Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Posts Tagged ‘media’

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.

ABC News has picked up this story (see post below) of McMinnville, Oregon  high school students who came down with compartment syndrome, a rare illness and not one that affects the triceps, or so many people at once.

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.

Cougars are becoming more plentiful, and visible, in Brownsville, Oregon (roughly fifty miles from here, in Eugene) and according to local news reports, six cougars have been trapped, and killed, in the past two months.

From the Register Guard, Eugene’s local newspaper:

A County Trapper trapped and killed 6 cougars in the last two months on her [Cathy Stepp] farm. Now she said she’s scared for her son’s safety and that more cougars may be lurking in the distance.

“I don’t let him out of my sight. We pack guns when we come out in the morning to do the feeding and the checking. We try to get a head count on them at least two or three times to make sure we’ve got the right number,” said Stepp.

Until the predators flee Stepp said she’ll keep her flock and family close.

Around here, as all over, wild animals have been seen more and more frequently in residential areas, and around humans generally. They’ve also become more aggressive, although, this is an interesting phenomenon; if the animals are more numberous, and being pushed out of their habitats for various reasons (lack of food, shelter, human encroachment…) we need to be careful of anthropomorphizing these situations. (Which doesn’t help much when cougars are attacking your horses (as happened to someone I know) and so on. )

A woman faces a fine for illegally creating a “major marine event.” Kala Thomas, a University of Oregon student, posted on her Facebook page that she was going to cool off down by the Willamette River. Who’s with her? she asked. Lots of people. Who told lots of other people, which is trouble, according to our local authorities, since Thomas didn’t get a permit:

Thomas never obtained one, so Lane County Sheriff’s officials say that if the float really does attract a huge crowd, she may be hit with a $190 citation.

“I think that would be appropriate,” sheriff’s Capt. Bill Thompson said. “There’s a responsibility people have to take when they do something like this.”

Thomas said she understands that authorities aren’t pleased with her plan.

“I guess I’m in big trouble,” Thomas said. “But how was I to know that 1,000 people would want to do this?”

Oregon State Marine Board officials learned of the unintentionally illicit float on Thursday, and sent Thomas a Facebook message instructing her to cancel it.

I’m curious to know how “the authorities” found out about this. Authorities are worried “chaos” will occur if the 1,000 or so people show up with inner tubes and rafts; there’s a lot of construction going on in the area, for example, that might be a hazard for people; or, vice versa. Authorities are also concerned about any rescue efforts they might have to make — this time of year, there are numerous rescues on the river, and emergency personnel might have trouble accessing areas.

The Lane County sheriff ordered Thomas to dis-invite people to the event, for whatever good that might do. If a lot of people show up and authorities feel it’s a problem, she’ll be fined. Some local businesses however have said they’ll help her with any fines she might receive.

For the record, in case any “authority” is reading this, I am NOT inviting anyone anywhere, including myself. Besides, I’m having far too much difficulty with my asthma to want to go out anywhere in this heat.

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

According to local news reports, the fires in Russia are affecting air quality in Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is experiencing wildfires; one is Rooster Rock near Sisters, Oregon, and one in British Columbia but it is the fires in Russia that has us breathing this muck, not local ones. The air has been pretty bad here in the Eugene area in Lane County (mid-Willamette Valley) and the reason for that lousy air is mainly due to Russia’s fires. The Eugene-Springfield newspaper Register Guard reports:

The south valley skies are, instead, smudged by Russia’s killer wildfires that have burned 756 square miles, taken the lives of 50 people and destroyed one-fifth of Russia’s grain crop.

“You can see (smoke) on the satellite,” Wolfe said. “The prevailing wind is west-to-east. Follow the currents, and it puts it over here.”

“You see a wispy haze, very faint and thin but perceptible. It’s coming over across the Aleutian Peninsula, down across the Gulf of Alaska and right into our area,” he said.

The smoke rising from the Russian fires — the flaming forests and peat bogs — is soaring six miles into the stratosphere, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.

“At such heights, smoke is able to travel long distances to affect air quality far away,” according to the agency.

The southern end of the Willamette Valley is more than 5,400 miles from Moscow, where a cluster of the troublesome fires burn. The drought-fueled fires started in July and multiplied to 589 individual blazes scattered across the Russian countryside.

Smoke particulate — as measured here by Lane Regional Air Protection Agency nephelometers — spiked locally on Monday, which was the same day Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared a state of emergency in seven regions of Russia.

Locally, the fine particulate peaked again on Thursday — but didn’t go high enough to cause respiratory problems, said Ralph Johnston, meteorologist at LRAPA.

