High Strangeness

A good portion of my childhood, and most of the origins for my interest in paranormal/fortean topics, stems from The X-Files. So most weekends while doing homework, I have the show on in the background thanks to it being on Netflix.  I watched one of my favorite episodes this past weekend. The episode is called ‘Jose Chung’s From Outer Space’. It centered around an author, Jose Chung played by the late Charles Nelson Reilly, who was sent by his publisher to write a book on an alleged alien abduction event which Mulder and Scully had also investigated. The episode is not only a fantastic example of what makes the X-Files great; it has humor, mystery, celebrity guest stars, but it is also does a great job representing all of the related weirdness which is inexplicably related to the UFO enigma.

In the episode, which I highly recommend you watch, you have military abductions, alien abductions, inner earth new-age religions being founded, military personnel impersonating aliens and flying “UFOs”, and Men in Black! About the only thing not included, probably because it was already a jam packed episode, is the poltergeist or “ghost” activity that sometimes follows or precedes UFO encounters.  A good catch-all term for the related phenomena which occurs in tandem with UFO sightings and alien abductions is ‘High Strangeness’.

Dr. J Allen Hynek, of “swamp gas” fame, first used the term in a paper which he presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December 1969. Hynek assigned cases a “strangeness” index as means of offering some kind of classification for UFO reports. Hynek further clarifies and defines this concept in his 1974 book The UFO Experience wherein he states that high strangeness is “a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms.”  

Stories and personal accounts which involve “High Strangeness” have always fascinated, especially when it comes to the investigators responses towards this aspect of the phenomenon. I was looking over some specific MUFON case files from the 90’s when I came across a really weird encounter which someone had, related below, but there was a caveat before the report which bothered me. In setting up the witnesses encounters, the investigators note that “Background paranormal events have not been included in this report.” I don’t wish to go off on a tangent, but since we know nothing about what may or may not be behind this phenomena, why not include all points of data? (I suppose that is the Fortean in me coming out).

Anyway, after reading some of the witnesses experiences, I couldn't help but wonder what in the world they had left out? As it stands some of her stories certainly qualify as high strange even with MUFON investigators leaving out the “background paranormal” events. Here’s a link to all of her experiences, but I wish to focus on one really bizarre encounter the witness had with an entity she called “Marcus”. Her account is as follows:

The witness was awakened to see an entity, in the form of a human(oid) male floating to the right side of the foot of her bed.  She indicated that when she saw the entity she knew that it was male, and that she knew who he was.  She was told, in a nonverbal manner, that his name was "Marcus", and he was there for her. She felt that their relationship was, in some way, very close.

She described the entity as being tall, and approximately human in appearance, but with a catlike face.  She described his appearance as "a cross between Worf (on Star Trek) and the beast "Vincent" in the TV show Beauty and the Beast". He appeared to be dressed in a manner that suggested to her a military officer from an earlier time period, with an apparent breast plate arranged in a chevron design.

The entity held his hands out to her, palms up, and she instinctively knew to put her hands in his.  She indicated that she then rose up, and he pulled her in closer to him.  [CL Note: She indicates that she was under the covers when the entity appeared.  If this was a physical movement, it is not clear how the bed covers were removed.]

At that point she felt that they were within a ball of light, and as if they were "dancing".  She didn't remember any sound, and was not sure whether or not they were still within the room, but felt that
there was not enough space within the room to have "danced" in the manner which they presently were.  Thus, she feels that they must have been somewhere else while this interaction occurred.  She indicates that this "dance" felt more like a "complete spiritual union", than physical motion to music (the traditional definition of dance). She did not feel that there was music present.

The witness sketched “Marcus” for our benefits, I admit I do enjoy seeing the person’s representation of the figures they have allegedly seen. Here is here sketch:

I would like to highlight the “aftermath” as the investigators labeled it, because I think it is an important detail which crops up in a lot of these kinds of reports. It’s something which Jacques Vallee pointed out in a number of his books. The investigators relate:

This event appears to be the start of her consciously remembered experiences.  She indicates that since that time, she has been very interested in spiritual topics, reading extensively in the area religion and spirituality, with subsequent interest in the field of UFOs and close encounters.

I don’t know what to make of cases such as this one. It wanted to dance with her? Let’s assume for a moment that it was an ET, could it not find a dance partner on it’s home planet? I’m slightly joking of course, I don’t mean to belittle the witness or her account. Honestly, I’m perplexed by what it is she allegedly experienced. Though she is not the only one. John Keel’s books are full of high strangeness encounters which people have purportedly had. I recently spoke about The Case of Indrid Cold, which is but one example of the variety of high strangeness reports which Keel spoke about.

