Sean Pryor's UNIDENTIFIED

click on any image for a HI-Rez view

This is a comic of self exploration. It is an attempt to deal with some strange memories as well as the questions that arise out of these experiences. The images and ideas point to something beyond just UFO contact.

I spoke with the artist and author back in February of 2016, his name is Sean Pryor and we share a similar set of life experiences.

  View Sean’s entire hi-rez comic UNIDENTIFIED  

It was the kind of conversation I’ve had many times. We have a lot in common and one thing stood out—we are both cartoonists! I had toyed with the idea of penning a graphic novel back in 2011. I even did some test pages. But that project got lost in the obsessive madness that was to become The Messengers.

Home of the Little People

Also, Shawn’s last name ties into the Pryor Mounains of Southern Montana. This is the traditional home of the little people in the lore of the Crow nation. I spent two nights alone in those mountains, the culmination of a tangled mess of events on a map, and that long story is linked HERE.

Sean told me that my podcast and blog have helped him along his path. There are times I want to give it all up and walk away, but his kind words are the kind of thing that keep me pressing onward.

December 13 2009

Sean has had three UFO sightings, the first when he was eight years old, and the other two when he was in his twenties. The sightings as an adult were seen with other witnesses. These accounts are all dramatized in a 21-page long comic titled UNIDENTIFIED. He did the inks on speckled brown paper, a surface I dearly love.

When we spoke last year, he said he had started an autobiographical comic about his UFO experiences. This is an elusive thing to try to rein in, something I know all to well. He described himself as one of the 'maybe people' I’ve written about. That term was coined to describe myself.

Imagery form a vivid dream

I asked him why he did all the hard work to create this personal journal. 

He replied:

I created it for several reasons. The main reason is to hopefully achieve a better understanding of what I've experienced. The second would be to get it off my chest, considering that these experiences play a huge role in my life. Yet the strangeness inherent in said experiences makes it difficult to talk about. The third would be that hopefully other people who’ve had these types of things happen to them can relate to my story, it's helped me in the past so maybe I can return the favor.

Mythic symbolism in the dream realm

I asked if he planned to try to sell it.

I'm not sure if I would want to sell it. At the moment you can view the whole thing on my blog. I've been drawing autobio-comix off and on for several years and would like to eventually compile them into a book, perhaps my UFO comic will go in there too.

Also of note, Sean worked with the late great Harvey Pekar, drawing for American Splendor.

Single frame from American Splendor
________________________________________________________

Curious orb moves through a photo

short video loop with a curious orb!

Andrea and I took this picture for author Ryan Sprague, he requested that people send him photos with his recently published book. I have it on my Kindle and Andrea has a paper copy.
Andrea, Spazzy (the cat) and myself are all featured in the book we are holding.
A few things about this picture. Ryan has sat on that very couch.

The book features this about Spazzy: "Her eyes were as deep as the night.” This photo shows Spazzy with crazy lit up eyes, unlike what Ryan wrote about her.

Click on imagefor a larger view

But more than anything, there is an orb in this photo, something Andrea and I noticed right away. It is positioned so it partially overlaps my bald head. We posted the image on Facebook and made sure to point out the orb. It’s sort of a blurry and poorly exposed picture, but gee-whiz, there’s an orb in it!

This picture was taken six months ago in January with my new iPhone. I didn’t know it at the time, but each photo comes with a few seconds of video. It was only recently that I saw that the orb was moving in the short video clip. Not sure what to make of this, January in the Adirondacks isn’t a time for little bugs flying around. Could be nothing at all, but there is a lot going on in this image. I am cautious to ring the “paranormal” bell, yet somethings in there!

Addendum as of June 25th 2017

Some comments have pointed out that this is merely lens flare or dust. To that I say: Quite probably! Actually, I am well versed in camera lenses so I feel that lens flare is unlikely, But a dust particle, perhaps. All I can say is that the image itself is "highly charged" — The living room itself is featured in the book! I am at the point where I factor these kinds of things in, yet I am making no grand declarations. 

