Sunday, October 21, 2007

Insectoid Aliens (Greg Bishop)

Many indigenous cultures often move with relative ease (at least in their worldview) between the areas of four-dimensional reality and the "symbolic realm," as I call it. It may be that this non-time-and-space-bound dimension is where the UFOs and their occupants reside. For us to declare that this is due to "imagination" or "delusion" is to say that our physics is the only "true" path to understanding.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always wondered what praying mantises are praying for.... Prey, I guess....

Greg Bishop said...

My friend Miles Lewis has left a comment on the site that continues in a vein that eluded me.

Anonymous said...

I sometimes worry that Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern occasionally tend to veer a bit too much toward the subjective or occult explanations and interpretations of ufo data in their admirable efforts to try to find new ways/methods to approach innovative means to view or understand the ufo phenomenon, and as a means to understand the experience of a witness, within a different context than is usually done.

The real difficulty, problem, and/or error in judgement comes in when what is observed seems to compel a need or attempt to interpret it as having been caused in some particular or speculative manner. Our minds seem to need to explain, at least to ourselves on some level, the nature or origin of what may have been experienced, either externally or "internally."

Some incidents, however, may perhaps be best left in the "gray basket" Friedman has referred to, and left uninterpreted, as more often than not, I would suggest the desire or effort to "interpret" or define the source in some manner can lead to false categorization or misleading conclusions.

And yet, like an itch one is tempted to scratch, the brain continues to contemplate or analyze on some level what the experience or incident one may have witnessed actually means, and what I realize now is perhaps some cases of very "high strangeness" are not currently explainable, and the effort to pigeonhole or quantify the actual nature of the experience can and often does lead to misinterpretation or is perhaps what the ego needs to partition or deal with these kinds of incidents.

I know I'm not being entirely clear here, as this is a perplexing subject I'm exploring here on the fly, but, to try put it another way, it's very difficult to try to step outside of our cultural or anthropic conditioning or background, but I think we must try when needed.

I'm a rationalist, do not believe or accept the premises of things termed "supernatural" or "psychic", as those terms are typically understood, but do know from my own experience and others who I trust and whom I've discussed these issues with, that there are some things that seem completely "unearthly" or generally truly unexplainable. And it's not that these kinds of cases or experiences are "psychic" or hallucinatory, but they are quite unsettling and perplexing.

On the other hand, I have experienced some phenomena, as have a couple other relatives of mine, in childhood or as teenagers, and one case as a middle-aged adult, that seemed incidents of extremely high strangeness, and are not in any way (apparently) connected with ufo phenomena, but seemed very real and without any explanation, and seemed to involve some form of non-human consciousness or intelligence in their behavior or at a minimum reactivity or interactivity with the percipient. Cases which are entirely baffling, and have often involved multiple witnesses that I am aware of.

I witnessed something once which led me to think I might have had a spontaneous hallucination, but not ever having had one before or since, I do not know what to do with the data. But I'm pretty sure what I saw did occur. I just have no idea what I saw was or have any realistic way to explain it.

As an example, I know of an interesting case where a relative of mine who just turned 21 saw a 5 1/2 to 6 foot tall praying mantis figure one time right outside his window when he was about 13 years old.

He's not interested in ufo's, has had no other anomalous experiences, and was not under the influence of any alcohol or drugs. The "mantis" stood stock-still, and appeared to be looking into his window from just outside his bedroom one afternoon. It seemed to be moving or wavering slightly, and moved it's head slightly when he looked up after see some movement outside the window.

He told me he has never had any other anomalous experience of any kind, and he seems to me to be quite rational. He told me of this experience when I asked him if anything unusual had ever happened to him. He said he was extremely frightened by the experience, did not want me to identify him in any way with the experience, even to his mother or father, who he never told about the "encounter", if it could be called that, and seemed kind of embarrassed and nervous about relating the incident to me.

He found it completely inexplicable. I asked if it could have been someone in an elaborate costume, and he said absolutely not. It just seemed to him that it was an incredibly large version of a praying mantis. When I asked for details, the only two things he mentioned that seemed diffent from an actual mantis insect were that 1) the eyes of the "mantis" did not seem the same as an actual mantis insect, being more distinct and darker, and that 2) there was something odd about the two front legs, that they were longer than an actual insect's (the "knees" appeared almost at head level--he could see the "entity" from the mid-body upward above the window sill).

