Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

This by way of Cliff Barackman,’s North American Bigfoot on Bigfoot author Thom Powell (The Locals.) Thom has written an article on offensive geographical place names in Oregon (a hot topic here) and a possible connection “between the word “squaw” and sasquatches.”  Both Cliff and Thom were speakers at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium in June.

The coastal town of Florence in Oregon has its Elvis brush with fame:
Elvis enjoyed the small town atmosphere of Florence back in the day’

And I had my own brush with Elvis, as I recently wrote about for UFO Mystic: My Claim to UFO-Hollywood Fame.

Jim and I will be guests on Future Theater, Nancy and Bill Birnes podcast, airs 6:00 pm EST.

                     “Dryad Materializing,” James Rich acrylic on canvas

“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.” ~ Terrence McKenna

The quote if from Daniel Moler’s (for Reality Sandwich) article Machine Elves 101, or Why Terence McKenna Matters The article is, as Moler writes, a kind of “Terence for Dummies” includes several good quotes from McKenna.

I’ve been asked many times why I explore the things I do; why I blog and write about my UFO, anomalous and paranormal experiences, and generally, pursue the esoteric/Fortean realms. This Terrence McKenna quote resonates with me as explanation.

I would just say that “understanding the universe” is an overwhelmingly and very large assumption, and if misunderstood or misinterpreted, may sound ridiculously arrogant. I don’t believe I or anyone can presume to understand the universe, as in “Oh! I got it all now!” moment. (Even when we think we’ve reached those moments of Satori, they soon fade, like a great and very important dream, and we’re back to the mundane. . .) (And yet, if we’ve had those moments, they become a part of us, no matter how hidden away they may end up . . . )  But as a process, a journey for its sake, makes sense to me.e

R.S. Lancaster, a popular uber-skeptoid on the JREF, started the “Stop Sylvia Browne” movement some time ago. That was some project on Lancaster’s part; lots of threads and posts about the neccessity of stopping Browne for the good of humanity; he even started a website devoted to his hatred of Browne: StopSylviaBrowne.com

For whatever reason, boredom, greener skeptic pastures, who knows, Lancaster has now put his energies into stopping medium James Van Praagh.

What started this all was the news that JVP was to appear in Grants Pass, Oregon on June 25th.  I was startled to find that such a rabid skeptoid lives not far from me! Apparently Lancaster lives around the Salem area and can’t tolerate a woo visiting his state spreading that woo that he do.

Lancaster writes letters and joins the JVP message forum, back and forths ensue, you know, the usual non-productive fanatic skeptic in your face routine. What’s scary about all this isn’t the expected skeptoid response to a medium, or even a few attempts at engaging the woo of the day in “debate,” and so on. No, it’s not that, it’s the incredible depth of the … what do we call this? Obsession, certainly, stalking? Harassing? Investigation? Whatever it all is, it’s very intense. It’s creepy and pathological.

There are several separate threads, or “chapters” devoted to Lancaster’s attacks on JVP. I think this is all of them but there might be others, but in any case, you get the idea:
StopJVP – RSL in JVPLand – All Chapters?
StopJVP – RSL in JVPLand – Chapter 2: Q&A
StopJVP – RSL In JVPLand – Chapter 6: Grant’s Pass?
StopJVP – RSL In JVPLand – Chapter 7b: Pink Panther Answer?
StopJVP: RSL in JVPLand – Chapter 5: The Two Jameses
StopJVP – RSL in JVPLand – Chapter 8: Epilogue 

In the last thread (”Chapter 8: Epilogue”) Lancaster comments how, after spending weeks on pro JVP message boards, exchanging emails and posts with JVP, he’s ready to wrap up. Part of this summation includes the StopJamesVanPraagh website:

“I know that when I open StopJamesVanPraagh.com it will upset many of them, and that saddens me – but not enough to keep me from going ahead with it. 

In a deliscious moment of irony, of kettle calling pot black, of point! zoom! right over your head!, of sigh, this just sums it all up doesn’t it, Lancaster posts, on the JREF:

One of them [poster on JVP message forum] posted in one of my threads “I can’t help but notice that you show such PRIDE when you use the word “skeptic.”

