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Dangerous Lights In The Forest

Strange phenomena in the forests on Earth have sometimes a natural explanation, or they will be better understood in the future. Nevertheless there are phenomena which couldn’t be explained away, and they’re not only scary but sometimes deadly. Mysterious lights have been seen in many places, often regularly. The Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina or in Hessdalen, Norway, appear a bit like strange weather phenomena. Unidentified lights in the sky are often interpreted as UFO-encounters, and they become “sightings”. The lights which were reported in Parnamara, Brazil, during the early eighties, however killed people, says UFO-researcher Jacques Vallee. Similarly the sightings reported in one of the most notorious haunted forests of the world, the “Hoia-Baciu-Forest”, in Transylvania, Romania, seem to have a life-threatening quality.

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The investigative website “theparanormal.ca” mentions a man called “Patrut” “who is president of the Romanian Society of Parapsychology and since the early ’70s he has been studying occurrences in the forest such as unexplained splotches of light and luminescent orbs hovering in the sky. He says that when you spend too much time in the HBF, you can experience symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, excessive thirst, nausea, vomiting and headaches”. The Hoia-Baciu-Forest is called the “Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania” and everything began with a UFO-Sighting. The stories about this famous forest sound impressing, however often if a place is well-known one should be careful to trust any reports about apparitions and other paranormal events.

Jacques Vallee’s reports from Parnamara in Brasil sound very serious and are extremely disturbing. Obviously there had been several cases in this forest region in North-East Brasil where hunters were “attacked” by lights during the night. The encounters in the forests and river valleys must have been bizarre and dangerous. The locals spoke of so-called “chupas”, which they say are looking like flying crates and made noises like refrigerators. Under these crates there was a light which sent deadly beams. In one case the “chupa” looked like a spinning car tire with headlights. Vallee mentions a witness, Ribamar Ferreira, who saw his friend Abel Boro dying after he was engulfed by a blinding light. Ferreira escaped and returned with the family of his friend. They found Boro dead and the body seemed to be bloodless.

In 1982 several people who had encounters with “chupas” felt ill and were changed forever. Another victim couldn’t speak any longer three month after the encounter, his hair became white and six month after the event he was mentally wrecked and behaved like a one-year-old infant.

The air-force of Brasil sent a team to investigate but it was never explained what really happened. Vallee speculates that the victims were exposed to some sort of radiation. Furthermore he says in his book “Confrontations” that the lights or other phenomena reported by the witnesses doesn’t represent what literally happened. He also says that for example microwaves could induce serious hallucinations.

It’s remarkable that these kind of dangerous phenomena which happen sometimes in forests are not a new phenomena. The reports and stories show a striking resemblance with older folk tales about the “elf stroke” for example in Scotland. Often a strange light is integral part of the story. I didn’t even know about that when I introduced a scene in my movie project about a dangerous light.

The important lesson here is that some accounts of paranormal encounters in the forests might not represent exactly what happened, but the events are definitely “real” in a sense that they could hurt or even kill people. Furthermore it might be good not to think of a certain forest as an evil or haunted forest – it is always the place. Some people speculate that “Hoia-Baciu-Forest” is a gate to another dimension. Maybe, in some sense, there is some truth here.

Algernoon Blackwood describes in “The Willows” a place where the borders between our world and the other world is thinner then elsewhere. In his stories the protagonists are attacked on a psychological level but there also something happens on a physical level. His description is very close to the reports of some real events.

The “dangerous lights” in the UFO-reports seem to work also on different levels. They could be windows between our and an extra-dimensional dimension. And if we get too close to such a window we are in grave danger.

Paranormal Forest

Is a “paranormal forest” the same as a “haunted forest”? Isn’t that splitting hairs? Yes, but if we think about this further there is a slight distinction. Even if we believe in a “real haunted forest” the word haunted insinuates often a fictional element like the good old story. If we look what’s maybe paranormal about a forest we might get closer to some real phenomena. There are even many things yet to discover which sound fantastic but which are not necessarily supernatural. We are far away from knowing anything about nature and our forests.Over the last years scientists discovered more and more real wonders of nature in our forests. We already know that trees and plants can emit chemicals into the air which help them to communicate with other trees. They warn others about dangers for example. They’re also taking care of their offspring and their neighbors. On old beech tree controls the way his offspring grows up.
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But trees and other plants are also linked underground. In a BBC article, „Plants talk to each other using an internet of fungus“ we learn some fantastic insights about the „wood wide web“. It says, that „most of mushroom bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. These threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. The mycelial connections help plants to exchange nutrients and information but even to commit „cyber crime“.

