Glimpses, glimmers and grapes

he sky has been busy in the last month or two. As a result, have seen a number of fascinating new cases take their places in the Minnesota MUFON case files. Several of those cases have brought us some solid glimpses of the strangeness the phenomenon brings to us. It brings a logic all its own, offering a narrative of  unexpected and unexplained interactions with - something. Most of all, we see a hint of physical evidence, a glimmer of potential solid proof that something extraordinary has happened. Like so many times before, that evidence seems so full of promise. Yet like so many times before, a truly solid case remains just beyond our grasp.

The events of recent weeks remind me of the story in Greek mythology of the Grapes of Tantalus (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus). In this classic tale, the gods condemn the hero, Tantalus, to stand in a pool of water he cannot drink, overhung with grapes he cannot eat. The grapes are just within his reach, yet any time he tries to reach for them, they recede just out of his grasp. Just like the grapes, solid evidence for the UFO/CE4 phenomenon at times seems almost within our grasp. We can almost touch it but all too often it slips away.

Several new entries in the Minnesota case files deserve special note. In each case, the phenomenon has had a powerful effect on the experiencer, disrupting lives and threatening their very well being. As usual, I will obfuscate and aggregate the cases so that they are not specifically identifiable or traceable to the existing witness. Yet the descriptions capture the essence, especially the strangeness of the cases. 

The first is a composite of several cases over the course of several years, and captures the essence of at least one recent event. The drama began as the witness experienced a close sighting of a UFO hovering over a nearby park. She watched for several minutes as the craft remained motionless a few hundred feet from her. Then suddenly the craft was gone. At that same moment, she became aware of a gap in her memory, a period of missing time along with a powerful, unexpected feeling of fear.

Severely shaken up, she reported the sighting to MUFON as well as several other agencies. A short time later, things became even more disturbing. Pulling up in front of her home were two classic Men in Black (MIBs). They approached the front of her home, driving a big, highly polished older model car. The interior of the car was hidden behind the darkly tinted windows. 

The car approached where she was standing as the driver rolled down his window. Both men in the car wore dark suits and sunglasses. The driver mentioned the UFO sighting she had just had and referenced the knowledge that she had had missing time. Then he threatened her, telling her that she "didn't see anything." This witness is a very combative woman and told the men she knew what she saw. Nothing he said would hide the truth.

"You shut up or you're in for a world of trouble," was the man's terse reply. "We can make your life miserable." The witness responded with an obscenity and turned away, closing and locking her front door. The car lingered in front of her house for some time and then drove off. Unfortunately, the man was right. Days and weeks of grief began, starting with losing her job and continuing with personal, financial and legal troubles. All had a common theme - invisible, pervasive harassment by some entity or organization with the ability to influence and manipulate things behind the scenes. 

Since this is an aggregation of cases, it is not possible to relate a single outcome. However in most cases, the witness has "clammed up" and no longer would speak with us. Still we are left with a significant case of a well-defined close encounter and a record of official harassment, with possible evidence to support both. This clearly suggests something extraordinary happened and the authorities know it. It tells us how powerful the phenomenon and those behind it can be. Yet the evidence is not sufficient to establish this without a doubt. The grapes still hang beyond our reach.

In another set of cases (also aggregated and heavily obfuscated), an experiencer (we'll call her 'Patty') had undergone several late-night abductions over the previous few weeks. In each case, she awoke the next morning with the sense that something extraordinary and frightening had happened. 

Following one event, she suddenly became very ill. While she generally avoids the conventional medical system, she decided her illness was severe enough that she went into the hospital emergency room. After a thorough check, the doctors were unable to find the cause of her illness. However, they did conduct numerous tests to rule out known causes. When the results came back, they suggested her illness was at the very least, unusual though not immediate cause for concern. The doctors could not explain the exact symptoms of the illness, itself. To this day, the cause and mechanism of the illness remains a mystery.

After several discussions with possible medical investigators and analysts, we concluded that the illness potentially had a non-extraordinary medical origin. Yet the details of the illness had no apparent cause and seemed closely related to her UFO encounter experiences. So what happened? Was this health event the result of a UFO abduction or would some other more prosaic explanation account for these events? Again, we don't know. We can only add the data to our case files and continue on. The grapes are once again beyond our reach.

In case after case, there are subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) indications of the reality behind UFOs and close encounters. We can touch the answer, but oh-so-often we can't quite get our hands around it. 