More about Ryan’s book SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, can be found HERE.

My interview with him HERE.

The opening chapter from Somewhere in the Skies, read by the author.

________________________________________________

Owls as moderators in a debate!

presiding over the debate

A woman named Linda contacted me with a wonderful story. She's an experiencer and she had this to say about owls.

There was a correlation between the owls and some of the contact experiences. For instance, I'd be reading, suddenly think of the ET's and one of the owls would start hooting right over the house. Or I'd feel the ET presence outside, walk out the door and the owls would call to me from another part of the property. These events were so frequent in the beginning of my experiences that I have no doubt as to the synchronicity. It's been proven in my mind, so I'm was a believer in owls as ET's or messengers of the ET's before I ran into your work.

While in college Linda was engaged to a brilliant scientist named Ed. They eventually broke it off and went their separate ways. 30 years later they met up again, and Ed ended up moving in with Linda while looking for an apartment in her area. During this time they would sit together behind her house in a small meadow surrounded by longleaf pines and mature oaks. This was also a spot frequented by owls.

Linda said that Ed was heavily invested in the materialistic sciences. If something wasn't proven with scientific instruments, it didn't exist.

She said of their time in that meadow, “As you might expect there were quite a few very interesting 'discussions' between Ed and I. We were evenly matched in intellect, but I was right and I was well versed and had done my homework, so I was slowly but surely winning this battle. What follows is one day where the owls got the last word in one of our debates.”

Ed and Linda were in the back field arguing about the difference between proof and belief. She said, “It was getting heated as Ed and I could easily be described as intense when we got into this stuff. We were both convinced of our absolute ownership of 'the truth' as fact."

Linda wrote:

Ed and I were arguing about the existence of extraterrestrials. That was the crux of the belief vs proof debate. As an experiencer I of course believe, as a scientist Ed felt there had to be physical proof that had been examined by scientists and released to at least the scientific community.

He said that belief without scientific proof was as invalid as religion. You must be able to spit out the word religion with a significant amount of disdain to get the full import of his intent. For my part, I was frustrated with my ability to describe how once you've experienced the things that I had, belief wasn't something someone told me about or something I believed because another person recounted or duplicated an experiment, it was a reality.

I was becoming exhausted from the effort and after what seemed forever I finally found the words that hit the nail square on the head, I blurted, “Belief doesn't appear out of someone else's proof, Ed.”

I spoke the next line very emphatically, “Experience is belief!”

There was a microsecond of silence after my statement, but only a microsecond. Then a chorus of owls directly over our heads went into simultaneous tumult!

Up until then we had NO idea they were even in the vicinity. Four, maybe all five family members were perched on top of us and in that instant they all shouted together. Now, these great horned owls, and as you probably know, they're very large birds and very loud. We never saw them even though it was broad daylight, as they exploded in obvious agreement and applause to my concluding argument.

I didn't say another word, I didn't have to, choosing instead to let the experience stand on it's own. Adding anything to that stunningly synchronistic goose pimple moment couldn't have served any purpose.

I just looked at Ed and he looked at me. Neither one of us uttered a sound, we got up and left the field, walking silently toward the house. We never spoke of this event or had this discussion again.

That time the Owls got the last word! And with Ed and I that was pretty darn hard to do.

I love this story! It's playful and the punchline is perfect. Owls as the moderators in a debate between an experiencer and a scientist. Right on for those owls!

________________________________________________

minimal editing of Linda's letter for clarity 

UFOs Reframing the Debate, edited by Robbie Graham

An important new book, available now

Available now in paperback on Amazon and Kindle!

“Robbie Graham's UFO anthology reframes the UFO from facile tabloid fare into its real challenge—how to interpret strange experiences offering hints of an Underlying Fundamental Ontology. To tackle such a difficult and at times bewildering task, a deep multidisciplinary dive is required. And that's exactly what you'll find in this thoughtful and stimulating book.”

