SUBJECT: ENCOUNTER JOURNAL "EXCERPTS" FILE: UFO2690 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Taken from consecutive messages in Sandy Barbre's "Contact" Echo from Dan Brown concerning personal experiences - July 31, 1991 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Encounter Journal "Excerpts" Dan Brown To follow are multiple messages which are excerpts from my personal journal. They do not represent the entirity of my experiences, and many things have been left out for varoious reasons. Those reasons include, but are not limited to; privacy, and not being of importance at present. Why am I doing this? Glad you asked! ... A good friend of mine, John Powell, offered me some good advice pertaining to keeping my experiences to myself until I was ready to freely discuss them, and felt comfortable with my experiences... After all, they are my experiences and I'm the one that has to live with them. Now, the following lengthy dissertation, as I've mentioned, is not a complete journal of what I've experienced, and at this point in time, it's not completely acurate. I have learned a few things about my experiences, and have added new ones, clarified old ones, and been overly astonished with certain abilities and disabilities in dealing with the things that have happened in my personal life. I'm putting out these journal excerpts mainly as a way of dealing with my life and to reach a further understanding of my experiences. The things in my excerpts are not in anyway astonishing, so please don't expect to read about space ships in the night, or exchanges of information with other worldly beings... It's just your typical wierd stuff, and I need to let it go so that I can move onward! I do have a tendency to ramble on, so please bare with me. I've left some of the more obscure ramblings in tact, so if I get too off the wall, and leave you confused... Sorry... It's my nature... ... Any comments or suggestions are happily welcome... flames > nul Get a bag of Doritos out (preferably cool ranch) and a tall glass of Pepsi I'm about to get longwinded again! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Encounter Journal Dan Brown ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I have been sitting here trying to ascertain how it is that I find myself actually making entries into a journal of this nature The idea of possible personal experience involving alien contact or abduction or whatever this may be, is far beyond my capability to reason. I have no full conscious memory of having encountered anything that represents something other than Human kind as I know it, but my mind continues, with great persistence, to tell me that something has happened to me along the way. Previous to a few weeks before starting this journal, I had not been overly interested in the "UFO/Other/Visitor" phenomenon, or for that matter, in abduction cases. Although I am not ignorant of the phenomenon, I did not actively follow it. UFO stories had their place in my life in much the same way as the telling of ghost stories did on those starry nights while camping far from the safety of civilization and home. So again I ask myself how was it that I came to this point that I have even considered it a viable necessity to keep a journal? I did not amass information from research and literature to deduce a sound logical hypothesis on this phenomenon. What brought this about was something simple. On my computer, I run an electronic bulletin board system. Another systems operator in my area announced that he was starting up a local conference via our network. The topic was to be alien encounters and sighting and he was asking other operators if they would consider carrying this conference on their systems. I agreed to carry it. It seemed interesting, but I wasn't actually going to participate in the conference. As messages start being written in this conference, I glanced through some of them, and the moderator of the conference mentioned something about a period in his life where he had missing time. I had never actually thought about anything of this nature, so I read the message. I couldn't actually relate to the situation he had described. Later, he had posted a few more messages and wanted the participants in the conference to keep an open mind about the topic, and to try to remember if any strange events had taken place during their lives. If anything came to mind that was of any relation to the conference, he would like to hear about it. I didn't think too much about his request, so I didn't bother to join in. Later that week, I unexpectedly started remembering things from my past that literally scared me. I had not thought about my experiences in quite a long time. Some of them had terrified me to no end, and I wasn't in any hurry to bring those memories into my conscious thoughts. After having those memories become present in my mind, I went back to look more closely at the conference messages, and found one that was written by the conference moderator noting techniques to help get information from the subconscious to the conscious as directed by one Dr. Edith Fiore. This technique involved the use of a simple pendulum, that with practice, would allow your subconscious mind to let the answer to simple yes and no questions to come through. I knew, or at least assumed, that this could not really be considered a clinical technique, but I felt compelled to try. After practicing with the pendulum for a few days, I was able