Weird things happened in the back yard. Weird weird. Wow, Hey guys,
welcome to Bledsoe said, So, I see you waving over there in
the back Nick. Everybody in the in the virtual world likewise, I mean,
we can't see anybody, but you know, I'm pretending, man,
I'm imagining I can see them. Yeah, we can feel you. Yeah,
we can be so tonight we have Mike Clellen with us. Mike and
I go way back. We've known each other. I can't put my finger
quite on it. It's close to ten years now. I feel like it's
eight ten years Okay, yeah, ten years, yeah, spring, it
was right around this time he or something might be ten years to the day.
I could probably figure it out. I looked at my calendar, but
always in North Carolina. I was in North Carolina visiting my sister, and
your father had just done a podcast with the site called Veritas. Oh yeah,
I remember that. I was. I just called your dad up,
called him up on the phone. He was in the phone book, lady.
He answered the phone like, hey, he had no idea who I
was. Can I come and visit? And he said, sure, come
on over and uh. And that was the same weekend that um he met
Chase Letsky. Also, remember I didn't know she was going to be there,
so and I had already interviewed her on my podcast, so there was
a dense little thing. So yeah, wow, I didn't realize y'all were
there at the same time. I mean, as time goes on, you
know, memories things like that you tend to forget. But um, yeah,
so I distinctly remember you being there, and you was your book,
Um was your first book out? Nope, not yet, No, it
wasn't out to twenty and fifteen. So this second time I came there was
with my partner at the time, Andrea, and then we were there for
my sisters daughter's wedding, so it would have been my niece's wedding, which
was in Davidson, North Carolina. Okay, cool, and Andrew and I
just drove over and spent the well we spent we were there for night.
We spent the night there at the house. Yeah. No, I definitely
remember, and you had camping gear and you were I just my vivid memories
of you from all those years ago was like very devoted camping nature man,
who's who's very much into owls and synchronicities and the paranormal. And I really
want to pick your brain about owls because I'm not sure if you've had the
chance to read my dad's book, but there's at least three different occasions where
he's had some very bizarre experiences with owls. And um, you're the owl
man. I mean you're you're the guy who, the one guy I know
who when you google owls, you know in the parent it pops up.
So um, I'd love to talk as much as you would enjoy. You
laid me, You're not gonna so I yes, I within this funny little
sox of the UFO researchers, I am well known as the owl guy.
I did not pick that moniker. It picked me. Um. And then
I'll also say that, uh oh yeah, I'm very very familiar with your
father's owl stories. In fact, he this is going back probably twenty twenty
two nineteen, so just three years ago. So I interviewed. Did we
lose everyone? And I'm back? Yeah? There your father for that website.
Oh should I start over? Yeah? Please? And for the listeners,
apologize, we are having a little delay. We're trying to do our
best with it. So if you wouldn't mind running that back? Where was
I? So I your father has had more owl experiences, then there's a
couple people out there. I'm one of them, And there's a few people
out there kind of them on one hand, really that have had a lot
of owl experiences. Your dad is right there on the list, and I
have to think that's filtered down into you and your siblings and family and such.
But um and I did a podcast where I interviewed your father only on
his owl experiences. Just as owl experiences, and there's like a bunch of
them that are like they're kind of like they seem like a kind of throwaway
events like this owl showed up this and it was like there was one where
he was like a neighbor had a had a tree. There was a windstorm
and a tree kind of fell and kind of was pinned to the roof and
he climbed up on the roof with a chainsaw. And then when he got
to the like they can had to like put the ladder on the top of
the roof and then climb up to the tree. And there was an owl
that landed in the tree and everyone went like all those buddies were there with
a truck and Jane saws and ready to rip this tree apart. And and
and he went climbed on the ladder. Everyone felt the same thing, like,
don't you go up on that ladder. Everyone felt it, so no
one had to explain it to anyone. No one had to say, you
know, the owl is kind of a symbol of something for boating, so
everyone just like knew it intuitively. Everyone went to get off the ladder,
and so he downclimbed the ladder and then they did a whole thing where they
tied the ladder up special ways and rigged it this way and that way,
and and when he did cut the tree, it likes I can't remember exactly
the story, but you know, the the tree was tilted on and he
was the ladder was there, and then when the tree it like bucked and
the ladder slipped off, and your dad was tied on somehow. So oh
wow, yeah really yeah, well so yeah, so it's it's totally right
there, dead center as far as the the lore of the owl, right,
don't there's no flying saucers or UFOs or anything like that connected with that
event, but there certainly was that ominous presence. I feel like I feel
like owls just like have that presence. It's really wild. But like when
you see an owl, especially when you see an owl in the wild,
it's like stunning, like and it's it's unexplainable, but I mean it is.
It feels like it feels unless you're the owl guy, yeah for sure.
But I mean, like, you know, I saw one just recently,
just within the past couple of weeks, and it's probably been years since
I've seen an owl, and every time I see one, it's almost like
a shock. It's like, you know, you can't even explain it.
I'd love to know what your thoughts are on that kind of that feeling.
Oh, every it's a universal everyone. So so you could do it right
now google UFOs owls and my name is gonna be the first thing that comes
up, and then about the next twenty five things below that is going to
be me. Um, you don't have to do it, but I mean,
oh yeah, there are so so if anyone any and that's been that
way for over a decade. Wow, Like before I was even like yeah
I was so, I was archiving and putting stuff on my website and writing
about owls and UFOs starting around two thousand and nine. Wow, so what
happened? I just got one like minutes ago. So I get and your
father must know what this feels like like, or you're running website, so
you must know a little bit what it feels like. But I'm getting like
the people who are reaching out to me have had UFO and owl experiences.
There's a little fluctuation where they might have had some other thing or some owl
experience that was mystical but not with the UFO, or some UFO experience that
was didn't quite have an owl. But I'm but anyone anywhere in the world
if they have never heard of me, if they had a UFO and owl
experience co joined, they're gonna there. I'm like two mouse clicks away and
they get you the guy. They and I say red top of my website,
I say, I want to hear your owl stories, and they send
them to me. So so I it's tough to come up with a number,
but you know, many thousands, yeah, like, and I only
count the good ones. Like if there's a lot of people who say,
I saw this owl in the fence, it was so pretty, and I'm
like that's all well and good, but it's not going in my files.
So but uh yeah, so what your question was. Your question was what's
the mythos of the owl? And so even the person who sees the owl
on the fence, it says the same thing like, oh, like it
was an honor. Oh it was so majestic. Oh, it had an
ominous presence. All these things are you know these they had a mystical feel
to it. Then, boy, will you see a bunny rabbit in the
backyard. You don't get that feeling, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, So an owl has got a majestic presence. And I would
argue that one of the reasons it has a very strange presence is because owls
don't have um Like I can turn, I can turn my eye and I
can look right and left with my eyes. Owls can't do that. Owls
owls, their eyes are locked in position and they have to turn their head
right and left in order to look around. So they have a weird presence
because they cannot turn their eyes. It's very Once you understand that, then
you realize like, oh that is unsettling. But there's something just about their
look about how their eyes move or don't move in their head is very unnerving.
