Foreword to The Messengers by Richard Dolan

author and historian 

Richard Dolan has just published the big owl book project through his own publishing company. He has also been a unwavering supporter of this rather unconventional work. Any author will go through pangs of insecurity, and Rich has been there to encourage me to trust what I have tried to create. He also wrote the foreword to the book, and this is posted in its entirety below.

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Foreword to The Messengers

by Richard M. Dolan

You are about to read one of the most original books ever written on UFOs, one that will make any thoughtful person ask fundamental questions about the nature of reality itself. More than any work in recent memory, it successfully ties the UFO phenomenon not simply to possible extraterrestrial intelligences, but to synchronicities, ancient archetypes, dreams, shamanistic experiences, magic, personal transformation, and death. 

And owls. Because Mike Clelland has gathered together compelling and persuasive accounts from innumerable people who have had UFO sightings and apparent abduction experiences in conjunction with absolutely bizarre experiences with owls. Yes, real owls, not owls as screen memories of something else (although as anyone familiar with abduction research knows, this has been reported from time to time). 

The accounts of these people -- including those of Mike himself -- suggest undeniable synchronicities at work. That is, coincidences that are highly meaningful to the persons involved. So meaningful in some cases that they seem staged for that person, and usually in a manner that only that person could decipher.

This is heady stuff for those of us raised in the standard western-based materialistic rendition of reality, one with a comprehensible cause and effect, and one in which there are no unseen intelligences at work playing us like characters in a video game. And yet, as one goes through account after account of meticulously documented experiences, it becomes hard to avoid thinking along these lines.

 read more below 

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do you see an owl?

The source book for loads of Disney weirdness

Do you see an owl in the book cover above? I am at the point where I am seeing owls everywhere, and I fully realize that my frenetic obsessive examination is causing this, owls emerging out of the ether.

Grimm's Fairy Tales was first published in 1812 by the German Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm. These stories include Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella and Snow White.

I saw a small low resolution image of the book (left), and to me it was clearly a stylized owl. It is so obvious in the tiny jPeg that I have to wonder if the artist from way-back-when was trying to create an owl for the cover. This tiny image was posted so small that you could just barely make out the title. I noted the little icon in a Secret Sun blog post from 2012, where Christopher Knowles points out the similarities of his own script idea and the 2011 movie Hanna. Both are an updated version of Snow White. The blog post is linked HERE.

Also, I noticed this foggy owl image on the Secret Sun just moments after sending an email to a researcher in Germany, the source of these stories. After that I had the thought "I wonder if there is a new post on Secret Sun?" When I clicked on it, I realized it had been posted less than two minutes earlier.

In the 1812 edition of the book there is an exceedingly strange story simply titled The Owl. It's short and worth reading (available as a PDF file HERE). Basically, a honed owl is portrayed as a terrible monster, striking paralyzing fear even to the bravest men in the town. A simplistic example of the owl as something horrible in folklore.

excerpt from The Owl

By some mischance one of the great owls, called horned owls, had come from the neighboring woods into the barn of one of the townsfolk in the night-time...

In the morning when the manservant went into the barn to fetch some straw, he was so mightily alarmed at the sight of the owl sitting there in a corner, that he ran away and announced to his master that a monster, the like of which he had never set eyes on in his life, and which could devour a man without the slightest difficulty, was sitting in the barn, rolling its eyes about in its head.

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beautiful design by Talwin Morris

Text added January 4th 2015

I just got a helpful message from a reader (C.M. Mayo) who pointed out that there is also an old edition of Little Women with the same cover. To me, this means that the cover for the Grimm's book was just some template used by some long ago publisher and NOT any kind of owl reference related to the story within the book.

This Art Neuvo cover was created by book designer Talwin Morris for a series known as Blackie Books out of Glasgow Scotland.

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an enormous owl and missing time

Christopher Knowles seen with four owls in approx 1973

There is a short posting on The Secret Sun from July 16th 2009 titled Owls. Christopher Knowles shares a few ideas about the imagery of the owl, most specifically how his mother would collect owl figurines and display them in their home. The photo above gets used in a presentation I have given at UFO conferences. I have a few examples where experiencers will say their mother collect owls.

Screen grab from the comments on an essay titled Owls. Click on image for a HI-rez view.