to get it to respond, in the prescribed manner, to yes and no questions with ease. I began to formulate a set of questions that I would ask myself about my memories, and their relationship with possible "Other than human" encounters I may or may not have had. Being a skeptic by nature, I felt extremely ridiculous in doing this, but I proceeded with the experiment nonetheless. If I had the foresight through all this, I would have recorded my list of questions, and their responses, but alas, I didn't seriously think that this would progress as far as it did. I can only recount what I can remember, and what has made profound impressions upon my way of thinking, my life, and its possible implications. At first, using the pendulum, I asked myself general questions such as is my "Name", "Do I live in California," etc... I moved through questions that I knew to be true, and those that I knew were false. In each case, I received the appropriate response. I practiced in this manner for another two days, then decided that I was at least semi- proficient with the pendulum, and moved on to harder questions. o Note: I must clearly acknowledge that I am not in any way a clinical professional, nor am I a professional observer. I do, however, suffer from agoraphobia which does tend to force me into a position of being very observant of my surroundings and mental and emotional states. I made sure to incorporate questions that would offer a specific response around questions that might be sensitive or peculiar. This was done for the sake of having something to ground my responses with as one might do with polygraph examinations. For example, when I planned on asking a question such as "Did I sense there was someone present in the room" and I received "Yes" as an answer, I would ask a question that would gain a negative response such as, "Do I live in Nebraska," then I would repeat the first question and note the response. Also, this technique would help give something to gauge my emotional responses against, and offer some report of how I was mentally dealing with the line of responses received. All questions were prefaced with the understanding that all answers were "To the best of my knowledge" including the questions themselves. Proceeding with my venture into the past, I singled out a specific experience that occurred at around the age of six years old. Keeping simple and concise I moved into an arena that was extremely difficult for me. This particular episode is detailed later in this journal. I asked myself, using the pendulum, if I remembered the experience in question. The let the questions move in their own direction, basing each question on those previously asked, but keeping as close to my line of questions as possible. Do I remember the experience? Yes Was I dreaming? No Was I awake and aware? Yes Did I feel a presence in the room? Yes More than one presence? Yes Did I feel it was my parents? No Did I feel it was one of my parents? No Do I remember something placed on the right side of my mouth? Yes Was this a dream? No And so on . . . I tried to be as objective as possible, but it was not easy, as I'm sure this journal will prove. In my memories of the event, I remembered something being place in my mouth. I had always remembered it being something like a probe, but I'm still not sure if this was the case. I asked questions about the episode. I did not get the answer I expected. Was something placed into my mouth? Yes Was this something like a probe? ? Do I remember something like a culture being taken? ? I stopped when I got to this area of questioning. I repeated these last few questions several times. o The technique with the pendulum had been fairly dependable up to this point, but when asking the questions about the "probe" and "culture," I got no response. My mind was rather hesitant about asking these questions. Such questions would clearly open into an area that my conscious mind did not want to deal with. Consciously, I would consider this a violation of my person. As a child, I may not have understood this reasoning, but as an adult can see it's possibilities and ramifications as something that is not pleasant and not something that I want to experience in my life. At first I thought that I was being silly sitting here with this homemade pendulum asking silly questions, and getting non-answers. I must simply be in the throngs of lunacy to be doing such things. This was, to me, proof that I had no real experience, and that I should just ignore what must just be a confused response to new stimuli, and chalk it up to a bad case of "Ghost story" jitters. After all, this was just a dream I had been concerning myself with, nothing real to be bothered about, and certainly not congruent with reality as I knew it. The next day it occurred to me that I had either asked the question incorrectly, or I had another question that I hadn't asked at all pertaining to the probe experience. "If something wasn't being taken out of my mouth, was something being put in?" This had never crossed my mind. Whenever I had though about my "Dream" at age six, it was always accompanied with memories of something like a culture being taken from my mouth. Never before had I considered to ask myself such an obvious question. Why should I have? It was apparently just a bad "dream." On the rare occasion when I have told others about this "dream," I was always told that it sounded more logical that something was being put in my mouth