See a new post concerning eternal knowledge and wisdom and Indians and buffalo on Wendy’s Coffeehouse Blog…..

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Eternal knowledge and wisdom and the Indians and buffalo   – 9-16-22      John Foster

Put in the back of your mind that you are receiving this information from an eighty-four year-old man who is remembering encounters that occurred from 82 to 36 years ago.   You can check out the versions of some of these stories in my books to see if  I am recalling in the same or a different way. The books were written from 1986/1987 through 1999, plus.

Also, as you read below, keep in mind that my family traveled with my father a lot when I was young…from the time I was born in 1937 until I went to college in 1955. During those trips we sometimes heard about relations and happenings with the Native Americans, especially at and near Ponca, Niobrara, and Chadron State Parks in Nebraska. 

I also had a close contact with a Native American “medicine man” one summer of the early 1950s near Riverton and Lander, Wyoming, when I was about 14 years old…during one of the lost trips.   The UFO sightings and encounters were driving my uncle crazy during the trips and he consulted with someone in Lander who told him to leave me with one of the medicine men on the reservation. I stayed with the old man all night, but he told my uncle in the morning that he could find nothing unusual about me.

I had brief contact with the Indians on the Shoshone Reservation in Wyoming in 1956 and 1957 near the town of  Dubois, as well as in 1959 near Riverton when our oldest daughter was born.

Remember UFOs followed us to the hospital when Annie was about to give birth. And the Shoshone Tribe or the Arapaho were told about her birth the night before she was born. (A Native American woman told us, at the hospital, a voice had told the tribe about our daughters birth from a brilliant object that hovered over their campfire.) Also, the small booth and voice showed up near the hospital entrance when my parents and I went to visit the next night. And, a few weeks later, a Native American man verified the UFO and voice telling the tribe about her birth as Annie, our new born daughter and I were fishing high in the mountains near Lander.

The connection between the same Indians’ “Rainbow Clan” with UFOs was verified years later in 1987 when we attended Leo Sprinkle’s Rocky Mountain Conference On UFO Investigation. A man rushed in and told us about seeing a brilliant UFO hovering over the “Rainbow Clan’s” campfire while the clan was fervently singing. This was very similar to the story the Native American woman told us when our daughter was born in 1958.

Also remember I experienced Indian related encounters when the crafts and booth showed up when I was young. Several of these encounters occurred during Boy Scout camp outs, etc. – when we were somewhat emulating the Native American Way. At least a few times we played the game of tag with the small discs with headlights…and at least a few times, for instance, as we were sitting around a campfire, a strange light shone down on me and the others jumped up, screamed and pointed at me saying I looked very strange. This was when I was from 7 to about 13 years old.

Also, it is important to note that I am not trying to report what happened using drama, etc; however many encounters caused fear, puzzlement, and high emotional reactions.   I try to relate simply what happened because I believe knowing the basic facts is most important.  (If I were to relate the entire story with appropriate drama, I would have to write many books — which would consume many years.)

Me relating the story to you simply allows you, the reader, the opportunity to evaluate the stories using your own past experience, as well as your accumulated beliefs and feelings…etc. 

However, I sometimes speculate on what it all might mean, judging from my point of view – which includes evaluation from my engineering and construction background, as well as my memories of past UFO encounters.   I then, hopefully, leave it up to you for your final analysis…etc.

The message from “the voice:”

“Everyone, gather around for eternal knowledge and wisdom, and (something to do with) the Indians and buffalo.”

“Everyone, get in (the craft or object) and sit down for eternal knowledge and wisdom, and (something to do with) the Indians and buffalo…” Etc.

This was repeated by the invisible “voice” many times, in various ways…from the time I was two or three years old until my last overt encounter that took place at Maloney Lake just south of North Platte, Nebraska in August of 1986, when I was 48 years old.  It was a rich male voice speaking in perfect English. It is interesting that the voice sometimes sounded like a barker at a circus.

(I believe stating my age here and there is important because the so-called UFO entities followed me clandestinely most of my life. They seemed to be my guardians at times. Because I know this has happened to many others, I believe we can learn more about the mysterious entities by noting what specifically or roughly happens to many people at certain ages…in an obvious manner…or clandestinely or both.)

I discovered during my 1986/1987 “flood of recollections” these similar phrases were espoused many, many times. Many times the voice spoke in a completely formal manner as if he were not speaking to anyone in particular. It seemed as if he were reciting information formally to no one, or to anyone, or to everyone for the eternal ages.

