McMinnville

Off to McMinnville, Oregon for the 10th annual UFO Festival! Fortunately Hotel Oregon has wi-fi so I hope to post from there if time allows.

For more info on the UFO festival go here.

Peter Levenda on Coast to Coast Tonight

Ian Punnet is the host tonight, and the guest is Peter Levenda.

The Killers: Spaceman

It started with a low light,
Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed;
And then they took my blood type,
they left a strange impression in my head.
You know that I was hoping,
That I could leave this star-crossed world behind;
But when they cut me open,
I guess I changed my mind.
And you know I might
Have just flown too far from the floor this time,
'cause they calling me by my name!
And the zipping white light beams
disregarding bombs and satellites!

That was the turning point;
That was one lonely night!

The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down!
Its all in your mind!"

Well now I'm back at home and-
I’m looking forward to this life I live;
You know it's gonna haunt me,
So hesitation to this life I give.
You think you might cross over,
You caught between the devil and the deep blue sea;
You better look it over,
Before you make that leap!

And you know I'm fine, but I hear those voices at night
sometimes... they justify my claim,
and the public don’t dwell on my transmission
'cause it wasn’t televised...

But, it was a turning point,
Oh what a lonely night!

The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down!
Its all in your mind!"
The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down!
Its all in your mind!"

My global position systems are vocally addressed;
They say the Nile used to run from east to west,
They say the Nile used to run… from east to west.

I'm fine,
but I hear those voices at night,
sometime...

The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down!
Its all in your mind!"
The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down...
Its all in your mind!"

(oh oh oh oh oh oh oooah x8)
It's all in my mi-i-ind,
It's all in my mind...

A Dream, the Moon, Thoughts and Batsquatch

Strange night last night, odd morning...

Well, there was UFO Hunters (and Monster Quest) and that's always fun. While watching UFO Hunters I was doodling, over and over again, dark, contoured orbs radiating energy type beams, bridges, and more orbs. Hmmm.

Then went to sleep, had a dream of UFOs and aliens (the latter unseen, as usual) and it was very uncomfortable. Not pleasant. I wasn't scared, but it wasn't a good feeling dream in any way. Suddenly at around 3:30 in the morning, I just woke up. Woke up, wide awake, and I looked directly out the bedroom window to see a bright, huge, round white light just beaming into the window. This scared the hell out of me for about two seconds, until I realized it was the moon.

Still, I was feeling creep ed out, and irrationally mad at that moon, as if the whole thing -- whatever "whole thing" it is I mean -- was responsible.

Here's the poem of sorts, a of stream of consciousness, almost automatic writing, which I wouldn't actually do. Just images, memories, coming quick and without thought, throwing out clues or quilt blocks to see what might emerge, if anything. Which would all be terribly subjective and highly interpretative but if it's looked at like art, an abstract work, the artist recedes as the viewer participates, . . .

floating
yellow light
high up in a tree
anticipation
childhood
through walls, through doors
full moon
night
stars
waiting
play
little beings, dancing
invisible
morhping helicopters
pastures
parks
precognition
astral projection
visitations
anger
buzzing
roaring
rushing
chrome colored spheres, spinning, hovering
beams of light hitting grass
orange orb lit from within
following
fright
noise
bright blinding white light
paralyzed
obsession
seeking
floating in space in cold glass domes
black wig headed, tall, chalk-white, female being
slightly insect like
slightly grey-alien like
memories of moving stars intrude
camouflage
disguise
tricks
coincidences
dreams
blue beams
running, hiding in cupboards, empty kitchens
cabins
giant triangles
wedges, chevrons, bright white round lights
family sightings and shared experience
missing time
small silver suited beings
red glowing eyes
nozzles and hoses, guns and wands
disbelief
mocking
defense
risk
abandon

I woke up this morning very tired, mostly it was my body that felt tired, I ached all over and couldn't figure it out, I hadn't been doing anything that would make me so achy. I log on and find an e-mail from someone with a report of a "Batsquatch" in my area, along with his disturbing idea of typing up a live lamb to use a bait in order to capture this creature. You can read about that on Frame 352.

An uneasy bit of synchronicity in this email from the man wanting to use live bait; for Monster Quest annoyed me last night, with it's two fishermen who used live bait to get a look at muskies. The bait they used wasn't a worm, it was a large fish itself. It was the complete lack of respect and gratitude, of awareness, of what they were doing, and the way they were choosing to use that life, that bothered me. MQ had done this before; using the gratuitous killing of animals, in their giant hog episode.