Yeah. Yeah, I always knew that they could, like they could,
you know, turn their heads all the way around. I thought I
always thought that was just like a preference thing. I didn't know they actually
couldn't move their eyes. And there's their spine and there there it's it's partial.
It's I did. There's a chapter in the book on the on the
physiology of the owl. So their spine allows for what's called like heads very
good head stable as like when an owl turns its head. You know,
some birds are kind of twitchy, you know, you see like a gyroscope
like well like a well, it doesn't it's not like quite like a gyroscope,
but but sort of where it's eerily smooth and um, they actually have
and they can turn their head all the way around facing back. They can't
turn it three sixty. They can turn it around a face completely backwards.
What it does is it pinches off the blood vessels to their to their brain,
and they have in so we have jugular veins. They have jugular veins
too. If we try that we sees up our jugular veins, wouldn't get
any blood to our brain. When an owl does that, it has a
special reservoir that stores up the fresh blood. And then when they do straighten
their head back up, their blood is flooded with fresh blood. So they
have special Yeah, very strange. And then what it's what So what we
have where we get our stabilization is from our ear canal, like our ear
right, that's how we that's how we stay balanced. Woods in the ears.
Yeah, that's how we can stay balanced and ride a bicycle. So
the owls have that same thing, and that's what they're they have, that's
what they use to keep that ear steady. So an owl, so when
owl can fly at night in what would we would consider absolute complete darkness,
they can fly through the forest between branches in on a starless night, on
the darkest night of the year. They can do it comfortably, no problem
at all because of their big eyes. They have that much ability to see
into the dark. And then they and when they hunt, what they are
doing, they are flying over they are flying through the forest, and their
feathers are so highly attuned. Their feathers have there's a ridge on one side
that's kind of downy along one ridge and then it's sharp on the other don't
ask me how it does it, but it baffles the noise in flight.
So if you it. This is another thing people say all the time,
like an owl flew right over my head. I didn't hear it. Yeah,
like you can hear other birds. You can flap and pigeons and ravens
and stuff like that ton of noise. But owls are what would be completely
silent to our ears. And they fly at night and they listen for mice
on the ground. Right, So they're flying, they're listening. They can
target the noise of a mouse on the ground and then they lock their eyes
on that spot and then that's how they hunt in complete darkness. So yeah,
they're amazing. They're wildly special. Yeah, really cool animals. Um
yeah, anyway, go keep going. So you asked the question was why
do they have a mystique? And oh, yeah, they certainly do.
Yeah. Yeah, they are spectacular creatures for sure. So I'm very curious
about like the mythology of bowel, the spiritual mystique. So so right,
So every culture has a slightly nuanced different mystique or let's say folklore or mythology
about the owl. For instance. Um, so what I just said before,
the owl can fly in the forest at night, in complete darkness,
and that like go back to ancient man. Every everyone would have understood that
about an owl flying at night, flying in the darkness, it would have
seemed magical to ancient man. Now we are like sign. You know.
Biologists can say, oh, their eyes are especially tuned, they have heightened
hearing. But the mythology would be that the owl. So we live in
a land of electric light bulbs, right, forest isn't scary anymore, right,
we can just light up the forest. We can go in the forest
with flashlights. We can, you know. But there was like not that
long ago, like my great grandfather's age, there was no electric light bulb
the night at it completely different mystique. And so the owls in flying into
the night became a metaphor, became a they were magic. I mean still
like that that what they're doing. Now obviously there's biology that allows them to
fly at night, but wow, it's magic in many ways. So they
all would fly into the darkness. That became a metaphor for flying to the
land of the dead, flying to the land of the ancestors, flying to
the land, flying to that other realm or other place, and you take
that one step further and it they come back with a message. Right.
So, when I was working on the first book, I had to pick
a title for the first book. And what was happening is I was getting
letters from people. And it still happens, it just but at the time
I wasn't. I didn't do anything. It was just happening organically. People
would send me letters and they would say, oh, this owl landed on
the fence, and my grandfather had just died, and I had these paranormal
events in my life. And when I looked at the fence, the messenger
told me my grandfather was fine. So I'm paraphrasing roughly, but people would
call the owl the messenger. The messenger was at my window. Everyone was
calling it that, not everyone, but enough that it was recognized as a
pattern. And so so I just that's that's the ancient Lord. That is
the ancient Lord. The owl flies into the darkness, travels to another realm,
whatever, you know, like that changes depending on if you're Christian or
Hindu, or or if you're a you know, living in the plains of
South Dakota and a you know, but it comes back as a messenger.
Now that's the ancient mythology, so present day, the most popular series of
books in the history of publication is Harry Potter. I was gonna say it,
Potter. Harry Potter has an owl that delivers the mail, the messenger.
It is perfect, it is per wow. I never this is is
that's present day? Wow. Right makes a lot of sense. And my
I wondered, so jk Rowling as owl in her name, but so don't
start that One's that one's more how my quirky brain works rather that Yeah,
yeah, right and better. So, so, like the question is I
would love to ask her, right, did she did that happen organically?
Did it happen spontaneously? Did it just like oh, I'll just like that
felt like the right animals, so I'll put it in place for there.
Or did I doubt that you think she was a student of mysticism enough that
she would have Yes, I think we've done a whole episode on Harry Potter,
and like, I don't want to derail the owl conversation. You know,
aside from the fact that the surface level of Harry Potter is witches and
wizards and wands, and spells. When you dig beneath the surface of of
you know, the fantasy aspect of it, there's a lot of real world
esotericism and a cult packed into it, some massa symbolism, templar myth stuff
like that. Like I have no doubt my mind, that's intentional. Yeah.
You even look at the first book, you know, it's the Philosopher's
Stone. It's an extremely occult symbol it's in mystic lore, and it's like,
you know, I mean, every book is jam packed full of deep
occult stuff. It seems pretty apparent that she was at least like intrigued and
in that kind of yeah, if not very very well studied on it,
because there's some deep stuff in Harry Potter. Yeah, like there's a textbook
in the in the series written by a lifeish Levi. But anybody out in
you know, out here in the real world, if you know who that
is, that's that's a very uh prolific name in the in the occult world.
So she's she's definitely packing some secrets in there. Okay, good,
good, Well that's good to know because I'm my I was, It's to
me it would be more fun if she didn't know, and it just happened
organically. But that I certainly it certainly happens sometimes where people will put an
owl in fiction and it just happens. Um, did you ever read Slaughterhouse
five? I've read it. That's a fantastic book. I ready, yeah,
Yeah, it's a it's like it was. It's easy to find a
garage sales. It was. It's like came out I think in nineteen sixty
eight, might be sixty nine, And um, story it's World War two,
correct, it's like it's it's The author, Kurt vonigut Is, is
dealing with his traumatic memories of being a prisoner of war in World War Two.
