Washington L.O.W.F.I

 

While I wait for the reports to flood in, I thought I would post an excerpt from my third book, The Mothman’s Photographer III, which has to do with West Coast witnesses of Fortean events. Chapter 3 had to with a Seattle shaman, Ken Alton, who has seen UFOs and who heals people in a manner not unlike that of Hippocrates, whose healing symbol, the caduceus, shares deep similarities to the symbolisms of the Garuda. The Garuda is one of our likely possibilities for explaining appearances of Mothman and Thunderbird… In the interview, Alton discusses being followed by what was possibly Mothman in Seattle, just prior to the 9/11 attacks.

 

“Why do [supernatural] beings pay me personal visits? People have ridiculed me regarding this question, implying that if I talk to spirits and find myself at the focus of black ops missions, I must either be a [spy] or have a Messiah complex. I’m neither; I’m [just] a person trying to live an average life while all this other stuff [is] running constantly in the background. I don’t think ‘they’ are after everybody, as some people like to believe. [Yes] they are trying to make contact with particular individuals, but the concept of self-importance doesn’t come into play. If you fall for that, you get lost. Everything I have learned from this [phenomenon] emphasizes that I have no personal importance; I’m either a player or a tool, something to be used – and used up. [One has to] find a way to survive in the mess. I think they are looking for people from specific genetic groups, because there are mental and perceptual abilities running stronger in these groups. The answer I got, when I asked my spiritual benefactors why they had chosen to speak to me, was simply that I ‘could listen.’ I think it may actually be that simple. If [some entity] picks up a phone on the other side of the galaxy, dials Earth, and a person answers, they talk to that person. The only reason they talk to them is that they picked up the phone. You [need to ask yourself if you] are someone who can listen.”

 -Jimmy “Two Hats,” post to Mothman’s Photographer discussion list, 03/06/08

 

Ken Alton is a gifted musician and shaman whose father was a USAF pilot and later, a judge in Tacoma, WA. Ken and his family saw UFOs while living near Santa Cruz, CA and in Tacoma. The Altons lived near Ft. Lewis, McChord AFB, and the old Western State Mental Hospital, possible site of cruel and unusual human experimentation. Due to his father’s military affiliations, Ken received medical care as a youth at Madigan Army Hospital, rumored to have been an MK-Ultra mind control facility. Ken has had many incredible experiences, from being followed by strange, winged creatures to meeting dead ancestors while on the verge of death. He has healed both humans and animals while in the dream state. He has a deep understanding of mythical symbology, theology, and the psychic world, as well the ability to intuit major events (e.g., 9/11). Strange phenomena seem to follow Alton wherever he goes. Incredibly, Ken was seemingly abducted by aliens two nights before taping a segment for my Mothman reality series.

 

 Alton, Ken – 9/11 Premonitions and More – 2002

 Andy Colvin (AC) [to camera]: Along with me, my sister Spring, Tommy Burnham, Mercedes Yaeger, Penny Van Horn, and Jim and Mary Woodring, our next guest, Ken Alton, had premonitions of 9/11. Ken, tell us about your 9/11 experience.

 Ken Alton (KA): I guess where it really began was that I had dreams of war: skies filled with airplanes and bombings. These [were] progressive dreams. I’d say three days before 9/11 happened, I started getting this sort of anxious feeling. The only thing that kept coming into my head was, “The shit is going to hit the fan.” On the night before 9/11, I was out seeing my friend’s band play at [the club] I-Spy. We got into a discussion about things that were going on in our personal lives. I began talking about how I felt that soon something “major and intense” was going to happen that would have the [initial] perception of being a tragedy, but [which would actually] open our eyes to something [bigger] – an awakening process. Usually the knock, slap in the face, or kick in the ass is [a] process. [It’s] a progression of personal [and/or] cultural enlightenment. There [often] needs to be tragedy to bring us to the other side. [For instance] the most traumatic experience in human existence is the birthing process. What has the appearance of being a traumatic experience brings you into the next realm – the next world.

AC: It sounds like there may be a connection between what you’re saying and the fact that the Mothman shows up in advance of tragic events.