When I discovered the phrases were often used when the small booth-like object showed up, throughout the entire 46 years of my encounters, I began to call the routine “The Saucer-Booth Routine.” I used the word saucer because, during some encounters, the mysterious intelligences demonstrated how they, using the windowed saucer, could materialize and deposit the booth on the ground – out of the bottom of the saucer.  This somewhat makes sense if you consider at one time the voice explained and visually demonstrated to me personally how “they” could create and change the form of the crafts and objects by manipulating the atomic and molecular structures of matter.   I conjectured that some of that matter had to be haze and fog.  I also conjectured that they could have used the atoms and molecules of the air.  This is partly because we often saw a craft or object materialize from a volume of distorted atmosphere.

The phrases were espoused before and after the booths were deposited on the ground…and many times while we were sitting on the benches inside the small booths. The phrases also were used outside and inside the large booths at times, as well as some of the other objects and crafts at different times.

During the period of my flood of recollections, from 1986 to the early 90s, the eternal-knowledge/wisdom/Indian phrases never really made sense.   But it finally did make some sense in the early 1990s when I attended a talk by one of the characters who was described in Ruth Montgomery’s book Aliens Among Us.  

I was sitting by a Native American woman telling a few people about my encounters. And I mentioned the saucer booth routine.  It was then the Indian woman told me that sort of routine involving the booth was occurring and had occurred on the Indian reservations. She said it normally happened when young boys were reaching about the age of 13. It seemed to be connected to a mysterious spiritual ceremony for boys, when they were passing from childhood into adulthood.  She emphasized that the booths mysteriously materialized.

When I talked to the speaker about it, he warned me that it all sounded satanic, etc. He thought the little I told him about my UFO encounters also sounded satanic. This was a normal reaction I received when I tried to talk to many other people about my encounters throughout the years. Many of them were fundamentally religious.

It’s interesting that my sister, her friend and I experienced the Bethany Grade School Encounter when I was 13.  And her friend and I received some information that evening about the Indians after we experienced our separate excruciating conditioning sessions inside the tent-like or elliptical-shaped object… when I found myself floating a foot or so above the ground.  Receiving information about the Native Americans at this time, I suspect, was to broaden my knowledge about the nature of life.

I.e, I received a broad rough knowledge about the Indians at that time, through a mysterious clandestine encounter. I suspect the UFO entities knew this would lead me to seek out knowledge related to Indians in my later years, through the subconscious faculties of my mind.  

And, as you will see, I did contact the Native Americans in my later years. I began to develop a subconscious haunting attraction, during the Bethany Grade School encounter and other encounters, to seek out the Native American Way.  It was subconscious because I was forced to forget it and other similar encounters as or shortly after they ended.

Remember the experience somewhere in western Nebraska when my relatives and I were levitated up into the “large object.” The voice explained to my relatives that I would help my fellow humans in the future. I believe it was the summer of 1951, when I was 14 years old.

Many things happened during that encounter, but one very interesting sequence involved a program that seemed to be broadcast on a typical TV set that was sitting on a table in that “large object.” I was the only one who was allowed to watch it.

The program, with a male audio announcer and video film, demonstrated how the white man was ruining nature by building suburban houses too close together.  The program then switched to a video of historical Indians hunting buffalo on the plains.    The solution to the problem was obvious: Don’t build houses too close together!  And it was vaguely suggested through ESP that the communication of the Indians with the Great Spirit was a good way to live.

Also, when I attended my first Rocky Mountain Conference On UFO Investigation in 1987 – in Laramie, Wyoming – I met a fellow who was studying for his doctoral degree.  He was extremely interested in my drawings and story. He was getting his PhD in historic symbols and legends. I was new at the UFO game and felt leery about talking with anyone in detail because I thought they might think I was crazy. I thought I might be considered insane or imaginative and it would ruin my ability to make a living.  So I tried to avoid him.

Yet, he cornered me in the cafeteria one day and I cautiously sat down and talked with him. He had seen my drawings and he seemed very interested in them, especially my drawings of the small booth and the small lizard-like being.  He also overheard me talking with other contactees.

As we talked in the cafeteria he finally told me that my drawings were very similar to some ancient Native American drawings and ancient cliff and cave carvings he had studied. He said the Indians had told him that the small booth and the small lizard-like beings were part of their legends involving “the sky people.”  

The Indian’s small booth and their sky people, he had concluded, were connected to what we now know are UFOs.  My connection with the small booth and the small lizard-like beings convinced him that the Indian legends were true and accurate…and that my memories most likely were true and accurate.

