Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Archive for July, 2011

While walking along the Willamette River in Skinner’s Butte Park a few days ago I saw a whale. Not a real whale of course, a whale play structure on the little playground. Actually it’s been there for decades; I remember when it was a plain sand colored object.  Over the years it’s been painted in various ways; this is the latest.

One of my favorite places to walk around here is the Masonic cemetery. It’s an old cemetery with a lot of local history, and a group of volunteers that work very hard to preserve the integrity of the cemetery (plant life, trails, history, signs, grave markers, etc.) and keep it available to the public. There is a mausoleum as well, which is open to the public once a month. We went up there today to walk around.

I took a lot of photographs and even brought my recorder along in case I was lucky enough to get any EVPs (which didn’t happen. I did feel two slight “buzzy” feelings I get when in the presence of spirits, but didn’t feel that when I was inside the mausoleum, though I did get that feeling very strongly during the opening and dedication of the mausoleum a few years ago.) One odd thing happened when we saw this grave; we were both struck by the lovely simplicity of the marker and the grave.

Jim sitting on bench at grave marker

I joined Jim and we were sitting there, talking about how nice a spot it was, how we both liked the marker and the appearance of a natural piece in that setting. I started to take pictures of the marker when this happened:

I said “Look what’s happening to the camera” and the images in the window were going crazy with color and jumping around. It isn’t just that the images turned out this way, while I was just holding the camera the images in the window were jumping around and I couldn’t make it stop. I just started taking pics anyway to see what, if anything, would happen.

Here’s the same marker appearing normally

Possibly supernatural experience, who’s to say. But it could also be a camera glitch. It’s a cheap camera, and if you notice in the first photo of Jim, the flowers seem almost psychedelic in color. Camera on its last legs, or spirit communication. Either way nice effect.

Yep, there’s  Walmarts where I live in Eugene, Oregon, one being not far from my home, roughly two miles away. All kinds of stories concerning Walmart come to us almost daily from all over the U.S. and we all know about sites where you can see pictures of people dressed in sloppy, disgusting, whimsical, dirty, gross, fun, surreal, insane outfits  while shopping at their local Wal-Mart.

Wal-mart, remember, is the first chain to partner up with Homeland Security.  Ah, Wal-mart.

So the WalMart in Eugene is in the world news stream for discriminating against Sandy McMillin, who’s in her fifities and disabled. She’s bald. She’s overweight. It was 90 degrees.  And she was asked to cover up while shopping in the West 11th Walmart because her bikini top violated health codes. McMillin and her sister were then escorted out of the store.  That’s McMillin’s version. Walmart says McMillin was abusing customers, and is refusing to release the security tapes. The top she was wearing was one she bought at Walmart a year ago. McMillin is considering suing. I wonder if any of these people were asked to leave these Walmarts?

Bizzarely, the local newspaper The Register Guard actually thought this an  important enough issue to comment on in their opinion section. Not opinions of this episode from local citizens, but from the editors at the paper. Because there’s no other news going on in the world that’s more important, apparently.

I had an odd and creepy thing happen to me today. I parked in the large parking lot at the Goodwill. After checking out the Goodwill, I walked across the parking lot to go to the St. Vincent de Paul’s, which is right next door. The Goodwill parking lot extends all the way to a little patch of grass, then the much smaller St. Vinnie’s parking lot.

So I’m walking along, hot day, and see this skeleton just spread out on the blacktop, next to the patch of grass. You can see a bit of the grass in this photo:

The placement is very odd. What’s it doing there, right off the sidewalk and close to the parking lot entrance by a heavily trafficked street? A decomposing body would very likely have been moved by any number of businesses around there. It takes a bit of time for a body to decompose, so I’d think it would have  been noticed long before it got to the state I found it in.  It looked staged, as if someone had brought it there. Maybe another animal dragged it there somehow. But, why? Overall, seems odd.

That parking lot gets a lot of traffic every day, lots of people going by in cars, and on bikes, as well as pedestrians.  The area is an industrialized area with lots of stores around; right across the street from a large grocery and department store, fast food places, etc.

When I looked closer at the photo it looked like one of the legs had been cut off, or detached. Either intentionally cut or by natural process, hard to know. And its other back leg bent and sticking up, then the long tail, which you can see in the first photo. At first I thought the leg sticking up on the left was a tail, but I think it’s a rear leg. I’m not sure what this animal was.  At first I thought it was a cat, but what looks like a tail (on the left) is awfully long; too long for a cat.  Then I thought possum, but the head doesn’t seem the right shape.

This is the first picture I took; sun was bright but the image has a spooky artistic  vibe, don’t you think?

Say, maybe this is the skeleton of a chupacabra!

I don’t mean to be flip, it’s both creepy and sad, as well as a bit weird. A mundane explanation — possum, say, — but I can’t figure out what it is. And it is strange how it got there.

At my blog Mothman Flutterings, a post about something Jim said tonight about a large bird shadow, and possible missing time and/or screen memory.

This occurred on Lorane Highway in Eugene.

Orange Orb, as seen on Lorane Highway,Oregon oil pastel by Regan Lee

I’ve begun a new project. Not sure yet how I’ll end up doing this; interactive, as Nancy Birnes suggested, e-book, Kindle, self-publish, blog, pay per installment…so many options. I think, however, that it will be in a sort of journal format, fairly traditional in terms of publishing (e-book/Kindle/self, or through a publisher) with segments posted here at The Orange Orb.

