Somewhere in the Skies - UFOs, Owls, and Synchronicities with Mike Clelland (SITS CLASSIC)

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

In this Somewhere in the Skies classic, Ryan revisits a fascinating conversation with author and researcher, Mike Clelland, about his influential book, The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity, and the UFO Abductee. Drawing from countless firsthand accounts, Clelland explores the mysterious connection between owls and UFO encounters, uncovering patterns that challenge conventional explanations. The conversation delves into the strange overlap between alien contact experiences, synchronicities, dreams, archetypes, spiritual transformation, and even death. Blending folklore, personal testimony, and his own experiences, Clelland examines the possibility that owls play a profound and symbolic role in some of humanity’s most extraordinary encounters with the unknown. Buy the book: https://a.co/d/0d402jip Use promo code: SOMEWHERE15 for 15% OFF Anomalous Cards: https://www.letsgetanomalous.com/ Send us a voicemail with questions, comments, or topic suggestions: https://www.speakpipe.com/SomewhereSkiesPod Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All socials and books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Follow Suzanne on X: https://x.com/csuzannelanders Email: [e-mail] Opening theme song by Septembryo Closing song by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #Owls #Owl #synchronicity #alien #alienabduction #UFOs #UFOlogy #UAP #Paranormal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's been a horrible accident, I said hastily. I don't know what happened. Corcoran's eyeless skull gawked. His lower jaw having sagged more since I first found him, making it look like his corpse was trying to scream. His body is just a casing to be discarded, the man said softly. What's important is that you will not deny him burial

in the method we prepared for him. We're his protectors. Stop us from doing his will and you'll be harmed. His transition has come and we are ready. Go back in the house. No one needs to know. Knife Point Horror. Tales of supernatural suspense written,

produced and narrated by Soren Narnia. Now transmitting from Spector Vision Radio, anywhere you hear podcast. Rises knows a thing or two about great combinations. Chocolate and peanut butter, obviously. But there's more than one way to Rises. From indulgent Riesces Big Cups with caramel to crunchy Rieces pieces and Riesce's miniatures,

there's a delicious Rises for every mood. It's the same combo you love, just with more ways to enjoy it. So whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating yourself, nothing else is Rises. Spectrevision Radio. While our government's official position,

is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other possibilities, to use our imaginations. For if we consider that astro-scientists agree on one point that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some field is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. This is somewhere in the sky. with Ryan Sprague.

Welcome to another episode of Somewhere in the Sky's Classics. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. The UFO subject has always had a way of resisting the boxes that we try to put them in. Just when we think we're getting closer to answers through new investigations, declassified records, public testimony, congressional hearings, all of that stuff, were reminded that some aspects of the mystery remain deeply bizarre. are and profoundly personal. Certain patterns continue to surface across decades of reports.

Patterns that don't quite fit neatly into discussions about technology, national security, or even extraterrestrial visitation. They instead point towards something more elusive, something that seems intertwined with consciousness, symbolism, and the human experience itself. That's why I want to revisit this conversation. with Mike Cleland. Throughout the years, Mike Cleland has become a very close friend for me. And for any of you who follow my work, you know that I have an entire chapter in my book

somewhere in the skies dedicated to Mike Cleland and his experiences. In fact, I would spend an entire weekend at Mike's remote cabin in the woods with a whole group of UFO abductees. That was an experience that I'm not going to get in here. If you want to know the whole story, you got to read the book. But back to Mike himself. Mike has always really intrigued me because his work explores one of these strangest and most overlooked patterns in UFO research. The appearance of owls in connection with extraordinary experiences.

Whether you view it as symbolism, synchronicity, or something far more mysterious. This whole owl thing invites us to ask bigger questions about the nature of the nature of, of the phenomenon itself. As we move into an era focused on evidence, transparency, and official acknowledgement, this interview serves as a reminder that some of the most important clues may still be found in the human experience. So, whether you're hearing this conversation for the very first time or returning to it with fresh ears and eyes, I hope it inspires you to look beyond the headlines. And consider what the UFO mystery might be asking us to pay attention to in the years and decades ahead. Before we get to the interview, I'm going to ask one favor from you guys.

Please take just a few moments to rate and review somewhere in the skies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get the show. It truly helps us gain visibility, find new listeners, and find more curious minds. And if you'd like to help support us further, There are links to our Patreon campaign, our Buy Me a Coffee, our YouTube membership, our Apple Premium membership, and all of these different ways that you can help support our work. There are so many unforeseen costs that go into producing a podcast, a live stream, and all of the work we do at Summer in the Skies. So your support truly does make a difference. Thank you in advance. But without further ado, let's get to this fascinating conversation about owls,

synchronicity and UFOs with author and UFO researcher Mike Glowland. Mike, thanks so much for joining us today. You're very welcome. When I first heard about your work, obviously everyone considers you the owl guy. You Google your name, you type an owl or UFO, and you are the first thing that always pops up. And I don't see that changing any time soon. So let's start with owls, not in the UFO or abduct. sense, but owls in general, these creatures, they've taken on many, you know, mythic

symbology throughout history. You once stated, seen through the darkness to bring messages. Could you sort of give us a brief history of the owl throughout different cultures? Well, that's easier said than done. The owl is, I mean, just by its very nature, an owl is intense, right? I mean, a real owl is intense, especially the big owls. Little owls tend to be sort of cute and adorable, but the big ones tend to be sort of spooky and threatening. So, you know, we're dealing with an animal that has a presence.

People recognize that I'm convinced that the cave dwellers of our ancient ancestors, if they walked out and saw an owl, would have the same visceral reaction that we do now, which is one of, I almost want to say, say, I mean, there's something you know, threatening about an owl. They're not, I mean, they have these huge eyes and they have this eerie stare and I think that just translates into something that

taps into us at a deep level. So that's sort of the starting point. You know, just straight up owls are intense looking. The mythologies of the owl, I mean, if you that's all over the map, right?

I mean, it's a great big globe. and there's owls everywhere. You know, it's, you know, the Eskimos have owls, and they have owls down in the jungles of Peru. So we all have, you know, we being, you know, the world's culture. Collectively, we all have these owl stories that stretch back forever. Now, what we're dealing with is trying to, like, pick out the main thread that seems to connect all these. So the owls are capable of, you know, what can only be called magic in some sense.

Obviously, it's just physiology. It's their big eyes and their soft feathers. But they can see into the night. They can see into the darkness. Astoundingly well. I've done a bunch of research on this. And they, you know, so they have nocturnal vision. And they also have silent flight in a way that is, you know, quite eerie when you see an owl flying.

So they are You know that that ability to see into the darkness very quickly translates to Traveling into other realms this becomes a metaphor You know they travel into the darkness And then they And then they would return The ancient myths would be they would return with a message If the shaman has any totem animal it would be the owl

And that's perfect because what the the shaman would do would be to, you know, go through some sort of ritual and then the shaman would travel to another realm. That ritual might be meditating or rhythmic dancing or taking some sort of psychedelic mushroom or something. But the shaman would, you know, travel to another realm metaphorically. Obviously, they're just sitting in their hut when they do it or wherever they are. And then they would return with a message. That's the symbology of the owl in a very simple way. You know, what that message might be, that's up for debate.

That can be interpreted in any number of ways. But the owl itself as a physical being, you know, is connected to these ancient lores. And I feel strongly that these ancient lores are acting out present day. And when I was working on the book, people would ask me, so, you know, what have you been working on? lately and I'm like well I got this book project oh what's it on oh well it's about owls hmm that's interesting what about owls and then I would have to size the person up right kind of check them out and I go okay do I drop the UFO bomb and I was usually said oh you know it's about it's a book about owl mythology which I feel was honest and and they'd go that's interesting

and then they'd kind of want to hear a little more about that so I might the case I would argue in that very cautious form without introducing the UFO weirdness was that the the owl is performing the same role present day that it performed for ancient man and that what I'm collecting, I mean, you're holding the book in your hand or it's there nearby, I suspect. I mean, in many ways,

that book is just a collection of one story after another after another of people who have had these strange owl experiences. And I feel all those people are being genuine and my sense is that people throughout the millennia, People throughout all history have had odd owl experiences. And the lore, the mythos, emerged from those direct experiences.

