Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Posts Tagged ‘California’

(This is my latest Trickster’s Realm column for Tim Binnall’s BoA site.)

An intriguing aspect of alien encounter stories is the shared experience element. There have been many times when I’ve heard a story that, no matter how unusual, how weird, and unbelievable someone’s account may seem, it often turns out that others have had similar, if not the same, kind of experience.

I’ve had UFO experiences going back to childhood, but my sighting of an orange orb in Oregon in the 1980s is, for some reason yet to be discovered, the catalyst for my journey into the world of esoterica, I couldn’t find any references to similar sightings. No books on UFOs or aviation mentioned basket ball sized, glowing from within, seemingly sentient and telepathic orange orbs. Yet I saw one. Furthermore, I experienced missing time the day/night of the sighting. (Other weird events occurred around this sighting as well.)

I’ve seen several UFOs since that sighting, but never anything like that orange orb. Although something odd did happen last year, as I wrote on UFO Magazine’s site:

An Orange Orb Blip

Something slightly odd and startling happened the other day. It was around 5:30 in the afternoon. I was relaxing on the sofa, not asleep but just in that semi-drowsy, pleasant light trance state. I had a short little dream — a dreamlet, you could call it — but I was awake on some level at the same time.

I “dreamt” I had a strong urge to go outside and look at the sky full of stars. (this is something I do almost every evening) and I walk out onto the path to the sidewalk, and scan the dark sky. I hear a voice inside my head, or more like a telepathic nudge, to turn around and look towards the south. I do, and see, very high up, a bright orange light, which is rotating. As far away as it is, and as small as it is — like a large, bright star — I can tell it’s revolving. When I see this orange “star” I’m very scared, and I can feel my stomach drop with cold dread.

I wake up abruptly, feeling very uneasy. With the sighting of the orange object I again am aware of a telepathic message; this one tells me that I know exactly what it is I saw years ago, and to stop playing games. I assume it meant stop playing games with myself, but I had a sense it might have meant with it as well, whatever “it” is.

I’m not sure why I feel it’s important to keep track of episodes like this, but I’m sure one of the many purposes doing this serves is that is simply makes me feel better. No closer to any mystery but I don’t think that’s the point any more. Acknowledging these weird little moments and adding them to the collection of pieces gives the illusion of work, of study. It’s calming somehow. It’s also empowering; once you call it, reclaim the name of something, it’s power diminishes.

And maybe, as has been said by Forteans and esoteric explorers, the Trickster or whatever you want to call it is alerted to our interest and responds. When we start noticing “it,” “it” starts to notice us back.

Every time I come across an account of an orange UFO I get excited and am curious to discover if the sighting was anything like mine so many years ago.

A few years ago, we began to see reports of orange orb or spheres; they’re still coming in. Most of these seem to be the lanterns used in celebrations that have become popular but as many researches have pointed out, this doesn’t explain much. The orange lantern explanation just doesn’t fit a lot of these sightings.

There have been a lot of reports of orange colored lights in the sky; not the floating type lanterns, not the basket ball sized orb I saw, but star like, or like the lights of a plane.

Interesting and sometimes they share some similarities to what I saw but, not the same thing.

Until the “Dark Presence” episode of UFO Hunters. That episode had to do with orange UFOs. Not small, airplane type lights, stars, or lanterns, but like the orb I saw. Some of the orbs witnesses described were green or other colors, but orange seemed to be the main color. I responded to that episode, again on the UFO Magazine blog:

There are many parallels to my orange orb sighting . . . and the ones discussed in the UFO Hunters episode. Many witnesses reported feelings of dread, of fear, though some had experienced feelings of elation, upon seeing these orbs. I had both: feelings of a happy intrigue when I first saw the orb, and a real goofy, almost psychedelic response right after seeing it. . . I also had the most terrifying dreams of my life right after seeing the orb. These dreams were always the same: I’m paralyzed inside a brilliant white beam of light that is so bright I can almost see through things. There is something huge above me, some kind of object. My husband is nearby but has been taken from me and I’m screaming for him, for “them” to return us to. . . or get us out of, wherever the hell we are.

