Ghosts In The Night

At some point in the summer, I had my curtains & windows open, to let in the brilliant sunshine and a nice cross breeze. As a rain storm began to gather later in the day, I closed the windows, but kept the curtains open.

Later that evening, I was walking down the hallway, and was a bit startled to see these two, HUGE, ghostly shapes, casting ominous shadows on my windows. The earlier rain had cooled things down from the mid-day heat, and the resulting condensation between the seperate window panes had made the eery shapes seem even more other-worldly.

It took me a minute to figure out that I wasn't being visited by Aliens from Mars... A powerful, outdoor flood light on a building across the way, was causing these spooky shapes to peer into my window, by silhouetting electrical power transformers which were positioned between that building, and my window...

The moral of the story: Things are usually not as dire as they may seem. Never take counsel of your fears.

On Second Thought...

As some of you may remember, I wrote a 'Myths & Controversies Blog' last yr, where I laid out my thoughts on some of the great urban myths of our time...

... But, I think I need to re-examine my opinions on at least one of those urban myths: UFOs.

The pic above, as well as the .Gif 'movie' (below) composed of 15 still pics that I, myself, took between 4:52am & 5:12am on September 8, 2004, from my front porch -- are pics of an unidentified object that I witnessed. Another person, on the other side of town, saw it for over an hour, also. I can't say what it was, but I can say what it wasn't: it wasn't a star, or a plane, or a comet, or a weather balloon. It changed position in the sky -- forward, back, up, down. It was as brighter than the street lamp just across the street from me. And I watched it for over an hour before it disappeared.

Why do I bring this up now?

Yesterday, I was trying to find a phone number for a friend who I hadn't talked to in over a decade. I went thru my old phone bills to try to find the phone number (yes, I have all of my phone bills since 1991! This shouldn't surprise you, if you've read this blog that I wrote last December).

Anyway, I came across alot of phone numbers to places that I have NO FREAKIN' idea who I knew who lived there!! We're talkin' absolutely NO recognition of the cities or numbers that were on my phone bills. No idea who I knew who lived there at the time.

Blank. Nada. Zip. Totally NO clue.

It was as if a 4 yr period of time from 1991 - 1995 was completely erased from my memory...

... Suddenly, that "abducted by space aliens" theory started to look pretty good!

True story about the 'UFO' that I took pics of, and about the phone number search. I did find the number I was looking for -- it was a number I called in 1995 -- but it had been disconnected. Imagine that -- that person had moved in the past 11 yrs!.
BTW, this is my very first .GIF 'movie' that I've made. I made it using the website, Media Convert, to convert my UFO .jpeg pics to .gif images, and then to the .GIF movie, above. Click on the pic above this paragraph to view the .GIF movie of the unidentified object that I witnessed.

Bigfoot: We Hardly Knew Ye (The Myths And Controversies Blog)...

It was one of my most terrifying nights. We had been to the movie theatre, and had watched a new 'documentary' movie about the great, hairy terror of the Pacific Northwest: Bigfoot! This movie featured the famous Bob Patterson film, which allegedly caught the elusive, large beast walking across a wooded clearing. Of course, it had interviews w/eye witnesses, and scientists, and assorted friends of friends of friends who knew someone who knew someone who saw the Yeti. And at key moments throughout the movie, the stereo speakers of the movie house (yes, only stereo back then) rumbled with a shrill, authentic re-creation of what a Bigfoot would sound like.

It sent secret shivers up my spine.

And that night, every shadow in the quiet bedroom seemed to move. There seemed to be a beastly presence, which I knew was somehow just outside of the bedroom window... watching me. I remember being very afraid, and absolutely certain that the hairy brute had trekked his way from Oregon, to our front yard. And I knew that at any moment, I'd hear the awful, shrill scream from that nasty beast.

Through the yrs, I watched many other television 'documentaries' on Bigfoot, that would come out from time to time. It became all too familiar: the Plaster of Paris molds of incredibly large, apeman feet. The endless line of experts telling me why everything in the casting was anthropologically correct, and therefore true. And of course, the friends of friends of friends...

As it turned out, the night of fear & dread that I experienced after watching that movie, was a waste of adrenalin. In 2004, one of the men associated w/the famous Patterson film, confessed that the Bigfoot who was casually strolling across the wooded clearing, was really a retired Pepsi salesman from Yakima, Washington, dressed-up in a kind-of ape suit.

Sigh.

