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.

Conscience of the Queen, by Elsie Conner

Some have a different reaction to Leah Haley's opinion that, in her words, "abductions don't happen" and are, instead, human created mind control scenarios. From abductee Elsie Conner on Alien Jigsaw: Conscience of the Queen, by Elsie Conner.

I have no comment, not about Conner's experience, because, simply, it's not my experience. I have no right to make assumptions or argue; it isn't about that. I respect Elsie Conner's comments on her own life and experiences, as I do all who have UFO related experiences.

The main sticking point for Conner is that Haley hasn't offered any proof for her statement that "abductions don't happen" -- no FOIA documents, etc. It's both an intensely personal article as well as a tough one; attacking Haley for being insensitive to abductees by dismissing their experiences. Or what's being perceived as dismissing.

This is interesting and vulnerable territory. Each person's story inspires questions and theories about alien abductions. It's a delicate line to walk between respecting others and maintaining your own sense of self, integrity and feelings about the phenomena. No one should speak for anyone else. Responding to the experiences -- to the responses to the experiences -- is difficult because respect needs to be maintained, yet so does a sense of awareness of your own place in all this.

Nick Redfern: Alien Abductions: Military Manipulation? | Mysterious Universe

Nick relates one woman's abduction experiences, and her theories on MILABS and ufos/aliens: Alien Abductions: Military Manipulation? | Mysterious Universe. Writes Redfern:

There are those researchers and eye-witnesses (or perhaps “victims” would be a much better term) who believe that alien abductions have nothing to do with the activities of real-life extraterrestrials, but are, in reality, the result of clandestine work undertaken by the U.S. military.

So the theory goes, the military uses the alien abduction motif as a carefully-camouflaged cover to allow for the continued testing of new technologies, such as mind-altering and mind-controlling drugs, and sophisticated hypnotic techniques on unwitting and innocent citizens.

Is it possible that now, after all this time, the idea of MILABS is getting some serious consideration on a more open level among ufologists? I hope so. About time. I don't know if MILABS explains abductions or not, if ET is still involved in some ways, or what, but I do know that the subject has been on the fringe of the fringe and many have not wanted to look at MILABS in a serious way. Maybe things are changing. Leah Haley's recent statements concerning her own abduction experiences have startled a few into rethinking things...

Leah Haley on the Abduction Mythology

I've been following Leah Haley's story for years. So naturally I am keenly interested in her current stance regarding UFOs and abductions. Which is, as Jack Brewer at The UFO Trail relates:

Former self-described alien abductee Leah Haley has revised her perspectives about her experiences of high strangeness to conclude that no alien abductions ever took place in her life. She now completely attributes her remarkable perceptions to having been an involuntary research subject. Commenting on literal alien abduction from her home in Pensacola, Florida, Haley stated, “It doesn't happen.”

Now I'm really interested! I haven't experienced anything close to what Leah Haley has experienced, but, given my own two (possibly three) missing time episodes, and life long UFO/paranormal/high strangeness encounters, the abduction scenario has always been a part of this history. Like an unwelcome, sometimes embarrassing relative or friend that insists on being a part of your life no matter how diplomatically you tell them to just go away, the alien abduction scene persists in inserting itself. I've never thought I was literally an "abductee" -- and, in fact, don't think alien abductions are literal events or even, (maybe) related to ETs. Still, there is much weirdness afoot, and that weirdness is  from outside ourselves. (Mostly.)  These experiences (with some exceptions) are not due to psychosis or pathologies or la de fucking dah. They are real, and they of the "other." Of course, that opinion/belief rests on the assumption that the rest of us accept this "other" which of course, most don't. Worse, some do indeed accept that premise but pretend that they don't. That's the insidious side of all this. Some may call that view paranoid. Me, I'm being practical. It's real, it's insidious, it's part "other," it's part human. I've long suspected that humans are involved in much of this stuff: manipulating events, capitalizing on the dregs "they" leave behind or allow us to play with. Dark, paranoid, bleak. Sure. That's not all of it, and I am always hopeful. So I'm not completely pessimistic. In fact, I'm not pessimistic at all. Those humans that fuck with us in concert with "them" (ETs, and/or non-human entities) can go to hell. And if it does turn out they've messed with my head on more than one occasion as well as my husband's, that really is every bit as unnerving and fantastic as aliens. Something I've been saying for a long time.

So. Leah Haley. For years Haley has been writing about her experience concverning alien abductions. She wrote a book: Lost Was the Key, and related her experiences of UFOs and all kinds of related weird events. You can read about it by Googling and reading Jack Brewer's articulate article.

