The Snarly Skepticism OWL Award Goes To: James Mcgaha

I'm proud to announce that supreme skeptoid James Mcgaha has just been awarded the Snarly Skepticism OWL Award. Congratulations!

More Buzzing and Rushing

Electrical feelings, feeling "buzzy" as I've often described the physical sensation I get when experiencing anomalous events, (see post below on my exploding plate experience) and hearing/feeling rushing, roaring sounds particulary in connection with OOBEs seem to be in the air (heh) -- here's a post about one person's 'Rushing Wind' by way of Greg Taylor at The Daily Grail. Taylor has written about the rushing, roaring, buzzing, bell clanging sounds and feelings; see his excellent article Her Sweet Murmur, in Darklore volume I.  

Related post: Beeping Creatures

Exploding Glass

A strange and kind of cool thing happened earlier this evening. Jim and I were watching 'Psychic Investigators' while eating our dinner. We were also talking -- a lot. We talk a lot anyway, but we were kind of on a high, for some reason. We started off commenting on the program; then debunkers, then the Flatwoods case and my article I had just finished about that for Trickster's Realm, MK Ultra, the recent book and news about the LSD experiments in France, and so on. Just your typical kind of UFO/Fortean/esoteric nerd kind of conversation.

The energy was kind of "buzzy" and I had a distinct thought that "Hmm, Jim's really excited about this stuff," more so than usual that is, as I was. We were talking about Project Stargate and remote viewing and the idea that the government hadn't shut down a damn thing, just gone deeper down into the depths with their covert RV/mind control selves, when my plate exploded in my lap.

It's a heavy glass plate. I had it resting in my lap; we both heard a lot "bang" and the plate had broken into six pieces. We looked at each other and Jim said "That was pretty cool." Which was an insipid thing to say but I had to agree; it was "pretty cool." It made us laugh. The timing of the thing was weird, the thing itself was weird. A perfectly good plate, a heavy one at that, and it just broke into six clean pieces.

This happened to me one time before, when I was sixteen or so. I was sitting in my girlfriend's living room. I remember we were talking about sex, and, about ghosts.  A heavy green glass ashtray that was sitting on the bottom shelf of the TV stand kind of rose up in the air then, a loud bang, and the ashtray broke right in half. We both just looked at each other and, well, freaked. Obviously the combination of energies contributed to that incident; our age, the sexual charges in the air, and the communication-connection to the other side. A guarantee for that kind of thing.

Future Theater! Be There!

 Thank you to Lesley Gunter for posting this at Women of Esoterica; I'm passing it along . . .


UFO Magazine publishers, Bill and Nancy Birnes, are starting their own  weekly radio show - Future Theater.  Here is some information from Bill about  the show:

This  Saturday evening at 6PM Eastern on Future   Theater, Dr. Ted joins us  for a UFO Hunters reunion along with Dan   Zarenkiewicz, our producer.  You can catch the live broadcast at  futuretheater.com or ufomag.com or lanlamphere.com. We'll have a  chat   room and open lines, too.

Visit The Orange Orb
http://orangeorb.blogspot.com

Career Advice From Uber Skeptoids

Oh for crying out loud: Requirements to be a UFO investigator by way of the JREF.

Not at all unexpected but head bashingly annoying all the same. Here's what the OP wrote:

My 12 year old nephew wants to be a UFO investigator, he asked me what qualifications he needs

I told him

1, you need the ability to believe in something with no supporting evidence

2, you need the ability to ignore facts and evidence to the contrary while inventing a reason for doing so

3, you need the ability to not be a critical thinker

4, you need a tin foil hat

5. you need to have zero credibility from your peers

There are many comments, well, all comments, that follow which are the usual batch of pathological debunking/jokey crap, but this one really got me for its typical and cheap fall back onto classism:

All you need to be a UFO Investigator are:


- A single-wide trailer.
- Electrical service.
- A fridge full of beer.
- An internet connection.
- A five-year old computer.
- A ten-year old CRT monitor.


It's that third one that eliminates him from the profession -- you need to be 21 in most (all?) states. 6th-grade grammar and spelling skills are useful as well, but not necessary.

Staged Events: Eliciting "Accurate Emotional Response" in Students

Since 9/11, the United Kingdom has been a land where a bizarre blend of an Orwell/Kafka tinged atmosphere of fascist laws, bureaucrats obsessed with  minutia of the mundane, and  overt, heavy handed laws and practices rule. I’ve often commented that what goes on in England in particular is the prototype for what  soon appears over here. Maybe altered slightly to blend in with American culture; ease itself into our lives so we don’t even notice, but, present. Creepy, sucking your soul out of you, keeping you in the glided cage present. The UK is the playground of the industrial military globalists, no doubt about it.

