This blog post was initially part of the manuscript for the upcoming book Stories from The Messengers. It got nixed during the editing process and I’m sharing it here:
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| the golden eye of the owl |
Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey Kripal teamed up to write an important book—The Super Natural. The subtitle is, “A new vision of the unexplained.” Together, they argue that much of what we would call paranormal is instead part of our natural world. They address a long list of events, from ancient religious apparitions to modern UFO accounts, and use these experiences to argue their point.
In their book they touch on the strange life of the early UFO witness Kenneth Arnold. I wrote a whole chapter on this same man in the companion owl book.
Jeff said of Kenneth Arnold: “… he suggested that these flying objects were in fact ‘groups and masses of living organisms that are as much a part of our atmosphere and space as the life we find in the oceans.’ This is pure Charles Fort, by the way. Was he reading Fort?” (1)
I saw that passage in The Super Natural while hard at work on my own chapter about Kenneth Arnold. Jeff had asked, somewhat rhetorically, if Kenneth Arnold had ever read books by Charles Fort, and I had the answer.
My research had lead me to a 1981 article where Arnold pulls a copy of The Complete Books of Charles Fort off his shelf in his home to make a point. He was fed up with the narrow views of most UFO researchers, and told the journalist, “I was astounded when I read Fort’s books. There were similarities between what I investigated and what Fort had collected.” (2)
So, Arnold had not only read Fort, he could relate to it.
I was giddy with pride, one of my heroes had asked a question that I could answer! I sent that article to Jeff on August 6 2016, and without knowing it at the time, this was Charles Fort’s 142nd birthday! Thank you Wikipedia.
In his book, Jeff wondered if Charles Fort had, “…some private ‘abduction’ experience.” And this is precisely my speculation about Kenneth Arnold in this book, that he might be an abductee. (3)
The Super Natural was published less than two months after The Messengers, and the cover of both books feature the bright yellow eye of an owl. My book has two eyes, their book has only one. On the amazon website there is a place that says, “Customers who bought this item also bought” and it shows the book that was most commonly purchased together. Our books are shown side by side. I cannot put into words how this makes me feel.
I feel presumptuous comparing my book to theirs. Both Whitley and Jeff have played such important roles in shaping my ideas about these elusive issues.
There is a similarity in content and tone in these two books. Both are looking at the outlying reports to try to come to terms with the deepest mysteries, and both books were being created at the same time.
Both Jeff and Whitley came at these ideas from their own unique perspectives, but the implications are framed in a similar way. Someone might try to describe a profound spiritual experience, and someone else might try to describe direct UFO contact. These are conflicting experiences yet they might produce a similar kind of transformation. In my own way, I’ve been trying to address these same ideas.
Jeff wrote about his co-author: “Whitley captures this idea perfectly (and much more clearly) when he writes about his uncanny owl encounters: ‘I was fascinated by this phenomenon, and sensed at the time that it could be seen not simply as a sort of eerie mystery, but much more richly, as language.’” (4)
The owl, both literal and metaphorical, runs like a thread throughout The Super Natural, tying their ideas together. Also worth noting, the owl is the mascot of Rice University, where Jeff is the chair of the religious studies department.
Whitley wrote this in The Super Natural:
More interestingly to me, people will identify the owl as the totem animal of the visitors. (5)
That single sentence sums up the entirety of both books in The Messengers series.
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Footnotes
(1) Strieber, Whitley; Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2016-02-02). The Super Natural, (p. 313) full quote from Jeff Kripal about Kenneth Arnold: “… he suggested that these flying objects were in fact ‘groups and masses of living organisms that are as much a part of our atmosphere and space as the life we find in the oceans.’ This is pure Charles Fort, by the way. Was he reading Fort?”
(2) Long., Gregory, 'Kenneth Arnold: UFO Pioneer', MUFON Journal, (ed. Richard Hall) Seguin, Texas. #165, Nov. 1981 - http://www.slideshare.net/mufonnexus/mufon-ufo-journal-1981-11-november “As Arnold spoke, he revealed an unyielding, critical attitude toward science that ignores, ridicules, or attempts to rationalize away the “damned,” Fort’s term for anomalous data that do not fit established scientific views. This attitude is readily understandable given the treatment he has received at the hands of the press and the skeptics.”
(3) The Super Natural (p. 93) full quote from Jeff Kripal: “I cannot help but wonder if behind (or above) all this super-writing floated some personal sighting in those haunted Hudson Valley skies, or even some private “abduction” experience.”
(4) The Super Natural (p. 228). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
(5) The Super Natural (p. 213) full quote from Whitley Strieber:
"Like owls, our visitors are creatures of the night. They are predators, silent, appearing suddenly and stealing people away for unknown reasons. The owl captures the unwary, the rat who dares to cross a wire in the moonlight, the chipmunk scuttling in the last sun, the famished rabbit daring the gray of dawn.
At our old cabin, as night gathered, the owls would often come, standing in the trees around the house, sometimes capturing prey right before our eyes. After Anne began analyzing our reader mail, it became clear that we were not the only close encounter witnesses who had owls in their lives. I was fascinated by this phenomenon, and sensed at the time that it could be seen not simply as a sort of eerie mystery, but much more richly, as language."
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