The Messengers

Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee

By: Mike Clelland

Narrated by: Michael Hacker

Without question, this is a classic by one of the most exciting new authors in the UFO field today. After listening to it, your view of reality will never be the same.

The owl has held a place of reverence and mystique throughout history. And as strange as this might seem, owls are also showing up in conjunction with the UFO experience.

Mike Clelland has collected a wealth of first-hand accounts in which owls manifest in the highly charged moments that surround alien contact. There is a strangeness to these accounts that defy simple explanations. This book explores implications that go far beyond what more conservative researchers would dare consider.

But the owl connection encompasses more than the UFO experience. It also includes profound synchronicities, ancient archetypes, dreams, shamanistic experiences, personal transformation, and death. From the mythic legends of our ancient past to the first-hand accounts of the UFO abductee, owls are playing some vital role.

This is also a deeply personal story. It is an odyssey of self-discovery as the author grapples with his own owl and UFO encounters. What plays out is a story of transformation with the owl at the heart of this journey.

The book is read by Michael Hacker, the foreword is read by Richard Dolan, and both the introduction and conclusion are read by the author, Mike Clelland.

©2020 Mike Clelland (P)2020 Mike Clelland

Mike's research is fantastic!

As an experiencer myself, I absolutely love this book. Hearing the many wild accounts that involved owls is mind-blowing! Mike really took on the role of "the owl guy", and it's awesome how he is looking into this strange and otherworldly phenomenon! Very interesting read that I couldn't stop listening to! - The Shepherds Fare

Circular and long-winded but fascinating

As an enthusiast of all things paranormal, with a certain engrossment in things hyperterrestrial/ET and UAP, the ideas presented in this book are fascinating. Multitudes of stories submitted to Clelland are included and about half of them are easily given to coincidence, but the other half are truly high strangeness. The two major problems with this audiobook are

1. The author tends to run in circles for what feels like miles to reach either an underwhelming or far-fetched conclusion of a singular thought. The book is still well written in and of itself, but it could have definitely cut some major portions of fat.

2. The narrator, while wonderful and talented in his own regard, just doesn’t feel right for this. Mike Clelland himself does the foreword and afterword and his gentle voice seems succinctly fitting.

All-in-all, I liked the book. I will definitely consider the intention of any owls I come across in the future.

Fascinating and eerie look at a familiar symbol.

A deep dive into the mythology and symbolism of owls and their connection to otherworldly encounters with UFOs and the supernatural. Clellend exhaustively collects first-person reports from “experiencers” as well as commentary by noted authors and researchers. He provides a compelling and well-rounded discussion while leaving the reader to decipher meanings and make conclusions. Performed by the incomparable Michael Hacker who has narrated many of John Keel’s works.

I enjoyed it

Was blown away by the number of synchronicities he talked about that literally applied directly to me and my experiences. As he said, this can feel like a lonely path to walk. So when you hear him talking about very specific and very internal subject matter, it’s not only validating, but comforting. You can start to question your own sanity, so it’s nice to find (randomly) other people saying the exact same things. If I had to guess how many synchronicities he mentioned that applied to me, I’d say somewhere between 30-40 things he mentioned are some of my own direct experiences. It felt like this book did indeed have a message for me to find, and it’s no coincidence that I found my way to this book. It’s like someone whispering “you’re not wrong about what you’ve sensed.” Looking forward to listening to his other books in the coming months.

Wonderful on Audible

I read the Kindle version of this book when it first came out. Michael Hacker does a beautiful job bringing the text to life in this new Audible edition. It's a very different experience listening than reading. I recommend all the different versions, and I'm copying my original book review below:

To say I devoured this book would be an understatement. The fact that the title includes the phrase, “UFO Abductee” also makes that understatement a miracle. Although I’ve had a lifetime of extremely paranormal, inter- and extra-dimensional experiences, have used telepathy since childhood, and religiously watched the show “Roswell” during my non-reading brain injury years, that whole X-files, UFO Conference, and “abductee” panoply is just not my scene. I’m much more of an intuitive reading, gardening, Reiki teaching, shamanic journeying, Faerie Realm, create beauty, tree-hugger type.

Not that the two can’t coexist! I’ve long noticed obvious crossovers; I just really don’t like to focus on any kind of victim mentality or the cloak-and-dagger secret space war, black-ops military projects, and “the Nazi’s won WW2” conspiracies. Nor do I enjoy the largely dis-empowering, Savior-in-the wings, “luv-n-lite” cotton candy of most material supposedly channeled from ET’s. Thankfully, Mike Clelland’s new book is none of these things. Rather, “The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee” explores the absurdly frequent appearance of owls before or after periods of unexplained missing time, UFO sightings, death (including Near Death Experiences), and/or moments of extreme spiritual questioning.