Random things

New post at Saucer Sightings, which includes a link to my current UFO Digest article on shared UFO experiences.

At Women of Esoterica, I comment on Lesley's Grey Matters column. As usual, Lesley has an insightful take on culture as it compares to UFO and esoteric phenomena.

McMinnville, UFO Festival less than two weeks away!

A couple of links at Frame 352; one leads to a beautiful story about Sasquatch from a Native perspective.

Still finding swine signals --- this swine flu thing is one hell of an interesting thing to watch unfold, as I post on Octopus Confessional.

And wondering about my "nazi ufos" blog but if I keep the title "nazi ufos" won't that imply I'm a neo-nazi, white supremacist? Sure wouldn't want that mistake!

Also, a couple of small items at Vintage UFO.

In the current issue of UFO Magazine, I write about Snippy and some odd activity surrounding that classic story.

Darklore III Now Available

The esoteric journal Darklore III is now available. Check out their website for ordering information, also, free pdf downloads of previous articles!

Sci Fi's Carny

Well, what a silly waste that was! Started off okay; hokey, but fun. Good monster. The Jersey Devil is caught, gets loose, causes a lot of trouble. SPOILER AHEAD...
I was enjoying it, as predictable as it was. Just enjoying the guilty pleasure of watching a TV movie about a monster. With Lou Diamond Phillips, so there you go.

But the movie didn't go anywhere, or, where it went ... didn't make sense. FAIR WARNING: here it is: at the very end, Lou Diamond Phillip's character - the sheriff, of course -- is killed. Everyone gets killed. Including the monster. The crazy preacher man character didn't make sense either; he's running around from the beginning of the movie warning everyone about the devil and how the actions of the townsfolk brought all this upon themselves; he has no compassion for the "freaks" in the carnival, and there were weird cuts and edits throughout, as if they had made the movie longer, or maybe originally wanted to air it as mini-series. For example, a relationship seemed to exist between the psychic at the carnival and the sheriff, but we didn't get to see any of that develop. A lot of plot lines were thrown out there, assuming that the audience would make assumptions.

A waste of time, too bad, but it was a good monster.

Out There TV Synchronicity

Late last night I went searching on-line for a link to Out There TV, Kate and Richard Mucci's paranormal/conspiracy television program out of Nevada. (Kate also writes a column for UFO Magazine.) For awhile, one of the local little stations in my area carried the show; then they stopped, soon after, the station disappeared. They'd air on Saturday afternoons and other random times.

I hadn't thought about the show for some time, but for some reason decided to look and see what I could find. I didn't find anything.

Then this morning, I was startled as well as pleased, to find that another, teeny, strange little station in our area carries Out There TV; on Sunday nights, at 8:00 pm. Same time as the Simpsons, what to do? :)

Billy Booth on Trinagles

Having seen a triangle myself, and a wedge shaped, or chevron shaped UFO as well, I'm extremely interested in similar reports. UFO researcher Billy Booth has good stuff on reports of these UFOs; you can read about them here.

New blog look; again

I know, I change schemes here a lot but look at it this way; it's in keeping with the ever shifting UFO itself. Makes a poetic sense. I just didn't like the blunt and ugly white/orange color scheme, don't like this a whole lot either but so tired of the black...so...until next time. Could be different in an hour, a few weeks, a couple of years. Exciting, eh?

I just looked this over and thinking, I do kind of like this . . . maybe tweak the text color just a tad but otherwise, I'm liking it better than I thought.

Sci-Fi Original Movie: CARNY

Coming from circus folk as I do, you know I'll be watching this. Carny, an original movie for the Sci-Fi channel, stars Lou Diamond Phillips, which makes it worth watching regardless of plot -- anyway, involves carny folk, a small town, and the Jersey Devil! Airs next Saturday, April 25th. Thanks to Alien UFO & The Paranormal Casebook for the news.

Shermer's Gorilla Suit Man

Michael Shermer, uber-skeptoid and professional debunker, did an experiment at the recent 2009 Science, Technology and Research Symposium in Charleston to show that Mothman (which he admits to knowing nothing about), Bigfoot (to which he says he does) and other paranormal/Fortean/esoteric/anomalous phenomena are figments of over-active imaginations, but more than that,illustrations of why we lie:

We already know that people lie; that happens all the time. ... The more interesting question is why do people fall for it," he said.

In other words, people who speak of witnessing UFOs or other strange events, are lying.

Sure, people lie about their experiences. They elaborate, embroider, exaggerate and outright lie. They hoax and they pull pranks. They're delusional and mentally ill, they're alcoholics and drug abusers. Some people. And for some people in that category, they present to the world tales of UFOs, strange creatures, aliens and visits to Venus.

