Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Posts Tagged ‘unexplained’

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.

(Posted earlier today on my Mothman Flutterings blog)

From the blog Strange Planet, a fascinating post about the author’s experiences involving mechanical voices, where he describes hearing at 3:00 a.m. (a time noted for being a kind of UFO/paranormal, magical time, as he notes) a very strange sound

Approximately two months ago, I awoke in the middle of the night, roughly within the magical 3am hour (That in itself is worthy of more study, as it always seems to be at that particular hour. But I won’t veer off course here). What I began to hear, was in fact, as best I can describe, the sound of a LARGE ‘mechanical and metallic’ bird(?) outside of my window. I was stunned by this sound, but not afraid. I didn’t even feel the urge to look, to be honest. I just paid attention to the sound itself. It was fascinating. For the better part of ten minutes, it would ’squawk’ several times, take a break for about 30 seconds, then resume the vocalization. I heard it that one night, and never again. If I were to match the scope and size of this ‘bird’ with the size of the sound, this thing would’ve been 8ft. tall. Better I not look after all.

He goes on to write about synchronicity; contacts with others experiencing similar things, and some of what he’s discovered via research, past experiences, and the movie The Fourth Kind.

What struck me as interesting was the immediate “mothy” vibe I got from reading this account. Even though there is no mention of Mothman or indication of any Mothman phenomena, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Mothman. There is the bird like imagery of this encounter of course, but I thought of the electronic voices Keel described in The Mothman Prophecies.

Ed Walters, author of The Gulf Breeze Sightings, described hearing weird electronic or metallic voices outside his bedroom windows at night in connection with his UFO experiences.

I was also reminded of Greg Taylor’s article Her Sweet Murmur, in DarkLore volume 1, which explores the rushing, roaring, bell clanging/chiming sounds many (including myself) experience during esoteric events. These episodes appear diverse and often unconnected from each other; UFOs, BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) appearances, Mothman, Bigfoot or other crypto sightings, aliens, OOBEs, etc. but, Taylor asks, is there a common source from where these entities emerge? These strange sounds of clicking, clacking, singing, bells and the like are shared by fringe phenomena; possibly pointing to the idea they are related. UFOs, aliens, abductions, contactees, Bigfoot weirdness, BVM sightings, MIBS, fairies, maybe they are kaleidoscopic manifestations of the same thing.

As far as Mothman goes, Mothman wasn’t, or isn’t, an isolated and specific event. There’s a whole high strangeness context enveloping Mothman: UFOs, MIBS, telepathic messages, OOBEs, electronic voices, premonitions, heavy dreams laden with messages and communications, curses and legends, synchronicities and a thread of violence that trails Mothman. This is not to say Mothman itself is violent, or responsible for the aura of violence connected with the phenomena, but a response to it.

I wish to hell I had my camera with me today, but I was at work and not possible. I’m going to start bringing one with me and go out there on my lunch break on days like this ….

Yesterday, there were trails, and I said to myself “The sky is moving” (well, duh, of course it does) but there was a huge “spliffer” as we call them up there, a bit low, and it was just the way the wind was moving, was moving the entire trail. Not blowing bits of it here and there or blowing it away — just moving it. Eerie effect.
Today though, wowza! The sky was covered in trails; big X’s, checkerboard or squares, and loops. Circles. And, just to top things off, an oily square patch of rainbow colored something or another. The rainbow colored patch was barely visible with the naked eye, but I could see it very well through my huge dorky yellow non-glare sunglasses that fit over my prescription pair. I’ve seen that before a couple of times; one being about eight years ago; there was a huge rectangular oily rainbow patch in the sky; it was so weird people actually were stopping and looking at it. For some reason, there were also a lot of helicopters out that day and just general sky-weirdness.

I took a few images with the digital this evening (shown here) but they’re nothing big; just a few lonely trails still being made up there. The haze is here and you can see remnants of the earlier activity.

This is the current Trickster’s Realm column for Tim Binnall’s Binnall of America. TR is a bi-monthly column I write for Binnall of America.

My friend “Lola” lives in the coast range in Oregon. Lola has a life long history of paranormal activity in her family including not just ghosts but UFOs, Bigfoot and other paranormal and psychic phenomena. These things seem to follow the family; particularly the women. There are some paranormal clichés involved: events happen more to the females in the family, some members have Native American blood, and at least one house is on Native American hunting grounds.

