owls and UFOs

David Weatherly has just posted a perfect owl and UFO report at his blog (linked HERE). I say perfect because it captures the elusive sense that owls are somehow attracted to the overall UFO experience. For reasons I can only guess at, there is a very curious overlapping of synchronicity, UFOs and owls.

David's post is recommended reading.

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Does anyone have any curious owl stories?

I would love to hear any experiences with owls from anyone reading this. I am working on a long article, soon to be a chapter in a book. I have received a surprisingly rich collection of personal reports from people, but I am still eager to learn more. There is something odd about the overlap of the UFO phenomenon and owls.

please send 'em here:

hiddenexperience @ me.com

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hyper-vivid distorted consciousness

Hyper-vivid memory from 1993

In January or February of 1993 I awoke from a sound sleep and looked out my bedroom window to see five spindly gray aliens walking towards my house. This sighting lasted, maybe, less than 20 seconds.

This happened over twenty years ago. Since then I’ve written about this, drawn pictures and wrestled with the implications. I did a long post where I tried to honestly express the strangeness this memory. At the core of this experience was a very real change in normal perceptions, a kind of distorted consciousness. I try to describe this odd feeling in detail when I initially wrote about the overall experience (linked HERE).

It felt dreamlike, but it was different than any other dream I’ve ever had. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote:

This memory is strangely vivid in a way that seems entirely different form a normal state of mind... weirdly quiet - sort of a pressurized fish bowl - the deepest part of my psyche is displaced and moved to the forefront - the normal thought chatter in my head is turned off - maybe - kinda - sorta...

A distinct warping of my psyche, whatever that means... because this strangely vivid state of mind was so weird, I do not fully trust this memory.

This distorted feeling has a flavor that is absolutely distinct. Attempting to describe it in words would only hint at the sensations. All I can say is that what I felt was unmistakably unique. I have made a very real effort to ask other UFO abductees if they have ever experienced this altered state of consciousness. I've had conversations where we describe what I feel is the same exact distorted sensation.

I’ve had three other experiences that seem to indicate to me that what happened in 1993 wasn’t a dream.

One event took place in January of 2001. Again, I had this exact same feeling while waking up under extremely bizarre circumstances. The story is complex and it was written up a long and detailed post (linked HERE).

A funny dream with a little UFO

Another example took place in the summer of 2008, the same feeling manifested itself within a dream. This is actually a funny little story and it fits neatly into a little subcategory I’ve been calling my reassuring dreams. I went through a phase where I would have very vivid dreams where a lesson or example would be conveyed within the dream narrative.

This dream has me interacting with a small flying saucer and as I moved closer I could feel the sensation of the oddly distorted reality. I could control it by moving in close and backing away. Again, this feeling was exactly the same as what I experienced in 1993. I posted and illustrated my memories (linked HERE).

a hyper-vivid experience inside a tent near Dolores Colorado

Finally, I felt this sensation again while floating up out of the tent during an event in 2010. Of all my odd experiences this one seems to scream UFO abduction. I wrote about this (and all it’s associated synchro-weirdness) in a series of posts with illustrations (linked HERE).

So, I’ve had four very distinct experiences with this odd sensation, each connected to something very strange. After the event seeing the aliens out my window in 1993 I just dismissed the whole thing as nothing more than a weird dream. It did feel dreamlike and denying the implications seems understandable given my life at that point. But since then I’ve had three other experiences where I felt that same distinctive feeling making that outright denial almost impossible.

At this point, 20 years later, I’m at a point where I must conclude that the event in 1993 really happened and it wasn’t just a dream. I say this not because of my very clear memories of that night, but because of the follow up experiences.

This has been a pattern for me. I will deny the implications of a defining event, but later come to accept it’s reality because of a series of intertwined experiences. These seem to come in the form of synchronicities, psychic flashes, vivid dreams, lines on maps or owl interactions. My sense is that the universe is showing me something, and if I don’t acknowledge the significance there is a follow up bunch of weird experiences that force me to reexamine the deeper meaning.

(a little bit more)

I have never written about this one tiny aspect of the 1993 event because it was so hard to justify. The way I initially explained the distorted feeling came almost as a reflexive response. Here’s what I told myself:

You know that feeling when you are a little kid driving in the car with your parents and you fall asleep and then wake up where you didn’t expect to be? That’s what this felt like.