The idea of MILABS (Military Abductions) has always been an uneasy part of UFO research. Not many want to go there. Too paranoid, among other things. (I have had so many experiences with UFO groups who persist, like some Fortean Pelicanist-ostrich hybrid of keeping their heads in the sand, that only "positive" stories and theories of ET and UFOs be allowed. Even if your experience is the your truth, if it's "negative" they don't want you around.) There's a middle here; it's not only ETs, and it's not only humans operating covert staged abduction events. One does not exclude, or negate, the other. ETst still exist -- so do humans manipulating the idea of ET existence for all its worth.

Haley has uncovered government documents, incuding patents, that have led her to her conclusion that alien abductions are human created mind control experiments. For example, as Brewer relates:

Haley cited U.S. Patent Office documents, demonstrating evolution of electronic technology and non-lethal weapons that correlates with the time line of reports of alien abduction. Advances in technology during the 20th century included using electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) to remotely entrain brain waves, induce altered states of consciousness and transfer an otherwise inaudible voice directly into the brain. Overexposure to EMFs was documented to cause hallucinations, nausea, short term amnesia (missing time) and reddened skin, circumstances which became staples of abductee testimonies.

Robert Bigelow figures into this. MUFON founder John Schuessler  rejects criticisms and suspicious of Bigelow's involvement in MUFON and UFO reports, thinking such opinions are silly paranoia. But I've been suspicious of Bigelow's involvement (and indeed MUFON in general) and Haley's experiences add support to the idea of a hidden agenda. It's not altruism on Bigelow, etc. part. (I should add, "in my opinion.:)

Of course we can't know if Haley is being truthful, if she isn't, in reality, just paranoid, if alien abductions really are literal, if the government is pure as the driven snow, and so on. I have no idea. I'll amend that: of course I have an idea, or else I wouldn't be commenting. I have no proof. In my own case, all I have is the knowledge of my experiences:

• Seen several UFOs throughout my life
• Have had related UFO "alien" experiences: telepathy, "visions", dreams, precognition, shared events, synchronicities...
• Have had two episodes of missing time (and possibly a third), shared by another witness
• That witness is now my spouse, who has had his own life long experience with such things
• (We even lived a few blocks from each other when we were teens years before we met)
• Have cover or screen memories related to these events
• And all that's just for starters...

if she's telling her truth, she is not to blame for anything. 

In the meantime, those of us with experiences know something very odd occurs, and after years of investigating, exploring, speculating, sharing and discussing, no UFO pundit, self-elected UFO Police, or anyone else, has walked up to us and handed us a big "Here! All the answers to all your questions in this fancy little envelope." Nope.

So where ever Leah Haley's current opinions takes her, and us, we'll have to see. But in the meantime, for now, I appreciate her honesty in coming forth with her perspective. It causes us to take another look from a different perspective and that is not ever a bad thing in this realm.

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.

Invisible Aliens in Boston: A Dream Inside a Dream

James Rich, Sentinels, acrylic on board

(edited to add: it was pointed out to me that this is my second Boston dream; I had one a week or so ago where Jim and I are in Boston, looking at the harbor, gently mocking the accent: "Boss-tan Haaar-ba" while looking at the beautiful, soft water, reflecting pale pink lights. No idea why Boston has been popping up. I've never been there, don't plan on going there, no family is from there...)

I hadn't been thinking particularly of UFOs, aliens, my own experience, or listening to C2C late at night while drifting off to sleep, nor reading a UFO related book; all things I do on a regular basis. If anything, the past day or two, while working like mad on the house, inside and out, and enjoying our walks, I've been mindful of the importance of stepping outside of all the UFO-paranormal-esoteric-Fortean realm that swirls around me. I realize you can never escape it, and that's not the idea anyway. It's not a dichotomy, no contest here about anything adversarial. Just a balanced perspective so one doesn't get sucked down into an unhealthy and murky place.

And I still managed to have the following dream last night, despite my intentions:

I'm very excited because I've been invited to Boston to meet/collaborate with a well known UFO researcher. (won't say who, he's big time in waking life, though he doesn't live in Boston.) As dreams are wont to do, "Boston" (which I've never been to) is just a town or two away from me here in Eugene, Oregon. At the same time, it's also very far and a huge city and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed but also excited. I go to where the researcher -- Joe X,lets call him -- works, which is a sort of university type setting, sort of huge apartment complex, sort of grade school. In fact, I see some of my co-workers and a few students from my waking life day job. Seems the school where I work has moved and they're already setting up offices for September. 