So that's, I sort of argue that, you know, what's taking place present day has been with us since the dawn of time. Right, right. And you mentioned, you know, the owl experiences throughout time. You sort of describe this, not so much as finding a pattern, but that it was, I believe it was in your intro, you mentioned it's more of a mood or a vibe. Could you sort of elaborate on that a little bit of what it means to you? Well, yeah, I mean, so, you know, like if this is owls or UFOs, we're still done owls? We're doing owls. Okay, we'll definitely go deep into UFOs.

You know, like, I feel like I'm an artist and an illustrator rather than a scientist or a scientist or, a academic, right? So I'm working off my gut, you know, so you hear two stories back to back, right? And, you know, like I'm tapping into the, right, the mood of these stories. You know, the story might not be the same exact story, but it has that similar vibe. I mean, I often refer back to the campfire story, like the Erie Campfire story. You know, often those stories don't have an ending, you know, they're just meant to be evocative of a mood. And I find that the owl experiences, especially, you know, so owls show up at the point of death. People see owls at funerals.

People will have an owl land on their window and then find out that, you know, a sibling or a family member or a parent died at that at that moment that the owl was there shortly after. So owls are, you know, on a very, that is very common, the death imagery and the, the, the connection. with the passing on, especially of a loved one. So, and that's right interwoven into the mystique and folklore and mythology of the owls. So, you know, you might hear two stories and an academic may say, well, you know, I put this on the spreadsheet and I check this box here and I check this box here and you look at the columns, they don't line up, so they're not the same story. You know, I don't know why you're comparing and contrasting these two stories.

I'm like, no, no, but these stories have a similar tenor, you know, there's a flavor to them. It's like saying, you know, how to, you know, like two forms of music might come from, you know, two different sections of the, of the record store. But, you know, there's a similarity to the music. And that's not up to a, you don't have to catalog that and dissect it with the eyes of the scientist. You sort of have to step back and do it at an intuitive level. Yeah, I mean, relating to that, You mentioned in the book about the allure of vowels in cinema or media, and I know you and I on occasion have contacted one another

when we've seen owls in movies or in the background of things. What do you think this means in terms of the way art or, I guess, Hollywood or show business, what does it mean to them when you see these symbols in the movies? Or does it take on many different forms? well you know I mean that's I mean that's you have a haunted house movie right and then you know the person approaches the haunted house and there's an owl hooting in the distance right you just hear the hair down the soundtrack it's you know there's no one had to plan that out you know it wasn't like a conspiracy of of people trying to indoctrinate you know the populace that was just the guy in the editing room who went and got a stock bit of audio footage or audio of an owl hooting and just overlaid it into the movie Now, that's, so this is happening. It was 20th century, 21st century. You know, owls are showing up in spooky, you know, like little kids have, you know, owl decorations that show up in their elementary school, thumbtack to the Bolton board on Halloween.

You know, this is happening present day. Now, you go back. I mean, the Bible has owls in it. And I've carefully looked at those and tried to pull out the symbology of those owls. And it's a little murky, you know, like I don't sense any deeper meaning. It seems to have the same meaning as the, you know, owl in the haunted house movie. It just, there's a great owl cameo in the bride of Frankenstein, you know, early on in the film. There's this owl shows up and it just flies into the scene and sits on a little, it's in a barn or like a basement of an old mill.

And it's right before a woman dies, you know, she gets. And so it, you know, there it is. There's the haunted house movie. There's the death symbology. It's like meant to be a like a set piece in a spooky, you know, in a spooky bit of entertainment, you know. And it plays that way in the Bible, too, where these owls show up. They don't really, they're not really there symbolizing anything. They're not really key to the story.

They're sort of used as a set piece. People will talk about how bear in the desert is. And they say it's a place of owls, which is, you know, that's like how spooky the forest is. It's a place of owls. That's the haunted house version. So, you know, I think that, so this is over 2,000 years, this is, the owl has had the same lore. Right. And I think that, I think that the darkness meant a whole, that meant something totally different in the era before the electric light.

Yeah. Well, in terms of your research of the owl experiences, Mike, this is a question from one of our listeners, actually. Have you noticed any specific type of owl that seems. to be most prominent when these experiences come up, whether it be synchronistic or UFO-related or just owls, like you mentioned earlier, in general. Well, I mean, not really. You know, I mean, what's, you know, I mean, so there's a,

I mean, obviously it depends on where you are. You know, you're not going to see a snowy owl if you live in Florida. Exactly. And you're not going to see, you know, a, you know, a bard owl if you live in, in Arizona. So there's these, these, you know, You know, so you're locked into the location. You know, like I'm like, I've sort of given up in a way.

Like, you know, I'm, you know, people seeing, you know, owls at an appropriate time on a t-shirt or like at a prescient moment on a TV ad, you know, like I actually factor those kind of things in, too. So, yeah, so there's no specific owl. Obviously, the most iconic owl would be the great horned owl, and that's a North American owl. That's simply that owl doesn't exist over in Europe. they have a different owl that's the Eurasian eagle owl, which is essentially the same thing as the, as the, um, a bigger though, as our, uh, uh, a great horned owl. So, you know, we're dealing with, um, I don't know. I mean, just this, the, the, the chance how to, you know, like whatever the, the, the universe is offering up something, you know, the universe is setting something in someone's path and, and, and, you know, tiny little owls show up, too, you know, you know, know, these little owls, there's some, a lot of owls are very small, which, you know, most people don't realize. And the smaller the owl, the less likely you will see them, because the more likely they are to come out only at night. So, you know, people won't see a saw-wet owl. They might see a great gray owl because those are the ones that will come out at dusk and dawn.

And people might actually get a glimpse of them. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, we'll talk about the size of owls a little bit later because we have a lot to talk about in terms of that. What, now Mike, I know you've had some extremely powerful experiences, sort of a one defining moment of just, you know, a profound experience with several different owls appearing all at once. What is the owl alarm clock that you describe in the book? Because I know this was sort of an awakening for you. what does this term mean to you? The owl alarm clock. Well, the owl as alarm clock would be, you know, that's just, you know, like people say like, well, you know, what does owl mean?

You know, and I kind of have to have an answer, right? I can't kind of just brush them off and say, oh, I don't know, which I don't know, really. I mean, I, I, and but what I have found is there's a pattern where the owl shows up at a point. And I've had a handful of people say this, you know, more than a handful. You know, people say that, you know, that they had sort of an awakening experience or the owl set them on a path. And that was certainly true of my case where I saw a bunch of owls. This would have been 2006. I was camping.

Two separate camping events, right? So just only a few days apart. The same mountain range, but not in the same location. And as the sun was setting, you know, me and the person I was camping with, her name is Kristen, we saw three owls at sunset. A few days later, we saw a. The same thing happened. Three owls at sunset. I'm convinced her the same three owls,

even though we weren't in the same spot. In that moment, seeing those owls, I had the very clear thought that this has something to do with UFOs. And it was that event. You know, when you get right down, it was not that exciting of an event, right? You know, like, oh, some owls flew around and I landed, which is unusual, very unusual. but it's not like, you know, it's not like the heavens opened up and, you know, the angels, you know, came down or something like that.

I was just, you know, these are normal owls in a setting where owls, you know, were certainly around. But the impact it had on me was really profound. It set me on the journey that I'm on now, the journey that created that book and the journey that I'm, that I'm, you know, still continuing as I talk to you now and I'd answer letters and talk to other people who have had these experiences. So, I mean, you know, very simply, an alarm clock wakes you up, right? So if someone's asleep, you know, just, you know, nudging them may not wake them. And shaking them, you know, may not wake them either. So if someone's really asleep, you send in the owls. And that's kind of my sense.

And it would have to be for a specific reason. Like, it seems like the owls are connected to something. And it's a little elusive what they're connected. connected to and they may be one way to look at it is the owl may be the totem of the trans of a transformative process right so the change so from being asleep to being awake would be a change and not in the you know whatever getting up in the morning kind of thing I'm talking at a more deep spiritual level being awake to a deeper reality and and that's that's what the owl resonates for me after after sort of wallowing in this research for all these years

Right, and I know you personally struggled for a long time with several experiences you had involving possible contact with UFO occupants, UFOs in general. And do you, so you sort of consider this event of 2006 with the Owls a culmination of that it's somehow connected. Is that, am I sort of looking at that? I mean, up until that point, I had been completely denying these events. I mean, if I told the events, they sound exactly like what anyone who's ever read a UFO abduction book. You know, the humishing time, seeing aliens in the, you know, out a window in a yard, you know, seeing UFOs close range. You know, so I had these experiences growing up and well into my, one event took place in my 30s or as I was 30 years old. And I managed to just deny all that.