rather than what I suspected. On these occasions, I did not hear what was said. Not that I just misunderstood, but their words were replaced, in my mind, with other words so that I effectively did not hear their words. I can only assume that my mind did not want to hear this and chose, rather, to block out such explanations. After the thought finally occurred to me, I mentioned my "brain storm" to these people and was abruptly told that this was something they had already told me. o I must note that, other than my wife, I have only told two people about this experience. I did not randomly choose these two people to relate my tale to, but waited and watched to feel sure I would not be ridiculed when I brought this up in the conversation. Incidentally, after discussing this, one of the two people related some interesting experiences of their own, which came very close to some things that I had not mentioned previously. o I have told little to my wife about my situation. I have let her in on the basics, but have resigned myself to keeping the emotions away from our discussions. I do not want her to become fearful about my sanity, or my situation. Her response to this has been that this "all sounds about right . . ." I was not actually ready for such a reply. She has supported me during all this, and seems to accept the inevitability that this sort of thing is normal, and that it happens every day. I have yet to ask if she feels she has been involved in some sort of similar experience. I waited until the following day before proceeding with my line of questioning. I had to deal with my fear of finding out what had happened to me. Whether or not using the pendulum was a valid technique no longer made a difference. It was an anchor to reality. I was not, nor am I now, sure I like this possible new reality but it is mine, and as such, I must live accordingly. Proceeding onward, I asked if something was being administered to me orally rather than a culture being taken, and the answer was in the affirmative. I have no idea of how I would know if something was being put into my mouth if a probe was being used. It would seem to me that both techniques using a similar instrument would be almost impossible to deliberate. After thinking on this for sometime, I came up with the thought that it is possible for the human brain to keep track of biological integrity whether it be a natural occurrence of enzyme action, or external induction. To be honest, this happened so long ago that even thought I remember the incident clearly, some aspects are a bit hazy. I would not testify, based on what I remember, that a "probe" was used during this episode. Sometimes it seems as though something was poured or dropped into my mouth, and then other times I think it was a probe. I can't be certain which. I do know, however, that I do believe that something has happened to me, and that it does not fall into the category of normally accepted reality. This is what brought me to the point where I became involved in seeking answers to questions that I sincerely wished would have never surfaced. I realize that I'm being long winded, but long windedness is one of my ways of getting these things out where they can be dealt with. Unfortunately, being given to long windedness, I tend to sacrifice the even flow, and contextual continuity when writing. . . Let me move onward. . . Here are some accounts of episodes that, to the best of my ability, I have remember which have occurred since the age of two. Some may be related, and some may be just strange events. I'll include what I can recall. . . THE INCIDENT WITH THE EASTER BUNNY: At around the age of two or three, my parents and I were living in a house on South Powell street in Columbus Ohio. On the occasion of this event, I was sitting up in the lower bunk of my bunk bed. It was early morning, and my bedroom door was open. My mother was in the habit of opening my door each night before she retired for the evening. I do not remember waking up that morning, I just remember being in the lower bunk, and looking out into the hallway (Assumed time would be approximately between 6:00 to 7:00 am. since the light of dawn was making it easy to see, and my parents were not up yet.) I am not sure what it was that I saw, my mind could not really understand it. It was something living and moving. In my mind, I assumed it must be the Easter Bunny since Easter was not far away. (I would presume that this would make around mid to late March to early April.) I watched this thing move down the hall away from my bedroom. It turned and looked at me briefly, gave sort of a wave, and then disappeared. I remember it walking down the hallway, and then it wasn't there any longer. It was not easy to look at it. It didn't seem to be solid, and fluctuated between what I suppose I superimposed in my mind of a picture of the Easter Bunny, and something that was kind of a white and illuminated. I remember the picture of the bunny more clearly than the other. (I must point out that I do not actually clearly remember seeing the part that was illuminated. It is simply an impression.) After it left, I only remember laying back down on my bed thinking that I must have been being a good boy or else the Easter Bunny would not have let me see him. I wanted to get out of bed, but I was not allowed to get up until my parents woke. One thing that puzzles me now that I think back on this incident, is that I was not at all frightened. All