I have to sort of chase down Joe X, lol, he's so busy and it's hard to catch up with him. People are stopping him every few moments to talk with him, he's very popular and everyone wants to have some time with him. He reminds me of one my waking life professors and in the dream, the two people kind of morph back and forth. Joe X sees me and waves me over to catch up. As we walk (rapidly, lots of people, lots of hubbub) to a conference room he tells me "Lots of researchers have plenty of stories to tell about the witnesses they've worked with, the data they've collected, but I want to hear from the researchers themselves about their own experiences. There's not enough of that going on. So Regan, I want to hear about your whole thing: the orb, missing time, the aliens..." 


I tell him that's a good point and I'm interested in that as well, but as for my own story, I've told it plenty of times, no one wants to hear it again. I've put it out there already. Joe X tells me that not everyone's heard it, there's always a new audience and venue, and he bets he can get to deeper levels about my experiences.


We go into the conference room -- comfortable but funky, old, like an old university setting would be -- still lots of people just coming and going all around. Joe X starts asking me my UFO experiences, and then, the aliens. And I start to get very frustrated as well as a bit panicked. I don't like this and I'm frustrated because I can't remember seeing any damn aliens. I've sensed them, had communications with them, felt their presence (verified by others) but not seen them. Why, why, I ask Joe X, can so many witnesses remember these things but I can't? He is very kind and supportive and steady, just keeps at it. Then abruptly, I "see" in my memory, little bits of what "they" look like. Just an image of a hand, or a foot, or a glimpse of some part of them. I'm surprised because, for one thing, they're tall, not the short grays that's typical. They're somewhat gray like in appearance, meaning those spindly buggers, but tall, six feet or so. They're a sort of tan, dark beige or sand color, not white or gray. I still can't see all of them, completely, but it's the closet I've come to actually seeing aliens in my dreams.


I say to Joe X that in my other dreams, I can never remember what they look like. And even now, I tell him, in this dream they're still being elusive. "Even in my dreams, I can't remember!" I tell him in exasperation.


Later, walking around this place, I run into one of the teachers I work with. She asks me about my summer and if I did anything fun, I tell her I went to Boston. She says, well, that's huge, tell me more! I say, well, it wasn't really anything, it was just a day and a night, then I was gone. As I walk away, I realize that I just told a co-worker I had been to Boston, but I didn't go to Boston, I just dreamed that I did. I just told her I thought my dream was reality. Now I have to think of something to tell her if she asks about it again. I'm very worried about how it looks, that I think a dream was reality. Then I wake up, and for a few moments, still have that thought, worried about telling her I didn't really go to Boston, just dreamed it. Until I realize, that was a dream too -- I only dreamed that it was reality. 

"Leave Alien Abductions Out of UFOs..."

Amongst the debris from the Jacobs-Woods-Hopkins-Rainey events, are comments I've come across in various places regarding alien abductions.  Comments like (to paraphrase) "Leave alien abductions out of UFO research," or "Abductions have nothing to do with the UFO phenomena."

 It may turn out that what we call alien abductions have nothing to do with UFOs, but for now, we have no idea what we loosely call alien abductions are. How can someone say that UFOs and abductions have nothing to do with each other? Thousands of accounts from witnesses that contain: aliens, UFOs, kidnapping. So far, the connection between UFO and alien abduction obvious.

We're calling strange entities "aliens" that usually mean ET from another planet, and that may or may not be what is happening. Witnesses may be led to believe they're being abducted by ETs and taken aboard UFOs, and if so, who's doing the leading and why? MILABS, possibly. Satan? Elves? Is the abduction experience some sort of metaphysical phenomena that doesn't have anything to do with outer space, ET, or spaceships in any way? If any of those theories turn out to be the answer to the abduction puzzle, then and only then can we say "UFOs have nothing to do with abductions." But actually, the two do have something to do with each other, even if only in the fact that one (abductions) likes to manifest itself as part of the other (UFO event.)

Whether we're interpreting abductions as UFO events or dutifully accepting the scenarios presented to us by whatever force is responsible for abductions as alien-UFO based, there is still a connection. There is a valid relationship between the two, whether it's symbolic or literal.

None of this is to say I think the alien abduction scenario is a literal event (though even that is possible) but it is a phenomena that is being not only experienced by humans all over the planet, but manipulated by some kind of "other" (non-human) as well as  humans.

Are we going to go back to the days when researchers left out elements of witness accounts of abductions because they were found to be too off the wall, embarrassing, and just plain weird?

The obvious leading of witnesses by some researchers, whether intentional in order to support a personal bias, or unintentionally because that's a hazard in this field (as is losing it completely by falling so far down the rabbit hole there's no chance of ever getting out) isn't enough reason to disregard abduction accounts. 