I just push it all away and just ignore it and deny it. But I'll have to say at the same time, that stuff was. bubbling over a little pressure cooker, you know, like the, it was just set on simmer and slowly, slowly, slowly got hotter and hotter. And there came a point when, um, there was sort of a crack in the dam. And that was the, the, the owls were that crack in the dam. And after that, the dam burst. And I, and I set off on my own journey of self-expiration where I really said, you know, like, I'm going to, I'm going to figure this out. I didn't figure it out. Um, I, I'm, um, I'm, uh, just as baffled.

away now as I was at any point along the thing, but I do feel like I'm, I feel like I've got a clearer sense of what, of who I am in all this, in the sense that, you know, it, you know, like I feel that the events that I described and denied, I'm no longer denying. I feel that's really happened and the implication is exactly what they appear to be. Right. A huge stuff for any experience there. I can only imagine. So where in the grand scheme of things does synchronicity play into this, you know, being the second, you know, sort of subtitle of the book?

Could you briefly go over what synchronicity is, where the term sort of came from, and how it leads into the whole owl connection? Well, synchronicity is a term that was coined by Carl Jung, and I think in the 1920s he was coined due to a series of, experiences that he had in conjunction with a physicist named Wolfgang Pauley, the simplest definition of synchronicity would be a coincidence that is meaningful to the observer. And, you know, there's run-of-the-mill coincidences, right? And stuff is going to happen all the time, you know, but there's coincidences that take on a deeper, meaningful aspect. And oftentimes it's very difficult to explain those to people.

It's sort of like explaining a dream, you know, like, oh, my God, this thing happened. And right then this happened. And then you try to explain it. And it's so subjective that people just kind of roll their eyes and can't follow you. And I recognize that that's almost inherent in what a synchronicity might, you know, be. It's meant for the individual. I spoke with a friend of mine. This is going back a few years ago, and I kind of was on my high horse,

and I'd been doing a bunch of research. And it's one of the questions I ask, you know, people who've had the UFO contact experience or UFO abductees or whatever term you want to use, experiencers. I would say, what about synchronicities? Do you have synchronicities in your life? And they usually just roll their eyes. Like, like, it's like, you know, it's like trying to ask a fish if it ever experiences water. So, you know, I said, you know, like, so I said to my friend, I said, you know, people have the UFO contact experience. They have more synchronies. than the normal folks and Joe Normal. She looked at me and she rolled her eyes and she said, you know, anyone on a spiritual path will have more synchronicities. And immediately I recognized she was right.

And, you know, the next step, the next, you know, if that's the case, then UFO abduction is a spiritual path. And so I kind of equate UFO abduction as a spiritual path. UFO abduction as a spiritual path. I mean, you know, earlier I said the owl is the totem animal of the transformative experience.

And, you mean, you know, transformative experience can be a shamanic initiation. It can be, a powerful meditation. It can be a near-death experience. It can be death itself.

I mean, and I also will argue that, you know, the UFO contact experience is transformative by its nature, by its intent. It is, it transforms the individual.

Not right away, maybe over decades. maybe over a lifetime, but the individual will be transformed. And, but this synchronicity would be just, I mean, and it's also, you know, people use that, overuse that word a lot, and I'm sure I do too. You know, sometimes people will say like, oh, my God, I had a dream, and I dreamed in the dream that, that, you know, I was going to see an owl on the ride to work today, and I did see an owl. Isn't that a powerful synchronicity?

And like, well, that's technically not a synchronicity. It's a premonition. So those are different. So synchronicity is when, you know, there's a. a coincidence, you know, so that's not a coincidence. So, you know, so both of those can be powerful and mystical experiences, but they, one's called a premonition and one's called a synchronicity. Now, you had a pretty powerful, I guess coincidence happened in researching synchronicity.

You spoke to Dr. Surprise, and could you give us, you know, sort of the background of how you came to find his work and just exactly what happened when you looked further into his work and found some eerily similar interests. Yeah, it turned into a whole chapter of the book. Yeah. And it was great. It blew me away. I heard him on a podcast.

He had a book. He was promoting a book. Straight up. He'd written a book. He's promoting it. He's doing the podcast scene. You know, he's talking about his book, the title of the book is Synchronicity. His name is Dr. Kirby Surprise, which is a great name.

And, you know, he got a real thoughtful set of ideas about the source of synchronicity. He argues that the observer, the individual, is creating the synchronicity, that we as individuals, our consciousness, our intention, can affect reality. So you take a, you know, in a scientific experiment, you know, someone rolls a dice. right and then they do it a hundred times and then they're trying to create a you know get more one one number series more than another um it should be random right they flip a coin they do it a hundred times

they try to get heads more than tails it should be random it's not what happens is that that people will get you know if they want heads more than tails so get heads more than tails and this has been known in the sciences for nearly a hundred years and nobody wants to like really you know

tackle this one. The implication is that the individual, the guy flipping the coin, is affecting reality. He's affecting the way the coin lands. And the same thing could be said of synchronicity. The individual, according to Dr. Kirby's surprise, I'm a little, I like the magical aspect of it. He says it's welling up from the person. So I call him up, or excuse me, I send him an email and I say, I'm paraphrasing this from memory. It's in the book verbatim from the actual email and I say, listen, I'm doing this research. I've had these UFO experiences. I'm talking to a lot of UFO contact ease and experiencers. And from what I can glean, they're having more, or more synchronicities than the rest of the population. And he gets back to me, says, you know, I've had my drone direct

experience with UFOs. And that's not how it works. And I'm like, wait. a minute. The guy who writes a book about synchronicity says he's had his own UFO experiences and he writes a book about synchronicity and he's kind of proving my point, right, that they're connected. So I kind of like said as much in the follow-up letter and he's kind of like, okay, just get the book, read the book and let's talk. So I got the book. I read the book. And I can't remember what page it's on. It's like on page, you know, 226. So I turn the page, I get to this thing and I scroll down and he's describing how the individual can ask synchronicity, you know, just like, ask of the universe, just ask for synchronicity to present itself and manifest synchronities.

You can just ask, and that's his argument. And so I read on, and this is all very interesting, and he says, I like to make owls. So the guy who has the UFO experience, who writes a book on synchronicities, when he wants to manifest his own synchronities, he creates owl synchronities. I literally dropped out of the chair when he said that. So I get a hold of him and we talk. And now his, now I'm very cautious to how, I mean, so someone has given me permission to tell their stories. So I'm, I need to be, I need to honor that. And his UFO experiences are very interesting.

They're very subtle. They're not, you know, what you would see on a late night, you know, exploitative cable TV documentary. So he's had experiences in his youth. He started meditating when he was nine. and has been actively meditating ever since. And he, in his early 20s, was, and he said it was, he felt like he was in communication with some higher form of intelligence. Presently he feels that's his own intelligence that he was interacting with,

basically interacting with his own higher self. At the time, he didn't think that. At the time, he felt, you know, it must be an outside source. And the only thing that made sense was, you know, aliens on board a flying saucer. So he would go out at night and try to contact these things and little dots in the sky. Little eerie lights would appear. And now he'd have his friends.

He'd say, okay, there's going to be a little dot in the sky. It's going to appear right over there. We're going to have a UFO. And then sure enough, it would happen. He would frighten his friends. And so those were his experiences. Now when I asked into talking with him, you know, he was, he said, listen, you, like I, I describe my life like, oh my God, I'm just immersing myself.

I've just like thrown myself into this owl UFO thing. And it's my own experience. And I'm trying to make sense of it. And I'm wrestling with it. And I'm reaching out to anyone. And he said, listen, you're putting a lot of intention into that. And this is how reality works. Reality will reflect that back.

And you should expect to have synchronicities. You are manifesting synchronicities. And I had to think, like, well, like, did I actually manifest Kirby surprise? I mean, he's the perfect person to like, to bat these ideas around with. And we actually talked on Halloween night of all nights, which is just perfect. So, yeah, so he's a very thoughtful guy, very smart thinker,

and a clinician, at the same time, very mystical in the way he frames these ideas, which was a perfect match for the way I am more comfortable framing these things. So, yeah, so the guy who writes the book about synchronicity, you know, gets his own chapter in my book on UFOs and owls. And, I mean, obviously, I can't paraphrase to the entire chapter, but his ideas and his very thoughtful outlook, you know, helped me a lot along my way in this journey. Wow. Yeah, that was, that chapter struck me more than most and really put the synchronicity at the forefront and sort of delineating between coincidence and synchronicity. excuse me, synchronicity and manifesting that. So, yeah, very, very interesting.

