Inner Workings
Since it isn’t something that I talk about very often, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss how approach these topics here at Greater Huntsville Paranormal Research! If you were at the event we had on 11/10 you got the gist of it, I think, but for everyone who couldn’t make it, you’re in for a treat!
So, this is something that I’ve done for a while. As such, my views on the paranormal have changed as I’ve gotten older.
When I first started out (when GHPR was still called the Alabama Bigfoot Field Research Group — please don’t make fun of me too much, I was a kid) I was very much into the idea that some small-ish population of tall, hairy apes lived in the wilds of North America. I, like most bigfoot enthusiasts, believed that these were flesh and blood creatures. I thought they evolved alongside us, they came to choose to avoid encounters with us, they were probably migratory, and they obviously buried their dead. Although I really and truly want that all to be true, it doesn’t quite fit my worldview anymore. This is a worldview that developed over these past sixteen years, alongside my investigation methods.
When ABFRG was still a thing, in those early days of pursuing my esoteric interests, I was pretty good at maintaining contact with fellow researchers. Mainly, I exchanged emails with a researcher named Paul Fitsik (who ran a Seattle based group and the website bigfoot.info). Paul taught me, through our many conversations, a number of methods of looking for bigfoot. His most important lesson? Have fun and never take yourself too seriously.
Sure, if this is something you want to actually pursue, you should take it seriously. Just, in the process of pursuing it, don’t forget to let loose. Don’t forget to enjoy yourself. Don’t get so caught up on having encounter that you miss out on the adventure. Besides, it’s when you lower your inhibitions, drop your guard, and you’re goofing off with your friends that you’re gonna have an experience, you know?
Like I said, when I first got started, I used to think of bigfoot as a real, flesh and blood creature. I’m not so sure anymore how true this is.
When I was a teenager (and I’ve become a lot more interested in it, and actually started practicing, in the past few years) I used to dabble with wicca and paganism. One of the ideas behind it all (at least as I’ve come to understand it) is that the magic is in your mind. That’s not to say that it isn’t real and that it doesn’t affect you. But that also doesn’t mean that magic can completely remake the world we live in. My point is, I believe that what you expect to encounter, what you go into an investigation expecting to find on the other end of it, really determines what your experience is going to be like. I think a lot more happens in the mental plane than we’d like to admit.
I’d like to point out, though, that that does not at all make any of this less real. What part of our existence, to us the experiencers, does not happen entirely within our minds? Sure, reality’s out there. There’s a world to see and feel and touch. But it’s our mind that tells us what we see and feel and touch. If we’re not at all willing to accept that there could be something out there like bigfoot or UFOs or ghosts I think that affects whether or not we’re capable of really encountering it. Not to say it can’t happen, it just makes it much less likely, I think.
It’s hard to get into this next part without rambling for a while so I’ll try and keep it as short as I can.
You’re familiar with the mothman, right? I mean, if you’re here then you must know something about it. What do you think it is? Take a minute for me and really consider that.
Is it a monster, mutated by the toxic environment it was born within or otherwise created by some unknown organization for who knows what purpose? Maybe it’s a harbinger of doom, sent to warn us of impending cataclysm? Or do you think that the mothman is the physical manifestation of a Native American curse, brought into existence by the dying words of a tribal chief to torment and terrify the conquerors of his home?
You probably know most of the stories that go around about the mothman so I won’t dwell on them here. The thing that I really want to leave you with is the knowledge that the mothman wasn’t the only thing being encountered in that time period in West Virginia. There were UFO and alien encounters. The men in black made their debut in ufological lore on Main Street in Point Pleasant. There were sightings of spectral hounds, untraceable calls featuring strange electronic sounds (that were able to follow changed numbers even), devil sightings, outbreaks of prophetic visions and psychic phenomena, and even more weirdness that ran the whole gamut of the highly strange.
Just about anything and everything you could want to explore in the paranormal was taking place in the Ohio River Valley all at the same time.