We have no idea what's behind abductions, but we do know that aliens and UFOs appear in these narratives. An obvious relationship. Whether or not that relationship is true remains to be discovered. Until then, it seems both ignorant and arrogant to insist "UFOs have nothing to do with abductions." I find it persistently curious that some have the assurance of what are, and what aren't,   valid elements of the UFO phenomena.

Who are we going to pass alien abductions off to? If those UFO researchers who insist abductions have nothing to do with UFOs reject those accounts, and, continue to be disinterested in the subject, we're still left with the existence of the phenomena.

Science, well, so far they've done a poor job. At best, passing if off as aspects of sleep disruptions. By definition, science will never acknowledge the Fortean/UFO elements of abduction unless it's given a label that designates it as a disorder. Accepting the reality of esoteric, metaphysical, or UFO phenomena isn't the job of science. Neither is accepting the reality of conspiracies, like MILABS.

What if abductions turn out to have nothing at all to do with UFOS, but everything to do with ... Satan? (In that I'm being flip, but not much. While I don't believe in a literal devil framed within a Christian or other religion mythology I don't discount the reality of negative energies/entities.)

So we discover that MILABS are at the key to understanding abductions, which means an insidious and illegal action has been taken against global citizens. Wouldn't we care about that? In this not quite so hypothetical scenario, humans are "hoaxing" UFOs, manipulating the idea of an alien presence to fit their own terrifying agendas. UFO researchers are quick to expose the hoaxers and fakes, the liars and the hucksters, why afraid to tread the cold murky waters of so-called conspiracy in this case?

The Odor of the Owl

Yes, that's right, it's odor, not order. Things do get curiouser and curiouser. Thanks to Brownie, who left a comment with a link on my Merry Christmas post about London's scary and creepy owl perfume campaign. Penhaligons, a perfume shop, has created the Olfactory Owl. Lots of links to this story, just Google as usual, here's one: Penhaligon's unleash a scary anthropomorphic owl onto London's streets.

Dressed in Victorian finery, the Olfactory Owl will be journeying across London on foot and by tube and bus, taking in some of London’s iconic landmarks and shopping hotspots.

The Olfactory Owl will be handing out coupons, and you can join the odoriferous owl on Twitter and Facebook. The conspiratorial Fortean mind reels, making connections between England's rash of staged/faux UFO crashes and alien abductions in schools, and this recent episode of a giant owl walking the streets of London.

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

Airship UFOs and Dreams

Recent posts at the C Influence about air ships reminded me of some of my own experiences in my personal UFO journey.

I have a lot of recurring dream landscapes and imagery; shifting, ever changing sets, like the production stages in movie making, or sets on stage of a theater. One of the constant images and sets has to do with UFOs. It's a specific image, always the same, and it always occurs in the same place. That place is in front of the house I grew up in in Los Angeles. The time is always the same as well; night.

I've had this dream for as long as I can remember; just popping up now and then in my subconscious, even up to the present. And while it's a dream, and remembered as a dream, there's the other thing: memories of an actual, literal event. Not remembered as a dream, but as really happening.

My Invisible Friends: Floating Out the Door
The real event I've discussed many times on-line and on podcasts. (You can hear more about this on the podcast Jim and I did with Bill and Nancy Birnes on Future Theater.) Briefly; I'd wait in my bed, flat on my back, for "them." They were invisible, kind of sort of, but small, happy spindly things. My "friends." I had to be still, on my back, at night in the dark, the bed, and focus on the yellow beam of light under the bedroom door. Then they'd come, and float me out through the door, down the little hall, out that door to the living room, and out the front door to the big tree on the corner. The big tree was a huge fir tree on our neighbor's property, and I'd have to wait up in that tree for the ship to come.

The Dream
My dream begins with me either out on the sidewalk, or in the tree. The sheer exhilaration of looking up at that rich Prussian blue sky, and the dusty sparkling stars, which are so close, is almost too much for me to stand. The anticipation, waiting for "them," is exciting and pleasant.

Soon the ship comes. The description sounds downright silly, but it's what I've seen many times. In the dream, the ship makes me happy. Sometimes a little sad. Not sure why it's a little sad, maybe because it's, they, are going away, and I'm not.

My ship was like a basket, with an inverted bathtub over it, a domed type covering, yet the thing was open. Sometimes the bottom part was made of planks of wood, like a wooden fruit crate, but still had the bathtub type covering. The beings in it were small, but adults, and human looking enough . . . almost. While human like in many ways, they weren't quite human. Not exactly.
As I said, silly. Steam punk, old fashioned, and reminiscent of air ships. As I say, I've had both the memories and the dreams, forever.

owl haiku

the owls

owls are plentiful
these days, appearing where you'd
least expect them to

In UFO Magazine: Jeremy Vaeni's 'Aliens vs. Predator: The Incredible Visitations at Emma Woods

There is so much to say about the fantastic article by Jeremy Vaeni in this issue of UFO Magazine. (Aliens vs. Predators: The Incredible Visitations at Emma Woods.)

