animation script for documentary

I worked for over a decade as a story-board artist in New York. These drawings below are part of a short script for a proposed animated segment in the documentary. I was eager to quickly get some complex ideas across to the audience.

I found these drawings and the script while digging thru some old files. This stuff was written (and drawn) in Sept of 2008, and I had forgotten about it completely.

The entire 6-page script is posted below.

I have to admit, I like these three frames. Despite the overt goofy quality, they accurately define (at least to me) the messy quandary of this phenomenon. I'm proud that I got Jesus and Horus (and Tinkerbell) all in one cartoon image!

The script was written in a caffeine induced flurry. I "borrowed" heavily from a list created by Brad Steiger. There is also a point in the text where I ask Mac Tonnies to chime in. We were emailing during the writing process, and he is a much better writer than I am, and I was bugging him to help.

In the three frames above, I added some handwritten text (that may or may not be in the script) and it's curious to note I used the word trickster twice.

These frames don't really match the script all that well. Guess I was more interested in concept ideas. That said, I think the drawings are funny!

An image of a hand written flow chart. The visuals start tidy and organized. Using simple flash animation, boxes with lines flow from this starting point.

The voice over dialog continues, and more and more boxes get added to the chart. The narrative speeds up and so do the visuals.

The camera continues to pull back to contain a more and more crowded frame. Little cartoon images appear in the chart, and more boxes as the dialog quickens.

This segment ends with a frame so crowded that it's impossible to comprehend. The boxes and lines are purposely insane.

Animation Script

first-person blog sharing experiences

I've stumbled on a really interesting blog titled Abducted by Aliens authored by a fellow named Chuck Weiss.

Here's a passage:

"A friend of mine told me recently that I have all the essentials to make a good blogger. I have a subject I’m passionate about, the UFO/Abduction Phenomenon. I write well, and I like to do it. I’m excited about this new direction in my life for a couple of reasons. First, I need to write. It helps me to focus and move forward ... Writing for me is medicine. It helps to relieve the aches and pains of being an Experiencer."

Chuck wrote a book detailing his personal experiences, and he is publishing it on-line. And this blog is a daily excerpt of the complete text of this book. I find it fascinating.

In the last year I have become utterly fascinated by individuals who claim contact with non-human entities, and then sharing their story on-line. There is a whole slew of these first-person blogs (and web sites) emerging on the internet. This new form of communication is a sort of democracy of individual expression, and I find it utterly amazing.

I've been keeping a list of these intriguing (that's getting longer and longer), and I'm deeply committed to finding more. At some point in the future I'll share this list. If anyone out there knows of a personal blog or website dealing with firsthand abduction/contact/experiences, please (PLEASE) send me a note in the comments below.

The Paracast ponders the ETH

On Sunday evening April 25th, I'll be a guest on The Paracast. I'll be part of small team discussing the far-reaching ideas of Mac Tonnies and the mysteries and complexities raised in his book, The Cryptoterrestrials.

The line up includes Gene Steinberg, his co-host Christopher O’Brien, Walter Bosley, T. Allen Greenfield, William Michael Mott and myself. It's a two hour conversation where we explore the mystery of Earth-based UFOs and the frontiers of our reality, as expressed by the late Mac Tonnies. My role was small, but it felt wonderful to be part of a diolog where perplexing ideas are batted around by open-minded researchers.

Click HERE for a link to the show.

Iceland volcano with lightning

There are a series of extremely psychedelic photos of the volcano in Iceland. Seems that the ash cloud creates a perfect environment for lightning, and thus, cool pictures.

Link to more amazing images HERE.

animal spirit communication with Diana

A very cute Pine Marten makes an apearence in this diolog

Very rarely in my life will I succumb to a complete full body tingle. I've gone years and not experienced this weirdly blissful feeling. During the Skype conversation with Diana, I was awash in the hauntingly beautiful sensation. I'm not sure what it means, but I wallowed in the feeling.

She has a very interesting website with a message forum where she does these readings.
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audio download / 1 hour 41 minutes long

I first heard her voice when she was interviewed on DREAMLAND by Anne Strieber. As soon as I heard her voice, I realized that I simply had to talk with her. Maybe it was a little bit selfish, but I wanted to know if owls would be part of her form of animal spirit readings.

Diana gave me a spirit animal reading from her homemade deck of cards. This is the center piece of the audio conversation.

Owls don't show up (much) but weasels do! The Pine Marten and Badger play an interesting role in this audio interview!

Plus, bumble bees, frogs, lady bugs, goose, coral (really), two dragons and a raven!