He was in Dresden and was locked in a a meat locker. They
didn't have anywhere to put the prisoners, they just locked him in a meat
locker. The Americans came and bombed the city and when made their way out
of the meat locker, the city was gone, just flattened level. Everyone's
dead. So it's a really nightmare story. But he uses this this science
fiction platform where the character that was Billy Pilgrim is the name of the character,
is like gets abducted by aliens and because he's abducted by aliens. He
has his vault back and forth through time. So the story has this kind
of jumping narrative where he's going jumping back and forth in time. But when
he gets seducted by a flying saucer, there's a line I can I'm going
to riff and do this off the top of my head. It basically it
says something like, um, I stepped into the yard because he's because he's
like skipping through time, he knows what's going to happen. And I went
into the backyard knowing full well the flying saucer was going to arrive. There
was an owl hooting, and big flying saucer hovered over me and took me
to Trafalmador, which was the science fiction planet where he was taken. So
and the owl shows up a bunch of times symbolically each time the contact events
take place. I don't Kurt Fonic gets gone and there's no one to ask.
But I don't think that happened because he was a student of right this
lore. I think that happened organically. He was just tapped in as the
creative type. He was tapped into that to that creative like he was that
that book is like if you if there was a list of top I might
even be top ten books of the twentieth century, but certainly in the top
fifty, everyone would include that book. So that's not like a fly by
night kind of insignificant piece of work. That's a major piece of popular culture
literature. And it has flying saucers and UFOs, like totally interlocked. You
know, you know what might the other you might like this reference. We
recently, in the last like six to eight months, did an episode with
a friend of ours name Tom Batforce, who runs like a pretty large DC
comics um podcast where they talk about just comic books, not even you know,
spiritual stuff. But he did a crossover with us because he wanted to
start talking about spiritual stuff, and we did a whole episode about this series
called The Invisibles. No no, no, no, no, no,
it's not the Invisibles, is it? Yeah? Invisible is Grant cameras?
No, not that one, not the Grant Grant. Oh. The Department
of Truth. Department of Truth, the Department of Truth, And it has
UFOs and owl symbolism. There were owls in that right, Yeah. Did
I'm gonna write this down? What is it. It's called the Department of
Truth. Yeah, we did talk about the invisibles, but I got confused,
that's not the one I'm referencing, and I said it was Grant Camera.
It's not. It's Grant Morrison. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And
as far as as far as the idea of like the divine inspiration sort of
thing, like you you you mentioned that, you think, uh, maybe
the idea of using the owls and the UFOs in Slaughterhouse five just kind of
like happened organically. We talk about that pretty often on the show as well,
like those those like divine downloads whatever you want to call them. Um,
it's like that spark of inspiration. It's like whispers from the other realm.
Well, it's kind of like a kind of like how you're describing the
owl, like bringing a message from the other realm. You know. I
almost almost look at it like that. And we also relate it often to
the Greek muses, you know, whispering inspiration into the ears of men.
So I think that does happen quite frequently. And it's even possible that,
you know, that could have been the case with Harry Potter, who knows,
but I think it I mean, you see occult symbolism and information in
so many movies, books, video games, music, It's everywhere now,
and it's all that that divine inspiration, those eerie downloads from that other realm.
Well, also we can talk about, like um, Carl Jung,
who just pretty much established in his work that like animal symbolism is universal in
the subconscious mind. You know, everybody, no matter if you're aware of
it or not, everybody is tapped into the symbolism of the animal kingdom on
a subconscious level. So like that that just you know, I feel like
that supports what you're saying, Mike. Yeah, Well, that's the term
is that would be the archetype. That's that's that's the vocabulary word that both
Carl Young used and Plato used was archetype. And uh, Carl Young took
it a little deeper than the than Plato's whatever would be like three thousand year
old definition, and uh, that's kind of tied into the collective consciousness.
So given Carl Jung's model, if there's a young and like scholar here,
they might cringe a little bit as I try to riff on this, but
let me te gus um he would he would argue that that within our collective,
like all of us universally, all of us have an inner knowing of
what an owl means. Right, So there's things that like are inherent to
all of us. Right So, even as little kids were, we have
a fear of heights, we have a fear of loud noises. That that
was genetically. We can make sense of how that got fed into our to
our psyche. But it's a little more, a little esoteric. It's it's
a little more like why would owls? Why would someone in Kenya have the
same mythology about owls as someone in Siberia. Right, So they're not exactly
the same, but wow, they they follow the same lore almost universally.
Owls are associated with death all over the world. Wow. Well, I
mean, I'm sure you recall this, Mike, But back in twenty thirteen
when my grandfather died, um we were riding in a limousine to my grandpa's
funeral and we saw an owl on um On. It was raining too,
so there should not have been an owl. Owl. It was a dark
oh I mean I say dark, but you know it was a cloudy,
dark, rainy day in December and there was an owl on a dead tree
stump while we were writing to the funeral. So death, okay, now
so so so, so this is the question I ask, So what was
your What was your sense? I've talked your father at length about this,
But what was your sense? I mean in the moment. Honestly, it
might not be a surprising answer. It's just that you know, we're on
the way to honor the death of my grandfather. The owl was just comforting
us or or or you know, just guiding us through the process. I
mean, my grandpa's death was very sudden. He actually, very shortly before
he died, he had been healed of cancer. And he got the phone
call pretty much like right in front of my dad, and it was kind
of like a Hallelujah moment. Threw his hands up to this guy and we
saw orbs that he was healed of cancer. It was oh. And then
there was another instance where an owl flew right down on the patio um next
door where my grandpa. If you recall you've been to my old house,
I met your grandfather at that weekend. I was there. Yeah. Oh
wow, so you were there just before he died. Then well it would
have been see if he died in December, I was there, and probably
it might have been. This was twenty thirteen when he might have been may
so might I think it was there? Me? Yeah, well, um,
there an owl you know, flew near them and he kind of had
this like miraculous healing of cancer and he believed in that. Ever you know,
past that, I mean, initially when this UFO stuff broke with our
family, they didn't believe any of it. They thought it was crazy,
they thought it was drugs. They didn't want to accept it. And then
he started having these experiences seeing orbs, see and owls, and then you
know, and then he suddenly died and we were all in huge shock.
And I just feel like the owl was guiding us through it, you know,
it was it was um, you know, I can't sit here and
say why it showed up, but it was very ominous and very strange.
I'm what you're sharing. I've heard hundreds of times, maybe thousands realistic,
well, but by not thousands, I've heard thousands of owls and the UFO
accounts, the owl and death accounts almost universally. There's some variation, but
it is apparent passes and an owl shows up. So what's the conclusions?
What does it mean? What you just said it? You said it as
plainly as you possibly could. You said it. What did you feel that
it was significant? I just I just felt like it was like, you
know, it was all divinely orchestrated. I mean, nobody, nobody wants
to sit there and say, wow, you know, fate or God took
my grandpa away from me, but it was clearly meant to happen, and
we were you know, I had the sense that like it was just fate,
like I just had to you know. Okay, So so here's this
is very common. So you were in a car with your whole family.
The whole family was in the car. It was a limo. You know.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. I talked to your dad and he
he said, exactly the same thing. That's in He says, that's in
it's in his book. That's in my book too, that's in this book
too. It's certainly that that story is in this book. Oh cool,
Yeah, you're the whole I was actually going to do I when this book
got updated in two thousand, I just added a little bit of extra stuff.
In twenty twenty, when this book got updated, and so there's a
couple extra paragraphs about your dad and there, and that was. But that
story was already in there. So let's go. Um, I'll tell a
story that happened to me. Okay, this would have also been This would
have been twenty and thirteen, twenty thirteen, how about that when my mom
died. So my mom, my dad died in two thousand and twelve.