Staged and scary events in schools in England, the United States, and most recently, Scotland, are one of these chillingly bizarre actions perpetuated by whatever forces are behind these post 9/11 games.  Parents are not notified of  these little scenarios, which are enacted in ways that have students believe it’s really happening. Teachers, sometimes with the complicity of local law enforcement, blithely manifest scenes as if they’re actual events. For some interesting reasons and one with no doubt all kinds of hidden motivations, England staged several fake (but said to be real to the students) UFO crashes, complete with missing -- “abducted” -- teachers and dead aliens.(I wrote about the odd crashed UFO scenarios for UFO Digest in August of 2009: My Teacher Was Abducted By Aliens: Preparation for Fake Disclosure? )

The latest of these fake events: a Holocaust themed scenario, at St. Hilary’s Primary in Scotland:

Students were “hysterical” after deputy head teacher Elizabeth McGlynn segregated nine youngsters in Gerry Blair’s P7 class and told them they were being taken away from their families.

The purpose of this was to give students an idea of what victims of the Holocaust went through:

insight into the horrors of the Holocaust as part of a project they are doing about the Second World War.

The teacher, Mrs. McGlyn, told students:

she had a letter from the Scottish Government saying nine children had to be separated from their classmates.

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, ‘due to lack of sunlight in their mother’s womb’, and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

When one child asked if that meant they might have to go to an orphanage, they were told that might be a possibility. At that point many of the children became very distressed. One boy kicked his chair over, one was angry and demanded to speak to someone in charge but most were crying on a scale ranging from mildly to severely.

The students were then told, after about fifteen minutes, that it was all an exercise and not really happening, but that the role playing would continue.

Now here’s the really interesting thing. When a parent, furious at the school for allowing such a thing, asked why anyone in authority thought this was a good idea, she was told:

they didn't inform the children beforehand because they wanted the children to experience an ‘accurate emotional response’ to this scenario in order for it to be reflected in their story writing.

This was the same reason given in other staged scenarios, that, and to encourage critical thinking. Usually these exercises are embedded in creative writing courses.  Eliciting emotional response from children seems to be the goal. Why? What is the real agenda? Under the guise of fostering creative writing skills or encouraging imaginative thinking,  eliciting intense emotional states from children is the objective.

The school defends the role play, downplaying the impact on students -- and parents:

Schools commonly engage in drama-based exercises which encourage children to use their imagination and act out a character. These role play situations are designed to help children understand diversity and develop empathy for the victims of prejudice and are usually very well received by pupils.
 

The shared facts of these staged events:

• Parents are not informed of these events or exercises
• Students are led to think these events are real
• Sometimes local law enforcement is in on the staged event
• Frightening and violent themes are chosen: crashed UFOs, dead aliens, missing humans, the threat of being kidnapped, etc.
• By the authorities own admission, the goal is to have children “to experience an ‘accurate emotional response’  to these events.

What is the hidden goal behind the need to generate intense emotional reactions of fear, hysteria, and anger from children? Who determines what is an “accurate”  reaction?

What happens if a student doesn’t respond “accurately?” 

Notes:
St Hilary's Primary kids traumatized by teachers’ Holocaust game
My Teacher Was Abducted By Aliens: Preparation for Fake Disclosure?
Follow-up: Staged Alien Events and Schools
Night of the Living Jackboots

Zorgy Winners

I just want to say, even at the late date, congratulations to all who won the Zorgy, and congratulations to the nominees as well! Which, ahem, I was one of, much to my surprise.

I'm glad Tim Binnall won for best paranormal podcast, congratulations to Tim, and Paratopia, Jeremy Vaeni's podcast, came in second which was good to see.  Other categories were harder to decide who to vote for, since there are so many excellent blogs and researchers out there. The Daily Grail also won, and glad to see Lesley's Debris Field came in third! Loren Coleman won for best researcher, and I don't have any problem with that; though my vote went to Redfern, because of the diversity of topics he explores, and his willingness to take a sometimes controversial view of things. (Roswell, cross-over cases, paranormal Bigfoot, etc.)

I was especially glad to see UFO Hunters win; that show seemed to get a lot of unfair negative comments from some inside the UFO circus so glad to see they won.

It's a silly thing and no one wins anything but silly and fun are good things... so thank you to the 9 people who voted for me (hey, that's something!) and again, congratulations.

Follow the Mystic Orb on UFO Mystic . . .

