bright orb seen by Natascha

The red marker is the location of the campsite, and the blue marker shows where Natascha encountered the bright orb. These two points are approximately 1,500 feet apart. Google maps image, double-click for HI-Rez view.

This is a report of something highly unusual. In the very early morning hours of March 3rd, I was sleeping out under the stars with my pal Natascha. We were both lying in the desert sand in a very isolated corner of southern Utah.

We had been to the multi-day UFO conference in Phoenix, and we were taking the scenic route to my home in Idaho. We had been driving and hiking throughout the day, and we set out our sleeping bags just a little bit after sunset. Instead of getting a hotel room, we chose to camp just off the (very beautiful) Burr Trail Road, about 8 miles east of the little town of Boulder Utah. The map of Utah (below) shows our location with a blue marker.

Natascha had recently arrived from Germany, and she was still feeling jet-lagged, so she couldn’t sleep. She got up out of her sleeping bag at about 2:AM, and tried to do some work on her computer in the front seat of the car.

After a while, she felt cold and took a walk on the road with just the stars for light. This is a very narrow road with almost zero traffic, especially during these early morning hours.

I’ll add that during this time I simply lay in my warm sleeping bag near the car.

Here is her (slightly edited) description of the curious events that followed:

I woke up, thinking it might be about 4:AM (it wasn't, it must have been 2:15 or so). Mike didn't want to get up yet, but I was wide awake. I spent some time looking up at the stars and although I felt nice and warm in my sleeping bag, I just couldn't go back to sleep again.

I finally decided to get up to sit in the car and work on the computer for a while.

It was still quite early (approx 3:30) when I went back to Mike, complaining that I'm cold. He said, he won't get up before the sunrise and that I could go for a walk. I said: "I will get lost in the darkness." He said: "There is the road you could take."

So I went for a walk on the road. It felt good to move. I didn't use my headlamp, the ambient light from the stars was enough. After a short time my eyes adapted to the darkness and I could see where I was walking. The road went uphill towards a huge rock feature. I enjoyed walking in the stillness, there was a dark beauty to my surroundings.

But there was more, I could sense something, almost like a buzz in the air, like the air wasn't empty, there was some sparkling. It felt like I could sense energy. I have this sensation once in while, but here in the darkness and this place of pure nature it felt like I had a heightened ability to "see" more than we usually do. My sensations were enhanced.

I was thinking about this heightened sensation when all of a sudden I saw something very unusual: there, about 150 feet away, close to the ground on the right side of the road was a bright light. It flashed, so I just saw it for a second or so. It was round, like an orb and it was so bright that my first thought was that there is somebody with a very bright flashlight. But it didn't make sense, it just flashed and it was very close to the ground.

Next thought (my mind went crazy, because I wanted an explanation), maybe it was a lightning bug? But the round light was much too big, like two feet in diameter. And shortly after realizing that there was no way I could explain this thing, I started to panic. I turned on my heels and ran back to Mike, looking over my shoulder once in a while because it felt like I was followed.

When I arrived at Mike lying on the ground I woke him up, telling him that I saw a bright light like an orb and that I'm scared and that I won't walk around alone anymore. Well, that made him get up.

I have no idea why I was so scared, and I was relieved that we finally packed up and drove away.

(Natascha's entire report, without editing, has been added to the comments below)
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Mike again, chiming in with a little bit more:

While Natascha was walking on that road, I was snug in my sleeping bag drifting in and out of sleep. During this time I heard an owl hooting, over and over, and it was quite close to where I was lying. Here's an audio clip of the very distinctive call of the Great Horned Owl.

Let me add that the night was perfectly lovely, calm and very quiet. The temps were quite chilly, and we both got a lot of frost on our sleeping bags. We saw one car drive down the road shortly after sunset, but as far as I could tell, that was the ONLY car that night.

And - While typing up this post, I got to where I was writing about Natascha's memories, and I felt a little bit presumptuous writing about her direct experiences. And at that exact moment, I received an email from her (while she was sitting in a coffee shop at the Charles Du Gaulle Airport) where she shared her memories. That text is posted above (typed in Arial), with minimal editing by me.

Desert sandstone in beautiful southern Utah, and the logo-image for this blog.

another street light event

During the time together in the Four Corners area in May, Natascha and I had an extremely intense conversation at a restaurant. We were both left kind of confused and overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we had talked about. After leaving the restaurant we were walking back to our Motel thru the quiet streets of Moab at night.

I remember saying something like: "Oh God, this is SO weird. Are we on the right path with all of this?"

And - right at that exact instant - the street light above us blinked off.

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sweat lodge and a curious scratch

Sketch book image of the very humble sweat lodge in Arizona. A simple structure made from arching re-bar, old blankets and canvas. In the foreground is a fire pit with collection of VERY hot rocks. Double click on the image for a hi-rez view.

part ONE of this story HERE

After the intensely scary events in the tent (story posted below) in Delores Colorado, Natascha and I were basically stuck in the four corners area with my Subaru in the shop. We had a rent-a-car and a few days of time. We went to the groovy coffee shop in Cortez and we used skype to contact Miriam Delicado and we asked her what we should do. She told us we needed to do a sweat lodge with a Navajo Shaman named Howard. So we drove to south west to Canyon De Chelly in Arizona.

Canyon De Chelly is on of the most beautiful and magical places on earth, and it’s all on Navajo land, so to enter into the bottom of the canyon requires a guide. We spent the day with wet feet in the cold muddy river with a wonderful guide named Francine. Afterwards we went to the Spider Rock Campground, a ramshackle establishment run by Howard. We were all set up to have the sweat the next morning, along with a few other folk at the campground.

