"I think that we all know that something's going on." Congressman Andy Ogles UAP Caucus member, Border Security Caucus member

EXPERIENCER

I share my firsthand UAP experiences to illustrate these things happen and to demonstrate it's okay to discuss them. These narratives may help someone, and a goal of helping is always worthwhile. 

August 2022

"Orange Marmalade Orb"

Pike National Forest, Colorado

To me it was just another backpacking trip in the sprawling national forest I  live near. Starting at Deer Creek trailhead, I shouldered my pack and steadily hiked six miles into the interior. At a high pass I left the trail to grab 12,441-foot Kataka Mountain. On its apex I watched a lethal storm zap 14,050-foot Mount Bierstadt, 14,258-foot Mount Evans, and The Sawtooth, a narrow and well-named ridge that connects these two "14ers"a few miles from where I was standing. With storms gathering over Kataka Mountain, I hastily descended, recrossed the high pass, summitted 11,980-foot Tahana Mountain, and set my sights for a stunted evergreen forest high on the flanks of 13,523-foot Epaulet Mountain.

     Due to off and on rain, I set up my tarp in a low A-frame and crawled underneath. Perched at 11,800 feet, it was quite the campsite with quite the view. I ate dinner and happily dozed off. It had been a long day. I was awoken around 2:00 a.m. by a strange, thick, orange light filtering through the stunted trees that surrounded my little campsite. I stared at it for a few seconds, and though I had never seen anything like it, it was met with indifference. I plopped my head down and immediately fell back asleep.

     A minute later, while lying supine, I opened my eyes due to a compulsion to look at something, though I knew not what. In a seamless motion I rolled onto my side and precisely focused on a red-orange orb hovering two miles to the northwest. What on Earth? Next to me was my digital camera with its 20x telephoto lens. When I reached for it to photograph what I was seeing, I felt it immoral, that what I was seeing was intended only for me. I put it back down.  

     Just as I focused on this strange object my consciousness moved toward it. Instead of me being two miles away, "I" was a quarter-mile from it. Now I could really see it. It hovered over The Sawtooth and had a thin yellow corona. It looked like the sun, plasma, lava, energy. It somehow "looked like knowledge." It was alive, a churning gob of orange marmalade. I received a message. Non-verbal, yet not even a message, really. Pure understanding. "We are here. Goodbye." Somehow I knew that meant, "Yes, we do exist. We will see you again, Erik." The object slowly disappeared into a dissipating storm within ten seconds of me finding it. I collapsed into a deep sleep.

     I uncharacteristically awoke late from an unusually deep sleep. I had no recollection of the event. I packed up my campsite and climbed toward Epaulet Mountain among the tundra. A massive westward view opened. I stared at The Sawtooth. Something had been in my campsite. I figured it was a bunny, maybe even an elk. It didn't matter. I roamed the high country, summited 13,575-foot Rosalie Peak and 12,444-foot Bandit Peak, passed a herd of seventy elk, and camped on top of 11,495-foot Royal Mountain. With rain threatening again, I set up my tarp in my preferred A-frame style. 

     As I dozed off I had a fuzzy memory. Something about a red orb. It wasn't worth thinking about. Despite having basically no recollection of the visitation, I took the four- by six-foot bright orange signal panel I always pack with me and laid it on the ground, pinning its corners with rocks so it wouldn't blow away. I felt I was going to be "taken." But by who and to where I did not know. I had never had that feeling in the mountains. The panel would help searchers find my camp if they couldn't find me. This second night out was entirely uneventful. On day three I returned to Deer Creek trailhead and drove home at dusk.

     The moment I entered my home and dumped my gear on the floor I experienced a flood of memory I describe as "having the top of my head cut off and then having a five-gallon bucket of ice cold memories poured inside it." It was all there in indescribable detail. The light, The Sawtooth, the orb, the message, the sleep. Everything. Memory knew no bounds. That night I submitted a report to MUFON out of fear of forgetting what I was remembering. I wrote to the MUFON investigator, "My biggest struggle has been accepting the authenticity. I've been hard on myself and have caused myself much anguish. I feel like a liar, a fraud, that it was a silly dream I read too much into."

     I completed extensive research into the matter by contacting the U.S. Forest Service, two county sheriffs offices, three nearby airports, a college that operated a nearby observatory, a State of Colorado agency that maintained a nearby high scenic road, and a volunteer committee familiar with the area. Nothing. In desperation to figure out what the hell had happened to me out there in the mountains, two days later I contacted a well-known UAP experiencer and friend of mine. I shared a simple version of my story and asked him, "Would you be able to access insight into this incident that I myself cannot access?"

     His response was eerie. "Have you considered the possibility that you were returned at the moment you woke up, and that's how you knew where to look?"

     I shared with him, "A friend asked me if it was possible that I had some kind of interaction with this orb, and then I awoke when it finished its interaction with me."

     His response was even stranger than his question. "I received a message similar to your friend's inquiry. You became conscious of the orb upon being brought back from it. Some form of interaction might have occurred prior to you seeing the orb recede. Like it communicated, 'Nice visiting with you, Erik. Goodbye for now. We'll be back.'" How close this was to what I heard, "Yes, we do exist. We'll see you again, Erik" remains inexplicable. He closed with, "I’ve found that these visitors just want to connect, listen, and talk to people ready and willing to engage with them." For some reason I am one of those people.

