Audio conversation with Anya Briggs

Anya Briggs is a channel. She's done a personal reading for me and I can say, with absolute conviction, that she is truly gifted psychic. My one-on-one session was super impressive, she tapped into some stuff that would have been utterly impossible for her to know. Trust me, she's the real-deal.

Plus, she's very funny.

The Metro card (in the photo) is proof of her role as a New Yorker. During our chat, my inner New Yorker reemerges and I talk faster than usual.

I recorded a conversation between Anya and myself, and we managed to get pretty goofy. If you are bold enough to actually listen, be forewarned because this ain't a typical interview. We are both quintessential artist types, and neither of us stay on topic long before we jump to some topic that's even stranger than the already strange stuff we started on. You get to hear both of us laughing - a LOT!

I've managed to do a few audio conversations for this blog, but those have a decidedly different tone. If nothing else, we're lively.

The conversation is broken into two parts.

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part ONE / one-click AUDIO download HERE /

one hour & 20 minutes

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Part ONE is a rambling comedy act where we chew over tons of divergent topics. We cover way too much to even try and list here. Some of it is serious, and some it ain't.

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I need to add that Anya has a set of experiences that are off the charts in their absolute bizarreness. I consider myself very open minded, and - whew - she really pushes me to try and keep up. I know that her psychic abilities are very real, and because of that I really listen as she shares her story. I also need to say that she is very brave for being so totally open with her experiences.

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part TWO / one-click AUDIO download HERE /

57 minutes

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Part TWO was recorded the next day, and you get to hear Anya channel from her pals from the great-beyond. The channeled content is perfectly fascinating.

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Her web-site is called Anya is a Channel.

And for a more professional interview with Anya, click HERE and scroll down to Best American Psychics with Shay, and then scroll down (again) to Dec. 17th.

Want more info? Here's an interview on Thumb-Tack.

Please know: There is actually no kalamata olive hummus dip recipe, that was joke.

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Not your run-of-the-mill psychic intuitive channeler. This photo was (obviously) NOT taken in Sedona Arizona.

audio conversation - STALKING THE TRICKSTER with Christopher O'Brien

I love the term TRICKSTER.

It seems to perfectly describe some of the intangible experiences in my life. I know what it means in my gut, but how would you define it literally?

Christopher O’Brien has written a very intriguing book titled STALKING THE TRICKSTER where he tries to come to terms with this iconic force. The sub-title of the book is Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012.

What is the Trickster? That answer is - well - tricky.

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One-click AUDIO DOWNLOAD HERE

one hour & 23 minutes

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Audio conversation with Chistopher O'Brien.

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We have a really delightful audio conversation where we wrestle with our own personal Trickster experiences, and we try to get a hold of the slippery tail of this elusive concept. We talk about owls, helicopters, cattle mutilations, the internet, leprechauns, little people, synchronicities, Neutrogena Sun-Block and the collective unconscious.

Tricksters have inhabited our culture for millennia and this mysterious force has played pivotal roles throughout history, and they've burrowed deep inside human belief into the core of our mythic culture. But why? What are these forces? What is their agenda?

Chris sums it all up at the end of this hour and 23 minute conversation by saying, “It’s a hall of mirrors with a quicksand floor.”

True enough.

I encourage you to dig deeper at Christopher's web site, called Our-Strange-Plannet.

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listening to wolves

moonlight sparkles

I deeply love sleeping outside under the stars. I just returned from a two week long winter camping trip in the mountains outside Yellowstone in Wyoming.

On one calm night, with an almost full moon, I chose to sleep outside the tent out in the middle of a lovely meadow. I stomped out a flat spot with my skis, to create a bed. It was probably 20 below zero fahrenheit, and I was zipped tight and content in my enormous winter sleeping bag.

I listened to wolves howling all night long, and they were close. It was beautiful.

The next day I skied around the edges of the meadow, and found a lot of wolf tracks. One wolf, or several, I have no idea. Some were just a few dozen yards from where I slept under the big cold deep blue sky.

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email from Mac Tonnies

I searched thru my old email files and I found hundreds of messages from Mac Tonnies. He was a master of the quick note and the insightful reply.

Below is an edited email reply from Mac, from just a little over two years ago. We’d had a long phone conversation the night before. I had been to New York and met with Budd Hopkins and Dave Jaccobs, with the documentary crew, this was the “whirlwind trip” mentioned in the text.

Mac was an amazing guy, and he kept me balanced as I struggled to make sense of my own story. He helped me enormously and the world is a lesser place without him.
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- - - From: Mac Tonnies / Date: November 6, 2007 12:51:36 AM MST - - -

Mike: Good chat session last night, I needed that. Thanks.

Mac: It's always uniquely therapeutic to talk UFOs with someone who knows what he's talking about. Sounds like a whirlwind trip!

There seems to be a desire (from the film crew folks) for me to stand up and declare: "Hello, my name is Mike, and I am a UFO abductee."

But, I can't quite get there.