Lola, her husband and their children moved a few years ago to their present home in the coast range. We’ve visited them several times and it’s a great place; out in the country, on acres of land by a creek. The night sky is magnificent and far from city light pollution. There is something odd about the place however, and that is the space between their house and the shop. The shop is a large building; it could easily be a house onto itself. It’s placed in an odd spot; very close to the house; there’s only about six feet between the shop and the house, which makes for a dark, cold, narrow passage way to navigate through.

In the narrow dark space between house and shop there is a persistent feeling of something very heavy and large, as well as depressed, close by. Neither one of the children (young teens) will go out there at night, and they’re no wimps. They’re used to living in the country; many family members live in rural areas; they’re no strangers to the country. Lola doesn’t like to go out there at night either, and really, no one does, including myself or my husband. It’s not only the space between the buildings that has this heavy cold feeling, but the shop itself. The remodel work going on hasn’t seemed to improve these feelings.

The feeling I get when in this space is one of extreme heaviness, a depression as well as an oppression, of something very, very large. It’s a living, conscious entity but I haven’t been able to call it “human,” or “animal” — it seems to be both, as odd as that sounds.

The other day George had mentioned that he’s always felt it’s an animal spirit, and that this energy is one of great depression due to abuse. Right before he said that to me, I was thinking about this energy, trying to get closer to what it is. I received a strong vibration of mistreatment, but as to animal or human, it was still vague. It seemed wrapped up altogether. Then George said, out of the blue, “I’ve always felt very strongly that this animal energy had a lot of abuse energy surrounding it.”

Lola’s bedroom faces the shop, and their bedroom widow looks directly onto the building. She keeps the curtains closed at all times, because of the negative energy she feels coming from the building. There are strange claw marks on their bedroom window, high up and no one can figure out how they got there, or what made them. Whatever it was, had to jump up very high to make them; and why would it? It’s as if something was trying to claw its way into the bedroom. It’s possible a bear was looking in the window, (they do have a black bear problem in the area) still, the bear would have had to have been an exceptionally large one to reach that high.

Lola has had other strange experiences; one afternoon, while lying on their bed, she saw an entity appear beside her. The entity, in Lola’s own words, “Wasn’t human, but was trying to pass itself off as human.” Lola was clear it was a female entity, with a pale, almost white face, and a “wig” of dark brown hair cut short. Lola doesn’t know if this has anything to do with the energy between the buildings; but she does say this entity wasn’t a positive one.

The other day, Lola was working in the herb patch outside her kitchen, which is a few feet from the shop. She told me she kept getting a strong image of something dead buried nearby; something large and animal like.

There is a sad history to the place; a horse that the previous owners kept on the property was terribly neglected, and they left the animal on the property when Lola and her family bought the place. The poor thing suffered a great deal for years but fortunately, Lola’s family has worked closely with the horse, who is now very happy and healthy, and they’ve since bought other horses to join the family. The area where the horses hang out seems fine; but near this shop area, it’s another feeling altogether. And I’ve noticed the horses don’t go near there either, or in the upper field that faces Lola’s bedroom.

Something seems to have left an imprint; either a series of events, or one specific being, be it human or animal. Whatever it is, has been felt by many visitors.

From the blog “Naveed’s Realm” — Naveed lives in Oregon — this item about a possible strange, dark colored feline spotted on the Oregon coast some years ago. I know exactly where he’s talking about; I have family and friends in that area, plan to
relocate there myself soon, and have driven that road many a time. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes extra open next time I’m out there!

In my book The Ghost of Conser Lake, (unpublished) I cite an interesting passage from Ivan T. Sanderson’s book Abominable Snowmen about the creature. (You can read a previous section of the book here. Mention of “Flix,” the Bigfoot like being that appeared in Millersburg, Oregon in the late 1950s -early 1960s, is one of those interesting high strangeness BHM (big hairy monster) cases. Here’s a section from my book, with added comments in parentheses.

Flix Gets Around
Flix made the news for a good two years. He was seen off and on in the area during that time. Clarence Starr, owner of the Owl Cafe in Albany at the time, told Westby (Betty Westby, the reporter who wrote several articles about Flix for the

Democrat Albany Herald

newspaper) that the monster “had trampled down a lot of mint on his farm and that he will not be able to harvest much of his crop.”

An elderly woman “who came from one of the early pioneer families,” the paper noted, walked into theGreater Albanyoffice to give her story of her encounter with Flix:

“That monster was in our pasture last night. My neighbor took a shot at it. He found some blood on the ground, so he thinks he hit it. We saw its tracks, and the women in our neighborhood are scared to go anywhere at night or even sit on porches or leave the doors or windows open. I think he sheriff an state police should Hunt this creature down before it kills someone.”

