Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Posts Tagged ‘unexplained’

Odd report from McMinnville: MHS football players recovering; mass ’syndrome’ remains a mystery. Oregon.(McMinnville is home of the world famous 1950 Trent UFO sighting and site of the annual McMinnville UFO Festival held in May at Hotel Oregon.) Several high school students, all student atheletes, have come down with an unusual illness:

Ten Mac High School football players were hospitalized this week after experiencing intense muscle pain following workouts at a fall camp conducted by their new coach.

Seven were admitted to the Willamette Valley Medical Center on Wednesday night with sore and swollen triceps, and three were admitted the following night.

Diagnosed with compartment syndrome, three of the players in the initial group underwent fasciotomies designed to relieve the pressure and avoid permanent muscle damage. That could keep them out of action for one to two months, according to the surgeon who made the diagnosis and performed the surgical procedure.

Some 28 players underwent testing Thursday to determine the level of creatine phosphokinase or CPK in their blood, as that is an indicator of the syndrome. Sixteen were sent to the hospital for additional testing, and three of them were admitted, joining the original seven.

Additional players were tested Friday, but none of them showed elevated creatine levels.

There’s more: the students were doing an intensive series of workouts, it was very hot, and they stayed on campus, sleeping there while taking part in this football camp type thing.

The illness – “Compartment syndrome” — is rare, and doesn’t appear in the triceps, according to Dr. Peter Van Patten:

Dr. Peter Van Patten treated the players. He said compartment syndrome isn’t very common, and he’s never seen it strike the triceps before.

“In McMinnville, we do not see compartment syndrome very often,” he said.

The school district is looking into this of course, and asking the community for help and support.

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.

(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

                      Heceta Head Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast, Florence, Oregon 
                           manipulated photograph/mixed media, Regan Lee 2005 


This is an image of the Heceta Head lighthouse keeper’s home in Florence, Oregon. The house is now a bed and breakfast. The lighthouse is available to visit; tours are given. It’s a bit of a hike up to the lighthouse but worth it.


The house is said to be haunted. There have been several articles written through the years in both local and national publications on the haunted house. I know a few people who’ve stayed there who’ve told me they either felt or saw ghostly type things. 


While I’ve been to the lighthouse, I haven’t been inside the bed and breakfast. Unless you’re staying at the inn, you can’t go inside just to look around. Which is nice to know; you can’t disturb the guests that way. Maybe some day we’ll try staying there.


I manipulated the photograph I took using mixed materials: acrylic paint, oil pastels. It’s been so long since I took this I’m not sure what camera I used; either a disposable or my Instamatic, which I like to use for some silly reason, even though I have digitals and other cameras.

           Heceta Head Lighthouse, Florence, Oregon, manipulated photograph by Regan Lee
This blue image is of the lighthouse itself. Just a photograph (most likely the same camera was used but as I say, don’t remember) that I had fun playing with by altering the color via the computer. 



Never seen a ghost or anything unusual or esoteric when I’ve been up there, but there’s always next time!

The Eugene Weekly is a free “alternative” paper that’s been around for many years. Eons ago it was called What’s Happening but they changed the name to get rid of that PNW hippie vibe.

Writer Rick Levin wrote a fairly in depth article on the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium. It’s always good to see articles on fringe topics. At the same time, in my personal non-scientific observations, the liberal/left often mocks and rejects topics like this. Secular humanism, or who knows. There’s exceptions of course, in fact, a local UFO group that seems to be more concerned with energy and disclosure than UFOs and related topics — always bringing it back around to a political agenda I still haven’t figured out — are, for the most part, liberal leaning. It’s just something I’ve noticed; that usually, liberals just don’t take things like this seriously, make fun of New Age stuff, and so on. I know, I make fun of New Age stuff, (and yeah, I’m a left leaning hippie) but that’s my issue. I’m also a bit New Agey, so it’s my way of coping with my own crystal crunching nature.