      —Dean Radin, Ph.D.
      Chief Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
      Author of Supernormal

“Robbie Graham has assembled a set of essays with very subversive insights into the nature of UFO phenomena. If you intend to seriously study UFOs, you must read this book.”

     —George P. Hansen
     Author of The Trickster and the Paranormal

I am immensely proud to be a part of this important work. I wrote a whole chapter and I only mentioned owls once!

THE CONTRIBUTORS: 

   MJ Banias

   Greg Bishop

   Robert Brandsteatter

   Jack Brewer

   Mike Clelland

   Curt Collins

   Joshua Cutchin

   Lorin Cutts

   Susan Demeter-St. Clair

   Smiles Lewis

   Red Pill Junkie

   Chris Rutkowski

   Ryan Sprague

  foreword by Diana Pasulka

   ________________________________________________

MUFON update

One week after Jan Harzan's tepid statement on the MUFON website, John Ventre has been removed as State Director for Pennsylvania. For some context on this post, see HERE.

______________________________________________

follow up information

Facebook posting from author Lon Strickler, from Fri May 26 2017
______________________________________________

Public Statement from Race Hobbs, Program Director of the KGRA Digital Broadcasting Station:

As of 9am CST this morning, with a heavy heart, I have made the decision, after 10 years of service to the organization of MUFON, I have tendered my resignation...

It is my intent to express my appreciation and admiration for the MUFON organization, and for the fine people involved; many of whom I have truly cherished working alongside over the years.

However, it is my feeling that MUFON leadership has shown a lack of proactive engagement regarding a recent incident involving Pennsylvania State Director John Ventre, and his personal views as expressed via social media. Ventre’s sentiments do not, and cannot be allowed to be misconstrued as representative of this organization, due to a fundamental lack of action on part of its leaders.

This is my sole reason for choosing to leave MUFON, and I remain indebted for the experience and opportunities I have been afforded during my period of membership. Race Hobbs

NOTE: MUFON UFO Radio has been removed from the KGRA Roster and they have just been notified.

______________________________________________ 

Public relations nightmare at MUFON

NOTE: several addendums added at the end of this post: 

I need to chime in about this whole MUFON mess. For anyone out there who hasn’t followed the fiasco on social media, here is a brief run down.

On May 14 Lon Strickler, from the website Phantoms and Monsters, posted a screen-grab on Facebook. This is a weird racist rant by senior MUFON member John Ventre. (below) It is my understanding that this is not a stand alone statement, but is part of a long pattern of similar pronouncements by Ventre.

Please read this. Click on image for a HI-rez view

That posting lead to a flood of comments as well as a lot of other postings across the net. My sense is that pretty much everybody within this small pool of folks who take the UFO issue seriously had a similar reaction. There was a lot of anger in what was being posted.

On May 18th, Jan Harzan, the executive director at MUFON, put out an official statement on the MUFON website. It is linked HERE, and should be read. I feel Harzan was apathetic in his response. There were at least 23 comments posted below his statement. Nearly all expressing emotions from disappointment to outright disgust.

Roger Marsh, as the communications director at MUFON, wrote this in the comment thread:

Everyone in and out of MUFON feels the same pain. This is embarrassing. No one is defending Mr. Ventre. His words are appalling.

On May 24, all the comments were deleted and any option to respond was closed.

Here are two blog posts, both should be read. One from Regan Lee at The Orange Orb. The other from Lorin Cutts at High Strangeness. I consider both of these bloggers friends and comrades.

This morning (May 24) Nick Redfern posted this on his Facebook page:

Some of you may have seen all the controversy surrounding MUFON this past week or thereabouts. As a result of all this outrageous crap, I have told MUFON that I will no longer be writing my monthly column for their magazine, and I have severed ties with them. Period.

There is little I can add that hasn’t been said already. Racism and sexism have no place in an organization like MUFON. John Ventre is entitled to his beliefs, but I feel it’s unacceptable in his very public role at that organization. What happens when a black woman sees a UFO in Pennsylvania and calls MUFON for help?

