In recent "tweets", I mentioned the lecture I was presenting on the Minnesota Iron Range, at the Gilbert, MN public library. I just got back from that talk, today, and like most talks, I discussed the topic of UFOs and abduction as well as listened to some very interesting comments in return.
I've always been told that the "rangers," the folks living on the iron range, are pretty quiet and reserved. That seemed to be the casewhen I asked my usual questions at the start of the lecture:
- How many have seen something in the sky that they could not explain?
- How many have had some kind of experience that they couldn't explian?
A few people raised their hands, very furtively, when I asked the first question. Usually, when I ask this question, number of people raising their hand is about ten percent of those present. However, this time I found much less response. In addition, among a few of those with "non-raised" hands, I could sense a moment of indecision - to raise their hand or not? I suspected there was alot more to some of their biographies than I saw during the show of hands (or lack thereof).
One exception to the lack of response was a person sitting in the front row who, when I asked if anyone had seen something unusual, quickly told about her sighting on a road deep in the north woods. She described seeing a bright light in front of her, a flash, then it was gone. She asked the general question of what she had seen and my response was that, from what she had described, it was pretty clearly an unknown. Unfortunately, she had to leave before the end of my talk, so I never got the chance to talk with her further. My bet is that there was considerably more to that event than was first described.
When I asked the second question, I got essentially no response - not entirely unusual for such a powerful event and conservative audience. However, I also noted the looks on a couple of peoples' faces. I noted that a few people shifted in their chair when the topic of alien abduction first came up in the lecture. My bet is that, similar to some other public talks I've given, a number of those present were unaware experiencers. They had probably seen or experiencd something that they wouldn't describe in public - if indeed, they had little much of any conscious memory of it. Perhaps there was only a sense of mystery pervading their lives.
I gave my talk, covering material similar to that which I have covered in other talks, with some material added describing some more recent encounter reports. I concluded with some speculative comments on where we are in UFO/CE4 research - which in my view, is not very far at all. I described a couple of the leading theories and then concluded the talk, opening the floor for questions.
There were a number of general questions about the phenomenon - what is it, who are the entities behind it, etc., interesting questions for which in many cases, the answer is not known. Several questions were from people who seemed to know quite a bit about the phenomenon, while most didn't seem to know much at all about the state-of-the-topic on UFOs. At one point, I asked how many people had seen pictures of "grays" or other reported alien beings and most indicated that they had not. This was a bit surprising to me, as I thought the "gray head" was pretty much of a ubiquitous symbol in our society. In retrospect, a picture of the typical alien-face might have been useful. Apparently, not everyone folows the UFO literature - hmmm, go figure.... :-)
After the talk, several people from the audience came up to buy a copy of The Cosmic Bridge. I got to talking with several of them and learned that about three people (out of the 20 or so attendees) had definitely experienced something unusual, while another told me that a friend had had a solid history of paranormal experiences in their family line and also had a child that matched the classic description of an Indigo child.
Ultimately, the numbers matched up - sort of. Over 10 percent had seen something worth mentioning to me in relative privacy. Of these, maybe ten percent were experiencers. Another example of the typical numerical rule of thumb: 10% of all people are sighting witnesses, and of these 10% have had close encounter experiences.
So in the end, I got to meet some interesting folks, hear about a number of peoples' experiences and learn a few things myself. It was an evening of lights and numbers on the Range...