My mom died in two thousand and thirteen, thirteen months later, so this
would have been in the very end of July. My this wasn't My mother
was an assisted living facility just outside of Davidson, and my sister lives in
Davidson. So my sister was taking care of my mom and she has she
had Alzheimer's in the last few years of her life. Were I'm sorry,
Oh it was. It was. It was so sad. So Alzheimer's is
tough. Yeah. So I was already well immersed in this OWL stuff at
that point, and I, my brother, sister, and I were there.
So here, let me back up a little bit. You want to
hear us, man, I'm going to back up a little bit. So,
yeah, I want to hear all about I was owl. This is
so this is you were asking about owl symbolism. I was in living in
Idaho at the time. I'm presently in Seattle area right now, but my
little cabin in Idaho, I lived at high elevation. It was right near
Jackson Hole. It was a beautiful spot near the Titans and Yellowstone and it
gets hot during the day in the summer and then it cools off like you
need to Nobody can have a convertible and where I lived there because it gets
too cold at night, right, so you drive around the convertible, Hey,
what a beautiful day, and then they're like freeze at night. So
so so nobody has air conditioning. So what happens is at night you just
opened the doors and there's not really any bugs to speak of at night once
it gets cold, so you just everyone just opens their doors totally wide open.
So I'm sitting here at my computer and the and in the kitchen the
way the house was where my desk was, I could look right into the
kitchen and I'm typing away. It's about nine thirty at night, and I
hear this like noise in the kitchen. I think it's my cat, and
it's like that doesn't sound right. And I look over and there is a
ferret in my kitchen, like a big wild ferret, whitey inch long wild
ferret, like a big in my kitchen. So I get up and I'm
like, what my fear was that this thing is going to come deeper to
the house and like get into the couch and I won't be able to get
it out of my cats in there and stuff like them. So so I
walk up to this thing. This is like white linoleum floor. All the
kitchen lights are on like fully lit, like this is not like. I
get a fleeting glimpse of this thing, and I stand right over this thing
and I say I kind of go with I kind of like kind of you
know, gotta go, and and I said, you can't be here,
you need to leave, you need to go, you can't be here,
and it hops out onto the porch and that's when we have a real stare
down, like full on like two minutes of just well probably a minute of
just like and now ferrets, remember the mink family, Their fur is just
lust shiny and beautiful, and they've got these big adorable eyes and the big
wet nose and just they have this life and vitality when they move around.
And I started this thing and then it just walked off into the bushes.
So I immediately looked up what kind of ferret it was, and there's a
faret called a black footed ferret identical like I was, Like I was,
I'm sick. I was. It was at my feet. I couldn't have
been any closer. I'd have the only way to get closer, I'd be
on my knees right. So and so I totally the idea blackfoot fair.
Black footed faret was considered extinct until the nineteen eighties, and there's only a
few places where they're known to live in. One of them is in Colorado
and then right in the Colorado Wyoming border. How this thing got in my
kitchen and Idaho a lot. So yeah, I go to bed that night,
I put I put a Facebook picture, and I put a picture of
the blackfooted fair that I found online. I put it on Facebook. I
get up really early the next morning, which is unusual for me at that
point in my life. Get up at like six and my brother leaves a
message for me. My brother's in the East Coast. I'm in the Mountain
Times so there's a few hours difference, and he says, might call me.
I called him up. He says, Mom had an aneurysm last night.
Get get on a plane. Now, WHOA. So I get in
a plane and then I so, now just let me let me back into
So my mom was unconscious. She never regained consciousness. This is a part
that I don't tell very often. But I was like my brother's sister,
and I took turns always being in the room with her. So there was
always something in the room with her. And there was a point there was
kind of any You sit there and Mom stowly unconscious, and I took my
shoes off. This is a weird thing, but I took my shoes off,
and the way the bed was and the way the chair was it was,
I put my feet under the blanket and touched my mom's feet. It
felt great, It felt great, It felt it was really touching thing you
do. So I and then I was typing up and I was writing up
this story, just exactly the story I told about the ferret. And I
said, um, I typed, could that does this connect it to my
mom in some way? In the ferret? And my mom groaned audibly.
It was the only noise she made in three days. When I typed,
does this has anything to do with my mom? The ferret? So what
I said, my mom like completely sad, tragic. Last year of her
life was awful. This shining glorious animals stands in my kitchen and I say,
you can't be here, you need to leave, and that and that
was the night she had the aneurysm. So it was an omen. It
was let's say, what's an omen? It's like it is it an omen?
Is it a premonition? Is a divine Is it a divine message?
Is it? Is it me connecting to the spirit of my mother? You
can look at this one hundred ways. I don't know what the answer is.
Yeah, yeah, So so I'm a couple of three days later,
I'm I'm with my mom. I'm sitting on one side of the bed,
my sister is sitting on the other side of the bed, and my brother
was out of the he was at the hotel at the time and which was
right nearby it. But we called, but my mom passed. I was
holding her hand and my sister was holding her other hand. It was really
touching, beautiful life experience that I I'm not the only person who's had that
experience, but it was really it felt really important. Wow. So mom
passes. It's like it happens at like three in the morning, and oh
my gosh, there's ten thousand things to do and phone calls and planning and
people to contact, and my brother's sister and I took turns in and we're
like trying to sleep. And so finally that next day kind of comes to
an end and we're in the back porch where my sister lives, and her
neighbor from across the street, Ruthie, is there. So Ruthie's sitting there's
like this kind of you can imagine like a pretty backyard in the North Carolina
with the big trees and and a big deck. And so we're on this
kind of big couch, kind of wicker couch thing, and Ruthie's directly across
from me my sister, So I'm in the middle. My older brother Jim
is on one side, my sister Jeanie's on the other side, and Jim
and jean like every morning I would get up and it's the Jim Jeane.
Look, I got more owl stories. They just arrive in my email inbox
and they're like, well, Mike, what are you talking about? Why
I'm doing this research about owls? And it's all really weird, and it's
like and I would read these letters and it's totally like, yeah, I
saw UFO and then this awlf flew over and then you know, then I
had like you know, I was had esp or whatever it might be.
And they're just like, my broom. You could tell. They were like,
what are you, Mike, what do you into? And so I'm
sitting in the middle of them, and then Ruthi's sitting across from us,
and she says she's like told my sister's best friend. She's like like she's
she's this really lovely, heart centered, like angel of a person. So
she says, jim Chen, Mike, I know there was an afterlife,
and I know because of an experience I had with an owl. And and
my sister does the thing where she kind of goes, no, no,
I don't want to hear I don't want to hear it. My brother looks
at me like, what the like, did you did you plan this?
Did you put her up to this? Did you pay her? Did he
give you this? Look like like what is going on? And I'm like
Ruthie like sees it and like just before Ruthie's face like what did I say,
Like like okay, Ruthie, just just so you know, you don't
know this, but I've been doing this research about owls. I want to
hear your story. She says, when my daddy died, she's the same
agent as my sister older sisters. This would have been ten years ago.