Finally, I had found others who described the same kind of object and events that I experienced, as I wrote:

These orbs were described by witnesses as being basket ball sized, or even larger, like a beach ball. That’s exactly how I’ve been describing the size of the orb I saw for all these years. Witnesses also said they felt a premonition, or some kind of telepathic communication between the orb and themselves; I also had that experience when I first saw the orb. I had glanced up having noticed the orb, which I estimated to be about a mile away. I had the distinct feeling it was waiting for me, and as soon as I thought “What the hell is that thing?” it zoomed right to me, following us along the road. (Witnesses also reported they were followed by the orbs.) As we turned the corner to go home (our house was right around the corner) the orb stopped for a moment above a house across the road from us, then just sank down, “landing” in the backyard. Similar behavior was reported by witnesses on the UFO Hunters episode.

Witnesses also described the orb as being lit from within, or at least giving that appearance. The orb I saw had the same effect; no lights around it, or on it, but it seemed to glow from inside. Witnesses also reported missing time.

Strange to come across so many witnesses with such similar descriptions and so many years apart!

Comments that followed to my piece on UFO Magazine’s blog were interesting. Like this one from “Susan” who saw a large orange orb in 1975, and Raechel from MRIPA (a paranormal investigative group that was featured in the UFO Hunters episode.) Raechel wrote:

Jason and I did do an investigation with Indiana – MUFON back in July of this year. It was a woman and her family who live up in northern Indiana who witnessed one large red orb (basketball size) and a multitude of smaller white orbs (softball size) in the woods that surrounded her house. She too explained a feeling of “awe” at first and than fear. . . . she stated that the orb actually entered through her front door and left a sticky residue on her door. Her dog no longer likes to go out side at night, and when Jason and I were asking her questions, we both noticed that there was missing information that didn’t fit in sequence. When I say this, I do not mean that she was telling us false information, what she was telling us was the truth. Her story to this day still has not altered any. What I’m saying is the way she was talking and her actions fit into that of people that have experienced “missing time.” She couldn’t recall several hours of the 2 nights that she experienced seeing these orbs.

The part about “missing information that didn’t fit…” parallels my own experience. To this day, my husband and I find we disagree, get confused, argue, and misremember parts of that experience. It’s like we have to retrace the same thing every time, and sometimes, new information seems to reveal itself as we try to work through what happened.

This past year I’ve been trying to recall the missing parts of this experience through dreams, meditation, and intent. I don’t know if I’ll ever use hypnosis as a tool but I doubt it very much.

I still don’t know what that orb was, why it was, or what really happened. It is — I don’t know if comforting is quite the word to use — but it is confirming to know that others have also experienced these orbs.
Notes:
UFO Hunters Dark Presence Episode post on UFO Magainze Blog

Coast to Coast shares a photo of a large redwood carving of a Bigfoot made for a new bar and grill opening in Kerby, Oregon.

Kerby is in Southern Oregon, Josephine County, near the California border. Population: 400.

The bar owner says the Bigfoot carving needs a name; “maybe listeners can help.” Visit Coast to Coast if you feel creative.

Local columnist Bob Welch, who writes for the Eugene, Oregon paper The Register-Guard has an article in today’s paper about “Lawrence of Florence,” actually two camels,  in the coastal town of Florence, Oregon. (Florence is roughly fifty miles from where I live in Eugene.)

Welch often answers queries from people in the area about local history; recently someone  asked about camel rides on the coast back in the 1970s though Welch writes that there were two camels  there from 1983 to 1985.

A California couple bought over a hundred acres on the coast, some of it just sand, and that was their inspiration for the camel.  Welch reports that there were camel rides hired for entertainment from a California animal for hire entity: Movieland Animals, complete with “caretakers.”  For under $2.00 people could ride a camel on the beach.The following comment by a woman who remembers the camel rides captures the whole flavor of the coastal side show:

The size of the space was a bit disappointing; it was rather small and just off the highway. The camel looked exhausted. A guide walked the camel with a child on top around maybe a 30-foot-wide circle. I recall feeling the experience was anti-climactic.”