He made me swear not to reveal his name. If I repeated the story using his name, he said, it might interfere with him receiving his PhD. This is because UFOs were taboo in the educational arena at that time. I have never repeated his name, but I certainly would like to talk with him again. Actually, I don’t remember his name.  I discovered later he was a part of a spiritual movement across the USA and a part of the new age movement…which I found was related in many ways to the Native American Way.

Well, if you recall, in August of 1986, during my last encounter, the voice told me that, if I chose to recall my encounters, I would not experience another encounter. Even though I was told this, I have since experienced close UFO sightings. And some of these sightings were related to the Native Americans…The Native American Way.

After I experienced my flood of recollections in 1986 and 1987, I met the Familiar strangers.  I discovered – (a part of my “eminent discovery”) – that some of them were helping the Native Americans by donating food and clothing.  And eventually an Indian Sioux family began to hold sweat lodge ceremonies on a multiple acre patch of land that was located nearby.  

They were very friendly and their group of Indians included Indians that were not a part of their immediate family.  They were there, they said, to teach the white man the Native American Way. So some of the familiar strangers and I participated in some of their ceremonies.

To make a long story short, I was asked to do a “vision quest.” This meant I had to go up on a remote hill located nearby. I was to be totally alone and to put a small circle of rope on the ground around me. I was to stand not sit on the ground within the small rope circle. I was to pray to the “Great Spirit” constantly until I somehow would mysteriously know it was over. The Indians and the familiar strangers who were there also said that, to be an official vision quest, they had to pray for me in the sweat lodge until I returned from the remote hill.

So I did this up on the remote hill. I continuously prayed to the Father of Christ, the creator of our universe. After I had been there for a length of time, I began to hear noises in the trees and brush all around me. And I eventually saw, in a small tree, not more than 15 feet to my southeast, many small lights glowing semi-brilliantly. They were all over the small tree, in the leaves and branches, from top to bottom.

I at first thought the lights were lightning bugs. However, they glowed white constantly and more brilliantly. I knew lightning bugs glowed more yellow, only periodically, somewhat rhythmically. I also had already seen what I at first thought were lightning bugs at our camp down below the remote hill.

As I had been standing with a couple of gals discussing what might be happening, a few small semi-brilliant lights floated right in front of us, not more than six feet away and about four feet above the ground. At one time they were so close, I could have touched them.  I at first thought they were lightning bugs, but the girls told me they were the spirits come to accompany us in some way. I then noticed the lights didn’t move like lightning bugs, and they were illuminated white continuously, etc.

My suspicions that they might be lightning bugs ended when I was up on the remote hill.  It was after I stared at the lights in the tree for some time that I looked up at the sky above me.

Standing there within my small rope circle, I looked straight up above my head. And I saw a small cloud that seemed strikingly visible. It appeared to be about two to three hundred yards (or so)  above me. And it was at least 75 yards (or so) long north to south and a little narrower from east to west. In the center of the cloud was an open space, at least 25 yards north to south, and fully open horizontally from east to west.

And, to my astonishment, I soon saw two semi-bright beams of light shining, it seemed from the north (from inside the north part of the cloud), through the open space, to the south (into the south part of the cloud).

I, at first, thought I was seeing a strange reflection of something shining on the cloud. But I looked closely and I saw it was obviously something inside the north part of the cloud that was shining the two beams of light across the opening into the south part of the cloud. After staring at it for some time, the two beams of light began to move slowly. It seems they rotated slowly. Then, after being somewhat disoriented for a time, I saw a disc-like craft hover and move very slowly into the opening from north to south. From that time on I don’t recall any other strange things happening.

Yet, I still periodically heard the sounds in the trees and brush around me, and I still saw the small semi-brilliant white lights in the small tree. The sounds were distinct and somewhat loud at times.

I stood there for some time and finally decided that this might be the end of my vision quest. So I picked up my rope and slowly walked down the hill, where I found everyone had already gone to bed. They had closed up the sweat lodge and put out the fire. So I soon crawled into my old Dodge van and went to sleep. It seemed unusual that the others would go to sleep before my vision quest was complete.

The next morning when everyone woke up, I asked the others why they hadn’t stayed in the sweat lodge until I finished my vision quest. And they told me, because I had been up on the remote hill so long; they could no longer stay awake. They said my vision quest took much longer than most. They also added, while I was up on the remote hill, they had seen very mysterious small light clouds moving inside the small sweat lodge. And during their breaks, as they were stretching and relaxing outside, they looked up into the sky and saw large streaks of luminous color moving across the sky, similar to the Aurora Borealis. But they said it seemed closer and different than the Aurora Borealis in some way I don’t recall.

