Jim's Popcorn Machine UFO

In June of last year, I wrote about an experience Jim had when he was around ten or so. One of those dreams-that-aren't-dreams-but-we-tell-ourselves-they-were-dreams-encounters. 

When we were first together, Jim painted this watercolor the UFO he dreamt saw.

James Rich, "Popcorn Machine Alien/UFO" watercolor

He gave the painting to a friend of his many years ago, and I recently was able to take a picture of it with my phone. 

I love this painting, not only for its personal and parallel connection with childhood and encounters, but the painting is reminiscent of all that great science fiction cover art from the 1950s and '60s.

Synchronicity: Golden Light and Picture Post Cards

Two synchronicities today.

Last night, or early this morning, I had a strange experience. A brilliant, beautiful and intense golden light filled up in my head. I was awake, not dreaming or asleep. Just waking up… this light was sort of like those so-called "head explosions" but different in many ways as well. The color, for one ("head explosions are white, in my experience) and there wasn't any sound. And the emotion that accompanied this golden light -- incredible! Just profound. I knew it was important, and special. Why it was, I don't know, simply that it was. As the light was beginning to fade away, I very distinctly heard my name being called. I had the impression the spirit or entity (angel?) was both male and female, or, also, that the energy or entity was more than one single being.

This afternoon someone shared with me their experience of a sighting. I won't write about it without permission, but this person did say that part of the encounter included a golden light, and that the experience had deeply affected them.

Later this evening, I was reading Jim my post on the 7 Foot Eagle "mind post card." (see post below.) As soon as I said "mind post card" Jim interrupted me and showed me what he had just written a minute before. (He had been writing when I asked him if he could listen to my reading the post. He said "In a sec, I just want to finish this sentence.") The sentence: "… she rented a villa above a picture post card isle."

Active lately; synchronicity, dreams, visions. I have put out the intent of intentionally recalling encounters; it's possible the call has been heard and answered. Or, just more weird for its own sake. I think on some level it's as simple as the latter, even while equally and concurrently profound on another.

Entering the Orb: Location Connection in Dream

I had the following dream last night; I'm leaving out one detail because it was about a public figure's death. (Said person is, as far as I know, very much alive.)

 I drive out to the coast, but it wasn't a place I'd been to before. Like most dreams, this location is all mixed up. Part coast, (50 miles west) but part south of me towards the small town of Cottage Grove, a straight shot down 1-5 from Eugene. About 25 min. away. (Cottage Grove is said to be haunted in a lot of ways: UFOs, strange things, and in fact, I've always felt uneasy and, well, "haunted" whenever out there. That includes the outlying areas like Dorena Lake.)

I arrive at my destination. Jim is with me. We're all about UFOs, Mothman, ghosts... lots of talk about that with others who are researchers and witnesses.  The woods are all around us. It turns into night.  I become very  nervous because I have to drive back to Eugene  but don't like to drive at night, especially on a road I'm not used to. Jim seems to have disappeared around this time; for some reason, I have to drive back alone.  Several of the people here accuse me of being a big chicken and not serious about UFOs because I want to wait until morning to drive back.  I try to make them aware that driving at night, in the dark without lights and on an unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar town is irresponsible.

It wasn't until I started writing this, sharing it with others (because of the person dying, mainly) that I realized with a jolt the Cottage Grove-orb-missing time connection. Jim and I were coming back from Cottage Grove, at night, when we had our orange orb sighting and missing time.

Entering the Orb: Stumbling on the Hill (s)?

The area where we saw the orange orb is hilly. We lived at the top of a hill. Well, already we're in a land of confusion, because Jim insists we weren't living there yet when we saw the orange orb; we were living on Hilyard St. "downtown" ish, near the U of O campus. I insist that simply isn't correct at all, that the orange orb was seen when we were living at the house on top of the hill at Friendly St.

Inspired by a comment left here yesterday I was skimming through my copy of Captured! (Stanton Friedman and Kathleen Marden) about Barney and Betty Hill. Specifically I was looking at sections regarding Dr. Simon, who used hypnosis to help recover their memories of what happened during their missing time.