My point to bringing this up is that it makes me think that it’s all connected to some degree that we don’t understand. This isn’t, at all, an original thought. John Keel started to think this as he investigated the mothman encounters as they happened. Jacques Vallee came to believe that there was some connection between folklore and modern paranormal encounters. J Allen Hynek, while working for Project Blue Book, eventually determined that it would be impossible for UFOs to be coming from anywhere but the Earth itself (and if it needs to be said, he did come to believe in the reality of these experiences he was documenting).
The mothman case is one of those keystones, I think, that can really help us understand this. Since it was all happening, all at once, and then ended all at the same time, I think it’s fairly logical to come to the conclusion that it all must have had the same source.
Take, for example, the case that led Jacques Vallee to come to a similar determination.
In 1961, Joe Simonton (a plumber) was standing in his kitchen doing the dishes following his lunch for the day.
There, through his window, he watched as a UFO slowly descended and set down near his chicken coop. The craft, he said, was covered in some kind of piping. When he approached it, and having peered inside during his interaction with its occupants, he could see that the interior was made of cast iron. It seemed, to him, to be made of material that was familiar to him. The occupants of the craft were making pancakes and asking for water from him (apparently about to have their own lunch about the same time). Simonton was left with three dry, burned little pancakes.
Those pancakes made their rounds (one even ended up being studied by the FDA, eventually finding it’s way to the archival storage at Wright-Patterson). Here, it seemed, was some kind of proof that something strange had happened to that man.
What I want to leave you with, beyond the general goofiness of this encounter, is the implication of this craft’s design (and the ongoing duties of its occupants): this craft seems to almost be tailor made to be familiar (or else safely approachable) to Joe Simonton based on his background and state of mind in that moment.
Perhaps, I wonder, could the reason behind all the various phenomena that plagued the Ohio River Valley in 1966 be due to the many different mindsets of those who approached the enigma?
John Keel, a noted ufologist, saw strange lights in the sky during his time there.
Mary Hyre, a reporter, encountered “government agents” who were interested in her story.
The Scarberry’s and Mallettes (who were among the first to encounter the creature) saw a monster in an abandoned munitions factory as they were out trying to scare themselves.
Woody Derenberger, an impoverished failing sewing machine salesman, encountered a craft with a screen door that resembled an oil lantern.
Mrs Ralph Thomas, a staunch believer in biblical prophets, would have her own prophetic visions of doom and disaster.
The mothman had a tendency to interfere with electronics, as do ghosts, as do UFOs, as do countless other types of supernatural beings. Even bigfoot can supposedly tell if you’ve got a flashlight or a camera on you and he won’t come close if you do.
The point is, to me, this all seems like it might be one base phenomena. One thing that puts on different masks for different people with different beliefs and opinions.
Greater Huntsville Paranormal Research, unlike all those other groups out there, does not want to catch the ghost in a bottle. We don’t really want to poke and prod at all this too much. I honestly don’t know that we really care to know what that base phenomena might be.
What we want to do is learn how to interact with it, in all its different forms, and how best we can experience it for ourselves.
As we learn more, and as we get better at maintaining this approach, we want to help you guys have these experiences too!
So, here at Greater Huntsville Paranormal Research, our experiences and our research has led to the development of three simple tenets that we use in everything we do. You don’t need fancy equipment, you don’t need a lot of money — if you want to have an encounter, remember these three things:
Have fun! When you approach the highly strange from a standpoint of having fun, that’s when you’re going to make a good connection with it. Like one our members, Robbie, would say, “Loosen your mind sphincter!”
The magic is in your mind! Remember that you help to make the reality that you experience — you can’t see ghosts if you don’t believe they’re real!
We encounter things in the way in which we’re best prepared to encounter it! However you’re approaching it, no matter what you’re after, as long you follow the rules of your methodology you’ll get data that fits!
Use these as you wish, just make sure you let me know what you run into if you do!
Stay weird!
-Scott