It then seemed obvious I had experienced a time loss during my vision quest up on the hill.  I estimate it occurred between the time I saw the two beams of light moving in the open area of the cloud until I saw the metallic disc or saucer with two headlights.

This was in the very early 1990s. I was not in very good physical shape because of my bad heart. I had my first heart attacks and first surgery when I was 51 years old, in late winter of 1988. The surgery eventually failed and I lost over half of my heart.  I had just left Annie and somewhat wandered around our local area in the old van. I lived in the van for a time. I felt somewhat confused and disappointed because I was seeking but couldn’t quite figure out the foundational function and organization of “the project,” etc.

During this period, when I spent time with the familiar strangers, there were several unusual things that happened that I won’t cover in this article. However, I did have some very unusual encounters with animals, similar to Native American spiritual encounters. And there were places and happenings that were somewhat mysteriously connected to the historical Mormon story when they originally were traveling to Salt Lake City.  (If you are not aware, the Mormons also have a strong connection to the Native Americans.)

During this period, I also saw or discovered locations and buildings that I had encountered during those 1950s time travels that had occurred some 40 years earlier. I also met some of the same people I had met during the 1950s time travels.

I stayed with one of the familiar strangers on his acreage for a while. When I first saw it, I recognized the landscape and house at first glance. I even recalled seeing the inside of his house three decades earlier. It was an acreage where my aunt, uncle and their family and I visited during one of the 1950s “lost trips.” And I recalled a UFO encounter we experienced during that trip. I later got shocked to discover that this acreage lay smack dab on one of the local trails some of the Mormons had used during their original trip to Salt Lake City.

As an aside point of interest: I recall a mysterious manifestation of a craft and the voice while inside one of the Mormon buildings in Temple Square in Salt Lake City during the summer of 1951 or 1952…during one of “the lost trips.” I and others also encountered UFOs in Salt Lake City and at other Mormon installations in the west and in eastern Nebraska…some during the “lost trips.”

One of the familiar strangers was taken in or adopted by the family of Indians who were teaching the familiar strangers and me The Indian Way.  They asked him if he would like to join their clan as a spiritual leader. He said yes, so they made arrangements to put him through a particular incremental ancient ceremony that included a sweat lodge.

I was invited to attend the ceremony. But, because of my bad heart, during this entire period, I never did agree to be inside a tent-like sweat lodge. However, I agreed to be the keeper of the door and help with the fire, which normally was located just outside the door.

I arrived at the sweat lodge ceremony site in late afternoon or early evening. And, as I waited for the sun to set, so the all-night ceremony could begin, I laid on a large long log and began to rest.  I rested for a short time – until, suddenly, I heard a loud pop and felt a strong sensation in my head!  I immediately saw, with what seemed to be my physical eyes, my friend familiar stranger walking across a dirt street in an old western town that seemed to be at another time in history. I saw and heard several other things happen.  I eventually shook my head and soon began to see my present surroundings around the log…still at the site of that current sweat lodge ceremony.   It was unmistakable, one of my first authentic mysterious visions.

So, as the sun began to set, when this friend familiar stranger participated in the ceremony to become a part (a spiritual leader) of the Indian family’s clan, I performed the part of the keeper of the door and the keeper of the outside fire just outside the door. I did this with one of the younger brothers of the Indian who was doing the initiation ceremony. It occurred in a remote area in eastern Nebraska.

The ceremony lasted all night. And just before dawn, I heard a loud clanking behind me. I looked around and saw a pop bottle rocking back and forth hitting a group of six or more pop cans. I looked at the young Indian and looked back at the bottle and cans. Just as I fixed my eyes on them, the pop bottle lifted up off of the ground and back away six feet or more. It then very forcefully shot swiftly down into the pop cans, scattering them in every direction. We heard the clanking of every pop can as the pop bottle hit them and as they hit the ground.

I looked back at the young Indian and asked him if he saw what I saw, and he said yes. I asked him what that was, and he said the spirits had just arrived and he didn’t know if they were good or evil. He put both of his hands on top of his head, then walked and ran swiftly toward their campsite.

This told me emphatically that what we had just seen was time-space, three-dimensionally real – not imagination nor one of those real living mysterious visions.

When dawn broke, my friend familiar stranger and the Indian performing the ceremony came out of the sweat lodge. This part of the ceremony at that point was over. We told them about the pop bottle and pop cans. And they told us that, about that time this morning, two or four mysterious figures mysteriously appeared inside the sweat lodge. The mysterious figures apparently had sat down just across the inside fire pit. We conjectured that the figures might have been the Spirits Of The Four Directions.  
(Remember my experience above the clouds near Max, Nebraska when the voice told me to always know where I was in relation to the four directions.)