I kind of sensed that. Great drama, but not your bag -- and rightfully not. You certainly appear to share experiences with some "abductees," but the label is so stifling that it's undeserving of your balanced skepticism, in my opinion.

Is that like an alcoholic saying that he doesn't have a drinking problem? Am I in denial?

I don't think so. You're simply suspending judgment (and in so doing transcending what, ultimately, is a fairly limiting label).

Mac

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Wanna see a nice little video of Mac being charismatic in a coffee shop? Click HERE!

head vs heart

A small painting of myself on brown cardboard. This wide-eyed expression of intensity is typical of all my self-portraits. During the process of drawing myself, I get weirdly focused on my reflection in the mirror.

I had a conversation with a friend from college. He knew I was writing a blog on the topics of UFOs, and he read thru a handful of posts, and he found the content different than he expected.

He said, “It reads like you are on a spiritual journey.”

I replied, “I know, because I am!”
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I feel like I’ve been exploring my oppressive self-doubt throughout the short history of this blog. I’ve been earnestly looking into myself, and it’s been VERY interesting, even if only to me. This on-line format, to me, needs to remain deeply personal. Am I wallowing in the self-reflection of my own inflated ego? Maybe. Probably.

When I started this blog, the first bunch of postings were just nice stories with pleasant synchronicities. I was afraid to share the really weird stuff. The first really hard post was an experience in 1974 that involved a two hour missing time event with an odd orange flash in the sky.

At first I wasn’t brave enough to post it on line, the implications of that story just screamed UFO abduction. It was all written up, just waiting until I could muster up some courage. It took an unbelievable event to get me to take the big dive, and it happened when I received an email from an elementary school friend from named Cindy, and her reappearance in my life was absolutely magical. The timing and the relevance to the events of 1974 were too intense to be just a coincidence.

The logical side of my brain was telling at me NOT to post that story. It screamed at me: What about the implications? You have no proof, and anyway - it’s impossible!

But, my heart was telling me that something miraculous had happened. My heart won out, and I posted that story, and a whole bunch of equally impossible stories unfolded in the following months.

I’ve been able to talk about some of my memories for a long time, maybe ten years or so. But I didn’t truly believe my own story and it’s implications. I could discuss each event in a logical framework of other experiences reported in literature, and I could remain cool and level headed. But after some point, it felt like my personal disclaimer was wearing thin. This denial has created some very real tensions, and something had to snap.

The best advice I've ever gotten as I've descended into this nutty realm of paranormal weirdness was to KEEP AN OPEN MIND. And lemme tell you, my mind has been stretched in the last three years.

I am skeptical and cautious about the the core paranormal subjects that make up the content of this blog. I’m grappling with UFOs, vivid dreams, synchronicities, channeled information, psychic readings and foggy memories. I’ll also add that all these topics have an element of fun to them, and the mystery is so interesting that I get seduced. I know that.

Here's where I get lost. Is it literal truth? Or is it a metaphorical truth? I have no idea. I can’t define what “it” actually is, but I can say, from my gut, that I know that “it” is real.

Personally, literal truth is like trying to look at a locomotive train under a microscope. Metaphorical truth is like the rainwater in a forest. I am an artist. I am NOT a scientist. I'm learning to trust my gut, even if the pragmatic side of my brain is in revolt.

I am dealing with paranormal experiences, and if I try and scrutinize them with the pragmatic side of my brain, I get stuck and distressed. It hampers me, and it makes me miserable.

It has been much more useful to deal with this stuff from my heart. Whenever I do, I benefit enormously. I've learned to trust my heart (or gut).

I can't define or defend my gut feelings on this. All I can say is that the feeling is real, and I can’t ignore it. To dismiss these paranormal experiences makes perfect sense logically. But logic is a tool that can only take you so far, and then you stall out in a place of confusion.

I find my heart simply won't let me dismiss the really strange stuff just because it's really strange. Something is VERY real is happening, and it’s entirely beyond logic.

That said, my logical side is still absolutely perplexed.

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Addendum added Sept 1st 2012: This post was written after the heady month of October 2009. This 31-day stretch was absolutely life altering for me.

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reoccurring dream

a funny cartoon to represent my dream memory

Over the last week I’ve had a reoccurring dream. The imagery is decidedly foggy, so I can’t really share much. I seem to have the same dream every night, and I think it started after the six-hour phone call with Anya a week ago Saturday.

Here’s as much as I remember, I’m lying down on my side, and my brain is being filled with information. I see it visually as little items falling down and entering my head. The image I get is like breakfast cereal being pored from a box with my head being the bowl. The falling items seem like little rectangles.

On the very first night, I even saw a kitchen funnel in my ear as I lie sideways on the pillow so it was easier to pour the items. I recognize that this metaphor is downright silly, and that seems to match my temperament.

What am I being downloaded with? I’m not sure, I woke up last night and I could visualize a tidy list of everything that went into my head. Sadly, as I type this, I can’t remember anything.

During this dream, I am always lying down, and for some reason, I sense that Anya Briggs is there, and she might even be pouring the box of cereal, albeit metaphorically. And we are both wearing tight fitting dark suits, like a scuba diver might wear.