KA: Yes, most definitely… There’s a projection on whatever is going to [happen]. There’s no such thing as “objective” reality. Take what one considers as the color blue… Is each human iris perceiving the same color? Whatever the Mothman is, it gets translated by our psyche [into] whatever we can understand or perceive as being an “entity.” Although it is definitely something, I don’t think that we can truly see it without visualizing [it  mentally. It is part] projection. [We seem to have a preference] towards [describing] it as this flying creature with wings and red eyes. That is [simply] how we apply our limited understanding [to something unlimited. If] you hear poltergeists in your house, you [will ascribe them to whatever you are able to imagine]. This happened when I was living in the Philippines with my parents. Crazy stuff would happen. We would hear noises throughout the night while sleeping. My father would hear the noises [yet] his conception of them was the “wind” or “animals wandering around.” I [however] had these dreams of black boots and brown pants walking over me. I was saying, “No, that’s definitely someone walking around in my room.” My aunt later told me, “Yes, there are a lot of Japanese soldiers that supposedly haunt this area.” So [we have] our individual perceptions. Then [there is the] collective psyche of a culture, which gets projected in certain ways. Some people will perceive the Mothman as [a birdman]. Since there’s a psychic connection between [us all, many] are going to understand that perception. [A few may] perceive it as something else, but there’s definitely an entity that comes out [and functions as] a precursor towards certain events.

 AC: You and I were talking about a tragedy that befell someone here in Seattle. It’s a really horrible story; such a horrible story that everyone involved is asking, “Why did this criminal thing happen? Why couldn’t we have stopped it?” You made the interesting point that there is beauty in such a terrible moment. It has the potential of opening up people who perhaps have been conceptualizing their path too much, or avoiding the nitty-gritty. Tragedy is, at times, the only way to light the fire of the Divine Spark. It’s the yin and the yang – the two opposites coming together at a point in time. Blossoming out of tragedy is the shimmering lotus… Sometimes children who undergo divine tragedies – as you once did – develop the ability to have satoris or moments of divine illumination that heal their damaged souls.

 KA: Most rites of passages use a traumatic experience. [With] Australian aboriginals, there’s a form of gashing that they have to go through. [In] the Dagora culture the kids [are kidnapped]. The women make this big show of display: “Don’t take my child! Don’t take my child!” The kids are freaking out [during this, of course]. William Irwin Thomson’s concept is that when you go through a rite of passage, it usually has this perception of being a “fascist” tragedy, or “fascistic terrorism.” Those were the actual words he used in his book Darkness and Scattered Light. In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, if you perceive the [entities you see after you die] as “demons,” they will be demons; but if you perceive them as “angels” they will become angelic. You have to look into your Buddha Nature to see the beauty in the horrific moment – like my being mauled by a dog. Oscar Wilde has a great quote that kind of sums it up: “How else but through a broken heart can Christ enter in?” In a sense, he’s saying that God is trauma. That’s how the Divine Spark enters into you. It is separate from moralistic concepts – [not] bogged down by formulaic morality. It’s all very gray, not black and white. It’s a very delicate understanding of what compassion is – what the correct pathway of one’s life is. [We need] to perceive the beauty in it. Through tragedy, maybe Christ will enter into people’s hearts [and] serve a greater purpose…

 AC: A lot of the folks who saw the Mothman had “Christian” beliefs. How would you suggest a Christian integrate seeing Mothman?

KA: The Mothman is a kind of dark presence or dark feeling. But Christianity is a very dark religion. If you go to a church and sit there, you are worshipping underneath this crucifix – this crucified man. If you look at the words of Christ [they are] very like Zen-like and complex. The innate [message] is that life is suffering… Joseph Campbell said that one of the downfalls of the Christian Church was when the priest turned around and started facing the congregation, becoming a blockage to God. Originally, he had his back to the congregation and was a conduit to God for them. This is probably why [Mothman] came to the [witnesses]. It is very compatible with what they experience [in church]. The undercurrents in Christian mythology are bizarre [and] amorphic, like the Dance of Shiva, the Hindu destroyer… A lot of Christian concepts are linked to Plato’s mystical concepts. You have yourdaemon, which is your seed – your “acorn” – that you are born with… You are consciously put into this world with this seed that needs to grow in you. If it is not nurtured and allowed to be, then it turns on you and becomes “demonic…”

AC: A Buddhist concept that has interested me lately has to do with the duality of “emptiness and form.” These are the two major polarities governing our observation of reality: things appear to be either empty, or solid. By the way, we experience these emotionally, too. Events connected to the Mothman-Garuda like ghosts, hauntings, and psychic phenomenon often involve beings whose molecules seem to be spaced out enough that they can pass through seemingly solid surfaces. Any thoughts about entities that seem to be able to bridge this (seeming) polarity?

