SUBJECT: AM I IMAGINING IT ALL ? FILE: UFO2677 Am I Imagining It All? "...there will be wonder. There will be great wonder." These words, written by Whitley Strieber in the foreword of his book Transformation, have for me, become the most profound words that I have ever come across. They are at once extremely descriptive of the entire UFO enigma and yet, they are very richly understated. To wonder is to contemplate something that at the very least has some basis for understanding in the human mind. But, it is becoming increasingly clear, as more and more information is obtained from UFO sightings and proported abduction victims that much of the phenomenon is probably beyond Man's comprehension. Therefore, to wonder is to digress from fact into fantasy. But, one cannot help but wonder. So how are we to get to the true meaning of the enigma? There seems, at this point, to be no clear path to truth ahead of those who study this peculiar subject. About all anyone can do is to add as much information as possible to the files of dedicated research organizations attempting to put all of the bizarre tales into some some kind of rational perspective. These files are already so loaded with obscure symbolism and strange occurrences, that their real underlying meanings may never be obtained. In writing this, I presuppose that UFOs exist, that they are indeed a physical reality and not halluclnatory in nature, that they are piloted by extraterrestrial entities, and that these entities have engaged in the abduction and examination of many human individuals. The question of existence has never been an issue for me. I have always accepted as fact that UFOs were a reality. As far back as I can remember, I have held a major interest in the phenomenon. Recently, I ran across newspaper clippings dated as far back as 1978 that I had collected pertaining to various sightings of strange craft, which demonstrates that even at age 14, I was keenly aware that something strange was happening. In those days though, as far as I was concerned, UFOs were strange flying craft that people saw in the sky, although I do not remember ever having personally seen an object that I could truly consider to be extraterrestrial. Abduction accounts were virtually unheard of, or at least they were not reported by any media available to me other than in the grocery store tabloids that everyone denies reading. In fact, I do not recall reading one in-depth "alien encounter" report until I was in my early twenties. I had heard the names Travis Walton and Betty Andreasson a few times, but I had no access to details of these cases. It was not until late 1989, at age 25, that I began to suspect my own possible abduction. This "wondering" began on a trip to a bookstore where I was scanning a totally unrelated section of books for something interesting to read. Suddenly, I came to an out of place book entitled Intruders. The name was all I saw on the spine, but l immediately knew what this book was about. Without checking to see if I was correct in my assumption I grabbed the book and bought it. It was all I could do to wait until 1 got home to start reading it. While I was engrossed in the manuscript I recalled a dream that I had as a child. It was a horrifing dream that has recurred several times throughout my life. What I remember of it seems to fit perfectly into the classic abduction scenario. Am Iying in bed asleep. For reasons unclear I wake up and peer through the doorway of my room. I think I see some small men looking back at me from around another doorway very close to my own. I get up to investigate and walk toward them down the hall. I do not get very far when I seem to remember several others coming toward me. At this point I become very frightened and turn to run back to my bedroom. I take about one step and am frozen in my tracks. I could not move a muscle. This was not the "run in slow motion but can't get away" dream. I was totally immobilized and felt a very strange tingling sensation, which I will never forget. I can equate it a low level electrical vibration, like when you touch the ends of a cord as you plug it into the wall socket, only not as strong. I remember screaming for my mother and father to help me. Whether anything came out of my mouth or no one heard me, I don't know. At this point my back was turned to whatever was pursuing me. Then, my legs began to float up and I tilted face down and began to float. I do not recall anything after this point. I can remember, as a child, being absolutely terrified to go down the hall to my room by myself, especially at night. I would even go so far as to try to con my brother to go with me, telling him that I wanted to show him something or that I wanted to play with him. I also had a fear of looking out of the sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard at night, for fear that someone would be out there looking back at me. These fears persisted way up into my teens. In fact, I still find myself hugging the walls in my present house, stealthily walking along wondering if someone is in the house when I know good and well that there is'nt. Another incident that I recalled while reading Intruders pertained to a possible visual sighting that occurred when I was a young boy. My cousins and I were playing outside while my father and uncle talked nearby. Suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, I looked to a spot in the sky and detected a very small stationary object that shown brightly with reflected sunlight. It seems miraculous to me now that I could have spotted the object, knowing how scatter-brained young boys are. I called to the others to see and we watched it for some time, although it made no movement. Upon asking my father and uncle what it was, I remember my uncle getting out his binoculars and taking a look. I am sure that my father also observed the object through the binoculars. Although they could not confirm the identity of the object, they