The Pigeon Hole Syndrome

Location -London, England
Date -April 1994
Time -early morning
Anthony Wilson had just woken up in his parent’s settee (he was going to work while his sister and her husband had the spare room). He switched off the alarm clock went to the toilet and then lay back down on the settee for an extra five minutes. He went to grab a cigarette when through the now open door a strange apparition sort of stumbled into the room, looked left and then it slowly turned its head toward him. He described the “creature” as very tall (about 6’6” to 7’ tall) two dimensional sort of “dogman”. It had height and width, and most curious of all, its body shape was in angles—a man’s body but with a large dog/wolf’s head. The creature stared straight at the witness, and then started to walk toward where he was lying, but it moved in a clockwork sort of way. When it stopped and leaned toward the witness that’s when he managed to let out a huge shout. That seemed to unnerve it and it took several steps back and disappeared out the door where it came from.
Source: Your True Tales—October 2005
Type: E -When an entity or humanoid is seen alone, without related UFO activity (Example: bedroom visitation)

I discovered this little tidbit while web browsing some time back. I believe that it comes from one of the UFOlogy journals online but I have lost the reference. Still, it is another interesting example of how perception plays a large role in how a sighting is reported and to whom. In this case, rather than assuming that the creature was demonic or a part of the Nephilim, this witness had an odd experience and, apparently, given the footnote, reported it to a UFO researcher.

Now, I am not a strong believer in the “aliens from outer space” theory of UFO origins. My thinking is that any civilization advanced enough to be able to travel the vast distances between stars is not going to have much interest in a race of beings that have barely crawled out of the primordial slime in geological terms and they certainly are not going to be interested in abducting people, poking and prodding them and then releasing them with their memories only partly wiped. Again, if a civilization this advanced did decide that they needed more information on our species, they would have scanning technology that would make the clumsy abduction scenarios totally unnecessary and, should they need a specimen or three, I am sure they could manage it without dragging people out of bed in the middle of the night and scaring hell out of them.

But this is not a post on aliens and their tech. It is a post about an individual who had an experience of high strangeness and then had it categorized as the appearance of an “alien” without several very important questions being answered.

First of all, are we even sure that the witness was awake at the time of this unusual sighting? The witness clearly indicates that he had just awakened and was still lying on the settee when the sighting occurred. This being sounds a lot like something that would spring out at me in those moments between sleep and wakefulness and those visions are sometimes frighteningly real to me. I would be far more eager to accept this explanation than I would to embrace the idea that this was some sort of space alien.

Even granting that the witness was fully conscious, we have to look at other details of this brief story. I can think of several scenarios that might play in this situation:

• Was this witness a regular smoker? Did he actually light the cigarette he reached for? If so, what was his age and physical condition? Might this gentleman have experienced a transient ischemic attack (a mini stroke) as the result of the constriction of blood vessels when nicotine hit his system. That could certainly produce some interesting hallucinatory effects.
• We also have no history on the witness. Any history of mental illness in the family? Might this be a schizophrenic manifestation? Any history of drug use especially of the hallucinogenic sort?
• Could the sighting be attributed to the Persinger effect i.e. sources of electromagnetic radiation that might induce hallucinations?
• What do we know about this home? Had there been any previous paranormal events in the house? Any history of haunting or strange events in the area? This sighting happened in England, a place renowned for its ghost population, Black Dogs, Big Cats and other cryptids and paranormal phenomenon. This could easily have been one of England’s famous hauntings with a really bizarre twist.
• Did the witness or anyone associated with the witness practice any of the magical arts? I’ve talked at some length about the possibility of thought forms manifesting and this two dimensional being sounds a lot like the sort of half done manifestation that an inexperienced practitioner might produce.
• Does the home sit on a ley line? Could the sighting have been the result of one of these mysterious currents of earth energy effecting the witness’ perceptions.

I could continue but I am sure the reader gets the idea. This is a fascinating account of something that the witness could not explain and felt strongly enough about to report. It happens that, in this case, the witness saw something that resembled one of my favorite “monsters”, thus my interest. I think that, as investigators and researchers, or even simply as people interested in these phenomenon, we need to do a better of job of approaching witnesses with an open mind and not a set of preconceived notions that allow us to slot witnesses into a category and move on to the next encounter.