We all returned to the campsite and I slept in my old van before I left. I met with some of the other familiar strangers that evening, then returned home to Lincoln and stayed with Annie for a while. I was working for the non-degreed engineer who owned the very successful evacuation alarm system company. Because I was disabled, I could only work about 40 hours a month.

When Annie and I went to the hospital for me to get checked out by my cardiologist, we were surprised to meet the Native American man, his wife and their young daughter in one of the hospital hallways. I asked him why he was there and he told me that a bright shining spirit had hovered over the campfire at their campsite – that same campsite where the previous sweat lodge ceremony had taken place. He said, as his daughter was looking up at the spirit, she stepped backward into the campfire.  She apparently had  burned herself seriously before they could rescue her. They were seeking help from a doctor for their daughter at the hospital.

Another thing that is astonishing during this mysterious eventful period is what happened the day I left Annie, the day previous to the night-long sweat lodge ceremony.

When I was a young man, I believe it was when Annie and I were married, my mother and I were talking about life after life.  And we made an agreement that the first one of us to die would in some way give the other one a definite sign that would indicate they were still alive somewhere beyond their dead body.

The day I left Annie, the day before the all-night sweat lodge ceremony, I first decided to visit my parents graves. After I pulled my old van up beside their graves, I squatted down on the ground and began to meditate. The thought came to me that I needed to know if my mother and father were somewhere beyond the visible, still alive. And I remembered my previous agreement with my mother. So I stood up and yelled out loud, “OK mom, if you are ever going to do it, do it now!”

And, as God is my witness, a second and a half, a Turtle Dove swooped in from a nearby tree. It swooped from behind me, down around me, and landed not more than two feet from my feet!  I was so startled, I didn’t know what to do. So I just stood there motionless for what
seemed to be the longest time. And the Dove just sat there looking up at me, constantly cooing.

I finally made a guttural sound and moved my hand toward it. But it just sat there, looking up at me, still cooing.  I was so startled, I finally yelled and waved my arms at it…until it finally, casually flew away.  Of course I was later disappointed when I realized I didn’t have the where-with-all to carry on a personal conversation with my then Turtle Dove mother.

Yet, this was not the end of my communication with my deceased mother.

Not too many years ago, about 2018, about 28 years later, I was sitting on our patio by our gurgling small pond. And I heard and saw a Turtle Dove across the yard, about 70 feet away. This reminded me of that time when I was at my folks’ graves in the early 1990s.   I wondered if it would work again.  So I again yelled out loud, “OK mom, if you can, do it again!”  And, as you probably have already guessed, the Turtle Dove came swooping in right toward me, and it landed on a rock that was lining the pond just a few feet in front of me. It just sat there for the longest time, continuously cooing, staring directly at me.  And I, again, stood up and scared it away.

I also tried this routine a few times a couple of years later – and the same thing happened. But it was not quite as obvious as the previous two episodes; during those later times however, I did try to communicate with the Dove as if it were my mother.  From that time on, when I see a Turtle Dove near the patio or pond, I tell Annie, or whoever is with me, “Oh! That’s just my mom who has come again to visit.”

As above, the day after the familiar stranger experienced his first all-night sweat lodge ceremony in eastern Nebraska, before I returned home, I arrived at another location to meet with some of the other familiar strangers. When I arrived, only two people were there, people who I had only met casually a few days previously. It was a young woman and a young man.   As our conversation progressed, the young man began telling us about his encounters with a gangly type of Et who had followed him around from time to time, from place to place.  He said, at times, the Et would even appear inside his car, in the passenger seat.

As the young woman and I watched and listened, I began to see mysterious flames of fire begin to radiate out a foot or more away from his body, from his head to his toes, and possibly all around him. I thought I might be hallucinating, so I asked him to continue his story but move in front of a dark bush that was located a little to his left. I asked him to do this so I could see the flames better. He moved in front of the bush and I could see the colorful flames were more brilliant, and I could see them in great detail. There was no mistake.  It was so obvious, I knew they were real.  A little later another person showed up. When I looked back at the young man, I saw that the flames had disappeared.  

This silently told me that the young woman and I were possibly the only ones who were to see the flames…for what reason, I could only conjecture.

Because I had just been at the sweat lodge ceremony campsite, from that time on, I wondered if my mysterious encounters with the unknown might be connected more profoundly, in some mysterious way, to the Native Americans…i.e. to “Eternal knowledge and wisdom…Indians and buffalo.”  