Anya Briggs emailed me this comment (slightly edited):

Ha! ... Ok, that's funny that you thought they looked like cereal or something, because to me, if they were looking like cereal, they look like LIFE cereal ... You know: "Hey Mikey! He likes it!" That cereal? Sure there's no "coincidence" here?

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funny dream

Double click on the illustration for a hi-rez view.

During the summer of 2008 I was at the receiving end of a series of oddly vivid dreams. I call them “reassuring” dreams because in each one I confront certain frightening UFO issues. In these dreams the scary things are presented to me as something simple and non-threatening. I’m not sure what to make of these dreams.

One of these curious “reassuring” dreams had the distinct air of comedy. It happened last summer while I was sleeping in a tent in the mountains of central Wyoming.

Please note, this NEVER happened, it was a dream!

In this dream, I was visiting my older brother in Michigan. We were together in his kitchen and he off-handedly told me that he had something that he thought I would find interesting. Then, he took me to the garage and showed me what he had, it was a flying saucer! It was about the size of a van, up on saw-horses and partially covered with a tarp. It looked like someone had started disassembling the thing because two big sections had been removed from the sides.

I was completely mystified.

My brother calmly explained he done some sort of government work, and knew some guy who ended up with this thing, and he didn’t want it anymore so my brother took it off his hands as a sort of favor. Anyway, it was funny how casual he was about it.

Here’s the weird part. He explained that if I got too close it would distort my perceptions, and - well - alter reality. I didn’t quite get what he meant. So, I approached it and as I got closer there was a distinct warping of my psyche. This eerie feeling would be hard to explain, but it was very defined. The feeling was unmistakably vivid.

And here’s the bizarre part, that warped sensation was familiar, it seemed to exactly match my memory of the events from Maine in 1993, and the dream like fog I experienced.

As I backed away, the feeling subsided, when I got closer it happened again.

My brother was totally cavalier about the whole thing. He said he was used to that weird feeling, no big deal. But he can’t figure out how to get inside the thing, that sensation holds him back. Then he showed me how he attached a camera on the end of a long stick and puts that in the door to see what was inside.

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The way I saw the craft was as a disassembled disc, with the sides removed. This drawing shows how I perceived the assembled craft.


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my cat acts scared

My cat Spazzy, in a typically calm pose.

Last night I was alone in my little cabin sitting on the couch watching a DVD, my cat was sitting next to me, as always. Suddenly I was aware that she was acting really scared. She got into this really scrunched-up defensive pose and her tail poofed up huge. The hair along her back was sticking straight up. I tried to pet her to calm her down, but she didn’t respond at all. I could feel her back was rigid with tension. I leaned over and looked at her face and her eyes were entirely dilated and black.

She wasn’t moving, and she was entirely focused at an empty spot the center of the room just a few yards in front of the couch.

I saw nothing, and I sensed nothing. But my cat's overt display meant something.

I got up and walked around the house, and when I stood in the living room in front of the couch I could see right where she was focused. She stayed frozen in that anxious pose with her dilated eyes fixed on an empty spot right in the center of the room.

Am I paranoid? Should I worry? It went on for like 10 minutes. Eventually, she changed her posture, and she jumped down from the couch and sat under the coffee table, still focusing on that empty spot. At this point I was up and walking around, but she wasn’t following me at my ankles, and that is unusual. I watched as she eased her way closer to the spot in the center of the room and she cautiously sniffed around that spot.

There is a skittish side to my cat, and I’ve never seen her act like this. I've seen her deal with big dogs and loud noises, I know how she reacts to those kinds of stimulus, she’ll run upstairs and hide. After about 20 minutes she was her regular self again, zipping around the house and begging for attention.

I wrote this up because the event seemed decidedly unusual. It came on the heels of a very intense few weeks of heavy self examination culminating in a very real acceptance of my memories and their implications. Maybe this means nothing, and I'm articulating an underlying paranoia that comes with my journey.
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Text added Nov. 5th, 2009

Okay, I didn’t add this to the post above because it was so weird. My cat’s intensity was so acute that I absolutely KNEW something was in the room.

I got up from the couch and stood in the middle of the main room, and sort of stared into the spot that my cat was all focused on and I said (out loud) that I felt strong and confident. I said (firmly) if you have anything to say to me, I respond well when I receive messages in my sleep, so please communicate that way. (that said, nothing happened in my dreams that night)

This speaks to where I'm at these days. It felt absolutely normal to speak firmly and confidently at an empty spot on my living room rug.

I'll add that earlier in the day I had a 90-minute session with Anya, where she played the role of channel for me and my curious needs. She wrote me an email when she heard about my cat and her intense reaction.

Here's what she said:

"I don't want to freak you out, but sometimes, beings open portals to check things out. That is all they come to do. I think that's what happened - actually, hold on - the beings are saying that's exactly what happened. I think I should explain because I am not surprised this happened at all and cats are naturally psychic...

