Shadowprophet
Truthiness
An Abduction event is like a shuffled deck of cards, each person is alotted their own unique hand, the possibilities are near limitless when the unknown is at play, no two experiences are ever alike, as these phenomenal events unfold. Submitted for your approval is one such unique case, unlike any other before it, A story of one John Salter Jr. And and his Son, their experience, Told in their own words, Of an event that occurred in 1988, that forever changed the way they see themselves and the universe. Here is the Story of, John "Hunter Bear" Salter Jr.
There was no conscious sense of expectancy when we left Grand Forks, North Dakota on Sunday morning, March 20th, in my 1987 red Ford pickup. Light snow disappeared after we'd gone 30 miles but the cloudy sky continued. We were pointed toward Mississippi, and ultimately New Orleans at which I was scheduled to give a paper, "Civil Rights and Self-Defense," at the annual Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association gathering, a commitment made the previous August. Other activities were scheduled in Mississippi. None of this even remotely touched on UFOs and neither my son nor I (although we accepted the reality of these things and assumed their friendly extraterrestrial origins) had spent much time at all thinking about any of this. We had certainly read virtually nothing on the subject.
In retrospect--even very early post-encounter retrospect--it was clear that the route I had picked some days before for the first day of our junket was certainly not logical. I projected Grand Forks to the Twin Cities to Rochester (Minn.) and then to LaCrosse (Wisc.), Dubuque (Ia.), and the Bettendorf/Davenport (Ia.) area for the night. We had neither the time nor the special interest in the often rugged, frequently wooded, and generally lonely southwestern Wisconsin Mississippi River hill country that would justify that substantially out-of-the-way segment. Near the Twin Cities, John III spelled me off on driving. I looked at the road maps and, suddenly, noted the illogic of proceeding to LaCrosse and down to Dubuque (the roads between those two towns being narrow and winding); conversely, it obviously made much better sense to proceed from the forthcoming Rochester area down to Waterloo, Iowa, and double-highway, and then to Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and an hour of interstate into Davenport. Reasonably, I moved to make this practical change. And then, welling up into my mind like a great wave of nostalgia from the past, came Kookaburra, the Australian lullaby:
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra; laugh, Kookaburra
Gay your life must be.
The significance is this: An active organizer in social justice endeavors since the mid-1950s, starting with civil rights and militant trade unionism in the Southwest where I grew up, I spent a long period (beginning almost immediately after my marriage (to Eldri) in 1961) and extending to the latter part of the 60s decade, in the Deep South as a key organizer in the Southern Civil Rights Movement BETTY AND BARNEY HILL AND ET ENCOUNTERS
In addition to my life-long social justice activities and activist writing, I spent several years carefully recording in writing everything that I could regarding our ET encounters and their meaning, deep and high. And I corresponded with a great many people, nationally and globally. Those ET materials make up a very substantial collection which exists both in my direct possession -- and in my Collected Papers at State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Mississippi Department of Archives and History. In addition, I did several hundred radio and television interviews far and away, a fair number with print media, a major national television film presentation, and spoke numerous times on the ET topic at many gatherings both small and large all over this country.
And I have found most people to be quite receptive.
And then there was another -- another -- ET encounter. This was late at night in 1997. And again, this involved both myself and John III -- the first time we had driven extensively together since the 1988 episode. We were returning to North Dakota from Idaho where I had just purchased our present home.
I present Shawn Casteel's words in his fine write-up: "Interview with John Hunter Gray" [UFO Magazine, September 2000] -- discussed on the preceding page of our website. One result of this particular experience especially caught his eye:
"In July of 1997, a few years after leaving his teaching post, Gray and his son John III, had a second close encounter together, this time just east of Billings, Montana. "As always, it was friendly, " Gray said. The aliens apparently took the opportunity to administer a "booster shot." Gray feels that "the numerous and consistently positive physiological changes which occurred following the 1988 experiences still continue right along -- but appear to have been enhanced to some extent by the 1997 encounter."
However, the more recent encounter did create one new and startling physiological change in Gray, a change that necessitated a new pair of boots. "After the Montana encounter, my feet -- for many years size 13-D -- grew suddenly over the late summer and fall of 1997 to size 14." [In 1989, a year or so after the '88 encounter, my feet had slowly begun to grow from size 12-D to size 13-D where they remained for years.] By 2004, my feet had grown to size 16 and, in 2005, came close to size 17. Then, at least for the time being, they've stopped growing -- with my left foot a size 17 and the right one nearly so.
In 1990, a leading ET researcher, Thomas E. Bullard of Indiana University, very kindly sent me -- as a most welcome gift -- his massive two-volume set, UFO Abductions: A Measure of a Mystery [Fund for UFO Research]. This is truly a great lode of rich ore. In his inscription to me, he wrote these fine words: "For John Salter / with respect for your courage / with best wishes on your continuing journey of discovery." Life for me has always been "a journey of discovery" -- a continuing Adventure, sometimes on a tough trail, but always replete with bright visionary vistas, challenging rivers to cross, shining mountains to climb.
I always keep going -- fighting on. Forever.
Nialetch/Onen
In the mountains of Eastern Idaho
Solidarity,
I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands.
Our Hunterbear website is now eleven years old..
Check out www.hunterbear.org
See - Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer:
(updated 2011) OUTLAW TRAIL
[Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009]
See this on the new, expanded and updated edition of my book,
Jackson Mississippi -- the classic and fully detailed account of
the historic and bloody Jackson Movement of almost 50 years ago:
JACKSON
And see Shooting Lupus, now expanded 7 / 09 / 2011 (my killing
a very deadly disease in an eight-year war -- a disease that did
it is best to kill me): SHOOTING LUPUS