In his book Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places, author Brad Steiger relates another classic example of high strangeness which accompanies a, relatively, mundane UFO sighting. The story is below:

An Iowa farmer named Gary C. saw a UFO one night as he was working late in the field during spring plowing. The next morning over breakfast, he learned that his wife, Melanie, 14-year-old son Jake, and 12-year-old daughter Lisa had also seen the bright object as the kids were getting ready for bed.

That day at school, a man who claimed to be from the state board of education asked to interview Jake. He told the principal of the junior high school that the boy had attracted attention because of his high scores in the state tests and that Jake had been selected to participate in a special educational project ... A call to the state office revealed that they had no one on their staff by the man’s name, and they had no special project for junior high students in progress.

When the principal entered the private room to confront the imposter, he found a puzzled Jake sitting alone. The teenager could only shrug that the special state project must be about space travel, for all the man asked him were questions about UFOS, aliens, and life on other planets. Jake had glanced away from his interrogator for just a moment, and when he looked back at him, he seemed to have vanished.

About the time that Jake was being interviewed by the mysterious stranger at school, out on the farm Gary and Melanie received a visit from two men dressed in black while they were eating lunch. The men identified themselves as agents of a special government task force investigating UFOS and said they had learned that the family had sighted a bright object in the sky on the previous evening.

Melanie and Gary were puzzled, since they had not told anyone of their sighting. The alleged government agents suddenly adopted a threatening manner and demanded that Melanie and Gary turn over any photographs they may have taken of the UFO. The farm couple said that they had taken no photographs, but the two agents refused to accept their denials and threatened that they had better cooperate if they knew what was good for them. “You must cooperate,” the taller of the two men said, “for your own good, the good of your country, the good of your world.”

Later that afternoon, Gary was certain that he saw the two men watching him from the shadows of his machine shed while he fed the cattle on the feedlot. In the farmhouse, Melanie answered the telephone on four occasions to hear nothing but a peculiar static. Finally, on the fifth ring, a voice in a strange accent told her to forget all she knew about UFOs or terrible things would happen to her entire family.

That night, shortly after the children went to bed, Lisa began screaming that some animal had crawled under her covers. When Gary and Melanie investigated, they found nothing, but then Jake yelled that his bed was jumping up and down. As they ran to his room, they could hear the thumping sounds of his bed lifting and slamming to the floor. Such poltergeistic disturbances continued on a nightly basis for nearly a week before dissipating.

What are we to make of these strange tales? Why would strange “government” agents show up after a sighting of a light in the sky? Why would the family see strange creatures and experience poltergeist-like activity following the sighting? It seems obvious that something peculiar is going on. I remain unconvinced that we will ever have an “answer” or solution to the UFO enigma, but I think that by looking into the High Strangeness reports (or the “damned data”) we may come closer to an understanding. Otherwise we will have failed to learn the lesson which Charles Fort attempted to teach. Data, no matter how bizarre or strange, needs to be taken into account. 

ET Pen Pals

I’ve been getting back into the habit of more regular updates here at Forteania and as such I’ve been racking my brain to dislodge various paranormal topics which I haven’t really dealt with before in the past. Today I wanted to talk to you dear readers about a very fascinating topic: Alien/Automatic writing. Personally I’ve lumped these two seemingly disparate topics together because I don’t actually think they’re all that different upon further inspection.

As a bit of a background automatic writing, also known as psychography, is a supposed psychic ability whereby a person produces writing words/symbols without actually physically having written them. Generally this is achieved by an outside, supernatural, force. (Thank you wikipedia!) Automatic writing, or spirit writing as it was also called at the time, seems to have shown up right about the time of the Spiritualism Movement of the late 19th century. This website seems to suggest that women used automatic/spirit writing as a means of breaking out of societal norms, who am I to argue? But that’s neither here nor there for what we’re talking about today.

Alien writing seems to have come around about the same time as the contactee movement, although there maybe some overlap with the earlier spiritual/theosophist writings who technically communicated with what would be called “ETs” which they considered to be Ascended Masters of sorts.

Explanations and origins aside, here follows a few example of the myriad that have been reported by experiencers over time. What little information is available on their accounts is also included. All credit to this information goes to Alien Abduction Experience and Research.

First is from Manuel from Minnesota: 

The above script is from Manuel some kind of an abductee from Minnesota. I don’t really know much more about his experiences besides the writing.