Also of note, this was my 100th posting.

mysterious star map?

Any astronomers out there recognize something familiar in this pattern of splattered coffee?

(Please don't read too much into this little story)

During the middle of March I was swallowed up in the obsessive throws of map weirdness. At one point I was on a skype call with my pal Natascha, and my cat walked across my desk and she ended up spilling a full cup of coffee and it splashed all over everything, including some pencil notes on that map.

As I cleaned up the inky mess, I saw that the coffee had splattered quite an compelling array of speckles on the paper with the notes. There was something captivating about the new image. My first reaction was: "Wow, is this looks like a constellation, is this a star map?"

I spent a little bit of time with H.A. Ray's beautiful book STARS (a book I dearly love) trying to find some correlation to the polka-dots of coffee on that paper. I put the book away, and then I kind of stated (quite loudly) in my own head: THE PLEIADES! There was a feeling of absolute KNOWING that accompanied that though. A feeling I was quick to doubt.

After a while, I realized that this was a little bit fanatical, even for me.

Please know, I am probably gunna take this post down at some point. I think it's funny, and there are a few readers who might think so too. 

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Also - To write this post, I made good use of the thesaurus to find synonyms for the word compulsive. No foolin' - that map got really intense.

The top image is exactly the coffee splatter made into a B&W star map. The image below is the Pleiades. I revised the images and featured only the six brightest stars or splat marks.

Diana the animal psychic from the recent audio interview chimed in via email, she said:

"...When I first looked at them I got 'Dipper.' Then immediately I got, 'No. That's not right.' Then I got 'Pleiades.' What is interesting is that it doesn't look exactly like the Pleiades, but my Guide said that. Have no idea why. I did look up a picture of the Pleiades and they are similar."

Diana went on to tell me that my cat was rather exasperated that I don't trust her and the dots she made with the spilled coffee. She said my cat was thinking: "Oh c'mon, I did a really good job, it's close enough!"

In the lore of the love and light contactees, the Pleiades is home to the beautiful blond angel like beings that radiate benevolence. I'm not sure what I'm implying, but...

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Here is an accurate star map of Cassiopeia for comparison. Some comments below noted the similarity.
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astounding owl video

More incredible owl imagery!

There was video footage that same day in the outskirts of Greenfield Missouri. I've been in contact with the two folks (Tony & Faren) involved with the photographs and video. (location here)

Tony wrote: "I have spoken to several people with of wildlife knowledge, including one conservation agent. He said he had never seen more than 3 or 4 owls in one spot. This video doesn't do the sighting justice. There was probably more than 200 in the area."

You simply MUST watch the Hi-Definition clips on YouTube:

Hi-Definition version and another clip and one more!

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Please keep in mind, the location of this incredible owl sighting is also a point on a map. A place that lines up with Kansas City and Byron North Dakota, whatever that means. As best as I can figure, this owl video was filmed 123 miles from Mac's apartment. Yes, 123.

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comrades in blogging

I found another comrade in blogging. His name is Dan, his site is only 10 days old and I recommend it highly.

LUMINOSITY

a journal of high strangeness

We met on-line last night, I think he commented on my blog, but I'm not sure. Right now, this is sort of a blur for me. He was a follower of Mac Tonnies' blog, and he found my site thru Mac.

He is sharing his paranormal experiences in a first hand format, and the stories are downright soul-stirring. He writes clearly and without excessive flourish. His text is beautiful, insightful and haunting. There is a reoccurring figure shows up in his postings, and he calls it The Harlequin.

Here is an (edited) excerpt from a posting on March 23rd:

But what does any of this really mean? ... The very fact of the matter is that all of this high strangeness no longer has an ephemeral quality to it. ... Whereas we used to view UFOs, Aliens, and Ghosts as mere modern folklore with occasional manifestations, we are now forced (at least I am) to view these manifestations as a reality that has insinuated itself into the physical world. A reality that will not go away. The solidification of this high-strangeness only reveals how far we are along the path to dissolution. What form this dissolution may take is presently outside of my knowing.

The Harlequin is no ghost. It is no alien from another planet, nor curious earth spirit. Having observed it for nearly thirty years of my life, and communicating with it from childhood, I know full well that it is something far more profound. ... This is no mere phantasm, this is a being that can cloak itself at will and manifest itself at will. It can terrify you with a simple look and let you know in the most subtle ways that it is all around you watching like an owl in the dead of night. Because of this ambiguity I am unsure to its ultimate purpose. This appears to be the way it wants that to be, or it may be that my own fear of the phenomenon has blinded me to its purpose.

