Close-up view of the photo above. Our teammates on roped up glacier travel.
I spoke about a 30-day course in Alaska with Shawn Stratton on his HOT DRINKS podcast. Some readers here might not know this, but I spent over 20-years in outdoor education, and got to travel in some of the most beautiful wilderness in North America. It was great to share some powerful memories from a hard trip in the big mountains. Epic is an understatement!
The images below are of me and one of my co-instructors, Phil Schneider. I'm in the red parka. In whiteout conditions it's very easy to get disoriented, and it happens to birds too. A little goldfinch landed on my boot, seen in the close-up. He saw us and we must have been the only things visible to him in a frozen ocean of white.
Please click on any images for a HI-rez view.
A tiny visitor
A little goldfinch needed a place to land, and chose my boot!
Co-instructor Aaron Divine on the Nabezna Glacier
More about The Wrangell mountains on the NPS site HERE, and on Wikipedia HERE.
I hosted over sixty interviews for Whitley Strieber on his site, UnknownCountry (from 2019 thru 2021). The podcast series was titled THE UNSEEN, and my focus was UFO contact. It was a lot of work adding them to this page and I was surprised there were so many! These shows are, in many ways, a continuation of my previous series Hidden Experience (from 2009 thru 2014)
Every episode is linked below. Some of the earlier episodes might require a membership for listening.
Some things can be so fleeting, so much so that I'm not sure what to think.
This strange event probably took place around 2016 or ’17 while I was living in upstate New York. I was talking with Andrea in our bedroom. This would've been the middle of a summer day, but the room was on the north west corner of the house, and surrounded by trees, so it was a bit dark. While talking, I noticed a sort of cluster of sparkles in one spot in the room, near a small shelf in the corner. It was only there for a brief moment, and it had the rough outline of a human. It would have been shorter than me, maybe about five foot tall.
I wasn’t sure what happened, and I asked Andrea, “Did you see that?”
She said, “Yes, the sparkles.”
I asked where she saw it, and she pointed to the exact spot I’d seen it and said, “Right there.”
Then we continued our conversation like nothing had happened.
I have tried to explain this to people, and I’ve said it looked like a cheap special effect on a kids show from the 70s. This morning I realized I was describing The Land of the Lost, a live action series that played on Saturday morning in my youth. The rather corny character was called The Zarn.
I created the representation at the top of this post using an image of The Zarn found online. I revised it to match my memory, and it feels pretty close to what I saw.
I spoke with hypnotherapist Yvonne Smith, and told her this story. I asked if this was common. She said, "Yes, I get a lot of people telling me about seeing sparkles."
The Zarn, from Land of the Lost
Here is an excerpt from the TV show. The effect in the clip is not quite what I recall seeing. That image is too thin, and too well defined. What I remember was something more amorphous, without defined arms and legs. But I saw it, and so did Andrea. She read this post, and confirmed it was accurate. This helped me, because the memory is so strange that I'm cautious to fully trust it.
I went through decades of therapy for depression, and remember almost none of it, but I clearly remember this one exchange.
I was seeing a therapist once a week in an office in Jackson, Wyoming. I sat across from her and tried to express my anguish. I went around and around, struggling to convey the core issue.
Finally I said, “I don’t fit in this world, I don’t see it the way everyone else does.”
She said, “Yes, but that’s the role of the artist.”
I don't want this post to come across as a downer. I've been doing very well for the last decade and I don't want anyone to worry about me. What I wanted to convey is that I'm taking this seriously—the role of the artist—where I once would have shied away from it.
This is the back of my bedroom door. Without squinting or anything, I can see two owls and two aliens within the wood grain. And it's even weirder because the owls are seemingly floating up out of the aliens in an etherial ghost form. There is actually a third set, but they get chopped off on the left end of the door, so they don't count.
The image above was crated using Photoshop. All I did with the door (left) was increase the contrast slightly to bring out the wood grain. I isolated the outlines of the characters (right) by overlaying a darker layer to outline what I'm seeing.