She would have been in her late fifties. She's she I when my daddy
died, I was grieving. I was grieving. It was so hard for
me. And every day, as part of my grieving process, I would
walk this path and the neighborhood has this little kind of nature trail that goes
around through the trees, and she would she would walk that every day,
and then she came. Every day she would pass an owl on a branch,
and then finally she said, the owls shouldn't be out. The owl
hooted, and she stopped, and she said, the owl shouldn't be this
shouldn't be here every day. All shouldn't be out during the day. And
she looked at this owl and she said, are you my daddy? And
she just said her grieving ended. Whoa, and the owl flew off.
And she says, because of that experience, I know my daddy. She
said it. She said the messenger there was a message delivered, like the
owl flew off. She never saw the owl again. She was she was
grieving. The grieving stopped. Wow, that story I have heard I don't
know how many times a lot and so that and I'm I would argue that.
So there's a I just held the floor here for a long time.
But there's a lot going on in that story with owls archetypal animals. Right,
So a ferret which has got which is a symbolic of life, it's
very feminine. It's a symbolic of life and dynamism. And the owl,
which is symbolic of it's less a symbol of death and more a symbol of
that of that transference or that transformation from life to death. So yeah,
yeah, no, I don't I don't get the bad sense of owls like
a you know, a warning of death. It seems more like it's they
appear around death, right like when you know, to sort of guide through
the process. Am I just making this up here? Nope? No,
I mean that's there's every story is different, right, I got one for
you to go to help that claim. And I'm sure if you've read my
dad's book, then you know this story. But I'm sure not every listener
out there has read my dad's book. So in chapter two or three,
he writes a chapter basically about how he had a pretty crazy owl experience at
the church when he was ten years old. As a little boy, he
would always um, you know, back then, living out in the country's
area of Grace Creek, it was like not many street lights, dirt roads,
very dark, very secluded country area, and he would always get dropped
off at like church, and he would be there till night, and he
would have to wait at the church until you know, my grandma drove up
in the car and pick him up. Anyway, So one night he's waiting
there and an owl just flies up and basically gets right in his face.
And then it was within a few days that he was shot by a shotgun
and basically died and was completely changed for the rest of his life. And
it's like, you know, the owl appeared, but he didn't die,
you know, he did, he did, he did. So this is
I don't want to speak for your father, but like given his explanation,
he did have the transformational process, right yeah, I mean he basically died,
but he lived. You know, it's like people people back. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, and he always just I've been to that tree.
He drove me there. We got out of the car. He stood there,
He pointed right to the tree. He pointed right to the branch where
the owl was this old, big, like big fat oak tree. I
guess like that was in the parking lot of the church. Yeah, so
I stood right in that exact spot. Yeah. Wow. And then he
was um shot in the hunting accidents. Actually, when I think about it
was doves. They were hunting doves and another another symbol archetypal, right right,
Yeah, that's why I said, now that I think about it,
it's a bird. It was dove, and um, it was just an
accident. You know. He was ten, his cousin was nine or ten,
and his best friend out there with him was nine or ten. And
Dad bent down to pick up a shotgun shell or something like that. And
then when he stood up, Um, you know, a bunch of nine
year old shouldn't be handling shot guns. And he got shot in the back,
um, you know, and he he almost died. I mean he
always described to me my whole life and everybody who ever asks that, it
was like immediately he left his body on What he felt like was, you
know how the silver surfer flies around on a surfboard. He felt like it
was like that, like kind of like on a surfboard, just shooting through
the stars. I'm interested to know, um, if you don't mind,
when when was the first time that you kind of put the whole owl and
UFO thing together? How did that? How did that come about for the
first time? Uh? Two thousand and six, I was living in the
little town in Idaho, which so I was working as an outdoor educator teaching
mountaineering in Alaska. So I would spend the summers in Alaska teaching mountaineering,
and then in the winners I would teach winter skiing, and then there was
some shoulder season stuff I would do with climbing and camping and stuff like that.
But I was where I lived, in the little town of Driggs,
Idaho. There was a branch for the school I worked for. There was
a branch there, and all my friends worked for the school. So you
just it was I could ride my bike there. It was this beautiful idyllic
life that I lived there for those years. And and there was this young
woman there and she had been working all summer. This would have been the
end of September early October. I can't pin the date down exactly. End
of September early October of two thousand and six. I would have been forty
four years old. I'm sixty now. And she and I got in a
conversation. She knew my books, my cartoon books where I did cartoon instructional
books for for camping and such. So I said, oh, wow,
you've been here all summer. You've been all summer and the Ta Tons and
the yellow Stone, you must have been camping all the time. And she
stood, I never camped once, and like, oh, that's terrible,
terrible. I'll take a camping, so this total stranger, I'll take a
camping for one night. Let's go. And so we went out. And
this was kind of a first state. That might sound kind of funny to
a lot of people, but in in in that part of the world,
like camping is like a normal total thing that's going in a hike and going
skiing or I don't think it's weird at all. Yeah. So I just
took this woman camping for a first date. So so and I didn't really
know where. Her name is Kristen and we're still good friends. Oh yeah,
and so she uh, so we went. We got to the spot
in the mountains and this is like whereas the sun is setting. I just
walked in with really light packs. We went without a tint. It was
going to be a beautiful to night. I could read the weather. It
was gonna we're only one night get this weather in the autumn at just magical,
perfect cloudless sky and you know it's good. So nope, we didn't
take an tent. So we're we're sitting on speak flat rock and this field
of wildflowers and the stars are coming out and she's she this to tell the
story correctly. There's there's some details this she's telling me the story, and
I'm like, whoa, Wow, this is someone smart, this is someone
with some depth. This someone was like, this is I did not expect
this of this stranger. Like wow. We had a really deep conversation and
as that happened, this owl flew right over our heads. Wow. And
then the next two owls, then another owl, then a third own.
For the next two hours, these owls just flew around us. So we
were in bare countries. So where we were cooking, we had to put
everything away and then we walked for it. We didn't walk free far,
like a little bit, so we had to walk away and the owls followed
us. And then we found us about to sleep, and we set our
sleeping pads out on the ground, and so we're like lying on the ground,
and what would happen is these owls would like, We're in our sleeping
bags loking up at the stars, total complete inky black night with the trillion
stars far north Rocky Mountains, high elevation, and these owls would like totally
silent fly in front of our faces and for just half a second that would
be inky black, like splotted out the scar So the next day we were
oh so So the next day we were like on fire. Wow the owl
thing. That was so cool. So I said, hey, if you
ever want to go camping again, let's go. She said great. So
four days later we own camping one more time, went to a totally different
part of the mountains, and then it was kind of cold, that night,
so I said, let's hike up to that hilltop and we'll warm up.
So we'll hike up to this hiltop. We were way above what would
be called tree line, so it's big open tun drub, you know,
where there's no trees at a certain elevation. So we hike up to this
lone peak and watched the sunset, and as the sun is setting, an
owl flies over us, and then a second owl, and then a third.
Our three hours before they kind of stayed over there. They'd kind of
land on a branch way out there, but this time, like they were
they were right up close. They were like landing on the branch right next
to us, on a little bush. They landed at our feet. I
can so clearly see the look on Kristen's face of just like just astonishment.
