The Dogs

[MissViolet]

Do you ever notice a recurrent motif in Forteana? There's one that's been drawing my attention for a few years now; the odd connection between contactee/high strangeness UFO reports and dogs. I'm using these criteria:

1. The description involves purported entities
2. The report is often (not always) not terribly convincing, or has holes in the internal logic the size of Berkshire
3. The dog stands out from the rest of the story and seems to baffle the witness

So, for example, in the Todmorden Alan Godfrey hypnotic regression, a dog is mentioned sitting to one side in the "examination room". Godfrey is deeply disturbed by it whilst under hypnosis. Or the landed UFO which released a pack of dogs. Or the otherwise wildly unconvincing Janos story, which features a recording of the destruction of an alien world, but with the addition of a howling dog/wolf, a detail which seems to bother everyone slightly.

Since I'm horribly lazy, I can only drag a few examples to mind, but I've spotted lots of others over the years. Anyone recall more, or am I just inventing patterns?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Can't say I've heard of a landed UFO which released a pack of dogs.

 

[MissViolet]

I'll dig out the reference in a bit. By the banks of a river, in the UK, exceptionally dubious overall. The UFO siting, not me.

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

I will admit to not having been aware of the dog in the Alan Godfrey incident, although I thought I was familiar with it. I don't think I've heard of the other incidents.

Are we saying that the dogs are a sort of 'screen memory' for something else? (If that's the right term) i.e. a pack of dogs from a UFO is really a group of aliens, but they've made themselves (or the witness' brain has made them) look like dogs?

Same for the dog in the Alan Godfrey room... it is perhaps something so horrific that it has been replaced with a dog?

Or am I wildly off the mark here?

 

[MissViolet]

Who knows? I'm not really adhering to any belief system about the reported experiences. My fields of semi-expertise are folklore, sociology, and psychology; I'm mainly interested in the manner in which the dog symbol reoccurs in Forteana, especially in UFO and high strangeness cases.

The "dogs from saucer" is described by John Keel, possibly in Mothman Prophecies. Make of that what you will. I'll have a dig through my library.

 

[Frideswide]

Here is a discussion on one particular pack of dogs in folklore....

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/wild-hunt-wandering-jew.847/

 

[dr wu]

I have read many books on ufos and related tales but the reference to dogs is usually about the witness owning a dog(s) that react to the weirdness of the event. but not coming from the alien saucer.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I have read many books on ufos and related tales but the reference to dogs is usually about the witness owning a dog(s) that react to the weirdness of the event. but not coming from the alien saucer.

Same here ... All the references to dogs I recall involve a dog reacting to the UFO event rather than being an element of the oddness that was observed.

For example, this article describes 4 instances of UFOs sighted while out walking a dog - all of which mention some sort of reaction from the dog.

https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/dogs-dog-walkers-and-ufos/

 

[EnolaGaia]

I suspect MissViolet is referring to an incident that occurred on 9 September 1973 at Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. It was reported in the 10 September edition of the city newspaper.

The incident is most widely known from David Webb's book 1973: Year of the Humanoids. Webb's description is as follows:

Sep 09
Savannah, GA "Ten big, black hairy dogs" emerged from a landed UFO in Laurel Grove Cemetery and ran through the cemetery. The UFO turned out its lights after landing. Several youths made the report.

http://www.cufos.org/books/1973-Year_of_the_Humanoids.pdf
Page 9

Loren Coleman discusses this 1973 Savannah story as an example of Keel's interest in intersecting paranormal story themes and tropes (e.g., Black Dogs and UFOs) in his book Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.

 

[MissViolet]

That's the one! Once more, my laziness pays dividends. If I get time (I'm like a kind of key worker and stuff!) I'll find some of my other references.

 

[marion]

I had a vivid abducrion dream when I was 16. For many years I considered it just a dream until much more recently I started reading abduction accounts and noticed some similarities that made me think there might have been more to it. Anyway, in brief I dreamed I was taken up from my bed, through the ceiling into a ship that was hovering just above the house. I woke up on a medical type table surrounded by little beings (not 'Greys'), yeah I know same old etc. I got off the table in excitement because I wanted to look round the space ship much to the dismay of the little creatures as I wasn't supposed to be able to break out of the psychic anaesthetic. I went over to a large window and looked out and I could see the streets below near my house, lit by street lights. Just then a larger creature entered the room behind me, I turned to look at it but instead in front of me was a bright green German Shepherd dog. The second I saw it the psychic connection ended and I felt like I sort of drained down out of the ship into my bed. I think they flushed me because I was no good to them if their psychic control didn't work! I never had any sort of dream or any other abduction type experience since.