In yet another set of cases, we find the witness in a public place such as a retail store when a stranger walks in. The stranger has an unusual or awkward bearing, with unusual eyes (or is wearing sunglasses) and seems unfamiliar or uncomfortable with normal everyday activities of life. An example might be a stranger standing behind the experiencer in line at a convenience store, carrying on a conversation, which in retrospect was very unusual. In one such case, the experiencer had just such a conversation, talking with a strange couple in line behind her. The couple seemed to know details of her life, including of her recent UFO encounter. They talked for a short time and then they parted company. She later realized she couldn't recall the stranger's eyes, and during their entire conversation the stranger's lips never moved. 

In another case, a stranger came into a local convenience store to buy a bottle of pop while the experiencer was standing at the counter. The man seemed uncertain of how to purchase it, even how a convenience store worked. He finally came up to the counter where the experiencer was standing. When the experiencer talked with him, the man behaved as if autistic, paranoid or other unusual behavior. Yet the eyes seemed to hold a subjective message that he was closely associated with the phenomenon. That night, the experiencer had another abduction event which appears to be closely related to the stranger.

In each case, there is an interaction with the experiencer, a conversation in line, a purchase at a store or something similar. Then the stranger walks out of the public place, turns a corner and is gone. In more than one case, the experiencer has suddenly remembered something, some final question, etc. They hurry after the stranger, trying to find them once again. But the stranger has vanished - even though there is no apparent place they could have gone, no nearby car, no alleyway, etc. 

On several occasions, security cameras have captured an image of the stranger. Yet in the video, there does not appear to be anything unusual about the person. There is simply that aura of strangeness and the unusual mannerisms they project to those around them. Are they from another place? Are they extraordinary in some way? I don't know. Again, we are presented with a lead into the unexplained. Our fingers again close in on the grapes. And once again they are snatched out of our grasp.

In yet another case, which I refer to as the case of the Flying Fisherman (see The Case of the Flying Fisherman on my website, www.craigrlang.com), an avid fisherman with a GPS device attached to his boat experienced multiple cases of missing time. Each time, the GPS captured unusual traces, along with time resets, and other anomalies. Analysis of the GPS traces showed that during his periods of missing time, he had apparently travelled in his boat on a path which at times took him over land(!). The anomalous paths would begin at the start of his missing time and end at the moment his memory resumed. Unfortunately, the GPS device was intended for fisherman and so did not show altitude. Thus, we don't know if he ascended from the lake or remained at the surface. While the evidence from his GPS device is anomalous and tantalizing, it again lacks the ultimate proof value. The grapes are not quite within our reach. 

Will we ever grab the grapes of Tantalus? Perhaps, or maybe not. But for now, the best we can do is solid field investigation work, measurement, sampling, etc - along with careful documentation, finding glimpses and glimmers of an answer. At the same time, we can try to help the experiencer come to terms with the extraordinary events of the close encounter. And maybe, just maybe, in the process, a grape will fall into our hands.

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The Many Roads of a 'Plastic Shaman'

Lately, I've been reading a book that does more than any other to drive home the history of the European, Native American conflict. And it doesn't make me feel very comfortable for a zillion reasons, not necessarily the ones you might think.

The book is called "The Wolf at Twilight." It is written by Kent Nerburn, a sculptor and journalist who was a good friend of an old Lakota named Dan. I don't know if Dan had any particular shamanic or medicinal role in the tribe, but the old man was a deep font of Native wisdom. The book is the story of the author's interaction with him over the period of a few weeks during the author's return visit to the reservation.

One powerful point the story drives home is that of the cultural differences between the Lakota and the European cultures. There is a deep, fundamental difference in world views - a vast gulf between the Red and the White Roads. For someone like me who has been raised on the White Road but finds certain elements of the Red Road attractive, it has a sobering message. It says that ultimately, 'you are not us.' It says that 'you can't possibly know what we went through. You look at us through the eyes of a European culture. You say you want to learn our ways - but only a little bit of them. You seek us, but only a little bit of us. You are sympathetic, but only to a point.' And you know what, they are right. Ultimately, we are different people with different histories, traveling different roads.