Because the young fellow had told us he was being treated for mental health, I suspected that paranormal phenomenon might be mistakenly diagnosed as psychological mental problems.

If you haven’t already read my books, read Chapter 9 in the book Eminent Discovery volume 2. In several ways, this was my most important encounter. It occurred at the Sheridan Creek Fire Guard Cabin in Wyoming. It was an all-night encounter when the mysterious UFO intelligences showed and told us outright what the experiences were all about. And they told us who they were in some detail.

During one sequence we saw several Indians dancing the circle dance and we saw a buffalo. We saw them all materialize from massive fog and small clouds.  Some of the foggy clouds lingered, yet we could see the landscape in our local area clearly.  “The voice” then explained the meaning of both the circle dance and the buffalo. A part of the meaning was that the circle dance gave the Indians a spiritual connection with the buffalo, who in some mysterious way conveyed well being and important communication to the Indians in various ways, at various times. It seemed obvious that the emotions generated by the dancing stimulated or heightened the Indians’ paranormal abilities.

The voice then verbally forced my friend and I to sit in the teepee object  for a time.  While in the teepee we were transformed to be out of our bodies. We were then forced to ride horses out-of-body, several feet above the ground, with one of the Indians who I believe the voice said was a medicine man.  I.e. all of us were forced out-of-body, including the wise old Indian and the horses.  I could not see, but when out-of-body, I could hear the others talking. The voice then explained that the horses were here to help humans but they also, like humans, were here on Earth to improve themselves.

This all suggests that the horses and humans have a spiritual body that lives somewhere else beyond the physical, before birth, while living, and after death; and the information is coming to us, like the Indians, from the mysterious intelligences of whom we know very little. From what I’ve learned throughout the years, I feel our limited knowledge of the mysterious intelligences comes to us through spiritual, paranormal, and psychic communications, as well as spiritual and religious literature – historical and modern…etc.

During the 1970s I was in the home building business. And, as fate would have it, the building business in Nebraska soon took several economical hits (…just my luck!). Because of this I decided this would be a good time to see if I could nurture a career in art, possibly as a full-time fine artist. So I began to create oil paintings on canvas. And, as you might have already guessed, I laid out plans to create a series of paintings of well-known Native Americans using historical photos.

During the latter part of the 1979s, because most home builders in Lincoln had gone bankrupt, and because the remodel business was down (…just my luck), I had to return to engineering as an applications engineer working for that alarm systems owner/operator/creator/manufacturer friend.  

When I had completed several historical Native Americans in oil on canvas, I told my alarm systems friend I was going to try my hand at full-time art.  So Annie and I took my paintings to a well-known gallery in Jackson, Wyoming.  We took them there because I thought that market would be good, one of the best places to sell Native American portraits.  It was a series of paintings that I imagined might tell a historical story that would favor the Indians.  This would depend on how well I had recorded the look in the Native Americans’ eyes and my use of color and shading that would convey different psychological and ideological feelings that might accurately depict the Native American Way.

I packed up my paintings securely and Annie and I traveled to the gallery in Jackson, Wyoming. When the owner of the gallery saw them, he told us he felt they were very good art. However, he said that selling paintings of Native Americans was not accepted well in some circles that included both White Men and Red Men.   But he continued to say that if I would return home and paint miles of canvas, or more realistically create 20 to 25 landscape paintings, he would handle them the next year, in a prominent place in his gallery.

Because I was committed to begin a career in art, we traveled the Wyoming and Colorado Rocky Mountains painting and taking photos so I could continue to paint when we returned to Lincoln.

When we returned home, I spent at least five months painting nearly full time creating landscapes — primarily of the Teton Mountains of Wyoming and some others. Yet, when Annie and I pulled up in the city of Jackson the following Spring, we saw the gallery owner was loading all of his artworks into a large semi truck. He and other gallery owners told us that the bottom had fallen out of the art market and that even the old-time successful artists were forced to wash dishes in local cafes and clean up bars at midnight in the local taverns. (…again: just my luck!)   I discovered the galleries around the country also were basically in serious trouble.

On our way back to Lincoln we stopped in the city of Dubois to visit our friends. They mention there was an up-coming art show for the Wind River area, which included the Shoshone Indian Reservation. So, I left a painting of a Navaho Indian with our friends to enter in the art show.  And later we were told that the painting would have won second place if I hadn’t used a historical photo to create the painting. I was also told that some of the Native Americans were offended because I had painted an Indian.

