On Identifying as Weird
Barbara, fixin’ to record an episode.
Oh, we’ve stepped in it now.
Saturday night, Kendra, Morganna and I recorded our first podcast episode. And Tuesday, we recorded the second episode—though due to unforeseen microphone issues, we may need to re-record it. (Growing pains and learning curves. They suck.)
We’re on schedule to post our first episode as planned October 1.
Oy.
We’re jumping right out of the Weirdo Closet.
It isn’t like I’ve hidden the fact that I’m weird from most anyone, but I have to say, coming out of the closet as bisexual was a lot easier. Members of the LBGTQ continuum have Pride Parades and celebrations. You get rainbow flags, music and cake.
Cake’s good. I like cake.
But weirdos like experiencers or percipients—whatever you want to call people who live in a reality that is just a little bit more strange than the one most people inhabit?
Nah. No parade for us. No flag. No music. No cake.
But lots of rolled eyes, deep sighs, shaken heads and shrugged shoulders.
This shouldn’t be so hard for me—I was thrown out of the Broom Closet as a Neo-Pagan Witch about 29 years ago in a court of law. I had a sleazy lawyer point at me and declare in a hysterical voice, “She’s a Witch! She’s a Witch—even her own mother doesn’t speak to her!” (I half expected him to declare I had turned him into a newt, but he’d gotten better. That at least would have been funny.)
This was during a contentious divorce, when the fact that I was a Neo-Pagan who believed that the Universe was alive and conscious and who worshipped God as both male AND female was used to “prove” that I was an unfit mother. (No, I was not a Satanist or a devil-worshipper, nor did I do malefic magic against other people., though in West Virginia, all of that was instantly assumed as soon as someone said “witch.”)
Things went badly for a while there, but once it was over, I licked my wounds and moved away from my home state to take up residence in Athens, Ohio. There, I intended to finish my BA degree at Ohio University, and rebuild my life.
There, I found that I didn’t have to hide large chunks of who was anymore.
Over a span of several years, I ended up as one of the more visible Witches in a town full of them. Early in my first sojourn here, a native Athenian told me that “You can’t swing a dead cat in Athens without hitting a Witch.” And it was true. Witches, Pagans, Voodoo Practitioners, Shamanic Practitioners, Unitarians, New Agers and Non-Denominational Hippies were all but crawling out of the wilderness and congregating in Athens back in the day.
My husband and I opened a metaphysical bookstore and had discussion groups on topics of interest to the Pagan community. I read tarot cards for the public and taught classes in tarot. I took part in interfaith panel discussions (they always sat me next to the Catholic Catechism instructor—that was fun) and ended up doing a lot of community outreach. My community work included educating the local police on how to tell the difference between Neo-Pagans minding their own business having an outdoor ritual and possibly harmful cultic activity—this is smack dab in the midst of the Satanic Panic years.
I fielded questions from concerned Christians and ended up making friends with a great many of them after they realized that not only did I know the Gospel as well as they did, I wasn’t. a baby eating ogress bent on gathering souls for Satan.
I was just a nice, garden variety heathenish heretic who was really good at reading Tarot cards. (Some of them became clients, even.)
Later, I helped organize the first Pagan Pride Day celebrations in Columbus in the early oughts, And for about a decade, I wrote for national Neo Pagan publications,
It turned out that being out of the broom closet helped others make their way more peacefully in the world. Walking my Pagan path and shining a light on it made it easier for others to walk the their own paths without fear or shame.
But, even as I did all of these things, it was only my fellow Pagans, psychics and experiencers who knew that on top of it all, I saw impossible things like—-fairies—-or whatever they are, and sometimes had experiences with UFO’s or heard what we concluded might have been Bigfoot in our woods.
Because, it’s one thing to worship differently than others. I mean, it’s America—we have a right to practice our religions as we see fit, so long as we’re not abusing and killing people in the name of our God. People might think you’re a little flaky, but generally are tolerant of different religious beliefs, and won’t look down on you for them, at least not outwardly.
Seeing things that most people don’t see, and experiencing things that others do not, however, opens one to charges of being mildly delusional at best to downright psychotic at worst. And having already gone through that mess during the divorce and custody case, I have been cagey about my weirdness ever since.
But you know. This is my lived experience. I have a therapist, and have been going to therapy for well over a decade. She says I’m officially “Not Nuts.” (Yes, I checked with her. Seriously. I came out as an experiencer to my therapist. Talk about scary……)
And if sharing my lived experience helps others who may see something once and are then terrified by having their notions of reality changed by it—-if I can bring a measure of comfort to them by letting them know they aren’t alone—then, fine.
I’m stepping out of my last closet, then, and slamming the door behind me.
Here I am. I’m Weird. This is me. Telling the truth and accepting the consequences.
Hello, My Name is Morganna, and I’m an Experiencer.
Recording the first episode of 6DJK.
Hey y’all, nice to meet you! I’m Morganna,
I have the dubious gift of seeing weird shit. I have seen UFO’s, little lights (sometimes called orbs), what I can only call a fairy, and a few ghosts. Uncategorized strangeness and synchronicity dances around in my life at an absurd rate. My life is pretty normal otherwise-I cook for a living, garden, paint, spend time with my family and friends, go on bike rides and hikes, have a lovely boyfriend, and carry on with life silently braced for odd encounters, courtesy of being a weird shit magnet.
I grew up in West Bigod Virginia and Athens, Ohio, two places filled with interesting history and tons of bizarre happenings, and cut my eyeteeth on true ghost stories, Native stories about monsters and heroes, fairy folklore and general Fortean happenings. I have always seen things-and so have several members of my family and my friends. Get me and my best friend together and ask us about Sissonville sometime-or any of the houses we lived in together- and get ready for a buffet of the bizarre.
I decided to help my mom and Auntie out with this project because I’m interested to see what happens-I am terribly curious-and, well, I’m from WV and you help your mama out where I’m from. Plus, I love stories, hearing them and sharing them, and telling my own. Storytelling is a very important part of my cultures-both of ‘em. And really y’all-who doesn’t love a scary story-until you are in the middle of one. I also hope that telling my stories will help others tell their’s, or at least feel a little better knowing they aren’t the only ones who have to deal with weirdness.
When we first had the idea for 6DJK I wondered what I brought to the table. My mom is a font of information and experience, and has a journalism degree. My Aunt Kendra has tons of encounters, and a degree in Environmental Science-she can throw down a topo map and compare soil compositions with EM field fluctuations and find out if there is a correlation. Chris has a damn doctorate and is building a database of sightings. My step-dad is our tech guy. Hell, even my little bro is doing art for us. Then there’s me-the hillbilly with a crowbar, a sense of humor, and a varied and checkered life. And that, really, is part of what I bring.
