I was working on my Orange Orb column for UFO Magazine last night (wrote a full article on one memory “dream” that I call the “bedroom radiator alien” but followed where that led me, to an earlier memory, of the following “dream.” ) Like my patio alien “dream” I had around the same age (but in a different house) this memory has stayed with me for some fifty years or so, as vivid as the day it happened. It wasn’t a dream and yet, it must have been, since it couldn’t have literally happened:

I’m flat on my back in the dead center of my bed, which I remember as being large, and white; white sheets, and just a white covering. The bedroom is lit up very bright; which I wonder at: if I’m supposed to be asleep why are all the lights on?

I am so full of happiness!!!! I have an expectant joy that is so wonderful; I know “they” are coming. I stare up at the ceiling in anticipation. The ceiling opens up, two halves move up and outwards, revealing the starry night sky.

A giant eagle — so huge it’s almost the size of the open ceiling — swoops down from the sky, to my left, and down into the bedroom, right above me. It’s come to take me up. As the eagle flies into the room I turn and see my parents, my grandmother, and some others, standing in the doorway. They seem to be stuck there; they aren’t coming into the room. They’re just watching. I’m very glad to see my father but am a little confused; he doesn’t live with us and I don’t understand why or how it is he’s here.

The eagle comes, it’s so fantastic!

It wasn’t until last night that I realized there is a Thunderbird and Mothman connection to this experience. At age five or so I didn’t know what Thunderbirds were, nor did I know anything about Mothman of course.

I started doing some research about eagles in terms of UFO accounts and before I knew it, I had found all kinds of interesting things; things that will take awhile to explore.

One thing I found that I haven’t read fully but did skim is an article for the E.L.F. Infested Spaces (ELFIS) ‘zine by Jeffrey Lewis: Idiot Stick – Whitley Strieber’s Encounters. It is very esoteric and I only mention it because of the thinking done by Lewis on the nature of dreams, memories, symbolism and connections in the context of UFOs, aliens and entities. Frankly I don’t know what to make of it but as I say, I haven’t given it the attention needed. (There is much there; this is a site that will take you in many directions. . . )

Mentioned, I think, somewhere on the Elfis site, was something about the myth of Leda and the Swan; I also found a passing reference to the Greek myth in Erik Davis’s 1993 My Favorite Martians: A UFO Epistomology — this myth in context of UFO experiences has been addressed by UFO and esoteric researchers before. The comparison of this theme of a god like being or entity (Zeus), disguised as an animal that is familiar to humans, coming from the skies to have sexual relations with a human female to alien-UFO abduction and contactee accounts is an obvious one to explore in terms of alien-UFO stories.

I am not suggesting my memory had anything to do with anything so literal or sexual — but the comparisons and connections, all those glittering threads that reveal themselves when going tumbling down the rabbit hole of esoterica — are natural ones to follow for Fortean junkies like myself.

All that aside, bird and winged – being imagery is strong in UFO accounts, and that includes Mothman accounts.

Image: Leda and the Swan, painting by artist from the School of Leonardo da Vinci, 1505-1510, public domain.

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Mothman wasn’t on my mind, just UFOs, but I had the following dream last night:

I’m on my way to Point Pleasant — road trip! A Mothman road trip. A couple of friends are with me. I have an idea to film all this, do a documentary, even though I don’t want to. I keep saying that there are so many documentaries on Mothman what could I possibly contribute, or uncover, that would be new for anyone? Same old same old. There is also the fact I don’t know a thing about making movies or documentaries. (And yet later, when it comes to editing, a tedious process I do not want to do, I can’t trust anyone else, even with years of editing experience, to touch the film. What if they miss something, lose something, or misnterpret my discovery? I’ll do it myself, even though it’s going to be a huge pain.)

We start off in the west; vast, beautiful landscape. Violets and blues and pinks and huge canyons and deserts, just absolutely amazing. Uninhabited by humans. A bit scary too; and suddenly, to my surprise, I realize Mothman is here as well. He, it, has been here. A giangantic shadow appears overhead, gliding silently across the sky. It’s the shadow of a Mothman/Thunderbird, but not the thing itself. I’m surprised we’d find Mothman out here right away, so far from Point Pleasant.

We keep going. Find petroglyphs in the Southwest that are definitely Mothman. Many Naitves are upset with me, accusing me of being a “twinkie” and appropriating and exploiting culture, others don’t and are helpful. We move on.