I learned much later that some Native Americans believe you steal their soul if you take a photograph of them. I learned that some even believe this if you create their image as a piece of art.  Our friends sent the painting back to us in Lincoln and it still hangs very prominently in our dining room. We enjoy it immensely every day.

This all occurred in the latter part of the 1970s and possibly in the very early part of the 1980s.

Because the world of art at that time thought painting from someone else’s photo, historical or not, was an act of plagiarism.  It was strongly frowned upon by nearly everyone I had contacted in the world of art.  So, I had to put my dreams of creating the historical Native Americans in oil on canvas to bed.

But, in the early 1990s, (I believe it was a little before or a little after the sweat lodge ceremony that involved my friend, the familiar stranger) I decided to go up to the RoseBud Reservation in South Dakota to see if the Native Americans could shed some light on my mysterious life-long UFO encounters – UFO encounters that in some mysterious way involved the Native Americans.

I took two paintings with me: one I had created using a historical photo of Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux Tribe and one photo of Sitting Bull of the Sioux Tribe. Regardless of the previous negatives, I thought I might be able to offer the paintings as a gift to show my appreciation for any information they might give me linking their heritage with UFOs. This, I hoped, would include any information they could relate to me concerning “eternal knowledge and wisdom.”

I eventually found the main offices of the RoseBud Reservation. While there I met with a middle age Native American lady who seemed to be very concerned and helpful. I told her about my quest and she gave me information on how to contact one of the Native American professors who taught at the Sinte Gleska College that was located in the city of Mission on the reservation.

When I arrived at the professor’s home he was meeting with some tribal leaders. It seemed to be a routine conference like a city council or county meeting. There were 7 or 8 representatives of the various locations and clans in the area.  The professor and his colleagues suggested that I needed to contact some of the spiritual medicine men.  They gave me a couple of their names and locations.   As a matter of fact the professor offered his back yard where I could pitch my tent and camp while I was on the reservation. I discovered later he also offered his back yard to others…Indians and otherwise. He even offered a shower in his basement for his visitors to use.

So, I went on my journey around the local area in the reservation meeting with a couple of the spiritual-leaders/medicine-men, asking them for information concerning my UFO/Indian connection.

I found the two medicine men, but neither one was very helpful. One of them even asked for money before he would give me any information. I didn’t believe that was ethical, so I thanked him and left.  My next move I thought was to go to Sinte Gleska college and donate my paintings.

As I was sitting on South Main Street in Mission, South Dakota, a native American walked up and told me the Native American lady who gave me directions to the professor’s home needed to talk with me. She was located in one of the buildings at the university. So, I met with her and she told me that Lionel Bordeaux, the president of Sinte Gleska College, would like to meet me. She said he had heard that I was from Lincoln, Nebraska and he had lived there for a time before he returned to South Dakota.

When I told her about my experience with the medicine men, she said that she felt they had lost the meaning and purpose of the old way, that they primarily were trying to resurrect it, but they were not being too successful. She went on to say she held the old way in her heart, but that she also found truth in the Mormon Religion…a new way that for her enhanced the old way…and you also could say “the other way around.” She told me how to connect with the president of the college and wished me luck.

When I met the president Lionel Bordeaux in his office at the college, I presented my paintings to him and explained why I was there. He thanked me and told me to place the painting of Sitting Bull on the floor in front of a chair and he accepted the painting of Red Cloud at his desk. He said he would keep Sitting Bull but have the college hang Red Cloud somewhere in a building located on the campus.

We then discussed his stay in Lincoln and his attendance at Lincoln High School. I told him that my wife also had attended the same school, etc, etc.   I was to find out later that many Native Americans revered Sitting Bull, but they were not too sure about Red Cloud because he had told the US Calvary he would “fight no more,” etc.

What still seems strange is: A couple of decades later Annie and I saw a national documentary on TV that included an interview (I believe) with Lionel Bordeaux. As the camera panned around his office, it stopped for quite some time on my painting of Sitting Bull. The painting was still sitting on the floor, leaning up against the front of an overstuffed chair…exactly in the same location where Lionel had told me to place it when I first met him in his office.

I roamed around the reservation for a short time, then eventually returned to Lincoln.  One of the medicine men had invited me to attend an up-coming Sun Dance Ceremony he sponsored every year. So, Annie and I made plans to attend it that year on our way to Leo Sprinkle’s Rocky Mountain Conference On UFO Investigation.

Before we left for the Sundance, I found the Sioux family was still offering the sweat lodge ceremonies to the white man at the same location. Annie and I were still separated, so I offered the Indian family the use of my apartment while they were in the area.