I swallowed 'whole' the other great urban myths that every kid growing up in the late 60's/early 70's became exposed to: UFOs, Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness Monster, JFK Conspiracy, etc... It even got to the point where me and the neighbor kid, barely in our early teens, were planning out how we'd somehow save our money (what money?), rent a boat, and sail into the dreaded Bermuda Triangle, & solve the mystery -- once & for all! Nevermind that neither of us even had a Learner's Permit for a car. We hunched over maps and charts of the Caribbean, and spent an entire summer afternoon laying out our route, and what provisions we'd need. We were really gonna do this!

P.T. Barnum must've been laughing at us, somewhere.

Let me get some things off of my chest. Take a seat -- this might take a few minutes:

-- There never was, is, or shall be a large, elusive, hairy Apeman, Bigfoot, Yeti, Abominable Snow Creature, Missing-Link Ancestor, etc... roaming the American Pacific Northwest, the Himalayas, Siberia, or anywhere else. Retired Pepsi salesman, maybe. Bigfoot? Yeh, right.

-- The Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured fantasy. Planes crash. Ships sink. People get drunk & stupid and try to play Commodore Nelson. It's always awful when lives are lost. They are someone's brother, or sister, or son, or daughter, or parent. But don't look for the cause as being some vortex planted by the Lost Inhabitants of Atlantis, or a Time-Rift Beacon for Spaceships from Alpha Centauri, or even Beelzubul himself, rowing in a raft. I don't buy it.

-- JFK was killed, terribly, by Lee Harvey Oswald. Not by the mafia. Or by the Reds. Or Castro. Or the CIA. Or disgruntled Generals. Or anyone else. Nut-cases with rifles can do awful things. But a government conspiracy to kill JFK and cover it up? Gimme a break. A conspiracy afterwards to hide the ineptness at the autopsy, and the general screw-ups that bureaucrats & politicians make when the government really isn't filled with 'the best & the brightest' -- perhaps. But, as hard as it is to think that one man, acting alone, can cause such tragedy -- believe it. Oswald acted alone. The only 'patsy' was the public's ability to ignore the unavoidable facts, and to swallow fables & chase shadows in the Grassy Knoll.

-- There is no Loch Ness Monster. Unless you count the cute, little stuffed animals & pendants & t-shirts which tourists spend big bucks on, after a visit to that part of Scotland. The Loch is an enclosed area, and has been swept by modern sonar, radar, acoustics, and infrared/heat seeking instruments -- inch by inch -- & no sea monster was discovered hiding on the bottom depths, holding it's breath. Nada for Nessie.

And while I'm at it, can we as individuals please stop blaming everyone but ourselves for actions that we, ourselves, take? Life has no guarantees of smooth sailing -- but when things go wrong (and they will), it doesn't make us a 'victim'.

For example, if any of us go into McDonald's (or any such fast food place), and Super Size our Big Mac, Fries, Chicken McNuggets, Strawberry Shake, and (Diet!) Coke, then we shouldn't be too surprised when we start to put on the pounds. And I'm sorry, but it isn't Ronald McDonald's fault. Neither he, nor the Hamburgler, kidnapped us off of the street, with loaded ketchup dispensers in hand, and forced us to go in there, and order what we did. So, please, enough of the 'Ima Victim' lawsuits against the fast food joints for our weight increases, and related medical problems. And btw, we should all have enough sense to know that when we order Hot Coffee or Hot Chocolate, it's gonna be HOT! Well, duh!! Blows me away that some juries actually awarded some McIdiots millions of $$ because they burned themselves drinking/or spilling hot coffee (evidently thinking it was gonna be McGulpable Coffee??). Chaps my hide knowing that some of these people are now set for life, financially, because oooo!, oooo!, the coffee was too hot! Next time, please try ordering from Baby Bear #3, maybe then it will be jussst right! Meanwhile, you & I must work our butts off, and will probably never be as well set up as some of these dufuses are.

So, please! I need to use common sense the next time someone goes on TV or the internet, and spouts off about being held in a cave by a clan of Yeti. Or when someone claims to know where Elvis is 'hiding'.

A little common sense can go a long way. It might not make our life stress free; but I can think of at least one night, long ago, when one scared, little kid would've gotten a peaceful nite's rest. Maybe I can sue the producers of that 'documentary'? Truly, it must've somehow scarred me for life, & caused me mental suffering and damage (as proof, try re-reading some of my earlier blogs). Yes, I can blame it all on bigfoot, or a retired Pepsi salesman.