I remember that I forgot to reply to you concerning the 'alphabets'. I found a writing from December of 1998. I am including in this note as an attachment. Also am including one more 'circle' actually it is a quarter circle, with an animal-like figure in it. There are different 'families' and each has its own way. And then there are 'the experimenters' a family unto themselves. The 'experimenters' are what are known as 'greys'. Someone told me they are referred to as the 'Zeta Reticuli'. She wasn't someone I felt comfortable even being in the same room with... as it is with most people who 'enjoy' expounding about implants and experiments and giving birth to hybrid alien babies. I have this unexplainable urge to get away from them, or ask them to leave. Kinda like the feeling that the energy is not anything I want even near me... unlike those that are clearly upset by the whole thing... do you see what I mean. Like the difference between a propagandist and a victim of the propaganda...? By the way, in writing all I did in my big note about my experiences I have been freed of a lot of pain and anger. I came to realize in my writing you that I was really quite angry and fearful... I never realized just how scared I really was. I do now. And it has helped me to start looking at the matters in a whole different light. I have pushed people away, in the process of trying to find understanding. I hope I can open even more, at least enough to hold on to discrimination while honestly evaluating and sharing.

Next up is from a man named David:

David from Texas explains, "This writing is very special to me. I use it mostly for sacred purposes. I cannot remember a time when I did not know this language. I write it very fast, but it takes me forever to translate it to English, mostly because it does not lend itself to translation to English very easily." "Most of the words have no parallel in English. The English language, while having a beauty in its precision, does not contain the depth of meaning and color that this language does. The nearest illustration I can provide is, for example, with the word "love." In Koine Greek, as you know, I studied Greek and Hebrew at Seminary, the word "love" has at least three or four words used to describe it:  Eros which is physical love; Phileo which is brother love; Agape-Godly which is also love." "In English, we have just the word "love." Shades of meaning and depth of color are missing from the English language." "I sent samples of this writing to a friend who specializes in ancient languages. I also gave a copy to a friend who is in military intelligence, a cryptanalyst and linguist. He thought it was similar to Russian or Greek. Being familiar with Greek, I can see where some of the elements resemble Greek, but they do not fit into the schema as do the Greek letters that would have a linguistic correspondence." "I can read Russian to some small degree and I can see evidence of Cyrillic in it, but cannot say it is a known Russian language, of which there are over 150 Russian dialects. I have heard at least twice as many conclusions as there have been people analyzing it."

"My earliest memory of writing this language goes back to when I was in the third grade. My older sister tells me that I have been speaking this language since before I went from crawling to walking."

The interesting thing about David’s writing is that it looks somewhat similar to the “Martian” writing of Hélène Thome, who using automatic writing, was allegedly in contact with beings from Mars. Her story was written about in the book From India to Mars which can thankfully be obtained for free on the internets.

Thome's "Martian" writing

One last example I wish to take a look at is from Nathan:

Nathan wrote, "Here is some alien writing. I also speak alien from the home planet of Ethna. I've been doing this all my life. Unfortunately, I stopped for a long time due to people (family) thinking I was crazy and sending me to a psych doc who put me on 22 pills a day, and still did it . . . so I stopped, because they said I was crazy and delusional." "Recently, I just went off my meds . . . they only made me very ill to the point I could hardly function! This also messed up my mind really bad. But the good news, since I've been of them a few months, I have recovered 100%. I am growing in psychic powers such as telepathy! I also started writing down this writing and channeling. Anyways, take a look, tell me what you think."

That last little bit of information about the medication somehow interfering with the communication channels sounds like something Greg Bishop talked about Dr. Mario Pazzaglini telling him. Here is an excerpt of an interview Bishop did with  Dr. Pazzaglini for his now defunct zine The Excluded Middle (an anthology of which you should purchase here). The idea, as I understood it, was that the medication interrupted whatever was allowing the person to have contact with the alien intelligence.

In the end what are we to make of this writing? Does it have any inherent value? I can’t say for sure. I’m interested in the writing as yet another fascinating puzzle piece in the grand scheme of Forteana. Like almost everything else in this arena, I don’t know how real it is. But it’s certainly fascinating. As usual if you’ve got anything to add hit me up in the comments section.

Fairy Tales?

Personal encounters are interesting to me even if they are not helpful from any kind of scientific standpoint. At the end of the day, all we really have are the stories which people share. The human experience, such that it is, is comprised largely of the stories we tell one another from day to day. And all of human knowledge is passed down through stories.  In the following stories, people are having encounters with Fairy-like creatures. Creatures which, for all that we know, shouldn’t exist. Of course it could be that these fairy creatures are simply the same kind of entities that people are sighting during UFO and abduction reports or they could be something completely different. All I know is that the stories are varied and interesting. I share them with you here in the hope to engender conversation, I make no judgement as to the validity of the encounters.

Story related by Lisa A.

This beautiful encounter with a faery or brownie took place on May 31, 2008 in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. Earlier that Spring, I met two Native American women who have had very vivid encounters with the Faery Realm, but I wasn't sure if these interdimensional beings were real. I prayed that God would let me meet one of these "Nature Guardians" and I forgot my prayer.

On Memorial Day weekend that May, our family got into a huge argument, resulting in my sister cursing out my father, slamming the door and taking my nephew with her. Our home fell into a gloom of sadness and depression that entire weekend, and I wasn't looking forward to being home from work that following Monday. Monday morning came and I dragged myself up from bed and sat by our window with the morning sun pouring in. Listlessly I daydreamed while looking through sections of my hair in the sunlight.