I can remember of my thoughts from that experience is that I saw something I did not understand, and in trying to make sense of it, I gave it identification as the Easter bunny. o Awhile after the incident with the Easter Bunny, my parents were separated. I was not really aware of this, since my mother just told me that we were going to go "visit" some friends for awhile. I have considered that proceeding episodes might be related in some way to this separation with manifested feelings of anxiety, fear, and guilt, but I really believe that I dealt with those feelings in ways not related, or entering into the territorial boundaries of what I recount concerning the topic at hand. THE WITCH IN BLACK: At the middle of September, we were living with a lady and her three daughters in an area of Columbus I was not familiar with. We stayed there until, I believe, the first part January. In the early part of October, shortly after my third birthday, I was sleeping in a room which I shared with my mother. It was very early in the morning when I realized that I was wide awake. (I was almost always the first one to wake up.) I noticed the presence of someone else in the room besides me and my mother. Whatever it was, it was standing near the head of the cot I slept in, and as I became aware of where it was, I turned my head to see what was there. Being a chicken by nature, I shut my eyes and turned away at the first glimpse. What I do recall seeing was something dressed in black, not like a shadow, but in black clothing, and my impression was that whoever I saw did not look normal. I hid my self under my covers, and remained there until I felt whoever it was leave. I listened for any sound or evidence of movement, but did not hear anything. No door opened or closed, no window was opened. I could feel it near me for a short time, then it left. I ventured a look, and it was no longer in the room. Being close to Halloween, I assumed it must be a witch, and I didn't want to tangle with any witches. . . NIGHT PICNIC AT THE BEACH: o Since I'm not sure of the date sequence of this episode, I will interject it here for the sake of convenience. In 1959, my mother and I moved to Jacksonville Florida to stay with my uncle Ron. He lived in a new housing area which was, at that time, named "Sandalwood". About nine months to a year later, my mother was introduced to a fellow serviceman of my uncle stationed at the May Port Naval station. They were soon married and bought a house in the same housing area, but on the far side, where recent construction was just being completed. When my step-father was in port, we would frequently go out for night time picnics at the beach. On one particular occasion, we set out for the evening. Driving out to a secluded stretch of road running along the coast, we could not find any spot that pleased my step-father, so he decided that since we had driven quite a way already, the best thing to do was to turn around, and just find any decent place to pull off, and have our picnic there. We drove back the way we had come, and I entertained myself by watching the stars in the evening sky as we went along. After awhile, I noticed that neither my mother or step-father were speaking, which to me, was not the ordinary course of events that usually took place when we were out for the evening. I popped up from the back seat, and asked when we were going to stop and have our picnic, to which I was given the answer that we had already stopped, had our picnic, and were now returning home. I had no recollection of stopping anywhere, nor had I remembered eating anything. I only remembered driving down the road, and watching the stars. When we arrived home, my mother took our picnic things out of the trunk and took them into the house. As I watched, she proceeded to put the entire, un-eaten, contents of the our picnic supplies back into the refrigerator. After doing this, my parents retired for the evening without giving any explanation, or thinking that one was necessary. During all of this, I just watched without questioning their actions. THE NIGHT VISITS: During the early part of 1961, I began having events take place on a nightly basis which spanned, as best as my memory can ascertain, a period of one month. At some point during each night, I would wake up to the feeling that something was being placed on the right side of my mouth. The object was cold, and had a texture similar to glass, or metal. Directly after this, I would feel a probe being placed into my mouth, and moved around as though a culture was being taken. I do not remember the texture of the probe itself, other than the impression that it was thin. I do not remember any sensation of temperature connected with the probe. From my point of awareness, and wakefulness, these episodes seem to have only taken about ten to fifteen minutes. If more was involved, I have no current knowledge of it. During each visit, I would wake up terrified, afraid to move out of fear that I would be hurt. My heart was racing excitedly out of fear. I surmised that since I was being still, and nothing had hurt me thus far, more of the same immobility was in order. On later "visits", I tried to move, but was unable to control any motor functions other than those involuntary functions such as heart reat, breathing, etc. with the exception of one time. At one point during the probing, I was able to open my eyes slightly. When I did this, I saw something like a white