At my blog The Orange Orb, I’ve been posting entries concerning a new project I’m (and my husband, Jim) are working on. A sort of journal/book — or will be, when all is done — about our missing time experiences. And screen memories. You can read what I have up so far here and here.

I read the two entries to Jim earlier this evening. We were discussing the entries, which led to memories from childhood as well as our memories concerning missing time. He doesn’t remember the orange orb sighting the same way I do; he doesn’t remember seeing, at another time, a sliver sphere shaped craft during late day, early evening… but then he said, just out of nowhere:

“I seem to remember a big bird, not something silver. We were into bird watching at that time. [true] Just you pointing out a big bird through the trees, and I wasn’t seeing it, just a shadow …”
Me; “A big one…” [I don't know why I said that; what made me say anything at all about size or a bird shadow; I have no memory of this.]
Jim “A good sized bird, like a hawk. I don’t want to put too much on it because it might be a projection.”
Me “But something made you say that in connection with this.”
Jim: “Now it sort of haunts me that… I’m very interested, what with everything that’s gone on in our lives…”

That’s it, and it isn’t much, and who knows if it means anything or not. I just found it very interesting Jim was so specific about a “big bird” and “a shadow…a good sized bird” out of the blue like that.

I had an extremely unusual experience the night of Japan’s earthquake which involved a large, swooping-in-on-me bird-like figure, beeping sounds from deep within my head getting louder and louder, and a synchronicity the next day concerning tsunamai’s and Thunderbirds.

As I posted on both The Orange Orb and Animal Forteana, this is what happened:

I had a very strange experience last night. I spent much of the night sleeping little; listening mainly to Coast to Coast and the news coming in on the earthquake in Japan, and soon after, the tsunami warnings. Earliest reports were warnings for Hawaii and the Washington and Oregon coasts; later, California and Alaska.

I was compelled to listen through the night because of the sheer tragedy and immensity of another overwhelming earth disaster, and also, because we had planned to drive to the coast that day (approximately fifty miles from our home) and spend the weekend there. I was also concerned about my mother and friends on the Oregon coast, as well as family living up and down the Pacific coast. I tried to sleep, managed to doze off for a while but kept waking up, turning the little transistor on again. Throughout Coast to Coast local tsunami warnings came through, announcing beach and school closures for the Oregon coast.

At one point, a deep beeping sound woke me up. This beeping was deep within me; not from an external source, not an acoustic anomaly. It was inside of me. It became louder, and with it, I saw a large dark bird come flying towards me. All I could see was the shape, no details. Slowly flapping its huge wings as it came towards me, as the beeping got louder and louder. A glowing whitish-blue light or “halo” surrounded this bird. This bird vision was indie my head, not external, but it was definitely connected to the beeping sound. At first I thought the bird was an owl; and it might had been, but it seemed to be something else as well. What, I’m not sure. I had conflicting responses to this bird; one, that all this was pretty damn interesting but as the owl, or bird-creature, came closer, along with the light, I became a little scared and tried to shut it out. It sort of exploded when I did that, and I had the feeling this bird-like creature was both frustrated with me and disappointed that I chose to ignore it.

Then, I heard, again from that same, deep-within place inside me, the sounds of voices talking on the radio. So I told myself it was the radio; I still had it on, the ear buds in my ears. But the radio and ear -buds were both on the night table, and the radio was off.

I cannot describe how this was not a dream. It was not a dream that I awoke from, it was not a hypnogognic dream, it was not a dream then I awake to find I’m really still dreaming, … none of that. None of that. I was completely awake. The radio talk within continued; I tried very hard to listen to make sense out of it but the voices were indistinct.

Thunderbird Synchronicity
After I wrote this, I visited The Anomalist to find this link to a post from Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo: Tsunamis and Thunderbirds, which explores the stories of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and earthquakes:

It is amazing what Thunderbird folklore may tell us about past tsunamis, says Ruth Ludwin, a University of Washington scientist. Her research has found that Thunderbird and other cryptid stories and traditions “could relate to a large Seattle fault earthquake around A.D. 900 and specific eyewitness accounts linked to a mammoth 1700 earthquake and tsunami in the Cascadia subduction zone.”

“Along the way, I picked up a lot of stories about landslides,” she said. But she couldn’t find anything that seemed to match the 1700 event, until she took a closer look at the story of Thunderbird and Whale.

“It’s a story of the underworld versus the over-world,” Ludwin said.

The Whale was a monster, killing other whales and depriving the people of meat and oil. The Thunderbird, a benevolent supernatural being, saw from its home high in the mountains that the people were starving. The great bird soared out over the coastal waters, then plunged into the ocean and seized the Whale.

A struggle ensued first in the water, the tribal tale says. “The waters receded and rose again. Many canoes came down in trees and were destroyed and numerous lives were lost.”

The Thunderbird eventually succeeds in lifting the evil Whale out of the ocean, carrying it “high into the air (and then) dropping it to the land surface at Beaver prairie. Then at this place there was another great battle.”

