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 love the red eyes on this thing, though I think it looks like either a balloon of some kind, or, photo-shopped/hoax, and lastly, possibly an insect of some kind but I doubt it’s the latter.

Should we be, as Lon at Phantoms and Monsters suggests, be keeping on eye on things to come in Germany?

Thanks to Lesley at The Debris Field for the link.

Salt Lake City, Utah – July 18, 1966: Residents of this Mormon community reported seeing a bird “about as big as a Piper Cub airplane” circle the area. Some people ran for cover while others ran for their telephones.

- Scott, Mississippi – September 1 1966

- 2:00pm: Mrs James Ikart reported seeing what looked like a man fluttering about the sky. Several other people also said they had seen it. No other information.

- Point Pleasant, West Virginia – November 1 1966: A national guardsman saw a large brownish man-shaped figure on the limb of a tree. No other information.

For more visit Phantoms and Monsters!

As they got to the end of the lane something caught their eye in the field next to the fence. At first they thought it was a Shire horse because of its size but it was definitely not a Shire horse. Phil and Kate both told me that it was man-shaped, at least 7 feet tall, jet black with piercing red eyes, and it just stood there, motionless.

Phil and Kate looked at it in disbelief for about 15 seconds, then it let out a scream like a fox before “disappearing straight down like it had fell down a well or trap door!”

That did it! Phil and Kate then ran like Hell onto the main road until they stopped near the recently built water treatment plant, exhausted and out of breath. Phil tried to phone a taxi but found his mobile phone was dead, although it was working fine back at the pub. So half running, half walking, constantly looking about them, they got back home, terrified out of their wits, unable to understand what they had just witnessed.

Curtis has known the couple for twenty years and believes their story. There’s more to the story; read the entire account here.