I think there was some high strangeness going on by proxy of some kind of connection to me. Other people I know have reported this sort of thing .... Idaho to NY to them is nothing in terms of distance ... it isn't the first time my 'boys' were checking up on people I associate with to feed the flame of 'knowledge' further along as it were ... No big deal."

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Also: The movie on the DVD was THE HUSTLER (1961). This is an amazing movie, and maybe there is relevance. It's a story about deception, and 1961 is a relevant year in this blog.

And - Jackie Gleason, has an interesting place in UFO history. He was well-known as quite and aficionado on the UFO subject, and late one night (as the story goes) he went with his golfing pal Richard Nixon to an air-force base to view little alien bodies, supposedly from Roswell.

(Mucho thanks to the comments below for inspiring this extra text)

researching myself

This short essay is full of speculations and deep personal examinations. I’m leaving myself wide open for anyone to question my sanity. I'm stating this up front so I don't need to dance around what I wanna say, I'm just gunna say it.
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At a recent UFO conference in California I told fellow attendee that I was doing research. They said, "Oh really? What are you researching?"



I replied, "Well, I guess I'm researching myself."



That was a perfectly honest answer.

How’s this research comin’ along? I’m not sure if I can answer that because I have absolutely no idea what I am interacting with.

I feel like I'm grappling with the big questions right now because the last few weeks have been over-the-top in the power of the synchronicities and intensity of the experiences. I look back over the last few years and it feels like I've been dealing with some sort of an incremental induction. I'm moving, little by little, into a place of utter weirdness. At first I was tickled, and then poked, then slapped in the face - and now I feel like my head has been rung like a gong.

Something has been working hard to get my attention, and at the same time it is being careful not to totally freak me out. Whatever it is, there is something about it that is intensely personal. It is playing out in a way that feels like it's tailored to fit some deep part of my psyche. As I attempt examine it, I am amazed at how precisely the events are unfolding, one after another. Each experience is opening me up, just a little bit more.

The heart-warming story about the grocery store check out girl was like being tickled.

The funny story about the bottle of Neutrogena 45 was like being poked.

The beautiful story of Cindy Gail arriving in my life was like being slapped in the face (it was a nice slap, really).

And all the forceful events of the last few weeks have rung my head like a gong.

I can’t help but be impressed with the steady and systematic escalation of these experiences. Along the way I’ve changed and evolved. I am not the same person I was just a few years ago.

Just so you know, there in no subject that I find more challenging than the trappings of the new age movement. But I have been escorted (or dragged?) to a place where I now consult psychics and channelers (and I am wearing a crystal around my neck, right now). This is something I would have dismissed with contempt just a short while ago. But now I’m here, and quite willingly.

Who knows what the future will bring? I like to think that I’m self-aware enough to drop any of these things if they just feel like they don’t work for me anymore. If this blogging format seems unnecessary, I’ll drop it.

My initial reason for going thru this focused self-examination was because of my foggy UFO memories. In the winter of 2006 I made a very real declaration, I said YES to looking at my experiences. I had an idea of how all this might unfold, but it hasn’t happened that way. It has been much stranger and much more personal that I would have ever imagined. This process, the act of saying YES, has been extremely challenging and the last three years have been really hard.

Why does that little image of a face in my vision seem so important? Nobody can see it except me. If I wasn’t a skilled illustrator, it would be impossible for me to share. But I can draw, so I did draw it, and I shared it with the whole world. And, believe me, I know how strange that is.

I saw a lot of owls from this summer. I really felt that my logical side of my head could dismiss these sightings as just chance. But after the incredibly intense on-line interactions with Stacey and her owl story, that logical thing doesn’t fit anymore. I never would have met Stacey if it hadn’t have been for all those owls, they played an important role. The owls got all intertwined with UFO’s and all culminated in a mind-blowing phone call with a gifted psychic.

These bizarre events can wig me out, true enough, but they also leave me fascinated and intrigued. Something is happening, and I’ll probably never be able to define it.

My head has been cracked open, I am receptive and ready for whatever the universe is gunna offer up next. I might fail, or wig-out. But, I might just gain a new insight that will surprise and impress me.

And maybe I can share what I find.

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Anya is a Channel

Anya in the zone, articulating some universal truths.

Late on Friday night I noticed a new addition to my short list of followers. There was a little avatar that I hadn’t seen before, and the moment I saw her tiny image there was the very real sense that this was somehow deeply important. I’m serious, this was a unmistakable feeling.

So I clicked on it, and got to her blog, titled: Anya is a Channel. It's loaded with a buncha of you-tube videos, most of them just a close up of her face as she speaks to her computer, and then she smiles, and begins channeling. She has a really funny way of speaking for Them (whoever They are) and she'll furrow her brow, and question things and then laugh. It's obvious there is a lotta banter going on in her head, and it's all intertwined with some amusing word-play.

I stayed up late and watched them all, and some of them twice.

Here I’ll add that I went thru a chapter of my life in the 90’s where I immersed myself in channeled information. I have a book shelf loaded with these books. I feel like I have a pretty good foundation into this fringe material.

The next morning I send Anya an email thru her blog, and within minutes she replies with her phone number - and I immediately dial my phone.