But for now, please, please, go and get yourself this issue, and read the article. Vaeni has done an excellent job with unraveling the seeming madness that is David Jacobs, the always precarious method of hypnosis used by some researchers to get at the submerged bits of missing time and nebulous memories of aliens, examinations, trips aboard saucers, and all the rest of "Abductions 101", and subject/witness Emma Woods.

From the beginning of this episode in UFO culture, I wondered why there wasn't more outcry from the UFO community. And yet, there still isn't; what there mainly seems to be, still, are a few stubbornly standing up for Jacobs, and misogynist pronouncements about Emma Woods' sanity, and worse. Other than that, little has been really said about this.

Owl Says: Not So Fast...

Just today, I was thinking that I haven't had any owl synchronicities since the last owl post. "Well, that owl episode is over," I said to myself this afternoon.

Then I receive an email from Tim Binnall, who sent me these images of an owls on his fence. He told me he took them today, and that it was the first time they've seen owls on the property.

Not so fast, Owl says! Oh, and my article for Tim, that should be available on his site Monday? About owls of course; I wrote it last week in September, and normally it would  have been up earlier, but Tim's been busy with many projects, so it was postponed. So today he emails me to tell me it'll be up Monday and he finds the owls on his property.

Seems they're listening, those owls...

And . . . more owls

Yes, more owls. Today in a room at work; the large bulletin board had . . . owls. Owl figures all over the place.

All this owl synchronicity -- in part, as I wrote earlier (see my owl posts below) it's messages, signals, signs, along the lines of "they're noticing you're noticing them" kind of thing. I put the intent out, as to conscious recall of orange-orb and related encounters, including missing time, and this is what happens. Throw in my affinity and relationship with animals, and we're off. But on a more mundane level, it's possible that owls are a new fashionable/trend/fad image in the culture stream; nothing esoteric, although, it is esoteric. The young person wearing a tee shirt with a giant owl on it is just wearing something they think is cool or looks good, but I doubt they're into esoteric-alien abduction-Illuminati symbolism.

But "they" know. Heh.

Entering the Orchid: A Glimpse Into the Orb?

 Red Canna, Georgia O’Keefe, 1923 (University of Arizona Art Museum)

Progress, maybe, or something, on my experiment here with intent, conscious recall, retrieving memories of the Orange Orb sighting. . . as I do every night, I go through a sort of meditation/prayer/vision routine. I wasn't thinking consciously of anything to do with UFOs, the paranormal but mundane things, when suddenly my head sort of exploded in a burst of orange. (Sharing a similar experience with this.) As that was happening, I felt myself, not leaving my body, as has happened many times with OOBEs, but a sort of reverse OOBE; I was falling inward. Falling into my third eye, into the orange, and then a large flower shape appeared that was an off white, cream color, oval or almond in shape, that opened to reveal another shape. This shape was more of a figure with an inverted triangle head, very faint. It had eyes, that were closed, but as I "zoomed" or fell in closer, it abruptly opened its eyes, which were the typical huge black eyes of the so-called grays.

At that moment, I had a vivid lucid dream experience. I "shouted" "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" which sounds very funny right now, but at the time, I was almost pissed at the idea this pop-culture icon that's become a cliche and a joke in many ways, appeared to me. Arriving first almost invisibly, as a shadow, a faint outline, then becoming more defined, sharper in detail and image --- for what? Was this an accurate and literal mind post-card, a psychic encounter of something that is just as it appears, or something created out of my own mind because it's familiar, no matter how silly?

If looked at with the tools of imagery and metaphor, maybe this was a sign that I'm getting somewhere, and these images: orange light, oval petal, small gray, are offered because they are familiar acting as guides. Guides to what, is yet to be discovered.

Anxiety 101 or A Level of Unveiling?

Is the following dream the beginning of uncovering buried memories of a UFO encounter, or just anxiety over everyday life issues?

For the past few nights, I've been saying to Jim just before we go to sleep "meet me in the orb." I've been working with the intent of retrieving memories about that sighting, as readers know, for awhile now. Using dreams, art, discussion, meditation, among other methods (though not hypnosis) -- and, in fact, I've been playing around with a journal type format of all this -- I, we, hope to uncover details and the missing parts of our experiences involving missing time and the sightings.