What is of great interest to me was a comment on this 2009 Secret Sun posting, left by someone named Jessi. The full text is below:

Wanted to share an owl story from my childhood. My family was moving to another town which took four hours by car to commute. My dad was in a truck in front of my mom, me and my sister who were riding in a car behind him. It was late at night and we were making our last load for the day. We were moving into an old farm house out in the country. We were on a dirt road and my dad was right in front of us. My mom stopped the car because she saw something walking in the road. It was the most enormous owl any of us had seen. It simply walked in front of the car, turned to look at us (realize that it was big enough to see us over the hood of the car) and continued to walk across the road (or waddle maybe) when we got to the house my dad was irate and wanting to know where we had been. Evidently, over an hour had passed while we watched that owl cross our path.

Jessi doesn't give an estimated size of this enormous owl, but she does say the it was big enough to see us over the hood of the car. This is something I have heard repeatedly from various witnesses. This puts the owl at about four feet tall. I even photographed a four foot tall cardboard cut out of an owl in front of my car to show how improbable it would be to see an owl that large. I’ve used this image in a series of presentations at UFO conferences. What I need to say is that this propping this photo was super creepy even though the owl was nothing more than cardboard.

cardboard owl positioned in front of my Subaru

There is also over an hour of missing time reported by the people in the car who saw this owl. This plays out as a series of clues that seems to imply a UFO contact event with an impossibly large owl as a screen memory.

What also stands out, especially for me, is the time count on this comment, 1:23 PM. This number sequence screams at me to pay attention.

I have come back to this post repeatedly over the last five and a half years, and it is quite likely I even read this comment, but it didn’t really jump out at me until just a few days ago.

 If anyone knows Jessi, who wrote the comment, please get a hold of me! My email is HERE. 



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Queen of the night

The Burney Relief and myself, London. 
Click on any image for a hi-rex view.

If you google the words OWL and GODDESS, The Burney Relief will come up at the top of the list. I know because I've been digging for these words and how they connect. I was recently in London and my hotel was just a few blocks away from The British Museum (home of the Burney Relief). Curiously, I was staying at the Hotel Athens, Athens named after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom with a companion little owl.

Anyway, I walked to the museum, and found it within minutes. It as rather small given all that has been written about it.

It is a Mesopotamian terra-cotta plaque depicting a winged, nude, goddess-like figure with bird's talons, flanked by owls, and perched upon supine lions. The relief, known as The Queen of the Night, has dated it between 1800 and 1750 BCE. It originates from southern Iraq, but the exact site where it was found is unknown. There is much debate whether the woman represents Lilith, Lilitu, Inanna, Ishtar, or Ereshkigal. Also, is she a goddess or a demon? All these points are unknown, but open to endless speculation, making any research a bottomless pit of wishy-washiness.

I recognize the temptation to cherry pick the available data (and there is a lot of it), then latch onto someone's conclusion that matches my own avenue of thought. I reference the Burney Relief in my ongoing book project as well as my presentations. All I can really say is that this image seems to represent something more demonic than the goddess Athena (also seen with owls), and that the myth of Lilith was that she could shape shift into an owl, fly at night and drink the blood of babies. So, this tablet might represent the more ominous aspects of the mythology of owls.

the card accompning the Burney Relief

What I can say is that this image is really tidy. As an artist, I am impressed with the simple use of symmetry, and the stylization of the owls and the lions. What is also interesting is that the woman's face is a little bit sloppy and poorly proportioned. From my own direct experience, it is terribly challenging to capture the subtleties of the feminine face. So, I can sympathize with the artist.

The Burney Relief

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two owls seen last night

I was lying in bed last night reading, and I suddenly saw my cat get all focused on something. It didn't take but a second and I heard the distinct hooting of two great horned owls, and they sounded like they were right outside my window. I got up, got dressed, put on a coat, grabbed a flashlight and went outside. It was snowing heavily as I followed the noise. There is a telephone pole right near my cabin and I shined the light up there and saw one owl fly off, looking very white in the beam of the flashlight. The hooting continued, so I walked closer to the pole and saw another owl in the beam. I watched it for just a few seconds and it too flew off. I went back inside and climbed back into bed. It was about one in the morning when I saw these two owls.

This might be nothing at all, just a nice sighting, but I've made a very real effort to document these kinds of things (owls and synchronicities) here on this blog. There wasn't anything unusual or prescient in that moment, but I am wondering if anything will turn up.

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video excerpt from Owls, Sychronicity and the UFO Abductee

a short excerpt

This is a 12-minute excerpt from a 75-minute presentation given at the 2014 International UFO Congress in Arizona. Standing on stage in front of hundreds of people sharing my experiences was a big deal for me. The UFO conference scene can be it's own closed little world, and it felt good to put forth some ideas that went well beyond the nuts and bolts mindset of the core group of attendees. This talk seemed to be well received and it felt good to reach this audience.

