I've Seen THE{?} LIGHT{s}: post three.

Onward..........

Although Fox doesn't list it as a category, one pile of experiences which is large, and potentially of interest both to persons of a spiritual quest and others of a UFO quest alike, can be labeled "bedroom visitations". In UFO case files, these things accumulate, but [to me] almost always stand out like sore thumbs away from the core UFO phenomenon.... yet some people view them as particularly significant. Instead, my gut feelings have always tended towards the spiritual, or folkloric, or paranormal side of things, as long as the BOL isn't sizzling across physical surfaces leaving scorch marks, in which case it's good old kugelblitz.

Most of Fox's examples seem to be what he calls "Crisis Lights" --- things happening at times of death or severe illness usually. And, since much death and illness happens in the bedroom with the caregiver in attendance, this makes great sense.

While these encounters aren't as visually spectacular as the picture I've used to give you something to look at, they are far more "meaningfully spectacular".

A niece, who had done the hard job of nursing her father for several months, was not looking forward to doing the same for her dying aunt, but, good family member that she was, she took the burden on. One evening, sitting in her chair while her aunt rested in bed, her eyes fell upon a spot on the wall. There in a top corner of the room appeared a tiny light, which gradually grew to large size. The niece stood up and inspected inside and out the window, but could find no source. She sat down again and simply stared at the mystery. Then:

"I have never, before or after, felt such a sense of peace and comfort. I felt a powerful presence in the bedroom and knew I would be given Divine strength to carry on with my duty to the end. I felt an exhilaration, a peace and well-being, and I knew that I had been given a manifestation of God's care for me, unworthy though I was. I went to sleep, calm and reassured, knowing that the burden was no longer mine."

The following evening, her aunt, unusually, did not immediately close her eyes for sleep. The niece looked about for what she was looking at. She found nothing, but the aunt was staring at the same corner of the ceiling where the niece had seen the comforting light the previous night. The niece asked what she was looking at, and the aunt replied: nothing. Insisting however, her aunt finally replied: I'm not going to tell you; it's a secret. The older lady passed on to the afterlife a few days later, her niece convinced that they had both in some way experienced Divine love.

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Fox gives other examples. In one, a mother and daughter see a bright light coming down from the corner of the ceiling, and in this light is the image of Jesus. "It was most beautiful and I will never forget it." As this took place in a small town gaslight setting during WWI, alternative hypotheses are limited.

In another incident, a father had a heart attack and was apparently on the brink of death in his bedroom, having just been laid to rest on his bed by one of his children. He suddenly snapped awake and looked towards the corner of the room. There a bright light shone so fiercely which strongly reflected in his eyes. He said: "I have seen the Glory of God and I am not to die yet". He recovered and lived another year able to walk and function. His son or daughter {the reporter is insufficiently described in the thumbnail} said: " I am 69 and can see that light in my memory as if it were yesterday. Never have I seen a light which could compare with it."

And another: Two persons, the mother of a premature at-risk baby and her own mother, had arrived with the newborn at an apartment in the grandmother's hometown. There was a lot of anxiety. The two women had just lain the baby in its bassinette [also "in a corner" by the way] and went to sleep, on a bed and a cot in the same room, themselves. At about 2am, the mother awoke to see a "large blue star" of light hanging over the baby's bed. It stayed 5 minutes and faded out. Unable to sleep, the mother lay awake for another hour, and the light appeared again; once more a blue star. This time the grandmother whispered: "Dolly?" {yes} "Do you see what I am seeing?" {yes} The grandmother then said that she had seen this star an hour ago but didn't want to wake her. The reporter {the mother} wrote in her letter: "To this day, I do not know why either of us saw this phenomenon. The star was right over the cot".

Of course nowadays we are awash with alleged lights from digital cameras, their owners almost never claiming to have seen anything until checking the pictures. My skepticism level on these "orbs" is through the roof, as a general topic, and I would bet a fair amount of money that experts in the digital camera processes know exactly why such "defects" appear under some conditions. The above "orb" is better/ prettier/ more robust than most, however, and would probably need a more "reflective" analysis.

All of that seems relatively tidy until one looks at what a UFO researcher actually has in the case files. My own file drawers are filled with upwards of five hundred things that I could call LITS or BOLs or something similar to Fox's categories. The vast majority of these things are "accepted" by the witnesses with no felt spiritual context whatever. {I, as a Catholic, would like to see some stronger spiritual pattern here, but, George Washington-wise, "I cannot tell a lie".} So, in lieu of revealing some mind-popping pattern unlocking the deepest secrets of reality, I'm taking my football-shaped BOL and punting. This punting is going to take the form of mentioning some of the variety of things which are in the files, which may be relatable to Fox's study.