I was out of town last night, visiting family. Jim wasn't with me. I had the a very uncomfortable dream last night; and at first think, it appears it was just a typical anxiety fest about returning to work, the new school year, the anniversary of Jim's heart attack coming up, etc. That's what someone said to me when I told her my dream: "Wow, you're really anxious about losing control," she said. And that's likely the main level of the dream. But as I was driving back to town today, it hit me; there's a small glimmer here of something related to the orange orb sighting as well; a little tear in the veil that's been obscuring that encounter for so many years, but first, the dream:

Jim and I are together as I go back to my workplace. Haven't been back there all summer, I see they painted the school, there's lots of new school staff. I'm bothered by this only because it makes me feel insecure, but it's okay. People seem nice, the new paint looks lovely. The classroom I work in bother me however; there are several new people there as well, which is okay and actually normal for that milieu, but my desk has been replaced by a teeny little piece of metal, like a TV tray. My supervisor apologizes and says she didn't think I'd mind or that it would make a difference. But the big thing is; they've changed my job! Now I'm in charge of the computers. "But," I say, "I don't know anything about computers, I'm not qualified!" They laugh it off, telling me I"ll do fine, that I use computers all the time, so what's the problem? I say it's like the difference between knowing how to drive a car, and how to fix one. I can drive, I know enough to do things like keep the gas tank full, air in the tires, the oil changed, -- but if somethings wrong, I don't know how to fix it, I take it to the mechanic. I'm not a mechanic. Then I go into another room, and it's full of nurses and doctors and medical people. Jim is on a gurney, hooked up to machines. He's very agitated, very upset, very very anxious. He's never like that, ever... so that freaks me out, and I get upset. A nurse comes over, leads me out of the room, tries to calm me down. Tells me I have to stay in this other room until they come get me. Jim's fine, they tell me, it's a normal, every day procedure they're doing, and nothing to worry about. I sit there, and occasionally people -- other school staff, or whoever -- come in, to get supplies. The room I'm in is some kind of work room/storage room, so people come and go to grab paper, etc. The dress I'm wearing has a tube top type top, and it keeps falling down, exposing me. I'm not happy about this of course and worry people will see me, so I keep holding it up.

Okay, all seems very 'Returning To Work and Worried About Hubby's Health 101,' except for:

The dark haired nurse, even though she was short with short hair, reminded me of the tall, dark haired "Geisha" woman in the space ship-orange orb dream I've written about. Jim is being kept away from me, or me, away from him, we're being forcibly separated from each other, another element in the Geisha dream. Jim is utterly uncharacteristically panicked. And the dress I was wearing in last night's dream: a dress I actually owned at the time we had our missing time and orange orb sighting. Everything about the dress in the dream was the same: color, design, fabric... everything. Except in reality it never fell off of my body like it did in the dream.

Meet Me in the Orb: Jim’s novel

Yesterday I wrote about something Jim had written in his novel that reminded me of our missing time, our "dreams" of UFOs and our Orange Orb sighting.

The following is an excerpt from Jim’s novel. It’s difficult to describe what it’s about or what genre to put it into. Sci-fi, kind of. Conspiracy novel, definitely; there’s a lot concerning MKULTRA and mind control. But it’s more than that as well, with metaphysical aspects, estoeric themes. . . This is from the rough first draft which fills several notebooks -- yes, he’s writing it in longhand!. Jim estimates the book would run about 600 pages; he’s considering creating three seperate books; sequels. I realize the reader won’t know the characters, or where in the novel the following two scenes take place, but here they are:

Untitled Novel by James (Jim) Rich, copyright 2010.

[The following scene takes place on an ocean liner. Martina is on the deck of the ship with Dr. Bremoli; it is her voice that’s speaking:]

I noticed that there appeared to be a light, just off the bow deep beneath the surface . “Another way for what?”
“Another way for you. Your way is the most difficult.”
For the first time, he seemed old and scary. The light was growing bigger and brighter. Something was rising out of the depths; something huge. “What's that?”
“I haven’t much time. You must listen very carefully: you won’t always remember this.”

The light resolved into a bright central light surrounded by a ring of smaller multicolored lights that rotated around the perimeter of an immense, circular, metallic object. Dr. Bremoli put his lips to my ear speaking softly in a lilting language that I almost understood. It was a song, or a poem, or a lullaby to calm a distressed child. It sank deep into my unconscious tickling the hairs of memory, rustling the leaves of my senses. The craft (at this point I could think of it as nothing else) emerged from the sea like nothing I’d ever seen its passage seemingly displacing no water creating no wave, leaving the sea undisturbed, as it hovered just above me a dozen yards off the bow.