The core of this talk comes from a long format essay (of the same name) linked HERE.

There may be a point in the future when the whole presentation will be posted online. For now, the conference organizers have requested just this short edited excerpt.

NOTE: This talk has been touted 

as a "kickass presentation" by Red Pill Junkie.

This presentation (along with a lot of others) can be purchased as a DVD at the IUFOC on-line site.

Here's the description of this presentation 

from the conference program:

Mike Clelland began his study of the UFO abduction phenomenon in 2006 as a way to better understand his own personal experiences. This act of looking unleashed a flood of synchronicities as well as intense owl sightings. These events have been the focus of his ongoing research. Both owls and profound synchronicities seem to play a guiding role in the direct experience of some abductees, this connection points to a deeper reality at play in these mysteries. By looking at these elusive and often ignored aspects of the abduction lore, something truly mystical seems to be revealing itself.

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also: Here is a similar talk in it's full lenght, a total of an hour and 45 minutes. I spoke at a small conference in Leeds England, hosted by the Exopolitics Great Britain Lecture series. A video is linked HERE.

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Owls, driveways and laundry

A string of owl sychronicities emerged last week, and I’m trying to make sense of the overlapping weirdness. Like any synch, these things get so intertwined and personal that it ends up being almost impossible to convey their power, let alone their meaning. I’ve gotten to the point where I trust that the more entangled this stuff gets, the more I trust it. That said, I trust this flurry of synchro-weirdness.

What follows is my (excessively hyper-linked) attempt to unravel this knotted cluster of owl stuff.

I'm visual, so charts help me focus

On Monday (Sept. 30th) I had a Reiki session with a woman I know here in my little town. You can read a long post about what happened HERE. At the end of our meeting I asked if she had ever had any odd owl experiences.

I asked her: “Have you seen any owls recently?”

She said, “Well, me and my boyfriend saw a great big owl last night, it was really incredible.”

She explained about seeing a great horned owl that flew along side her, from fence post to branch, as she walked along a path. It would swoop down low and then landed further down the path, staying ahead of them as they walked. It was huge and it would glide low and incredibly close to the ground as it stayed in front of her and her friend.

I calmly told her, “That was me. That owl was all about this, us here right now.”


She agreed.

That same night I got an email where she told me she had see another owl after our session. She wrote that is was a huge gray owl (I am assuming it was a great gray) in the same spot, and it “appeared” right in the moment when she thought to herself that she wanted to manifest an elephant.

I wanted to talk with her but didn’t call until the next day Tuesday (Oct. 1st), right before calling her I switched on the live broadcast of Micah Hanks’ The Grailien Report. The show was only on for a little bit, just enough for me to hear that Micah had two guests, Cam and Kyle from the Expanded Perspectives Podcast.

I turned off the audio, walked next door to do a load of laundry (I use my neighbors washing machine) and when I got back to the house I made the call to the Reiki therapist. I left a message on her machine and then switched the audio back on.

The first thing I heard was Micah’s voice excitedly declaring, “The gentleman you guys are talking about is… Mike Clelland of the Hidden Experience blog. So, someone needs to get him in the chatroom, we’re talkin’ about owls!”

I was sitting right at my desk, I clicked on skype, send a little note, “Micah - I JUST started listening - and guess what I heard…” Within seconds I was on the air with him and his guests.

You can hear the excitement in amazement in their voices as they reveled in the fact that I heard my name and got on the air so quickly. I felt a little bit like I’d hijacked the conversation for the remaining half hour of the show. One thing I talked about was a weird synchronicty surrounding a woman from Asheville North Carolina, right where Micah lives, and her mystical experiences with owls and a very strange UFO sighting.

Now, what I hadn’t heard was just how my name came up. This morning I listened to the archived edition of the show from that night, and a a highly charged number comes up.

There it is again, 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 !

At the 1:23:45 time count, Cam begins a very interesting owl story by saying, “Now a little stranger than that, here’s another story that my mother actually shared with me…” What follows is an extremely eerie sighting of a giant 4 and 1/2 foot tall owl seen in a driveway.

As the guy tells this story, he says he pressed his mother for details because there is a guy who has a blog where he talks about owls and UFO abduction. He was obviously talking about me, but I hadn’t hear this part live.