That description seems to feel close. I am picturing myself as a little boy falling asleep with my forehead against the car window while on a long drive with my parents. The steady droning of the car will induce a sort of vivid dream-state where I could visualize looking out the window at the passing scenery, but if I opened my eyes the view wouldn’t match what I was dreaming. Now, this might easily reinforce that it was nothing more than a dream. But, the more mysterious implication is that waking up in a car where you don’t expect to be has the distinct flavor of a missing time event.

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tenured professor stands up for alien abductions

(this article found HERE on the National Post of Canada)

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Retired McGill University professor convinced ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that aliens exist
by Jen Gerson

Retired Montreal psychology professor Don Crosbie Donderi (left) is convinced extraterrestrial life exists. The educator, who spent 47 years at McGill University, including as associate dean of the faculty of graduate studies and research—applies his insights into psychology to a book: UFOs, ETs, and Alien Abductions, a Scientist looks at the Evidence. It will be published in May. Mr. Donderi spoke to the Post’s Jen Gerson on Monday.


Q. You write about cases of humans believing they were abducted. I believe your press release refers to a “catch and release” program. Do you have physical evidence to support that?

A. I don’t personally have physical evidence to support that. What I say in the book is that the evidence of the extra-terrestrial nature of some of what UFO phenomenon is reported is in my opinion established beyond a reasonable doubt.

Q. Give me an example of some of that evidence.

A. There is an entire chapter on six UFO abduction cases. Each of them has what you might call in common a touchstone. Every one of the people involved saw a close up of a UFO. Everyone of the people had missing time they could not account for, a period of an hour or more, maybe even two or three hours. After the initial sighting, they ended up driving down a road not knowing how they got there. In several other cases, people saw the UFO as well. Some of these people wound up with scars they could not explain.

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what you do?

A. I worked at McGill University from 1962 to 2009. I was an associate professor of psychological research and published well over 100 papers on one thing or another. In 1982 I co-founded a consulting company that does human factors ergonomics consulting. I’ve been on the mainstream of science and engineering my entire professional life.

Q. How did you get interested in this particular subject?

A. I was interested as a boy when this stuff started happening in 1947. I was old enough to read the newspapers. I’m a curious person and I was persuaded this was a curious phenomenon. Thirty years later, I had a university position. I had tenure. I could study things without worrying about what other people thought about them. This is a very liberating thing. Nobody except university professors have tenure in the world, it makes you an aristocrat right off the bat. You can do what you like as long as you do your work, which I always did.

Q. We’ve seen a lot of studies showing that human perception is a very spotty thing. People have a way of even inventing memories; sometimes when more than one person claims to see something, they start talking to each other and can affect each others’ accounts, for example.

A. I cover all of this stuff [in my book] including everything you’ve talked about, because I’ve investigated some of these things professionally myself. I can assure you the evidence that survives a critical look at what might have contributed to those reports is sound evidence.

Q. Are we talking about physical evidence?

A. Now anybody can take a photograph from the Internet, jazz things up in Photoshop. So a photograph is worthless as evidence in and of itself. But when you get multiple photographs, or photographs taken by gun cameras on a fighter plane chasing UFOs — of which there are several examples — or radar plots taken during a UFO chase. You’ll find there is a tremendous amount of corroborative evidence.

Q. Just because we don’t always know what’s seen on these types of tapes doesn’t mean that’s proof that it’s extraterrestrial.

A. No, but what else is it? What you have to do is you have to eliminate the other probable causes … and what you begin to build up is a collection of evidence that stands the sniping of people who say it can’t be therefore it isn’t.

Q. From a psychological perspective, when we hear about people getting abducted by aliens, do you not think that on the balance of probabilities that a more plausible explanation is that there is an element of self delusion, or waking nightmares at play here? Do you not think there is a more plausible explanation for these reports than the idea that there is an alien species coming down to Earth to kidnap humans?

A. That is a plausible explanation for many of the reports, but not all of the reports, I agree with you. I also said evidence for abduction is that is a balance of probable evidence, not beyond reasonable doubt.

(Now, this final question is so snarky and his answer is just priceless)

Q. Don’t you think the balance of probability favours a much less glamorous, much more human explanation that our perceptions are flawed?