Beyond all the stuff about racist comments within an organization run by old white men, here are my two complaints about MUFON.

One. 
MUFON is collecting sighting reports. and these are investigated by dedicated members. I am assuming that many of these are very good reports. These are then sent to MUFON where they are put in a filing cabinet and locked away. All the information collected for the last 48 years has been vacuumed up into a black hole—never to be seen again. Their data is neither shared or available. I don’t see them making any meaningful contribution to the subject of UFOs.

I feel that MUFON is not living up to its mission statement or stated goals.

Here is the mission statement of MUFON:

"The Scientific Study of UFOs for the Benefit of Humanity"

MUFON's stated Goals:

I. Investigate UFO sightings and collect the data in the MUFON Database for use by researchers worldwide.

II. Promote research on UFOs to discover the true nature of the phenomenon, with an eye towards scientific breakthroughs, and improving life on our planet.

III. Educate the public on the UFO phenomenon and its potential impact on society.

Two.
MUFON has, for the most part, ignored the abduction phenomenon. At best they are tepid. At worse they have dismissed the abduction reports with contempt. This has changed a bit in the last few years, but I see nothing emerging from MUFON to tell me they are dealing with abduction experiences seriously. I know and respect Kathleen Marden. She is noted as “Director of Experiencer Research” on the MUFON website. She is doing excellent work on her own, and I feel strongly that she is trying hard to create something more up-to-date and meaningful within MUFON. (see addendum below)

I had to grit my teeth writing this post. I wanted to say more, but I felt it was important not to feed the fires of emotion. Here is my three word summation of this post: MUFON is irrelevant.

_________________________________________

I have done audio interviews with five of the people mentioned in this article. 

Regan Lee  

Lorin Cutts

Kathleen Marden

Nick Redfern 

Lon Strickler interviews me on the Phantoms and Monsters podcast. 

Also of note:

I spoke with Jan Harzan on the phone shortly after he took on the role of Executive Director at MUFON. I just emailed him and he replied with his number so I called him. We spoke for about a half hour and he seemed happy to talk with me. He confirmed a few things to me in this conversation. Those are listed as points one and two above.


I have also spoken and corresponded with Roger Marsh, and I like him enormously. He is doing important work in his journalistic postings of UFO reports. These are archived on the Open Minds site.

_________________________________________

Addendum below added later the same day as the above post:

I contacted Kathleen Marden shortly after this essay was posted. She clarified her role at MUFON. She heads a 15 member team within that organization. She assures me that the people she is working with "take ET contact/ abduction very seriously and assist up to 100 experiencers a month in finding the help they have requested." I talked with her at length in the autumn of 2014, and she spoke plainly about her goals and challenges within MUFON. Hearing this two and a half years later is heartening. This is precisely the kind of change that I have been hoping to see at MUFON. Kathleen is dedicated to both this very challenging issue, and I am certain she will be sharing her findings. 

_________________________________________

Addendum: Statement from Kathleen Marden from Friday May 26, 2017

The public voiced their disapproval of the racist comments voiced by one of its high profile members and MUFON took action. Jan Harzan, MUFON's Executive Director has announced that "MUFON does not condone racial discrimination in any form and has always provided equal opportunity to all regardless of race, religion, sex, age or national origin and will proudly continue to do so." The offender has been removed from his position of power and will no longer have a public voice as a representative for MUFON. I can now proudly continue in my role as MUFON's Director of Experiencer Research knowing that racism will not be tolerated by MUFON. Congratulations MUFON for making the right decision.

______________________________________ 

Statement from Jan Harzan, Executive Director at MUFON

__________________________________________

Facebook posting from May 26, 2017 

Sadly, it seems that nobody was fired. Just that there was a change in his title. It is my understanding that Mr. Ventre has long been involved with organizing the conferences. Thank you Lon for sharing this.

__________________________________________

Rune Soup and 42 Minutes / recommended interviews

Gordon White of Rune Soup

I was honored to take part in two very good audio interviews, both are now up on line.