Fast forward to yesterday, Thursday (Oct. 10th). I was at my desk all day obsessively working on this owl book project. As it got to be evening I received an email from Alan Abbadessa-Green, he was replying to a note I had sent him on Monday (Oct. 7th) where I said, “Are you up for a call?”

I don’t know if I’ve ever just asked him to chat like this, but I really enjoy talking with him. So it was a little bit unusual that I would just ask to talk like this. He said lets talk and later that night he rang me up on skype.

He excitedly asked, “What did you think of that picture I sent you!”

I hadn’t received anything, and he resized he had tried to tag me on someone else's photo on facebook, so I never go it.

a small owl in Alan's driveway

He sent it as we talked. He explained that last week, on Wednesday (Oct. 2nd) he was coming home from doing the laundry, and as he was nearing his driveway he had a strong thought in his mind, “Mike Clelland - owls - owls owls - Mike Clelland.” When he pulled into his home, there on the driveway was a small little owl. He was with a friend and he took a picture of it. He said he was close enough that he could see it’s big eyes dilate from the flash.

Caption from the site: 
Ran into this cute little guy on my walk to work.
He didn't move, just starred at me.
I even gave him a boop on the head.

Now that morning Thursday (Oct. 10th) the first email in my in-box was a link to this image. It was from someone who I didn’t know, but had heard me on Greg Bishop’s Radio Mysterioso. It was just a cute owl image found online, but it weirdly matched Alan’s experience. It was an owl in a driveway!

Alan and Micah both live in the same town, along with the woman who had the owl and UFO experience, that being Asheville North Carolina. Both Alan and Micah are podcasters, bloggers, authors and publish books. I've interviewed both Alan and Micah, in both of these there was huge focus on synchronicities.

Now, there is no better person on earth than Alan to try to unravel this kind of synchro-weirdness. The laundry connection seemed odd, and Alan pointed out that I had my own powerful laundry sync (linked HERE). But weirder to me was the striking similarity of the two owl in the driveway pictures.

We both tried to untangle this weird knot of owl stuff, but all we ended up doing was seeing more and more little threads that seemed to lead everywhere. No answers, just a recognition that this stuff really happens.

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Reiki and an owl

Great Horned Owl

Just minutes ago I left an office where I had my first ever Reiki session. I’ve known the practitioner for years, but it was only recently that I had heard she was using Reiki as part of her therapeutic work. The reason for our meeting this morning was that I’ve been desperately seeking out any kind of help as a way to come to terms with the challenges of what I’ve been going through.

Anyone who has followed my story, even if only a little, will know I’ve had a lifetime of depression. I am at a place right now where I’m wondering if this bleak mood is somehow tied in with my UFOs experiences and synchronicities. I’m looking for any help I can find, and sitting with a Reiki therapist seemed as good a way as any to dig deeper.

The session started with her asking questions; I explained the reasons I came to her. I spoke about my ongoing depression and how its impacted on my life. Then I cautiously asked if she wanted to hear about what I think might really be happening.

She said, “Yep, I wanna hear it.”

I tried to fill her in on the UFO stuff, not an easy thing to do in just a few minutes. She nodded and reassured me that she believed me and then she asked me to move my chair to the middle of the room. She told me to get comfortable and to close my eyes. For the next half hour or so I sat quietly while she briefly set her hands on my head and shoulders. The rest of the time she just stood near me, mostly behind me as I sat.

After that she sat in front of me and told me I could open my eyes. She said, “Well, what I’m getting is that you are having a Kundalini awakening.”

She went on to explain what she had received. She told me I was very open, that I was experiencing things coming into me and that these things were real.

She was framing things in her own spiritual understanding, one based in eastern traditions. She had studied Kashmir Shavism, and within that tradition all things are a manifestation of a Universal Consciousness. The emotional pain I’ve been feeling could be seen as a separation of this wholeness of conciseness. Her sense was that the source of my depression wasn’t base on any kind of buried UFO trauma, but more on an awareness that I was feeling a separateness from the one unified source (call that love, Universal Consciousness, God or whatever) and I was now coming to terms with that deeper knowing.

Listening to her, it was obvious that she was seeing my experience as if it were parallel to her own. She wasn’t having UFO sightings, but she told me of an almost mystical kinship with elephants and that the grass would talk to her.

I was impressed that her way of framing the totality of all of it, what the universe meant to her, jived so closely with the way I see it. She used different vocabulary words and metaphors, but none the less, it matched what I’ve been experiencing.