A. No.

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Professor Donderi has given a series of lectures on the subject of UFOs and abduction, these are posted on the McGill University site. 
(linked HERE)
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audio interview with Dr. Janet Elizabeth Colli

In June of 2011 I had the honor to sit in as the guest host for Whitley Strieber's on-line subscribers and interview Dr. Janet Elizabeth Colli. I had done my own interview with Dr. Colli just a month earlier. During the follow up interview we focus on one single issue, the event in the tent with Natascha from 2010. 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.

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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I now know

Anyone who's followed my stuff, whether written or spoken, will know that I can drone on and on about the existential angst of not knowing. This has been a kind of mantra, the endless tape loop I repeat that I am NOT sure if I am really and truly an alien abductee.

I feel like I've been in a place of actually knowing for a while now (maybe years) but my incessant "maybe" had become a habit. Or maybe a role I was playing.

Well, this last event (March 10th) pretty much changed all that. It wasn't the night under the stars, it was the follow up weirdness with the map. The precision of that yellow line and how it exactly connected three very telling events, including one with a hooting owl, was just too revealing. It simply screamed at me, this shit is real!

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 abductee and all it's baggage. That title is way too simplistic, but that's probably the best term to define what's been going on with my life. That said, I am convinced that at the source of this mystery there is something far more complex and far more bizarre than we dare imagine. The inadequate words abductee, experiencer and contactee all seem flat in the face of this elaborate puzzle.

But the knowing remains.

peace,
Mike Clelland

March 22 2013

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"I no longer have the luxury of disbelief." 

This is a quote from my friend Peter Robbins. This statement comes after his time working closely along side Budd Hopkins and his clients.

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To fully understand this post, you'll need to read the two previous postings (linked below):

1. the night under the stars 

2. the map 

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line on a map across Southern Utah

GREEN Pin: Location of the round structure, 3-10-2013

RED Pin: Owl and orb seen by Natascha, 3-2-2011

BLUE Pin: Irrational fear with Natascha, 5-13-2010
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Note: The info here is a companion to another post about sleeping under the stars (linked HERE). This is required reading to fully understand the overal implications.

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I'm sorta freaked out. I just created this map. I did it in a sort of crazed intuitive flurry. Before I even started I absolutely knew what would appear. The yellow line connects three deeply personal sights in Southern Utah. This is entangled with the post I wrote this morning.

The GREEN pin marks the location of a round structure seen from my sleeping bag just two nights ago. (post linked HERE)

The RED pin marks the site where Natascha and I slept along the Burr Trail. That night she took a walk in the moonlight while I stayed in my sleeping bag. She saw a bright orb while I listened to the hooting of a Great Horned Owl. (post linked HERE)

The BLUE pin is what is pretty much the most profound abduction type experience I have ever (consciously) experienced. Natasha and I experienced an irrational sense of fear in a tent near Dolores Colorado. (post linked HERE) That same night I felt as if I was floating out of the roof of the tent and into a white realm. I asked, "Am I on a table?" and the next day I had a long scratch across my chest.

These three locations are each EXACTLY positioned along a 231 mile long straight line. The message to me is that something happened on Sunday night under the stars. Needless to say, this is some freaky shit!

The RED pin marks where I slept the night I heard the owl and Natascha saw the bright orb. 

That pin is exactly where we were lying. 

The yellow line cuts thru it (seemingly) to the millimeter!

The weird impulse to create this map:
About an hour ago I experienced a very clear knowing that these locations would line up perfectly. It didn't come in a clear verbal set of instructions. Instead, I was just suddenly aware of the full image, and how it looked (and all fit together) in one instant of absolute knowing. I just sat at the computer, opened google maps and did it. At first it was a little off. I was using my sleeping location from two nights ago as the western most point. The location of the orb and owl event in the middle was about 200 feet off from perfect. Then I switched the western most point about 1.6 miles to the site of the circular structure and everything lined up with an eerie exact perfection.

I am reliving the same weird sense of profound knowing from 2010. This involved putting lines on a map and it culminated in a series of posts linked HERE.

This sense of absolute knowing can only be called a very clear psychic download.
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Text added March 15th 2013:
Last night I got a note from Natascha. She told me March 10th is her birthday! This is the date of the Sunday night event when I was in sleeping outside in Utah. She was with me and experienced the middle and Eastern events on the map. These were by far the scarier than what happened last Sunday.