Make it to Point Pleasant. Turns out it’s the day after the Mothman Festival. Streets are littered with confetti, flyers, etc. I’m a little shocked, and disturbed, at the poverty of the place. A veneer has been set in place but it’ s flimsy; you can see right through things. There is sadness, confusion, loss, and a sense of being lost . . . I really want to leave.

We find a family who own an “antique” shop, more of a vintage, sort of, catch all thrift store. They remember Mothman well and to my surprise, are willing to talk to me. I would have thought everyone in the town would be talked out but they want people to understand, to know, and so they don’t mind me being there. And yet there is such an overall sense of desperation. Not from Mothman, but because of Mothman: because of how the world has responded to them, their town, their story.

I look up at the ceiling, and it opens up, opening from the center, two halves moving back to expose the nighttime sky, which is beautiful, full of inky blue and shimmering stars. I think this is a pretty neat trick. A giant eagle flies down from above; the eagle is so large, it fills the sky, fills the open ceiling. It comes down straight at me. I don’t like this too much. I’m not exactly frightened, but it’s not comfortable. The eagle takes me up into a silver disk type thing.

I saw this on the Coast to Coast site; a listener sent in a vivid photograph of the “black angel” that reminded me immediately of Mothman. You can see the photo here.

I followed the link provided and found this; a history of the black angel images in Iowa cemeteries, by paranormal writer Troy Taylor.

A few interesting points that struck me as parallels to Mothman: one of the cemeteries was built on old Native American burial grounds, the Mormons, who have an alien-ET motif in their sacred story, one of the people who commissioned one of the black angels wanted to honor the “visions” her mother had before she died. These visions or dreams were not the usual, mundane dreams but very special, according to a family member:

These supernatural “visitations” were no mere dreams. According to Mrs. Dodge, they were realistic and overwhelming visions about which her daughter Anne stated: “We realized this was no dream, no ordinary occurrence, but an apparition such as appeared to those saints of olden times, who were spiritual seers, holy enough to penetrate the fleshly veil and view spiritual things hidden from the worldly minded.”

I’m not suggesting the black angel statue in Iowa, and these visitations, were Mothman, or, vice versa. But they do share vivid commonalities. And, if one is “legend tripping,” which was the inspiration for the Coast to Coast listener who sent in his photo, the comparisons are not a stretch or pointless exercise. They’re insights into symbols, story, lore, myths, synchronicities, etc. Andrew Colvin discusses this quite a bit in The Mothman’s Photographer.

A phenomena I’ve noticed that occurs frequently since I’ve been exploring Mothman is synchronicity. With most things paranormal, Fortean and UFO, synchronicity plays a large role. But it seems more so, more immediate and more vivid, concerning Mothman.

For example, the other day I kept running into fluttering things; leaves swirling up in my face for no clear reason, light objects fluttering, flitting or flying by me. I had the visceral impression something was sending me a message through these images. This morning I had the same thought as I was driving to work; thinking of the images all around me, and what they might have to say. Listening to the images, instead of using words.

I’m posting this here because the following dream (I know, snore) has a bit of something to do with my previous post here about my OOBE. (My Utterly Completely Wondrous New Age OOBE)

That first dream/OOBE was wonderful, fantastic, amazing, and positive. This one, while almost silly sounding, was creepy and scary.

I’m reading Gray Barker’s The Silver Bridge. It’s been reissued by Andrew Colvin, author of Mothman’s Photographer, so we all have him to thank for this. (I urge anyone interested in Mothman, or anyone just interested in Fortean stuff to read both Colvin’s and Barker’s books.) Copies of The Silver Bridge have been rare, and, if lucky enough to find a copy, you’d have to pay upwards of $400! Now you can get it for about $10.00. I’m enjoying the book very much. I have a fascination with Mothman that I can’t explain; I’ve never been back east (except for one brief visit to North Carolina once) let alone West Virginia, so I don’t know what’s that all about. (My grandfather, part native American, was from Virginia, … but that’s a very thin connection, if any )

So I’m reading the book before going to sleep, and as I’m turning out the light, I had this weird thought pop into my head: that I better do some protection around me, because I don’t want to encounter any negative entities or energies. Then I thought, “well, I wasn’t planning to, and I’m tired.” I turn off the light, and go to sleep. I don’t know why I had that thought: I was enjoying the Silver Bridge, and not at all feeling creeped out or “scared,” and certainly not thinking anything about Reptilians. As far as Mothman goes, I don’t know what Mothman is/was, but I’ve never felt it to be Reptilian, not sure it’s alien as in from outer space, or even convinced it’s a negative energy.