My excuse for this partly disorganized behavior is that, upon investigating my own resources, the connections which struggled to appear were not along a nice line of search, but rather as if somebody had dropped a huge balloon full of ink from great height, subsequently splattering possible study "opportunities" in every conceivable direction. So, I give up. I'll give you some interesting cases to fire up your own imagination, and take a nap.

A). It is the year 1972; Logrono, Spain. At night a student is trying to get to sleep. A BOL comes through the window of his apartment and floats about. The student is terrorized. The BOL seems to spot the tape deck and shoots out a "solid light beam" into the deck's cassette slot. He, in his one brave moment, had just reached out and pressed the deck's record button in the hopes of getting some data on what this invader was. The BOL's beam entered the deck, paused, and then returned to the BOL like a telescopic lightform. The BOL then rose to the ceiling, moved to the window, and was gone.

This whole thing is one of the higher strangeness things in the case files, plus one of the most "intelligence-driven" sounding cases. But the student made no spiritual interpretation. AND HE WAS A SEMINARIAN.

B). It is the year 1970; Trafford, PA. A woman is up around 9/10pm or so with the rest of the family in bed. She, from her living room window sees a bright light appear across the street. It seems to grow in size as it also drifts nearer. Now close to the window, it changes form into that of her father, dressed in his best clothes. The lightform stooped when at the window and "her father" pressed his cheek against the glass. He was looking towards her and the television set. This image, or whatever it was finally disappeared. It struck the daughter then that this was the time of the evening when she and he used to watch his favorite TV show together.

C). Circa the middle of the 19th century; New Hampshire. During the night a mother and daughter were awakened by a bright light shining in the kitchen area. After discussing this anomaly, the daughter returned to sleep, but the mother rose to inspect the kitchen. She said that there had been a light near the bedroom door, very bright and small, which spun round and round growing to the size of a dinnerplate. It flashed all about the kitchen area three times. {It is not stated how it went out}. The next evening, the mother said this strange light manifested again, and again flashed three times about the house.

Later upon talking with other family members, and deciding that there was no provincial explanation, everyone in the family felt that this was a warning/omen. Sometime later [times unstated, but apparently close enough to convince the mother of the reality] the woman's son, husband, and sister died --- three deaths for the three lightform passes.

D). Well, my caption to my "artwork" tells the tale. 1953; Pocahontas County, WV. A lady is meditating/ praying to see a UFO, and very cooperatively along comes a bouncing BOL.

E). 1895; Choctaw County, AL. People in their home at night hear a rumbling sound. This happens several times, until a beam of light penetrates upwards through the floor of the home, catches a sleeping child in the beam, and subsequently the child seems to glow. When the beam turns off, the child awakes. The girl said that she had been to Heaven and had spoken to Jesus there. He had manifested in the sounds and the light, as apparently part of this apparitional method of "touching" her and her family.

F). Circa 1950; the Bavarian Alps. A German lady is climbing in the Alps and gets lost on the mountain. This is a dangerous perhaps life-threatening situation. A BOL appeared ahead. This lightform slowly shifted until it took on the appearance of a tall Chinese gentleman. The tall stranger spoke a bit to the lady and led her to a pathway, whereupon they walked towards a tourist shelter and safety. He then reassumed the shape of a BOL and disappeared.

Many folkloric sorts of lightball claims show up in UFO case files, and these have regularly "spiritual" viewpoints attached to them. Fox mentions the Mae de Oura {Mother of Gold} light of Brazil. He may or may not have known of Cynthia Luce's reports on the phenomenon and how regularly seen it has been. Some of these encounters were personal and extremely close. This is one of those BOLs which "teases" in getting close without allowing touch. In one instance, Luce's gardener tried to touch it only to see it disappear and reappear 15 feet away.

Also in the files are things like Immanuel Swedenborg's Balls of Light which turn into Angels bearing revelations, the "Bodhisattva Lights" of the sacred mountain of Wu T'ai Shan in Western China, to a pile of British incidents near ancient megaliths. I'd like to add the [to me] VERY strange coincidence that in Hawaiian legend the flying BOLs are called "akualele", a sort of spirit demon, and that in the Niger-Gabon region of Africa, the flying lights are also spirit demons, and are called "aku". This is the sort of thing which I'll admit boggles me a bit.

One case "for the road": 1974, Blacksod, County Mayo, Ireland. An 80 year old farmer is awakened to see a brilliant white light in the bedroom. It then appeared as a "man in white robes" surrounded by smaller beings. He became scared, and the light faded away. Going to the window, he saw a glowing object with windows and large wheels lighting up the area. As it rose to sail away, he saw figures in the windows.

The man's wife died the month following, and he then interpreted the figure as an Angel.

Peace folks.... may all your BOLs be Angels, yet all your Loved Ones stay safe right here next to you.