We talk for the next SIX HOURS!

Both of us burn thru multiple phone batteries, and then we’d frantically call each other back on another line.

We’ve each adopted New Your as our home town (even though I now live in Idaho) so it felt normal to talk in rapid fire fervor, jumping from subject to subject. We would unashamedly confront the other about the deepest stuff. Niceties weren’t held back, we really went for it!

She would drift in and out of her own voice, lapsing into channeling. The overlapping got confusing at times, and it evolved into a sort of three way conversation between myself, Anya and Them. I tried to stay totally open, like a sponge (or a vacuum?).

When I would share my strange life experiences, Anya would interrupt and interject from her sources. She (or more accurately, They) explained what was going on beyond my perceptions, and a lot of exacting details were imparted that Anya simply couldn’t have known.

As I write this out, I fully recognize that I just got hit with a big "whammy" and my head is still vibrating like a gong. (like a cartoon character that gets hit over the head with a frying pan, and then vibrates for a few extra beats) I know that I'll need to let the tone settle down a little before I can attempt to calmly organize my thoughts and emotions.

And yes, I know full well not to “believe” all this information without some critical thinking. Channeled is suspect, true enough. But, I was completely open. And how can critical thinking and channeling find a happy meeting place? The logical side of my brain screams that it’s impossible. My heart says the opposite.

Okay, it goes on and on and on. I laughed and cried. She egged me on and chided me. Lot's went down, more than I can write here.

Anya channels Them on my present state: “You are doing great. Good student, A plus, well done, they are patting you on the head, good work, they are happy.”

It ends with a sort of summation, from Them about our intense phone call.

Anya explains: “There is a reason this session was so long, we are awakening you. Your DNA is growing, it’s changing, because of this call. You are being transformed, awakened and stimulated to your real purpose. You are a Star Seed, and this is your time to wake up.”

Now, for her version of events, y'gotta visit Anya's Blog, and read this!
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More?

Okay, this morning email Marla Frees about yesterdays wildly intense phone call, and here is an excerpt from her reply:

“Mike ... make a journal of these amazing things, do not JUDGE this process, do not limit yourself to the unfolding of the greatest parts of yourself, you are becoming the Mike you were supposed to be ... God does not give you what you can't handle ... if it is too much for you then you ask, for them to slow down, but I think you have been getting ready for this, and you must surrender to this, RIDE THE WAVE, SURF IT LIKE THE SKIER YOU ARE ... BE BRILLIANT ON THE ICE CRYSTAL OF THE NEW FREQUENCIES YOU NOW DANCE WITH ... AND ALLOW THE LOVE TO POUR FORTH! Good job my friend ... You are doing GREAT.”

This inspiring quote from Marla matches what Anya told me in her summation, some of it word for word.

timeline

Creating this timeline started as just another blog post, a way to help anyone visiting this site to navigate thru the mish-mash of intersecting stories. But, as I was organizing it, I realized it was something much more introspective. It became a way to help me make sense of my deeply personal and confusing issues.

For your benefit, this post is awash in links.

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1962 - The year of my birth. This becomes relevant starting in the fall of ’08 as I meet people my own age with similar histories.

The late 1960’s - This is when I had that emotional reaction to the scary face at the end of the STAR TREK during the credits.

The early 1970’s - I had a LOT of bloody noses during my youth, especially between about the ages of 8 on thru to about 14. I clearly remember one morning, when I was about 11, waking up with my pillow soaked with a ridiculous amount of blood. I thought to my self, how did I sleep through this and not wake up? I remember this was common for me.

illustrated recreation of a 1974 sighting

1974 - I saw a “coffee can” shaped object with my friend Kenny. I don't know the exact date, but I feel pretty certain it was in '74.

Autumn 1974 - The orange flash and missing time event in my neighborhood. This experience is the crux of the overall mystery. There are spider webs connected to this event that seem to connect everywhere.

Mid-70’s - I read FLYING SAUCERS SERIOUS BUSINESS by Frank Edwards, the first “big” book I read from beginning to end (the second was JAWS).

Late-70's - During my teens I feel like I was a typical American kid. I was a big fan of Close Encounters and Star Wars. I also loved the TV show IN SEARCH OF...

1981 - I moved from a suburb in Michigan to New York City. I was 19 years old, and it was a tremendously exciting time in my life.

1986 - I spend a winter in Jackson Hole Wyoming as a ski bum. This will deeply influence my life path. I spend the few years moving back and forth between the Rockies and NYC.

1987 - I see Whitley Strieber’s book COMMUNION. My response was curiosity (and a lot of skepticism). My initial reaction to the face on the cover was “that’s not quite right.” I don't actually read the book until around 1992.

1991 (approx.) - I picked up a trade paperback titled UFO CASEBOOK by Kevin D. Randle. I’ve long since lost this book, but it started me on a compulsive reading frenzy on the subject. Something that continues to this day.