determined that it must be a weather balloon. We accepted this and went about our daily romp sessions without further discussion of the matter. I hadn't given this incident any thought at all until reading Intruders, some twenty years later, at which point the occurrence came rushing back into my mind with utmost clarity. I also recalled during this time a missing time incident that occurred when I was a senior in high school. At the time, I was having trouble with a spastic colon and was on an anti- spasmodic drug called Bentyl. Although this may hurt my credibility, I ingested a rather large amount of this drug during my second to last class one day. I really don't know why I did this, but I did. I remember going to my last class feeling very groggy and falling asleep. When the bell rang I was almost unable to walk or function normally but managed to get to the door leading outside to my car. This was around 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. The next thing I remember is waking up around 6:00 p.m. at home in my bed to my mother asking me to move my car. This was an incredibly difficult task in my condition. I cannot believe that no one noticed that I was so doped up. The thing I find so difficult to grasp, given that this was a drug induced blackout, is that in this condition, I would have had to get into my car at the school, drive about 3 miles in heavy traffic to my job, perform my duties, drive to another location to finish and then drive home. This is almost too much for me to accept. I seem to remember asking my co-workers the next day about my performance but not getting any satisfactory answers as to whether I did my job or whether I was even there to do it. This event gradually faded from memory and I had not thought about it again until I read Intruders. The next book I read was Communion. I obtained it from the local library and was dumbfounded that it would even have this book. I concealed it as I walked up to the check- out counter for fear of being seen with it and made fun of. I had heard about the book but had never seen it before. When I picked it off the shelf and saw the cover I was immediately stunned by the artwork and a thought ran through my mind-the image on my door. On the back of the door to the room in which I had the dream about the little men, there was an image formed by the grain of the wood that I used to call "the devil on my door". I remember showing it to all my friends and even my mother, although she has no recollection of it. It seemed to be an elongated face with slanted eyes and an evil look. The face on Communion seemed to spark some kind of correlation. It was my immediate thought that they were different renderings of the same thing. I remember many times opening my door because I didn't want it to be looking at me. A very strange thing for a child to think about a piece of wood. Communion elicited the same memories from my childhood that Intruders did. I began to play "connect the dots" and things became clearer that I may have had my own possible abduction experiences. After this, I began reading everything that I could get my hands on about the subject, trying desperately to find some confirmation of the things that I had experienced. I now understand that this is a quite common phase for abductees/contactees to go through. During this time of "information gathering" I had some very vivid dreams. These dreams that I will relate to you seemed very different from my normal dream state. In fact they seemed very real. The thing that puzzles me is that unlike my normal dreams where I seem to be fully conscious and in control, in these "abduction" dreams I felt as though I was not fully conscious or perhaps groggy from some narcotic. The first of these came on March 26, 1990. I distinctly remember the date because I awoke the next morning telling myself that I had to remember that day so I could relate it later. It begins this way. When I become aware of something happening, I am standing beside my bed buttoning my red and black flannel shirt. I already had on a pair of jeans. I have no recall of whether I had shoes on. My head was down against my chest as I was doing this. Again, I felt groggy but somewhat aware of my surroundings. Standing next to me on my right side was a small man whom I did not get a good look at. I seem to remember that I could see the top of his head out of the corner of my eye and it was greyish white with no hair. He wore what I perceived to be black clothes. He said to me, "Are you ready?", at which point I replied, "I guess so." He then took me by my left hand and began leading me out of the bedroom, down the hall and into the livingroom. At some point during this promenade, he blurted out, "Hurry!". It seemed to me that he was taking many more steps than I was. He was smaller than I and seemed like he was late for something or that he was taking too long to accomplish his task. We headed for the door that leads out to the backyard. I do not remember going out the door, but the next thing I do remember is that we are outside. We walk across the yard and end up beside this very small jet black oval object that I assume was a craft of some sort. I do not remember a door, as such, but there was an opening that I had to crouch down to get through. I entered first with him following. I sat down in a chair of some sort that was, I assume, at the rear of the craft, immediately on my left. I say this because the little man was doing something in front of me where there seemed to be a lot of equipment and another chair. He was working quite quickly at something, facing to my right as I watched him. At this point, a small door, which I thought looked like a glove-box in a car, fell open. He cursed, "S---t!", which I found quite humorous. I even remember chuckling a bit at this, thinking that he was not much different than I was in his actions. Abruptly, my recollections end. I do not know what took place after this, if