Something short, folks, but maybe slightly interesting anyway: during my first sequence home in West Virginia helping care for my Mom, I had a couple of experiences wherein it was pointed out to me why listening [and doing so without threat] is so important. People told me several of their own anomalistic life stories; something that could never have happened at the early "social-dance" level of having conversations. A couple of them were interesting enough that I'll pass them along. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But before I do, I want to salute the best listener that UFOlogy has ever had: John Timmerman, former treasurer of CUFOS. [That's John to the left attending a symposium at his beloved Cornell]. During his active years, John was the perfect listener, the perfect "front door" to the UFO "store". Affable, gentlemanly, completely non-threatening, John could stand there with his traveling mall UFO exhibit and have every type of person come up to him and tell him, even while being taped, of experiences which they had told no one else. John was a great treasure and we'll probably never have another like him. [John still lives in Lima, Ohio by the way, and if any of you know him, he would probably like a friendly phonecall. Don't make it too lengthy if you do, though as that wonderful old man doesn't have the energy of youth any more.] John's "harvest" of more than a thousand novel UFO reports from his mall days served as the basis of the book,
Grass Roots UFOs, which I was privileged to write for him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I am no John Timmerman, but at least I get this "listening thing" right once in a while. While back in WVA, I "risked" telling several people that I was a UFO researcher---most were polite. A few listened to the conversations that ensued and offered their own anomalistic experiences. [often not even UFOlogical]. My brother's girlfriend admitted to having an out-of-body-experience [brief but powerful and scary to her] which was induced by a trance-like suggestion. My mother, of all people admitted that she had seen a young girl follow my sister-in-law out of the room, when there was no young girl in the house---this is the house which has had many apparitional events---but being told that there was no young girl, mother decided that there must have been something wrong with her vision, despite having described the girl in great detail and definite "concreteness". One of my brothers admitted to having another one of his many clairvoyant incidents---he has so many of these that I've forgotten exactly what this one was. And there were more. The one "report" that I had enough sense to write down and so can give to you with some detail, was a UFO case from Nevada in 1972. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The witness [I don't know whether he wants to become internet famous so I'll just call him "The Plumber" as that's what he was doing when we sat down with him one day ---- he's a friend of the family by the way so they know him] was, way back in 72, working with an oil-exploration group, owned by his grandfather, in the desert near a range of low mountains. They knew the land well, having explored all over it. His crew occasionally saw black project flyovers [once a low-flying Blackbird; and once a crash of some craft that the military told them was to be talked about, if at all, as a meteorite--if the company wanted to continue to be occasionally hired by them]. On this day, their gaze was alerted to a flash of bright silver which very rapidly whisked along the nearby range. It came to a very abrupt, non-inertial, stop, and hovered there. The hovering was many seconds, maybe even a couple of minutes. It was plenty of time to see the object as an elongated cigar-shaped object with no other features---and no noise. After its pause, the thing re-oriented itself and flashed away. They knew that the range was 25 miles long, and, if the object was at the range's distance as they thought, the speed of the object would have been 90,000mph. If we give them credit for being anywhere in the ballpark [and that's the best we can do], the craft's velocity was startling. When they got back to base, he told his grandfather of the incident. The old man was one of those people who wouldn't admit that any such things were real [even though he had seen one himself] and finally told him to not make much out of it, as "people have been reporting this sort of thing out here for years". Interesting in a lot of ways, methinks; and something that would have never have been told without a sympathetic environment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listening is a real talent---especially friendly, non-judgmental listening. John Timmerman was the Master. Hail, John !, and GOD bless you for teaching me.
Something short, folks, but maybe slightly interesting anyway: during my first sequence home in West Virginia helping care for my Mom, I had a couple of experiences wherein it was pointed out to me why listening [and doing so without threat] is so important. People told me several of their own anomalistic life stories; something that could never have happened at the early "social-dance" level of having conversations. A couple of them were interesting enough that I'll pass them along. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But before I do, I want to salute the best listener that UFOlogy has ever had: John Timmerman, former treasurer of CUFOS. [That's John to the left attending a symposium at his beloved Cornell]. During his active years, John was the perfect listener, the perfect "front door" to the UFO "store". Affable, gentlemanly, completely non-threatening, John could stand there with his traveling mall UFO exhibit and have every type of person come up to him and tell him, even while being taped, of experiences which they had told no one else. John was a great treasure and we'll probably never have another like him. [John still lives in Lima, Ohio by the way, and if any of you know him, he would probably like a friendly phonecall. Don't make it too lengthy if you do, though as that wonderful old man doesn't have the energy of youth any more.] John's "harvest" of more than a thousand novel UFO reports from his mall days served as the basis of the book, Grass Roots UFOs, which I was privileged to write for him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I am no John Timmerman, but at least I get this "listening thing" right once in a while. While back in WVA, I "risked" telling several people that I was a UFO researcher---most were polite. A few listened to the conversations that ensued and offered their own anomalistic experiences. [often not even UFOlogical]. My brother's girlfriend admitted to having an out-of-body-experience [brief but powerful and scary to her] which was induced by a trance-like suggestion. My mother, of all people admitted that she had seen a young girl follow my sister-in-law out of the room, when there was no young girl in the house---this is the house which has had many apparitional events---but being told that there was no young girl, mother decided that there must have been something wrong with her vision, despite having described the girl in great detail and definite "concreteness". One of my brothers admitted to having another one of his many clairvoyant incidents---he has so many of these that I've forgotten exactly what this one was. And there were more. The one "report" that I had enough sense to write down and so can give to you with some detail, was a UFO case from Nevada in 1972. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The witness [I don't know whether he wants to become internet famous so I'll just call him "The Plumber" as that's what he was doing when we sat down with him one day ---- he's a friend of the family by the way so they know him] was, way back in 72, working with an oil-exploration group, owned by his grandfather, in the desert near a range of low mountains. They knew the land well, having explored all over it. His crew occasionally saw black project flyovers [once a low-flying Blackbird; and once a crash of some craft that the military told them was to be talked about, if at all, as a meteorite--if the company wanted to continue to be occasionally hired by them]. On this day, their gaze was alerted to a flash of bright silver which very rapidly whisked along the nearby range. It came to a very abrupt, non-inertial, stop, and hovered there. The hovering was many seconds, maybe even a couple of minutes. It was plenty of time to see the object as an elongated cigar-shaped object with no other features---and no noise. After its pause, the thing re-oriented itself and flashed away. They knew that the range was 25 miles long, and, if the object was at the range's distance as they thought, the speed of the object would have been 90,000mph. If we give them credit for being anywhere in the ballpark [and that's the best we can do], the craft's velocity was startling. When they got back to base, he told his grandfather of the incident. The old man was one of those people who wouldn't admit that any such things were real [even though he had seen one himself] and finally told him to not make much out of it, as "people have been reporting this sort of thing out here for years". Interesting in a lot of ways, methinks; and something that would have never have been told without a sympathetic environment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listening is a real talent---especially friendly, non-judgmental listening. John Timmerman was the Master. Hail, John !, and GOD bless you for teaching me. 