Another Trickster's Realm column for Tim Binnall's Binnall of America, from April 2007.
Last Trickster's Realm column I wrote about my friend "Lola" who lives near the Oregon coast, and her odd experiences on their property which included a deer appearing from nowhere and running alongside her truck as she was driving on the road.
As I mentioned in that piece, the part about the deer didn't feel right; there was something very unnerving about it. Just hearing Lola tell the story gave me a strange feeling, and when I told it to my husband, he too had a strange feeling.
I spoke to Lola the other day, and asked her if there was anything new to report on the weird deer front. She said no, but that something strange happened in the house again, though she couldn't remember just what it was. She just knew it was very strange. That in itself is weird.
As to the deer, she said she didn't remember the deer leaving. "I didn't see it go anywhere, run off" she said. "It seemed like it should have run off into the woods, or down the road, or something -- it just wasn't there."
She also said she was "really scared" and couldn't park the truck fast enough. She ran all the way from the truck to their deck, and up to their front door. Fumbling with the keys as she tried to hurriedly get into the house. "I was really scared, the kids were really scared," . . . and none of them could really say why. A deer on the road isn't at all unusual. So why the intense high tension and surrounding anxiety?
I told Lola about animals appearing in many UFO encounters and anomalous events; as sort of guides, or go between. There are many cases of deer appearing in these screen memories in the context of UFO events.
Budd Hopkins, in his book Sight Unseen: Science, UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings writes:
The screen memory phenomenon is another pattern that I uncovered shortly after I began my investigations. A screen memory results when UFO occupants somehow substitute more palatable conventional imagery for an abductee's traumatic recollections. Instead of recalling unnerving alien faces with large, impenetrable black eye and gray, hairless skin, abductees have frequently reported conscious, pre-hypnotic memories of such things as five-foot - tall wingless owls, gray, hairless, upright cats, or deer with expressive black eyes that communicate telepathically. . . The idea that these images are not self-generated but are implanted in the minds of abductees by their captors is supported by the fact that two or more people in the same encounter saw exactly the same (impossible) five-foot-tall owl starring at them, the same pileup of six empty cars on a deserted roads, or the same telepathic deer.
UFO researcher Raymond Fowler discovered he had his own UFO experiences. Like many UFO researchers, Fowler himself experienced many unusual UFO encounters, including those containing deer imagery. In his book Synchrofile: Amazing Personal Encounter with Synchronicty and Other Strange Phenomeana, Fowler recalls dreams of deer, after experiencing bride episodes of missing time, and "clicking sounds.�"(Strange sounds, such as buzzing, clicking, etc. sometimes occur within UFO events.)
I dreamt that I was walking by an apple tree in the woods. There were several deer eating apples off the tree. They stopped and looked at me but did not run. I thought that was strange. Stranger still was when the larger deer walked over to me. It looked at me face-to-face and began nuzzling me. I do not remember any more of the dream. I wish that I could be sure of the clock and apparent missing time, but it is hard to remember. I had entirely forgotten about the dream of the deer until something brought it to mind after breakfast. ~ Fowler,
In The Custodians: Beyond Abduction, Dolores Cannon writes about UFO witnesses and anomalous animal encounters. She recounts "Eddie's experience with many animals throughout his life, including:
In another incident while he was hunting in the woods a deer allowed him to walk up and touch it. It had no fear element whatsoever. At these times he felt as though something happened to slow him down. It made him look at things differently.
An interesting account (and author's perspective) in UFO Religions, by Christopher Hugh Partridge, relates this experience of a Finnish woman who was abducted:
The experience begins one evening at 11:00 p.m. . . driving home from the school she saw, three times, a red UFO in the sky. After seeing if for the third time, she records that she felt sleepy but, at the same time, inspired. She also remember that ht night appeared extremely black and that she felt more alone than ever. Suddenly she encountered a thick, strange fog, in the middle of which she saw two white and shinning reindeer-like animals running in front of her car.
The account goes on to describe her encounters with humanoid entities.
There are many more accounts of deer not behaving like normal deer in UFO encounters, as well as other kinds of animals; notably owls, ravens, etc.
And there is the glowing raccoon -- the glowing, talking raccoon -- that Dr. Kary Mullis met in 1983. His encounter included missing time. Other highly strange encounters were experienced by other witnesses.
Who knows what is happening on Lola's property out there near the Oregon coast, and we can't say if her deer is indicative of anything UFO or paranormal related. Maybe, as I mentioned in the previous column, there is a Sasquatch tie-in, maybe it's UFOs, maybe it's general high strangeness, or a haunting. One thing for certain: something very weird is going on out there!