Natascha, Howard and me (with a cat) early in the morning at the Canyon De Chelly Spider Rock campground.

I was curiously unaware of what I was getting myself into, it felt like I was proceeding without intention. It was more like I was being pulled toward the sweat lodge, rather than actively seeking it.

At some point that day I took my shirt off and I found a curious scratch that ran roughly from above my belly button up toward my left shoulder. (see sketch to the left) I had been in the tent in Delores Colorado that morning, and this would have been the first time I took my shirt off since the scary events the previous night.

Scratch isn’t quite the right term, if you looked at it closely it was actually some sort of rash. It wasn’t an abrasion, instead it was a bumpy length of tiny blisters in a long straight line. These were long rows of little bubbles of yellowish fluid right at the surface of my skin, each little blister was smaller than a grain of rice. It was weird, and I've never seen anything like it (on me or anyone else).

I’m color blind, and even I could see the thin red line. It looked like some allergic reaction, like someone took a pen full of poison ivy ink and drew a straight line on my chest.

It didn’t itch or feel bad, but it was certainly curious. It healed up slowly and cleanly over the next few weeks.

Did this red line happen the previous night in the tent in Delores? Was is associated with those terrifying memories? At the time both Natascha and I asked the same thing, and we we quick to dismiss those thoughts. It might have come from some desert cactus, but I did not do anything the previous few days with my shirt off. I have no memory of getting scratched by any plant, like a poison oak (a common tree in that area).

Now, over a month later I’m left questioning how I got that weird scratch and I don’t have an answer. Could it have happened that creepy night in Delores? Why didn’t I think to take a photo?

When I entered the lodge I wore a bathing suit, and my bare chest displayed that long red scratch. There were eight of us in the dark cramped shelter, with a pit in the center for the very hot rocks.

Howard lead a really impressive ceremony. It was mystical and playful all at the same time. I felt rooted in my own world, and simultaneously connected with something beautiful and ancient. The overriding theme was to surrender to the heat.

There were four separate sessions within the dark little lodge, each one getting progressively hotter. The final session was berserkly hot, and everyone inside was forced to lie down so as to breathe the cooler air near the dirt floor.

The whole thing lasted a few hours, and when it was over everyone was fatigued and quiet. I spent the rest of that very pleasant day drinking water and napping. Natascha took a long walk with Howard’s little dog.

The next day Natascha and I said good-bye to Howard in the morning, and slept in Valley of the Gods (in Utah) that night. And that - is another interesting story.

Myself and Natascha smiling above the Gooseneck Canyons in the Colorado River in the Four Corners area of southern Utah.

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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neuron-like nature of the internet

I experienced a tiny little dose of the divine in a coffee shop in Moab Utah.

The other night I slept out in the desert under the stars. I was a few miles outside of Moab along a lovely stretch of high-way that runs parallel to the Colorado River.

Sometimes when I sleep outside I'll experience the most vivid dreams, and recently I've tried to encourage some extra message from the great beyond as I sleep. So, as I zipped up my sleeping bag below the sandstone cliffs, I asked the universe to give me an insight, I was receptive. Alas, I woke up without any dreams.

Later that morning, I drove back into town for coffee, and I pull out my laptop. I wanted to look up MOAB for any mythic significance, so I go to Wikipedia, a resource I rarely use. I log on and the featured article of the day on was about high-way 128 in Utah, where I slept the night before.

That was odd...

Now, this coincidence is curious, true enough. It obviously made me take note. In the previous days I had been composing a blog-post in my head about on the neuron-like nature of the internet and the possibility that it might be developing it’s own self awareness. And then I get a very curious cyber-synchronicity linked to where I slept, and where I asked for an insight.

Are we witnessing the internet form a new kind of collective consciousness? There is now a global expanse of electronic brain neurons running everywhere, in the air, into space and into the psyche of individuals. It's all emerging from an unfamiliar digital zeitgeist.

Is there an evolving giant life form of synaptic fibers emerging within cyberspace? Is it a new set of neurotransmitters, allowing and encouraging an alternative web of synchronistic happenings?

I recently tried (and succeeded) to poach a wireless signal at a friends apartment in Brooklyn. I was amazed to see a ridiculously long list of available internet connections, it was bizarre.

This is a new chapter of human history, nothing like this has EVER happened before. We are surrounded by a swirling electo-magnetic soup, with wi-fi portals, cell-phone towers and satellites in space. I am somehow forced to imagine billions of devout monks all chanting together, resonating collectively.

What is unfolding?

There is a perceivable significance in a shuffled deck of Tarot cards. And the I Ching is regarded as a system of divination within a random set of set of 64 abstract line arrangements.

Why is the internet any different?

Here’s a little bit more:

Below is an excerpt from PARANORMAL MUSINGS:
This is no joke. Today Ian and I went to Forrest Lawn Cemetery to pay our respects to Forry Ackerman, who died Dec. 4.

Next we ... arrived at our hotel. When I sat down and logged into the computer, Facebook required the typical security typographical entry before letting me see my mail. To my total astonishment, the words I was prompted to type were, "Ackerman 000" I kid you not.

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Text added Sept.  2nd 2012

Just so y'know, highway 128 shows up again in a very curious set of events, described in this post HERE. The experiences described by 'Artimesia' happened just a few miles from where I slept in the post above.

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