“Our air quality is quite good,” he said. “The levels (of smoke) are low enough that I don’t think even sensitive folks would be looking at a problem.”

As usual, this agency downplays the effects fire, smoke, and other pollutants have on residents. I can’t believe he said “…even sensitive folks would [not] be looking at a problem.” Maybe they didn’t get any calls, after all, what’s the point, I’ve decided long ago, but I know that yesterday was particularly bad. I couldn’t go outside; had trouble breathing all day. Tried to go for my daily walk and just couldn’t do it. Too damn hard to breathe.

Naturally I’m not blaming local air quality tracking agencies for the fires here, in British Columbia or Russia. But I am frustrated with their continued glib attitude towards us “sensitive folk.”

Speaking of Russia, I feel for the people of Russia who are suffering and am praying for them. It is a horror on earth.

Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book.This is not a book review; it’s about the idea of the book’s premise, from what I’ve been gleaning so far. From what I’ve been reading about Pilkington’s book Mirage Men, the thesis is that UFOs are creations of our government. There are no “real” UFOs; just machines and stories about encounters made by man to confuse its citizenry and mask secret operations.

This is old news. But beyond this simplistic “revelation” about UFOs is the fact the government has been getting away with murder, both figuratively and literally, using UFOs as a convenient smoke screen. Isn’t anyone curious about what’s been hidden from us? Put aside “beliefs” about UFOs, they exist, they don’t exist, aliens are real, aliens are fantasy — just forget all that for now. Ask yourselves what is it the government is doing behind those flying saucers are here! scenarios.

A danger with books like this is that the mainstream culture will think it’s been offered an explanation for all those crazy UFO stories, and move on. Even some within the fringes who study UFOs will accept this. Including those “new thugs” that pose as UFO investigators or researchers but are part debunker-skeptic, part dilettante. Meanwhile, the government continues to perform often illegal maneuvers around us, and no one’s questioning that. In fact, stepping beyond the line of questioning will get you quickly slapped with a Tin Foil Hat sticker and you’re shoved over to the kook side. Mention chemtrails and it’s all over.

Okay, Pilkington and fans, UFOs don’t exist. Forgetting obviously that UFO means unidentified object and not alien from mars in a flying saucer … oh never mind. Sigh. Yet we still have, say, spheres showing up in our skies — these have been photographed dozens of times over — what are they? Whose are they? What are they doing? What about the video of a sphere I saw years ago, taken by a local witness, that seemed to disappear but upon close examination was till there, merely cloaked to near invisibility? What was the thing spraying onto the residences — and people! — below; for spraying some kind of mist like substance it was. Doesn’t anyone want to know about those kinds of things?

Let’s take my own missing time experiences, that occurred within a UFO context. And let’s say, for argument, that this “UFO context” was government created. If so — missing time, UFO — then that means our government was doing something obviously immoral, unethical, and illegal. Which is frightening. For that means, if it’s not UFOs, not mental abberation (shared by two people, two and possibly three, different times), then what was it? Why the persistence of a UFO based setting? WHERE WERE WE FOR ALL THOSE MISSING HOURS??!!

But see, now we’re entering MILAB territory, which is paranoid kook fringe fantasy, so no one is going to listen to that, because UFOs don’t exist, the government just uses that to . . . you see how this all becomes a circling back of absolutely no answers at all, while maintaining cover-ups? In typical cosmic joker trickster fashion, the idea of the government using UFOs as a cover for their shadow projects is a cover for the government’s covering up . . . because not many are questioning beyond the initial cover.

Recent news making the loop alerts us to the news that bald eagles and pelicans, are eating murres on the Oregon coast. Specifically, the murres at Yaquina Head. This is news, and very weird news, in context of what it means as signals within global changes, as we’ll see.

But the fact that eagles eat murres isn’t all that new, as the Oregon Field Journal notes in a post from June 3rd:

Bald eagles eat murres and they know where to find these seabirds: in their largest colony on rocks right off the Yaquina Head lighthouse in Newport.

We covered this story last year (and the program ran again last week on Oregon Field Guide)

Gulls swoop in and eat the eggs, the eagles eat the murres. Now scientists have noticed an added element: pelicans are also eating murres. Fish and Wildlife Bulletin reports:

Our field crew also recently observed an immature brown pelican land on Flattop Rock and run through the colony flapping its wings,” Suryan said. “As it zigzagged through the colony, it ate 10 common murre chicks and chased away many of the adults, allowing the gulls to come in and go through their egg-stealing routine.

“Who would have thought that a pelican, of all things, would devour 10 young murres in a matter of seconds?”

                     “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