I guess that I do. It’s an odd concept to them, since, more often than not, the word “skeptic” to them has meant “insufferable know-it-all jerk.” I’d like to think that I showed some of them that “skeptic” can sometimes mean something else, but perhaps, with my “Pink Panther” question, I just confirmed their earlier definition!

Enoch, 2010, by Autumn Williams

The comments on Williams new book Enoch have come flying in since the OSS last weekend, where the book made its debut. Autumn Williams has been accused of outright lying, trying to make a buck, slopppy — or no — research, being gullible, and (in, sigh, I’ll say it, sexist attacks) being too emotional about her own Bigfoot sighting. Another reaction by critics of Williams work is the proudly stated comment they aren’t going to read the book (!) yet they offer opinions on the book anyway.

Throughout the book, Williams asks the reader to consider the witness in relation to researcher as well as motivations in searching for Bigfoot. Consider your personal agenda in looking for Bigfoot. Why do you want to find Bigfoot? Vindication? Confirmation? Proof? Williams points out (as I have regarding UFO research) if you’ve seen a Bigfoot, you know they exist. You know they are, what they are, is a different issue. In continuing to search for Bigfoot, the question becomes: why? Do you want another sighting for personal reasons? Or to prove it to science? If the latter, that agenda needs to be very carefully thought through. If the story of Mike turns out to be a “lie” (and I’m not saying it is) those points still stand.

There were several times while reading the book I said to myself “Wow, you can replace the words ‘bigfoot research’ with ‘UFO research.” Not that Autumn addressed UFOs in her book; I don’t want to imply that she did or put words in her mouth. She has enough trouble right now; she doesn’t some Bigfoot researcher going around saying that “Williams believes Bigfoot researchers need to study UFOs” or some other misinterpreted nonsense. The parallels I see in her work to UFO research are mine, and I think fellow saucer heads would see those parallels if they read the book.

Bigfoot or UFOs, whichever world you find yourself in — and some of us find ourselves in both — the reasons why we haven’t found “The Really Big Answer” has to do with a mindset, a world view, a philosophy of research that, ironically, so many researchers don’t get. Until that changes, nothing else will.

Except for the witnesses. If you’re a Bigfoot witness, you don’t need proof; you’ve seen a Sasquatch. Who are you going to prove it to, and why? Williams asks this question many times. We have to know ourselves before we go out there in the field. The same, in many ways, is true in UFO Land. I’m a witness, many times over. Since childhood. I know they exist. I know weird things happen related to them. I don’t know what they are. But they are. I don’t have proof of any UFO encounter I’ve had. None. No photos, no scrap of metal from a flying saucer, no artifact, no dead body of an alien. Nothing. “Just” my story. If that’s not good enough for some, that’s tough. I’m not going to go away or shut up. I’m going to continue to explore. Reasons for my writing and researching UFOs and related topics vary and are no doubt complicated at times, but I’m not out to prove anything. Part of my journey is to share, and have others feel safe and respected in sharing their stories with myself and others.

Of course, with UFOs we’re talking about machines and I don’t mean to compare the vitally important need to protect Bigfoot at all costs with a nuts and bolts flying saucer. As to aliens; whatever, whoever, those are… here we start to veer off into another area. The point is, witnesses are valuable and need to be treated not only with respect, but the power shift between researcher and witness needs to change.

These are the points both UFO and Bigfoot researchers need to understand if we’re to “get anywhere” or rather, to get somewhere different. Researchers need to understand their own agendas and intent. Witnesses need to be respected and listened to. Some researchers are also witnesses; how does that affect “research?”

As far as the relationship between witness and researcher and their roles, what Autumn is saying isn’t new or even radical. It is, apparently, for a lot Bigfoot researchers out there but in other fields, say Folklore, (my subject in college, including grad school,) this dynamic between the “informant” (witness) and the interviewer/researcher was an important part of our training; the issue couldn’t be discussed enough. Responsibility of researcher, responses to witnesses, response of the researcher to the witnesses responses to her, … it’s an ever deepening and growing relationship. Growing, morphing, shifting. “Research” doesn’t always have to start and stop with a plaster cast, or a UFO sighting report on paper.