1992 thru 1999 - In December of 1992 I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. I spent the next 7 years on anti-depressant medications. I used these years to do a lot hard work and deep self-examination. The metaphor of death and re-birth is entirely appropriate. I feel I emerged at the other end a much healthier person.

illustration drawn to match my memory

Jan or Feb 1993 - I wake up in the middle of the night to see five figures out my bedroom window. The experience is dreamlike and easily dismissed. I drew a image as an attempt to make sense of the memory, and that unleashed even more questions.

Nov 1993 - I move out West permanently. I settle in a small town in rural Idaho.

March 1994 - I had an unknown ailment that ended with a big hunk of my large intestine getting removed. This was a hard physical set back, followed by a few years of deeply challenging real-deal emotional issues.

Mid to late 90’s - I’m drawn to decidedly new-age topics. As well as the UFO topic, I’m reading about modern physics, religious studies and channeled books.

2002 - I visit a crop circle in the nearby town of Teton Idaho.

2002 thru 2006 - Somewhere in the first few years of this century I get obsessed with doing a documentary on the subject of UFO abductions. When I subscribe to NetFlix I begin watching documentaries on UFO’s and most of ‘em are lousy.

Sept 2006 - I have the multiple owl experience (twice) with Kristy in the Tetons. The owl weirdness begins.

Oct 2006 - I write up the simple proposal for a documentary on UFO abductions, and a local producer says; “Let’s do it”

Winter 2006 / 2007 - I have a very vivid dream that relates to the documentary. Because of the intense metaphoric imagery in this dream, I say yes to truly looking into my memories, and I decide to use my real name.

August 2007 - The production begins on the documentary, and myself and a small team start to shoot video footage.

Nov 2007 - I go to my first UFO conference in Las Vegas. After this I attend more than a few conferences. And then I go to a bunch more, and I find that these venues to be very helpful.

Oct 2007 - I meet with Budd Hopkins, and I share a story that he describes as Confirmation Anxiety. I created a long essay to attempt to describe the confusing emotions.

Feb 2008 - I attend the UFO congress in Laughlin Nevada and meet Natascha.

Spring 2008 - Somewhere in here the documentary seems to stall out. Everyone involved still believes in the project (including me), but there is no longer any momentum.

Oct 2008 - I meed David Biedny at the CULTURE OF CONTACT conference in New Jersey.

Nov 16th 2008 - I take part in a one hour audio interview on THE PARACAST.

Feb 2009 - I attend the Laughlin UFO conference. I am in a place of deep anxiety and soul searching. This is not a peaceful time for me. I meet Miriam Delicado, and she encouraged me to speak out more.

March 3rd 2009 - Upon returning from the Laughlin conference, I start this blog. Initially, the stories that I post are simple coincidences (like this). I was scared to share the stories with UFO implications.

March 13th 2009 - Late at night I was preparing to post my missing time experience from 1974, but I was frightened by the implications of sharing a story that would imply some sort of abduction. At that moment, I received an email from a childhood friend, Cindy. This is relevant to the story, and the synchronistic timing was mind-boggling.

I cannot overstate the intense implications of this event, it pushed me (metaphorically) off the cliff. The adorable image to the left is Cindy in Kindergarten.

~
From this point on,

everything felt decidedly different.
~

March 22nd 2009 - My second appearance on the PARACAST. This was a two hour conversation, where I spoke openly about the difficulties and insecurities surrounding my experiences. This is followed by an on-line sh*t-storm of people calling me delusional, ego-maniacal and fraudulent. (a curious experience, I'll write about it soon)

Winter & early spring 2009 - My life during these months was extremely difficult and emotional. This basically parallels the genesis of this blog. I am not sure why I was so compelled to share so much in this very public forum. My anxiety isn't hidden, it's obvious in a lot of the posts in this turbulent time.

July 29th 2009 - I have a very intense synchronicity where another person associated with the missing time event from 1974 reappears in my life. Again, the timing is simply too exact to dismiss.

my shamanic guru

Summer 2009 - I saw a LOT of owls. The overwhelming volume of owl sightings is extremely strange, it goes way beyond simple coincidence. I get the sense that they are trying to get me to wake up.

Starting in 2009 - I see the numbers 1-2-3-4-5, this shows up as a series of ongoing synchronicities. This ends up getting sort of ridiculous. 

Autumn of 2009 - Synchronicities seem to intensify. I’ve been slowly and constantly shedding my doubts about the reality of my experiences. Some of these heavy-handed coincidences (like this!) are so profound that I can no longer deny that something very real is happening. The month of October was a frenetic descent into synchro-overload!

My pal Mac.

Oct. 20th 2009 - Mac Tonnies dies peacefully in his apartment in Kansas City. The world loses one of it's great thinkers, and I lose a friend I never met.

Halloween 2009 - I have a 6-hour phone call with a woman named Anya, who channeled from her source during the call. This comes on the heels of a very intense month. My level of acceptance is changing. Awakening would be an appropriate way to describe this experience. 

Hyper-vivid dream imagery.

Feb. 5th 2010 - I have a very vivid dream that foreshadows events in Laughlin Nevada. I record the dream and then I see a grapefruit sized blue orb floating in my bedroom. Natascha and I spend 10 days together after not seeing each other for 2 years.