We are living in strange days. ... With what I have been hearing lately, it seems that the appearance of these things is happening more and more often. My firm belief is that this is occurring is because human belief in them has grown more over the years. The UFO and other phenomenon seem to have been a tool they used to establish themselves in the collective consciousness of humanity. The more we acknowledge their reality and their place in the world, the more they are able to establish themselves. The harlequin came to me as a child, and because I remembered it and entertained its presence, it has never left because my memories of childhood have been retained to a very strange degree. I fear it greatly because of its ambiguity and the mystique it has cultivated in my life over the years. They have come through the walls of reality, and now there is no turning back...

Well said!

birthday numbers

Mike Clelland and Alex Clelland

My Dad and I share the same birthday, August 22nd.

Last year, I took him to his doctor for a check up, and I watched him fill out a form in the waiting room, he wrote slowly in strong capital letters. I was surprised when he filled in his date of birth. I couldn't help comparing it to mine, I had never noticed the tidy resemblance until right then, it was all the same numbers with the last two digits switched.

Dad's: 8 / 22 / 1926

Mine: 8 / 22 / 1962

Also, in 2011 we had another curious number synch with our birthdays. It was a reversal of our ages. This was our ages (below) when we finally noticed the similarity of the birthday numbers.

Dad was 84

I was 48

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Update on the yellow line on the map

I just received a short note from the Missouri photographer who took those amazing owl photographs.

He wrote: "Yes, it was amazing. I have seen many things in my life but the owls were one of the most wonderful... There would have been more pictures, but I didn't realize what I was looking at until I had passed many of them."

He sent me a map where he penciled in the exact location of the owl sighting, approximately four miles North of the very small town of Lockwood Missouri. I could see the farmer's fence on google maps satalite imagery. It was about two miles west of where I had guessed (using the info provided on the site where I first saw his owl photos). So, this changes a few details on the map, and some of the razor sharp exactness on an earlier posting.

When I create a line from the exact site of the owls (the blue marker) directly to Byron North Dakota, the yellow line doesn't run right thru Mac's apartment (the yellow marker) in Kansas City anymore. Instead, it is now a little less than two miles to the west. It's still pretty close, but not as precise as the previous image.

Where oh where was the Starbucks where Mac worked?

The owls were seen near an area noted as "Grays Valley" on the map. These were not Great Gray owls, but were Short Eared Owls. (they were not gray aliens either!)

Alas, none of this will make sense unless you read the postings below.

The 2012 meme

I thought this photo was so funny!

From Mac Tonnies' blog, one year ago today:

I took this low-quality cameraphone picture in a Barnes & Noble. Personally, I'm grateful for the 2012 phenomenon: it's helped focus much-needed attention on issues pertaining to the near-future and our role as planetary stewards.

I'm ultimately agnostic regarding whether anything remotely "weird" occurs on December 21, 2012. My guess is that the fervently New Age crowd is in for a disappointment (which will, of course, be duly incorporated into its existing belief structure for fear of fracturing the entire edifice).

But if thinking about the future by way of the 2012 meme catalyzes interest in making the future a place where we might actually want to live, I'm all for it. And perhaps the ancient Mayans would have agreed.

(Mac sent me this image in an email, a year ago today. It was actually posted on his blog on March 26th)

Byron North Dakota & Anya Briggs

A funny red marker in a farmers field defines Byron North Dakota.

The previous post was long and wordy and I tried to be as clear as possible, but this whole thing is very complicated. I tried to write about a channeled session with Anya Briggs and it's implications. The psychic reading was recorded, and I used that MP3 to create an audio excerpt (with some extra comments) as a way to help define this curious spot on the map. Byron North Dakota seems to be a pivotal place in this conundrum.

When Anya (or, more correctly, her guides) told me to visit Byron North Dakota back in early November, during our session, the whole thing seemed exciting, but also utterly strange. In the last few months, it's importance was sort of fading away. Well, this line on the map pushed it right back into the forefront of something to pursue! More weirdness.

If you listen to the audio, the very first thing Anya says about that whole thing comes out of nowhere, she changes subjects, and asks: "Is there a BRYON Wyoming or North Dakota?"

Somehow, when I searched I found the little marker under a different spelling. Mixing up BRYON to BYRON is normal for me.