Is this weird? I'm not sure what to think anymore, but it seems sort of weird to me.
* * *
Below is an excerpt from a hypnosis session. The hypnotherapist asked me, "Mike, what is your connection to owls?" Below is my reply.
I understand how people take in a story, and how they need a symbol or a sign on the door. But the owl is meaningless to what is on the other side of the door. It’s just the doorway that’s important.
The owl is the right symbol for the door. We are on this side, and everything else is on that side of the door. There is a LOT more! We are in this little tight hallway here, and on the other side of the door is this vastness!
In January of 2018 I got sort of obsessed with the tarot. I was going through a heady time, and was doing a lot of one-card pulls. It was during this time that I pulled the Hermit card fifteen times in a row! Let me say that again:
I pulled the Hermit card fifteen times in a row!
I'm trying to replay this in my mind, because it seems impossible to me now. I remember it wasn’t just that I was repeatedly pulling that one card—the Hermit fell out of the deck and landed face-up on the floor (at least once), and also the same card was at the bottom of the deck (I think twice) when I pulled the cards out of the box.
The mania of pulling the same card happened over multiple days, and it scared me. I was also pulling it a lot (like eerily a lot!) in the time surrounding this event. During the lead-up and aftermath, I was repeatedly pulling either the Hermit card, or the Two of Wands.
two of wands
This all happened during the final editing of Stories from The Messengers, my second owl book. This was a time when I was feeling both proud of my work, and terribly insecure about it. That may sound illogical, but any creative type should get what I mean.
I was using The Wild Unknown Tarot deck, written and illustrated by Kim Krans. Her drawing style is somewhat similar to my own. Below are the card descriptions from the book that comes with the Krans deck.
The Hermit
Solitude, Meditation
IX
The idea of being a hermit is not supported in our society, but in the realm of the tarot hermits are highly celebrated and valued creatures. Through meditation, solitude, and stillness they bring wisdom to all. When this card appears it's time to step back from the business of day-to-day life and focus on your inner realm. Become more self-aware. If you're intrigued by meditation, start now. Spend time by yourself. Your inner fire is ready to be lit… it will shine for all to see.
_______________________
Two of wands
determination, direction
With the two of wands it's clear you are on your way to success. You've focused on a goal and have boldly painted all efforts in that direction. Since the suit of wands deals heavily with the mind, take this time to become more aware of your thought patterns, specifically toward yourself. What is the quality and tone of your thoughts? Mostly positive or negative? How well do you treat yourself on the journey to your highest dream?
I never wrote about this at the time, and that seems odd, because I try to write about exactly these kinds of things when they're happening. My inspiration for writing this now is the recent announcement from Red Pill Junkie and Greg Bishop about their upcoming UFO Tarot project. More HERE
There's a nice park across the street from where I'm living, and I walk there almost every evening. Tonight on my way back home I saw this scene (the image above) and I thought, “That has a cool look to it.” I stopped and pulled out my phone and as I took a photo, a set of huge white wings flapped right over me.
A big owl flew from right to left, inches above my head. It landed in a tree in the dark off the edge of the road. I moved closer and got a very faint view of a barred owl. I thought this was a nice sighting, and didn’t think much of it. Then I walked to the middle of the street and took a few more pics, and as I did it flew over me again, this time from left to right. It landed in a tree on the other side of the road, and I approached in the hopes of seeing something. It was too dark, but I sensed it was right there. I walked back, and when I got to the spot where I'd taken the pictures, it flew over me again! It landed on the same branch where I’d seen it in the darkness.
I thought, “If I pass this way one more time, crossing over the spot where I’d taken the photos, it’ll happen a forth time.”
So I turned around and walked back, and it did it again, floating silently just inches above my head.
This big owl flew over me FOUR TIMES!
I had the sense I could walk back and fourth all night and this thing would fly above my head each time. I didn’t, I walked home. But, I gotta say—wow!