Levin acknowledges listening to Coast to Coast every night, yet he’s a non-believer in esoteric and fringe subjects. And, he has a decidedly classist view of the Coast to Coast audience:

I’ve always pictured the generic caller as looking like a backcountry cross between Ted Nugent and Zippy the Pinhead, and paranoid to the point of psychosis. It’s a grossly unfair portrait, I know, but there it is.

When people say that however, after they’ve listened to several witness accounts, I always want to ask them: “But, what did you think of those stories?” Do you think the witness is a liar? A fool? Mistaking a bear for a Bigfoot? Been out in the woods too long? What? The same question can be asked of the UFO skeptic: okay, after hearing the stories of a dozen or more people, “What do you think of them?”

Not what do you think in general, or anything else, but what’s your direct response to the witness and his or her account?

I don’t think he can get to that point. He has, he writes, been given plenty of information on Bigfoot over the years, but he’s not buying. He didn’t believe in Santa Claus as a child, he says, and he doesn’t do Bigfoot today:

A lot of amateur sasquatch research employs a forced, mangled scientific jargon that sounds silly, and there are conclusions drawn that make a Swiss cheese of logic. And the more touchy-feely bigfoot writing heaps on the nativist hoo-haw and New Age fluff like so much whipped cream spooned atop the honky appropriation of indigenous myth.

He prefers to by-pass witness accounts, comparing Bigfoot encounters to Biblical accounts:

That said, it’s just as difficult to prove, scientifically speaking, the reality of burning bushes, parted seas, 40-day floods and a six-day work week where God cooked up heaven and earth, yet hoards of people continue to believe these things heart and soul. As both legend and contested reality, the real source of bigfoot’s appeal, like the source of the Bible’s appeal, is anecdotal — as a fable filled with wonder, suspense and local color, all ringed with a halo of otherworldliness.

“The real source of Bigfoot’s appeal…?” His opinion but speak for yourself. I’ve never seen a Bigfoot but I choose to believe the people I know and trust, who’ve chosen to share with me their stories of seeing a Sasquatch. Simple. Like most skeptics, whether it’s UFOs or what, they do this weird dance thing around the topic they reject. They don’t think much of it, often don’t know much about it, certainly aren’t of the opinion it exists, yet they have all kinds of ideas about what it is, means, represents, symbolizes, is capable of . . .

Levin gives a good account of Dave Rodriquez’s encounters, and yet, after describing those encounters, Levin doesn’t stop to think about those sightings. Did he think Rodriquez was lying? Mistaken? No, it seems Levin projects much; as with his comparison of the Bible and folklore to Bigfoot encounters, he offers his reasons why people tell stories about seeing Bigfoot:

At the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium, people told stories in order to prove that something else lives despite mountains of doubt and a lack of palpable proof, which is something akin to the religious impulse compelling converts to proselytize.

It’s just a loop; “mountains of doubt” disappear once you’ve seen a Bigfoot.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Levin. He does treat the speakers and the conference with respect, which is appreciated, and is honest in his feelings. And he ends by saying … well, read it for yourself.

I started a new blog: Animal Forteana.

The blogThe Big Studyhas an interesting piece on the behavior of light; anomalous, high strangeness and unexplained events having to do with light. Included in the article is a bit about the Reeves case from the 1960s in the Newport-Toledo area on the Oregon coast. Called the Reeves case, the Toledo lights case, etc. or the Toledo Donuts… Keel wrote about this and a few mentions can be found here and there. To this day, the event reamains unexplained.

A possible explanation, in my opinion, is a military test of classified technology. UFO sightings were happening all over the area; and the navy and research facilities have a strong presence there. On the other hand, the Reeves case echoes other strange, out of place type “aliens,” type encounters. Maybe there is no rational explanation; it just is one more of those strange visitations that pop in from the “Goblin Universe,” (Holiday) or “Daemonic Reality,” (Harpur) or Trickster realm. (Hansen.)

My new Trickster’s Realm column for BoA is on beings from Venus; contactees, sort of, but with a different mode of operation than the usual Space Sister. Women From Venus.