What ended the camel rides didn’t seem to be concern for the exploitive  nature of the coastal offering, but a neighbor who was upset with the amount of traffic caused by the camel attraction.

I wonder what happened to those camels. . .

Nick Redfern’s newest book, Contactees, discusses many of the Contactees of the contactee era in UFO history. (I’ll write a review of the book, which so far, is great reading, in future posts.) The fact that Nick has so generously included my thoughts on female Contactee Dana Howard in his book has nothing to do with my appreciation, yet it does have to do with a bit of synchronicity that Nick experienced while finishing up his book a couple of months ago, as I posted on my blog Vintage U.F.O. .

Seems Redfern is still experiencing all kinds of related weirdness in connection with his book. As he asks, are these weird things, like black helicopters over his home and other high strangeness incidents, the Trickster at work?

Visit Nick’s blog to read his comments on the synchronicities and high strangeness that’s been visiting him since his work on his book Contactees.

“The Chetco County Oregon Monster”, Marian T. Place, “On The Track of Bigfoot,” by way of Bigfoot researcher Bobbie Short and the website Bigfoot Encounters.

This story is an 1898 account of “man-animals’ (Bigfoot) in the Willow Creek area in California near the California Oregon border.

I’ve been working on exploring memories and dreams, trying to get closer to what “really” happened with these experiences. Missing time, UFOs, and other high strangeness; what is behind these events? For example: missing time. Where was I (or we, since two, and recently it’s been considered, possibly three, missing time events experienced by my husband as well,) so where were we, what was happening?! during these missing time times. The world didn’t stop while we were — where ever we were. The point is, my mind doesn’t remember but obviously things were still happening around me, us. . . the question is of course, what?

I was working on my Orange Orb column for UFO Magazine the other night (wrote a full article on one memory “dream” that I call the “bedroom radiator alien” but followed where that led me, to an earlier memory, of the following “dream.” ) Like my patio alien “dream” I had around the same age (but in a different house) this memory has stayed with me for some fifty years or so, as vivid as the day it happened. It wasn’t a dream and yet, it must have been, since it couldn’t have literally happened:

I’m flat on my back in the dead center of my bed, which I remember as being large, and white; white sheets, and just a white covering. The bedroom is lit up very bright; which I wonder at: if I’m supposed to be asleep why are all the lights on?

I am so full of happiness!!!! I have an expectant joy that is so wonderful; I know “they” are coming. I stare up at the ceiling in anticipation. The ceiling opens up, two halves move up and outwards, revealing the starry night sky.

A giant eagle — so huge it’s almost the size of the open ceiling — swoops down from the sky, to my left, and down into the bedroom, right above me. It’s come to take me up. As the eagle flies into the room I turn and see my parents, my grandmother, and some others, standing in the doorway. They seem to be stuck there; they aren’t coming into the room. They’re just watching. I’m very glad to see my father but am a little confused; he doesn’t live with us and I don’t understand why or how it is he’s here.

The eagle comes, it’s so fantastic!

It wasn’t until last night that I realized there is a Thunderbird and Mothman connection to this experience. At age five or so I didn’t know what Thunderbirds were, nor did I know anything about Mothman of course.

I started doing some research about eagles in terms of UFO accounts and before I knew it, I had found all kinds of interesting things; things that will take awhile to explore.