Although Mike does address the common “screen memory” of a four foot tall owl so often shared by abductees, this book spends much more time looking at synchronicities with real owls. Parts of “The Messengers” will no doubt make readers uncomfortable, but anyone who’s ever had an attraction to or relationship with owls will value the diversity of exploratory lenses — from owl experts to shamans to animal communicators to contactees to paranormal researchers to psychologists/psychiatrists to hypnotherapists to outdoorsmen to myths from around the world. The book also becomes an exploration of consciousness itself. How does synchronicity “work,” and by extension, what role(s) do we really have in the creation of our own experience of reality? More importantly for the purposes of “The Messengers,” what role do owls play in the Mystery of mysteries, and what reality-shattering implications might that role bring with it?

“The Messengers” presents both a deeply personal and universally human quest. Mike Clelland, also known as “The Owl Guy” has experienced truly bizarre owl encounters — in frequency, unusual behavior patterns, and especially in their meaningful timing. On his journey to understand his own experiences and their implications, Mike has interviewed hundreds of other people about their own synchronous owl stories. Page after page of magical tales weave their own comforting web of synchronicities across time and space. We find owl stories and dates linking people and events sometimes thousands of miles and many years apart. Inexplicably intertwined with the owl stories come sightings of UFO’s, colored orbs, strange lights, and the development of certain personal traits — high levels of intuition, energetic healing abilities, and a profound sense of “mission.”

Since so many people who contact Mike with their on owl stories (myself included) also end up having weird owl synchronicities right after emailing or calling him, “The Messengers” contains multiple layers of such intricately knotted stories that the book rewards readers with an undeniable sense of the vastness and complex beauty of life. So many stories involve moments of intense doubt and then the mysterious appearance of an owl that results in clarity and a deep reverence for life. Many people also share how owls “freak them out” or “terrify” them, and Mike explores these stories through a variety of lenses, including the highly inconsistent attitudes of indigenous cultures to owls. Unlike many animals, the spiritual meaning of owls varies from place to place.

Everything I’ve mentioned so far would make “The Messengers” an interesting and powerful book; however, imho, Mike’s treatment of what he calls “the maybe people” makes this one of the most important books of our time. Mike spends most of the book trying to make sense of his own “maybe” status as someone who does not consider himself a UFO abductee but who nevertheless exhibits very similar traits and paranormal experiences as those who do. His journey remains his own, but by providing it in context of so many others’ journeys, it encourages readers to look more deeply at our own lives. Doing so takes courage, and Mike shares his own struggles with the journey, which, in turn, helps others to continue on own own path. I cannot say how “The Messengers” will affect you, but I promise you, it will.

I feel so grateful for the release of this book at this moment in time. Of course, we would expect perfect timing from a book on synchronicity, but this book arrives like the caress of an owl’s wing. As chaos seems to spiral out of control, readers will find a strange sense of both comfort and awe in recognizing intricate harmony just beyond the veil. When all the old structures fail — in individual lives or in society — unanswerable questions arise. At such moments, remembering the Mystery becomes its own answer. I offer deep thanks to Mike Clelland for his gift to humanity in these challenging times.

6 out of 5 stars, with excellent narration

It would be impossible to describe the experience of this book without detailing the things that happened to me while reading it.

So all I can say is that you do not find this book. IT finds YOU.

An meaningful inquiry into UFO experience

In The Messengers, Clelland follows his own experiences and obsessions into a more generalized exploration of the contemporary UFO phenomenon, using the owl as a gateway into, or living symbol of, how this societally marginalizing experience presents itself to the experiencer as both utterly baffling and deeply meaningful. It may not be the book to convince the uninitiated, but that is not its focus. Rather, by pulling on the connective thread of a seeming orgy of owl appearances in his own life, while coming to terms with his UFO encounters, Clelland thought to ask other witnesses/abductees if anything similar had happened to them. This book is the first result of that informal census, and it is astonishing in its scope.

Synchronicities

“These owls are proof of magic.”
Absolutely.
I have my own owl experiences.
Very intriguing.

synchrony with my own experience

Wonderful amalgamation of experiences woven together to question answers that we have been subjected to in a new light; one that time alone will prove... as the premise is basically that time answers all -- and we are all eternal.

Great Book

Great insights in the connections between owls and aliens and the positive way it can help humanity