Mike, I want to sort of move into the most, I guess, controversial and powerful part of your book, the UFO and the abductee. Now, I do want to dive into screen memory a little bit, but before we get there, I want to go into UFOs and owls in general. Now, you have many people in your, book who have experienced this, whether it was the UFO first and then owl or owl and then

UFO. Could you briefly touch on that? The physical, you know, tangible reality of the UFO and the owl. I wish I could sum us up succinctly. There was someone at a conference and she kind of said, like, you know, I saw your talk and was called UFOs and owls. I had no idea what you were going to go. This didn't make any sense to me. She had no idea what she was getting into. And then afterwards she said, oh, you did a nice job of summing it up. And it's like, well, it took me like two hours. But so there is no easy answer. So what I have, so after my experience in 2006, started looking into this.

I just got shameless. I would just pick up the phone and call people and people who had contact experiences. I would just figure out a way to get a hold of them and talk to them. And now, one of the questions I asked, everyone, like everyone, researcher, you know, like, have you ever had any odd experiences with owls? Now, it's not 100%, but it's enough that there's a defined, palpable pattern that shows up. So I asked the question, have you ever had any odd experiences with owls? I'll say, you know, it's funny you should ask.

No one's ever asked that before. And I did have this really strange experience. And, you know, sometimes it's as subtle as, um, as a woman. named Nadine LaLeach, and she's an abductee, very outspoken and clear about her experiences, very level-headed. She's a great, she's a great

spokesman for the whole cause. So she said, you know, that's funny you should ask. No one's really asked me that, but there was a time when I was living in this apartment and she could just tell, she was kind of like, well, this is odd. I was living in this apartment, and it was right at the time I was having a lot of

contact experiences, and there was always an owl outside the house and outside the window and I would come home from work and there'd be an owl. I mean, a big owl would be right on the branch right by the door when I came home. And that shows up, you know, like, oh, the owl would like, you know, I'd get up in the morning. The owl would be on the branch and I'd come home from work and the all would be on the branch staring at me. So that happens in the lives of abductees. There's another guy, Ron Johnson, who has stories like that. Another way would be that one of the first people that contacted me in this whole research was this guy, Derek. And he said, yeah, you know, I was camping in the desert and looked up at this cactus, and there was an owl.

Both me and my friend, we were lying there looking up at the stars, and it startled us. Really eerie, right? Owl looking down at you, you're lying in your back in the desert sand and looking up at this owl and beautiful stars behind it. And it's like, well, you know, it's like, and I know just what he means. It is eerie. And the owl flies off. Moments later, a triangle UFO floats past them very silently and it's hugging the natural terrain of the landscape and this very eerie way there in this canyon. And I met him and he mimicked this, this, this flight pattern.

And it was really, you know, so you could see he was kind of gritting his teeth as he was telling the story. This was a, you know, weird, powerful event. So owls and UFOs show up side by side. As you said, sometimes the UFO will show up first. Sometimes the owl show up first. These are real owls we're talking about. These aren't the screen memory aspect, which we can get into it a little bit. So, yeah, so why I don't know, you know, like I spend, I wrestle.

through the entire book trying to come up with the why. I still don't. You know, I think I type why owls question mark a full sentence, you know, 10 times throughout the book. And I never quite, you know, I dance around it and speculate a little bit on what it might mean. But, you know, hard to know, hard to know. But my sense, my very strong sense, it sees are intimately connected in some way. You know, there's a lot of UFO books out there, you know, books have been around for, you know, 30 years. and you can go and go through those pages and, you know, a big thick book might have a paragraph or two on owls

and I made an effort to dig up and look back at a lot of those and, you know, they're telling these odd little stories just like I just told. And so the seeds were there. Like I didn't invent this subject. I mean, it was already there. And I just, you know, I just dug a little deeper

and put it all in one book. But, yeah, again, I, I don't know the reason. I can say with great conviction that there is a connection. I don't know what it is. Yeah, I mean, and you make very, you know, startling connections between, you know, a silent bird in flight and a silent object in flight, whether it's triangular, saucer shaped. So that was very interesting. And I know what else happens a lot.

I'll do it. I'll probably do it before the dog is up. Yeah. Is, I mean, they're both three letters. I cannot tell you how many times I typed them wrong. You know, you're working on this book, and I wanted to type owl and I would type UFO, right? Interchangeable. Yeah, I mean, it's like it was just interchangeable in a way that they became, they blurred together, yeah.

That's very interesting. I never even thought about that one. Well, yeah, you say, you know, throughout UFO literature, there's always that one or two paragraph and you sort of brush past it. But I know that one individual in particular was the first to comment on your blog about that. would you mind telling us a little bit about that one of the preeminent writers on the UF you're talking about Whitley abductee yeah literature Whitley Streber yes

yeah okay so Whitley this is interesting so I just spoke with Whitley on he did it he was interviewed on his show and oh my God he was so complimentary I was a little bit like whatever someone said he could hear me blushing over the over the but um

so his he had an so if you get the book the most important abduction book in the history of the subject is communion hands down. You know, some people, and whether there's all kinds of, whatever, people, some people don't buy it and some people are like, anyway, so I trust the guy. He said, if anything is his problem, if anything's working against Whitley Streepard, his own skill at writing. He writes so beautifully that you're holding this book in your hand. It's like, is this fiction? Is this real? It's like, it's so, I mean,

he's like he's a he's a you know uh on a scale of he's an a plus writer in a field that doesn't have that very often so um uh very early on the book he has he describes what we would now just call a nighttime bedroom visitation in abductions maybe he doesn't like he doesn't use that word um i do i just use it just because that's the vocabulary word we're we're saddled with you know i don't like it but that's the one that gets used a lot and i'm so i'll just So he describes a bedroom visitation on the day after Christmas in 1985. The next morning, he actually felt there was an owl flying around the house. There was an owl in the house, which seemed impossible.

His wife was like, there wasn't any owl in the house last night. All the windows are closed. It's wintertime. And then he said, so the only thing it could be was the owl out the window. And it would have come through that window. I know it. And they went over to the window. and he looked and there was fresh snow

and there was no footprints on the windowsill or on the, you know, so the snow had fallen a few days before so if there was an owl on that window cell there should have been some evidence and there wasn't. And when he saw that, he knew something far stranger had occurred than just a physical owl.

So somehow this memory of an owl was implanted in his mind and that in research circles is referred to as the screen memory which is bandied about and is very commonplace and what will happen is people will tell stories of driving down a lonely road at night and they turn a corner and there's a great big tall,

four foot tall owl standing in the middle of the road and they'll pull their car right up to it and the owl will be above the hood of the car staring in at their windshield. Now there's no such a child. thing is a four foot tall owl. They don't get that tall. There's no, there's no, there's no owl in the world that could stand on the road, no matter how small your car is, and then stare over the hood at you. So they're seeing something else. The implication being

that they're seeing a gray alien that has somehow used a psychic projection, some sort of hypnotic mask. And then they, they, they, they, the, the observer, quite probably the abductee doesn't see a gray alien with big black eyes they see an owl with big penetrating eyes and that shows up in the literature over and over again

I did a chapter on screen memories and I actually tried to I did it early in the book and I wanted to get past it because once you wrap your mind around what the screen memory might be and how it's used what I was more interested in

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Plus, that signature, wait, for this price? Moment. Old Navy's drapeed denim wide leg. No, and you said, Mike, I mean, you know, being that it may be a, quote-unquote, fallible screen memory that the biggest owls often get to what? Two, three feet, maybe? Well, if you look at a straight, in reality. Straight Google research is 33 inches, the biggest owl I've ever found written in, you know, in, you know, in, you know,

a size, 33 inches, and that's, that's, uh, in flight, nose to tail. So that's not standing.

Okay. Um, so it'd be a little shorter than that. So, I mean, if you're seeing an owl, if you see an owl, a little over one foot tall in North America,

you're seeing a big owl. And there's only one owl that's that can get that big and that you have to to be in pretty far north to see an owl that big. And that would be the great gray owl. Um, and that, uh, you know,

I mean, that's not going to be that big. Mm-hmm. In no way could it be. four foot tall. You know, I mean, maybe if off in the distance, you might, you know, how do accurately perceive what it might be?