The newspaper tried to explain to the woman a “big white cow” had recently escaped from its owner’s truck and that this is what she saw, but “she refused to believe our explanation.”

Mrs. Penning in Devers-Conner, about 30 miles south of Millersburg, told Betty Westby she heard “dripping sounds,” even though it was August. It is interesting that Mrs. Penning described the “dripping” sound; remember that Flix’s footsteps were also described as “squishy.” Looking out her living room window she saw a “large, light form,” hurrying away, and heard a “low pitched cry that seems to start from its toes, tapering off to a squeal like a pig’s.” Penning also fond fingerprints on her bedroom window, and Westby spectacled that they were web shaped, due to the four fingered, spread-out shape of the prints.

Three years later, the story of the Creature of Conser Lake was still news. In an article by Martin Clark, Albany Journal staff writer, he comments on writer Keith Sosebe’s upcoming talk on the “monster.”
Leaping from the shadow of a deep gully, the thing stood fully 7 feet tall in the ghostly moonlight. Petrified with mingled horror and curiosity, the young people sat motionless in their car. Suddenly, the apparition took at enormous leap over the gully and slipped away trough a tangle of boughs.”

By October, Flix, or a similar creature, was reported in Stanton, Oregon, 30 miles from Millersburg. (Oregon) It seems that Flix moved within an approximate 30 mile radius. This is assuming it was the same creature of course. Calls came into the Stayton police station of an “eight foot tall hairy monster,” and monster hunters were quick to look for the creature. Fortunately the police stopped a group of teens, armed with guns and beer, who decided to go monster hunting, before they could do any damage.

A Herd of Flixes?
Cryptozoologist and biologist Ivan T. Sanderson discussed the Conser Lake monster briefly in his book Abominable Snowmen:Legend Come to Life, citing a small item that appeared in the January, 1961 edition of FATE magazine, reporting that the “monster” was “still on the loose.” Sanderson also writes in Abominable Snowmen that a source wrote Sanderson in October of 1960, insisting that there was not only the one Flix, but several “Flixes” in the area. According to Sanderson’s unnamed friend, there were more than one BHM, several in fact, and fingerprint as well as footprint casts were taken. Referring to Flix, the letter writer described the creature:

This last part about Flix disappearing into the lake gives some support to the theory about BHM, and/or Bigfoot, living underground. Sanderson also supported this idea. The letter writer mentions a “Hal Starr” who has had contact with more than one of these creatures. In the correspondence sent to Sanderson about the Conser lake “monster,”
the letter writer reports that “Creatures” (italics mine) were still being sighted on a farmer’s farm.” The name given was Hal Starr; is this the owner of the Owl Cafe mentioned earlier?( Cal,or Hal?)

Flix himself verified Sanderson’s source that there was more than one creature. The creature told psychic Jane Waterby (Waterby was a friend of Betty Westby’s and the two visited the lake to try and communicate with Flix.) that he wasn’t the only creature of his kind:

Another typical yet frustrating detail Sanderson’s friend gives is the writer’s comment that a “finger print [was] lifted off a house window including a plaster cast of a foot print.” Sanderson’s friend also said he had physical evidence:

“Have personal taped accounts of this creature . . . this includes photographs.”

But no photographs, fingerprints, footprints or recordings have turned up. As with much of UFO, cryptid and Fortean phenomena, evidence is as elusive as the phenomena itself.

copyright Regan Lee
March 1, 2009

Welcome to L.O.W.F.I., Oregon chapter.

I am very excited about joining this fantastic team of crazy Forteans!

Please be sure to check back often because I do have a lot of things to share.

I suppose this is where I introduce myself. I’m both an “experiencer” as well as a paranormal/Fortean writer, which includes the subject of UFOs. I write for UFO magazine, and for on-line publications like UFO Digest and Binnall of America. I’ve recently joined Nick Redfern’s Crypto USA team (representing Oregon) and have several blogs focusing on the paranormal.

I was born in Los Angeles and come from circus folk. Moved to Oregon about thirty years ago. With a couple of short stays in California and Washington, been here in the Willamette Valley for that time.

My interests are many; UFOs, Bigfoot especially the paranormal aspect, Mothman, general high strangeness.

I’m honored to be in such fantastic company!

And if you have a weird Oregon tale to tell, please e-mail me at rlee@orangeorb.net!