Orbs and Objects in Oregon

A big thank you to Cindy PDX who sent me the links to this story out of Albany, Oregon. A couple saw two "bullet shaped" UFOs that separated, and an orange orb appear very close to their property that gave off sparks.Sounds similar in many ways to what I saw here in Oregon many years ago, though it didn't give off sparks.

A few people in this area have also seen things like this through the years. And a source I have has told me the that the Camp Creek area in the Springfield region (the town over from Eugene) has a history of orange orbs. Sali Sheppard-Wolford, author of Valley of the Skookum, writes of orange orbs in Oregon and Washington.

What's as interesting to me as the story are some of the comments left by readers. Some readers have had similar experiences through the years. Yet others find the story not real news and pointless.

Referring to NUFORC's suggestion to the witness to contact the media about the sighting, a poster calling himself "What" comments:

"And obviously she followed up on the suggestion to contact the media. D-H, is this really newsworthy?"

Well, yes, it is "newsworthy" -- strange objects, orbs emitting sparks on your property. The question isn't if it's newsworthy -- it's: "Why do you think it isn't?"
Another poster going by "ChadT" remarks:
"

Come on Democrat Herald.. front page news? You could not find a better story than this? Do a story on a local teacher going out of their way to influence our kids.. or a local war hero.. or why the most unemployed county in the state fights big employers that might be coming here.. jeez

"

I don't get this type of "logic." If I write about scrambled eggs, does that mean I don't care about war, poverty, children's issues, or if Sonny and Carly are going to get back together on General Hospital?

Okay, not the best example. But this kind of ho hum, why are you boring us routine from those who don't even bother to debunk or scoff; they respond with a big yawn and ignore the weird lights and orbs over their heads. . . I don't get it.

I find this reaction -- or non-reaction-- particularly odd in these post 9/11 days. Homeland Security, terror alerts and scales; if there are weird things flying over your property, wouldn't you be concerned? Interested, at least? The conclusion these UFOs are ET is an assumption, and some may go there right away, but not everyone, including me. Man made, military, or even, if it turns out, a hoax or someone's remote controlled toy. Fine. Until one knows however, to display such indifference borders on the pathological.

Cindy has seen her own orange orb UFO, and she has very kindly given me permission to use that information for a future UFO Magazine article on Oregon's Orange Orbs.

Sunday Orb

The weeks go by too quickly! And when you work a full time job it’s difficult to spend the time you’d like with the realm of the weird. Here’s what’s been going on this past week:

New Blog: Women in Esoterica
I started a new blog: Women in Esoterica. Kind of clunky and too stuffy a title, I’ll probably change it soon.

My next lTrickster’s Realm article for Binnall of America should be up some time tomorrow; it’s on the new blog Women in Esoterica and why I started it.

Marian Apparition
I came across a good article on UFO Digest on a Marian Apparition. The writer’s name is Richelle Hawks and the article is The Virgin Tree of Salt Lake City


Ghost Photo Contest
I think Lesley is about to end the contest, if it isn’t ended already. Hurry over and see if it you can still submit a ghost photo.

The Zorgy Awards
Paul Kimball of The Other Side of Truth has decided to run his Zorgy Award campaign again. He’s taking nominations now. Categories include best UFO blob, best paranormal website, and many more. I came in third last year, much to my amazement. There are many great UFO blogs out there, but hey, I’ll ask anyway. Nominate me!

UFO Mystic
Two interesting articles on UFOs; what the phenomena is, how we should expand our thinking, over on UFO Mystic, Nick Redfern’s item on Steiger’s Shadow World book. Also Greg Bishop's piece on “objectivity.”

Book of Thoth
On The Book of Thoth is my piece on what I think UFOs are doing up there. They Want to be Seen, Not Discovered.

Book
I’m working away on a compilation to be an e-book of articles on skepticism. TBA.

UFO Magazine
My next article for UFO Magazine is on the expectations of disclosure.

Bigfoot
Lots of interesting things on Bigfoot, from sightings to escaped invisible Bigfoot from Livermore labs. This is an old story but reposted over at Cryptomundo in context of the Blogsquatcher’s post on the “lost” CBS footage of a captured Bigfoot in the 1960s. The Blogsquatcher by the way is a new Bigfoot blog that seems to be a very good one.