Those aside, thousands upon thousands more people without that baggage -- and even with some of that baggage, does not automatically exclude the experience of such phenomena or cause it -- have encounters with the weird that cannot be explained by tired exercises into so-called rationality. Such as Shermer's. (Warning: ad hom ahead. "Smirking Shermer" as I like to call him. Come on, the man smirks for crying out loud. He's so taken with himself.)

Shermer instructs an audience to watch a video of basket ball players, watching for:

the number of times six young people passing basketballs, three of them in white shirts and three in black shirts. He asked the crowd to count how many times the three in white shirts passed the basketball to each other.

Afterward, Shermer had the crowd call out answers. Then he played the video again, telling everyone just to relax and not worry about counting passes this time. And to the amazement of many, about halfway through a person in a monkey suit walked from out-of-frame into the middle of the scene, paused, gave a friendly wave and then promptly walked off screen.

This proves, says Shermer, that people see what they want to see. Er, that means we don't want to see a man in a gorilla suit at the Lakers game?

What it says to me is this: when something weird and unexpected happens, especially in the midst of a mundane event, like a basketball game, we don't notice it. Which then means , that the weird, the unexpected, like say, a Mothman or a Bigfoot, even a UFO, goes right by us. It literally can be in front of our noses and we won't deal with the strangeness. In fact, when something highly unusual is going on, and the one or two people who do happen to be aware of it point it out to others, most people refuse to even look to see for themselves.

Shermer had his own out of body experience. Under laboratory conditions, don't you know. Which proves that no such thing as astral projection and OOBEs occur, since it can be recreated in the laboratory:

Shermer said he once had an out-of-body experience successfully recreated under laboratory conditions. It had nothing to do with his consciousness actually leaving his body.

This is another standard, and very tired meme of the uber-skeptic: that because something paranormal/anomalous can be recreated in the lab, it doesn't exist. Rather, it doesn't exist paranormally; of course it exists, they just recreated it! (The same is said of hoaxes, as the recent hoaxed UFO lights showed: to the skeptoid, UFO hoaxes "proves" that UFOs don't exist.)

Why do we insist upon "believing weird things" as Shermer so often phrases this conundrum of human existence? It has to do with evolution:

As for the reason people believe strange things, Shermer said it is rooted in humanity's evolutionary history and its psychological drive to connect invisible causes to the events around them. That movement in the grass may be the wind or it could be a predator.

Or fairies! It's fairies!

If we think of the movement in the grass as a predator, we're good ... Shermer concludes that if we think the worst: "better safe than sorry" then we believe that forces control the things we can't explain. Like a lion in the grass? Huh?

Shermer's presentation didn't prove a thing, but of course, the choir he preaches to think otherwise.

Soure: Science vs. ESP: Skeptic Ponders UFOs, Mothman

Rescued From The Trash: Moon Pics

A pirate flag at an old McDonald's site on NASA property and thousands of old moon images, rescued from the trash. Eventually the images will all be made available on-line, right now there's about thirty that NASA, along with "private corporations" (which NASA is as well) have put up on-line. The images were taken during the moon landing forty years ago, and reels upon reels of tape were about to be thrown out when they were "rescued." There's a lot of strange things about this story, from the pirate flag in the old McDonald's building, now a part of NASA property, to the idea that thousands of feet of film of the moon were "lost" all this time. And all of it shown on a pieced together machine:

Three researchers huddle around a wheezing 45-year-old Ampex FR-900A tape machine, a one-of-a-kind reel to reel 2-inch model designed to record data for the National Security Agency.

These tapes hold the best images of the moon ever taken, even to today,” says Dennis Wingo, a lanky 55-year-old engineering physicist who heads the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project.

Nimoy on Fringe

My favorite television show FRINGE (besides the BBC's Torchwood, if that ever comes back as promised) will have a new character: William Bell, played by Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy's character will be introduced this season, then FRiNGE will return in the fall, along with Nimoy. Pretty cool!

Building Juxtapositions in the Neighborhood

I'm not sure what this means, but the other day as I was taking my walk I noticed the oddness of the fact that the Army Reserve building sits directly across from the Scottish Rite Temple (Mason.) The two fronts face each other. Behind the Army Reserve building is the side street -- newly constructed, with the remodel of the elementary school-- that leads to the school. So elementary school faces the back of the Army Reserve grounds, the front of the Army Reserve building faces the Scottish Rite Temple.