Douglas Bolles hosts a Sync Book Podcast

The first was with Gordon White from RUNE SOUP, the other was with Douglas Bolles from 42 MINUTES. These are two of the smartest, most insightful researchers in this field. Both are digging in areas that well below the waterline. Gordon's book Star Ships is amazing. It's a powerful experience to be asked questions that allow me to wrestle with these more challenging avenues of thought.

  Rune Soup and 42 Minutes linked here  

Both interviews are recommended, as are their entire catalog of other podcasts.

__________________________________________________

Below is a comment posted below the Rune Soup podcast. Seems someone is having exactly the experiences that I've been trying to make some sense of.

um freaky timing for this interview because I was hearing an owl hooting this past sunday afternoon and saw a ufo while it was happening. The ufo and hooting both ceased at the same time. I tried to take pictures of the ufo but it was so sunny I could not see if I was focused on it, too much glare. I got nuthin. Then I looked for the owl but never found it. I have not heard or seen an owl in the daytime in 25 years. It was most definitely an owl hooting, it was a sound I was more familiar with as a child where I grew up than where I live now. I learned how to call owls during some nature class as a kid and I used to go out in the woods and call and sometimes one would fly close.I have never felt that owls or ufos are signifying the presence of death so much as the presence of a reality that is not my known reality. I have never experienced owl hooting and a ufo sighting at the same time. It was really weird but I do love weird so it made my day. It just felt like a reminder that the world I am walking around in is not the whole picture.

yippee for this timely interview with Mike Clelland, it feels like my sunday afternoon just had an addendum.

This comment came from someone with whom I'd had some previously correspondence—and she shared the most wonderful owl dream! I even did a post about her funny dream HERE.

__________________________________________________

The visionary paintings of Shawn Thornton

self portrait, Shawn Thorton

All throughout my early adulthood, I struggled from the mental and physical effects of a slow growing tumor in my brain, the symptoms of which were repeatedly misdiagnosed by my doctors as purely psychological in origin, and it ultimately took over half a decade to get a proper diagnosis and treatment to shrink the tumor. I suffered immeasurably during this period from having repeatedly undergone a host of treatments meant to treat the symptoms of mental illness, and paradoxically, from a mental illness that ultimately could not be contained. The tumor was in the very center of my brain, in a small, mysterious organ at the top of the spinal column, the pineal gland. I didn’t have any prior reason to consider the actual material existence of the pineal before this. 

During his time at art school, Shawn Thornton unknowingly developed cancer of the pineal gland. As his condition progressed his art transformed into something awash in mythology and symbolism. His portfolio is astonishing. More HERE, and HERE.

click on image for a HI-Rez view

I suffered from a slow growing cancer in my pineal gland while I attended art school and during subsequent years while my paintings developed with an underlined mythology that alluded directly to the pineal years before I even know of its existence.

click on image for a HI-Rez view

Painting, for me, is largely an attempt to decrypt the mechanisms of illness through a disciplined medium. I feel, on some deep internal level, that through my painting practice I’m engaged in a psychic process to illuminate the intricate vessels and cogs of an insidious physic current that stems, in part, from having had a serious illness, and all the subtle and profound ways I was altered by this experience.

click on image for a HI-Rez view

  ____________________________________________

Robbie Graham is Re-Framing the Debate

exploring the complex issues of UFOs 

Imagine you are at a UFO convention, and you start a conversation with someone. They tell you their ideas and experiences, and it paints a nice clear picture of just what is going on with the big messy UFO mystery. After that, you talk to someone else, and they tell you about thier ideas and experiences, but everything they say is at odds with what the first person said. Yet, they are both very convincing and their analysis is intriguing. The same thing happens with the third conversation, and the forth.

This is how it plays out, everybody has differing ideas. Some opinions are in alignment and others are wildy divergent. It can be maddening, but this is how it is.

This book is a powerful collection of contrasting essays. Each chapter is a different exploration of the same subject. I am proud to be one of the contributors. The book is titled UFOs Re-framing the Debate.