(A few years ago, Lisa Shiel’s Backyard Bigfoot: The True Story of Stick Signs, UFOs and the Sasquatch came out. Shiel, also a researcher as well as a witness, has similar things to say, though in very different ways, as Williams. I’m not suggesting Williams and Shiel’s books are interchangeable, just that both books were written by researchers/authors, and both offer new perspectives on Bigfoot research.)

Enoch, aside from fascinating looks into the “Skunk ape” culture from Mike’s interactions with them, is also about the nature of research and the witness; a new paradigm in the search.

Autumn Williams has really put herself out there by publishing this book. Why would she do such a thing unless she had the courage of her convictions? Publishing Enoch was a brave thing for her to do, and I thank her for choosing to do so.

Oregon Sasquatch Symposium
Saturday, June 19 at 9:00 am
Sunday, June 20 at 5:00 pm
Eugene, Oregon –  Lane Community College Campus

Autumn Williams will be the keynote speaker. See here for Autumn’s excellent blog post about the symposium, her thoughts on witnesses and BF and her new book… (in fact, her whole site is the best in the field, I think, for it contains data, research, as well as an open minded approach to various Bigfoot theories…)

Toby Johnson is the one behind all this, and it seems like he’s doing a fantastic job!

Visit the Symposium site for more info.

See you there!

Getting ready for the McMinnville, Oregon UFO Fest this weekend. I hope to do my first podcast from there — prerecorded, not live, but a podcast nonetheless — with guests Erik Stitt and Deirdre O’Leavery of Instellar Housewife. Both are writers for UFO Magazine’s blog, as well as having their own sites.

Here’s a PDF of a collection of McMinnville related pieces I’ve written, including on one McMinnville Festival I attended where Richard Dolan was the presenter.

McMinnville, Oregon UFO: Festivals and Hoaxes

And to think I missed it! Instead, was relaxing, enjoying good wine, food and company, unraveling myself from the work week. . .

Sarah Palin came to Eugene Friday night.

Eugene, Ore. — Sarah Palin could have hardly picked a more crunchy granola town to give a speech in than Eugene. Despite its pioneer and logging heritage, the town where Nike running shoes were born from a waffle iron is high on organic food, snobby about craft beers and tattoos, home to the University of Oregon and dependably votes Democratic. Last year, the mayor declared the first week in May as Medical Marijuana Awareness Week.

Yet the Lane County Republican party couldn’t be prouder of landing the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate, who uses “granola” as a term of derision, as the headliner for its Lincoln Day fundraiser dinner Friday night. “She’s a pretty brave woman, I think,” said Bill Young, a Eugene veterinarian and chairman of the Lane County Republican Party.

“I think that everybody is concerned that it doesn’t seem to fit the mold,” he said. “Yet you have to realize there are a lot of Republicans and conservatives who live in this area. I’m just thankful she agreed to come, and put Eugene on the map, so to
speak.”

Oh it fits the mold all right. Despite the veneer of hippie groovy-ness in this town, which I do appreciate, no one’s fooled. (And how did I miss Medical Marijuana Awareness Week?!) This town and all the towns around this bit of alternative culture are seething with right wing types.

Plenty of people in these parts were willing to pay good money to see Palin, even if it was on a closed feed and not literally see her in person in the next room:

At $250 a head, the party has sold out the Eugene Hilton hall where Palin will speak. The hall seats about 800, and the party has also sold most of the $100 seats in an overflow room with a video feed, Young said.

Seventy people who donated $1,000 will get a photo with Palin and a signed copy of her book. Reporters can watch on video, but can’t use recording devices. In the old days, that could have drawn a crowd of angry demonstrators. Students at the university were early protesters against the Vietnam War. In 1970, the ROTC building was bombed. Eugene’s anarchist community sent protesters to the World Trade Organization riots in Seattle in 1999. And a cell of the Earth Liberation Front, calling itself The Family, was convicted of a string of arsons during the 1990s.

Whoa, that took a weird turn! Notice how the article abruptly goes from discussion of the cost of seeing Palin and the non use of recording devices, to the verbiage crafted to put Eugene hippie types in a negative light: “ROTC builidng was bombed…anarchist community …riots … convicted of arsons…” juxtaposed with solid, America lovin’ Palin.