During this part of our session she was sitting with a big window behind her, so her head was back lit by bright, but overcast skies. She had her curly hair tied back and the way some of the wisps of hair set against her ears created a weirdly vivid illusion that she had pointed elf ears. It was perfectly symmetrical on both her right and left ears. This wasn’t subtle, she looked exactly like an elf straight out of the movie The Lord of the Rings.

I interrupted her to explain that I was seeing her as a magical elf. In that moment, I had a profound ringing in my left ear. This happens sometimes, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.

Until this point I hadn’t mentioned any of the owl stuff. I wanted to tell her about the book project I’ve been focused on (the working title is Owls and the UFO Abductee) but before I did, I asked her: “Have you seen any owls recently?”

She said, “Well, me and my boyfriend saw a great big owl last night, it was really incredible.”

I asked what happened and she explained that they had been walking near their home when they saw an owl sitting on a branch near them. As they walked closer it swooped down low and then landed further down the path, staying ahead of them as they walked. She described a Great Horned owl, she said it was big and it would glide low and incredibly close to the ground as it stayed in front of her and her friend.

I asked if she had seen many owls since she moved her over a decade ago. This valley has a lot of owls so it didn’t surprise me that she said she had seen a few now and again. I asked if any of these sightings had been powerful in any way, she said, “Not really, except for what had happened last night, that was pretty intense.”

I calmly told her, “That was me. That owl was all about this, us here right now.”



She agreed. I went on to say that I was just about to tell her that she shouldn’t be surprised if she saw an owl in the next few days, but The Universe beat me to it, it had already happened.

If this had been 2009 and she said she had seen an owl the night before our session, it would’ve really flipped me out. The synchronicity of it would have sent me into a spiraling frenzy of second guessing. My fragile brain would have been a conflicted jumble of divergent thoughts, first dismissing it as nothing, and the next second, ascribing the owl as a divine messenger from on high. But this morning, I saw it as being almost (but not quite) mundane.

She also pointed out that I used the term crazy a few times during our discussion. I had said things like “this crazy UFO stuff” as I tried to explain what had been going on in my life. She told me that it wasn’t crazy and I should stop framing it that way. I agreed and said that I use it less and less as I proceed forward in my acceptance of what seems to be intersecting with my life.

Text added, same day, 11:23 at night:

I just got an email from my Reiki therapist (excerpt below). She saw an owl again tonight. Two big owls seen two nights in a row. Why does this all seem so normal to me now?

[my boyfriend] and I took the kitties for a walk tonight and just as I was thinking, "I'm going to manifest an elephant sighting," that big grey owl appeared on a fence post. I don't know if it landed there as I thought that thought - or if it came into my conscious view after I thought that thought - or if it just appeared, materialized. I had to laugh out loud - the playful universe constantly displaying its sense of humor and connection.

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White Owls and Odd Events

Experiencer, researcher and blogger Chris Holly writes about her lifetime of white owl sightings and how they relate to the paranormal and UFO lore. She is describing exactly what I’ve been seeing.

Her insightful post linked HERE.
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owls and the UFO abductee

This 2013 essay was the foundation for the 2015 book 

The Messengers

Clicke here for a direct LINK

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This is a long format essay where I attempt to unravel the the mystery of why so many UFO abductees report weird owl experiences. There are reoccurring accounts of screen memories throughout the literature, but this is something much more elusive. Much of this reporting comes from my own direct experience.

For reasons I don't understand, owls are somehow attracted to people who tell of direct contact with the UFO occupants.

I need to thank all the people who helped me with this report, your willingness to share has been a powerful gift to me. Thank you.

Click on the title text below for an easy-to-use 

PDF document reader:

Owls and the UFO Abductee 

Click on the button on the far right to view in FULL-SCREEN mode.

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This essay makes a tidy companion to another essay titled:

Synchronicity and the UFO abductee

These two essays essentially tell the same story. The owls are playing a very similar role to the synchronicity, at least in the way they have directly influenced me and my journey.

This essay will be a chapter in the upcoming collection title The Contact Book. edited and compiled by Frank Zero. Fellow contributors include: Brad Steiger, Christopher Knowles, Loren Coleman, Theresa Lee Clark and Colin Reid.

Also, in writing this essay I realized that this could well be the foundation of a stand alone book. There is a wealth of reporting - and it's incredibly weird.

