John Greenwald Jr. Item on Yahoo News

I was surprised but pleased to see a UFO related article on the Yahoo News Page. . . a nice big headline, with photo. This is about the great work John Greenwald Jr. (of Black Vault) does in gathering government documents for the rest of us. Remember, John does this for free, too. Any support you can send his way I'm sure he'd appreciate.

Mary as Trickster?

I ponder. On UFO Digest: Speculation on Mary as Trickster.

Zetetic Scholar on-line

You can order some issues of Zetetic Scholar from George Hansen's website:
Trickster and the Paranormal.

UFOexperiences blog: On the (UFO) Road Again

From Aileen Garoutte's UFOexperiences blog, an unnerving story of one young man's UFO sighting. In this case, it isn't the UFO itself that's so unnvering:

38. MARK - ON THE (UFO) ROAD AGAIN
The following case has no involvement with MUFON but it is a case that represents the most blatant kind of injustice we have ever encountered. We were given the case in 1988 and at the time of writing this book, we are actively engaged in finding some recourse for the victim. I say victim because that is what he surely was - and is.

Psychic Peter James Passes

This is sad news; I just came across this link on the Yahoo group Fortean Phenomena Again. Must have missed it earlier.
http://www.sdparanormal.com/articles/article/1961531/84130.htm

Sasquatch Inside Mt. Shasta

Over on Frame 352 (my bigfoot blog) is a post on Sasquatch Inside Mt. Shasta.

UFO Semantics, Part Two

“Do you believe in UFOs?” is often asked. (Also “Do you believe in Bigfoot?”, “Do you believe in flying saucers?”, “Do you believe in aliens?” etc.)

UFOs exist. You can’t “believe” that they do, or even hold the opinion that they do. Or, that they do not. They do, the same as cars and houses and toasters and dogs and cats and microwaves exist. “Belief” has nothing to do with it.

One can believe that extraterrestrials exist. I believe they do. I’ve never seen an alien, and my opinion, which admittedly verges on “belief” or at least, a very strong opinion, is based on a life long journey of data collecting, and, I suppose, a bit of faith. Nothing wrong with the latter whatsoever. I’m not saying it’s fact, and I have no desire or need to prove anything to anyone.

Still, even though I may “believe” that extraterrestrials -- or some sort of entities, extraterrestrials or other -- exist, I don’t believe in them. There’s a very huge and very important distinction between the two: believing that a thing exists, and believing in that thing.

If ET exists (or whatever entity) I wouldn’t “believe” in it. Any more than I believe in my cat. Or my stove.

While there are those who have created religions around ET, believing that they are a new form of “God” usually in the Judeo-Christian framework, the use of the word belief can’t be used so carelessly, and that belief can’t be assumed.
.

My Brother’s Big Fat Mexican Korean Jewish White Beverly Hills Wedding

Nothing to do with UFOs or the paranormal, unless you consider me sitting in the bar at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills paranormal, but I just got back from a road trip (nothing like going down to L.A. on I-5 from Eugene, Oregon with your mother) for my brother’s wedding.

Overall, despite ridiculously pathetic family drama here and there, I’m glad I went, and am very happy for my brother and his beautiful bride. L.A. was fine, and all was good. I loved walking along the beaches; Long Beach, Venice, the Marina. My fantasy of living on a houseboat came back each time I walked by the boats at the docks. The smog has improved down there; last time I was down there was about six years ago or so. Although, I stayed mainly on the coast; and not in Hollywood, etc. so those areas might still be bad. The area has worked hard on improving air quality though and reducing smog.

Even though I had my laptop, it was hard to write much, so not much posting went on, though I managed here and there.

I’m back now in Oregon, where you don’t pump your own gas, there’s no sales tax, and the drivers remain rude and terrible. California drivers may be crazy, but they’re controlled crazy, and far more polite than Oregonian drivers. (Oregonian drivers believe it’s their constitutional right to: tailgate, run red lights, ignore use of the turn signal, and either go painfully slow at or below the speed limit, or bizarrely fast, exceeding it beyond all reason.)

