more synchro-groovyness

I just did a short audio interview with Whitley Strieber about Mac Tonnies and his book THE CRYPTOTERRESTRIALS. It was a very nice chance to praised my friend.

At one point mid-way thru the interview, Whitley included a short audio clip from a radio interview with Mac done shortly before he died.. During the time that the clip was playing, I sat silently with my finger on a very relevant point in Mac's book. It was on page 25, and it is an open challenge to the UFO research community. I was planning to read this short excerpt aloud after the audio clip ended.

But - When Whitley spoke again, he immediately said: "And here is something from Mac's book..."

Where upon he read the EXACT quote that was under my index finger! A delightfully appropriate bit of synchro-groovyness!

Here is the quote:

"Am I a ufologist? I don't know. Maybe. If I am, I should probably qualify the 'U' word with 'theoretical.' There are theoretical physicists and literary theorists; why not theoretical ufologists?

The ufological 'community' suffers from creative anemia. It has a disheartening tendency to refute dissenting voices – even those within its own ranks – with tired screeds that unnecessarily polarize the debate..."

And here is the audio clip used on the interview:

subtle synchro-tid-bit

Yesterday I was driving north out of Salt Lake City on I-15 and I was listening to my iPod. I listened to an audio post I did about Kent Daniel Bentkowski where he speaks about his memories and experiences in Sedona. During the clip he said: "I was very interested in UFOs when I was in my teens in the 1970's"

At that exact moment I looked to the side of the road and saw the mile post, it read 74. That was the year of the missing time event in my home town as a 12 year old.

I recognize that this isn't earth shattering (and can be easily dismissed) but it felt like a little push to pay attention.

comments and essay from a comrade

Lucretia-Heart shared some extremely interesting insights on her blog about what is being told to individuals who claim contact. From her direct experience she clearly lays out a pattern of communication (in tidy numbered points). Click HERE to read her essay. For reasons I don't understand, one of these points felt particularly relevant to me.

4. "When these important times come, you will have a job to do (for us)."

This essay dovetails with a comment she left on the post below, about the recent scary experience in a tent.

She wrote:

"THAT'S the night I totally felt, out of the blue, like I needed to talk to you ... It's not like me, and yet I couldn't stop thinking you and I needed to be talking that night. It would have been midnight? One am? for you I think ... My bizarre need to contact you that particular night is an odd synchronicity for sure. I am not prone to up and calling people late at night ... Yet I felt compelled. Huh..!"

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irrational fear inside our tent

Dream image inside a tent, where I felt myself floating up above my pad with a glowing flat mandala circle off to the side.

I just returned home after spending two beautiful weeks in the four corners area. A close friend, Natascha, flew in from Germany specifically to explore and camp in the canyons and sandstone of this amazing part of the West.

During our trip we had a collection of curious happenings, and this posting is one of the more dramatic experiences. Natascha is here with me as I write this, and she’s been adding details she remembers as we try and make this written work as accurate as we can.

We were on our way north back to Idaho when we noted some issues with the brakes on my car. We went into a small mechanic shop in Cortez Colorado and they pretty much said we would die if we drove on the broken brakes. So, we were stuck down in the four corners area for five more days waiting on parts. We rented a cheap car and made the best of it.

Late in the afternoon of Thursday May 13th, Natascha and I asked the very nice coffee shop girl (wearing a very groovy hippy dress) in Cortez if she knew of any spots to camp near town. She said there was open camping on the BLM land outside of the town of Dolores, just a few miles up the road.

We followed her directions and ended up in a secluded area of tall trees a short ways off the forest service road. We found a secluded spot with an old fire ring and some broken beer bottles. Perfect for our one-night camping needs.

We set up our tent and headed back into the town of Dolores and ate pizza at a cute local brewery. Our table was situated right next to the window and it looked out on the very quiet corner of a VERY tiny town.

During dinner, Natascha was quite emotional. As I write this she explained that she was very much in crisis, she was feeling sad and didn’t quite know where these emotions came from.

After pizza we went back to the camp site and climbed in our small tent. It seems like we quickly went to sleep. This is where things get strange.

I was suddenly jolted awake because Natascha had screamed. It was just a short shriek of fear. My instantaneous response was to bolt upright and scream with an intensity that would be hard to describe. I was screaming in fear, sure enough, but it was also a primal outburst of defense.

