PT 1: An Autobiography of Strangeness

A Brilliant Flash
This is a story that begins in the winter of 1968, during a blizzard. I was in the midst of wrestling with a irritating and inexplicable notion to leave the warm comfort of my home, and answer the overwhelming and insistent voice in my apparently schizophrenic mind that would not rest unless I obeyed it's surrealistic request. At the time, I felt that if I did so, this act would be tantamount to falling over the edge of my world and succumb to the consequences of realizing I had gone mad.

The insistence of this compulsion that flew in the face of having not provided any reason or reward for doing so, finally wore me down and so to quell this irritating repetitious whispering in my ear...I pulled on my winter gear and went out into this howling storm. I walked along the deserted streets observing everything about this scene and was growing more chilled by the moment, when instantly and brilliantly the entire neighborhood was lit up as if a twenty story flashbulb had exploded. I spun around and slowly turned to find a source. There was none. Upon returning home and henceforth, for practical and selfish reasons of embedded but persistent fear of ridicule, I would never relate to anyone what had occurred. It was my secret encounter with my own fairly evident madness.

A Vivid Sleep Vision
Some weeks later, whilst still in 1968, I had what would become the first of extremely vivid dreams...I was directly above a gull that was flying above a sea of shimmering mercury, and a voice behind me provided a narration of the scene., " The gull is held aloft by transformation, and should this process stop, the living creature will turn to a stone and fall beneath the waves of the sea...." And so it did. I was standing in the midst of what appeared to be some variant of a classical temple complex. There was an animated conversation being held on the portico of one of the marble buildings. There were various gentlemen aligning themselves in a circle apparently debating some topic with such passion that I went unnoticed. I became aware of the presence of someone unseen standing next to me. Without questioning this entire scenario, I asked what they were discussing. He said "They are discussing what is the be done with the situation upon Earth." I drew closer to their conversation, and overheard one advocating a process of controlling the behavior of humanity by the induction of illusions, another countered with a direct biological series of experimentation's to mutate and damp down our self destructive behaviors....another advocated a slowly evolving process of education...I asked one of them what was the point of this discussion. One turned to me slightly perturbed.."Art.." And with the recitation of that word, I was absorbed into an experience that in which words fail to describe. Differentiation of form, sound, was all around me..one note of this complex symphony could become a universe onto itself, and then two could intertwine and great a third, then the same process with each "note" creating another branch of a tree which than repeated itself....and then these grew into worlds, universes, increasingly complex, unique and beautiful.

I was sitting in the midst of a tent with another circle of exotic looking people with strangely wonderful clothing who appeared to be from everywhere and nowhere in particular. A darkly dressed bearded gentleman with swarthy features entered the tent, and began to regale us with the most ridiculous series of statements I had ever heard. At the same time, I noticed that everyone present had a faint smiling countenance toward me as if they knew something about this situation that I was unaware of..The gentleman's voice was very sincere in tone, and over the course of his soliloquy I slowly became convinced that what he was saying had some very important kernel of truth behind it. The instant that thought entered my consciousness, everyone broke out in laughter. I felt I had been initiated into a joke telling ritual of some sort and the joke was on me. I had fallen for this nonsensical diatribe. Suddenly, another person entered the tent, just after our apparent host had walked out, only to re-enter and began telling another series of absurd renditions of the truth. I watched our newcomer's face as his obvious disdain was telling, and slowly it began to dawn on me, that his face had the look of being transfixed in the act of listening. A smile crossed my own face as we all knew what was coming.....again, the shared laughter...it was like watching a very entertaining show of hypnosis. This fellow was quite the trickster....as I rediscovered this "mythical" legend in my reading, several years later.

I was standing in the midst of the dark waters of a lushly tropical swamp. I could hear the faint sounds of wind and rustling plants. A beam of brilliantly blinding light hit the dank water afew feet away from where I was standing. Suddenly a legless transparent creature arose being lifted in this column and it slowly began a metamorphosis of it's structure, while underneath a whirlpool opened, I could see a spinal column being slowly added, legs, eyes etc while the discarded shapes this creature was formerly encased in fell away into the whirlpool as new formulations of its organisation appeared in it's increasingly complex manifestations. All along this creature was held in a state of suspension within this column.