Morning Shower, James (Jim) Rich, acrylic on canvas

It was dry as a bone. Not a drop of water clung to it; strangely it reminded me of Jillian in the shower. It was incompressible, defying all reason. It was immense - at lease a mile in diameter - and there it hung, motionless, suspended, silent, but for a faint hum so low that I felt it in my gut rather than heard it. Unlike the top, there were no lights on the vast, featureless underbelly of a dark matte finish metal that was practically invisible, blending in with both sky and water. It seemed impervious to the laws of nature, like Magritte's Castle of the Pyrenees.

 “What did you say?” I asked, glancing over at the doctor, but he was gone. I spun around; he was no where to be seen among the still, almost motionless passengers. I looked back at the craft, just in time to see it depart, which it did in a fashion I never experienced, moving off in a direction perpendicular to everywhere, shrinking away into nothingness. I turned back around; once again the passengers were promenading around the deck, enjoying the now cool evening air, oblivious to the strange event that had transpired between moments.

Castle in the Pryenees, Rene Magritte

[A scene or two later, Martina goes down into the ship to meet with the very wealthy genius -scientist, Rainier Brancusi, in his labatory:]

I set off on my journey, taking the elevator to the lowest deck, where I switched to a service elevator which took me deep into the bowels of the ship. To the rear was the engine room. The air was hot, thick with diesel fuel, throbbing with machinery, but I made my way forward through a maze of narrow passageways to a hatch, beneath which a rusted ladder disappeared into uncertain darkness, and from which a nauseating stench issued like the breath of some infernal beast. “Really?!” I thought attempting to deal with my growing sense of claustrophobia, “was all this necessary? “ I considered turning back; after all, why was I going in the first place?

“Because he knows something,” said Medusa. [Medusa is an MKULTRA created personality that resides within Martina] and we need to find out what.”

I started down the ladder into the unwholesome darkness, like Orpheus descending into the underworld. I preceded rung by rung, my footsteps preternaturally loud, reverberating in the cavernous space accompanied by the creaking of stressed metal and the listless lapping of the liquid below.

The dim interior was lit primarily from a number of small unknown sources above, and an eerie bioluminescence billowing in the water below. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a catwalk leading from the platform where the ladder ended, across the looming, phosphorescent abyss to a geodesic sphere suspended from cables in the center of the bilge. A figure was waiting for me on the platform.

I found the orb/sphere imagery interesting, as well as the description of time standing still, the unwareness of the ship's passengers of the USO/UFO, and the scientist character hidden away in the depths of the ship.

Looking at this the same way I've been looking at dreams and other expressions might reveal something about our experiences.

"Dream Academy" Synchronicity and the subconscious

Readers of The Orange Orb know that I post many of my UFO related dreams here. To my surprise, those posts receive a lot of comments and emails. I acknowledge I post those dreams here as a way of trying to discover . . . something . . . about my experiences. My own, free, little therapy blog. But others find something in these posts, as I do in the posts of others who write about their dreams, and other  vague, surreal moments. Mike Clelland's blog, hidden experience, Anya is a Channel, The Secret Sun, among others, discuss dreams, symbols, images as a language connected with the esoteric.  As individual and often just weird these dreams, experiences, or interpretations of seemingly mundane events are, these shared personal landscapes resonate, and often we find bits of synchronicity as well.

This morning, checking one of my favorite Fortean news sites, The Daily Grail, I find the following link: Dream Academy: Secrets of the subconscious unlocked. The article is a bit of a fluff piece and feels the need to add in the skeptic's  admonishments:

Louise Chunn, the editor of Psychologies magazine, said she could imagine dream groups taking off, in much the same way that "today's narcissistic society" is addicted to talking about itself on Twitter. "I can imagine talking about your dreams becoming a trend in the way that people photograph their food. Is this just another way to validate ourselves?" She warned that the upshot could be to leave those with less exciting dreams feeling inadequate.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists worry that dream groups might cause harm if the distressing emotions turned up by the subconscious mind are mistreated. Patrick McNamara, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Boston University and author of Nightmares: The Science and Solution of Those Frightening Visions During Sleep, believes that dreams shouldn't be shared with anyone who lacks due regard for their complexity.

But the point of the article is that in the UK, dream groups are popular, and individuals are finding that discussing their dreams in groups is very helpful for them. In some cultures, discussing your dreams is not considered woo or "narcissistic" it just is, an important part of the daily routine.

Not all my dreams are UFO related. I have all kinds of dreams: dreams about obvious anxieties or issues about work, daily life, stress related dreams, weird dreams because I ate too much or not feeling well, fun dreams, silly dreams. When it comes to the UFO dreams, there is the question of intepretation, meaning. Are the dreams somewhat literal, something UFO related trying to get through, or are the symbols and scenarios stand-ins for something else? 