 KA: There’s always a passing in and out. This entity, the Mothman, passes in and out of this realm in a sort of Shiva dance. In Buddhism and in almost all religions and indigenous cultures that I’ve studied, there is a concept of circular ebbing and flowing – this inhalation/exhalation through meditation. “As above, so below,” as Goethe would say… There’s a reflection of everything [everywhere] – a fluctuation. The “bad” times and the “good” times, the salad days and times of trouble… Even the polarities of the earth are in constant motion to where the “north” magnetic force eventually switches to the “south.” There is the movement of the tectonic plates – a kind of beat [reflected in] the drumming of the Native Americans. There are all these folktales around how the drum “became.” It’s a continuum… A lot of things are instigated – even self-instigated. There’s a crashing by design in our personal psyche. You need to move on in life so you cause friction, or even a tragedy. I think there is an unconsciousness in the powers that be that might instigate a tragedy like 9/11. Whatever the reasons were… It could be the bringing about of “Paradise,” following the tradition in the [Bible] of the Apocalypse or Second Coming. Columbus himself was in search of Eden – of instigating the coming of Christ. He wrote in his journals that if he could get to the New World and find Eden, it might bring on the Christ. Whatever the powers that be are doing, there is an attempt to bring in tragedy [and] apocalypse so that there will be a transference [or transformation]. Some speculate that that was what the atomic bomb was about, and [why] Aleister Crowley was trying to break [down] the barriers to the spiritual. It’s all metaphorical. All mythological… Everything is in that format. The mythology that we choose, whether it’s Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam, is what is going to instigate our minds. As Gandhi said, “All religions are true.”

 AC: The Mothman-Garuda turns up in Buddhism quite often. He’s one of the Heruka Thunderbeings in the Tantric pantheon. He is the keeper of the Void – the blackness of outer space. He represents the opposite of form; he comes forth from the darkness. He is the CEO, in a way, of half of reality. He is often positioned right over the Buddha, overseeing all of reality. Because reality emanates from the Void side of the equation. He can also be seen as a wrathful deity who, at first sight, is somewhat terrifying. He is often battling it out with the Nagas, or evil serpents. Here, the dualities of emptiness and form, darkness and light, good and evil seem to be joined in a never-ending struggle.

 KA: Just you saying that kind of got me making correlations between these paranormal experiences. I mean, some of it is obvious: Christ as an alien-like creature – somebody who descended from God [via virgin birth] then died, was taken up, and who had visitations from angels and/or aliens. There are all these parallels. I remember seeing a statue of Buddha [where] he was represented as a Good Shepherd. That’s a parallel to the Christ image, as the good shepherd with his flock. The Buddha was a person who became enlightened. We need to remember that. This deity above is divine, and Christ originally called himself the Son of Man. There are/were tons of messiahs. In my opinion, it’s all [about] perception. If you want to see them as angels you’ll see them as angels; if you want to see them as aliens you’ll see them as aliens. Lilith copulated with Adam and had all these succubi and incubi, and supposedly these things have been haunting our dreams ever since. That’s very similar to the “alien” concept [of our collective conception].