I have a background of superstition, lore, folktales, Native stories, history, and a decent amount of common sense. I also have a nose for the weird-I was actually the one who alerted my mother to the uptick in strangeness in 2019 that got this ball rolling. We started keeping track of it then, and it has culminated in the three of us doing this podcasting thing.
Additionally-I have plenty of experiences of my own to add to the stock of weird tales. I act as Research Grunt, hunting down pertinent information, fellow blogger, and an extra set of eyes on our network of folks who notice strange things are afoot. I also have a handy talent for noticing connections between all the oddness in the land of the weird. Once we get around to doing field work-I get to be the one who carries the heavy things!
Oh wait-I never did explain the crowbar huh?
Well, here we get into the common sense and practical superstition I walk around with. See-I have a high threshold for creepy. I live in a world where creepy stuff happens frequently, and it doesn’t tend to scare the shit out of me in the normal course of events. However-if it gets too creepy, I have the sensible reaction of “Let’s get the hell out of here and come back when the sun’s up!”
My fellow team members? Their creepiness tolerance level is too high for their own good sometimes. My mother once tried to walk TOWARDS a Bigfoot screaming in the middle of the night. Yeah, really. I, on the other hand, would back away slowly and carefully, then high-tail it out of there because having your head ripped off is not a great survival strategy.
So that’s another thing I bring to the team-The Goddamn Sense In My Head.
I also have a solid strategy of Don’t Do Dumb Shit. Like, don’t walk around in the woods without turning your coat, banging on trees to try to piss off Bigfoot, yell at the ghost to provoke a reaction when investigating a haunting, or any of the other foolishness people come up with. And, for the love of all that is holy-I will NEVER pull a Mulder or Scully and run around without a flashlight.
I come from people that always have a pocket knife, lighter, light source and multi tool on them, and I plan to keep it that way!
This brings me back to The Crowbar. (Y’all knew I’d get around to it eventually.)
I plan on carrying my handy dandy crowbar that I keep by the door (Iron by the door is always a good idea) with me on night investigations, or any time we’re in the woods. On other trips, it will live in the car.
This is a plan for many reasons-one, it’s cold iron, two it’s sort of my version of a “magic wand”, three, it is a useful tool for opening and hooking onto things, and four, it can smack something a good one-be it rabid raccoons, assholes, or Men in Black.
Do I plan on smacking Bigfoot? No, of course not! But considering that we are three chicks wandering around in lonely places, it seemed like a good idea to bring a beating stick. And if that ain’t practical, hillbilly good sense, I don’t know what is. Nice to meet all y’all, hope to see you around some time!
Coming Out Strange
Photograph by Kendra Maurer
The first pod is recorded, waiting for edit.
I look around and think, “Well, there’s no turning back now.”
My personal truth is about to be broadcast. I’m about to be The One Who Makes Eyes Roll because I have experienced a lot of strange. More than seems reasonable. And for so long, I’d talk about it, but avoid going all-in because who sees ghosts, and Mothman, and Translucent Blobs? Sure, I’d tell a ghost story here and there. Or I’d talk about my Mothman sighting, but never the two at the same time, in the same place. Because I kinda like my life how it is, and adding all of that at once because things like that change relationships.
I’ve never been particularly silent about my experiences, because I don’t generally believe in secrets. Secrets are someone else’s power. They can function as a cage of sorts, keeping you from taking risks, and experiencing some of the more daring social risks...because...what if they find out?
Well, my solution has always been to Live Out Loud. I mess up, I broadcast. Has that backfired? Yes, indeed. But it’s been far more navigable than the betrayal of a long-held secret. I am unapologetically me.
My mom said to me during one of my Truth Sessions, “Why can’t you just lie? Parents want their kids to lie!” She wasn’t entirely serious, but now that I have kids, I kinda get that. Am I completely honest all the time? No. Your hair looks GREAT! And sometimes white lies maintain social order. Supernatural (YES I love everything about that show!!) did a great Season 14 finale in which the world was told to stop lying...and the ensuing chaos was glorious! Ok, it was glorious because it wasn’t real. But it highlighted why lies can be important.
On strangness, though, the lie would be to pretend nothing happened. That’s not fair to others who have had similar run-ins with The Weird. For me to learn I wasn’t alone was everything, and I learned from that. I started to quietly tell my stories. One at a time. And more often than not, the response would be, “That’s like this one time!” and I realized that I was always in the company of others who had seen things like I had--even where it was least expected! My own family had lived in a haunted house near Washington DC! My own, Catholic family!
“She was sane once,” I hear people say in my internal dialogues as I conduct arguments while alone in the shower.
But the thing is, I’ve always been this person. This experiencer. I’m just talking about it now, because I feel a level of social responsibility...to you, the person who has experienced these kinds of things and feel alone.
I don’t expect or demand belief in all I say. Your belief is yours to manage. I can only speak from my experiences, and if they help you, that is everything to me. There is beauty in the strange, and beauty if best shared.
Thank you for joining us on this grand adventure! I look forward to hearing your stories, whether emailed or spoken. These are the Folklore that the future will read to understand us better.
What we have that our ancestors did not are the tools that science has gifted us. Digital recorders, Electromagnetic Frequency Detectors, Video Cameras, Night Vision, Infrared cameras, and the internet so we can tell our stories around the world almost instantaneously.
And I am so excited!
Flip the Table
“Final Frontier” Barbara Fisher
“ Science does not know it’s debt to the imagination”
Science is funny to me. Not funny like a joke, but funny like a practical joke.
We understand certain things to be true: gravity is a thing. Light is a thing. Matter is a thing. We know these things because we test them. We play an elaborate, expensive game of Bullshit, and it keeps us honest. Scientist A makes a claim, after rigorous testing. Scientist B calls Bullshit and tries to disprove Scientist A and so on. Eventually we all agree that Scientist A is correct, and we continue science-ing based on the understanding that Scientist A just revealed. OR, Scientist A is incorrect, and begins the game anew, or Scientist C runs with it.
Sometimes a table is flipped. with discoveries that have us scrambling to prove or disprove everything we thought to be true: Copernicus, van Leeuwenhoek, Curie, Hedy Lamarr, Einstein and so many more, all table flippers.
Now, I studied Chemistry enough to get a minor--and while I considered Chemical Engineering, I knew my weakness was math, or rather my belief that I was bad at math. I love Chemistry because it’s math in 3D. It’s about balance. Negatives draw positives. Imbalance seeks balance. Organic Chemistry taught me that equilibrium is death; that life is about constantly keeping our bodies out of that particular balance, while nature tries to balance all those equations.