Neither of us knew what to make of his experience. He drew me a picture of what he had seen. The only other thing of note was that he felt it was watching him, and seemed to perhaps have "intelligence."

He was alone in the house at the time. He moved toward his door, turning his head away from the window in fright, and when he turned to look out the window just before exiting his room, he said it was no longer there. He told me he was so scared that he didn't dare to go outside to try to see where the "entity" might have gone.

So, what do you do with this kind of data? How can or should one try to get a better idea of what may have actually happened? I don't know, but I would appreciate it if others reading this would give me some pointers, references, or personal opinion. I am truly at a loss about how to empirically or even subjectively attempt to better quantify such an incident of this kind.

Any suggestions? I am very sincere about this. Mac/Greg/Nick/others--ideas and/or suggestions? I ask due to the above example, and more particularly due to something I witnessed in mid-July of this year early in the morning that seemed like something almost "Lovecraftian" or out of an episode of the Twilight Zone, the details of which I will not go into here, and which has periodically perturbed me ever since when I pause on occasion to contemplate or consider it.

I can provide details privately in general terms if I receive a basic response to this kind of intellectual and scientific dilemma for further discussion, if interested and/or required.

I would like to learn what tools or approach I might use in cases like the above, if possible.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. It's been days since I posted the comment above, and still no response whatsoever.

I also posted my comment above on ufomystic.com, and no pertinent responses there, either.

I guess I was interested in seeing if others might know of similar "mantis" incidents where there was no ufo component or DMT or ayahuasca influence. I was also curious about what tools, techniques, or data might be available for use in attempting to come to terms with or better evaluate such an incident, but no one has apparently wanted to post if there is some better way of looking at this kind of incident.

The only two possibilities I can think of to explain the incident above are 1) some aspect of brain function created a very realistic hallucination, which I think is the most likely explanation, or 2) there was some kind of actual entity there, which I find extremely unlikely, but should be considered as at least a remote possibility.
----------------------------------

In the experience I personally had in mid-July, my way of now rationalizing it or considering what happened and what I observed, was that perhaps a state of "hyper-vigilance" or "premonitory expectation" was in play, and that for some reason or in some way my brain generated a very strange, spontaneous hallucination. Of course, that is speculation, also.

The other rational possibility is that some light source somehow reflected off my glasses and/or eyes, but I went out the following night to the exact same location, and tried to see if I could observe the same effect, but nothing happened or was seen.

I hate to say that I may have had some kind of hallucination, as it still doesn't really explain what I saw, which seemed like a grey flurry of smoke that suddenly occurred out on a golf course at 3:50 am in mid-July, and that almost instantly transmuted into what I can only describe as a translucent, greyish-white, eye "pupil-like" shape in appearance, 3 to 5 foot diameter, manifesting itself at my upper right plane of vision, about 15 to 20 feet above the ground, which then jumped very quickly to right in front of me, about 10 to 12 feet distant, and then jumped again to my upper left, and then disappeared.

While I refer to the "object" or whatever it was as "pupil" like, it was not _my_ pupil(s) reflected in my eyeglasses, which was what I at first thought of as an initial explantion--the greyish translucent disk had rough, rugose edges, and there was no hole in the middle, and there appeared to be gaps or radiating "rents" in the smoky disk that jumped around.
I closely examined my own pupils in a mirror afterward, and they are distinctly different.

The disk-like object, btw, was not horizontal, or edge-on, it was vertical, like someone holding up a very large plate face-on.

The entire "display" took no longer than 1 second. But the thing appeared at my upper right for a fraction of a second, moved to right in front of me, slightly elevated, and then moved to my upper left before simply vanishing.

I've tried to search the net for any other similar sightings, but have found none. So, I'm still very perplexed as to what I saw. I have never seen anything like it before.

Being a rationalist, not prone to supposition or idle speculation, I can only describe what I observed, and have no firm conclusions about the experience in any concrete manner. But I know I did see it, it seemed external to me, and I have no way of interpreting the incident at this time. It is a complete unknown. Which is slight perturbing, to say the least.

While I tend to consider I might have had some kind of "brain-anomaly", and that the experience _could_ have been internally generated, that also seems unsatisfactory.

Does anyone reading this have any kind of opinion or know of anything like this having been noted before? References or pointers?

I'm still very curious as to what I saw and what it might have been, but don't have a clue about how I should consider or interpret the experience.