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URECAT - UFO Related Entities Catalog

1965, OROVILLE, CALIFORNIA, USA, A YOUNG BOY:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

Someone from Oroville, California, USA, published his story of 1965 on the Internet:

"I remember my two big brothers teasing me all day on Christmas Eve of this year. By about 5 in the afternoon I was shot. Broken by all the tormenting that Santa Claus was not real. The big brats told me the whole truth, and I didn't want to buy it. My mom was the classic mom. Scolded my brothers into shame, and soothed away all my fears about Santa Claus. I knew in my heart that my brothers were right, but I was still a little kid, so I chose to believe, at least one more time. Well the rest of the night went smoothly and ma had us off to bed at about ten. John and I still shared a room, though the bunks were now separate beds. Brother Bob still lived at home as well as Sister Barb. After finally falling asleep, I was again awakened by the noises. Only this time it sounded just like a rubber kick ball was being bounced on a tile floor in the kitchen down the hall. Noises that just sounded like people shuffling around, loud enough to wake me up, yet no one else in the house. I sat up in my bed. This lasted about a fraction of a second, because standing at the foot of my bed, was a short, elf, or dwarf like little man, with a huge grin from ear to ear. Very rough looking, and very scary to a little kid. It looked like he was very happy to see me, but I was not happy at all about seeing him. I flew under the covers and remained there frozen in fear until the noises again went away after about 15 to 20 minutes. As soon as I felt it was safe, I peeked out from under the covers. Seeing that the coast was clear, I leaped from my bed and ran to John's. I shook the life into him and said, "John! John! Wake Up! I just saw an Elf!". This startled him, and after he saw how frightened I was, he was too. It wasn't until I was about 18 that he finally admitted how scared he really was. He KNEW I saw what I saw. We stayed up another hour or two playing war until we wore off the rush and went back to sleep. Christmas morning was great! Bicycles, toys, but no rubber kick ball."

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. jh1:] JOSEPH HELD (?):

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Albert Rosales indicates in his catalogue that in Oroville, California, on December 24, 1965, late at night, the witness was awakened by noises in the room, sounding as if a rubber kick ball was being bounced around. He sat up in bed and was startled to see standing at the foot of his bed, a short, elf, or dwarf-like little man, sporting a huge grin from ear to ear. He looked old and rough. Frightened the witness dove under the covers and did not see the peculiar creature depart.

Albert Rosales indicates as source "Joseph Held, Themestream."

Points to consider:

"Themestream" was a free Internet provider where you could publish texts, interesting or original stories. The report was apparently published there by one "Joseph Held".

The story is a quite splendid report of a very ordinary hypagogic hallucination. All is there: the deep concern on the reality of supernatural beings by a young child, well naturally impressionable, and the sound stimulus which starts the experiment. As for the relation with the question of the UFOS or the the encounters with their occupants, one can only wonder where it came from, but obviously, not from the witness!

I so happens that I realized that some ufologists have no notions about hypnagogic hallucination experiences and are unable to recognize one sometimes even when they actually investigate such as case. Thus I provide a few references among dozens about the topic of hypnagogic hallucination and sleep paralysis:

• "The Old Hag phenomenon as sleep paralysis: a biocultural interpretation", paper by R.C. Ness, in Cultural and Medical Psychiatry, vol. 2 #1, pp 15-39, March 1978.
• "Lucid Dreaming: The Paradox of Consciousness During Sleep", book by Celia Green and Charles McCreery, Routledge publisher, U-K., 1994.
• "Wrestling With Ghosts: A Personal And Scientific Account Of Sleep Paralysis", book by Jorge Conesa Sevilla, Xlibris Corporation publishers, U-K., 2004.
• "Hallucinations and pathological visual perceptions in Maupassant's fantastical short stories - a neurological approach", by L.C. Alvaro, in Journal of the History of Neuroscience, vol 14, #2, pp 100-115, June 2005.
• "Effects of hypnagogic imagery on the event-related potential to external tone stimuli", paper by N. Michida, M. Hayashi, T. Hori, in Sleep, Vol. 28 #7, pp 813-818, July 2005.
• "Sleep and Society: Ventures into the (Un)Known", book by Simon A. Williams, Routledge publisher, 2005.
• "Mental representation of space: Insights from an oblique distribution of hallucinations", paper by T.A Girard, D.L. Martius, J.A. Cheyne in Neuropsychologia, vol. 45 #6, pp 1257-1269, 2007.
• "Parasomnias", paper by D.T. Plante, J.W. Winkelman, in The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Vol. 29 #4, pp 969-987, December 2006.
• "Paranoid delusions and threatening hallucinations: A prospective study of sleep paralysis experiences", paper preview by J.A. Cheyne, T.A. Girard, scheduled in Consciousness and Cognition for April 2007.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Probable hypnagogic hallucination. Not UFO-related.

Sources references:

* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.

• [jh1] ? Text by Joseph Held (?), at the web page www.starbuck.20m.com/abductions9.html
• [ar1] * "1965 Humanoid Reports", compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2007, at www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1965.shtml

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This page was last updated on April 13, 2008