sleeve, and part of what looked like a hand close to my face. The hand moved toward my face, and I quickly shut my eyes. On multiple occasions, after having one of these nightly visits, I managed to get out of bed, and would check to see if my mother was doing these things to me. On each occasion, I would find her in her room, sound asleep, with no signs of stirring. At one point, as one of these visits ended, and I felt the presence leaving, I struggled to get my eyes open, and as I did, I looked toward my bedroom door. It was moving from and open position to a closed position as though someone had pulled on the handle, then let the door close on its own. I got up as quickly as my body would allow, and went to see if my mother had been in my room. Again, she was sound asleep. I then cautiously looked around the house, checking outside through the windows. I saw no signs of any movement, no cars, no lights other than porch lights from neighbors a block down. In the following weeks after the nightly visits ended, I began having a strange sensation come over me for short periods of time, becoming more increasingly in frequency and duration until July 4th, 1963. This sensation is that of feeling extremely "spacy", or as though I'm seeing life through someone elses eyes, or though I'm watching everything as if it were all on television. (My apologies for my lack of proper descriptive examples.) I have heard that this sensation is much like the effect of hallucinagenic drugs on the human nervous system. This sensation has been with me since 1964 without any sign of lessening. Shortly after the sensation became permanent, I began having problems with my left ear. I acquired a nasty ear infection which resulted in a rupture that left a good portion of my bed covered in blood, and placed me in a coma for three days. I don't remember anything that would connect this with my previous experiences other than that I seem to feel that it is somehow related. Another situation that began directly after the night visits ended is the recurring akinesiatic experience. I have no other term to which to refer, so please pardon my usage if it proves to be incorrect. My definition in this context pertains to the inability of movement, and lack of all motor function control with exception of minor eye control in some instances. Generally, as the akinesia overtakes me, I can move somewhat for a few seconds, then I become completely immobile. In almost all instances when I am overcome with akinesia, I am alone. On the few occasions when I've been in bed and my wife is there asleep, I have been unable to wake her. With the exception of my wife, I have never experienced akinesia when anyone else was present. MISSING TIME ON THE FREEWAY: I am unable to recall the date, or even the year when this situation took place. I believe to the best of my assumptive ability that the episode took place in 1984 or 1985. I was returning late one night from visiting friends that lived in a nearby town. I was driving home alone, and the traffic was very sparse to non existent. I remember being at about half way home (at about 25 miles) and the next moment, I was about 100 yards from my turn off from the freeway. I was completely confused when I realized where I was, and thought I had managed to get myself to Los Angeles. There were still no cars on the freeway with me, and I was still in the same lane I was in 25 miles back. I have no idea what happened during that 25 mile drive. I got home as quickly as I could, and went directly to bed. UFO SIGHTING: In 1984, while walking back from the local mini-mart with my friend Gene, I happened to look up into the night sky and I say three triangular shaped objects at just above the cloud ceiling. They appeared to have a luminescence that looked to me to be much like a flourescent coloring. The objects were in a delta formation, directly above my, and slightly to the right moving in a south to north direction. They appeared to move at the same pace as I was walking. I watched them for about 30 seconds and though that I should get Gene's attention and have him take a look. As I did this, they took off to the north at a great speed. With the darkness, and the cloud ceiling, I was unable to calculate the distance, or size of the objects. There were no running lights of any kind, and no sound that I could perceive. That was the extent of my personal UFO related sightings. A LATER REFLECTION: After talking a closer look and examiming my memories of this event, I do feel that perhaps that what I was seeing was not three crafts, but rather, a single craft. My first inclination of three ships was primarily due to the three distinctive light sources. At first, I assumed that three light "sources" automatically meant three "Craft". After thinking long and hard about this, and considering the way the three light sources never deviated in their distance and position from each other, I must say that I feel this was one rather large triangular craft. I may very well be wrong, but this is the only way that I can is correlate the information I have. AUTOHYPNOSIS: At one point, I decided to try autohypnosis to see if I could uncover some possible information to determine if I had actually experienced a UFO related encounter. Since my experience of the night visits at age six seem to be most predominant, I chose to start there. Proceeding through the induction, and preliminary steps, I found that I had successfully brought myself