indeed this was a realtime event. The next dream concerning this subject occurred within days of the March 26 scenario. Upon further reflection, I feel that this one may be another remembered segment of the same experience. When I become aware of my surroundings, I am sitting at a low table. It is white and although I cannot move my head around, everything else seemed to be of this same color. Again, I feel as though I am drugged and possibly not fully conscious. My head is glued to my chest as it had been in the earlier dream. I immediatly sensed two presences other than myself. One was on my left at the side of the table which I perceived to be a male. The other was immediatly on my right. I never saw this one but I perceived her as a female as I will explain. I am looking down the whole time, but I was aware that the male on my left was doing something. I said to him, "How many others have you worked with?". He responded, "What do you mean?" I replied, "How many other people have you worked with?" He thought a minute and then said, "Two." At this point, the entity on my right said, in a distinctly female voice, "Oh, and then there was our brother." This elicited from the male some sort of confirming gesture. I am not sure if I saw this or just felt it. I could not stand not being able to look around and said, "Just a minute". I then tried to lift my head to get a glimpse of my surroundings. It took all the strength I could muster to overcome the force that held my head in its downward position, but 1 managed to look up. When I did, I looked straight into the eyes of the male on my left. I was overwhelmed with delight. It was something concrete that I could take with me. I will never forget the sight. His eyes were very large. They were very human looking in structure and a beautiful light blue in color. They seemed endless and I felt elated. I was so close to him that I seem to remember being able to make out the lines in the iris. This was only a momentary glance but enough to last me a lifetime. At this point, my head was returned to its original position. Sometime later, I remember looking down at a Petrie dish of translucent green liquid or jelly. A third entity was standing in the background just able to be made out in the corner of my eye. He was not unlike the entity on the cover of Communion, although his head was more angular at the top and perhaps slightly wider. He wore a long, robed garrnent that seemed to shimmer slightly. It had long sleeves covering his arms which he had folded so that his hands were not visible. I got the impression that he was very much in charge. He had a cold stare. I was still very much aware of the green substance in front of me when the third entity uttered, "Wait." I turned slightly, as much as I could, to get a better look. He made a nodding gesture. When I turned my head back to view the green jelly, it was no longer there. Instead, there was a bowl of what I perceived to be, of all things, mashed potatoes. I do not know whether the nodding gesture from this being changed its appearance or whether it was simply replaced as my attention was drawn away from it. This is all I remember of this dream. There have been many other strange things happen and other less vivid dreams concerning the UFO phenomenon, but it is these dreams described above that I find so fascinating. They are so out of sync with my norrnal dream state. There seems to be no clear beginning, no middle, no end. Just fragmentary segments to tantalize my imagination. I am still unsettled and confused as to whether these events were real and related or whether they are totaly unrelated events that are linked together only by my immersion in this very compelling subject. Or, perhaps, they were not real at all and were generated out of my subconscious mind to fulfill an inner need to be associated with the elite "chosen" few who have actually experienced something real. Did the sequences truly occur? At times the question drives my up the wall. I hope that I can one day find out. As for the missing-time incident, the possible visual sighting, the image on my bedroom door and the dream I had as a child, I know that these were real events. They did occur. But, as to whether or not they are related to the UFO phenomena, I can not make a concrete decision at this time. I have recently begun to undergo hypnotherapy, having made a personal decision to determine if the lunatic fringe is just around the corner. If the determination can be made that I have somehow construed these happenings out of my own mind, then the case should be handed to qualified psychologists to try and understand why an ordinary person would relate experiences on a subconscious level that so closely resemble experiences of actual abductees. If indeed, though, the aforementioned experiences and those not mentioned here are truly occurring in event-level reality, then I will probably have to change many of the views I hold of reality. But, however it goes, I will approach the phenomenon as any good investigator, scientist or therapist should; not blindly accepting every detail that comes out of hypnosis as actual truth, but rather integrating those perceptions and observations into an acceptable level of compatability with my life. In either case, the prospect of an unknown entities, whether earthly or extraterrestrial, coming into the homes of people and abducting them for unknown purposes is truly amazing and at times frightening. It is possibly the most important happening since human creation. I know that I personally cannot sit on the sidelines and wait for something to take place. We all must make every effort to understand as much as possible of the enigma. Perhaps we may find nothing that fits our level of comprehension. But, isn't that the beginning of understanding? To wonder? Copyright 1990 Michael S. Carter ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. 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