An example: I have a recurring dream that I find myself driving, usually alone, on a narrow, one lane bridge across the ocean. I just find myself in the middle of nowhere, all I can see is water on either side of me, in front of and behind me. The water comes up to the sides of the bridge, very scary. The bridge only has a small and frail rail on either side. It doesn't seem to have any purpose. It wouldn't stop a car from going off the bridge. I'm scared out of my mind because one slip and I'm in this water.  It's all so weird and scary: just one long narrow road on top of the water with no end in sight, no turn around, no signs, nothing.

I've had this dream for years, and still have it. Had one the other night in fact. What completely unglued me a few years ago was, I found myself on this very road! I was completely lost in Portalnd, no idea at all where I was, or going . . . I have no idea how I ended up on this road but there I was, on a narrow road with water all around, no signs, no turn around, no idea where I was going. None of that had to do with UFOs. Just a weird bit of synchronicity. 

Memory is a strange thing. Why do we remember vivid small scenes from childhood, the rest fallen away? What was it about that moment, that's stayed with us for decades, while others seem to leave? And what of the rare "scenes" where you remember, but not sure if it happened? 

image: Henry Fuseli: Nightmare (The Incubus)

Time, Elks, Dreams . . .

I have a vivid dream life, always have; dream in color, sing, sounds, scents, fly, sleep paralysis, OOBEs. . . I've even had a couple of dreams where the dream was in color, but little pieces were in black and white. One dream I recall: the dream was in color, but I was watching a black and white TV. But I've never had dreams where I had missing time or amnesia in the dream; until recently. A few months ago I had missing time within the dream, and last night, I had a similar episode within a dream.

Much preceded the missing time, or amnesia, too personal to post but at one point, I was leaving my place of work and found that all the roads had been torn up. Earth moved into huge piles, gravel everywhere, dirt roads... no signs. "Great," I thought, "how the hell am I going to get to where I'm going?" but I had no choice, so start to drive. A hassle but not a big deal. But at the end of this torn up road is a crazy network of freeways. Just dozens of on-ramps and freeways and hundreds of cars just zipping every which way, and no signs. Not a one to tell me where to go, how to get there. . . and I have no time! No light or anything just have to MOVE, now! So I make a decision in my panic and just drive like mad onto an on ramp, no idea at all where I'm going.

After awhile of driving crazy-mad the freeway insanity ends and I find myself on one of my "dream scapes" -- a one lane, one way highway or bridge over the ocean. The ocean is a beautiful royal blue color. The water is almost as high as the bridge/freeway, and it's churning. Very active. I am scared and nervous. Still no idea at all where I'm going, no signs The bridge/freeway goes on forever, I can't see anything ahead. The water is so high it's splashed onto the road, and I'm worried I'll slide right off into the water. All I can see on either side of me is water. There's a railing about four feet high on the sides of the bridge but it's little protection.

Next thing I know, I wake up in a funky small motel room. No idea how I got there. I'm wearing a large baggy tee shirt and underwear but that's it. I walk outisde, confused -- where am I?! I see it's a little coastal town, hilly, kind of funky but in a comfortable, easy way. I'm in the "poor" part of town but as I continue walking, find myself in a more habitated part of town. I go into a little cafe, order breakfast. It's very good. I tell the people there, who are very friendly, that I barely know who I am, let alone how I got there or why, etc.

I was thinking of this dream all day, and for some reason, that led me to remember something that happened when i was about twelve or thirteen. I was in the Girl Scouts, and we went camping in Northern California. Here we were out in the middle of nowhere, or so it seemed to me. I loved it though.

I've thought of the following experience many times, but only remembering the wonder of what I saw, not how I got there in the first place. We were all setting up camp and then, I took a walk. I was just walking around, in the woods. And came out on a road. So I'm standing there on the side of the road, and less than ten yards from me, directly across from me, an elk walks out from the trees and just stands there on the side of the road. I was in awe; this was the first time I had seen anything like this. I remember just standing there, looking at this beautiful creature. I wasn't scared, just amazed. I felt like crying, it was so beautiful. We just stood there, looking at each other, then it walked off.

What's surprising to me now, is that even though I've often revisited this memory of seeing the elk, some obvious things about this event never occurred to me -- until now. For one thing, I can't see the adults in the group allowing anyone of us to just walk off on our own. Yet apparently I did. I was all alone. And what road would that have been? No idea; it wasn't one we were on. I don't remember what happened before that, or after. All very strange.

Layers of memory. One "real" memory with no surrounding context, one missing bit of memory within a dream. Shifts of memory; no experience dreaming of having missing memory within the dream, and suddenly, two within a few months time.

Maybe age has something to do with the dreaming; I can't explain why it is I don't remember what happened before, or after, meeting elk on the road. . .