Trees help each other out. A German ranger, Peter Wohlleben, who wrote a book about „The secret life of trees“, showed a reporter the overgrown remnants of a tree which was cut a long time ago. He is still alive because he gets supported by the trees in his neighborhood.

There is not only friendliness among the trees in the forest. The wood wide web is also used by plants which produce a biological phenomenon called „Allelopathy“. “Allelopathy” means that an organism produces biochemicals which influence the growth, survival and reproduction of other organisms. Simplified there are hostile plants in nature which could send something like a „computer virus“ through the underground web of mycelial connections.

It’s well known that they can do this with some odors but „these fungal network make communication between plants, including those of different species faster and more efficient“, said Kathryn Morris, a chemical ecologist.

These are fascinating facts but that doesn’t make a forest „paranormal“.

It’s interesting that the idea that „all organisms are connected and that they can communicate collectively manage resources” occurred 2009 in James Cameron’s blockbuster „Avatar“ (BBC). In the movie lead character Dr. Grace Augustine says: Цhat we think we know – is that there’s some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora…

It seems, there is some truth to this. A lot of the mechanisms are still not understood. But if we take this further there are many possibilities which even link to some paranormal phenomena attributed to forests around the world.

Maybe certain smells and gases which are emitted by trees have an influence on animals and humans.

There is no evidence to this, but in some cases “lightheadedness” was reported in forests among other phenomena. What if there are biochemicals in the air which hasn’t been discovered yet?

And we know for example that so-called „magic mushrooms“ have tremendous hallucinogenic potential. Where does that potential come from?

If we think of the internet, the wood wide web could also work as a data storage.

Another question would be if plants and tree could form some sort of collective consciousness.

Some thoughts might be highly speculative, and we don’t know if we’ll discover any kind of wonders in the future but one thing is sure: the intelligent infrastructure of our forests is a striking argument to protect our forests and stop their destruction.

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Highway To the Otherworld

Shamans are supposed to travel on the fast lane into the Otherworld and back. Obviously they don’t need decades of meditation or living as an eremite deep into the forest to get any spiritual insights. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do the same? Throughout history people tried to access the Otherworld through rituals and tribal dances. Today’s psy trance events and sweat hut workshops seem to be a modern reverberation of old rituals promising quick access into supernatural realms.

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Since the 60ties we’ve seen a lot of attempts to adapt shamanic traditions or using techniques to reach other dimension of consciousness – regression, hypnotherapy, sweat huts and tribal dances. Not everything is really “shamanic”. The term is often misunderstood.

It’s good to be careful since we have to distinct between real research about indigenous culture and a romanticizing concept of Shamanism developed by Westeners. According to wikipedia there is no single agreed upon definition for the word “shamanism” among anthropologists. The general meaning is “Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.” A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing” (WIKIPEDIA).

The important thing here is that the shaman is somebody voluntarily attempting to reach altered stats of consciousness in opposition to people who got overwhelmed by an abduction, NDE or paranormal experience.

Obviously, not anybody can become a shaman or has the ability of a shaman. Initiation is the key. Shamans are “called” by dreams or signs which require training. The Yedi in Star Wars give you a good idea what the call to adventure and initiation is about.

The initiation of the shaman is often described as dangerous and as a painstaking ordeal. It takes time, therefore there is also for these gifted people no quick access or “highway to the Otherworld”. It can be also a problem to know if somebody has the gift or not, which is called “Fire In The Head”.

In my movie project I deal also with the problem of having the gift but being not aware about it.

Despite the obstacles shamanic flight isn’t impossible at all. Shamanic flight basically means it is believed that part of the soul is free to leave the body, an idea common to any culture but impossible to proof. It seems that also ordinary people can travel through certain practices into other realms. Stimulation through rhythmic music plays an important role. However the difference might be that the non-initiate or normal traveller might be more like an Otherworld-tourist who can’t really understand a lot or distinct between deception and truth. Perhaps, only the gifted one can really communicate and may have the healing powers which are the most important quality of the shaman.

However, Tom Cowan, an expert in Shamanism, says that “If the shamanic archetype is a natural part of the human psyche, then it should not be unusual to discover certain power animals repeated across cultures and through the centuries (Imagination and the Imaginal in Fire in the Head, Tom Cowan).

Particularly the creative artist is required to look out for “highways into the otherworld” from time to time:

“Certainly the oldest tales and legends about the origins of a people and their culture heroes had to have been first articulated by someone who today would be said to have a “creative imagination.” I use this term to refer to a person’s ability to describe and impart shape and structure to visionary experiences, not to imply that the products of the imagination are fantasy, mere speculation, or raving hallucinations that have no basis in ordinary or non ordinary reality”(Tom Cowan).

Maybe imagination is the key, imagination is the highway to the otherworld.

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