One thing I found that I haven’t read fully but did skim is an article for the E.L.F. Infested Spaces (ELFIS) ‘zine by Jeffrey Lewis: Idiot Stick – Whitley Strieber’s Encounters. It is very esoteric and I only mention it because of the thinking done by Lewis on the nature of dreams, memories, symbolism and connections in the context of UFOs, aliens and entities. Frankly I don’t know what to make of it but as I say, I haven’t given it the attention needed. (There is much there; this is a site that will take you in many directions. . . )

Mentioned, I think, somewhere on the Elfis site, was something about the myth of Leda and the Swan; I also found a passing reference to the Greek myth in Erik Davis’s 1993 My Favorite Martians: A UFO Epistomology — this myth in context of UFO experiences has been addressed by UFO and esoteric researchers before. The comparison of this theme of a god like being or entity (Zeus), disguised as an animal that is familiar to humans, coming from the skies to have sexual relations with a human female to alien-UFO abduction and contactee accounts is an obvious one to explore in terms of alien-UFO stories.

I am not suggesting my memory had anything to do with anything so literal or sexual — but the comparisons and connections, all those glittering threads that reveal themselves when going tumbling down the rabbit hole of esoterica — are natural ones to follow for Fortean junkies like myself.

All that aside, bird and winged – being imagery is strong in UFO accounts, and that includes Mothman accounts.

Image: Leda and the Swan, painting by artist from the School of Leonardo da Vinci, 1505-1510, public domain.

Visit my blog The Orange Orb
http://orangeorb.blogspot.com

An excellent article in the May issue of Vanity Fair: Bohemian Tragedy by Alex Shoumatoff. Shoumatoff snuck into the Grove to investigate the harvesting of Redwoods. There isn’t that much money to be made in doing this, but there is great harm, so why continue? As Shoumatoff and others ask, why not charge membership fees and the like? Instead, arrogance combined with cold disregard rule. A man and ex-member named “Jock” has worked hard to get the Grove to see reason, yet nothing of the kind has happened. The money made from the harvesting of trees was used to “manage” the forest but the reality is very different:

But, according to Jock, the forest outside the main grove was in terrible shape. Hiking trails had been turned into logging roads, footbridges had been bulldozed and not repaired, and there was massive erosion in some places, some of it washing down into the Russian River, which once hosted the most abundant spawning runs of coho and king salmon and steelhead in California.

The Grove’s arrogance, power and disregard has affected not just themselves in their inner circle, but the outside world as well; the peasants, us, the no accounts, yes, the measly proletariats. The issue of salmon is a huge one; affecting far more than the meal on our dinner plates; it affects the envirnoment as well as economy in many ways. The Grove calls all this harvesting “forest management” but there’s far more to this than simple “fire preventation” tactics, as Shoumatoff adeptly reveals.

Bohemian Grove has long been a subject full of all the things an esoteric junkie loves: conspiracies, the occult, rituals, the power elite in costume by firelight, all the time taking themselves very seriously, even while seemingly winking and nodding towards the amusing nature of good old traditional fun . . . and there is a steady undercurrent in this mainstream presentation of this article. The arrogance and rape of nature underscores the darker conspiracy driven theories about the Bohemian Grove. After all, it’s the ruling class indeed, the elite, the powerful, the global-industrial-military-entertainment complex reveling in their power, hidden from the rest of us, that control things.

Strange too are the juxtapositions of culture icons within the Grove; ex-members of The Grateful Dead are members of the Grove, as well as Fortean ironies, like the name Bohemian itself, for there is nothing “bohemian” about the Grove at all. As Shoumatoff writes:

In the Bohemian Club, “bohemian” means something completely different from the free-living, poverty-stricken artist that the word usually conjures. It means toeing the party line, United We Stand. Unbohemian means being disloyal, betraying the pact, the global-dominance group. It’s the worst thing a member can be called.

Thug tactics at work; Shoumatoff is rudely, and no doubt illegally, treated, but who’s to care? And the audit that suddenly befalls one of the Redwood’s protectors also teeters on the illegal. But again, who’s to care, and who’s going to change it?

This isn’t about saving a few pretty trees, but about protecting ancient Redwoods that, if left alone, help the environment and help protect us from global warming, er, “climate changes.” This refusal by the rulers of Grove is both disturbing and puzzling; as mentioned, why not charge more from members, if money is the issue? Is the continued and stubborn desecration of the Redwoods a sacrifice to maintain power? It seems so.

Image source: State Symbols USA