March 2010 - I get another dose of synchro-weirdness when I start putting lines on a map after seeing photos of owls in Missouri.

Illustrated recreation of an extremely vivid memory. The sense of floating was very real.

May 2010 - Myself, along with my friend Natascha, experience something profoundly distressing late at night in a tent. For me, this has been my only experience of profound fear. The events also yielded a curious scratch, and a follow-up sweat-lodge with a Navajo shaman.

June 2011 - There is a post with a photo of a small truangular scar on my forearm. I don't know what it is or where it came from. I remember it clearly as a boy in the mid-70's. This one post has generated a LOT of hits because people are trying to find answers about their own odd scars.

Sept 2011 - I talk with and share stories with the author and researcher Sesh Heri. This exchange was life affirming in a way that I found perfectly delightful.

Feb 2012 - There is an extra label on posts where I share DIRECT EXPERIENCES. These are real-deal incidents that are relevant to the overall "involvement" with this elusive phenomenon. These experiences seem to imply something.

What I saw from my sleeping spot in southern Utah

March 10th, 2013  - I experienced something very strange while sleeping under the stars in southern Utah. This culminated in two posts on the same day. The first is a rather dry report of my memories and impressions (linked HERE). The second post is far stranger, it shows three events all lined up on a map (linked HERE). The urge to create the map came from a very real psychic knowing that I have only occasionally. This knowing is always connected to the reality of UFO events in my life.

March 22nd, 2013 - This post is titled I NOW KNOW and it took me 50 years to write. After the events of March 10th (the date noted above) I just couldn't deny the obvious anymore. I wrote:

I am now unable to cling to that former identity of "not" knowing. I now know. I am directly intertwined with the UFO reality.

I hate the term alien abductee, so I avoided it. But, I'm pretty much saying the same thing.

July 2013 - I've posted a long format essay titled Owls and the UFO Abductee. This is similar in tone (and conclusion) to a previous essay titled: Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee. Both these reports define my research as well as my personal journey. The are archived as PDF documents.

Feb 2014 - I spoke on stage at UFO conference in Arizona. This was a HUGE deal for me, standing on stage and telling about my owl research and personal experiences. The talk was well received by the attendees. Short clip HERE.

I would characterize very few UFO books as beautiful. But this one is. 

      —Richard Dolan

Dec 3rd 2015 - the big book of owls is published. The Messengers is part my owl research and part my own personal experiences.

Feb 17th 2018 - the companion to the first owl book is published. Stories from The Messengers is a collection of 19 stories. Each are examples of the complexities of the owl and UFO experience.

July 2nd 2018 - the audio book of Stories from The Messengers is published. Read by the author—me.

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(I will revise this timeline as needed)
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thoughts on the image in my eye

Part ONE to this story linked HERE 

I posted that story below, about the curious little face in my vision, with a lot of trepidation.

Part of the reason I put it on-line was because I knew that Mac Tonnies would have been delighted by it. Really, he would have added a comment straight away, I know it. He would have said something like: “Wow, that is SO weird!”

And it is.

I totally realize the thing is just a curious image caused by light as it passes thru the small milky cataracts in my right eye. Seeing the face is no different than seeing a teddy bear shape in a cloud. I know this.

I’ve told a lot of my friends about my curious memories, and (pretty much) they have all been supportive and encouraging. Sometimes, they will respond thoughtfully, telling me that maybe everybody has these experiences, and for some reason I actually notice them. Maybe I try and add deeper meaning to them. That has the ring of truth to it, and I take it to heart. This psychological phenomenon even has a name, Pareidolia.

Two nights before I first noticed this weird image in my eye, I did something I do often. I slept out under the stars deep in the backountry of Joshua Tree National Park. I asked the universe for help, and then I went to sleep. I’ve had some powerful results to this kind of request, but I awoke that morning with out any dreams. But less than 24 hours later I saw this image. Am I projecting too much meaning onto something totally normal? Undoubtely.

Also, I had just spent two days at Whitley Strieber’s DREAMLAND conference. William Henry had a really cool presentation (with LOTS of images) about how there are clues in ancient texts and paintings that man can achieve a light-body. He had multiple images of Jesus and Buddha in a rainbow ring, or halo - or a star gate.

And this little face seemed to have that exact same colorful ring around it. Now I’m making an analogy to this little face and Jesus. Am I spiraling into some delusional place of false self importance? I don’t think so, I just thought it was really interesting.

Just so y'know, when I first saw that glimmering little face, out on the grass in a park in Pasadena, my initial reaction was: “Damn! Now I’m gunna have to draw this thing and put it on my stupid blog, and everybody will think I've gone totally nuts!”

Part of me wanted to delete this post, and I almost did, until I received this comment:

"If more people reported their personal observations of the many crazy things I suspect we all experience, I think we'd agree to collectively broaden our limitations on what constitutes sanity. As most choose silence due to fear of judgment, our perceptions of what is normal or even possible from other human beings is censored and distorted."