I've slept in the mountains for decades, and I've dealt with some scary stuff in the dark. Bears in camp, moose tangled up in my tarp strings, rats crawling across my face - but I have NEVER been frightened in a way that would come close to those moments in that tent.

I switched on my headlamp and held it in my hand. I asked Natascha what happened. I actually had the wherewithal to say, "Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Don't think, just tell me what happened."

She said almost nothing, simply stating, "I saw a face."

Natascha later explained that she felt blocked, like it was simply impossible to tell what she had actually seen. She also tried to articulate that she was perhaps still in a lingering realm where time had a different meaning, and I was firmly in our time reality, and it created a sort of disconnect between us.

While in the tent in the moments after our screaming session, I stammered to Natascha, in a voice on the verge of panic: "Look - if we need to - we can just leave - right now - we can leave the tent set up and just drive to town and get a hotel room - we can do that if we need to..."

I was freaked-out, and it came out in my voice. This is something I would never say in any normal circumstance.

She asked me, "Do you believe in evil ghosts?"

I thought carefully and replied, "No." My response was less out of honesty, and more an attempt to keep the mood from getting any scarier.

At some point I looked at my watch, and it was only 11:40 PM. My reaction was, oh sh*t, it's so early and now we have to worry about scary stuff for the rest of the night!

I had one arm over Natascha as we lay there. We sat in silence for a short time, we must have spoken a little, but I can’t remember anything of what we said. Perhaps we were both silent. I know my heart was pounding, and my thoughts seemed trapped in a kind of horror.

I lay there thinking, "This is f*cking terrifying. This is insane. How could I EVER camp out here? How could I ask for this kind of f*cking sh*t!" My mind was spiraling out of control.

I ended up chanting a repetitive mantra in my head, "Love and Light, Love and Light, Love and Light..." Over and over and over. This is how Anya Briggs ends her emails, and it might seem corny, but I really MEANT it!

At one point I put my arm back in my own sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep. I have to say it seems weird as I write this that I could slip back into sleep after being SO freaking' terrified. It seems impossible that we could both simply doze off again.

Later that same night I had a dream. This was a weirdly vivid dream. It took place inside the same tent, no dreamlike distortion, it was very accurate to the interior of the tent. (see the illustration above) I'll add that this dream was NOT scary in the least, it was curiously void of any emotion - good or bad.

I saw a big round mandala figure up and too my left, situated in a very specific point in the tent. It was a simple circle about the size of a large pizza with a lone dot in it's center. It looked very much like the blurry cataract image in my right eye, and strangely flat unlike a 3D orb. (more on that below).

Then I was floating up off the floor of the tent. The elevator-up sensation of slowly up rising felt strangely familiar (more HERE). I thought to myself, "I need to remember this - I need to remember this - I need to remember this..."

Then the the environment of the tent changed to a backdrop of white light. I thought, "Am I on a table? Am I on a table?" I didn't understand where I was. It was a mysterious realm with a uniform white glow around me. Was I on my back? Was I upright?

The dream abruptly ended when Natascha spoke up and said, "Mike, you are floating!" I don't think she actually said this, but I remember it clearly in that dream state. Her words sort of pulled me back down onto the sleeping pad, and the dream ended.

The next morning we immediately began to talk about the events of the night and more details emerged.

I asked Natascha what she saw that made her scream, and she explained that she saw a face within a circle. I pressed her for more details and she said, "I can’t say, but the only thing that seems to match is that drawing you did, of the face in the circle from your blog." [ link ]

This was very curious, she didn't know about my dream yet, and she described something very similar to the round mandala I saw. The way it looked to me was like the image I see in my right eye.

I asked where the face was positioned, at the time I assumed it was directly over her, centered above her face. She instead pointed up and off to her left, at an area in the wall of the tent - exactly where I saw the glowing circle in my dream. Again, I hadn't shared the events of my dream yet. More weirdness about this mandala shape HERE.

Notes from my small sketchbook, written the morning after the experience in the tent.

What actually might have happened is very difficult to say. I cannot dismiss the irrational fear that overcame both of us. This feeling of terror was entirely different than any emotion I have ever experienced, amplified in a way that seems extraordinary. I must have sensed something beyond a jolt of surprise when Natascha woke me with a short scream.

What is even more bizarre was the extremely vivid nature of my dream, along with the matching details to whatever Natascha witnessed. This is also extremely curious.