Chemistry still fascinates me. But I couldn’t bring myself to make a life in it. Why? Well, I’m an idiot.
I had an insurmountable hangup when it came to diving deeper, though I was always happiest in a Chemistry book. There was my notion of the proximity of the next scientific revolution and the extraordinary rate of discovery as humanity spreads. So many minds, sharper than mine, focused on flipping tables, and I didn’t have the competitive drive for research on that level. But knowing myself, and my tendencies, I would have found myself in a lab somewhere compounding chemicals to make ends meet. That sounded dull. Taking knowns, adding them to knowns. Getting more knowns. And so on.
I was raised on Scientific American by an inventor and scientist whose bedtime stories were all about black holes and life beyond our planet. I lived on a diet of possibilities, intellectual adventures and mad science. My father’s pet project was using light to transmit sound. I sat on his lap as he soldered, tested, and soldered more. Science was bold and brave. Most importantly, it was wonder.
I ended up majoring in Getting Out, and that was that. Regrets? Sometimes. But I give the girl I was some slack, because she certainly had a lot going on when she was making those decisions. My dad lived a lifetime in his workshop in the basement,, and that was for him. It wasn’t for me, and my wonder took me elsewhere on different kinds of adventures.
I find myself thinking of those days as I read more about UAP’s (Unidentified Aerial Phenomina). How they absolutely defy everything we understand about physics, and gravity, and a being’s ability to handle the stress of High-Gravity maneuvers, I have to wonder what tables need to be flipped. Where does all of this fit in with our conventional understandings of most areas of science, and what discoveries lay ahead?
I learned a long time ago that I can not afford to judge, but only guess. I can test those guesses sometimes and encourage others to test as well. But to say “This is impossible” or “I know the answer” is hubris, and the ultimate killer of discovery. And that’s what science is. Wonder.
Wonder flips tables.
Barbara’s Bookshelf Part 1: The Works of John Keel
“Belief is the enemy.”
Yes, this is part of one of my actual bookshelves.
In this, the first of my posts outlining some of my favorite Fortean books, I thought I’d feature the works of the man after whom we named our podcast and blog, John Keel.
Keel wrote a great many books and articles on a great many subjects, but he’s most well known for his works centering on UFO’s and the other “impossibilities” that litter our haunted little blue planet. The work for which he’s best known, of course, is The Mothman Prophesies, the protagonist of which, the eponymous Mothman, is now a pop-culture icon known around the world. And while I admit that it is my favorite of his books, in large part because it illustrates brilliantly the cascade of high strangeness that inundates the lives of some paranormal investigators, I don’t think it’s the book that best articulates his general theories.
The book that best encapsulates his understanding of what all of the various manifestations of the paranormal that he investigated were and how they were related to humanity and the Earth itself would be The Eighth Tower. In that work, the sixth of his books on the paranormal, he articulates his understanding that the seemingly disparate subjects of UFOs, cryptozoology, ghosts, poltergeists, ESP, demonology, religious visions and miracles, fairies and all sorts and types of spirit entities, are in fact all facets of the same phenomena.
This phenomena, which he describes as a sometimes non-physical, energy based, non-biological, non-human intelligence, has interacted with humanity from our beginnings and has manipulated humans and our culture throughout recorded history and beyond. In Keel’s view, it has formed the basis of most of our religions, folklore and superstitions. He posits that this intelligence does this in order to feed from human emotions and belief, and likely doesn’t really have humanity’s best interests in mind.
It’s a rather sobering thought, isn’t it?
All of Keel’s books are worth reading, and all are written in a wildly entertaining style that showcases his innate sense of the absurdity of his explorations into the shadowy world of UFOnauts and Men in Black, Contactees and Bigfoot, Mothman and Magic. But the above two are my favorites. Here’s a complete listing of his works on Fortean topics (in order of publication) with a brief description of their contents, and personal comments of what I thought of them.
Jadoo: His first book, a memoir of his experiences chasing street magicians, fakirs and the Yeti in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Lots of fun to read, full of adventure. Probably the easiest introduction to Keel for a non-Fortean reader.
Operation Trojan Horse: Keel’s first UFO book—a look at the history of UFO’s as well as Keel’s very early rejection of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Parts of it get a little long-winded, but its still great reading.
Strange Creatures from Time and Space: (Later revised and updated as The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings) This is Keel’s look at monsters of all kinds and descriptions that people year after year report encountering. Hairy Humanoids, Space People, Lake Monsters and Winged Creatures of all sorts lurk therein.
Our Haunted Planet: This book is where Keel first articulates his theory of Ultraterrestrials: an unseen, hidden race of beings who predate humanity, and who live on earth beside us and live to apparently plague us in an alternating malicious and trickster-like fashion. This book is really his first foray into universalizing all paranormal phenomena into one big rollicking ride of experiences.
The Mothman Prophecies: With this book, Keel hits his stride. This is his most well known work, in large part because it was the loose basis of a major feature film starring Richard Gere. Creepy, atmospheric and tense, with a cast of unforgettable characters that accurately invoke the paranoia that cloaked his investigations into the events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia before the Silver Bridge disaster. If you only read one of his books, this should probably be the one.
The Eighth Tower: This is his best articulation of his Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis. It’s a synthesis of all of his previous works, without being a rehash—it’s a distillation of all of his radical rethinking of the UFO phenomena and its attendant weirdness.
Disneyland of the Gods: This is my least favorite of Keel’s works, mostly because it isn’t woven together as seamlessly as his other books. There’s a reason for that; it was originally a bunch of articles written for Saga Magazine and there isn’t a lot of effort put into gracefully stitching the various topics together into a flowing narrative. Also, his biting wit had become very cynical by this time and it ceases to be as humorous and comes across as paranoid and frustrated. In addition, his use of the royal we in referring to himself (and perhaps other researchers) is off-putting. But if you are a completist, like I am, go for it.
The Best of John Keel Volume 1: There is no volume two, sadly, but this book is a collection of some of the hundreds of articles Keel wrote for FATE Magazine. Worth reading, the topics are varied and entertaining.
These are the books that were published during Keel’s lifetime. There are seven other books, primarily made up of various magazine articles and unpublished materials from his files that have been published by New Saucerian Press and edited by Andy Colvin. These I will cover in a later blog entry.
Don’t Follow The Lights
“Lights in the Trees”—Mixed Media, Barbara Fisher
“Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.
Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.
”Do you believe?” he cried.
Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.
She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn’t sure.