I awoke with a mixture of awe, confusion, wonder and a hundred fold questions concerning this event that I also knew could not be answered, which led to to thoughts of being isolated and secretive once again.
Should I tell anyone or should I keep it to myself?

That was nearly forty years ago. I am writing this for my peers, those who have been ridiculed, those who have been isolated, those who have become outsiders and have been judged by the smug ignorance of fear. I may be a lunatic, but then again, for myself, that consideration has long since vanished into the distance, below the horizon of my quest for whatever it is we simplistically term the truth. My quest is not dependant on opinion polls, or consensus, nor some vain attempt to garner approval from others. I have no answers as to me progresses onward...only more questions that exponentially grow as my own available time here grows proportionately smaller.

A Message
This was in the summer of 2005. The first was recorded in mid afternoon. The voice resembled that of an elderly, deep voiced male. He enthusiastically said "Hello!" Then he said " I wonder if I may be the one who sees through Netharious" (sp?).then a pause..then thoughtfully as if contemplating the name and it's connotations he softly repeated the name.."Netharious"..and then disdainfully."The Great Wannabe".then, in a voice best described as frantic he exclaimed "Okay!" Then a long pause ensued so long at first I thought that was the end of the message. Then it got stranger. Words cannot describe the timbre of the voice. At first I thought it was perhaps sardonic. My wife thought it had nothing to do with humor.He simply said "ha.ha..ha. " With each repetition of "ha" the voice lowered in pitch and stretched as if it were spliced into the overall message artificially The next evening my son answered the phone at 2 am. A variety of loud electronic sounds mixed together in varying, modulating pitches that (as he mimicked them) that sounded to me like the wireless data transfers I have heard. He could not provide a greeting when he picked up the phone since it was obvious this was a broadcast plus it temporarily took him aback. The instant it stopped a voice identical to that in the first message said " Give your father my regards." Then the transmission -call abruptly cut off. He was so excited he came into our bedroom to tell us. He was also somewhat frightened. How this voice knew it was my son answering the phone and not my wife or myself or my daughter is beyond me especially since he never had the opportunity to speak.

The Electronic Variations.
In 1999, I was up late after my children and wife had retired. I was reading a book on the couch, when very suddenly the radio turned itself on and a garbled voice with a great deal of static behind it was speaking in a indecipherable language. The voice stopped and then the radio shut itself off.
My no nonsense mother, who lived afew miles West of us, called me the following night to ask who she could call, due to the fact, as she was speaking to me, she was watching a UFO to the West of her location, which was a veritable rainbow of colors observing a brilliant orb that zigged and zagged and hovered in her field of vision.
Then, later that same evening... the speakers connected to my media center began making a series of odd noises that sounded like intermittent short circuits in the form of loud hums. Five at a time and then would pause for a minute or so and then would begin the cycle again. Was this some odd wiring malfunction? So, since I had long since lost all self reproach in terms of lunatic behavior, I said aloud, "If this is a communication, make this noise three times." It boomed out three times and ceased.

A Singing Call
Later in the very early morning hours, I was awakened by a bizarre "song" of a animal like intonation that was unlike anything I had heard before or since. It sounded as if someone had input the loud song of a bird consisting of four or five long and short notes and layered the synthesized voice box of a large dog onto it. Despite my best efforts, my wife could not be awakened. It repeated this very same call several times and sounded as though it were coming from the roof, just outside my window. I was so taken aback, I was too intimidated to look outside. A decade later, my son asked me if I had ever heard a weird song that sounded like an animal coming from the roof in our old home?......... Why yes, I did.

So, if you have ever been exposed to a blinding flash of light in the depths of a winter night, or have had someone, or some electronic voice provide you with nonsensical warnings, or indecipherable radio broadcasts that can also remotely operate your media center or if you have happened to have been awakened by odd songs of large mammals perched on your roof, in the hours before dawn...let me know. We may or may not have a common circle of provocative or predatory stalkers who exhibit a great deal of creativity when it comes to hiding in plain sight. Or then again, it must be our imaginations that have taken on a life of their own...as projections of our own shadows. But then again, I think not.