So, you know, there's a two and a half foot tall maybe, but, yeah, very, very difficult to, to, you know, so what's interesting is that people will see these tall owls, these four foot tall owls, and then just dismiss them. Like, oh, yeah, I saw four, four tall owl. And then they'll say it as casually as that. And then, like, they'll recognize there's something odd in there.

I made a cardboard owl that was four foot tall. Let me tell you. I remember. Oh, that's right. You've actually held it. Yeah, you stood right next to it. Yeah, you stand next to this thing, and there's no way that you could mistake. There's no way that could be real.

Right. So owls are, you know, I mean, owls are, I mean, their hawks are bigger than owls and things like that. So eagles are bigger than owls. And there's, so. Yeah, I mean, sort of bringing it back around your blog. Hidden Experience.blog spot you wrote about the owl and the

UFO abductee and out of nowhere Mr. Streber was the first to comment on the blog. I mean that's pretty powerful. You know this is it's very interesting yeah so the very first day of the blog's incarnation I put three stories up. One of the stories was

the uh it was titled Owls at sunset you can just scroll back right to the very beginning to the blog and there's the very first day which is March good God It's got to be right around the deck. Right around, I think it was March 5th or something like that's right around here. So it's seven years now. It's 2006.

That was 2009 or 2016 and now it's 2009. Yeah. Wow, seven years of the blog's incarnation. Congratulations. Yeah, oh my gosh. Lucky number setting. Yeah. So, yeah, so the very first day,

Whitley Streeper commented, I found out afterwards there was Mack Tony's, a researcher out of St. Louis, a friend of mine who was on Twitter at the time and somehow he had gotten on the shared Twitter feed with Whitley and then he had

commented that, oh, there's this cool set of articles. And so Whitley read the Owls at Sunset thing and commented it on the very first day which is bizarre, right? I mean, you know, you start a blog and then like it's the very, very first day.

That's the, you know, so I remember and his comment was sort of it was actually poetic and cryptic and I actually and I've Whitney had a chat room thing that he used to do on Wednesday nights

on this subscriber site and I would going to go in the chat room and he I think is capable of just zipping off like a three sentence little reply that is so heavy and laden with deep meaning

and I think he just does that I don't think he can help it, you know? Yeah. I think he's when he's in the toothpaste aisle trying to pick out, you know, like which toothpaste to get, he's probably, you know, it's probably equally as laden with with deep meaning. And, you know, when he has the conversation with the, you know, the checkout girl about, you know, like, you know, does he want paper or plastic?

You know, he's probably equally as powerful as a communicator. But, yeah, so he made a comment about, you know, God and owls coming in threes and in a deeper meaning and being surrendered to God. And it comes across as a very poetic, and I included that in the book, too. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, sort of tying it back to just the UFO experience in specific, Mike, you refer to Joe Manteldo, UFO researcher, who claims that UFO sightings can often be a trigger to other events, having happened to a witness.

Now, do you necessarily agree with this? If so, what do you think that means? You know, what is, is one event a trigger to past events, I guess? Well, you know, I mean, like, so the way Joe Montelto argues this is that, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the owl is there as a marker. Okay. Right. So, so the owl is marking the occasion. And so if you have a, an event, right, you're driving down the road at night.

and then suddenly, you know, something weird happens. We see a great big owl. And then, you know, the, you know, later you might use that owl. It's like, you know, there was that night I saw the owl. There was something unusual about that night. You may, that may be the starting point for your own self-examination. Now, so he says that these, he basically, he basically argues that, like, he says, E.T. doesn't need to make himself known, right?

He can do everything using complete stealth. The flying saucers can be completely cloaked and no one ever needs to see him. The techniques of mind control and erasing someone's memory can be so perfect and so streamlined and so complete that no one ever needs to see the aliens. So if they're being seen, it is because they want to be seen. Now, I don't know if that's necessarily true or not, but that's his argument. So his sense is if we're remembering an owl, people are seeing an owl and remembering an owl, it is happening for a reason. They want that memory to be in place for some reason. He senses to trigger a later form of examination, self-examination, or as a marker of like the point when an event may have occurred.

Interesting. Now, would this connect to what you consider the maybe people? Well, the maybe people is it's actually sort of a, so, you know, you talk to these folks, you know, you're like, oh, God, so what happened? Well, I was out, you know, I was like, you know, camping in the desert. And I saw this, this owl. And then I saw this UFO and then the UFO flow over. And like, it's like, okay, well, that's interesting. And then you kind of listen to their story.

It's like, what do you think you've ever had, do you think you've ever been abducted? and I'll say, I'll ask it straight out and they'll say, oh no, nope, never been abducted. Not me, never happened. Then you'll talk to them for a little while and they'll have other odd stories. They'll say, you know, I had a spiritual awakening or they'll say, you know, I had these vivid dreams that played out like contact events.

Now, none of that is proof, right? So I can't, so my sense is that there's a, there's a lesser tear on the last, one run down from abductee. People are still influenced, seemingly influenced by some outside force, but they don't have that pop culture experience of being taken on board a flying saucer and put on the table. You know, that may never have happened. But still, these people are out there.

They're playing a role. And they talk to these people deeper. And they're like, what do you do? I'm a reiki therapist. Or, you know, they do. Or like, oh, I'm an artist. You know, they have these. oh, you know, there's these things that seem to show up in the research.

And for some reason, I don't know, maybe it's just me that I'm like drawing these people in. But the Reiki therapy thing is out of control. I mean, it feels like, you know, half the people I talk to are Reiki therapists who've had these experiences. So, so that maybe people are that, like, like, if someone doesn't say there, if someone said, like, if they don't say they're a UFO abductee, it ain't my job to call them that, you know. Like, that's up to them. and I might suspect as much and I would even argue that some percentage, perhaps a high percentage of the people

in the book that I call maybe people are actually experiencers, abductees that simply don't remember their contact experience but without doing the proper research and without I mean I would just how would you prove that you can't you know? So I'm left with this sense that there's a there's a there's a there's a there's a a lesser rung in the ladder but still these people are are they've experienced something no i knew you personally haven't chosen to take the hypnotic regression approved oh i have i've tried it a few times you have okay oh yeah yeah three times i've tried it on for for the contact experience stuff and and each time um unsuccessful once with leo sprinkles

once with Barbara Lamb and once with Bud Hopkins. Wow. Now, do you see this as a viable option for many experiencers? Do you think it is of value and actually works to, you know, bring these experiences forward? I guess what I'm asking is. Do you see it as a healthy way of dealing with these experiences? You know, my sense is you should probably exhaust other avenues first. Okay.

Before jumping on the hypnotherapist couch. You know, I also, like, I talk to people all the time. I talk to people all the time. And I bet you it is like 1% of the people I talk to have actually been through hypnotic regression for this type of thing. And that's, you know, that's contrary to what the popular culture is. They think that everyone, you know, oh, the only reason you can ever, you know, there's people who would argue. with Jeff Ritzman and Jeremy Vaney would argue that it's the, you know, the hypnotherapists who've, who've polluted the pool and, you know, given all these stories, in my sense is, you know, like, we don't need, I mean, like, there's plenty of evidence out there. People have remembered all kinds of things without hypnosis. Right.

I know Kathleen Martin's done a lot of research into that, you know. Yeah, people. So that's even, Bud Hopkins kind of rolled his eyes and said, you know, a lot of people show up my office, you know, they don't. hate hypnosis. They've got all kinds of conscious memory. We don't need to prove anything. Yeah. So, so it's a tool, I guess it can be used prudently and, you know, can be used irresponsibly. You know, that's

a subjective argument, you know, like, which is, you know, on the continuum, you know, like one end is a responsible hypnotherapy and one end is irresponsible hypnotherapy. I mean, where in the line does it fall, you know? I mean, you know, every case is different. Every individual is different. Every, you know, person trying to make a judgment call is going to be different. So,

sure, I bet you there's been some sloppy things taking place. I bet you, you know, I've talked to a lot of people who've gone through hypnotherapy and then you ask them like, well, how was it? You know, like, and they say, I didn't believe it. Didn't buy it. I've run across that many times myself, yeah. And that doesn't make it into the literature, you know, like, that seems like, you know, there's this illusion that you have this hypnotherapy thing and you're all of a sudden

you're like, there's this like little, you know, the magic wand gets the zap of your head and there's this like Disney ping noise and all of a sudden you have all your memories back. And it didn't work that way. Exactly. So, yeah, I would do it. In fact, there's going to be a day when I'll probably give, you know, give into it. And quite honestly, like, some of the events that I had were really scary. Since then, I've had a couple other events that weren't as scary.