There's probably more, but I really should try to be responsible and get back in the “real” world and do things like housework. I also have a deadline (like, today) on my next piece for UFO Magazine. (this one on data.)

Have a good week, be safe, be kind, but don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Sunday Orb

Shameless Pleadings

Read my Bigfoot blog. Link to it, Favorite it on Technorati, talk about it. Leave comments. Enjoy. Or even if you don’t.

My Bigfoot blog Frame 352: The Stranger Side of Sasquatch.

And Shameless Self-Promotion:
I’ve submitted a piece to the Book of Thoth site: They Want to be Seen, Not Discovered. No guarantee it will be accepted, but hopefully it will be, so look out for it.

On UFO Digest is my piece
Disingenuous Infiltration on the unethical tactics of Abdullah Hashem and Donna Bassett. Yes, both are “old news” but that doesn’t mean anything.

Currently on Trickster’s Realm for Tim Binnall’s Binnall of America is my piece on the Trickster: No Mere Prankster. (and I must say I was very jazzed about Brad Steiger's nice email to me about the piece.)

In the current issue of UFO Magazine is my article on The Purple Road, about my New Agey self.

Ghost Picture Contest
Lesley of The Debris Field has her ghost pic contest going again. I entered a photo I took a few years ago at a local cemetery. Be sure to enter; it will be fun to see all the ghostly images!

Recent Orb Postings


I'm still reeling from Noory's Flintstone comment.
The UFO footage from Venezuela does seem too good to be true, as one person commented, it could be a blimp. Whatever, it's unlikely it was a flying saucer from outer space.

Orb Roundup

It's time for blatant shameless self-promotion and reminders:

In the current issue of UFO Magazine, I share my thoughts on the Triangle UFOs. No conclusions, just musings. (Of course, if I, or anyone, had conclusions, there'd be no mystery.)

Frame 352: The Stranger Side of Sasaquatch, my Bigfoot blog.

Mating Hedgehogs, my other blog on: media, culture, sex, para-politics, Dr. Evils, Forteana, esoterica, paranoia, Genetic Food Manipulations, animal rights and welfare, art, feminism, Americana, and whatever else I feel like.

For Trickster's Realm on Binnall of America: Finding Sasquatch.

I'm also around on UFO Digest and American Chronicle.

A Post Script on UFO Magazine Trianlge Article

The new issue of UFO Magazine is out. As usual, lots there, I'm looking forward to reading Farah Yurdozo's article on Adamski and Nazis. Yes! Haven't read the article, but it will prove to be very interesting. I've wondered for years about the Contactee movement and how there is a lot below the dichotomy of "they're nuts-lairs"/"they really did see ET".

My article on Black Triangles and the Trickster is in this issue as well. In the article I asked why the triangle hasn't changed in the many decades they've been present? You'd think that, over time and with their technology, they'd have changed quite a bit.

After the article, someone mentioned to me that there might be a couple of reasons why they haven't changed. We have ships; they really haven't changed much over several decades. If the triangle occupants are ET, time travel is a possibility: what may take a few hours in their life may seem like years in ours. I don't mesh with the idea of time travel; but who knows.

Another possibility: maybe they have changed, but they've changed to such a degree we don't recognize them as being triangles or related to triangles in any way. If that's so however, why use the triangles -- unless, as we do, use of older machines is still done.

All highly speculative of course. But it keeps me off the streets.

Sunday Round Up of Self Promotion

A few new things at my Bigfoot blog Frame 352.

And at Mating Hedgehogs.

Not much elsewhere, the new UFO Magazine isn't yet out, but should be soon. Look for my article on Daniel Fry, as well as all the other great articles that will be available.

I'll be in Los Angeles beginning Thursday; family wedding. I'll have my laptop but don't know how much writing I'll get done.