YES! What she said! If only people as a collective whole could all agree to just stop ignoring "it," --think how much higher up the ladder of consciousness we'd all be.

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Part ONE to this story inked HERE

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Follow up:

As of December 9th I can no longer find the same image in my eyesight. I still have the effect from the cataracts in my right eye, but it doesn't look like a face anymore. It now looks like nothing more than a swirling blur.

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image within my eye

I drew the curious image as a way to try understand what I've seen. I was recently (and repeatedly) confronted with this little face. You can double click on the illustration for a high-rez view.

I am writing this with a real-deal feeling of uneasiness because it’s just so bizarre. Sharing this strange story leaves me open to (justifiable) claims that I’m delusional, paranoid, fantasy prone or just plain lying. As I write this out, I am trying to be as honest and clear as I can be.

First I need to fill you in on my eyes themselves. During the summer of ’08 I noticed some odd things in my sight, later an optometrist diagnosed me with cataracts on my right eye.

Here's a photo of my eye, taken in the doctors office, and you can see the small imperfections centered in my pupil.
Those little tiny dots are cataracts. Presently it's minimal and not much of an issue, sometimes I see a blurry halo around lights at night.

Here's how I saw the distinct image of the little face.

Last week I was laying on my back in a park in Pasadena California. It was a lovely afternoon, the sun was shining and my face was pointed upwards. You know how when you lie out in the sunshine with your eyes closed, there is a warm pink glow in your vision, you can see the light through your eyelids. Right then I was seeing that. Then I squinted, just slightly opening my eyes, because I am always amazed at the psychedelic imagery that appears as the sunshine filters thru my eyelashes. I get this curious "lens flare" and optical "blooms" that play out brilliantly in my relaxed state of concentration. Does this make sense?

Since the cataracts appeared in my right eye, these halo type blooms are slightly distorted, they show up as a doughnut shape, rather than a true circle of light. I’ve noticed this often in the last year. And as I lay out in sunshine in that park I saw, quite clearly, the image of a little face in the center of this optical effect!

I was enthralled, and I could distinctly focus on it. What I saw was much more psychedelic than I the drawing posted above. There was a vivid rainbow of colors all warped in a halo around this perfectly-defined little face.

It seemed a little bit scull like, and at the same time, it had that big-eyed alien look too.

And - strangely - it looked like ME! Bald, with big eyes. The image seemed to have big side burns too! (Okay, this is the part where you can accuse me of being delusional! ) When I do self portraits, I always seem to draw myself with giant wide-eyes. So, in a strange way, this seemed like a weirdly personal caricature.

Everything below the head was a distorted set of swirls, but to me, it looked like the tiny figure was seated in the lotus position.

Yes, I recognize how crazy this seems, and just so you know I am the type of person to see vibrant impressions of faces in clouds. I have a wood grain ceiling above my bed, and I can pick out lions, bunnies and human figures in the abstract lines. I realize I am projecting all kinds of drama into this, but this face REALLY looks like a face.

A few days later, I purposely lay myself down in Moab Utah and looked up into the sun, and it was there again, clear as can be.

Yesterday, to draw this image, I lay on my floor in my living room with a clipboard and a pencil. I faced into the sun as it shone thru a window with the same squinted eyes, and again, I saw the vivid little face. Actually drawing this image was a funny thing to attempt. I would get the image in my field of view, and then sit up and frantically draw it out, then I would lay down again, fix the image in my eye and repeat the process. I drew it with a pencil, and then later used my computer to add the color. It was difficult to render, like trying to capture the sparkling refractions in a Coke bottle back lit by a bright light.

Here’s the original pencil drawing.

Each time I’ve looked for it, the imagery has been very clear. To see it, I need to close my left eye completely. I don't need to focus on anything, it seems to be in focus all by itself. I just need to hold my head steady, and keep my gaze still. It's nothing fleeting - it's in there!

My color drawing is as exact as I feel I can be as I attempt to capture it. The real image (that only I can see) is much more psychedelic. The colorful swirling effect is due to some subtle prism refraction. It is not the result of a meditative vision, it's REALLY in there!

When I look at my drawing I see the face as a scull (or an alien, or even a demon), the drawing is decidedly darker than what I see when I look into the sun. The face I see within my own eye seems (to me) to be profoundly neutral. The drawing is, to me, quite accurate. I can’t show anyone what I am truly seeing, so this colorful sketch will have to suffice.

Believe me, I completely recognize that I am projecting big time with this. I mean, a tiny flaw on the lens of my eye creates a curious little face - and I write a 900 word essay on it? On some level, this is downright paranoid. I don't wanna go so far as to call it a mystical experience, but it is interesting, at least to me.

Also, I can’t help but think how I’m playing the role of the fool in all this. Believe me, I know it ain’t wise to look into the sun.

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As of December 9th 2009, I can no longer find the same image in my eyesight. I still have the effect from the cataracts in my right eye, but it doesn't look like a face anymore. It now looks like a swirling blur.

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Part TWO to this story linked HERE

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Even more, sacred geometry linked HERE
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