(and)

On March 10th 2010 I posted the very first essay where I posted an essay titled a LINE ON A MAP. This dealt with the map weirdness that connected Mac Tonnies, Byron North Dakota and owls. This was exactly three years to the day before I lay down under the starts in Utah on Sunday night.


Text added March 23 2013:
Some more very strange data about these three sites on the map. A commenter named Anonymous checked the moon phases for the three events noted on the yellow line. Each event occurred extremely close to the new moon on the calendar for that day. The new moon is the exact opposite of the full moon, when the moon is at it's darkest.

The data he uncovered is noted below. He used a site called WolfrAmalpha to get the data around new moons and the calendar. I did a quick check using other on-line sources and his numbers are accurate.

nearest new moon to March 10th 2013 in Utah: 1:54 pm MDT March 11th 2013 (approx.12 hours after the event)

nearest new moon to March 2nd 2011 in Utah: 1:49 pm MST March 4th 2011 (approx. 58 hours after the event)

nearest new moon to May 13th 2010 in Colorado: 7:07 pm MST May 13th 2010 (approx. 4.5 hours before the event)

The March 10th 2013 event happened sometime after midnight and before 4:AM, there's no way of knowing. The March 2nd 2011event happened sometime before dawn. Maybe around 4:AM or so, again, no way of knowing. May 13th 2010 event happened around 11:40 PM, I remember looking at my watch and wrote it down the following morning.

The probability of three events happening so close to the new moon obviously very low. Also, the pattern of seeing a UFO during the new moon was noted by John Keel in The Mothman Prophesies. 

Huge thanks to Anonymous!
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Also:
Here's my response to this map. Something changed in me and I write about it HERE.
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sleeping out under the stars in Southern Utah

What I saw throughout the night from where I slept

What I am sharing here might be nothing, but I have made a pledge to post anything odd on this blog, so here goes.

I've just returned to my home after two weeks away. I spent most of that time at a UFO conference near Phoenix and then visiting friends in Sedona and Flagstaff.

When I drive around the west I try to sleep out under the stars and avoid getting a hotel room. This is what I did on Sunday night (the night of March 10th thru the morning of the 11th).

I slept along side Utah Highway 20 just a few miles away from I-15. It is noted as Buckskin Road on google maps. I pulled into the spot around 9:PM and walked around a little bit with a headlamp to stretch my legs. The area had low bushy trees (Junipers I think) and there was a series of beaten down roads and little turn outs. Typical of this part of the west there was some litter and evidence of campfires. Plenty of people had been here before. This was a cold Sunday night so I wasn’t really worried about anyone else pulling in. This was a perfect spot to sleep out. I set my sleeping pad down in the dirt near my little Subaru. I climbed into my sleeping bag and went to sleep.

At some point during the night I woke up. I suspect it was around mid-night. The stars were amazing and I was enjoying looking up at the clear sky. I looked at the ridge-line of rounded peaks to the south and saw what appeared to be a large round structure perched on top of a hill. My impression was that I was looking at a round house with a row of lights situated along the outer circumference of the building. It seemed like a big round fancy home.

Google map image looking South, the arrow shows the approximate location of the structure. 
The gray line is Buckskin Road.

Right in that moment I pondered if this was a landed flying saucer. Really, I literally tried to take in what I was seeing and question the mood of what I felt deep inside myself. It seemed perfectly terrestrial. There was nothing at all other worldly about it. There was no feeling of anything at all being odd. I said to myself, if this was a flying saucer, I would sense something weird. But everything seemed fine. The lights were partially obscured by the trees but they seemed normal. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

I woke up again a little while later.

This time I saw a bright light on the ground near where I was sleeping, it was west of where I was lying on the ground. My impression was that it was just a car parked nearby and I was seeing a light. I sat up and tried to peer thru the low bushy trees. The light was mostly obscured and I moved my head from side to side in the hopes of getting a better view. I couldn’t see much but it seemed like nothing unusual. My impression was that someone pulled in while I was asleep and parked a short distance away. I am assuming that they were doing just what I was doing, sleeping in a pretty spot while doing a long drive.

I looked back up to the round structure on the hillside above me and nothing had changed. It still looked the same and the same neutral feeling.

I went back to sleep and woke sometime later. The light thru the bushes was now off and the circular round structure was pretty much the same. This time I noted a new light that appeared to be on the ground and just a little bit off to the left of the structure (see top image). It appeared to be a kind of yard lamp next to the big round home.