So here it is, working title: Entering the Orb: A Couple’s Journey into Missing Time, Screen Memories and UFOs.

Jim and I have decided, spontaneously and independently of each other, to go through some kind of regression and retrieval process to find out what happened during our missing time experiences. We’ve agreed that we would not share what we found out about our own experiences until all the work has been done. We don’t know yet if we would see different people, or the same person. If we saw the same person, there’s the possibility that person would be unconsciously influenced by the both of us.  Than again, maybe not.

A lot of this is absolutely trust based. How can we prove to others that we’re telling the truth when we say we won’t discuss with each other what’s been discovered, until it’s all done? We can’t.

There’s also a large issue of vulnerability here. Some possible causes for the missing time episodes are obvious — as in, oh my god they really were Reptilian Overlords. Other reasons concern memory. As you’ll see in my next post, Jim and I have very different memories of one of our missing time events. Clearly, one of us is wrong. So why the difference in memories? And if it turns out the cause for missing time isn’t UFO related, alien related or some other esoteric or metaphysical cause, then what, and why? Are we unstable? Did someone drug us? (If so, why, and that’s certainly scary on its own.) I could handle any of those, (I think) but what I don’t think I could handle is the possibly we made it all up. Unintentionally of course, but made up nonetheless. If that is so, why in the world would we do so? That in itself is intriguing.

This issue has been going on for a long time. Triangle Lake is not far from where I live; it’s only about twenty minutes away or so. For years, the residents in the area have been fighting this, as in other communities in my county as well as Oregon in general. From KVAL:

TRIANGLE LAKE, Ore. – Some residents are calling it an environmental horror story, and on Thursday they got the chance to voice their concerns to the state and federal governments.

Nearly 150 people packed the Grange Hall in Triangle Lake on Thursday night after more than 20 residents say their urine tested positive for dangerous pesticides.

It’s ugly. The meeting was called by “…state and federal agencies…” in order to potentially address the poisoning of an entire community:

In response to years of complaints, state and federal agencies held the meeting to lay out a plan for investigating any possible pesticide exposure. lay out a plan for investigating any possible pesticide exposure.

The article cited here doesn’t mention that residents paid for, out of their own pockets, the testing that proves they’ve been exposed. As one resident said

“One hundred percent of us tested positive for the two most dangerous timber industry pesticides in our urine, and we’re not happy about it,” said Dale Day.

I find it incredible — but not surprising — the agencies are only now just beginning to listen. Maybe, sort of.

Speaking of the Triangle Lake area, it is a very weird area in general. Only speaking for myself, and Jim, we have both felt immediate, oppressive and (for lack of a better word) haunted vibes when driving through there. There’s something about the area that literally feels, on a physical level as well as psychological and emotional, that there is an unseen presences about. I remember one drive out there to look at a house for sale; it sounded like everything we wanted; domed, a few structures, a couple of acres, near water… and the asking price was reasonable. But we couldn’t even get our of the car to look, the further in we drove, the worse this feeling got. We turned around and left. I’ve felt this very time i’ve gone out to the area.

I’m not suggesting this weird feeling has anything to with pesticides. And I realize many people love the area. Only speaking for myself.

Dealing with the feds in this case, I have no idea how this will turn out, but I hope it will turn well for the residents in the area. There’s a bit of hope; field burning was banned and I was convinced that would never happen. It was a long, long fight and an ugly one, but finally, we won on that one.

Here’s a law from 1998 out of Yamhill county. The city of McMinnville is in Yamhil county; McMinnville is home of the famous Trent UFO photos, and host to the annual McMinnville UFO Fest in May. This law outlaws anything to do with what’s generally referred to as “fortune telling”:

5.08.110 Occult Arts.
(A) “Occult arts” means the use or practice of fortune
telling, astrology, phrenology, palmistry, clairvoyance,
mesmerism, spiritualism, or any other practice or practices
generally recognized to be unsound and unscientific whereby
an attempt or pretense is made:
(5) To give advice or information concerning any matter or
event.

C) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit
or prevent:
(1) A duly organized and recognized religious organization
which promulgates religious teachings or beliefs involving
spiritualism or similar media from holding its regular
meetings or services.
(2) A school, church, fraternal, charitable or other
benevolent organization from utilizing occult arts for a
bazaar or other money-raising project, provided that all
money so received is devoted exclusively to the
organization sponsoring the affair.

Any money collected must be given to the cause.

So religions are exempt, sort of, unless your religion includes the use of oracles and related practices and there is money exchanged, even if it’s a donation. In other words, the donation can’t go to the practitioner as appreciation for services, but it can go to, say, a charity. Occult Arts, then, is not to be taken seriously and is marginalized and certainly trivialized, and of course, illegal. It’s also exploited: okay to use it as a fund raiser, wink wink.
I wonder how constitutional laws like this are? Be interesting to see the arguments made in court for that. After all, a county or city can’t create laws making religion illegal: it’s okay to be a Baptist, but being Lutheran is a misdemeanor?

Laws against religious practices are nothing new in this country, and I’m not suggesting using divination, intuitive arts and oracles are necessarily religious. But having laws like this seems unconstitutional. Yamhill is a beautiful county; I’ve considered moving there at various times. But not if I have to worry about breaking the law every time I give a reading or a session which often includes the use of oracles or Tarot.