”What do you think?” she asked Peter.
”If you believe,” he shouted to them, “clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.”
Like many children, I loved Peter Pan.
Unlike some children, I didn’t just watch the Disney movie or the play, I read the book. I read it because I loved to read, and because I very much DID believe in fairies. I didn’t just believe in them because I liked the IDEA of them-I had SEEN them with my own eyes. I also read it because my mother wanted me to understand something very important about fairies. Something that the Disney movie downplayed, sanitized, and ignored.
Fairies are assholes sometimes.
Tinkerbell is a good case study, so we will start there. Tink in the book and the movie is jealous, conniving, quick to anger, and uses trickery to try and get her rival Wendy killed. She is also enchanting, beautiful, loyal (at times), and uses her magic to help the Lost Boys and Peter Pan. Her pixie dust lets them fly, she is loyal to Peter and helps him pull off his tricks, and helps steal children away. All of these things are par for the course of fairies in lore and legend. I also find it very interesting that belief is what brings her back to life-though in the book you get the sense that this is a game to her, that she may not actually be in mortal peril. Or perhaps that is just me, since I learned at around the age of three to be suspicious of fairies.
Why did I learn that? Well, when I was that age my mother lived in what we call “The Falling Down The Hill House.” It was out in the countryside of Athens, Ohio, surrounded by woods and fields, and had an apple orchard beside it.
It was a really fun place to be as a little kid-and it was also home to what we considered fairies. There were little many-colored light globes that would show up at night, around the house-and sometimes inside. We’d hear singing in the woods. The path that led to the forest by the house would ripple and move occasionally-as I discovered the one time I disobeyed my mother and made a beeline for it.
I never did that again.
I remember stringing silver bells in the trees, and leaving out milk for the fairies. I also remember the rules I followed.
I was not to go into the woods alone-ever. I was not to follow any lights I saw-ever. I was not to follow the singing-and if I heard my name called I was to ignore it and go to my mother or my stepfather IMMEDIATELY. If I was offered food or drink by a stranger who came out of the woods I was to ignore it and go find my parents. I would turn my coat before going into the woods every time. I was to be on the porch by dusk No Matter What. Always ask and thank if you pick berries or flowers. Don’t injure a living tree. Don’t step in a faerie ring, or dance to the music I might hear. Don’t call them fairies-call the The Good People, or the Folk.
My mother carried iron on our walks in the woods, and rarely let go of my hand. Her cat who normally hissed at me and wouldn’t play with me slept on the bed with me each night, and would leap onto the windowsill by the bed if the lights came too close, hissing and growling to drive them away.
Now, several of these are perfectly good, and normal rules to follow if you are a little kid. They are pretty much the same rules you follow so you don’t get lost, hurt, or kidnapped. And my mother mostly played them off like that. But some of them were specific to the things that lived in the woods-things that I saw and heard and knew were real.
When I started asking why we did these things, since fairies were good she explained that they were neither good nor bad, but instead were mercurial by nature. They could be good, bad, indifferent, or both good and bad, depending on the day.
They were not quite like Tinkerbell; some were very large, and they could take different shapes. They were dangerous or benign by turns, and the land we were on belonged to them. It was important to give them respect, and to follow the rules, since rules were important to them, and rules could keep us from giving offense. She never quite said out loud “You are a pretty little golden haired child and they might steal you.” I didn’t figure that part out until I was much older, and my family had moved to a different state.
I kept learning about fairies after that: fairy tales, Kathrine Briggs, and Brian Froud became big favorites. I still love all of those things. I learned several folk songs-Tam Lin was a favorite of mine and I sing it pretty well. I absorbed faerie lore and legend, firmly knowing that they were real. I also kept seeing them.
When I was around eight years old, my father and I lived in a house with an apple tree in the backyard. I started seeing the same lights in the tree that I saw in the woods by The Falling Down The Hill House. Orange, white, blue, green, red and purple soft globes, about the size of a small apple would dance in the tree each night. I also began hearing flutes and drums outside my window. They were either Native flute and drumming, or more Celtic sounding, or a combination of both musical styles.
This was in the middle of Charleston, WV and I didn’t understand why they came to the middle of a city when they were things that belonged in the wilderness. To this day I think it was the presence of the apple tree, and myself that drew them.
That has continued, off and on, to this day.
I’ve seen other things too, other lights and sometimes creatures. I still follow the rules-and when others have been with me and we’ve seen something I tell them “don’t follow the lights”. I turn my coat before I enter the wilderness, because once I didn’t and I was pixie-led. I keep iron by the door, and put out cider on important holidays. I respect that they are real-and I respect the rules.
I have almost never been afraid of them-but I am cautious. They are a little bit like Tink: they are changeable, can be vengeful, and are dazzling. They are cruel and kind in equal measure, and they do not play their games with humans fairly. Those are all things I’ve learned over the years.
I learned a lot from my mother, and more from legends and lore.
But I have never learned the answers to some of my questions.
I don’t know why I see them. I don’t know what exactly they are, or what they want, or why they come as fairies. I suspect they are the same basic thing as UFO occupants, I wonder if some of the Missing 411 cases have been pixie-led, or stolen, or offended them. I think about how much of faerie lore parallels UFO lore (and I call it lore because it is a new mythos now), and how the dead appear in company with the faeries, and so does Bigfoot!
I think about the other legends I grew up with from my grandfather-the Little People of Native legends that act like the Little People from Ireland. It’s all mixed together, and I think it all does connect somehow.
But I don’t know the answers, or the truth about any of that. I just know to be cautious and respectful, and that I’m seeing something and it consistently looks and acts like fairies do.
So when I’m asked “Do you believe in faeries?” I always answer “No, I don’t have to believe in them-I’ve seen them all my life.”
Book Review: Where the Footprints EndVolume 1
Cover art by Timothy Renner
“She was about seven feet tall, and from examination of her tracks later, we estimate her to weigh in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds.”
I grew up with Patty.
I first met her on “In Search Of.” There, accompanied by Leonard Nimoy’s mellifluous voice, she strode across our television screen, pausing to glance over her shoulder with a look that said, “Follow me,” before disappearing into the California forest.
By now, I reckon you know I mean the subject of the film shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in 1967—a mysterious female hairy hominid popularly known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. My first look at Patty left me breathless. There I was, twelve years old, sprawled on the living room floor, with a shiver going up my spine, my eyes wide. I -knew- in my bones that I was seeing a real, live unknown great ape. I sat up and looked over my shoulder at my Dad, and he nodded at me. His eyes were, for him, kind of wide, too.