However, I am working a lot of various things, as always, including something on chemtrails, referencing Colin Bennett's article on the subject,(Chemtrails and UFOs) for example. My trip to Los Angeles should prove interesting regarding chemtrails. Also: UFO Semantics, or the Semantics of UFOs, something like that. It's a lost cause but I get annoyed and rant about it anyway. You can't "believe in" UFOs, UFOs are not aliens, UFOs do indeed exist, etc. The most convulted "reasoning" about this was a thread on the JREF (James Randi forum) -- something about why are UFOs considered "paranormal?" Nothing of the Trickster like events within many UFO events, or any of that, but a surreal post about extraterrestrials could be out there, but UFOs aren't, no one's proven UFOs exist, ... I dunno. Is it just me?

Sunday Self-Promotion Round Up

The Persistence of Chronic Skepticism, on American Chronicle.

Visit my blog Frame 352 about Bigfoot, with a focus on "high strangeness" Bigfoot, etc. Fram 352 supports and promotes a "No Kill" policy.

If you have a pro UFO blog, you can list it on UFO Blog Listings.

Some time tomorrow, my next Trickster's Realm column, Exhilaration and Coincidence, will be up on Tim Binnall's website, Binnall of America. (BoA)

And if you live in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, or interested in UFOs and weird events in that area, join Oregon Fortena.

The new issue of UFO Magazine should be out pretty soon; focus is on, of course, Roswell, what else? There'll also be articles by the usual wonderful writers; not sure who'll be in this issue but no doubt Farah Yurdozah, Lesley (of Debris Field) Beyond the Dial's column, Alfred Lehmberg, Nick Redfern, hopefully Jeremy Vaeni will have something as well, Dirk Vander Ploegg of UFO Digest, and others.

Women and Bigfoot Research

Recent discussions on women and bigfoot research. These have been around for a couple of weeks, but I’m just getting to mentioning them now. If you’ve missed them, here they are: On Cryptomundo there are entries on Jane Goodall and her views on Bigfoot: Women and Bigfoot Studies: Jane Goodall.

There’s also a discussion on sexism in bigfoot research:
Indy 500,Women and Bigfoot, Part 1. Part 2 follows immediately after on their blog.

Lisa Shiel of Bigfoot Quest liked my piece I did on her for UFO Magazine:
UFO Magazine Piece on Wild Women

Unexpected UFO Serendipity

Two unexpected UFO related items:

The first, from Lisa Shiel, of the Bigfoot Quest blog. Shiel has shared her knowledge of restricted airspace in relation to government/military testing of craft. (The Truth About UFOs and Restricted Airspace.) Shiel questions the almost meme lake idea among many UFO researchers that many craft (like the Triangles) are military. Shiel insists they aren’t ours, since they can’t be flown over civilian/populated areas. Furthermore, there is plenty of restricted airspace where these flight tests can be done. So why fly over public areas here and in other countries (as with the case of Triangles.)

Excellent points, and good solid factual data. I respectfully have a nagging argument here though: just because the government isn’t supposed to, doesn't mean they won’t, can’t, and don’t. I don’t know if the Triangles, for example, are ours, ET, or something else, but I do know one thing: they exist. I’ve seen them.

Shiel writes about the Bigfoot UFO connection, and it isn’t completely surprising she would have UFO entries on her blog, though her focus is on Bigfoot. Which brings me to this nice tie-in concerning self-promotion: the current issue of UFO Magazine includes my column on Lisa: Wild Women: Weird Bigfoot Research.

The other unexpected find was a UFO report, made by someone here in Eugene, Oregon. The report was from January 22nd of this year. I followed the link from UFO commentator and researcher Billy Booth to UFO Casebook. It’s an interesting sighting: different, and seems to be of two objects, as well as a possible humanoid creature.
Then I saw the name of the witness: Nahu. Nahu is the author of UFOs: God From Inner Space and other books, and the subject of my next article for UFO Magazine!

(image source: UFO Evidence website.

Recent writings. . .

On UFO Digest, you'll find "Alien" "Abductions" musing on the term: is it an apt term to use or not?

And in the recent issue of UFO Magazine, I write about Joe Nickell, skeptic, and his thing for owls in "Attack of the Owls."

Look for my Trickster Realm column on Tim Binnall's site BOA (Binnall of America,) where I take yet another angle on the Trent Tempest affair in The Trent Trickster Three. The column goes up Monday. While you're there, take a look at the other writers over there: Lesley, author of Grey Matters, Tina Sena's Esortericana, Khyron's The K-Files and Joe Vee's Wrath of Joe.