And this is a completely different area, rightly, a different area. And
this is a weird thing to say. It's a weird thing to say,
but I'm going to say that they were the same three owls, don't.
I mean, I can't prove that, but that's certainly my sense. Ye,
we're in it now, Yeah, yeah, Wow, that's that's an
incredible story. So hold it. Wait so so so so yeah, yeah,
what was the relationship to UFOs? Yeah, so so I so when
I so. I did not say this at the time, but I'm saying
it now. As I was having real experience of looking at real owls,
I had a voice in my head that said, a voice in my head
could have been my own, right, murky, you know, like a
voice in your head. What does that mean? The voice said, this
has something to do with the UFOs. So I'm looking at an owl.
Your voice in my head says, this has something to do with the UFOs.
Whoa, And I'm so started. Well, in my youth, I
had like missing time events and I saw gray aliens in my yard and I
saw UFOs and stuff. So but that had been a long time before,
and I had just been I could talk about here about that now? Well
yeah saw so so so here's so so like to have it happened once,
it was pretty cool, right, like, wow, it's awesome to have
it happened twice with the same person and what might be the same owls.
And four days later I was like just like I lost my mind, Like
I totally lost my mind. I was like, ah, what does this
mean? And I like and I and what I and So this was at
the point in my life when I was like I knew I had to look
into the UFO stuff in my life, Like I knew I had to deal
with this in my life, Like I knew I couldn't push this away.
And then like it was like there was always this gonna like there's gonna be
a day I'll get around to it. And I but I'm not going to
do it now, no way, not yet, not now. But that
just that just like pushed me right. So I started reaching out to UFO
researchers, and I reached out to Bud Hopkins. Do you remember that there's
a character named Leo Sprinkle. Have you come across his name in the literature?
I've heard his name. I know he died. He died just a
year. That's met him or he's told me about him or something. Yeah,
your dad may have met him, I bitch. So, but he
died about a year ago. He was like ninety five or something like that.
But he was really sharp right up to the end and really great.
But anyway, so, so he was in Wyoming, so I could I
met with him and he said he did this thing. He was like,
Mike, here's here's a call this guy. Give me. Here's this number,
call this person. So every person I talked to I would ask,
you know, I'd ask like, you do know what's your UFO story?
And then but I would also always ask like, if you'd had any odd
experiences with owls? You try it? Asked someone who said UFO experiences,
asked him if you had had any odd experiences with owls? Get ready?
Get oh yeah, get ready. It's not gonna be one hundred percent,
but I'll tell you sure, get ready. You're gonna hear the weirdest can
I swear absolutely? Hear the weirdest shit imaginable? So let's so I started
a blog in two thousand and nine. Kristen the girl, the young woman
I was but camping. She moved out of the valley and so, but
we kept in touch, had her phone number and stuff. So when I
the story, I just told about the owls and flying around and that without
without the detail of the voice in my head. I talked about that.
Now I'm kind of overall that at this point. I don't try to hide
anything at this point. So so um, I got a hold of her
and because I did a blog post and I put it out the blog post
up, and that would have been in March of two thousand and nine,
so three years later, and I contacted her and said, Kristen, what
were we talking about? I remember we were talking about something the very first
night we saw the very first owls. What were we talking about? And
she said, oh, I remember exactly what we were talking about. I
was giving my deepest, most heartfelt definition of what God means to me when
the first all showed up. Wow, I say. She just basically told
she basically, well, that's that would be more for her to answers has
been so yeah. So basically she gave a very thoughtful definition of like of
how God is riff I should be able to do this pretty closely so that
she's not at all churchy as and neither of my but I certainly rank suddenly
recognized the spiritual and enormity of that. And though I'm certainly like I believe
in a in what we would call God, oftentimes I don't say that,
I'll say the universe or the ever present all or something like that or and
and uh so she was just get she gave a very beautiful anyway, she
would answer that better than I could. But what that did. So this
is three years later, I've got a website that I'm writing about UFOs novels
on. Actually it was only the first few days of the website of the
blog then this happened. And wow, like wow, like for me,
I'm already like that thing where I said I went insane, like that feeling
of being insane, I say this, I'm I'm not. I don't.
I'm maybe exaggerating a little bit, but I'm not much. Between two thousand
and six and two thirteen, I felt I feel like I spent ninety five
percent of my waking hours wondering if I had gone insane. Because after that
event, it wasn't like I was hit with not so much UFO experiences and
not so much I'll experience that a little of that, but but I was
hit with so many synchronicities at a level that was blew my mind, and
so I was. I was just basically things were happening to me with such
an overwhelming intensity in a way that like the world, my parents, the
schools, the New York Times, all New York Times changed a little bit
the last few years. But like the general consensus said, this cannot happen.
What you're what you're describing in your life cannot happen. But it was
happening, and I was. I was so off balanced. And it was
in those years that I was writing furiously on my blog about my what would
be a lot of it was about synchronicities, and a lot of it about
what is about owls, and a lot of it was about UFO contact memories
or events that were taking place during that time. Okay, sorry, I'm
do the thing this is I should have the coffee is. Oh no,
you're very thoughtful, intentional storyteller. I'm it's amazing. Yeah, I'm enthralled.
Um. Yeah, no, I know exactly the feeling you're describing,
Mike, And you're definitely not insane. I've had many you do know.
Yeah, and your father certainly knows that I actually know the Book of Half
Yeah, you know. Yeah, And it's une else for sure. For
sure, lots of people know that feeling when you have some sort of paranormal
experience and it's like everyone around you is telling you it's not happening, and
you're like, this shouldn't be happening. And it can make you feel very
ungrounded. You know, it's like, not not that you're going insane,
but it certainly feels that way when you have no there's there's low key it's
low key gaslighting when people do that to you, because they're trying to make
you believe in a reality that is not your reality, you know what I
mean, Like, yeah, they're they're trying to tell you what your reality
is. But I think many of them, Oh absolutely, it's but it's
it's both at the same time. It's it's like, you know, the
the thing that's so bad about gaslighting is you make people feel like they're insane.
They're they're living in a world that's not real or not lining up to
with what you believe or with what the other person believes. That's exactly what
that does to somebody is it makes them feel like, well, what's wrong
with me? Then? Yeah, yeah, I had to go through that
all by yourself. That's awful. Oh but it was, you know,
honestly, it wasn't all by myself. Strangely enough, the blog what a
weird this is? Like, this was two thousand and nine. If you
turn the clock back, that was really early on and like what would be
called the blog sphere. That was so I was. I wasn't on the
ground before past. Oh yeah, well I started plenty two thousand and nine.
So I was, well, you were ahead of the curve, man,
because it was not much ahead of the curve. I wasn't there.
It was not a big common thing for everybody to just have a podcast.
Oh yeah, yeah. So but um, but so I wasn't alone in
that sense because I was meeting people through the through the blog. You know
you. I just listened to a podcast you did with your might have been
the last one that was on, and you were talking with your sister and
and yeah, you said something. You said something like like you go to
a party and people are just talking about this like boring stuff, like you
know, this day to day stuff like you know, he said, she
said, or like you know this new thing I got or this new TV
or something, and it just it just it's just like it's I and I
could tap into it totally. I can't remember exactly what you said, but
but there's this this like what why are you wasting time on this? When
there's like, you know, who are we? What are we here for?