I grew up watching nature documentaries, and rambling around in the woods around my grandparents’ farm in West Virginia. I knew how animals moved and behaved in the wild. And having seen every film in the “Planet of the Apes” film franchise, I knew what a man in a good ape costume looked like and how he moved. And there was no comparison. Her legs were shaped differently and you could see muscle movement under that fur. That fur was attached to the muscles under them. That’s how it looked.
My Dad concurred. It looked awfully real. And even more than looking real—it -felt- real. It made our hair stand on end, and our hearts speed up.
So, of all the cryptids, of all the supposed unknown animals out there in the world, Bigfoot, I was certain, was real. A real, living flesh and blood wild hominid out there in the forests, living far from the haunts of man.
Now, I was an avid reader, and John Keel’s book, “The Mothman Prophesies” had come out two years previous to my introduction to Patty and her kin by the voice of Mr. Spock. I read that book, and liked it so much that the next time we went to the library together, I picked up two of his other books, “Strange Creatures from Time and Space” and “Our Haunted Planet.” In those books, he discussed Bigfoot, the Yeti and other hairy hominids, and from those books, I learned that such creatures had been sighted all over the country, and not just in high mountains and dense forests, but also cities, towns and suburbs.
Often, in the presence of UFO’s.
But I clung tightly to my belief that Patty’s tribe was a fully biological, non-paranormal member of the Great Ape family that has managed to elude humanity’s efforts to capture and codify it in a Linnean fashion.
Until very recently, that is.
And this book really put the final nail in the coffin of my staunch and unyielding belief that Bigfoot is fully physical and non-supernatural.
Where the Footprints End by Joshua Cutchin and Timothy Renner is an in depth, thoroughly researched dive into the folkloric underpinnings of Bigfoot. They find connections not only to UFO’s, but to fairy lore, ghost lore, Native American spirit lore, poltergeists, and the extensive Wild Man traditions of Europe.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Well, that’s all well and good, but those folktales are just explaining the mysterious sightings of real hominids in a way that people in those older, less scientific societies could understand.”
Yeah, I used to think that too.
But the authors pull a Jacques Vallee on us, and weave those traditions in with modern encounters that mirror those old folktales. Not just once or twice, but over and over and over. (I’m referring, to Dr. Vallee’s groundbreaking 1969 book, Passport to Magonia where he took a deep dive into the fairy traditions of Europe and compared them with modern UFO sightings—particularly those sightings that involved UFO occupants. He found many compelling correspondences between the old fairy stories and modern alien encounters. We’ll talk more about this book, later.)
The correlations come thick and fast as a sudden snow squall off of Lake Erie, and before you can say “boo,” you find your tightly-held preconceptions falling away, and there you are waving goodbye to them.
My belief in Bigfoot as -only- an undiscovered great ape was already wavering before I read this book. Now, it’s crushed, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the waste bin of rejected theories that lives in my hind brain. There, it rattles around with the rejected Extraterrestrial Hypothesis to explain UFO/UAP sightings, and the likelihood of Nessie being a relict plesiosaur. Damn.
Well, at least the Cryptid Theory of Bigfoot will be in good company back there. They’ll have people to play Scrabble with in there. Give ‘em something to do.
No, seriously, Where the Footprints End is eye-opening and just as important a book to the discussion of Sasquatch as Passport to Magonia is to the discussion of UFO’s. I’m not sure why no one had written this book before, really—except that most cryptozoologists so are desperately seeking legitimacy in the eyes of mainstream scientists, that they have taken to committing the cardinal sin of leaving evidence out of their narrative on Bigfoot.
Because there’s a metric butt-ton of weird elements to Bigfoot sightings and experiences. And there always has been. Researcher Stan Gordon can tell you all about it. John Keel wrote about this stuff, too., way back in the 1960’s. Little lights, UFO’s, Bigfoot disappearing in front of people, footprints disappearing in the middle of a field—-that sort of thing.
These oddities have always been there—it’s just that most Bigfoot researchers have ignored them, because….well, you know why. Because they wanted to believe that Patty and her kin were real live apes. But the fact that they are seen not just in remote forested mountains, but in suburban subdivisions means that isn’t very likely.
I mean, how does something that big hide out in narrow strips of second and third growth forests abutting the cookie cutter houses with two car garages on Timid Deer Lane?
The likelihood is that they don’t hide out there, at least not all the time.
Now, neither I, nor Joshua nor Timothy are saying that these creatures aren’t physical. They’re certainly physical enough to leave behind footprints and hair. But, I think that they are only physical sometimes—sort of like how a UFO can leave behind a burned circle of grass after landing, then disappear into thin air after taking off. Or, poltergeists can fling objects, even though you can’t see the hand that does the flinging. Or, how ghosts have reportedly been solid enough to stroke a child’s hair and then melt away into a wisp of nothingness.
You know. That liminal betwixt and between stuff that makes paranormal investigation both infuriating and fascinating.
Yes, there will be a volume two. I heard that it is finished being written and Tim is busy doing the illustrations for it.
I can’t wait for it to come out. I want to know what other fascinating material these two have up their sleeves.
John Keel would have liked this book. He’d probably have read it and shaken his head and laughed saying, “I told you so.”
Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomena Volume 1 is available on Amazon.
Prints of the cover art shown above by Timothy Renner are available from his Etsy Shop.
Conspiracy Theories are Sociopaths
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”
Conspiracy theories are the sociopaths of rhetorical thought.
That’s something I came to realize not long ago, when a conspiracy theory was so tasty, that I wanted it to be true. Enough that I dug my own little hole in the internet, and hollowed out my own space between words and thoughts. Created a den of my own dislocated thinking, padded by the reassurances of others who had dens just like mine. Soon enough, everything I saw was proof that it was the truth behind the curtain. That the creepy whisper just louder than the din was right, and that my trust was misplaced.
The truth was in the gaslight. And if other people could just be brought into that warm glow, they would see clearly, too. Surely they didn’t believe because they didn't see. So I shared what I saw. I was never to the point of paranoia, hoarding, and pulling the microphones out of my iPhone, but I did live with no small amount of unease, which in times like these is an understandable place to be.
That unease is, in part, why conspiracy theories work. They make sense of the senseless, and sometimes bring a mirage of order to chaos. Our minds are predisposed to seek and find patterns, especially when we are stressed or anxious. Patterns are calming. Patterns give us a sense of consistency which is lacking in times of chaos. Conspiracy theories take disparate events and seam them together with threads of minimal plausibility, creating patterns that don’t exist, but seem like they should.