Last night I had a dream:

it's night, very dark, and Jim and I keep walking up a hill. It's not the hill where we lived, but around there, up a ways. (Kind of near where I saw the orb drop down behind a house.) We get almost to the top of the hill, but then stop. We're lost, can't see well, things sort of dead end. So we try again. Go back, walk around, come back up the hill. Same thing. We're both getting very irritated with each other, and the whole thing, just all of it. We just keep doing this over and over and are getting very frustrated with "them" and  Jim kind of calls out to "them" to knock it off. It's like "they" are close by and can see us but we can't see them.

I was telling Jim this dream as we were taking our walk. I said it was like Sisyphus and Jim said "I was just going to say, it reminded me of that." Just at the part where I said "We keep getting to almost the top of the hill then things just stop..." I almost fell flat on my face, thankfully Jim caught me. I had tripped on the sidewalk, the top of my sandal got caught somehow. It wasn't a small stumble but a big one; really yanked my toes! If Jim hadn't caught me I would have fallen.

Book Project: Entering the Orb

I've begun a new project. Not sure yet how I'll end up doing this; interactive, as Nancy Birnes suggested, e-book, Kindle, self-publish, blog, pay per installment...so many options. I think, however, that it will be in a sort of journal format, fairly traditional in terms of publishing (e-book/Kindle/self, or through a publisher) with segments posted here at The Orange Orb.

So here it is, working title: Entering the Orb: A Couple's Journey into Missing Time, Screen Memories and UFOs.

Jim and I have decided, spontaneously and independently of each other, to go through some kind of regression and retrieval process to find out what happened during our missing time experiences. We've agreed that we would not share what we found out about our own experiences until all the work has been done. We don't know yet if we would see different people, or the same person. If we saw the same person, there's the possibility that person would be unconsciously influenced by the both of us.  Than again, maybe not.

A lot of this is absolutely trust based. How can we prove to others that we're telling the truth when we say we won't discuss with each other what's been discovered, until it's all done? We can't.

There's also a large issue of vulnerability here. Some possible causes for the missing time episodes are obvious -- as in, oh my god they really were Reptilian Overlords. Other reasons concern memory. As you'll see in my next post, Jim and I have very different memories of one of our missing time events. Clearly, one of us is wrong. So why the difference in memories? And if it turns out the cause for missing time isn't UFO related, alien related or some other esoteric or metaphysical cause, then what, and why? Are we unstable? Did someone drug us? (If so, why, and that's certainly scary on its own.) I could handle any of those, (I think) but what I don't think I could handle is the possibly we made it all up. Unintentionally of course, but made up nonetheless. If that is so, why in the world would we do so? That in itself is intriguing.

"The Aliens Are Coming for Us!" More From my Invisible Aliens

I dream a lot about UFOs and aliens, though I rarely see  ET type alien entities in my dreams. They are always invisible; their presence known, felt, but unseen. Occasionally the "aliens" are human enough looking but just off enough to convey a creepy and threatening intent.

I also have a series of dreamscapes, or "sets" that appear in my dreams. One such recurring dreamscape is a small coastal town. In my waking life, I love the coast, and am looking forward to when I'll finally be able to move there. Yet this dreamscape is not a happy place; it's always depressing. It's almost a ghost town, very shabby. There's a crumbling, dirty white stucco wall along side the shore, buildings are falling apart, it's just sad and dirty.

So Jim and I are here, and we get a frantic call from someone who wants us to come and investigate strange paranormal activity. It's a run down gas station; maybe a customer once a week, that kind of thing. We find a lot of poltergeist activity and assume it's a ghost, some kind of haunting, and are about to leave on that note, telling the owner that yep, there's a ghost here all right. Suddenly, UFOs appear, and the "aliens" are all over the place, but I can't see them. They're here all right, right up next to me, but I can't see them. They are very nasty and we all start running in ciricles and screaming "The aliens are here, they're coming after us!" It sounds damn funny now, but it was very scary in the dream.