And so they don't have the big, like, it's a little easier to like, oh, I'll just investigate that. That one, because it's not as scary. That one over there that happened at night. It was super spooky. And, like, yeah, yeah, it freaked me out. And it haunted me for years. And then I had this other thing back in March of 2013. And it's like, you know, that was kind of nice.

kind of pleasant. You know, doesn't have any, there's no associated baggage to that one, you know, I don't have any, so, yeah,

yeah, it's hard. I, I spoke to a woman a week ago, who had an initial experience, and she thought it was the only one. And, you know,

she came to me a week later, and she's struggling to make a decision with her husband, you know, I, I want to, I want to go under. I want to sort of find out what happened. She has glimpses of a second,

can experience, but she's terrified to find out what it might be. So again, when these things become deeply traumatic, every hypnotherapist I've spoken to who deal with abductees are experiencers, they all say the same thing. Look, if you're having a traumatic experience, seek actual therapy first or find what works for you. If not, we're here to talk to you. So like you said, there's not this magic wand that brings everything to the surface. Every hypnotherapist I've spoken to is very responsible and they look out for the person first and foremost. So as long as you're smart about it, I think, yeah, I think it's definitely a viable option. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I went through hypnotherapy session where it was a past life regression. It was very therapeutic. Very

therapeutic for some like emotional issues that, you know, may or may not be tied into this, this other stuff. But, you know, it was just this, this story emerged of a life that I lived in the 1920s or the 19 teens. It was hard to pinpoint exactly. And, you know, and it was, like, died under crappy circumstances. And, you know, maybe the baggage from that previous life is, like, kind of lingering and causing problems in this life. That said, you know, like, I don't know if it actually happened. I do know that it was very therapeutic to go through the process of examining this set of hypnotically induced memories.

They may, are they real memories from previous life? I have no idea. What I can say is that the result of the procedure was powerfully therapeutic. Now, while lying there on the, this is in the hypnotherapist, her name is Lorraine Flaherty, and she's out of London while sitting there on her like recliner couch thing there. And, you know, she addressed the UFO stuff. She said, okay, and we're going to talk about the UFO thing now. And I'm like, okay.

It's like, so, you know, what's, what, what, what, what does your higher self need to tell you? That's how she, that's how she, that's how she said, like, my answer was, this is real. This is really happening. It really happened. It's like, okay. Now, if you could ask the, like, you know, and why is this happening? And my response was, because it's important. And it was this little kind of thing where she would say, and why are they doing this?

why are they taking you? Because they have to. You know, it wasn't, you know, so that my sense is that whatever's going on and I'm whatever, like I could have been making this up or I don't know, so I don't have complete trust in it, you know, but it was, you know, it painted something, you know,

it wasn't like, you know, they're taking my sperm to make hybrids, you know, that kind of thing. It did, that's not the answer I gave. The answer I gave was, you know, why are they here? The answer was it's important. So I do recognize that there's a, there's something. heavy about this experience.

Right. And it's, you know, the continuing of the journey, you know, to find those answers, I would assume. I know, like, you had an experience outside your bedroom window with the, quote, unquote, graze. I wanted to ask you, because I know throughout the book you also spoke to others who have come into contact with the grays, and they have this sense of maybe the Oz Factor, or some sense of, okay, I'm shutting down. You know, what do you perceive this as, you know, this calmness that comes over in such a not calm moment, as it were? Well, yeah, so I had a experience.

This would have been in the winter of 92, 93, January, February, 93. I was living in rural Maine. I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a bright light shining in the bedroom window. I sat up in bed. the window and there were five spindly gray aliens walking towards the house and they were backlit by this bright light. Now, you know, that's frightening, right? I should have freaked out. I should have got up. I should have locked the door. I should have grabbed a baseball bat. But I didn't. I heard

this calm voice in my head say, oh, yes, they're here. Now is the time to put your head in the pillow and shut down. And that's exactly what I did. I mean, I probably saw this for 30 seconds. But But the associated with that was a weird sense. It was, it's accurate to say it was dreamlike. It's not accurate to say it was to dream. It was very vivid. Just sort of heading the fishbow quality to the thing. Very clear, very quiet.

And this is reported in close-up UFO sightings, this quietness. People don't say the UFO was quiet. They say everything was quiet. They say the birds chirping and the crickets, you know, were quiet. The leaves rustling were quiet. There was no traffic noise coming from the road nearby. You know, so they're not describing a silent craft. There's describing an alternate, you know, a reality, somehow reality itself is altered.

And there's this eerie stillness that's associated with these things. And in an eerie stillness would be an accurate way to describe what, you know, what I felt. there's a woman her name is Bridget Barkley she lives in uh she's a she's an experienceer from England and I had a conversation with her and said like well why would you describe this and she said you know I um I don't even think I said would you how would you describe what we're talking about you know this she's had some close up experiences and she said you know you take two magnets and you click together right and then you pull them apart and you twist them around so their polarities are opposite and there's this kind of you know you try to push them together and there's kind of this

warbling. I'm doing it with my hands right now. You can't see, obviously, but I'm pushing my hands together, and they're kind of warbling a little bit, and they can't quite click together. And there's this kind of undulating, distorted energy that's between the magnets, right? You know exactly what I'm saying, right? So she says, being close to the UFO is like being in between those magnets. And when she said that, I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I know, I know, you know I have experienced the same thing. That's perfect. That's perfect. Perfect. Now, I've had that same experience four times total. Oh, wow. So in all of those were related to other experiences that, that were connected to UFOs. One of them was a dream.

And then the, so I was quick, you know, at the time in 2000 and, excuse me, 1993, and that winter, the next morning, I just got up and said, oh, God, I had a vivid dream. Like, who, never even bothered to go out and look in the snow to see if there's any footprints. Why would I? It was impossible. It couldn't have happened. But I'll tell you the dream. So the dream, which I didn't put in the book, but I've written about it.

And I did a little drawing of it too. So it's totally a dream. It's a dream. It's not like, don't think it's anything else. And I feel like the dream was somehow projected into my psyche, like it was stage managed from some outside source. I feel this very strongly. I visiting my brother

my brother says hey you know like I'm doing this government work and I'm not supposed to talk about it and stuff like that but you know I ain't got this thing you'd probably be interested let's go in the garage I'm going to show you this thing so we walk through his house and we walk through the door in his kitchen and go into his garage the garage doors down like the garage's all closed and there's this little flying saucer like propped up on on splox on saw horses like right next to his car

I'm like oh my god then where did you get this and it's like hey you know some guy at work had a thing and he couldn't keep it and so now I have it. I'm like, oh my God, it's a flying saucers. How weird. You said, yeah, but you can't get close to it or distortes reality. Like, what? So I walked up to it, right? So as I approached it, I got about five feet away, I felt that feeling, that I felt the

exact palpable feeling I tried to describe earlier. I'd back away and it would go away and I'd walk towards it and it would come back. And it was like a message being delivered to my, through my subconscious, to my waking self because the next morning I was immediately aware that like that I know exactly why I had that dream. That dream was to confirm that the, the, that event in 93 was real. And it was funny in that, you know, so I go back and forth a few times. And then my brother is like the doors open on the flying saucer. It's dark inside.

You can't really see much and small. It's not much bigger in the van or something. He's like, yeah, you know, this problem. I can't get close to the thing because the weird distorted thing. But here's what I do. I take this camera and I put it on the end of a big stick. And then I put it in the, in the, in the, you know, like he takes a little digital camera and puts it on a long selfie stick kind of thing

and then puts it in the door in this dark room and it takes pictures. And that's when I woke up. Now, my brother does not have a UFO in his flying cell in his garage. He never did. But that dream had a power to it. And it felt like a like a, like it happened for a reason. Like it was reassuring to me that dream. Ah, yeah.