They also rely on our need to delineate good and evil; seeing ourselves as Good as we seek Evil to be our counterbalance. The more Good we are, the harder we fight Evil, and conspiracy theories dutifully provide us with Evil that must be fought.
One of the dangers of living in a toggle-switch world is the management of good, evil, and the state of being human.
We want a reason, a person, to blame for the presence of Evil so Good can prevail. It doesn't feel like a victory if the personification of evil is flawed...it feels like its own defeat because there was a human in there whose motivations we could understand, and maybe we’ve lost a little humanity along the way. God has Satan. Rama has Ravana. Elves have Drow. Even Dungeons And Dragons is doing away with inherently evil races, instead siding with the complexity of evil, because that’s the true nature of things.
Evil is complex. Good is complex. But to be more Godly...Good...one must fight Evil, right? Enter the Conspiracy Theory.
But back to sociopaths.
My sociopath doesn’t look like yours.
Yours is made from different minds, and different fears. The intent is the same, to sow distrust in the greater community and that is where the evil is. Humans work really hard, and sacrifice a lot to be a part of a community. When the Sumerians first planted those seeds and built houses, there came community, and with it a need for government and all the trappings that go with it. It takes constant diligence, mindful evolution, and trust for a community to thrive.
But remove that trust, or worse, make it distrust, and that brings discord. Isolation. And in isolation is where the sociopath thrives. You become dependent on the sociopath, because only he has the answers. Only he can save you. Conspiracy theories isolate you with other people who believe and feed them, and soon enough you're in someone’s basement that smells like piss and Doritos.
My sociopath may make you say “Goodness, how could she possibly?! And though you’re right, something someday may strike your fancy and I may l think “How could he possibly?! “
The goal for me would not be to judge, but to understand what it was about your personal sociopath that made you dig your own hole in the internet, and give you a hand getting out.
Enter Hanlon's Razor. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
It’s a hard one to remember, and sometimes feels inadequate, because some of those theories are SUPER TASTY. It’s important to remember how much coordination it would take, to create a conspiracy and keep it secret, and just how much people like to tout their successes.
Be diligent. Apply the scientific method. Stay grounded. And always have someone you trust who can gently deliver a reality check.
Companion Crows
“Flock” Acrylic on canvas by Barbara Fisher
I am beset by crows.
My mother began feeding a pair of crows when I was fifteen years old, and since then, I have noticed that they have become a part of my life. On a visit to my grandfather when I was around fifteen, he remarked to me that he had been seeing three crows wherever he went, and wondered what that could mean. Right after he said that, we stopped the car for a moment to run an errand, and sure enough, three crows popped out of the sky and landed near the car.
Even when I was a kid, I’d always noticed them, thought them beautiful and was sad that others did not. This fondness I had was increased dramatically when I was told the story of Rainbow Crow, and how he brought us fire in the Old Days. I also learned that because Crow could speak the languages of men and other animals he was considered one of the wisest of the Animal People. Crow is also a Trickster figure, for he is full of light hearted mischief and a thief. For this reason, my childhood mind said to me “Crow deserves respect., and I should give it to him.”
My grandfather taught me the Cherokee word for crow -Koga- and it is one of the few words I know in that language. I began greeting every crow I saw with “Aho, Koga!” which means “Greetings/acknowledgement crow!” from then on. Granted, it was a bit of a muddle of a greeting, because Aho is not specifically a Cherokee word, but I hoped the crows got the message- “I respect and love you!”
My mother continued to feed the crows, and over time the flock grew as hatchlings matured and took wives and husbands. Crows mate for life, and care attentively for their young-they are very tender with each other, and form strong bonds within a flock. We delighted in their shenanigans, and they began to knock on my mother's window and beg if she hadn’t put out food yet.
I started to pick out some of their calls- simple things like “ALARM ALARM HAWK HAWK!” which is LOUD, fast, overlapping, and constant cawing of all members of the flock, after one spots the hawk. Or “Food!/Assemble the flock!” which was 3 loud, long caws, then 3 more, followed by the flock calling back and showing up to eat. When eating they would click and throatily mutter happily. Or “FUCK YOU GET AWAY FROM THAT HATCHLING!”- which was a quieter version of “HAWK HAWK ALARM ALARM” that would get louder and faster the closer you got to a nest or hatchling.
That was a call you ignored at your peril, because you’d get dive-bombed if you got too close. I also got to watch them mob hawks-who shared the ridge near my mother's house and engaged in a territory war that spanned years. Watching a mobbing was fascinating-the alarm would sound, and the whole flock would take to the air, cawing loudly, quickly, and overlapping their calls as they went to battle. This call was like an alarm call at first, but quickly became more insistent and less like a “watch out! Danger!” For the life of me it comes across as “To arms, to arms!” Once that call started ,all the crows in the vicinity were on this hawk, swooping and diving, driving it out of the area.
As I watched and lived next to the flock I also heard a call that was associated with seeing me or my mother -a ca-caw, ca-caw sound that sounded eerily like Ko-ga, ko-ga which is what I said to them. If you answered back the flock would all call out with their personal “call sign” that they used to communicate their presence, and they would wait for you to respond. It was like they were checking that you were there.
When I moved out at eighteen, I noticed something. Three crows began showing up on campus, or around town when I was out and about. They would use the same “check in” call, and I would call back. This got me some funny looks, but well, it was only polite to say hello back! As I moved from house to house, the same thing would happen-three crows would show up. This came to the attention of my coworkers and friends at this point, as they would appear on my breaks and by the house in the morning, and I would always greet the crows when they greeted me. I wasn’t sure if they just wanted food, or if I had become a friend. I kept feeding them if I could at each of my houses, so it could have been either.
Once I went to visit my grandparents in Florida with my best friend, and we were telling them about the crows. (These were non-Native American grandparents.) My grandparents believed us, but said it was probably nothing too intense. We got out of the car, and immediately a crow bounced out of the sky, landed right in front of us and went “ca-Caw! Ca-caw!” and flipped its tail happily. It proceeded to follow us throughout the park, cheerfully calling, and when we lost a ticket we needed, it dropped it right in front of us, again calling the same call I heard whenever a crow spotted me. My grandmother was astonished and delighted by this!
Around that time I began to find crow feathers constantly. They showed up when camping, on walks in the woods, on sidewalks, in the yard, you name it. A few houses later and I’m living where I live now. I still feed the crows, I still talk to them, and I am still followed by three crows. They shifted the caw for ‘Morganna’ to three rapid fire caws a few years ago, but still wait for me to call “Ko-ga” back just as they always did. I’m not sure why that has changed. I figured that this is just my life now-I find crow feathers everywhere, I am followed by crows wherever I go, and that’s just how it is.