These writers are not form the mainstream of UFO research. They are instead the the outlying thinkers in this field. Some are the young guns, and others are the voices crying in the wilderness.

     Also...  
Robbie Graham has compiled these stories, and also played the role of *my editor. I was grateful for his keen guidance. He ended up nixing a long section of my essay, and it was a good decision. What I wrote was good and I plan on adding that unused segment here on the blog. It is about the discouraging issues of UFO Disclosure.

     And this too... 
Get Robbie's other book too! I want to start up my podcast again just to talk with Robbie about SILVER SCREEN SAUCERS. I love this book!

__________________________________________

The New York Times has a remarkably balanced article on UFOs

Article title from the New York Times with the word "Proves" in it

The New York Times has recently published a remarkably even-keeled article about a recent UFO book. The article is linked HERE.

The book is titled UFO Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America 2001-2015, by Cheryl Costa and Linda Miller Costa. I haven't read the book, but it appears to be a thorough collection of statistical analysis of data collected by MUFON and NUFORC. The stats are broken down by state complete with graphs and year by year charts. What is remarkable is that the "paper of record" is treating this subject so blandly, as if it were a book detailing the annual facts and figures about car accidents.

This book is not any kind of sensationalistic expose, it's is a self published labor of love from two number crunchers.

typical page from the book full of facts and figure 

The article was penned by veteran journalist Ralph Blumenthal (right). A staff reporter for the NYTimes from from 1964 to 2009. He is now a free lance contributor to the paper, as well as the author of six non-fiction books mostly dealing with crime and police work. How this article made it into the pages of such a stoic paper leave me mystified.

Blumenthal is now in his mid-70's and maybe he's achieved the kind of standing at the paper where they'll just print whatever he drops on the editor's desk.

______________________________________________
Text added Wed April 26:

I sent an email to Ralph Blumenthal, the author of the recent UFO article in the NYTimes. Below is my letter to him, and his reply.

I read your recent article about the 'UFO Sightings Desk Reference’ book. It struck me as remarkably even-keeled for a subject that is consistently dismissed by the main stream press. My question: How did that article make it into the pages of the New York Times? I have been researching the subject of UFOs and found your article remarkably refreshing and unbiased. 

Thank you.
with regards,
Mike Clelland
__________________________ 

Thanks, I'm aware of the Times's record on the subject. I was a reporter there for many years and know the editorial mindset so was able to pitch it sensitively. Also I'm writing a book on John Mack. 

Best wishes,
Ralph Blumenthal

__________________________________________
Of note:
Blumenthal penned an excellent article about John Mack in Vanity Fair back in May of 2013—linked HERE. Like the article in the Times, this was also remarkably balanced.

self published cover image

_________________________________________

new podcast series from Ryan Sprague

nice logo!

Ryan Sprague now has his very own podcast series. He is already on - like - five other podcasts, but he shares the mic with other hosts on all those other ones. I think he might find that doin' his own thing will allow for some deeper exploration.

Here's the inaugural episode, with Richard Dolan! (linked HERE)

UFO Hub video - Owls and UFO Contact

interview recorded in April of 2017 in Eureka Springs Arkansas

It was a delight to take part in this video. The director has a vision—and he's produced a series of high quality interviews.

The camera-man asked a few questions but his voice was edited out of the completed video, creating something calm and sparse. This was recorded at the 30th Anniversary of the Ozark Mountain UFO Conference, and I honored to have been a part of this wonderful event.

The chair where the recording happened

I realize that I need to explain my experiences to people who know nothing about me. This means telling the things stories over and over, and anyone familiar with what I've shared will recognize a few of these stories. No sound bites here, I was allowed to talk about my experiences and research without any pressure to make it seem zippy and fast paced. Thank you Adnan!

  more from UFO HUB here  

_______________________________________________________

an owl arrives while reading about owls and UFO contact

books from 1987 and '88

In mid-September of last year I received a very interesting letter from a man in Pennsylvania. He shared exactly the kind of experience that is at the heart of my owl and UFO research.