I have a dream. It’s almost funny at first. I’m very happy, very excited about something good that’s happened, and I’m running down the street in joy. I run past a glass apartment building kind of thing, and I notice that there are little toy aliens everywhere, mostly green. Little rubber and plastic alien faces, and toys, and my first thought is: “That’s so cute! How neat they have a sense of humor!” But then I quickly see that the building is empty, and I the thought occurs to me that it isn’t funny, not one damn bit. We don’t know what’s going on, who the aliens are, if they’re really even aliens, as in ET, and yet we’re running around making cute little cartoons out of them. We’re playing with fire!

But I don’t have much time to dwell on that, because I’m happy, and running down the street to a local coffee shop to share my news. I go inside, and there are a lot of people in there, and at first, I’m glad to be there. Then I realize: “Goddamn!!!!! These aren’t people, they’re aliens! They’re not just aliens, they’re Reptilians!” And I see their faces change, from human, to a subtle olive green color, and their features change a bit. Not too much however, if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t notice. And then they quickly change back. I’m freaked! I’m scared! And then they notice that I notice . . . and they’re very angry about that. I try to deny that I’ve noticed anything, but they’re not buying it. Then I get angry my own damn self, lol, and say really intelligent things like, “Who do you Reptilians think you are, anyway?!” which of course, just pisses them off even more. Suddenly I realize how really dangerous they are.

Here the dream changes. I wake up, scared to death, and don’t want to go back to sleep. But I’m an adult and have to wake up at six in the morning, so tough for me. I try to go back to sleep. I immediately begin to experience that rushing, roaring sensation, and see whirls and swirls of green scales, just that, green and scales and the knowledge lizard intelligences are afoot. They won’t stop, just swirling rushes of Reptilian green, and I know that that’s what it is, and “they” are trying to get me to come out and play.

I say to myself that, as much as I would love to have another out of body experience like I had here, and trip the astral plane fantastic, not like this! I literally said to myself “I’m not going there!” and with great effort, woke myself up.

One more thing: I noticed earlier in the evening, while cooking dinner, there was a large green ink smudge on my hand, like something you’d get from a marker. It could have happened anywhere, and I do work in a school, but it I hadn’t seen it before, and I have nothing like that at home that I can think of. A perfectly natural explanation, but a very weird bit of synchronicity.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the high number of animal sightings on our way to and from the coast. One of the animal sightings was of turkey vultures, which, while not at all unusual, isn’t something we’ve really seen. I’ve seen hawks and even owls in the daytime, sometimes quail or wild turkeys, etc. but not just a bunch of turkey vultures hanging out on the road.

Yesterday, driving back from the coast, we saw two turkey vultures in the road. One was standing off to the side of the road, the other . . . it was really kind an eerie sight. The turkey vulture was standing on a wide fence post, its wings spread out. It just stayed there like that, wings spread out. Didn’t move, didn’t take off, didn’t flap its wings around, just stood there, with wings out. Very odd.

That night, I had a very unusual (though I’ve had it happen several times throughlout my life) dream. The dream state was a combination of being lucid, dreaming, awake-but-not-asleep, and astral projecting. It started out kind of neat, really, I was in a car/plane kind of thing. Imagine a small car without tires that could fly; like a VW bug. I was just zooming over large rocks on the coast, through narrow passeways, just beautiful but a bit scary. I was going so fast and I was the only passenger but didn’t have any control. I was thinking, as I (“we”? — for I felt as if someone else was with me driving this thing) that these scenes would make beautiful paintings.

The we open up a little, get to the beach; rocky and wild, lots of tidepools. And I see Bigfoot! Bigfoot is walking very fast, very fast and agile for a large being, easily climbing over the wet rocks and walking through the sand. Its in profile to me; and the car/plane I’m in gets in closer, and I’m surprised to find that this Bigfoot is mad. Its angry and negative and downright mad that I’m there! I wake up scared to death, lol. But even when I was awake, I was still kind of “dreaming” I could still see these images. I was so damn scared, I really wanted to get up and go talk to my husband, who was still up, he was in the living room. But I felt too stupid; here I am, in my fifties, and too damn scared from a dream. So I just dealt with it and went back to sleep.

This just all felt like a “Mothman Fluttering” kind of moment.