Anya later replies in an email: 

"Well, spelling and hearing gets messed up in the translation sometimes . . . Odds are I heard the name wrong . . . Replace the Y with the R from BRYON to BYRON and its the same spot. I was telling you 'in North Dakota', so that's probably the same place they were referring to. You know this happens in channeling, it's not an exact science! ..."

During the last few years, I've definitely experienced the feeling of being freaked out, and sometimes I wallow unnecessarily in the drama of that feeling. Presently - I'm simply perplexed and curious.

audio download / 19 minutes long

Follow up 3 minutes after posting the audio:

Okay, more weirdness, I just finished editing the audio post. Please note, the red dot on the map is BYRON, and Anya was adamant that name was BRYON. Two letters are reversed, I messed up at some point (maybe). As I type this, I'm sorta confused, it's normal for me to mix-up letters in a word. BYRON is in line with the owls and Kansas City.

And there is nothing called BRYON North Dakota. But, there is a town in Wyoming called BYRON.

An hour after posting the follow up above:

Okay, even more weirdness. A straight line (690 miles long) passes directly through BYRON ND and BYRON WY goes straight though my house in Idaho, and I mean EXACTLY!

The blue line runs right through the Shoshone River, less than 800 feet from the Main Street of BRYON Wyoming. I find it curious that the line follows the river, especially after Anya is so adamant about dousing.

This pink push pin marks my cute little cabin in rural Idaho. The blue line ends right at my home after passing (in a straight line) from both BYRON's.

My gut reaction to that razor sharp blue line was that it was somehow pointing directly at me! It sorta felt like the floor dropped out from under where I sat. This little detail is (from my perspective) extraordinarily weird.

NOTE: This satellite photo (above) was super blurry, and I cleaned it up a little bit using photoshop, just so it was easier to visualize the square shape of my cabin.

Pink Pin: My cute house in Idaho

Green Pin: Byron Wyoming

Red Pin: Byron North Dakota

Yellow Pin: Kansas City Missouri

Blue Pin: The site where the guy saw over 200 owls!

Yellow Line: 835 miles longBlue Line: 690 miles long

White Line: 995 miles long

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Extra text, added March 13th

Kansas City is a big place, so I typed in Mac's address into Google Maps, and it happened again. The Yellow marker in this map and it lines up right he lived.

This Yellow line runs from Byron ND to the owl sightings 123 miles south-east, and it bisects Mac's apartment. I am absolutely thunderstruck by the exacting accuracy of these lines.

This line is dependant on the location of the owl photos. At present, I don't know precisely where (but I'm workin' on it!).

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Text Added March 22nd 2010:

As of yesterday, this posting has more comments than any other article on this blog. And, the comments are relevant and insightful. Thanks!

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Text Added April 18th 2010:

The word Byron and Bryon get mixed up somewhere. I have my paper notes from that session (and I may scan and add them here) ant they clearly read BYRON. So, she said Bryon, and I wrote down Byron. I typed BYRON into google as a way to search out what it might mean, so it was me that made the curious switch-a-roo with the two letters. What this means, I have no idea.

a line on a map

That little red push pin is marking Byron North Dakota, whatever that means. Follow that yellow line 820 miles and it ends at the mysterious owl location in central Missouri, bisecting Mac's apartment along the way. The blue line is even stranger.

Sometimes I worry that I’ve gone completely insane, and this posting is an example of the out-and-out weirdness that leaves me utterly perplexed. Perhaps the easiest conclusion is that I’m just plain nuts. (maybe) That said, this little story is very interesting, at least to me. There is a yellow line in these map images, and it's either magic or folly.

First, I need share some information that came from Anya Briggs during a channeled session in early November 2009. At one point in the session she asked, “Do you know of a place called Byron, it’s somewhere near you?” I said I’m not sure.

She went through some rather comical attempts to make sense of what her guides were trying to tell her. Eventually she narrowed it down to Byron North Dakota. Right then, during our session, I googled Byron North Dakota, and pretty much ONLY one thing came up, a funny map with a marker in the middle of some farmer's field, right near the Canadian border.

Anya went on to tell me that: “Byron North Dakota will be very good to you, you will see us there.” And by us, she meant her guides, and by her guides, I suspect she meant alien beings in robes from another planet (or another dimension).

We both thought it was really funny. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it, but it was interesting. I suspect I'll make a pilgrimage there soon enough.

(I've added an audio excerpt from that channeled session, it's helpful in fully understanding this story, and it's funny. See the following post)

Now, let’s jump ahead to yesterday. I got a package in the mail from Anomalist books, it contained a few copies of Mac Tonnies posthumous book The Cryptoterrestrials. It prompted me to write a post (below) in praise of this amazing addition to the UFO literature.