A “Keelian Attitude:” Nick Redfern on “The Crossover Problem”

A lot of good things in the current (February 2007) issue of UFO Magazine. Nick Redfern’s monthly column View From A Brit, discusses the uneasy and often opposed fields of UFOlogy and Cryptozoolgy. As he writes

“UFOlyg and cryptozoology make for strange bedfellows.”

The Crossover Problem, UFO Magazine, February 2007.)

Redfern addresses the issue of flesh and blood/nuts and bolts researchers vs. the “Keelian attitude” towards UFOs and Bigfoot, Nessie, etc. This is a topic very dear to my heart. and I’ve commented here and elsewhere (Trickster’s Realm, etc.) on the bigfoot-UFO relationship. I often ask myself why this split is so fierce; I can understand it a bit more from the flesh and blood Bigfoot side more than the UFO side of the Fortean fence, but it still doesn't seem sensible to me. As Nick points out, the investigation of one realm by a researcher of another would mean that

“both camps are in dire need of an overhaul, in terms of what is really going on.”

True. Also, and more alarming, in Redfern’s views is that by ignoring the weirder data, it will be lost. I absolutely agree as I’ve been saying since I’ve had this blog, the stories exist: deal with them!

Nick shares information about Rendlesham Forest, home of the 1980 Rendlesham UFO event. A really juicy bit of Forteana that I didn’t know about is revealed here about the area’s Fortean history, including crypto creatures, that predates the 1980 UFO event.

Nick writes that these “crossover” events (UFOs, Bigfoot, and other cryptids)

“are not going away any time soon!”

The Big Thicket terrain in Eastern Texas (Piney Woods area) has a delightfully rich history of Fortean and crypto stuff, and Redfern shares some of his investigation into this area in his column. H recommends a intriguing sounding book; In the Big Thicket, by Rob Riggs.

As Nick writes, these cases that include both UFOs and cryptos

“make many people within ufology and crypto zoology cringe.”

The majority of the time, this is sadly true. I agree completely with Redfern:

“Both camps need to realize that neither has the answer to their respective mysteries, and both should treat the crossover cases in the same fashion -- and as rigoursly -- as they would any other encounter. If we fail to look at all of the evidence - whether it sits well in our belief systems or not, it’s truly our loss.”

It was refreshing to read Redfern’s words on this topic. One thing both camps also should realize is that this “crossover” aspect doesn’t necessarily negate ET, or nuts and bolts UFOs, or flesh and blood Bigfoot. In this seemingly never-ending realm of Fortean weirdness doesn’t it seem quite sensible there’s room for all of it? That the possibly is pretty strong for layers upon layers, constantly shifting, sometimes mimicking, sometimes standing alone, sometime merging? Why do so many have a problem with this idea?

Threatened credibility is one reason, and understandable. Trying to prove to the world that Bigfoot exists is difficult enough without dragging in UFOs and dematerializing, telepathic Sasquatches. The same for UFOs. But, while I’m sympathetic to that reality, it’s time to move past that.It takes some courage, but losing data due to rejection of what makes one uncomfortable isn’t contributing to research, as Redfern points out.

I think there are ETs (very probably) as I’ve said many times. But for me, that’s certainly not the end of things. One may or may not have anything to do with the other. We'll see, maybe, if we’re lucky. Either way, as Redfern says, the reality of the stories exists, and we just can’t afford to ignore them.

You can read more about this, where the discussion and more info continues, on Nick Redfern's and Greg Bishop's blog UFO Mystic:
http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-files/thicket-encounters/

Notes:
John A. Keel: The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings (revised version of Strange Creatures from Time and Space),

Regan Lee:
Bigfoot and High Strangeness, Trickster’s Realm/Binnall of America , Novemeber 2006

Fairies, Bigfoot and Hauntings Trickster’s Realm/Binnall of America May 2006

Nick Redfern:
The Crossover Problem, UFO Magazine, February 2007
Lake Monsters, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs, and Ape-Men Para View Pocket Books, March 2004.

Rob Riggs, in the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wild Man: Exploring Nature’s Mysterious Dimensions, Paraview Press 2001.

(image source:image source: http://www.creepy.tv/season3_e7.html)