Linda Newton Perry’s Bigfoot Ballyhoo is a blog I’ve posted about here recently; I also had turned on the “follow” feature to her blog. I say “followed” because she’s removed me from the follow option.

Newton-Perry is a Christian and has said her religious views don’t allow her to condone the paranormal. Because I have a Bigfoot blog that focuses on the high strangeness aspects of Bigfoot research, linking to my blog or supporting it, even by mentioning it I guess, conflicts with her personal beliefs.

A few days ago, Newton-Perry responded to the e-mail I had sent her by reposting it her blog:

Thank you for the good words….Regan, I , however, can not list paranormal sites. My Christian beliefs prevent me from delving into that subject. I do not believe Bigfoot is in anyway paranormal. I believe he is flesh and blood and placed in the animal kingdom for a purpose. I respect your right to believe as you wish and I ask that you respect mine. Thank you for participating on this blog and I look forward to hearing more from you.

Seems she’s changed her mind about looking “forward” to “hearing more from” me.

This is a sensitive subject for researchers. If you put yourself out there as a researcher, you have an obligation to be honest to the data. As I asked in my previous post: if your religious views conflict with data, where does your responsibility end? If you reject, hide, or ignore data you don’t like because it conflicts with your views, are you an honest researcher? I don’t know, I’m asking. I asked that question in a spirit of discussion. I had asked in my previous post, what would Linda Newton-Perry do with, say, the recent BF report from the Oregon teacher who had a recent Bigfoot sighting on the Oregon coast if that teacher had included some weird detail like, BF dematerializing in front of her? Or a UFO appeared next to it? Or any other of the high strangeness things that have been reported by some Bigfoot witnesses?

Newton-Perry didn’t answer, either directly to me, or on her blog. She preferred to ignore the question and remove me from the follow feature. Certainly her right to do so; but I wonder where that leaves the Bigfoot reports that are coming her way? What if, as I asked previously, one of those reports she’s posted on her blog contained “weird” data? Would Newton-Perry lie about it? Hide it? I think these are legitimate questions.

Since Newton-Perry writes for two newspapers about Bigfoot, has a Bigfoot blog, and has published books about Bigfoot, these questions are valid and assuming her participation in this discussion is sensible.

Newton-Perry said her beliefs don’t allow for paranormal Bigfoot beliefs but as I pointed out, not all Christians share that opinion. For example Stan Johnson (deceased) was a Christian who had many so-called paranormal encounters with Bigfoot including telepathic communications and rides on space ships.

Like the UFO subject (sans Bigfoot) religious beliefs come into things, and there’s a variety of beliefs and opinions within any particular religion. I know Christians who believe UFOs and related entities are demonic, and don’t want to have anything to do with the topic. I also know Christians who don’t believe that at all. And everything in between.

On the one hand, if Newton-Perry believes, as she says, Bigfoot is strictly flesh and blood, and not paranormal, that’s fine. Many BF researchers, as we know, believe that, regardless of their religious beliefs. But again, the question is, what would a researcher do — Christian or not — with a ‘weird” BF report that came their way?

This post of mine isn’t to pick a fight or become one of those self appointed gurus of UFO or Bigfoot research. Not me! This field, like the UFO field, has its share of the pompous, arrogant, and self-important. This field is also full of just plain mean people who have no problem openly insulting others. This isn’t about insulting anyone, making fun of anyone’s religion, or picking fights. It’s about sincerely asking questions concerning research. If you can’t participate in that then should your work be taken seriously?

To be fair, we all have our buffers and lines we won’t cross. Concerning Bigfoot, I haven’t found mine yet. (UFOs and related subjects, maybe, but that’s another blog and another post entirely.)

I wish all researchers the best, except, those that promote a kill policy. I just can’t get past that, and well, that’s the way it is.

But as always, the question that’s been asked many times by many a Bigfoot researcher, what to do with those high strangeness reports? Not a new question, but one that won’t go away.