I am so jazzed and honored to announce that I'm now blogging at UFO Mystic, along with two other newer bloggers over there -- Lesley Gunter and Scott Corrales -- and of course, Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern and Craig Woolheater.

My first post over there is on those strange beams of light being reported: Beams of Light.

Pyramid Beam of Light Synchronicity!

The past few days had me working on two articles. One on the strange beams of light beaming down on witnesses, and the other on that, as well as the pryamid-triangle type of balloon like "UFOs" seen in December of last year. The latter article was just published on UFO Digest, the other hasn't yet been published.

From the UFO Digest article: 'New' UFOs: Of Triangles and Beams of Light:
on the recent beams of white light reported by witnesses in Oregon, Wisconsion and elsewhere:

Lately, beams of white and/or blue-ish hues have been beaming down on people, both in heavily populated areas, like West Linn, Oregon, as well as rural areas.
Theses beams of light light up large areas, are disconcertingly bright, and almost seem to go after humans, in the sense they appear right where humans will see them. Whether or not that last part is due to the specifics of the UFO, or coincidence, too early to tell. Me, always leaning on the paranoid suspect side of events like this, considers these weird beams to be intentionally staged “UFO” events. One beam of light contained a humanoid, reptilian type figure! Alien? Always a possibility. But (back to my paranoid suspect nature) a Project Blue Beam, hoaxed by psy-ops MIB types, event. 

Regarding the triangle, or more accurately, pryamid shaped UFOs from late last year:

Another new kind of UFO event were the strange balloon type triangles that appeared in Russia, China, England and Mexico in December of last year. Again, as with the beams of bright white light, these triangles are not the decades old giant black triangles seen by thousands of witnesses (myself included) the world over. These are more pyramid shaped; floating balloon type type objects floating in the skies.

Contrasting the two; beams of light, pryamid-triangle objects:

While the pyramids and beams of light are different in terms of type and behavior, they share the fact they are “new” types of UFO, something not seen before. And given their behavior, they are very likely man made. Purposes for the objects -- beams of light, floating pyramids -- may be very different, but they share things in common. What they share is covert activity over populated areas, performing for humans, and coveting secrecy as to their origin or purpose.
Beams of light, floating triangle-pyramids, both seem to appear in clusters. They’re not isolated events. A bunch of balloon type pyramids, a handful of white beams of light shooting down from the skies. Something, human or not, wants to get our attention.

And now, for a merging and a moment of synchroncity; Strange Planet gives us a report of beams of light shooting down into Mayan pryamids from July of 2009 with Mayan Pyramid Shoots out Beam of Light, in a Thunderstorm, as UFOs Hover All Around!:

Apparently, someone on vacation with their family, the beam shoots through the capstone of the Mayan pyramid, a thunderstorm ensues, and photos are captured of DOZENS of UFOs, on film, and even more on radar! 

There are several images of these beams of light on the Strange Planet blog, take a look and watch for updates, as I'm sure Dennis Whitney at Strange Planet will provide us with as soon as he gets them. 
 

Frank Feschino's Flatwoods Monster on Monster Quest!

Check Your TV Listings for the MonsterQuest Program On The History Channel March 10, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST (21:00 Hrs)! At Long, Long Last Frank Feschino's Flatwoods Monster Story Is Told And A Whole Town of Good People Are Vindicated!

My new article at UFO Digest: Beams of Light, Floating Pyramids

'New' UFOs: Of Triangles and Beams of Light

Travis Walton, Colin Andrews at McMinnville UFO Fest

McMinnville, Oregon's annual UFO Fest in May has speakers Travis Walton and Colin Andrews among the presenters:

McMINNVILLE, Ore.—Tuesday, March 2, 2010—The buzz is building as we get closer to the 11th Annual UFO Festival on May 14 and 15, 2010, hosted by McMenamins Hotel Oregon (3130 NE Evans St., [503] 472-8427 or [888] 472-8427). The festival, set in a small town in the middle of Oregon wine country, explores and celebrates the possibilities of life beyond Earth. We will welcome keynote speaker and author James Clarkson, a well-known UFO investigator; U.K. crop circle expert Colin Andrews; and UFO witness and abductee Travis Walton, on whom the book and Hollywood film “Fire in the Sky” was based. Passes are $10 per event, $15 for two events or $25 for all three events; UFO passes are available beginning March 15 at ufofest.com.

We're already booked! See you there...