Suddenly, I was aware of a sense of being watched, and at the corner of my eye I saw a small feminine face looking at me with total empathy. She did not seem aware of me staring at her in shock. Her eyes were totally beaming unselfish concern about me, as though she sensed things were not right in our home. Her face was not human, but very "otherworldly" and beautiful. She had soft, light brown, cocoa-colored skin and wide-set eyes that tilted up a bit. And her eyes were totally all dark chocolate brown with no irises. They were not scary, though; they were full of love. She had high brow bones, high cheekbones, a high forehead and delicate nose and lips. She looked very delicate and regal. And there was a sense of innocence and humility about her as well as royalty.

After a good minute of me staring at her hard, she realized I was able to see her and she got this look on her face like, Uh oh... she sees me. I better disappear. And with that she did, but I still feel a connection with her to this day. Seeing her has not only showed me how our Creator really does hear everyone's prayers, and showed me that the Faery Realm really does exist. But it taught me to love and respect Nature and the Environment more, because now I know that there are faeries out there and they see everything we humans do to Nature and the wild animals. They see us dumping trash out of our cars and cutting down trees, etc. I don't think they are very impressed with the humankind.

After my encounter, I started picking up trash in my neighborhood and transplanting maple tree saplings that sprung up in our yard every Spring. I started feeding the wild birds and just plain loving Nature with every opportunity I found.

I’m personally interested in the change in behavior that the witness had after her encounter with the “fairy”. It’s not unlike the kind of spiritual development that some Alien abductee’s or Contactee’s undergo as well.

Faery Friends by Marlene

It was on the 22nd of June, 1999. I remember it so well. It was around 9 p.m. and I was outside under the growing moon. I was facing the east with my arms stretched up too the sky and I was asking for blesings for all the beautiful people upon Mother Earth. I turned around and looked up on top of the roof of the house, and there hovering about four feet above the tiles were two glowing lights! At first I was logically thinking, maybe it's a cobweb and is glowing under the moon's rays. But no, whatever it was was hovering up and down - both of these glowing light's!

Suddennly, I had this feeling come over me that whatever it was wasn't bad but good. I held my left hand out (the hand too receive) and I said, "It's okay, you can come to me. I mean you no harm." The glowing balls of light hovered down. Then I could see quite clearly that they were faeries. The female one landed right on my left hand, and I could see there was a male faerie hovering just back from her about eight inches away! My feelings told me that these beautiful beings were there for me for a special reason.

Just then my eldest daughter came running out the back door; she was having trouble getting the lid off something and needed help. They were scared away. They just dissapeared like that! I was taken aback with awe and wonder what I had just experienced. After my encounter, I did much research into faeries to learn all about them. I feel that these faeries have some connection with me now; I feel them close by even though they have not shown themselves again to me since this night. I leave them gifts.

Anonymous poster to FairyGardens.com

As a little girl around eight about fifty years ago I got awoke about dawn to hear the sound of what I thought was children laughing and playing. I looked out the window and saw about four to six separate individual light glimmering yet almost transparent beings dancing in a circle.

I grew up to be very artistic and since I have begun to explore that sighting some fifty years ago it came to my attention that some of my paintings especially are an almost exact replica of Mary Schulte fairy pictures.

I have led a rather miraculous life i do not seem to age and i would pass for 35 without surgery and there have been events in my life that are rather unique for someone growing up in small town Saskatchewan, Canada.

I am always been gifted with second sight which was passed from my Scottish grandmother which I have always accepted as quite normal. Part of my life's journey was to pursue that of a career in counseling working with all factions of disenfranchised people which I have done very successfully and competently and with much love compassion and empathy. There has been trauma in my life which I recovered from and always feeling very blessed in an innate knowing of the wisdom that the trauma gave me in fact feeling blessed that I was able to survive what I survived.

Needless to say that wisdom has been invaluable and supporting people who are in need of emotional support. I often wonder if that wisdom was not the residuals of seeing fairies and what other lessons I will have and whether or not I need to share this with other people..

It’s intriguing to me that the people who tend to see “fairies” seem to have particular reality tunnel/phenomenology. They give the impression of being very “earth-friendly” or “eco-conscious”. It has been suggested that the paranormal perhaps reflects back to us what we expect to see. Could it be that those who are more concerned with nature and saving the planet are going to encounter “fairies”? Whereas someone else may, instead, see little greys from Zeta Reticuli? As always I find myself with far more questions than answers. Perhaps it’s better that way. I continue striving, and hopefully thriving, seeking out the answers to these questions. And sometimes, in John Keel fashion, seeking the questions themselves. Answers be damned!