That's a very interesting dream. and you may have ostensibly created the selfie stick. Well, I'm not sure I didn't. I'm not getting any royalties from the selfie stick at this point. Not yet. Wow. I have a couple other listener questions here, Mike, if you don't mind, on the fly here. In terms of the grays, one of our listeners was wondering,

do you see any connection between the grays and if they are considered demonic? in disguise, as they put it? Well, I mean, you know, I mean, who knows what demonic in disguise means, right? So someone has a UFO experience in like, you know, 15th century, you know, Spain, they go to their, you know, Catholic bishop and tell the story, the Catholic bishop is going to say, you had a demonic experience and it gets written down in some book and it's described as a demonic experience and someone does a painting out a mural and it shows up as a demon and, you know, it may not have been there. at all. It may have been a gray alien, you know, and it may have misinterpreted as a demonic thing. Now, I will also say that people have very dark, frightening experiences. And so, calling it demonic might be completely accurate in the sense that it's, it's, the emotional, visceral reaction is exactly what you would expect from confronting a demon.

So, yeah, so there's a blurriness there that I can't answer. It, You know, there's a, like, this is where it's, we're in, like, Google Research Land now. I mean, you're one click away from so much, like, flooded with information. If you wanted to write a 400-page book that gray aliens are demonic, you would have no problem filling up a great big book with available accounts. Right. So, you know, that's, does that mean it's true? I don't think, you know, like, I don't know what to think as far as what may be true. I'm certainly, certainly you could make a very forceful argument.

Yeah. And collect very credible data. and it counts. Right. I would imagine it's all through the lens that you perceive the experience. You know, if you're a spiritual person, you may see it that way. If, you know, if you're more of the shamanic, you know, belief system, it may be a sort of, like you said, a totem or a messenger of some sort. So, yeah, it seems to be all about perception.

Yeah, and I had to jump way back because I feel like I try to perceive it from a lot of different angles in the book. Yes. And so I had to step out of, you know, like one mind frame, which I do, if I do have any mind frame, you know, like the shamanic thing was just such a tidy, clean fit that it, that, and as well as, the archetype was a very clean fit for, for the, for the why of it, you know, so. Um, going back to the owl, I'm like, are you aware one of our listeners wants to know, um, of any symbolism of the owl in Russia or China in specific? why they chose those, I'm not exactly sure.

I'm not sure either. I absolutely have to think there is. I mean, the term shaman comes from a Siberian word. I can't remember the name of the tribe. The Inuits or the native people of Siberia coined the term, I think it was called salmon, and then it somehow got translated to shaman. And then, and I know that the totem animal in that the Borat tribe, that's actually not right, the Borat.

What am I saying? That's the dumb movie. So, yeah, some tribe in northern Russia would have, you know, equated that, you know, that they have owl symbolism. I know they do, and it's associated with a shaman. And I'm quite certain that China, with, you know, long history has all kinds of owl symbology. I don't know what it is, but, you know. So, yeah, I can't answer that one very well. Sorry.

No, not at all. It's a very specific question. I'm interested to look further into that. Did you come across any cases, like, where owls were heard but not seen and an event of high strangeness may have occurred? Do you remember anything in your research of that? Well, sure, yeah. So a woman on the beach with her husband, she had a stressful day. She's, you know, they're waiting to get seated at a restaurant like on the ocean.

And they're drinking their, you know, margaritas and the sun is setting and she hears an owl hooting. It's like, well, I didn't know owls would come to a beach like this. And she looks around. She doesn't see anything. She looks up into the sky. And there's a silvery disc-shaped craft hovering far on the sky above them. She watches it for a little while. And she points it out to her husband.

And he says, like, you know, kind of a doubter. And he, you know, she's kind of like, well, what's he going to make of this? And he says, like, well, it's very unusual. It's not making normal, you know, motions that would be, associated with any known craft, very interesting. And then she later checks the newspapers and write in that area over that weekend,

which is weird. It's like lasts for a few days. There's a series of sightings and people are reporting, you know, classic silvery flying saucer, you know, polished aluminum flying saucer in that area.

Now, you know, I get that's that, that kind of thing shows up a lot. I mean, people will say that, you know, like I've got people,

like one woman contacted me. She's like, oh, God, I was reading your book. And this is like, since the book has come out, so this is the last couple months. like, oh, I was reading your book, and then I would, you know, I would,

as soon as I'd lay in bed and I'd open the book, there'd do this hooting out the window. And I'd close the book and the hooting would stop. And I'd open the book up and the hooting would start again. And then I would close the book and tell my husband, like, oh, God, wake up, wake up, there's an novel right out the window. And I'm reading this novel book. Isn't that weird?

And like, he would wake up, huh, what, what? And it would be no hooting. And so, yeah, so, yeah, the hooting shows up, you know, a fair amount. Yeah, there's one person, a young guy talked to who's had his own set of abduction experience. And he very clearly said, lying in bed, here's an owl hooting out of his window. Bam, the next thing you know,

his bed is surrounded by gray aliens. They just appear. So, yeah, so, I mean, the hooting is just as vital to the whole thing as seeing them themselves, you know. Right. Well, playing off of that, I mean, you looked a lot into the work of Lindy Tucker as well with the beeping owls and the UFO connection. What can you tell us about that work being done? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is, that's kind of a little bit of a long story.

but Lindy Tucker is a researcher. She's Canadian. She now lives in America. But this is back in the 70s. She was having sightings around her house. And at the same time, she was hearing this beeping noise. And she went out and recorded this beeping noise in the presence of this flying craft. So she's got an audio recorder.

She's with this other person. This guy's name is Christopher, which shows up a lot in the book. Don't ask me why. People named Chris show up a lot in the book. which is like Christopher, the first five letters is Christ. So, I mean, like,

oh, yeah. If you want to word, heavily laden with symbolism, that's it. So she goes out, she does an audio recording of this,

of this owl, excuse me, of this UFO. Spoiler. And, and you can, I would put a link on your site, go to beeping UFOs.

It's amazing. And then there's a little audio clips that she's put a whole bunch of minerals. Very interesting. and she has an excellent article that she was published in the Mufon Journal in the late 90s. Very important to read that.

So she did very straight analytical clinical research on what this may have been. This initial recording, I think it was 1976, in Orton, Ontario, has this beeping noise. It sounds like a car backing up,

very mechanical. beep, beep, and overlaid with that is looking here, crickets in the background, you hear a little rustling from the wind, and you can also very clearly hear a great horned owl. Now, this, like, blew me away, right? Because I was, like, so primed. I was like, like, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for someone to show a picture.

And, like, there's a, you know, like there's a UFO, a flying saucer above the trees. And in one of the trees, you can see a little owl sitting in a branch. I don't have that picture. I want that picture. I'm, like, waiting for it. But I do have this audio. I don't have it.

But, I mean, this audio exists. where it's an owl overlaid with this odd beeping noise. Now, things get weirder. Okay, so the, the, in the, oh, it's not Project Blue Book.

I think it's the, I'm drawing a blank on that. One of the reports of the government, but the Condon Report, the kind of report that came out in late 60s. They said, there's no, you can't listen to anything,

but they said, we analyzed a bunch of supposed recordings of UFOs, and we've come to the conclusion that it is not a UFO. It is a saw-wet owl. Now, a saw-wet owl, you can go right online and click a little button and listen to the call of a saw-wet owl. It sounds like a carback camp, very mechanical, little tooting noise. Beep, beep, beep.

You know, you listen to them side by side, just straight, you know, straight ears. You know, you listen to the recordings that Lindy Tucker has presented, and you listen to a saw-wet owl. They're very similar. Saw-wet owl is going to sound a little more flute-like. The recordings of Lindy Tucker sound a little more mechanical. But a researcher, Ronald Steerman, I think is his name of the University of Texas and Austin back in the 90s, did an exhaustive amount of research on these two noises.

And he says they are not the same. The call of the Saw-Wet Owl is not the same of what Lindy Tucker had recorded. And then Lindy Tucker, under very synchronistic circumstances, collected all kinds of these things. Like, they just kind of arrived in this very strange way, you know. So she was doing research on exactly on the sound of a UFO. The government dismisses this sound as an owl. Okay, so here we have the owl connection. She's got a recording, the very first recording that she did that sent her on this journey,

that then spawned all these synchronities and getting more of this stuff. the very first recording she does has an owl overlapping with the UFO sound this beeping noise now she had she wrote up this report

excellent report kind of well worth reading that's on the site beeping UFOs.com she uh this goes into the moffon journal and they say hey the deadline's coming up they talked her on the phone like oh you got to get this thing got to get in the mail we got to get here for the deadline this is back in the 90s

ancient era where things like you take a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. And so she's like, so our desk is messy. She's searching around. She's got this deadline. It's got his full daylight. The window's open summertime. She's got the, then she sees it, right?