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Update added July 5th:

I have heard from two people (both with UFO experiences) who saw an owl within minutes of reading this essay. This mirrors David Weatherly's experience (noted in the essay) where he actually saw an owl while reading this essay.  To me, this is a sort of confirmation that I am onto something with this avenue of research.

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At some point at the end of July (2013) this essay has become the most popular post in the four and a half year history of this blog.

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a lone owl and 1974

Danish Blue Plate and resonant weirdness

I sat with my mother yesterday. It was the first time I had seen her in almost a full year. This morning I found this Danish Blue Plate in my sister's home.

My mother was born in Denmark near Copenhagen 81 years ago. She collected these plates and they decorated our home in my youth. They are heavy porcelain and created each year by the Royal Copenhagen company in Denmark. This Christmas plate is titled Winter Twilight.

The image on this plate includes an owl, a full moon (matching tonight's super-moon and eclipse), the Star of David, pine cones (where we get the term Pineal Gland), my ancestry, my mother and 1974. For obviously personal reasons, the year 1974 comes up over and over in my self indulgent research. This was the year of a close up UFO sighting, and a missing time event.

Also, I did a psychic session with Anya Briggs in 2009 where she spoke about my mother and her previous lives and how it was intertwined with the blue and white porcelain pottery from Delft Holland. I realized at the time this was eerily similar to my Mother's obsession with the Danish blue and white plates. And, I had dinner last night with family who have been living in Holland.

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owls and Anne Strieber

Now that it's finally springtime I've been riding my bike to town, I do this daily. There is a great big nest up in a cottonwood tree right where the bike lane along the highway crosses a creek and then veers off to its own bike trail.

This nest is home to a Great Horned Owl. I've been taking binoculars along with me on some days when I ride to town. I'll sit in the grass for a few minutes and focus on this amazing creature. Mostly all you can see is just it's cat-like head poking up above the huge nest. It's been wonderful to have this chance to see something so beautiful.

In the early evening of Tuesday April 30th I was riding my bike home from my little downtown. I had my iPod on shuffle and the sun was setting. As I approached this corner in the highway closest to the big nest one song faded off and I waited for the next one to start. Instead of music I heard Anne Strieber's voice.

"Hi subscribers, this is Anne Strieber..."

Anne is Whitley Strieber's wife and she has been hosting a series of special interviews where she talks with close encounter witnesses. What I was hearing was the very first in this series from January of 2010, and I was the guest.

Her voice came on just as I was slowing down to see if I could catch sight of the owl. The sun was setting and the closest spot for a view lined up exactly behind the big nest making for some dramatic backlighting. There was really only one good spot to get a view, it was a narrow opening along the scrubby bushes and aspen trees that lined the highway. From this one place I could see the owl's head and the silhouette of it's tufted "ears." There was literally a halo around the owl and I was staring directly into a shimmering aurora with an owl at it's center.

It was at this moment, as I was standing with my bike, that I realized this was the interview with me. I have a ton of stuff crammed onto my iPod, including a lot of audio interviews. I feel like I've downloaded most of Anne's subscriber series with the close encounter witnesses. The chances of this interview popping up at this moment was striking.

What I also realized was right at that moment Anne was having brain surgery to remove a (non-cancerous) tumor called a meningioma.

Before heading to town on my bike I had read this facebook message from her husband, Whitley:

Anne is in surgery now. There are probably about nine or ten hours to go. It is a very meticulous, exacting surgery. Pray for my wonderful girl!

So I saw an owl backlit by the setting sun while listening to Anne's voice introducing me while she was having a very serious operation on her brain.

This was an impressive cluster of points all in alignment at that moment; the sun, the owl, Anne's voice, Anne's surgery, plus me and my experiences. I am pretty sure this is a female owl sitting on her eggs. So I was looking at an image of motherhood in this same straight line.

Some of the mythology surrounding the owl is steeped in foreboding and death. But I felt none of that, the experience was delightful and inspiring.

Up until yesterday I had only seen one owl in that nest. While riding home last night I did the same thing, I stopped my bike at the break in the trees to look at the nest and I was delighted to see two owls. Both of them were looking right at me. One stayed low in the nest (I assume sitting on eggs) and the other one hopped from one branch to another. This second owl eventually flew to another tree.

The very first day I looked through my binoculars to get a better view of the owl, at the moment I initially focused on the owl's face—it winked at me!

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(more)

Also, in the summer of 2011 I had an experience of seeing an owl in an exact alignment with the full moon.