I don't remember the exact year it was but it was either 1990 or ‘91. I was in my mid 30’s. I had recently purchased Whitley Strieber’s books Communion, and Transformation for an amazing price of $2.00 each at a local Walmart. He wrote had always been interested in UFOs and sci-fi, and was totally terrified when he saw the movie based on Communion. He said, “I never understood the intensity of the fear… and wanted to read these books as a way to handle the terror I felt from the movie.”

There was some tension at home one night, his wife and daughters were bickering about school and clothes. He describes the events that followed.

I retreated to the basement and started looking through the Transformation book. I came to a part were he was talking about seeing owls before an ET encounter. This was the first I had heard about this.

My wife then frantically called me upstairs so I shut the book and went to see what was wrong.

She looked at me and said, “There's an owl on the porch.”

I kind of froze for a second because of what I had just read and slowly went to look out the front door window. I had two snow tires laying on the porch and sitting on top of them was a very large owl. I stared in disbelief as it turned its herd and looked right up at me, spread its wings and flew away. I could not believe what I just saw, its wingspan stretched across the entire porch which is six feet. I felt an increasing terror at the coincidence of just reading about a possible relationship between owls and aliens but I had to push the thought aside and help get the kids settled for bed.

I had a very difficult time getting to sleep that night and when I did I had terrible nightmares about little demon faced creatures crawling around the the bedroom window. They were mumbling something when my alarm went off and that was all I remember about the dream. 

I have never seen any owls so close since and have only told this to a few people. I have hesitated to talk about it because of the coincidence of reading what I did right before seeing the owl.

This is the first time I have written this down. Other than how it effected me it is just an interesting coincidence.

That he was called to see an owl at precisely the moment he was reading about owls and UFO contact is astounding. This should feel normal to me by now, but it doesn't. I am continually amazed at the power in these stories.

He told me in a follow up email that, “I actually never did read the Transformation book. I was too scared at the time... and how I was flipping through it that night when I saw the parts about owls.”

This account prompted me to go back and review Transformation. I bought a Kindle version (at a low price) and searched out the owl segments. I was shocked at how much owl stuff was in that book. What he Whitley wrote back in 1998 is, in many ways, what I have worked so hard to say in my own book. Yet what he has written is poetic, perceptive and right to the point. 

I wrote about this in a post from last Autumn—linked HERE. There are several passages from those two books included in that essay.

________________________________________________

Links for both The Communion Letters and Transformation. Both are required reading and both are available for the very low price of $3.99.

Audio excerpt from Transformation linked  HERE

The What Cast

I've done a lot of audio interviews in the last 16 months since the book was published. I did one recently and it went really well. Their site is HERE. The hosts pushed me deeper into the weirdness than I usually go, and this is alright by me! This is a recommended interview, 1:30 in lenght.

  The What Cast interview HERE  

___________________________________________________

owl and hawk in Phoenix

1.“Something doesn't look right here! 

Wait, there are more than two wings here!!! That looks like a red tail!??”



This was the first image (above) in a series of photos posted by Jujuolui Kuita on her Facebook wall. She's an emergency animal tech, and was called out to a location in suburban Phoenix because of an "injured owl." When she arrived on the scene there was something up in a tree, but it was initially hard to make out what it might be.



2. An owl face in among the wings



Eventually she saw the face of a great horned owl peering out from a tangle of wings. She was unclear of what she was seeing—there was more than just an owl stuck up in that tree. Jujuolui went and got a ladder from the truck.



3. "Just set the ladder, 

suddenly, the red-tailed hawk came falling down!"



The motion of the ladder bumping the tree must have startled the owl enough to free itself from the dead hawk that had been stuck on top of it.



4. The dead hawk now on the ground.




5. Without the weight of the hawk on him, 

the owl was able to get free and fly away—seeking safety in this tree.