Oh, she finds the document. She puts her finger on it. As soon as she touches it, this beeping noise comes in through the window. Beep, beep, beep, beep, the same noise. When she touches the document that argues that the beeping noise is not a saw, wet owl, but is instead a UFO. this is this is very strange stuff this is very strange stuff this goes well beyond like little little scientists in a metal spaceship flying here to to you know

conduct some some some experiments on the hapless humans that live on this planet something much richer and much stranger is taking place than that very simple explanation Yeah. I mean, therein lay your entire journey, Mike, I mean, I remember you once saying that you don't mind not finding answers and that you enjoy living in the mystery. What about these mysteries do you find most compelling? Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like you get like a mystery novel, right? So it's got a beginning, middle and end, right? So there's a reason, like the dime stores are, well, I'm not sure what's going on now. Like the Kindle. old rack or whatever he could. I mean, it used to be like you'd have the little rack in the in the, in the, uh, drugstore with all the paperbacks, the pulp paperbacks. Yeah.

Detective novels. It's a mystery. You know, it's a murder right in the beginning and then they solve the murder by the end. But that's the murder at the beginning is inconsequential. The solving it at the end is, is in contraquestial. It's the journey. It's the story of the detective, which is exciting. There's a reason why like, you know, I mean, half the television shows in the 70s were detective

shows. it's it's it's a it's a it's solving a mystery is as is part of the core human experience you know or like actually not even solving because i gotta say that like by the like when you're in the middle of a detective novel you don't want it to end a really good one right yeah you read you read the long goodbye right by raymond chanler it's like it's like no don't end don't end um and it almost doesn't matter who the murderer is right you know like at the end it's just going to be the you know the person you least suspect anyway so uh my sense is that that that, you know, that's hardwired into us, kind of liking the mystery. And I've gotten to the point now where, I mean, I've talked to people feel like, and Richard Dolan says this,

he's like, you know, I'm going to take a few years out of studying, you know, the historical documents on the Cold War. And I'm going to put some efforts into this UFO thing. I'm going to solve it. And then, you know,

sort of pat myself in the back and then take out another project. He hasn't solved it. I mean, a lot of people say that. You know, like, I felt the same way. Like,

I'll just write up a little essay about UFOs and owls. And then I'll get that out of my system and I'll be done with it. And that's not what happened. It was a bottomless pit. You know, I pick owls, right? So it's like, as I said earlier, there's a paragraph here and there in any given UFO book. You know, it mentions owls somehow or another. And sure, you know, like great, like a little teeny.

The tiniest little point on the outlying boundaries of the core UFO phenomena is this owl stuff. But, you know, what? digging into it, this, you know, you would think it would just be like a little, a little aside in the literature, but it's just, it's its own beast. It is, it's, it's a bottomless pit. And not only a bottomless pit, it's a bottomless pit of wonderfully engaging, eerie, evocative stories. So, so, so yeah, I don't have a good answer to, to, to what it is. But it is, has been just so fascinating. I've given up trying to solve it. And I'm content with the mystery. Um, And yes, yes, so I don't, I wish I had a good answer to that.

All I can say is that, it's, it's been, I don't know, I mean, it's changed my life. It's changed the direction of my life. This, the question, why owls? Yeah, why owls? Exactly. I mean, you have clearly lifted a veil of sorts on a very interesting topic pertaining to the UFO phenomenon as a quote unquote whole. like you said, this is a small, small fraction of this. And then it overlaps with other things.

You know, the guy who says, like, I went out in the field and I meditated and I actually asked the world, you know, like, how can I be of service to the world? I need a sign. I want to give back to the world. How can I be of service? And he closes his eyes and meditates in this field. And he opens his eyes and there's an owl in the field with him. You know, the woman who's had UFO experiences, you know, goes in the woods and

meditates. And she says, I need to find my spirit name, you know. And then she opens her eyes and there's an owl, like right on the branch right front of her. You know, like the people who have seen, you know, the guy doing death research is cataloged all these strange stories of owls showing up at people's homes after after, after, after someone has passed. That doesn't have, I mean, some of this stuff doesn't have anything to do with UFOs, but it does have to do with a deeper mystery that's beyond the veil in that realm where the owl would travel, you know, in that, you know, in that, you know, in that, um, alternate

form of reality, you know. So, yeah, this is, it's been, yes, so that was the, you know, the thing that sort of shook me up a little bit about this book was that, you know, like, wow, it did, this is blurs, right? There's not a delineated line and the UFO thing doesn't stop at this one boundary. You step over the fence and then the, the meditation thing begins. They overlap. Exactly. Well, I mean, and they continue as well, Mike. I mean, Ruber has it. You're working on a, a sequel to the book? Well, it's a companion to the book. And it's not a rumor. It's a fact.

I'm not very open about it. So it's not giving away, not divulging anything. Good, good, good. So in the context of doing the book, you know, what I found is that there's these stories, right? And it's like, and this is almost like, and I actually used the term,

um, the paradox syndrome to describe these. And that sounds a lofty and I wish I had a better term. But it was kind of like, I needed to like say like, you know, God, I find these stories, and they just, there's, it's like, there's an example here. And I call it the paradox syndrome where you get a story and it doesn't make any sense. Long, it's complicated. It's just page after page after page to write these accounts up.

And you talk, go back and forth to the person. I'm like, well, what else happened? And oh, and this other thing happened? And it just goes on and on and on. And it doesn't make any sense. It loops back on itself. There's no point at the end where it just culminates and someone has an answer. It just is this loopy logic. And it just, you know, a mess of synchronicities and owlst stories and UFOs and and they were too long to put in the book, right? So there's a couple that I did put in there,

you know, that have this quality. And I initially wanted to put all these stories as an appendix, just have a set of, but it just didn't. It was, you know, it wouldn't have worked in a book format. So the easier thing was just to make a separate book.

So, yeah, so the separate book is going to read, hopefully like a collection of short stories and I'll try to keep my speculation to a minimum and just let the stories stand in their own. So the working title is stories from the messengers. It'll have a cover very similar to the messenger,

the owl picture on the present book. And hopefully they'll be available side by side. And if you read one, you might be, you know, eager to read the other. So they're just stories that are too long and too complicated. And these long and complicated stories have a sort of proof to me anyway. You know, the weirdness, almost the, the, the, the irrationality of them. Anne Streeper, the wife of Whitley Streber,

had a, like, you know, she said, you know, like I have a bullshit detector. I've got a BS detector. And I, and if people tell me a story and it's not weird, I don't buy it. You know, if you try to make up a UFO story, it's going to make up something logical, right? Yes.

But that's not what people are telling. People are telling illogical stories. So these stories are perfectly illogical. I don't understand why they play out the way they do. but and then I you know I just wanted to so yes so this follow-up book is hopefully we'll read as a book of short stories

great and where can we find the recent book Mike you can find it on Amazon you can find it on my website you can find it on Richard Dolan's website you can go to your local bookstore and walk up to the counter and say can you look up a book by Mike Cleland called the Messengers and they'll find it

within a couple keystrokes so it's out there and I would prefer everyone go to their local bookstore because they're not going to be around for long. Absolutely. Those people have kids and those kids are hungry. So you've got to have... Support your local bookstore for sure.

And where can we find your other work, Mike? There's my blog is hidden experience.blogspot.com. I have been mostly using it to promotion. I'm sad to say it, but I've been so wrapped up in these books, things so love. So the recent posts are kind of promoting the book. But there's all kinds of stuff in there. It's a lot now that it's seven years old, which we figured out this makes me feel a little weird that I've been doing it this long.

Seven years of blogging like this. And then there's a bunch of audio interviews, and there's even an audio reading of one of the chapters of the book. That's posted online there, and that would be read by you. Oh, you. Shameless promotion. Yes. I mean, I've been captivated by your work for years now, Mike, and it was an honor to read just one chapter. I look forward to hopefully reading more.

Your work is prolific. It is extremely relevant. And I can't wait to see what you bring to the table next, man. And maybe we'll finally get some of those messages we're all waiting to hear. So I want to thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. It's been an honor. One of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets.

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