to an acceptable state of suggestion. My primary desire was to take myself back to the night where my first memory of the episodes took place. Through suggestion, I tried to have myself start at the point where I was just falling asleep, but couldn't do so. Instead, I found myself standing outside the house we lived in at the time, looking up at my bedroom window. Rather than it being evening, it was mid afternoon. I tried once again to place myself at the point where I was just falling asleep, and again, I found myself outside the house looking at my bedroom window. I tried a third time with the same results. Seeing that I was not going to be able to proceed in the manner I had desired, I let myself start outside the house, looking at the window. After starring at the window and seeing the vividness of my memories, I moved to make my way into the house. o In real time, I'd often stood outside my bedroom window looking up to see if anyone could see in. I recalled memories of things I hadn't thought of for years, and others that I hadn't remembered until then. I made my way into the house, and down the hall to my old bedroom. There were many things that caught my eye of rememberance, but I will leave those out of this dialog for the sake of getting more to the point. I stood in my room seeing it just as it was. I enjoyed myself to no end, but knew I had gone to the trouble of doing this to see what was possibly hidden in my subconscious. I managed to bring myself to the time I had fallen asleep. At this point I decided to begin maintaining myself in the role of an observer. I watched as I fell asleep, and allowed time t o progress toward the incident in question. At this point, I was unable to see myself laying in my bed, or to see the room anymore. I was no longer in the position of the observer, but actually beginning to relive the experience all over. I became a bit frightful about this, but I was determined to go through with this, and bring back all of the information I could. Toward the end of the autohypnosis, I began to move directly to the point where I first became aware that something was happening to me. I tried to move further into the memory, but I was abruptly stopped by a pair of ugly, large black eyes, and the word "NO!". . . This scared the pants off me, but I would persist in my endeavor. I tried the same thing twice more, and ran up against those eyes, and the word "NO!". I decided that I had pushed my luck far enough, and brought myself out of the hypnotic state. PERSONAL BIO: Do to the "spacy" feeling I have had for nearly thirty years, I did seek out medical, and psychological help. In all cases, I was found to be in good health, and suffering from no mental illnesses. I underwent various medical and psychological testing. These tests included CAT scans, EEGs, testing for temporal lobe epilepsy. The only negative findings that were brought out were that I was suffering from Polycythemia Vera (a blood disorder,) and that I had carpel tunnel syndrome. Since the age of six, I have been agorophobic, and pretty much stay to myself. I am very hesitant to open up to people unless I feel I can trust them. I wouldn't say I'm paranoid, but I do tend to extremely cautious of my surroundings, and who is near me. I have very few close friends, but those friends are ones that I can trust. The most overwhelming hurdles for me to overcome are, and have always been, my sense of non-identity and anxiety. Constantly, I live with the feeling of violation, and at the same time, longing for a return of those that have caused me to feel this way. Part of my life is lived in secret, and that in itself causes me more stress than most anything else. Fortunately, with the help of two friends, L. Morgan, and J. Powell, I have managed to learn to deal with this unusual state of strangeness in my life. Although I have come to grips with what may be happening to me, I cannot say that I have sorted through and understood all of the realities and implications involved. I am still searching for those illusive answers. In time I may come to know for sure what has been happening to me, but till then, I must endure and persevere. I had wanted to find some quote from literature to use as a way to communicate my emotional response to what I have been going through. I wanted to use the quote as an epilogue to this communication. Alas, I could find nothing in the bounds of my meager library that bear the import of my feelings. Of the few quotes I found, I was not satisfied with their congruency. I did find something that I had personally written a few years back that came as close as anything else I had come across. I would like to close with that quote here. . . The coldness of the evening air moves swiftly across your face Like the unwanted touch of loneliness. The skies of winter approach, bring the heartless cries of farewell To the passing of autumn, now ringing, And left echoing in your ears. Alone you stand. All that have gone before speak in hollow tones As if to guide your path. Their words, Still sharp in your mind, cannot bring comfort. Alone you stand, and Alone you must bear your quest. --- I hope that I have found, in this echo, the strength to stand alone, and to stand with friends... Take care, Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan can be contacted at the below address: D.E.Brown 1710 1/2 "X" Street (Lower) Sacramento, CA 95818 ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************