This same corner, where the bike path converges with the highway lines up with a bridge across a creek. This site has been the location of a series of blog posts. One with an old girlfriend and an owl (here). One with two owls crossing my path (here). And one with a deer (here).

Anne Strieber's journal as she waited to go into surgery (here)

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stare of the owl

This extremely strange story comes from experiencer Ken Bakeman. He tells a personal experience that includes not only an owl but a literal circus troop of other animals. The details are perfectly bizarre. I am convinced that nobody would dare make up anything so absurd. Recommended reading.

There is a side to the UFO abduction phenomenon that rarely gets whispered. Something is at play that stretches my view of reality - close to the point of snapping!

Ken's personal report linked HERE

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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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Graham Hancock on UFO abductees, shamans and owls

Graham Hancock

This presentation addresses the UFO abduction Phenomenon as something that has been ever-present throughout the history of humanity. He specifically talks about owls at about the 38:00 minute mark. I highly recommend this video.

UPDATE:
Chris Knowles posted a follow-up on this presentation. His essay is titled Wizards, Workings and Walk-Ins: Watchers and Otherworlds. He uses Jack Kirby as an example of this mystical shamanic powers that Graham Hancock attempts to define.

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tiny german house

Over four years ago I read a weird set of stories in the PARACAST forums and something about them really stuck with me. I just searched them out and re-read the same creepy accounts, and they still had the same enigmatic power.

The stories are linked HERE. I am posting his first two experiences below. I edited the text very slightly.

The author wrote under a pseudonym (Ben), and hasn’t posted anything on that site in over three years. He shares a few more very telling experiences later in that same series of posts.

Below are two post from Ben, both from July 30, 2008.

I had an experience while stationed in Wildflecken Germany in 1989.

My squad was on a recon mission out in the forest - we were at least an hour from any civilization, when we came across a tiny house. It looked just like any other German house in the villages, but it stood about three feet tall. There was moss growing on the stones, and on the tile roof - it had the stucco looking upper walls, with the wood cross beams.

There were about 7 of us in the squad, including our squad leader. A couple of guys walked up to the house, and started to look in the windows, and reached for the front door to open it. Before he could, the squad leader told him to stand-down, and to not touch it.

The house was a real house - not a doll house, or a prop of some sort. It looked lived in. The windows had drapes, and the door had a tiny handle. We walked around the tiny house. I personally looked into a window and saw drapes; I don't remember seeing inside though. None of us touched it because we were told explicitly not to.

We were miles and miles away from even a dirt road. The weirdest part about it all was that after we were told to stand-down, we sat down and ate lunch there - we were about 8 feet from it the whole time we were eating. Then, as if we didn't see anything, we were told to get back into recon mode, and continue the training mission. We went off into the forest, and nobody brought it up again until about a month later when I asked my roommate if he remembered seeing the house, and he said yes, but that was it - no more conversation. To my knowledge, there weren't any photos taken.

I have a friend that just went to Iraq, and while he was in training, a sergeant told his group about seeing a "miniature house" in the middle of the forest while in Germany, that freaked him out pretty bad. I am, looking for an explanation, or anybody else that has seen something like this.

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Shortly after I got out of the Army in 1991, I was staying at my parent's house in the country. There are only 2 houses on the road (1.5 miles long). My best friend lived in a town that was 20 minutes away. We had plans to meet at his house, and then go downtown; it was a Saturday night.

I spoke with my friend at about 8:00 pm, and told him that I was "walking out the door" and would be there in about 20 minutes. He told me to make it quick, because he was ready to leave.

I remember leaving the house and pulling out of the driveway. It was just starting to get a little dark outside. I drove about a half of a mile down the road before I saw a huge whitish-grey owl standing in the middle of the road. It was about three feet tall. I don’t remember hitting it or anything like that – just seeing it standing there in front of the car.

The next thing I remember was pulling into the drive of my friend’s house. It was dark out, and when I went it, my friend was furious. He said, “Where in the ---- have you been? You said you were leaving right away!”

I told him that I did leave right away.

To which he replied, “It’s after 10!”

I started to tell him what happened, but as soon as the words three foot owl came out, I felt like an idiot. I ended up apologizing for being late, and we left.

I was sober up until that point, then I drank to get rid of the uneasy feeling I had in the pit of my stomach.

I remember reading a book that talked about missing time a few years later, and when I saw that it said stuff about whitish-grey owls, rabbit, deer, etc. were normal, I almost threw up.

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Owl-rific!