Back to our regular programming.

Randi's "Hot News"

Oy. Must have been a slow news day for Randi,who, in his recent JREF newsletter, has an item captioned Hot News" on Uri Geller's name, as if this is some deep dark earth shattering revelation.

New things at Mating Hedgehogs

Bought myself the "U.S. vs. John Lennon" CD; in honor of that, there's a few things over on the Mating Hedgehogs blog related to Lennon, ufos, and mind control. There's also a poll; take a look, vote.

Fatima Oracle Cards

Arrived while I was gone. I mentioned the other day I wasn't that keen on the design of the Fatima oracle cards, but they're not that bad, kind of interesting. To my surprise, I liked using them. Can't always tell just by the art work and appearance of divination cards; you have to use them, go by other factors as well. For example, I wanted to like the "Mermaid" deck but after handling it I actually found it creepy, and didn't buy it.

The Fatima deck has 32 cards; very simple.

The Puppet Wolves

My latest article for Trickster's Realm on BoA is up now: The Synchronicity of Puppet Wolves.

UFO Semantics, Part One

UFO Semantics, Part One

Either through outright, intentional obtuseness in the case of pathological skeptics, or lazy journalism habits of media people, the question “Do UFOs exist?” continues to be asked. (Variations include statements such as: "UFOs don't exist," etc.)

UFO means unidentified flying object. Unidentified.
We have proof of the existence of UFOs through photographs, video, film, and eye witness reports. A huge amount of data gathered from all over the world.

This data has consistently shown (proven) that unidentified flying objects are in our skies.

What is there to debate? Nothing. If UFO means “unidentified flying object,” and you have a photograph/video/film/report of an unidentified thing, how can anyone who is rational and sane, deny what is in front of them? And what’s in front of them is an unidentified something.

All the rest: assumptions about extraterrestrials, or psychological manifestations of unintegrated mystical experiences, or government mind control via staged UFO events, etc. are just that: assumptions.

Anyone who denies that “UFOs exist” isn’t paying attention, are guilty of making assumptions, play games with semantics and are often disingenuous in their insistence that “UFOs don’t exist.” (as with skeptwoos.)

Orange Orbs

After I saw my orange orb in the 1980s (here in Oregon) I searched for years in UFO books, etc. for something that was similar to what I saw. But I didn't find anything. I still haven't found anything, but I've found things that come close. Of course, it's difficult to get an accurate idea, since all I have to go on are the one or two images of someone's orange orb UFO. There's no way to get a good overview based on that. Still, it's interesting when I find things that sound, and look, close to what I saw.

This one, also seen in Oregon, from the Coast to Coast site. Tehre's a comparison with another similar orb UFO.http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page1385.html?theme=light

This site has several images of UFOs in the Vegas area. Scroll down to the orange image he calls an "orange cheerio."

These images of orbs show different colored orbs, including yellowish orange.

Some of the orbs on these sites date to the 1970s, 1980s. Some are recent.

Fatima: Oracle Cards and Fernandes

I collect Tarot decks, so I had to get this one, the Fatima Oracle cards. I just ordered it today. I'm not crazy about the artwork, but how could I resist; what with my interest in UFOs and Marian Apparitions?

Here's an interesting item from Joaquim Fernandes on UFO Updates from January, 2000. (Fernandes is author, along with Fina d'Armada, of Extraterrestrial
Intervention in Fatima - the apparitions and the UFO
phenomenon I tried ordering the book this past Christmas but Amazon.com told me it was unaviable. I haven't tried too hard since but I'll get around to it soon. It's a book I'm very interested in reading.

According to the item on Updates, the book says that there there was, at Fatima, a

a "fourth percipient" namely Carolina Carreira, whom
describes a "telephatic type of contact with a fair-headed being
of small stature who instilled into her head a repetitive order

Microwaves, beings from above; all very interesting. Vallee of course has written on the UFO/paranorma connection between events like Fatima and other religious apparitions, as have others.

This subject alone -- the UFO/Marian Apparition phenomenon -- is enough to keep one busy!