     For the next six days every waking moment was consumed with me seeing an orange light in my mind's eye. Replaying the event became an obsession. Recall accepted no limits. I was hypervigilant and easily startled and didn't sleep for 72 hours. I was scared of the dark. I became upset when seeing round or orange or red objects. I felt detached from everyone, detached from reality. I somehow still went to work. The owner of the practice I worked for took me aside. "What's going on? You look terrible."

     I thought I was losing my mind. I contacted another person in the UAP community for insight. Though he, too, shall remain nameless, most would recognize this name as well. He also offered uncanny insight by mentioning I had received a message. He knew not what, though. To be honest, I wasn't as interested in his enigmatic wisdom as one would think. I just didn't want to feel alone.

     When the foaming seas calmed a month after my experience, a friend asked what it was like. I appreciated his delayed inquiry. I explained, "I'm different. But I don't know in what way. That orb has known me my entire life. When I saw it over The Sawtooth, I realized it was the same age as the rocks that comprise that ridge. It's as natural as a redwood or a whale. It was not made by any thing or any one."

April 2023

"Mountaintop CE5"

San Isabel National Forest, Colorado

On the second high-desert peak I climbed this day, 7,423-foot Table Mountain, I attempted CE5 for twenty minutes. I had attempted CE5 a few times one year earlier and had no results. This time again I had no results. Or so I thought. I descended Table mountain, hiked out, and drove home, arriving at 6:00 p.m.  

     At 9:00 p.m., while sitting on my couch working on my laptop, I experienced a sudden and overwhelming wave of panic and felt like crying and screaming. The feeling was "fearful insight," and I so strongly felt the presence of a force staring at me that I anticipated something materializing. I next experienced a crystal realization that we 2023 humans are incredibly primitive. In an attempt to ease my anxiety I put my work away and watched one of my favorite comedians instead. I could not bear to look at him for I saw myself within his tragically primitive appearance. I shut the laptop, breathed heavily, and looked at my home's stone fireplace a few feet away. Uneasiness consumed me. My stomach churned like I was on a rollercoaster. I said aloud in astonishment, "A stone fireplace? That's what the Pilgrims used!" A bizarre blend of panic and insight paralyzed me. I intensely realized any world beyond the one I was accustomed to laid beyond comprehension. Where would such unique thought so profoundly manifest? 

     I contacted a UAP experiencer and friend of mine in pursuit of insight. He replied, "I think sometimes we ask for something to happen yet don't understand the many ways we can be shown something. It may not be what we asked for, but for some reason what we're shown is what we need. The universe understands our requests and manifests accordingly. I think the insight you received was no accident. The civilization we have created is incredibly primitive, temporary."

December 2024

"Seven Orbs"

Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico

As my friend and I hung out in her camper van at night a few miles into the gravelly and scraggly New Mexico desert, I glanced out the open side door and noticed a small, round, orange object to the west. Presuming it was a low-orbit satellite, and considering I like to look at things in the night sky, I tried to focus on it. When I reacquired it, it disappeared. A moment later I regained it. The object brightened for one or two seconds, stayed fully illuminated for ten, and dimmed to black across one or two. It vanished for a minute or two only to reappear in the same spot with the same brightening, brightened, dimming, gone pattern. As it racetracked the sky, I said to my friend, "Come look at this."

     Three identical objects joined it. Most traveled up and to the left.  One made a "J" flight path. Others flew in coordination, maintaining precise separation as they traversed the sky. The brightening and dimming intrigued us. The objects did not shine. They glowed. They wouldn't illuminate when aircraft were within a few miles of them. They were nine miles from us. Nothing in that location was portrayed on my Flightradar24 app. After forty minutes of observation they vanished. How strange.

     While camping in the same area during the following three nights we didn't see a thing. The next night there they were in the same spot. This time they were five miles away. My friend shot a video and caught four instances of one of them illuminating. After an hour they vanished. When I got home I submitted a MUFON report and was interviewed. The video was examined. Between me, my friend, and the investigator we found no Earthly explanations. I completed extensive research into the matter by contacting a county sheriffs office, two nearby airports, a local city police department, the local New Mexico State Police station, and managers of a nearby windfarm. Nothing. Case closed. 

     Or so we thought. Nine days after the second sighting, my friend and I got to talking about the objects while at her home back in Colorado Springs. We decided to watch the video together for the first time. When an orb came into view on her phone she got a pit in her stomach and said, "I'm really scared." She closed the video. I assured, "It's okay. We don't have to watch it."

     Without warning the lights in the room aggressively flickered. I asked, "Do you see that?" She replied. "I don't want to do this."  But what was "this"? A wave of dread washed over me, and I couldn't resist the compulsion to stare at a spot fifteen feet in front of us. Though I saw nothing, something was there. It was staring at me. My hands sweat, my chest pounded. I was paralyzed from engaging with whatever was watching me. I was unable to speak. My friend pulled a blanket over her head and hid. She could not speak either. The only way to describe the feeling is it was like an invisible rabid grizzly bear was staring at me.

     After two minutes she managed, "Let's go in my room." We swiftly absconded. She locked the door, hid under blankets, and asked it to not scare us and not harm us. But what was "it"? In her bedroom she could only hide, and I was physically unable to speak as my mind processed a garbled message. I somehow knew we were engaging with a part of the orbs that had followed us home. Ten minutes later we felt entirely normal. Strangely, we did not discuss what had happened at all.

     The next morning my friend asked something to the effect of, "What the hell was that?" I replied, "One of the objects found us and said, 'This isn't for you.'  I think it didn't know we recorded it until last night."  She said, "I felt like a scared child being scolded for seeing something I should not have seen."