake, and a story about a “young couple driving by the lake; a seven or eight foot creature ran alongside their car.”

As if the truck farmer’s experience wasn’t odd enough, another report of a tall, white furred shaggy Bigfoot type creature running alongside side a truck made its way into the news. This time the creature was seen in Telephone, Oregon, in Eastern Oregon. (I realize the town doesn’t seem to show up on maps or Google searches, as I have found, and a recent e-mail alerted me to. However, this is the name cited by several sources. Many small “towns” are not listed, also, it’s possible the name has changed, the area incorporated, or simply disappeared over time.) Witness C.A. Cissman saw a bright light approach, hover about 30 minutes, then disappear, shooting upwards and disappearing within seconds. Later, in Prospect, Oregon a logger was shocked to see a white furred, Bigfoot or Bigfoot type being, leisurely jogging alongside his truck on a deserted rural road.

Stories of Bigfoot running alongside cars aren’t new, either. A report from 1926 tells of a Bigfoot creature encounter in Yankton, Oregon: “Bigfoot following alongside a truck looking in. Sheep and children would disappear.” (UFO Casebook) It seems there was a history of bright zipping lights and white Bigfoot — or white somethings — following cars and trucks in Oregon.

Other reports of white Bigfoot creatures can be found; for example, Chris O’Brien writes in his Secrets of the Mysterious Valley about a “New Mexico cattle inspector” who told O’Brien:

he watched with binoculars a white bigfoot clamor up a rocky slope . . a witness in Washington “reported seeing a Bigfoot with large pointed ears” (p 231 Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, Christopher O’Brien)

The reference to “pointed ears” is interesting; Flix, our creature in Conser Lake, was also described as having pointed or “cat like” ears. A “ten foot white Bigfoot” was seen on the banks of the Ohio river in the 1960s. In fact, sightings of a white Bigfoot in the area were reported from the 1900s to the 1990s .(The I-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Illinois, Jay Rath)

Peter Guittilla’s The Bigfoot Files contains stories of white BHM or Bigfoot like creatures that transcend the flesh and blood variety. Guittilla references an account from Fate magazine out of Peter Bottom, Arkansas. In 1966 reports of a “monster” living in the Bottom emerged. The creature was described as being nine feet tall with snow white fur. Aside from giving off a strong smell, the creature “made a sound like a radio signal . . . the signal sounded like ‘beep, beep, beep.” (The Bigfoot Files, p 86)

The synchronicity of the white bigfoots is intriguing, along with the mysterious lights in the sky. As far as the Conser Lake “monster” goes, witnesses reported feelings of disorientation, dizziness, severe headaches, and hearing loud thuds and running footsteps right by them but no source for the sounds. Some insisted they were in telepathic communication with the being, who said his name was “Flix” and was from outer space.

Flix was Bigfoot like in many ways, yet there were other characteristics described by witnesses that are strange. Flix was said to have claws and or webbed feet and hands and cat like ears.

There are some similarities with Bigfoot; the height, bipedalism, shaggy fur. As noted, there were other similar beings in Oregon scattered throughout the state. But enough high strangeness episodes take the idea of a strictly flesh and blood creature out its comfortable unknown animal category, and into the truly Fortean or esoteric. All the above noted incidences: UFOs or bright lights, telepathy, sounds with no visible source, feelings of disorientation, and the synchronicty of similar creatures adds up to something beyond a flesh and blood Bigfoot.

Notes
Janet Bord; Colin Bord: Bigfoot Casebook
Peter Guittilla: Bigfoot Files
Regan Lee: The Ghost in Conser Lake
Christopher O’Brien: Secrets of the Mysterious Valley
Jay Rath: The I-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Illinois
photos by Regan Lee

The 10th annual UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon is coming! It happens in May, and I’ll write more about this as we get closer to the date. Meanwhile, check out the official UFO McMinnville website.

I’ve attended the last two years, and it was great fun both times. Last year I had the honor and pleasure to spend a long lunch with Richard and Karyn Dolan (Richard was the keynote speaker at the Festival.)

You can download my McMinnville, Oregon UFO: Festivals and Hoaxes at Lulu.com.

Welcome to L.O.W.F.I., Oregon chapter.

I am very excited about joining this fantastic team of crazy Forteans!

Please be sure to check back often because I do have a lot of things to share.

I suppose this is where I introduce myself. I’m both an “experiencer” as well as a paranormal/Fortean writer, which includes the subject of UFOs. I write for UFO magazine, and for on-line publications like UFO Digest and Binnall of America. I’ve recently joined Nick Redfern’s Crypto USA team (representing Oregon) and have several blogs focusing on the paranormal.

I was born in Los Angeles and come from circus folk. Moved to Oregon about thirty years ago. With a couple of short stays in California and Washington, been here in the Willamette Valley for that time.

My interests are many; UFOs, Bigfoot especially the paranormal aspect, Mothman, general high strangeness.

I’m honored to be in such fantastic company!

And if you have a weird Oregon tale to tell, please e-mail me at rlee@orangeorb.net!