Photo by Faren Fite, one (two actually) of over 200 owls he saw in rural Missouri.

And yesterday I also received a link to a series of super cool owl photographs, and I wrote a post about that too (also below).

It seemed curious that the two posts below, both come from Missouri. Mac Tonnies lived in Kansas City, and those beautiful owl pictures were taken somewhere between Greenfield and Lockwood Missouri. At first I was curious if they were two locations were close, so I checked google maps and put little YELLOW push pin marker on Kansas City and another marker (a blue pin) on the road between Greenfield and Lockwood. I checked and the two push pins were 123 miles apart, and whenever I see the numbers 123, I take a special notice.

(NOTE: On March 26th I received a letter from the owl photographer. See THIS post for more info)

The yellow line passes between Lockwood and Greenfield along US-Highway 160. This is the approximate location of those amazing owl photos.

Now, this is where things get weird. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I just widened out the image on google maps and found Byron North Dakota, I used the map program and put a push pin in there too, a RED one.

Low tech tools incorporated in the detective work.

Then, without really thinking about it, I took a plastic ruler and set it against my computer monitor, and the three push pins line up EXACTLY in a straight line. I gotta say, this partially freaked me out, and at the same time, I sorta knew they were gunna line up before I even started.

A weird line, connecting the three dots across a BIG section of the US map. Byron in RED, Kansas City in YELLOW and those owls in BLUE.

I used some of the google-map tools to create a straight line on the map. It was funny process and hard to figure out. Alas, the line doesn’t quite precisely hit Byron, and I don’t really know the exact location of those owls. But I gotta say, it’s pretty feakin’ close!

There are 820 miles between the red push pin up North in Byron and blue push pin down in Greenfield Missouri, on the road where the owl pictures were taken, with that straight yellow line plainly bisecting Kansas City.

The hometown of my pal Mac, and the yellow line passes right through the city.

Three little dots on a map, all seemingly random, and I felt weirdly compelled to hold a ruler to my computer screen to figure it out. Again, don’t ask me why. I even set a protractor on my screen, and the line comes in at 17 degrees in relation to the latitude (and I knew that before hand too).

Owls, Mac Tonnies and message from Anya Briggs, all along one very straight line.

This whole thing is super weird, even by my standards. And during the time I was laboring over those maps, and trying to figure out how to position that line on the image, I get an email from Whitley Strieber. He writes: “Mike. we would love to interview you about him [Mac Tonnies] and your relationship.” What? I sure didn't expect that.

Earlier in the morning, I sent an email to Whitley telling him I thought he should read Mac’s book, and I could easily mail him a copy, but I didn’t really think I would get a reply, especially that reply. I’ll add I am not sure how serious he is, but if it happens, I would be deeply honored to praise Mac in an interview.

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The spark of the idea to lay that plastic ruler against my computer screen came from Stace Tussel. I was directly inspired by her straight line on a map of Kansas. Please watch this very curious video.

Mac Tonnies' book is on the shelves

Mac Tonnies' book, The Cryptoterrestrials is now available. I got to read an advanced copy, and I feel strongly saying that this is a very important addition to the literatrure on the UFO phenomenon. The world is a lesser place without Mac's brilliant mind and gentle voice.

Forward by Nick Redfern, afterword by Greg Bishop and illustrations by me.

From Anomalist books.

And please, I encourage everybody to dig thru Mac's blog. It is still on-line, and it's astoundingly fun. The image above is a masthead idea for Mac's blog. I wanted to use hand lettering, and Mac seemed to like the simple idea. It was a work in progress, and I never followed up on this as a drawing.

lotsa owls in Missouri

14 owls in one photo

28 owls (doubled from above) in one photo

Amazing owl photos from a man named Faren Fite. H claims to have seen around 200 owls in one small area between Greenfield and Lockwood Missouri. And on one corral fence there were more than thirty in a group, and he took photos!

You simply MUST click on these images for a HI-rez view of these Short-Eared owls, they are SO cool!

On September 21st 2009 (the autumn equinox) I asked if anyone out there has seen adult owls in groups of three (or five)? Well this was a sort of answer, along with Stacey's multiple owl story.

I got the link to these owl photos forwarded to me from a guy named Jim, and he was the guy who posted an very curious owl story on the SYNCHRONICITY site, and he's also from Idaho.

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Text added March 26th 2010

I received a letter from the photographer giving me the exact location of the owls in those photos. This helps define some weird lines on a map (see the posts above).