by Jonathan Bartholomew
When I was in first grade, I had an experience that I cannot explain. It was in the evening. My mother was pacing the house, acting distracted and upset. At one point, she stopped, looked around, and told us it was time to go. This was confusing for a few reasons. We hardly ever went anywhere at night, for one thing. For another, my father was not home – he worked the late night shift at a pizza joint, and had taken with him our only car. We got ready to go – myself, my two younger brothers, and my mother – and walked out onto the front porch. In our little front yard, was a large owl. I mean very large – larger than they actually grow. It was, I would say... suspended in the air. It wasn't flying, because there was no flapping of wings. Sometimes my memory tells me it had red eyes. Sometimes green. This image seems to be there for a bit of time – with no movement. Them, I blinked, and we were all sitting on our living room couch. My mother, then me, then my brothers, arranged by age, all in a row. To my 7 or 8 year old mind, that was almost as strange as the too-large owl, because my mother hated that couch. She never sat on it. I remember my mother looking at the living room clock, and saying, 'where did that hour go?'
Thirty-five years later, and I still do not know. There are a few more details to this story, and you can hear them by listening to our first episode, but they are not the point at the moment. The point, for right now, is the owl. And owls in general.
A few days after recording out first episode, I had owls on the brain. Partly because I had told that story, but I am sure the fact that Brittany and I had recently watched Twin Peaks played into it as well. I started wondering what would happen if I began to research owls – in mythology, in contactee lore, owls as screen memories. All of it. I began to think of different avenues to look down. On Aug 21, I opened Audible, and searched the name J Allen Hynek, to see what books of his were available to listen to. The third result was a book by an author I had not heard of before, Mike Clelland. The cover featured an owl. I immediately purchased 'The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee.'
It turns out, Mike Clelland has, for years, been living the life of research that I had spent all of a few hours considering, but he's been doing so for years, and his book is excellent. He covers mythology, interpretation, contactee stories, and lots of cases – both his own and others.
The time when I was in first grade was not the only odd owl encounter I have had. When I was 14, I was riding in the front passenger seat of my other's car, as we were coming home from the grocery store. At one point,we see movement to our left, and at first we thought it was a car trying to pass us - which would have been illegal; that road was double yellow lines for a solid mile on that stretch - but when we glanced over, it was an extremely large, light gray owl, skimming along just at window height. It kept pace with us (I'd have to assume we were going 35 or so, based on the type of road) for a solid 30 seconds or so, then peeled off to the left, apparently into the woods on the other side of the road. I remember feeling very calm about this, and we just went about our evening.
All of my owl experiences deal with owls that were much larger than any owl ever gets.
For the majority of my life, I have wondered if my owl experiences were screen memories, mainly because of the calm that seems to accompany them. For those unaccustomed to the term, a screen memory is basically a false or distorted memory, usually form a point in childhood, that the mind uses to 'screen' a person form a traumatic or difficult event. As my childhood was both traumatic and difficult, I assumed that was the most likely explanation, for quite some time. 'Messengers' describes many experiences that are absolutely different from mine, but do have similarities. A lot of those are in experiences that Clelland himself recalls throughout the text.
The section that deals with folklore or mythology is of the greatest interest to me, where he shares an insight that I had not thought of before. Basically, if you're looking for symbolism in something, it might be a good idea to not only look at what general folklore has to say, but to find out what the lore of your specific ancestors have to say, because it can vary. The author speaks of owl mythology from where his ancestors were from, and imagine my surprise, to hear that they were the same places that my own heritage was. About a year ago, I did a genetic test, and found out that the VAST majority of my DNA comes from Sweden and Denmark (they lump these together), and from Scotland. Just like Clelland. Both of these folks traditions consider the owl to be a messenger – mainly to and from the afterlife.
Messengers has a really strong 'seeking' vibe, which I enjoyed. It feels thoroughly researched, and the candor with which Clelland tells his own experiences was, for me, refreshing and welcomed.
Are owls connected in some way to the phenomena so many of us seem to experience time and again? Messengers is a great place to start asking that question.
Like the man said, 'The owls are not what they seem.'
Just in case you're interested in purchasing this book, to the left you'll find 'MESSENGERS' at Amazon. Disclaimer that yes, it's an 'affiliate' link, so the purchase will give us a small kickback - so if you've been wanting to support the podcast, AND find want to know more about the Owls, click on.
The actual legalese: “Strange Stories with the Seeker and the Skeptic is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commission incomes by advertising and linking to Strange Stories with the Seeker and the Skeptic.”