 

Alton, Ken – Mothman Comes to Seattle – Seward Park  2005

Andy Colvin (AC) [intro to camera]: It’s April 17^th, 2005. I’m back on the Mothman tour here in Seattle, in Seward Park on Lake Washington, which has the largest stand of old-growth forest left in town. The trees are growing just above bedrock; it’s an old mound of earth. It’s a large peninsula that used to be an island, just like Blaine Island in Mound, WV. Today there is a land bridge to Seward, because the lake level was artificially lowered a few decades ago by the opening of the ship canal. We think there could be Bigfoot or Mothman activity here on Seward, because parts of the island have never been logged and it predates the Ice Age, just as the Kanawha Valley in WV predates the Ice Age. The Ohio Valley does not predate the Ice Age, as the Ohio is a newly formed river. Seward Park is “old ground.” Ken Alton had an encounter with something here one night. He has seen strange stick formations on the pathways here. I’ve run into the same thing over in Frink Park, which is a smaller park nearby. There, I found several mounds with madrona trees encircling them, near the old Thunderbird Totem dedicated to the Native war-chief, Leschi. Madronas are ceremonial trees under which the Indians would meet. Here in Seward, we have the oldest and largest stands of madrona in Seattle.

According to sewardpark.org, the area around Seward was believed by the Indians to be “home to powerful spirits.” There was a “taboo place” at Brighton Beach, south of the peninsula, where a “supernatural spirit” was said to live. In nearby Colman Park, which is just a few blocks from my house, lived the Ya’ho, a “horned spirit” associated with earthquakes. Coincidentally, this is the approximate location of the Seattle Fault, which moved vertically more than 20 feet about 1100 years ago. Little “earth beings” were said to inhabit the tree stumps in Colman. They were said to drive anyone attempting to harvest tree bark insane. Remarkably, one can find horned representations of Moloch, the Garuda, and Loki, making us wonder if they all lived near Seward at one time.

AC: Next, Ken is going to tell us about his sighting. Ken saw something large here in Seward that apparently could fly. It followed him one night, all the way through the park. This was right around the time he was seeing strange stick and stone formations.

Ken Alton (KA): Actually right up here is where it started. It was a little before twilight, about four years ago.

AC: In 2001? Not long before 9/11?

KA: Um… Yes, actually. I usually come here at night. It was still a little bit light out, but it was that period where it’s starting to get dark. My dog, Bleu, and I came in here, and there was something rattling up there. Usually there are eagles right up in that tree. At first I thought it was just an eagle up there, but the shadow seemed really large. I could see it, but I couldn’t really make it out. I couldn’t delineate it or define it, so I didn’t really know what to make of it. We kept walking [through] the park and it was up there the whole time. It followed us. It always stayed to my left… There was obviously something definite up there making noise. Bleu would stare. I couldn’t really tell what it was. She was totally obsessed with it. We just didn’t know. [But] she stayed focused on it.

AC: Just last week, around the time the Pope died, I started finding these clues in Frink Park. They were being left at crossroads of paths and on top of mounds. There are several mounds in Frank Park with madronas ringing the tops. These are probably old “Indian” mounds. As Ted Holiday wrote in his book Creatures of the Inner Sphere, mounds are places where “dragons” tend to end up after they come out of caves. They gravitate towards the mounds and settle on the tops of the mounds. There are many stories from ancient British literature concerning battles with these apparently real, dragonlike creatures that could fly. They had glowing red eyes, similar to the Mothman. You ran into some strange writing in the dirt in Seward that was similar to the writing we found on the sidewalk at 905 E. Pine in Seattle. Can you describe that writing?

KA: Somebody had written throughout the whole park. They had written these [things] on the ground with a stick of some sort. It looked like an Arabic type of script, but it wasn’t. It was like a cross between Arabic script and crop circle symbols. They were really beautiful and elaborate…

AC: There’s a photo in The Psychic Sasquatch book showing similar lettering, supposedly left by a Bigfoot at a “healing spot.” Such lettering is supposedly found at geo-magnetic “portals” where interdimensional entities tend to go in and out. Some claim that Bigfoots built the mounds. Now if Bigfoots built the mounds and flying creatures like Mothman use the mounds, that would seem to imply an interdependent relationship. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the same creature, but they do seem closely linked.

KA: [The writing] really freaked me out. I mean it sent chills up my spine, and I quickly left. It was a little too much for me to handle.

AC: One of my Buddhist teachers grew up in Seattle and was very familiar with all the parks. He said Seward was a sacred island to the Indians. Do you feel like there’s some ongoing connection here to the Native Americans?