What does it all mean, you know, like those are like why
aren't we where aren't you going there? There was the time in my younger
years. I say that, I mean, I'm only twenty nine, but
like even younger when this was stuff, you know, a lot more new
than it is now. There was a time where it was all I ever
ever wanted to talk about was the UFO stuff for the paranormal or whatever.
And I had to learn the very hard way that most people don't want to
hear it, and if they do, they'll let you know. And it's
okay if they don't, because now I have a podcast that I could just
go broadcast it and get that out of my system, you know. So
it's really helped me a lot. I'm sure like your blog helped you,
this podcast has helped me in waste that people just couldn't even imagine. Oh
yeah, oh yeah, yeah, oh wow. In fact, so the
I did a podcast, My initial podcast was called Hidden Experience. It's all
still archived, done, you can get it anywhere, find it anywhere.
But I was that was like therapy, one hundred percent therapy. It's like,
oh yeah, five years of therapy, Like who do I talk to?
Richard Dolan, Like why do I even I just I'll okay, ask
him to me in my podcast. That was my that was my methodology just
so so it's it's like I was you can hear it. I mean,
it wasn't hidden, and I was needy and I wanted that. I wanted
help. So that's awesome. Wow, you've come a long way, Mike.
It's been incredible. I mean, is is there anything before we go?
Is there anything that you feel like you haven't gotten off your chest?
But like, oh, I so the problem is okay, like I got
like off like I've gotten it all off my chest. I mean, if
you if you stack my books up, it's was there, like it's like
over it's like fifteen hundred pages of Okay, I got a go ahead.
I got a question for you. Why do you actually think that owls appear
with paranormal sightings, synchronicities UFOs? What's the meaning behind it? Why specifically
do they appear? Okay, So, do you know Richard Dolan at all?
Or he published my books? Initially? My dad's been on a show
and I've met him once on the phone, but I don't know him that
well. So he so, so I knew him pretty well because he published
my books. Initially A nice guy. He's a super great guy, super
great guy. And so so when I did the first book, this book,
the Blue Book, um, he was he was. He called me,
like, Mike, Mike, I'm loving your book. Your book is
great. I really yeah, I'm really like, but like, when do
you get to the point when you say, like, what does the owls
mean? What are you going to get? You're going to be really disappointed
at the book. So I kind of and and then I did a second
book because I got my books here on the desk here. But the second
book was Stories from the Messengers, which is cool, which is a all
the stories that wouldn't fit into the first book, right, so here you
must understand, so you know what it means to like like there's a thing
in an event and then you try to tell it, but it's like,
but I gotta in order to really understand, you gotta tell this thread over
here. But we can't understand that threat until you tell this thread over here.
And then and then this tapestry emerges and then there's like no beginning,
middle, and end of the story because it's just like so many events are
noted together. That's what I was finding in people's reports as well as in
my own life experience. That that's how it was playing up. So that
book was sort of this book was sort of examining that tight tapestry with about
there's about sixteen stories. But in the here I'll even do it. I'll
open this book up because this is in the So when I did the second
book, he published a second book, and he's richest from New York City.
He's pretty tough, and he was like, Mike, now, no
way, you're not getting away with it this time. No way, not
me. You gotta you can't do it. You gotta tell you, gotta
give me your reasons of what it means. And so I'm just gonna read
it because it's short. Okay, oh nice. So again, why owls
On a purely intellectual level, I don't know, but my gut feeling gives
me a glimpse into some possible answers. Here are four ideas on what owls
might mean, each of which are followed with another question. So I kind
of cheat, like I could say, oh, here's what it might mean,
and answer, well, who knows? So Number one, owls are
alarm clocks. The simplest answer is that they are here to wake us up,
to wake us up to what. Number two. Owls are an archetype.
They are a symbol, an image stored deep within humanity's genetic memory bank.
It's as if there are hidden meanings locked away within our grand shared consciousness
and the owl is a key. We think in symbols, and the owl
is touching us on that level. And this deeper knowing goes back to the
dawn of man. But what is the hidden archetypal meaning? Number three,
owls are here to announce initiation. So so, like part of my researches,
I've talked to a lot of shamans, people who do shaman, and
it is well understood within shamanic communities that owls show up. It's like I'll
show up at the time of the initiation of a shaman. They just show
up. Wow. So given, so let's go. Let's so your dad,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna just Shaman is a tough thing to define,
right, So one person would have a one definition, one person would have
another. Now, your father's doing healing work, he's doing has psychic abilities.
I mean this that would healing work in a community, that would be
a shaman. So when in the owl showed up during what would be his
initiation, m I think that's fair to say that this is this is absolutely
common. It's not just your dad. I definitely consider my dad like a
shaman. Oh oh yeah, like like more or less you get shaman like
a shaman, a wizard all yeah, So okay. Owls are here to
announce initiation. An initiation is a ritual, like a young Catholic receiving the
Eucharist for the first Holy communion. Owls often seem to show up just before
the arrival of a UFO, as if to announce an important impending ritual.
Religious scholars would argue that this initiation, that these initiation rights are metaphoric of
a profound change within the initiate, but the true believer wouldn't see the initiation
as a metaphor. The change would be entirely real. But an initiation into
what number four. The owls are a totem of the transformational experience seeing a
UFO can transform someone. I've spoken to a lot of people who have seen
strange craft in the sky and in that moment, their entire definition of reality
is altered. I've also, excuse me, I've also spoken to people who
have had owl sightings at such highly charged moments that it transformed their lives.
But a transformation into what wow. So so you asked that was that's the
best I could come up with as far as men. So that was that
was incredibly deep. And I do want to say something I just realized earlier.
You asked me, what did I feel in the moment when I saw
the owl going to the funeral? Well, I wanted the preface or not
preface, but you know, speak in Hindsights twenty twenty right, proface,
I don't really feel anything in the moment. What I feel like is what
if the owl or you know, X, y Z, other symbolic thing
in nature is there, so that afterwards the meaning can also be gleaned,
because in the moment it's just grief, you know what I mean. You're
not you're not thinking, oh, look it's an owl from the spirit.
I mean most people are not thinking it's an owl from the spirit world.
It's here right now, you know, I promise you it wasn't thinking that
in the moment, Ruthie. But I'm sure you know. I'm sure people
do. But I'm just wondering if what if the symbol you know, the
animals, whatever, symbolism is present in the experience so that it can be
contemplated past, present or future, etc. Etc. You know what I
mean. So it could be the experience could be like contextualized, right,
yeah, and understood as a spiritual experience. It's kind of like a reminder
like like you know, he locks in. I think symbolism like locks in
the significance of the metaphorical metaphysical stuff. I don't know. I'm just speculating.
So we we Okay, So I had a hypnosisssion cool in two and
eighteen. Oh my godson, Oh my god. The story is like I'm
happy to tell it. It takes a long time. Yeah, well let
me so, let me so. So do you know do you know Yevan
Smith? My dad does. Okay, Yeah, that doesn't spies me.