On the Coast
After phone calls back and forth and following news reports we decided to drive to the coast, which turned out to be a beautiful drive. The tsunami warnings for this area have been lifted. As I’m typing this I’m looking out at the shore, listening to the ocean.

I described the bird like visitor as possibly an owl, because that was the closet thing I could think of at the time. But it this “bird” or more appropriately, winged creature, had an intelligence about it, an awareness, that transcended mundane animals. (Including us humans.) It was a messenger from another realm, it was spirit.

I’ve been feeling the urge to paint Mothman images — do a whole series of small paintings with UFOs and entities as the theme — and this is my first Mothman attempt. Just scribbling, really. This is a pen and pencil sketch I did, then manipulated it with the Photobooth tools. The original drawing has more color (didn’t have the tools I wanted, and too lazy to walk out to the studio in the back to get them) and I’ve cropped the image a bit.

This video shows a white orb like UFO near a nuclear power in West Virginia. Hoax or the real thing, an unknown. I will say that the white sphere looks like ones I’ve seen here in Oregon, though not near any nuclear plant.

I’ve written about this a bit on my Bigfoot blog Frame 352, and I’ll write more for my next Trickster’s Realm column for Binnall of America, which will be up next week.

The story of this 19 year old man working in his garage at 1:00 a.m. on his rural property off Lorane Highway, who saw a strange creature, follows:

The “thing” was about 15 ft. from the witness at about 1:15 A.M. behind his house. He accidentally locked himself out of his house while working in his garage late last night. He went around to the back of his house to climb in through a window. He heard something and used the light from his cell phone, pointing it in the direction of the sound. The thing had a human form only quite large over seven feet with red reflecting eyes and very large wings. It jumped into the air flying off with the sound of massive air displacement with each wing stroke.

Overall, I just had a red flag go up, especially given the way this first e-mail started out, with the man’s intention of sacrificing a live lamb, tethered by “shark hooks” in order to trap this so-called “batsquatch”:

Can it be baited with a lamb? I’m thinking of putting shark hooks with 3/32″ braided steel leader in the lamb’s fur along the back. I want to tether the lamb near the edge of a field near the woods. I am concerned about coyotes getting the lamb first.

I immediately e-mailed the person and told him I do not support any such thing. He wrote back surprised, thinking I would be all over this. Why he would think that I don’t know, I’ve written many times on-line I support a “no kill” policy on Bigfoot, I’m against trophy and canned hunting, exotic pet ownership and exploitation, etc.

Then things turned even weirder; turns out the batsquatch is, in this man’s opinion, a “demon” and so, must be dealt with. Both men are Christians, and he tells me only a strong faith in Christ can handle such a creature. I then wrote to him and asked him if that were so, wouldn’t an exorcism of sorts work, given his faith? In other words, instead of using a live animal as bait, try prayer, focus, intent, light, and so on.

His justification for using a live lamb, aside from the religious angle, was that coyotes, bear, cougar, and other predators kill lamb. His other justification was that the encounter with this creature needs to be proved. Yes, I replied, but they are predators eating to survive, not playing games with a supposed demon. Using an innocent creature to capture another to vindicate one’s experience of the strange is simply immoral in my world view:

There are coyotes, black bears, one lynx, and a couple of cougars in the area so the lamb may end up eaten one way or the other.

I replied with the following. At this time, this is the last e-mail received and sent:

So, very sad to say, it seems you intend to go ahead with this and sacrifice a lamb to gratify an ego-driven need to “prove” to the world such a “demonic” creature exists. The fact that bear, cougar, coyote, etc. kill livestock does not make this okay. One is the natural predation of creatures upon another; yours is an ego driven choice made out of a religious conviction a need to eat for survival.

By the way, if you really believe any of this, the fact (in your view) this thing is a “demon” — well, does it even need food? Why not try a sort of exorcism, without the lamb? Prayer, light, intent, focus, etc. — that might go a long way.

Also, if it’s a demon, do you really think such a creature would hold still within the confines of being held prisoner in a lab somewhere, especially a government lab? For no doubt the authorities would get involved such a fantastic find.

Do you really trust the Big Science Infrastructure (talk about demons) and government that much — that they wouldn’t kill this thing, cut it up, and hide it away after they’ve done what they’ve wanted? And how much credit or vindication do you think such authorities would grant you in regards to the proof of this creature? You’re really back at square one.

I don’t expect this to have any influence on this person, I was basically venting my frustration. I figure if he contacted me first he takes the responsibility of response to his plans.

My initial response to this was that this 19 year old man was either highly distracted or agitated to begin with — working in a garage at 1:00 a.m, locking himself out of the house on rural property? etc. — or a “tweaker” (meth head.) I realize the irony of this coming from me, after all, the pathological skeptic uses this excuse all the time to explain away witness encounters. Combine that with the superstitious form of their religious belief, and the symbolic nature of the sacrificial lamb . . . just adds up to an unwholesome scenario I don’t want to be a part of.

Besides which, I don’t know of any Batsquatch sightings in Oregon, though I know there are reports out of Washington state and Mt. Shasta area.