Then this spring happened. I have a small deck in the back of my house that for two years has played host to a garden. This year the garden is bigger than usual, and I noticed some potato bugs nibbling on my plants. I proceeded to spread a little extra seed and corn along the deck rail to attract a few birds towards the plants to eat the bugs. I have three crows living in the trees near my house, and they come to eat off and on.
One day, I went out and startled a young crow-just fledged-hanging out on the deck. I froze, and it didn’t fly away. I looked up and see the crows parents-two of the three that live near me. At this point I expected to hear “Get away from the baby!” alarm calls. Instead I got the three caw greeting I always do. I called back, and they stayed in the tree. The young one hopped onto the rail and fluttered off.
This happened repeatedly every day, until I ended up sitting two feet from the chick several times a day, smoking a cigarette and just watching. The parents and flock never objected. They seem quite content to watch the chick get used to its wings and forage for bugs and seed under my gaze. The deck is a perfect nursery for it; it’s up off the ground so the loose cats in the neighborhood can’t get it, there are bugs and other snacks, and shade from the plants. I put out water for it too. I felt almost like a babysitter. Now that Crow Baby is comfortable on the wing, there are four crows that say hello to me every day. I wonder if next year I will end up providing a nursery again?
This is the sort of thing that happens to me. It may not seem supernatural, but I tell this story because to me it is a little magical. I have somehow made friends with the crows, starting with respectful greetings as a child, evolving to feeding them, and culminating in being considered safe enough to be near their child-something that is NOT usual animal behavior. These crows are not tame animals. They do not come when called, do not sit on your shoulder, and do not need the food I give them.
They are wild creatures that happen to have some interesting symbolism attached to them. They are wise, they are cunning, they are tricksters. I happen to also have a connection with a trickster god, and I find that interesting. I also wonder if it is a form of synchronicity that I find their feathers constantly-or if they leave them for me to find. I wonder about my grandfather seeing them. I used to wonder why it was always three crows, until now.
I do wonder if it means anything, but I don’t need it to have a deep meaning.
I’m just happy to see them-I consider them friends. I hope they consider me a friend too. I’m honored that they’ve been my companions for so long-though I do wonder if it’s the other way around, and I am their companion instead.
On Mothman: Cryptid or Spirit?
Mothman hanging out in my herb garden.
I have to admit to being somewhat impatient with those who consider the infamous Mothman of Point Pleasant, WV a cryptid.
A cryptid is generally regarded as a biological, physically real creature that is simply unknown by science.
If you read the descriptions of the Mothman as narrated by John Keel, who was actively investigating the creature sightings as they happened in 1966-67, there is no way that they creature could be a real animal.
It is described as at least six feet tall, with a ten foot wingspan. Most descriptions show it with no neck and discernible head, but with two great glowing red eyes in the general region of the shoulders or chest. No feathers were seen in most sightings, and it was described variously as being grey, black or brown in color.
Witnesses said that it took off vertically, without flapping its wings, and soared, staying aloft without ever moving its wings. It was said by the two couples who made the first report of it to to police have kept up with their car, even though they were going seventy-five miles an hour in an attempt to outrun it.
It managed all of this without flapping its wings.
Now, let’s think on this a little.
The most logical suspect for this unknown creature would be a bird.
In fact, at the time one scientist tried to say that it was nothing more than a sandhill crane, and the witnesses, having never seen such a bird before (West Virginia not being within the natural range of sandhill cranes) , simply assumed it was some kind of monster.
This is such patent bullshit.
Sandhill cranes are five feet tall, maximum. They have a long, slender neck, a long bill and while they have red patches near their eyes, they do not glow. Their wingspan is about five feet. They flap their wings at take off and most definitely flap their wings when they fly, and their maximum air speed (unladen) is 35 miles per hour.
A car driven by a panicked young man going 75 miles an hour would leave a sandhill crane in the dust.
A more logical avian suspect for Mothman would be some sort of owl. The general profile of the Mothman--seemingly headless with a broad chest with great glowing eyes inset it in fits the shape of an owl with its wings outstretched. Owls, when they fly, as compared to hawks and eagles, seem to have no head, and their eyes can glow at night, though they tend to glow yellow.
Even if there is an unknown owl out there in the world that is large, with red eye shine, I’d doubt it could be six feet tall, with a ten foot wingspan, that it could take off straight up without flapping its wings and could soar with an airspeed of 75 miles per hour.
Birds just don’t work that way. When they take off, they flap their wings. It’s how birds work.
And, the fastest recorded airspeed for a bird in horizontal flight would be 68 miles per hour. This speed record was clocked in by a gyrfalcon, which flapped its wings the whole time, had a wing span of barely two feet, and wasn’t flying at night.
See--the thing is--Mothman, as a real live flesh and blood animal is impossible. Birds don’t fly that fast, certainly not without flapping their wings. Birds that big do soar--but they don’t do it at speeds anywhere near 75 miles per hour.
I suppose Mothman could be a giant bat--but once again, bats flap their wings to fly, and they don’t fly that fast.
It isn’t a biological entity so it can’t be a cryptid.
It’s some sort of spirit being or energy-based being, or extradimensional entity. .
So, please, stop calling it a cryptid.
Morganna’s Musings On Trust and Why Not To Do It.
“The most fearsome monsters of all may inhabit the dark corners of our mind waiting for us to release them through our beliefs and gullibility.”
We all need business cards like this: “Not an authority on any thing.” It would keep us humble.
Let’s talk about belief.
My favorite author who took on the phenomena, John Keel, wrote something that has stuck in my head since I first read it as a twelve year old child. He wrote a simple, four word statement. “Belief is the enemy.”
And he was right.
I was reading that statement because my mother knew I had been seeing strange things since I was a very young child, and that I would in all likelihood continue to see strange things for the rest of my life, so she handed me a copy of The Mothman Prophesies and said “You need to understand some things.”
And she was right.
Before I read that statement, I knew that what I was seeing was something real, and I wanted very badly to understand what I was seeing, to put a Name to the things I saw. I was a kid-I could cope with ghosts, or fairies, or spirits! I was not going to admit I was afraid! I even wanted to interact with them, to see them more often, to see them more clearly. I was curious about Ouija boards, and wanted to know if I was a witch or not, and if I could do something with this ability to see, and if it made me special.
I think that was why she did it really. Because even though I knew damn good and well to NOT go with the little lights in the woods, to NOT touch an Ouija board, to NOT mess with things I did not understand, I still wanted to. Why? Well, partly I was twelve and you’re an idiot when you’re twelve, and partly because I wanted to believe.