I checked in on them one day to see if they might need anything.  I had asked the man to look at my UFO drawings while they were there.   While I stood there at the door talking, the man asked me to wait at the door. He went to my drawings and picked out my drawing of the windowed saucer. He returned perplexed and excited.  

Holding the drawing in his hands, he said this was what he saw on Bear Butte in South Dakota when he was doing a vision quest on top of the butte. He said he saw the saucer come swooping up at him.  It then hovered, spinning fast just in front of him. He said he hadn’t seen the windows because he conjectured it was spinning too fast. And I feel sure he mentioned the voice who talked to him from the windowed saucer.

He went on to say, during and after his vision quest experience at Bear Butte, he had thought the craft was not a UFO but a spinning Medicine Wheel…and the voice he had heard was a spirit or the Great Spirit.  This might have been the reason he thought it might be OK for me to attend my friend/familiar-stranger’s final ceremony that was to be held at Bear Butte in the near future.

This Native American seeing the spinning saucer at Bear Butte was another solid piece of evidence, among many, suggesting my so-called UFO encounters were real – and that my memories have been true and accurate. It also suggests that the mysterious intelligences who dealt with me also had dealt with and were dealing with the Native Americans.  I believe it’s obvious that the mysterious intelligences have dealt with the Red-man/Woman throughout the ages, as they have with the White-man/Woman throughout the ages.

It’s important to note that Annie roughly understood what was happening to me during this trying period and she even said she wanted to try a sweat lodge ceremony…and she did. I believe it was shortly after this that we headed to the Sundance Ceremony on the Rosebud, then on toward Leo Sprinkle’s conference in Laramie, Wyoming.

I learned a little more about the Native Americans during the Sundance ceremony. However, there were some subtle ideological conflicts between some of the Native Americans and a couple with me.  When a strong wind came up the valley and blew our tent down, I figured the mysterious intelligences were telling us it was time to leave.  So we headed for the Teton Mountains in Wyoming, to our son’s house in southwest Wyoming, and ultimately to Leo’s conference in Laramie.

After returning home to Lincoln, some time before the familiar stranger’s scheduled ceremony at Bear Butte, I decided to head out early to travel toward that area.  I thought this would give me some time to make some sense of all the strange things I had experienced over the past few years.

I experienced a couple of minor problems with a couple of white men during the few days on my way to Bear Butte.  When I arrived, I recalled that I also had visited the butte during one of the lost trips when I traveled with my aunt and uncle and their family, when I was 14 years old in 1951.  I recalled we camped just west of the butte and we attempted to drive close to it on the north side. But we had not been able to drive close to it from the north for some reason I don’t recall.

When I pulled up near the north side, I saw Native American signs warning that no one should go closer to the butte. I thought I would try it anyway and I began to move the old van forward. And I was suddenly startled to see a young fawn deer shoot out ahead from under my van. I was driving in a grass or weed field.  It startled me so much that I decided not to go any further toward the butte.

I knew that the butte was an official United States Monument. So I drove to the south entrance and found that the butte was being used by many Native Americans for their spiritual ceremonies. I was told The butte was the North American and South Americans’ Holy Of Holies!  This was an annual or year-long affair and the white man was not welcome. Yet, I decided to wait for the Native American family and my friend/familiar-stranger to arrive.

When I was relieving myself in the restroom, an older Native American arrived. While outside, he asked me why I was there, and I told him about my UFO story and that I was waiting for the Native American clan to arrive with my friend.  He then introduced himself as the historical Chief Red Cloud’s grandson.

(I feel telling the rest of the story would not be ethical…that I would be violating a trust.  So, I will leave it at that, except to say deer and a young fawn were a part of the remaining story.)

My friend and the Native American clan didn’t arrive for some time. So, I gave a young spiritual leader a ride across South Dakota because he was expected to be at a Pow Wow near Mission on the RoseBud reservation. We talked nearly constantly on our way to the Pow Wow. I stayed with him in his house that night and he fed me dinner. He thought it was somewhat humorous that a Red Man would help a White Man by feeding him dinner.

The next day we attended the Pow Wow.  I asked if I could take pictures for some future paintings.  The young man consulted with some of the others and agreed that the answer was yes.  So, I eventually was allowed to take some pictures of the dancers and drummers.

However, before I left, the young Indian and some elders approached me and asked me not to use the pictures to paint because they thought I would be stealing their soul, etc. So, I have never used those pictures to paint images of Native Americans.   Yet, we have the other paintings in our home and we enjoy them every day.

I could write a book about my view concerning the conflict between the White Men and Red Men, but at this time in history, I feel I should leave that subject alone.