Quinn's Encounters
Preserving the Testimony of a Canadian UFO Experiencer
“Contrary to what some may believe experiencers are not suffering mental illness, displaying fantasy prone behavior, nor willfully hoaxing their experiences as a means to gain neither notoriety nor financial gain.” - Dr. David Gottlieb
From the proceedings of the 1992 M.I.T Conference on Alien Abduction
The Human Side of UFO Research
In a world where the majority of us treat the topic of alien abduction with at best indifference and at worst disbelief and derision there are people who must live with experiences that seemingly defy rational thought and explanation. They must learn to cope not only with their experiences, but with prevailing popular attitudes often negative in regards to a phenomenon they know exists.
A large part of coming to terms with my own high strangeness encounters began with my research into other people’s UFO experiences. The following article is based on a series of in-person interviews I conducted between 1999 and 2000 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I first published this piece to my Pararesearchers of Ontario website approximately twenty-five years ago. I have done a little bit of updating and editing to the original text, but wholly it is unchanged and I believe that Quinn’s story is as important today as it was a quarter century ago.
There is an incalculable value in preserving testimony, documenting lived UFO and paranormal experiences, and restoring dignity to witnesses whose stories have so often been dismissed in the past. These narratives form a valuable part of the social and cultural history of the UFO phenomenon and I have always felt a sense of sacred honour in being a caretaker of them.
The Quiet Courage of an Experiencer
The following account is a poignant look at one person’s experiences with this type of phenomena and will serve as a reminder that there is a human face behind the often unthinking way in which this topic is portrayed in popular media and by the minds of those who have not taken the time to adequately research this subject. Please note that in order to protect the privacy of Quinn and her family at her request I have given her a fictitious name.
Quinn is a self described happily married parent of two adult children and a very proud grandparent. Family and friendship are an important part of Quinn’s life which she made quite evident to me through her warmth and hospitality during my interviews with her and her family.
She is an intelligent and thoughtful person; and despite some very serious life challenges while growing up she was able to obtain a university degree and had worked for many years in a managerial capacity before health issues forced her into an early retirement.
Quinn is a remarkable person.
However, what struck me most about her is the quiet and determined courage she displays in coping with experiences that most of us cannot even imagine. When asked about her feelings in regards to this phenomenon she encountered her reply to me was:
“It’s been a curse, although it has probably shaped my personality to where it stands. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like without ‘their’ influence or involvement in my life. What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.”
It’s important to remember at this point that not all encounters with NHI (non-human intelligences) are positive or enlightening; some are terrifying, traumatizing and painful or a combination of all of these things. And its important to honour all the unique ways in which people experience the unknown.
Quinn’s Encounters
Quinn was born in northern Ontario Canada. Her first conscious memory of a psychic experience was at the age of three and her first remembered UFO sighting occurred at approximately the age of seven or eight during a very stressful moment in her young life.
Quinn’s childhood was plagued by numerous trips to hospital for spontaneous and particularly intense nosebleeds, which were never adequately explained despite medical treatment and intervention. Quinn retains these frightening episodes quite clearly, although she admits to being troubled by the fact that large pieces of her childhood memories are now missing.
The nosebleeds are only the beginning of a long and often heartbreaking medical history that Quinn has had to endure. The causation of these issues are readily explainable in many instances and not unusual when looked upon separately, however it is of interest to note that they are shared by many who identify with the alien abduction experience. And while Quinn is very hesitant to lay blame on a preternatural source for her physical condition she does acknowledge that certain physical anomalies do exist within her own medical profile and she is hard pressed to explain them by any means other than the abduction phenomenon. These include numerous scars, one in the shape of a perfect triangle, scratches, puncture wounds and bruising with no memory of how these injuries occurred.
Quinn has sought medical attention for these and in the case of the bruising; blood disorders were ruled out. A mole located under Quinn’s jaw was noted as missing at age 35. A visit to the family physician resulted in the diagnosis that it had been removed surgically leaving a neat and precise scar that is still visible and she showed it to me. Quinn states that she has no memory of its removal, and this has puzzled both herself and close family members.
More recently puncture scoop-like wounds that heal at a rapid rate coincide with sightings of UFOs, some experienced along with her family members and friends. This is one reason that Quinn connects them to the alien abduction experience. They also follow bouts of “missing time” that are not readily noticed, in Quinn’s words “it usually takes something to jar my memory into recalling that the time was actually missing.”
And finally some of these markings are discovered after unrestful sleeps in which she experiences “weird dreams or memories that are dream-like and not entirely recallable.” It should go without saying that the discovery of these marks in some cases along with severe bruising have and do cause Quinn great distress and why she has consistently sought medical advice.
A more detailed medical accounting is retained within my records and some of what she shared with me was so intimate and frightening that she did not wish to make them public even with the use of a pseudonym.
