Honobia Bigfoot Festival 2011 Schedule

Among the speakers and music at the Honobia Bigfoot Festival in Oklahoma: Thom Cantrall, author of The Ghosts of Ruby Ridge. (Which, after all this time, I'm just about finished reading. Just too many books out there; hard to catch up.) You can check out the schedule of events at the festival site: Honobia Bigfoot Festival 2011 Schedule

Coleman Comments on Redfern: Cryptids Are Not Totally Elusive, Actually

At Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman comments on Nick Redfern's recent Monsters and Proof article on elusive cryptids:Cryptids Are Not Totally Elusive, Actually. Coleman doesn't think much of what Redfern has to say, not surprisingly. Comments that follow are interesting --- Redfern's thoughts have generated controversy.

I think Nick's views have been misunderstood. Coleman comes from a place where cryptids -- all cryptids -- are "real" in a flesh and blood sense. Like nuts and bolts UFO researchers, the idea of an "other" is not to be entertained. I'm not sure I agree 100% with Redfern, but I do think that some high strangeness events involving weird creatures do have a paranormal component. It is possible these entities are of both worlds, manifesting as physical beings one moment, behaving as phantoms the next.

Colemanm in his response, offers the standard definitions of cryptozoology and cryptids; maybe a new term should be offered so as not to offend the flesh and blood types who are stuck in their assertion that only "real" animals exist. The belief is that, while so far elusive, they are not in any way preternatural.

Nick responds to Coleman at Cryptomundo.
I found the following comment by Redfern very interesting:

One last point: some people (although certainly not you) seem at times to react with barely concealed hostility to my Tulpa-style views. But why? If Bigfoot exists, what does it matter if it’s some sort of ape, or something infinitely weirder that is connected to the human mind?

I think it's because (again making a connection to UFO studies)the idea there is more than just the concrete and tangible in our world conflicts with a worldview, a mindset, that doesn't allow for such "silliness." People are people, and our beliefs, including the pride some hold in stating they have no beliefs, color how we approach things. As to Bigfoot; those that think of Bigfoot as simply an animal (forgetting that we too are animals) places Bigfoot in the lesser than category. Bigfoot is a "giant ape," and so, still just a big dumb animal. Not as dumb as most, but still less than us. And since it's less than, we can do what we like with it. Bigfoot as a big old ape is familiar, we get it. It's something we can handle. Tulpas, shape shifters, aliens, fairies, Djinn, tricksters, are truly elusive and something we cannot get a hold of. It's gotten ahold of us, not the other way around. Much safer to deal with the flesh and blood thing we can grab onto, and possibly, control.

MonsterTracker.com

UFO Digest publisher Dirk Vander Ploeg has a new site dedicated to cryptos, cryptids, monsters and beasties at MonsterTracker.com. 

Yeti/Wild Thing Synchronicity

I had a very disturbing dream last night. I think it was because I was coming down with something and my body/subconscious was reacting to that, because after I was awake for about an hour, I suddenly felt clammy, chilled, sore throat -- fall crud. The dream sounds almost funny in some ways but it was very scary, just your basic all around nightmare. Something about the Yeti, with giant claws, ripping people apart. And smaller sized Yetis -- in the dream, they were called "Yet-its" -- who looked more like stuffed toys than real creatures. They were watching the big monster Yeti dismembering people, their bodies (or, pieces of their bodies) slowly slip down the outside of the glass on the windows of the second floor room where I was watching all this, and damn glad of course I wasn't one of the victims. Blood, guts, human body parts, all sliding down the glass. The "Yet -its" were shocked, and sad, at this, because the big monster Yeti wasn't supposed to be a murderous monster, but something went wrong.

I was telling someone at work about this dream and described the "Yet-its" as looking like the characters from Where the Wild Things Are. And a minute later, someone walks into the room with a T-shirt with a large monster character from the book, with the title, in large letters: Where the Wild Things Are.

So, owls and Yetis and Wild Things; a message, synchronicity? Maybe the "message" is simply the appearance of the synchronicities themselves, appearing in animal form, since that's where I like to be -- in the animal realm.

As to the nature of the yucky dream; had another violent dream the night before that, though not involving animals. Sadly, a person I know. Some personal issues in my life right now. Not surprising, given that and my run down state, that my dream mind conjures up attacking Yetis!