Your dad does. So. So I was I was going to be in
California. Her offices are in Pasadena, So I was going to be in
California. And I said, Hey, I'm going to be in California in
this two thousand summer two thousand eighteen. So I visited her and so I
we said, we're going to explore one night in my life with this.
Sure sounds like a UFO contact event. I'll go into that right now.
But but wow, because it's like textbook, well in the may not textbook,
it's like you got to be pretty well immersed in the lore. But
wow, but there was no fear associated with that night. So I was
like, Okay, let's explore that. And then I said at the beginning,
I said, hey, by the way, let's while we're talking.
At some point we're talking when I'm under hypnosis, you ask me like,
what's up with the owls? Can you do that? She's of course I
can do that. I can do that. So we go through this whole
thing, and I freaking swear at the stars and I'm like so worked up
and I'm screaming and yelling and crying and like just so worked up. And
then like it kind of comes to night kind of kind she gets me back
to what I'm like things are. And then and then at the very end,
she goes and Mike, what is your connection with owls? And I
didn't skip a beat? Right, So, have you ever heard hypnosis?
Trans transcriber, listen to it like the hip. I've had it, I've
done it. Oh really yeah, have you listen. It's like it's like
someone asked the question. There's like a deathly alter and then and then you're
just like this whisper and you kind of stammer or I do I kind of
well, I don't know what's happening, Like that kind of thing happens.
So so she says, and Mike, what is your connection to owls?
And I say, the owls aren't important. I don't whisper it. I
don't kind of I'm not stuttering. This is I'd like for the last twelve
years, I've been getting up every morning in owls, owls, owls all
day long, and I get the books on owls and like podcasts on owls.
And guy talked to I went to the UFO conferences, stood it like,
I like, that's all I talked about. Owls are the most important
thing. That wasn't you talking, so I said, And then I said,
I said, I am an artist and I know the meaning of a
symbol. This is like, this is coming out of me, so I
can do this totally risk. This is like just like seared into my psyche
whoa, And I said, the owls aren't important. The owls are a
symbol on a door. It is the door that is important. We day
are on it is the correct symbol for the door. But the owl isn't
important. We are on this side of the door in a tight, claustrophobic
little hallway, and on the other side of the door or is an infinite
vastness. Wow. And then I and I would like, I didn't know
where that came from. That and she I actually said, do you think
I was channeling? She said yeah, she had answer. She said,
how do I know? Which I mean? I don't want to like interpret
your experience or whatever. But my first take is like the doorway is an
initiation. It's yeah, it's awakening. You know. I was thinking that
earlier when you said the owl showed up when you and um, your friend
um christ Ruth Chris, Yeah, when you were camping and you saw the
owls Christine's first five letters of christ same as your Yeah, there you go,
there go. I didn't even catch that. This is I'm like weird,
like that said, that's not weird, that's noticing the patterns because here's
the thing reality is. It's it's from the mind. It's there. There's
one original mind. You know. If we want to talk about concepts of
God, God is the original mind from which everything is a thought form emanating
from that mind, you know. And like the closer you get to to
interfacing with that mind or understanding it and how it works and operates, you
start to have these crazy synchronicities in the world around you like that, and
like with numbers and like letters and symbols and animals and nature and UFOs and
it's it's all just it's it's all weird, you know. My dad says
this. He says, you know, everything's magic, literally, everything's magic.
But yeah, yeah, you were definitely awakened. That's the sense that
I got. And uh wow, incredible story. Um, if you had
one thing, I know, I said that was the last question. But
if you had one thing, if everybody in the world was listening right now,
what's the one thing that you feel like you would need to tell the
world? M So a guy came up to me at a UFUL conference And
this is early on. I was going to u FUL conferences and I was
just I did it just to be around people that I could talk with.
He said, so what brings you here? And I'm like, oh,
I've had these experiences and on this and time, So well, how's your
life different now they've had these experiences? I had to think for a love
it. I said, I now live in a magical universe, which checks
that was true, And that's what I would say. I would say,
like, wow, you wet, you get whatever, You're just you gotta
get your car fixed, and you gotta don't have enough money, and like
checking it out, and there's like these normal day to day things that are
hard, they're real, they're hard, but beneath it all parallel to at
all that we live in a magical universe and if you are open to it,
it's happening all the time all around. That's a beautiful message. I
love that it's deep. Mike. Where can everybody find you? Your books,
your website, wherever you want to direct people to go to find you?
And please mention that, um, you can just google UFOs and owls
and I'll come right up. And if he's not lying, it's real.
I try. You don't need to know how to spell my last name,
which is C L E L L A and D. You can go to
Mike klelland dot com and from there you can get to the books and the
podcast and the blog and the so so um yeah, so that would be
the best place to start. Oh, I'm gonna do one thing. I'm
gonna push this thing which I'm I'm from Michigan, so I'm who do I
have it here? I don't. I'm just gonna get up for one second.
Yeah, that's fine. You take your time. Wow, dude,
I'm reading. I'm reading those books. I can't wait. I just this
is I just got this book is called The Unseen. It is a fiction
book. And oh, I like I lost, like I gave. So
I've been working as an illustrator for most of my life and I kind of
artist illustrator, creative type. Wow, I've never done a deep dive like
this, so I try. I wrote a book when you must know what
I mean here? Like like, people will tell me one owl story and
then the next day I'll hear another owl story. It's like, not quite
the same thing, right, Someone allow the detail with this, and then
another We'll have other details and one person will say, am I alone in
this? And I'm like, oh, no, no, I have heard
that. I have not heard that exact story, but I have heard so
many with the same flavor and mood. I can't I cannot tell you how
many times I've typed flavor and mood in an email to someone said, You're
not alone. So this. I tried to imbue this book as much as
I possibly could with that elusive flavor and mood. So I love that.
And you just put it out like last week in the week or the week
before correct a little lesson a month ago it came out. Yeah, so
and then and it's a UFO book. And I never say UFO. There's
never say abduction. I never say synchronicity. I purposely tried to make it
as I wanted. This is going to sound really weird, but I wanted
people to read the whole book and like it and enjoy it and then not
even know what it was about UFOs. Oh, that's esoteric. That's amazing.
Yeah. I don't know if I'm notified. I don't know if I
succeeded it or not. But that's what was Michael. It's called The Unseen.
That was the title, The Unseen. Yes, it's a yeah,
I just came out and the everybody go and check it out and unseen by
Mike Allen. And if you're gonna start anywhere with the Owl stuff, just
the first book, The Messengers would be the place to start. Yeah.
I already have a tab open on Amazon. I want to get that excellent.
Well, guys, this was such a thoughtful, very just riveting.
I mean, Mike, you're a great storyteller. Yeah, that was incredible,
truly, and as good as you are, you know, orally dictating
your stories, I imagine you have to be a fantastic writer. So guys,
please check them out, give them some support. We do have a
tradition on our show. I know you've seen it because you've seen the show.
We liked to round out by saying, by guys, So if you
don't mind completing our ritualistic tradition with us on the one, two three,
by guys, weird things happen in the backyard of what so House said over
us descending God's so weird coming closer to players industry up like spiraling on the
inside of it. No one knows, Wow, it's come River shin