Quinn’s first UFO encounter occurred as a young child and she has had several since. The most dramatic sighting being an encounter in which she and her spouse were “followed” by a UFO in 1971 while driving on Bloomington Side Road in York County Ontario. They describe the UFO as a “ball of light encased within a cloud” and that at one point it was no more than 25 ft. above the family car.
When asked if they ever reported this event to local police or some other authority the reply was “we were afraid of ridicule and I thought I would not be taken seriously.” This is not an unusual or uncommon response and why I am convinced that the true number of UFO experiencers is much higher than we can even begin to guess.
Editing Susan jumping in to say that this area of the province was the scene of a cluster of spectacular UFO events in the early 1970’s and was well documented at the time by CUFORN – the Canadian UFO Research Network and later written about in David Haisell’s 1978 book The Missing Seven Hours. I was able to meet with the author in Toronto in 2017 and he generously shared much of his unpublished research with me. Suffice to say Quinn and her family were definitely not alone in their encounter that year.
Quinn is quite candid in admitting that she has no waking memory of seeing the alien pilots in regards to her UFO sightings or fully recalls an abduction having taken place. She does admit that images of both UFOs and aliens, specifically the greys make her feel apprehensive.
One UFO event she shared with me was followed by the sighting of an anomalous in appearance 4ft owl in the middle of the road while driving through the Rocky Mountains in 1995. All in the car including Quinn’s spouse and son noted it and she speculates on its actual identity here by saying:
“Personally I don’t think it was an owl, but that is what my mind remembers. That’s what my son and spouse remember too.”
Editing Susan inserting myself in again to say that Quinn’s owl encounter tracks with the work of my friend and fellow researcher Mike Clelland His 2015 book The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee is a must-read if you are interested in the owl-UFO-human connection.
Dreams and UFOs
Quinn’s UFO sightings have been followed by dreams of “being chased and flying and trying to hide from my captors and a specific reoccurring dream of a female scary face with big black eyes right up in my face leaning over me.”
Dreams and fragmented memories coupled with the very real anomalous physical markings are in fact the only evidence Quinn has to tie in the conscious UFO sightings to the abduction-like phenomena she has experienced, yet taken as a whole this is very compelling.
Quinn was a member of the Intruders Foundation a group headed by famed alien abduction researcher Budd Hopkins. She is also a former patient of Dr. D. Gottlieb, a Toronto-area psychiatrist whom at one time worked extensively with those experiencing this type of phenomena. Despite her search for answers to these experiences Quinn has never sought and in fact has refused hypnotic regression as a means to gaining clarity on these events. Regression therapy can pose some risks depending upon the individual and Quinn feels it is simply not an option she feels comfortable with.
Quinn has learned to live with her extraordinary experiences, while at the same time balancing an ordinary life that is really no different than the majority of ours. She does not feel “special or chosen” just “different” and perhaps just a casualty of circumstance? Her sincerity and frankness are refreshing; her emotional and physical pain obvious, yet her courageous attitude towards a subject so riddled with misconception by the mainstream is what stands out the most in personal interviews.
In closing I will leave the reader with Quinn’s response to my question of what she feels would benefit abductees in regards to future alien abduction research?
“Anything that will make people comfortable to come forward and share, although I think that will be a long time in coming. Some sort of system where exposure does not mean ridicule, although still lends itself to credibility.”
We have come a long way towards achieving Quinn’s hope for the future of research particularly in the post 2017 UFO/UAP zeitgeist, but we still have a very long way to go from curiosity and polite tolerance to acceptance.
My deepest gratitude goes out to both “Quinn” and her family for sharing their experiences with me and allowing me to share some of their experiences with you. Over the many years since I first published Quinn’s report the above article brought some comfort to many individuals, if only to learn that they are not alone in sharing in these experiences. I was able to share that knowledge with Quinn and I know that in turn brought her a great sense of comfort too.
We are not alone. And we can support each other.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article why not consider subscribing (its free!) sharing with others who might be interested in the paranormal, occult, and the cosmic mysteries. And please do leave a comment if you feel. I’d like to hear from you.
I’ll be back in a week or two with more high strangeness for us to ponder.
Until then my dear readers… Blessed Be
Susan xx
Susan,
First, thanks for the hat-tip to my book.
The four foot tall owl in the road is something I've heard so often, and I agree with Quinn's assessment: "I don’t think it was an owl, but that is what my mind remembers."
As I read this, I reflected on the new Spielberg movie, where the main characters struggle with abduction memories. I thought about how Spielberg created the Shoah Foundation. After Schindler's List. Spielberg established the organization to preserve first-person testimonies from Holocaust survivors and witnesses.
Maybe he could do something similar with first-person Experiencer testimonies.
If something like this was created and well funded, here’s what I think might happen. The organization would be overloaded with more accounts than they anticipated—like, overwhelmingly more. And those stories would have plenty of similarities, but they would also be wide-ranging and complex. Researchers might want to try to make sense of the data, but coming to a “conclusion” about what's happening could be impossible.
Yet, the stories themselves would be important to collect, to archive, and most importantly—to share.
Peace,
Mike!!