I wanted to believe in nice fairies, in magic that worked, in chatty ghosts like Casper. I wanted to believe that I was a special little girl, and that the things that went bump in the night would be my friends, and that I didn’t have to be afraid of them.
Let me tell y’all, nothing knocks the sugar dust and glitter off the paranormal like good ole John Keel. Because fairies are NOT nice. They are child stealing psychopaths. Ghosts don’t giggle, they throw things and start fires sometimes. And those little lights? They smell like rotten eggs and burn your skin and eyes. Don’t even get me started on Mothman and other hairy monsters.
My mother’s point was clear-here there be dragons, child, and best not draw attention to yourself.
Keel’s point, however, is a little more nuanced than that, and I keep that statement in mind to this day because of that nuance. His point is that the entities and lights, the hairy monsters and MIB all seem to be engaged in peddling belief in themselves. They either take a person who holds an existing belief and conform to their expectations, appearing as an angel to a Catholic for instance, OR appear as something that conforms to something that can be believed by society. As a space traveller stepping from a spacecraft, for example.
These entities then spend a considerable amount of time badgering perfectly innocent people, convincing them that they are not only real, but that they have a very important message for you! And that you must SPREAD THE WORD! And get others to believe in them too! They then make the poor person who does spread the word of the space people into a cult figure, surrounded by other believers, all waiting breathlessly for the next message from the entities, all while various and sundry weird things happen to them and their family. Sometimes quite frightening things. They then usually buzz off and leave them bereft and looking insane, their life possibly in shambles.
Another facet of “Belief is the enemy,” according to Keel, is the imitative nature of the phenomena: that is, not only will you see an angel if you believe in them, but if you are too certain of any theory about the phenomena it will begin producing evidence to fit your theory! Now, how the hell are you supposed to figure anything out when something like that happens?
The answer, I suspect, is YOU CAN’T. And I wonder if perhaps, that is the point?
So, where does that leave me?
I, personally, have no real idea what is going on. I never really have (except for a brief period when I was twelve, before, I was disabused of that notion by my mother and John Keel. ) And, I accept that I never really will. I certainly have suspicions, thoughts, and even a bit of a spiritual system. But I do not BELIEVE fully in anything regarding the phenomena. I always allow doubt to creep in-even on things I’ve seen. I allow for the possibility of a Rational Explanation.
I suspect that is the safest way to handle it. It’s also a good exercise in trying to avoid bias-I do not want to ever ignore evidence or testimony simply because it won’t fit into what I already think. That seems like poor research to me. So I keep an open mind, and I don’t let my wish to understand outweigh my caution when it come to belief.
Where does this leave you?
Well, wherever you would like it too-I won’t ask you to believe me.
Why John Keel?
“...someone within two hundred miles of your home, no matter where you live on this planet, has had a direct personal confrontation with an Unbelievable... Next week, next month, or next year you may be driving along a deserted country road late at night and as you round a bend you will suddenly see...”
John Keel was a legendary author and investigator of all things weird and wonderful. Growing up, I read all of his books, starting in 1975 with his publication of The Mothman Prophesies, which delved deeply into his experiences chasing after UFOs and the flying horror with the deceptively cute name all over Point Pleasant West Virginia. This monster hunt happened before, during and just after the Silver Bridge Disaster, wherein 46 people lost their lives.
I started with that book, rather than his earlier ones, because it featured my home state, West Virginia, and my Dad brought it home from the library as soon as it came out. I remembered the collapse of the Silver Bridge appearing in the news on our little black and white television, and in somber reports on the radio.
But more than that, I remember the stories my family told all through my childhood. Of UFO’s seen by friends and family members and balls of light rolling around on the living room floor. A strange light seen from the deck of a US Navy destroyer on her maiden voyage that kept up with the ship’s every course change and velocity change. The tragic and mysterious loss of a dog that resulted in the only thing being left of him was a circle of bloody paw prints. on the kitchen floor of a locked house. A ghost seen in a mirror, and the song of angels heard wafting through a midnight sky filled with stars while hiking the wilderness of a state forest.
And then, there were the experiences I had that I seldom discussed with anyone. Strange lights in my bedroom at night. Shining figures that melted through the wall into and out of my room. A tiny creature made of fire. Lightning that tore out of the sky and nearly struck my mother and I, but unbelievably looped around and went back up to the clouds, striking no one and nothing. Voices in the night. Vivid recurring dreams of drowning—always in the same river. Flailing and going under the muddy, swift moving water, I thrashed as the silver bubbles of my breath burst from my lungs. As I sank deeper into the cold depths, I could see the sun shimmering gold above the water—a beautiful last sight.
And Mothman. We always talked about Mothman. No one we knew had seen him, but we had the newspaper clippings, and we all visited McClintic Wildlife Management Area. This was the environs of the former TNT manufacturing and containment facility where Mothman had often been seen in the years of 1966-67, before the bridge fell. One uncle described seeing claw marks inscribing the walls of one of the concrete igloos on a camping trip, and how his hair stood on end in the eerie silence there. Mothman was always on our minds, and our tongues.
So much so that one night on a camp out in my grandparent’s farm field, a cousin who had to answer the call of nature, let out a terrified yelp upon his flashlight illuminating a pair of glowing red eyes.
It turned out to be a cow, standing near the barbed wire fence, placidly chewing her cud. He luckily didn’t wet his shorts, because just yelling in terror about a cow was pretty hard to live down. The teasing would never have ended if he’d pissed himself.
John Keel’s books helped me make sense of this roiling morass of unearthly experiences from an early age.
It’s from him that I learned not to blindly trust what some creature said, whether it be a ghost conjured at a seance, a channeled entity or some supposed spaceman from Venus who stepped from a flying saucer. It was alright to listen to them, of course, and remember what was said, but to always check the veracity of their words through any means at hand. And never believe everything they said, because there’s always something up their metaphorical sleeve.
I learned to look beyond the idea of extraterrestrial explanations for UFO’s. I learned to question assumptions. I learned to listen to what people say and to write everything down, without rejecting any evidence, even when it didn’t fit with my preconceived notions. Especially when it didn’t conform to my expectations.
I learned that belief is the enemy.
And I learned one thing above all.
Weird shit happens, and reality is far stranger than we humans would ever like to know or let on.
It’s why I’m writing this blog and creating the podcast that will premier here October 1. Because I’m finally going to come out of the closet as an experiencer and let those folks out there who have seen and experienced strangeness that they’re not alone. That these things happen and they don’t just happen to you.
They happen to nearly everyone. And it’s ok.
John Keel taught me that. And that’s why we named this blog and podcast after him.