Me and a Great Horned Owl

This picture was taken near my home. A local non-profit had an event for a land conservation organization and for the event there were a series of raptors there from The Teton Raptor Center, this is a small farm where they rehabilitate injured hawks, eagles and owls.

That's a real owl, about a foot tall, about 5 feet away behind the yellow cord - and very much alive.

The owl is about a foot in height. He had an injured wing and can no longer fly. You can see his one wing isn't folded along side of his body. Consequently, he can't be released back into the wild and now he travels around to events like this.

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The Bride of Frankenstein and Tube Girls

Tube Girls created by a mad scientist

Early in this clip we see tiny little homunculus in glass jars, this is a foreshadowing of the sci-fi TUBE GIRLS of later years. The special effects are astounding, especially given that it was only 1935. The amazing glass tubes are unveiled at about the one-minute mark.

I re-watched THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN last night. I was impressed that it had OWLS, Lord BYRON and TUBE GIRLS (see the above you-tube clip). A hat-trick just for me.

My first experiment was so lovely that we made her a Queen.

These gorgeous special effects are featured in an absolutely fabulous on-line article, linked HERE. This short essay is quite possibly the greatest thing ever published on the internet, this is must-read stuff! Thanks you Peter Bernard.

{ melodramatic dialog }

Dr. Frankenstein: "Why this isn't science, it's more like Black Magic!"

Dr. Pretorious: "You think I'm mad. Perhaps I am."

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little 123 synch

screen grab featuring that number!

I had a little tiny sync this afternoon. I wrote an article about coffee for Backpacker Magazine last month, and it was used in a tutorial video for an iPad app. When I checked the video it had 123 views.

This came after a funny day in town, where someone stopped me in the health food store and thanked me for my cartoon book on Ultralight Backpacking. Less than a minute later, I over heard two women in the post office complaining that they don't go camping because their backpacks are too heavy. I introduced myself and told them about my book, they were genuinely excited.

Also today, a cute girl I knew from high school (32 years ago) posted a picture of owl vomit on her facebook page.

Yes, owl vomit.

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wisdom from owls

Great Gray Owl in full camo.

This post was taken from a comment from one of my readers (Brizdaz). He is reading a book, The Healing Wisdom of Birds by Lesley Morrison. This is a book about all kinds of birds, but the author confesses that owls are her favorite.

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(from the forward)

When I undertook this project, many people asked me why I felt compelled to write a whole book about birds. My answer? I was haunted day and night, until I did. The universe has a funny way of making its advice known, and after challenging encounters and rescues with feathered creatures I finally got the message. I became alerted to the silent mission before me, and was compelled by an unyielding insistence to pay closer attention to birds and their world. So I remained haunted until the final manuscript was complete.

(an excerpt about owls)

The owl will always be the dearest bird species to me, and I have had many sad and spiritual encounters with this magnificent bird of prey. The owl has traditionally been very close to the spirit worlds, and associations between the owl, death, and magic are quite prominent and widespread.

If owl chooses you as a student, you are to become aware of all that moves in the dark. These could be hidden motives, thoughts, or emotions within you or others that have been kept from the light of awareness. Or there may be a hidden gift of clairvoyance and magic that needs nurturing when owl appears. Owl is the guardian spirit of many magicians and shamans, and often portends a time of deep learning or training in the ways of magical sight and manifestation.

Owl people can pierce the normal boundaries of space and time, and are quite adept at traveling back and forth between worlds. Having the owl as a totem is not always an easy experience. In fact, I consider owl's medicine to be among the most challenging. Owl people are usually solitary and must sometimes take hits from those without a firm spiritual understanding.

Owl spirit guides will often visit their human companions in the dream-time. This is where the owl imparts wisdom through dream symbolism and imagery. The owl person must learn about archetypes -  universal symbolic images - in order to decipher owl's hidden messages. Symbolism is the crux of magic, and must be studied carefully by the owl person.

Owl people are often troubled by an innate wisdom of the universe that finds no expression or validation in the affairs of humans. They disdain many social structures,  and find it difficult to maintain close relationships with people in general. Many people aligned with owl find that retreat from the disenchanted world is the greatest path to understanding, and owl will often guide those with it's medicine away from their normal preoccupation with everyday activities by instilling a sense of disappointment in the owl soul person.

This sense of discontent eventually leads the owl person into deep exploration of the hidden worlds. The spirit of owl seems to haunt their very souls, as if a constant reminder of the illusory nature of life on earth.

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Please note: I edited this excerpt slightly.