Since 9/11, the United Kingdom has been a land where a bizarre blend of an Orwell/Kafka tinged atmosphere of fascist laws, bureaucrats obsessed with minutia of the mundane, and overt, heavy handed laws and practices rule. I’ve often commented that what goes on in England in particular is the prototype for what soon appears over here. Maybe altered slightly to blend in with American culture; ease itself into our lives so we don’t even notice, but, present. Creepy, sucking your soul out of you, keeping you in the glided cage present. The UK is the playground of the industrial military globalists, no doubt about it.

Staged and scary events in schools in England, the United States, and most recently, Scotland, are one of these chillingly bizarre actions perpetuated by whatever forces are behind these post 9/11 games. Parents are not notified of these little scenarios, which are enacted in ways that have students believe it’s really happening. Teachers, sometimes with the complicity of local law enforcement, blithely manifest scenes as if they’re actual events. For some interesting reasons and one with no doubt all kinds of hidden motivations, England staged several fake (but said to be real to the students) UFO crashes, complete with missing — “abducted” — teachers and dead aliens.(I wrote about the odd crashed UFO scenarios for UFO Digest in August of 2009: My Teacher Was Abducted By Aliens: Preparation for Fake Disclosure? )

The latest of these fake events: a Holocaust themed scenario, at St. Hilary’s Primary in Scotland:

Students were “hysterical” after deputy head teacher Elizabeth McGlynn segregated nine youngsters in Gerry Blair’s P7 class and told them they were being taken away from their families.

The purpose of this was to give students an idea of what victims of the Holocaust went through:

insight into the horrors of the Holocaust as part of a project they are doing about the Second World War.
The teacher, Mrs. McGlyn, told students:
she had a letter from the Scottish Government saying nine children had to be separated from their classmates.

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, ‘due to lack of sunlight in their mother’s womb’, and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

When one child asked if that meant they might have to go to an orphanage, they were told that might be a possibility. At that point many of the children became very distressed. One boy kicked his chair over, one was angry and demanded to speak to someone in charge but most were crying on a scale ranging from mildly to severely.

The students were then told, after about fifteen minutes, that it was all an exercise and not really happening, but that the role playing would continue.

Now here’s the really interesting thing. When a parent, furious at the school for allowing such a thing, asked why anyone in authority thought this was a good idea, she was told:

they didn’t inform the children beforehand because they wanted the children to experience an ‘accurate emotional response’ to this scenario in order for it to be reflected in their story writing.

This was the same reason given in other staged scenarios, that, and to encourage critical thinking. Usually these exercises are embedded in creative writing courses. Eliciting emotional response from children seems to be the goal. Why? What is the real agenda? Under the guise of fostering creative writing skills or encouraging imaginative thinking, eliciting intense emotional states from children is the objective.

The school defends the role play, downplaying the impact on students — and parents:

Schools commonly engage in drama-based exercises which encourage children to use their imagination and act out a character. These role play situations are designed to help children understand diversity and develop empathy for the victims of prejudice and are usually very well received by pupils.

The shared facts of these staged events:

What is the hidden goal behind the need to generate intense emotional reactions of fear, hysteria, and anger from children? Who determines what is an “accurate” reaction?

What happens if a student doesn’t respond “accurately?”

Military Interest in Students: Pt. Pleasant
In some ways, the above staged events reminds me of what Mothman researcher (and experiencer) Andrew Colvin has to say about the military’s interest in students in the Pt. Pleasant, and West Virginia areas. I don’t have the references at hand, but I recall Colvin writing in one of his books that the military took an intense interest in students in rural communities in those areas; and that, statistically, many students were what we’d call gifted, or at least, scoring higher than they should have. Another interesting tidbit: Charles Manson lived there as a child.

While no staged events took place in schools there (as far as I know, and not unless you consider Mothman a staged event, which I don’t know if it was or not, though I don’t think so) the fact that the military took an active interest in student performance raises the same red flags as the current staged scenarios we’re hearing about today.

Notes:
St Hilary’s Primary kids traumatized by teachers’ Holocaust game
My Teacher Was Abducted By Aliens: Preparation for Fake Disclosure?
Follow-up: Staged Alien Events and Schools
Night of the Living Jackboots
Andrew Colvin