KA: Maybe… Normally I don’t really see a lot of owls here, and [yet] a couple of times when I was trying to figure [personal] things out, all of a sudden there were these owls [here. There have been these] really weird moments that could be interpreted as totem animal situations. I definitely feel like there’s a really mystical element to this place.

AC: Have you met any strange characters in here?

KA: Oh, all the time.

AC: Like the coverall-wearing “transients” I’ve been talking about? They seem to be semi-holy men, who are often in trances.

KA: Well, there was this one person, this Arabic guy who obviously had a lot going on inside. It just seemed strange that he was here. He didn’t have hiking shoes on; he had on street clothes. He seemed to take this as a place that was really going to help him deal with whatever was going on [inside]. We had an interesting undercurrent of a relationship going on. You could feel an intense understanding. I would see him get nervous around other people, but I think we both had the same understanding of this place. That’s why we were comfortable around each other…

AC: Had you experienced telepathy with him, you would have sensed what I experienced with a “transient” from my childhood, Snowball, who used to watch us play basketball. Sometimes it would seem as if I was getting clues about how to play ball from Snowball. I could have just been imagining it, but he intently watched us play basketball for years. He rarely said a word to anybody. He basically refused to speak verbally. I’m thinking that because he didn’t speak verbally, he was perhaps able to channel extra energy into telepathic communication. Interestingly, you had a “stick incident” right about the time of the Pope’s death, just as I was seeing “Bigfoot” stick configurations in Frink Park and at my house. You said that you found a strange stick at your worksite.

KA: Yes, it was a long stick in the Porta-Potty.

AC: And what alerted you to it? Just the fact that it was there? Did it look strange?

KA: It was [odd]. It was [an urban setting]. There were no trees around with big [limbs].

AC: So not only could Bigfoot be visiting us at home, but it could be following us to work as well?

KA: Yes, it was strange. I went in there and there was this carved stick.

AC: Did it have a pointed end, like the ones Macer-Story claims are placed by occultists?

KA: [Yes] it had a sharp, pointed end. It sort of looked like a walking stick, but it didn’t look too comfortable. The bark was peeled off. It looked like it had been attended to…

AC: That’s the kind of stick I found outside of my house… Say, you had a UFO sighting as a child, which you remember very clearly. However your relatives – as if they were in a trance – did not remember the event, even though this was a very slow-moving UFO. Recently, there has been some exciting news. Your brother now seems to remember it?

KA: That was a strange incident at my grandmother’s house, which is near McCord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis in Tacoma.

AC: That’s where the D.C. Sniper lived, isn’t it?

KA: Yes, in that area… He bought the gun there. I don’t know what connection that might have, but this area is quite interesting. A lot of strange incidents that formulated my alternative mentality happened in this area. [For instance] I remember waking up one night and finding this child praying at my bedside – at me! But this particular [UFO] incident happened when we stayed up quite late one night, singing songs in the backyard. We all looked up and saw this strange spherical object that had a trail of exhaust. It had a kind of membrane that enfolded the trail of exhaust, and it was traveling in a very strange manner. It was hovering. Everybody saw it. I mean we talked about it right after it passed over. It lingered above us for quite a bit, which was strange. Everybody had their speculation about it, because I remember the discussion going on [and on]. Everybody had their own perception. I remember thinking, “Well, how are we going to find out [more] about this?” And my dad said, “Maybe it’ll be in the papers tomorrow.” I couldn’t stop thinking about this crazy incident. The next day, I remember waking up and [finding that] nobody remembered it! I ran and said, “Is the paper here yet? Is there anything in the paper about what we saw last night?” And nobody could remember… My father couldn’t [even] remember it. They asked me, “What [are you] talking about?” It just drove me nuts, because I knew. I was solid in my mind that this incident had happened. Recently, my family was out to breakfast; my brother brought it up, quite out of the blue. I wanted to get this straight, so I said, “Draw what you saw, and I’ll draw what I saw.” He drew it and it was exactly the same as what I drew. [Years ago] in the Santa Cruz hills, my brother and father saw three objects flying through the hills that they couldn’t [identify]. My father is a pilot. Something was below him, and he couldn’t get a read on it. To this day, he is not quite sure what happened. It just floated next to him, then below him for a while, and zoomed off. He just kind of had to let it go…