I've done a lot of interviews since publishing my first owl book six years ago, and I feel that this is the very best one! I think it had a lot to do with the calm focus that the hosts brought to their show.
Rupert and Nicola were open and eager to explore some of the most elusive aspects of the overall mystery. They shared there own stories, and this allowed for a much deeper conversation. A joy for me, and hopefully you too!
Off World Link hosts Rupert and Nicola _______________________________________
I'm the featured guest on Koncrete, a popular video podcast series. This interview got over four thousand hits in just six hours, and that's a lot compared to most of the interviews I've done.
The host saw the recent article from VICE, and it prompted him to reach out to me.
This was an unusual interview for me. Danny, the host, is quite new to the subject of UFOs and I think my research and experiences might've been a bit too far-out for him. I'm not really interested in speaking about these issues unless I can dive into the deepest waters. In hindsight, I feel like I might've steered the talk to the more challenging aspects of the mystery—I really went for it.
One of the issues with doing video interviews on youtube, is that the comments can be pretty hostile. I am not the usual kind of guest he has on his show, and I feel like I overwhelmed his audience.
Zelia Edgar just posted a book review of The Messengers, and I'm humbled by her kind words.
Zelia's excellent site is Just Another Tinfoil Hat, and I can highly recommend her informative videos of obscure and bizarre cases from paranormal history—linked HERE.
I did a wonderful interview with Zelia last year on The Unseen, linked HERE.
Click on the image above for a HI-Rez view! The new cover art for THE MESSENGERS features a subtle change for ease of differentiation!
In the fall of 2020 I took over the rights for two of my books, and I'm now self-publishing 'em. This was a really important moment for me, and this new responsibility feels right.
I spent a lot of last fall cleaning up the text of The Messengers. The back cover of this book reads: "New edition, revised and updated for 2020." There were some lingering typos, and now they're all scrubbed! I added a few short accounts, and cleared out a few redundant passages. I feel strongly this is now a much better reading experience.
The companion book, Stories from The Messengers, has also been revised, although there were very few typos to clean up.
Both these books are now published under the imprint: Beneath the Stars Press. Just so you know, there isn’t an office tower in Manhattan with multiple floors full of busy editors under that name. I made the it up, and it’s all me. When reviewing the books I was aware at how many accounts involve me sleeping out alone under the stars. Thus the name.
The spine of the new books feature the publisher logo
Here is an excerpt from the final page of the recently revised book:
About the updated 2020 edition
This book was an obsession poured onto the page. Its creation wasn’t a conscious decision, it was more like being pulled downstream. I’d been writing a lot on my blog about owls and UFOs, and those posts were all-consuming. That chapter of my life was a blur of listening to people and trying to document their experiences, as well as my own. I never said, “I will write a book,” it was more that I woke up one morning and said, “Oh, I guess I’m writing a book.”
Once started, I gave myself over completely, and before this book was finished, I knew there would be a second. That companion book, Stories from The Messengers, came out in 2017. After that came Hidden Experience in 2019. These follow-up books were more formal in their creation, and I learned a lot about writing in the process.
In early 2020 I began working with Michael Hacker, the voice artist who read The Messengers as an audiobook. This meant going back through the initial manuscript and finding the points where it addresses “the reader” and changing those to “the listener.” During this review, I’d catch an awkward phrase, clean it up, and keep looking. At some point, I started at the beginning and scrutinized every sentence. When done, I started again with a more determined eye.
I’ve had experiences with owls that’ve played out like dreams, and I’m not alone. I’m now friends with a lot of the people in this book, and their experiences have continued. Some of these new developments are in this second edition, but otherwise it’s essentially the same book that was published in 2015.
The text has been streamlined, some points have been clarified, and a few stories have been told more completely. I feel strongly it’s now a better read.
I am astonished at the power of the experiences told within these pages. It has been an honor to give life to so many amazing stories. I am enormously proud of this book.