NOTE: I modified the swear words so the automatic blog format doesn’t add a extra blocking window when readers try and log on.

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Part TWO to this story inked HERE

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Follow-up posting:
There was an odd mark on my chest that appeared, as far as I can tell, from this experience in the tent. Click HERE for more on this disturbing story.

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Mac Tonnies and friends yukking it up in Wyoming

Additional info added Jan 28, 2012:

I found this image on-line, it was posted by a member of the film-crew from Canada that traveled with Mac in 2009 to produce a documentary for CBC television. I was struck by the orb in the photo, and it immediately reminded me of the floating mandala shape I saw inside the tent. Now, this floating orb in the photo could be nothing more than a speck of dust in front of the camera, but who knows? I am sceptical of these kinds of orb photos, but I suspect that some of them represent a genuine unknown.

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Max Ernst, The Twentieth Century, 1955

Text added Feb 11, 1012:

I found this image on a Secret Sun posting about Max Ernst. The mandala sphere in this painting seems to closely match my memory of the glowing circle in the tent.

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Text added March 13, 2013:
This experience shows up on a curious map with other odd events all lined up in a straight line in southern Utah. (linked HERE)
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Text added March 25, 2013:

In June of 2011 I had the honor to sit in as the guest host for Whitley Strieber's on-line subscribers and inter view Dr. Janet Eizebeth Colli. I had done my own interview with Dr. Colli just a month earlier. During this follow up interview we talked about this event in the tent with Natascha. This all ties back into the yellow line on the map of southern Utah, the tent experience was the Eastern most of the three points on that line (that's it's own bag of worms).

This conversation seems a little bit like a client and a therapist, where I ask for help and she shares her insights.

one-click audio download HERE

Thanks to Whitley for letting me post this 30-minute interview here on my site. His site is Unknown Country.

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Gibbs Williams analyses syncronicities

I stumbled onto a fellow named Gibbs Williams through the SYNCHRONICITY web site, and that connection is certainly appropriate. Gibbs is a Ph.D who has devoted a good part of his life studying meaningful coincidences. He's a practicing psychoanalyst with a deep interest in philosophy. He has roots as a de facto Jungian, and he diverged from that path to more deeply explore the pragmatic significance of synchronicities.

One click download HERE.

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audio download / 2 hours long

NOTE: If the audio link is finicky, try refreshing this page. Or, to download directly to your hard-drive, simply click on the DivShare logo (at the right) and then click on the big ARROW labeled "Download Original"

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This life-long fascination culminated in his book published earlier this month, Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities), with the sub-title: The Evolving Self, the Personal Unconscious, and the Creative Process.

Unlike an academic, but very much like Jung, he interjects his own life and his own deeply personal experiences as a framework within this book.

I was good for me to have a conversation with an academic. I am so wrapped up in my creative side, that this was a chance for me to listen as Gibbs outlined a formalized set of ideas surrounding Synchronicities. His conclusions dovetail with my direct experiences.

Despite the presumed academic framework, this might be the most delightful podcast I've ever done. Really lively and insightful.

To my surprise, I found out that Gibbs has worked closely with Budd Hopkins, sitting in on abdutee sessions in the role of therapist.

We both share our impressions of this pioneer in the realm of abduction research. It was very interesting to get Gibbs' opinion of some of the folks involved in the UFO research community. I was hypnotized by Budd in 2007, and not much surfaced, but I found my time with him intensely valuable.

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An abbreviated Bio
Gibbs A. Williams. Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. His choice of profession is an outgrowth of three major interests - philosophy, depth psychology, and spirituality. He received a B.A. from Columbia University, majoring in philosophy; an M.S. in psychology from Yeshiva University; and a Ph.D. in vocational rehabilitation counseling from New York University. His dissertation topic studied the relationship among male heroin addicts, selected treatment programs, and ego weakness.

His website: Gibbs On-Line

During the discussion we talk about a very interesting paper, ENCOUNTERING ALIEN OTHERNESS by Michael Zimmerman, a philosopher and faculty member at the University of Colorado.

He was interviewed (more formally than this), on the topic of synchronicities on Shrink Wrap Radio (a double pun).
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Note:

I apologize for a slight audio disturbance in the beginning, the sound gets better during the conversation. I encourage you to listen. We both share some curious stories and we ponder the deeper meaning behind these experiences.

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.