6. Jujuolui holding the dead hawk

She was terribly saddened that this big beautiful hawk had died. What made this even more upsetting was that there was another hawk perched high in a nearby tree. This second hawk seemed distressed, and was watching what was happening below. They realized this was probably the female mate to the dead male hawk on the ground.



7.  Female red-tailed way up at the top in a nearby tree, 

with her mate on the ground below her. 




8. Jujuoli labeled this photo: "Sorry for your loss."

Jujuolui contacted Wild at Heart, an Arizona-based raptor rescue center, and they suggested that she leave the body of the hawk under the tree so the female could realize he had died and begin the grieving process. She labeled the photo: "Sorry for your loss."


Jujuolui told me she cried at the base of that tree, "It was really sad. I felt the intense pain of the female hawk."

*     *     *

Something happened in that tree. There had been a battle between an owl and a hawk, but why they fought no one will ever know. Perhaps one bird had had gotten into the other’s territory. Maybe the owl was attempting to take over the nest of the hawk. 

Why were they stuck together? It seems that the weight of the dead hawk had pinned the owl into the branches. Could the fight have left the owl injured? Or, maybe it was left too exhausted to free itself from the hawk it had killed. Perhaps their talons ended up locked together. Whatever the cause, Jujuolui was allowed an interesting and rare glimpse into animal behavior. 

But what is even more fascinating is that Jujuolui is a lifelong experiencer of UFO contact, and a few of these events involved owls. There is a powerful symbolic aspect not only to what happened with the owl and hawk, but that someone with UFO experiences would be “called” to that tree. 

She was well aware of the significance and said so in the comment thread below her own photos. She wrote: “I felt there was some omen to this… I felt like just a spectator,” and, “I think there is much symbolism to this event!”

Jujuolui confronted two raptors, both imbued with ancient lore, one a symbol of the night and the other the day. One represents death, the other the power of life. The owl is an inward totem, representing the secrets of the unseen worlds. The hawk is a bold emblem of strength and courage. The owl was victorious, yet pinned down by the weight of the defeated. And it was a UFO experiencer, someone who has crossed the boundaries between the worlds that freed it from burden of it’s shadow spirit. She used a ladder to free the owl, and in dream symbolism the ladder could mean spiritual ascension or climbing to higher level of self discovery. 

Another thing that struck me was this happened in Phoenix, a city named after the mythic bird, the symbol of death in flames and rebirth from the ashes. When I pointed this out to her she said, “I know, how fascinating! I was told in a 'dream' that I was to move to this city. It was after everything I owned burned up!”

I contacted her and asked some questions, the first being the same I would ask anyone: “What is going on in your life during the lead up to this event?”

She replied that her life at the time had been extremely difficult, she had been feeling hopeless and depressed. I had initially edited these personal details out of the first draft, but she said, “I don't mind you sharing that. It is true and it might give hope to others who are in need of looking inward for strength and guidance.”

Her dog Katrina had died recently, and she was grieving over the loss of her best friend and companion. Jujuolui is extremely empathic, and the animal rescue work can be emotionally challenging. One of the patterns I have seen in this research is that people who have had these contact experiences will often be working with animals. That and a profound sense of empathy. 

The night before the owl and hawk event she had asked for help. Just before going to bed she sought guidance from her star-family (including her dog Katian) on three problems . She said, “My dream that [next] morning was my guides telling me they solved two out of the three problems/issues I have asked help on! I don't know which issues they were! Ha!”

I explained that it felt like something symbolic that might only be understood at the unconscious level of the archetype. She replied, “I knew it meant something and I felt honored to be a part of this event. It was very sad.”

She was clear that what happened was definitely a “pay attention” moment.

Jujuolui has been outspoken her experiences, and is the subject of full chapter in the recent book Meet the Hybrids by Barbara Lamb and Miguel Mendonça. She also published her own book in 2012 We Are Among You Already. 

One of her owl stories was featured on page 211 in my book The Messengers. Like the owl and the hawk account here, this one also features her photograph of a great horned owl. Jujuolui's excerpt is posted HERE.

photo by Jujuolui Kuita

_________________________________________