Inspired Intention: Animal Journal

I don't know why I felt compelled to do this, but I had a strong sense from somewhere in my outstretched mind to begin a journal relating to animals. Noticing them, my responses to them, theirs to mine, and theirs in general whether I have anything to do with it or not. My own animal companions, and others. (Including cryptids, cryptos, and other non-human animals.) After a few days I am amazed at how much animal related interactions and observations, signs and synchronicities, have announced themselves.

Maybe the animal is a focus point to anchor intent and synchronicities, although I'm not sure what the intent is, yet, or what I can learn from this exercise. But it's been poetic in a some ways, relaxing, enjoyable, and interesting. Sometimes like an active meditation.

As I go through this process I'll share some journal entries. Maybe it will evolve, with drawings for example, maybe not. I don't know where it will go but I feel like it is a good choice to follow this "animal message."

From 'The Secret Sun': Torchwood's Children of Earth, and More

A fairly new blog (to me) and one of my favorites, is The Secret Sun. I love the newest post up there: Torchwood: (Suffer the) Children of Earth. Torchwood is my favorite TV show of this genre ever, and that includes X-Files, which I thought I'd never say. Of course, it isn't a contest. Secret Sun makes connections; not only with this post on the last Torchwood season, but with all kinds of esoteric items. If you haven't visited The Secret Sun, be sure you do so. It's among  the best esoteric blogs around.

Related posts:
On my blog UFO Mary: Stairway to Sirius: The (Pink) Star of the Sea

New Edition of Vintage Contactee Book: Over the Threshold

Contactee Dana Howard's book Over the Threshold has been reprinted by Tim Beckley's Global Communications. The book includes an introduction by yours truly. It's available at Amazon.com.

Blog: The UFO Chronicles

Just a general comment about The UFO Chronicles -- it's a solid blog, meaning, UFO Chronicles is a blog that consistently gives the rest of us "nuts and bolts" news of UFO sightings, interviews, news updates on same. A simple thing I guess, and maybe obvious, that it's easy to take for granted. Reading blogs like UFO Chronicles confirms that sightings of UFOs are happening every day, and just about everywhere. So thank you to Frank Warren for bringing us stories of UFO reports.

Zorgy Awards

Paul Kimball's blog The Other Side of Truth has his Zorgy Awards up again: Zorgy Awards Categories include Best Paranormal Blog, Best Paranormal News blog, Best Podcasts, etc.

Congratulations to everyone who's nominated! Glad to see Binnall of America coming in strong. And congratulations to Lesley of The Debris Field, for best news blog. To my surprise, this very blog The Orange Orb, is in the Best Paranormal Blog category. I'm seriously quite surprised for a few reasons (but hey, after all, I did come in third one year!) but thanks to those that nominated me. I don't expect to win; there are excellent and polished blogs like UFO Mystic and Cryptomundo, which are deservedly in the lead. Hard choice to make, which one to vote for.

So take a look and cast your vote for your favorites. . .

High Strangeness Bigfoot

I have links and some comments on my Frame 352 blog about the wonderfully intriguing article, with accompanying comments, about "paranormal" Bigfoot on the very excellent Blogsquatcher blog, take a look. At last count there were 45 comments!

Another New Contributor to WOE!

I am very pleased to announce that Interstellar Houswife has joined us at WOE. All our contributors are amazing; such varied perceptions and takes on things, and backgrounds, and it is so wonderful to have these women contributing, and I thank each one of them.

So welcome ISH, and look for posts by other contributors here as well. Also, you can check out everyone's websites and blogs by clicking on their names in the menu on the left.

Welcome, ISH!

Eagle Synchronicity

I had just finished my Trickster's Realm column for BoA today on eagles and UFO events. Part of that column includes this experience I wrote about on Saucer Sightings. Later, Jim, not knowing I had just written the TR piece, says to me: "There's an eagle ..." meaning an eagle on TV. The sound was off and I wasn't looking up; I'm on the laptop. Then I go to the Register Guard newspaper site and find the following disturbing item about horse deaths in Toppenish, Washington:

TOPPENISH, Wash. — Yakama Nation police are investigating the deaths of at least 11 horses near the southern boundary of the tribe’s reservation over the last few months.

Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin told the Yakima Herald-Republic that few details were available, including whether the deaths are related.

Motorists reported seeing the carcasses from Highway 97 in the Satus Pass area, where thousands of horses roam in herds. Len Schulmeister, the owner of Pine Springs Resort, which is 13 miles north of Goldendale on Highway 97, said he had seen eagles eating at the carcasses of three or four horses.

Speculation has focused on whether the horses were killed as bait by eagle hunters.

Although eagle hunting is illegal, selling the feathers can be lucrative. (source: Register-Guard)

Everything about this story is tragic, including the weird reference to eagle feathers.