A bit later, we get another call from someone else in town. More ghostly activity. We go to investigate, decide it's a haunting, and are about to leave when the invisible aliens in their UFOs arrive. The previous scene repeats itself: running around, screaming "The aliens are out to get us!" and escaping just in time. And, again, I can't see them.

I have a bit of a lucid moment in the dream, where I wonder, after making my escape, if these invisible aliens "have anything to do with the orange orb I saw on Lorane highway years ago?" Then I think, "Well, that's an interesting thought."

Images and Old Poems

pastel drawing by Regan Lee

I've been going through some of my poetry and creative writing with the idea of e-zines, or chapbooks, or something, not sure yet where I'm going with this. I noticed that some of theses early poems from the 1980s have recurring images of orbs, night skies, and feelings of disconnection. In re-reading them, I realized many of these were written around the time I saw the orange orb. In fact, this poem refers to an orb, although it's a sliver orb, not orange. The imagery is interesting: moon women, orbs, shadows, and the end, sweet jesus, "capturing my frozen eyes." ?! What was that about? I also noticed that I wrote a lot of these kinds of poems during the late summer and the fall, which is the time frame for our orb sighting. And in going back further, reading poems I wrote while living in L.A., the imagery of orbs and night and planets, etc. were present. As Jim and I know now, we had UFO related, and/or high strangeness events occur when we were living in L.A., before the orange orb sighting. And, of course, going back to our childhoods, independent of each other. Are there clues in these poems, signals from the subconscious? No doubt, lol.

unconnected with moon women

a silver orb waits silently in a
musty corner on a wooden shelf,
hidden by sharp shadows like Chinese meat cleavers poised
on thick pegs above labeled spice jars, corked and racked, 
full of the herbs of mid-wives, now forgotten.

on the windowsill, tart purple grapes, hot and shriveled
grapefruit and pomegranate exposing their soft pink and secret glistening red waiting to be eaten.

unconnected with moon women i wait,
a single artichoke on a a scalloped plate, my tips half chewed, strewn about the cream white edges

the sliver orb shifts forward slightly in the night, and
one sliver gleams bone white 

capturing my frozen eyes.

~ 1982

Blue Suited Aliens in Parking Garage

This year has found me working on consciously recovering the facts/reality of my UFO events, including missing time. I don't think hypnosis is the answer, although I find myself arguing with myself about it a lot. Meanwhile, I've been trying to remember, through meditation, dream work, and just plain demanding my suppressed memories to come forth, goddammit! and get real here. The following is a dream I had last night but before I relate the dream, here's the background:

The Event
I wrote about the missing time experience here: Missing Time Los Angeles/West Hollywood 1996 or '97 Jim and I were compelled to walk down a side street; something about a light coming from a parking garage. We both remember feeling there was something odd about it and went towards it. As I wrote in the post on Saucer Sightings, this was when all kinds of UFO related events, dreams, etc. started happening.

The Dream
I'm in a city, daytime. Jim is with me, or nearby. . . I/we get an urgent call, a telepathic "call," from a friend. Or is it Jim, who's already there? Either way, telepathic message of urgency comes to meet him/her/them at a parking garage a few blocks away.

I/we get over there fast. We're walking when this happens, so we kind of run over there. Arriving at the garage, there is no friend. In fact, there isn't anyone around. The city seems to be a ghost town. No people. Just us. And about a half dozen aliens.

The aliens are very human looking; a little weird looking, but human. Around six and half feet tall, maybe taller. Their skin is pale white, but again, they are more human looking than not. They're all wearing the same uniform, a skin tight, thin, blue jumpsuit with yellow and silver trim. I'm the only human (for they look human, and could pass for human, but I know they're not) around. Jim is off in another part of the garage, I know this telepathically.

Two or three of these beings grab me, which is ridiculous I think. (A lucid moment in the dream.) They're men, they're tall and big, why would it take three of them to hold me? But they're kind of weak. It's all show. They're not hurting me but I still don't like this. I don't like being tricked, I don't like being held here against my will. I have no choice. I'm angry, screw them!