A number of years ago, Gwyn and I visited Fort Snelling to see the Minnesota Historical Society's re-enactments over the Fourth of July holiday. As we were entering the park, we encountered a group of Native American protesters. They were militantly demanding that Fort Snelling be torn down and that the land be returned to the Lakota. While I am somewhat sympathetic to the Lakota point of view, I was completely put off by the militancy and vitriol with which one particular woman confronted me. I felt my own hackles rise with her shouting at me. I began to feel more aligned with the European settlers in the 1860s, than with the Lakota who were there to convince me of their case. Yet now, reading this conversation in "Wolf at Twilight," I began to understand the background and energy behind that rage.

I hear generations-old arguments about the wrongs committed, and how that injustice is now built in to the fabric of American history. In response, I have always argued, "Yes but I wasn't the one who did it to you." In The Wolf at Twilight, Dan scolds the author with the rebuke - "No, not personally. But now you directly benefit from it. You live far downstream but you still drink the water."

So what is one to do? I am always interested in doing the right thing. I have always been in favor of both justice and mercy. Yet could I ever really understand the world through the eyes of "Dan" or of the Lakota woman confronting me at Fort Snelling? Probably not. That injustice is built into the very fabric of the way I live. Yet when I read the words, I see a little more of the world through the eyes of Dan and I realize I could never hope to see the righting of that wrong.

At the same time, I am very sympathetic to the author as Dan rebukes him for what his grandfathers did. I felt the author's discomfort as I realize that live too live in the white world, and maybe that makes me exactly what some Indigenous peoples refer to as a 'Plastic Shaman.' I am interested in Native ways. But as I look at how to learn more about them, to more deeply study shamanism and earth-centered healing, once again my 'plastic' world returns. I look at schedules and time commitments. And once again I say, "...well, yeah I'd like to study this, but I can't fit it into my calendar right now. Maybe later..."

If I were truly on a Native road wouldn't I be much more flexible? Wouldn't I be willing to roll withe the punches, flow with the eddies in the river - or whatever other metaphor you wish...? Am I really a creature of plastic, or could it be instead that my path is simply different?

A few years ago while on vacation, Gwyn and I by chance met a Hindu medical doctor who lived in an area near where we were staying. In keeping with Brahmin hospitality, he invited us to join his family for the evening. During conversation, he suggested how his path would allow him to feel at home in any house of worship. The thought stuck me in a very heart-warming way. The lesson I took from the evening was the importance  of honor and respect for the traditions of whatever road I am on, to be a thankful guest and a gracious host. There are many roads, and each leads to the Creator. Given the right understanding, discernment and respect, perhaps any road can be the right one - or perhaps all of them at once. For me, it is life on a spiritual bridge.

During a meditation circle I attended a few weeks ago, I was told that I do indeed have a bridging role. In many aspects of life, I often find myself in the role of a bridge between worlds - a mediator and/or peacemaker. I am sometimes a facilitator of contact between elements of consciousness that are very, very far apart. Indeed the word the leader of the circle used translates to 'Spirit Bridge' or 'Cosmic Bridge.'

Meanwhile, I look at how uncomfortable I felt reading the passage in Wolf at Twilight, and I realize that while I can learn a lot from that road, I am NOT indigenous American. My ancestors came from elsewhere and so I am indigenous somewhere. For me, that somewhere is northern Europe. And so part of my research over the last few months has been to learn a little more about my own ancestral (and therefore indigenous) culture. This has led me to stories from the Northern Tradition, the ancestral Nordic ways, Teutonic shamanism, etc., the White Road. There has been so much of the pre-Latin, pre-Roman culture lost (and much of that which was regained was badly corrupted by the evils of the 1930s and 40s). While there is very limited information out there, there is some, and that's where the White Road travels.

There are so many lessons to be learned on the Red Road, the White Road, the various Eastern traditions (the Vedic path), etc. At the same time there are so many other paths: Rationalism, Gnosticism, my own home tradition of the Way of the Cross, and so many more. And one of the biggest things I learn from traveling so many paths at once is how similar they are. Even when they seem so very different they all come from God - and in the end, in some way they all lead back to God.

If I am sometimes a guest on another's road, so be it. Let me simply remember to be a thankful, understanding and respectful guest. If I find my own road, let me bring to it understanding and respect for the other paths. If I am to be a bridge between roads, so be it. Let me better understand the lessons at both ends of the bridge. And as I strive to learn these lessons, perhaps a 'Plastic Shaman' like myself can be at home and of service helping others find their own road to God.