I think it was at this point that I felt pretty well rested and I got up. I tossed everything in the car and started driving again. If I remember correctly it was a little bit before 4:AM. This gets a little confusing because the switchover to daylights savings time would have been the night before and I hadn’t changed the clock in my car yet. So it might have been a little bit before 5:AM. I enjoy driving that early when the traffic is minimal.

I remember nothing at all unusual about that night, I slept well despite waking a few times. I feel like I got close to seven hours of sleep and I awoke feeling well rested.

overview showing the sleep site (multi-pins) and the structure site (green pin)

When I got home I felt the need to look at google maps to see an image of that round structure on the hill top. I feel strongly that I picked out where the round structure should have been. I found the exact location of my sleeping spot, but the weird thing is that I couldn’t find anything on the satellite image that would match the circular building. The structure with the lights was approximately 1.6 miles away from where I slept.

I checked the date of the satellite imagery on the google earth and it read 9/14/2011. Perhaps there has been some sort of a structure built since then and it simply isn’t available on the maps yet. Maybe I’ll see something when the satellite imagery gets updated.

It may not have been a house, it might have been an array of cell towers (or something similar) arranged in a circle. It might have been a round water tank, but it is highly unlikely it would be at that location or lit with lights. The ring of lights around the structure weren’t quite perfectly positioned, they seemed to be spaced a little bit irregular and slight up or down. The seemed to be windows and that's why I say it was a house. The top illustration shows a ring of bright lights, but I sensed windows as well.

Another odd thing is that the area where I saw the low light thru the bushes seems to have been well away from the areas cleared for easy parking. If a car had pulled in while I was asleep it (most likely) would not have driven off into that area.

When I awoke and got up to begin driving I sensed nothing at all unusual. I felt like the sleeping bag was zipped just exactly like I had closed it up earlier in the night. I will also add that there were two coyotes yapping away during the night. They seemed VERY close. I have spent a lot of time sleeping out in the west and I was charmed by their calls.

Again, this is probably nothing. What is odd is that I actually searched out the google satellite image when I got home. I didn’t dwell on any of this during the drive and I wasn’t at all concerned that night. I am writing this and sharing it here simply to document what happened. This post might be an insight into my own paranoia or it might be something more.

The Sleeping Spot (exact)
LAT: 38~ 3’29.27”N
LONG: 112~39’17.71”W

The Round Structure (approx)
LAT: 38~ 2’8.90”N
LONG: 112~39’28.32”W

the pull off from Highway 20 to Buckskin Road

Overview of the location. 

Yellow Pin: where I slept, Red Pin: pull off point, 

Blue Pin: low light during the night (approx), White Pin: the white jeep.

An odd little extra: When I turned off of Highway 20 around 9:PM I pulled into the first good spot to park only to realize that the site already had a car there. It was a white Jeep Cherokee with Wyoming license plates. I could see a little movement inside Jeep and I realized that I had probably spooked the people. I backed up and drove to a spot far enough away not to bother them. Their license plate had the prefix 10, and I that means Fremont County Wyoming. I have a lot of friends in that county and I figure anyone from there who would be parked at that spot at that time of the year would probably be my friend, or at least an acquaintance.

The jeep was still there when I drove out early the next morning.

Text added the same day:

First, this was posted at 12:34 PM. This just screams at me to pay attention!

Second, there is some freaky map weirdness, linked HERE. This is the kind of thing that makes this stuff really hard to deny.

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Text added March 10th 2014:

I am adding to this post, exactly a year after the event along side highway 20 in Utah. I drove past this site in mid-February or 2014 on the way to the annual UFO conference in Arizona. I pulled off I-15 and went to the exact same spot and took some photos. I was confirming what I already knew, that there was no round structure on top of that hill.

the arrow points to the exact location of the round structure

I also retraced my route home, exactly as I had done the year before. I slept in the same spot as when I saw the round structure. I laid my pad down on the the exact same flat spot on the ground.

same image as above, but zoomed in and with
the "round structure" added in using photoshop

click on any image for a HI-Rez view
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owls at Java Love

 two of nine

I have been in Sedona Arizona for a few days staying on a friends couch. I have been catching up on work stuff using the internet at the closest coffee shop to her home. The place is called Java Love. So far I have counted 9 owl tchotchkes. And the first day I was in here one of the hippy baristas had an apron with 4 owls on it. Adding to the synchro-weirdness, I've been writing an essay on Owls and the UFO abductee while drinking coffee here at this little cafe.

more

and even more
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popular posts and their implications

the number 123 from this weeks stat counter

Looking at the stats for this blog I can see that two posts on this site have been extremely popular. One is titled I Have Rh Negative Blood, the other is titled Tiny Dots in a Triangle on my Left Arm. It seems pretty obvious that people are searching out some of the signs and symptoms of the UFO abduction experience. From the comments it's obvious they are trying to find answers about themselves.