They're holding me and one of the beings comes over to me, and presses himself against me, on top of me. It seems sexual and almost like rape, except, it isn't anything physical he wants. We remain clothed, there's no genitalia (I'm not sure they have any) and while it's very much an intrusion, it's not sexual. He doesn't want my body, he wants me - my soul, or ...something.  He presses himself into me, in a sense. Sort of lke a Vulcan mind meld, as silly as that sounds. He's taking something from me, but he's also giving me a bit of something as well.

Then he's done, the others release me, and they're pleased with themselves. Me, I'm still pissed. I don't care if they didn't hurt me, or that Jim is now back, and we can go. I'm angry at the whole thing: the ruse, the assumption they can just take what they want, the lack of communication or explanation, let alone asking permission.

Aftermath
When I told Jim my dream the first thing he said was that "obviously" I was remembering something about that night in West Hollywood. He thinks, as do I, that night was the beginning of our UFO journey.

How much is memory of a real event, how much is my own subconscious creativity and taking from what I know to create something? The event happened at night, yet I dreamt it took place during the day. Uniform clad "aliens," -- MILABS? I mentioned those in a post here the other day; do I think humans were involved in some of this? I don't know. . . I really just do not know. . . is that a memory of a true event, or my fears?

Nikola Tesla and the Electric Universe

This is a great little video on Tesla.

I've rediscovered Tesla recently, and the above link is one more Tesla related synchronicity I've experienced since I've been delving into Tesla. I have Jim to thank for this; he's been hard at work on a novel that incorporates Tesla. In doing research for the book, he's bought Return of the Dove, by Margaret Storm (a vintage copy, in green ink!) and The Wall of Light: Nikola Tesla & the Venusian Space, by Arthur Hugh Matthews.

SUNDAY ORB

Not much going on. Sick with Fall crud, low energy, but in spite of that I like the Fall and the crisp air, I've been putting up my Fall season lights, my favorite string being an icicle style string with lights that fade from purple to orange and back. Very nice. And if I hear "Harvest Fest" one more time I'll puke. So we don't offend the Christians or give off negative vibes to the little ones, we don't dare put up witches and say the dreaded word Halloween; we say "Harvest Fest."


Speaking of Halloween: supposedly the building I work in is haunted. I've personally never felt that, but others have. I'll have to pick the brains of someone who's experienced those things and see if I pick up anything. The playground, in one area seems spooky to me, maybe it's just the energy of the space itself. There was a building I worked in that I, and others, thought was haunted; I felt and saw a lot of odd things. Interesting how I'm usually sensitive to those things but every now and then I just don't pick up on it; like my friends home (they've since moved) many others saw and felt things, but me, nothing.

New posts at Vintage U.F.O., UFO Mary, James Rich Studio, Women Of Esoterica, and tëme (an animal blog) and Pulp Jello.

Why did they put The Mentalist against Fringe? And when is Torchwood coming back? I ask you.

Mac Tonnies has a new blog; it's a great idea. Things That Look Like Flying Saucers. I love it. Here's a flying saucer I found in my living room:


Lots of little synchronicities in my life lately. Again lately that is. I notice when you put out the intent, the synchroniciites appear. I've often wondered why they are so trivial much of the time, and many a skeptoid dismisses them for that very reason. But isn't it enough they're there in the first place? Simple nudges from the universe or matrix or whatever; that's all it takes.

Well, while nothing much going on here, there's always things going on in the UFO, Fortean realm on the internet, as a check of the usual will reveal. The Anomalist and other blogs, way too many to mention here, but check out my links lists and do your own searching; you'll find more than enough to keep you busy.

And while there may not be anything I have to say right now that's stunning or interesting or Big Time UFO News, that doesn't mean, as a few others -- and we do know who they are, right class? --- insist, that UFOs are dead, gone, boring, useless, pointless, etc. Far from it!