To me, this means that people (potentially a LOT of people) might be dealing with some confusing issues around their own life. The implications are challenging.

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ignoring

I spent the last five days at a UFO conference just outside of Phoenix Arizona. During the event there were daily “experiencer” support group meetings. Picture an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a ring of chairs and people sharing their experiences. The problem was that these hour-long sessions were crowded with upwards of 40 people in attendance. The room was a little bit too small so some people were sitting behind the main circle and others were standing. It did not feel in any way intimate.

All that said, it was helpful to see the faces and hear the stories from the very real people who’ve had these challenging experiences.

At one session a curly-haired woman raised her hand and asked the group, “Has anyone here had any negative experiences?”

I raised my hand and so did the guy next to me (I have talked with him, and he’s shared enough with me that I realize he’s had a lifetime of terrifying involvement with gray aliens). I was sitting just a few chairs away from the curly-haired woman and I watched her look right at us as she scanned the room. Then she commented, “Isn’t that interesting that nobody has had any negative experiences.”

I was kind of shocked that she didn’t acknowledge me and the guy next to me. She had to try hard NOT to see us. I didn’t see anyone else in the room with a raised hand but I suspect we weren’t the only two.

The next morning I attended the follow-up crowded meeting. At one point this same curly-haired woman raised her hand and stated, “Yesterday I asked if anyone had any negative experiences and I thought it was so interesting that nobody raised their hand.”

At that moment I blurted out,

“I was in the room and I raised my hand!”

I was angry and it must have been easy to hear in my voice. She said she was sorry that she hadn’t seen me. She said it in a way that was a little bit sugary, she might have said something like she hadn’t honored my presence.

As she spoke I was being poked in the back by a complete stranger who was whispering, “Talk - talk...”

After the woman finished her statement I raised my hand to reply and the people to my right and left pointed at me in an effort to make sure that the moderator (Barbara Lamb) was aware that I wanted to say something.

It may have been a few minutes later that Barbara called on me. It gave me time to compose my thoughts and come to grips with my anger.

I said something like this, “Look, I have experienced something that was so profoundly terrifying that I am amazed I survived with my sanity intact.” I hinted briefly at my 2010 incident in a tent, I made it very clear that I was with another person who described the exact same crippling terror.

As I spoke to the group I looked at this woman and her eyes were wandering up at the ceiling. She wasn’t looking at me and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t talk for very long, I wanted to be succinct, but I made it very clear that I wasn't alone in having extremely negative experiences. Let me add that almost all of my memories have been weirdly neutral and void of any emotion, but that thing in the tent was horrifying.

A few people came up after the meeting and thanked me for speaking up.

I came away with a few insights after this curious interaction with the curly-haired woman. First, I feel there are people within the UFO abduction “community” (if you can call it that) that are willfully ignoring things that doesn’t fit their fixed agenda. We probably all do it in subtle ways, but this woman simply must have seen me and the other guy with our hands up. For some reason, whether conscious or unconscious, she ignored us.

The other thing I was forced to look at was my own behavior. I can certainly imagine that I could dismiss someone who’s outlook or comments were too new-agey for my taste. I feel like I have been pretty good at listening and trying to understand the experiences of others, but it really stuck me just how important it is to pay attention to the entirety of the people’s personal stories. Even more so if their experiences challenge something you hold as some sort of belief.

While at this conference I was very aware that I have a funny quirk where I get totally drawn into the experiences that folks will share with me. Empathy is probably the best word to describe me when I listen. All that said, it’s pretty common for me to get dragged way out of my comfort zone with some of the weird stories I'll hearing. Still, I feel strongly that I should really and truly listen, because when you get right down to it, my experiences are feakin’ crazy too.

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