Duncan's Shadow: An Idea about the Abduction Experience And The Visitors

N. A. Reiter
30 October, 2002

It begins with a dog. The other night, I tied Duncan the dog out on his cable in the side yard to poop. Whilst he was snuffling about the yard in the dark, the truck driver living across the alley to the rear of our property arrived home, and left his rig idling with the headlights on. The headlights shone straight across the open yard, past our house, and were faintly illuminating the fronts of the homes across the street. Suddenly Duncan went berserk, and tore at his cable. He barked furiously, and puffed himself up into the defiant aggressor pose that Bouviers des Flanders are noted for. For a moment, I could not imagine what in hell he was upset about. I followed his gaze and attention. Then it dawned on me. Across the street, a large dog-like figure, blacker than black, was racing madly back and forth across the porches of the houses there. Mocking Duncan's every movement. Mocking him because it was him. It was his projected shadow!

A few days later, while talking to LS on the topic of The Visitors and the abduction scenario, Duncan Dog came to me on wings of epiphany. Could it be that the Visitors really are projections or shadows of our own selves or psyches? Projected into our field of view, our reality, by an unknown form of illuminating energy. Like Duncan's shadow, the Visitors appear to us to be grotesque and frightening mockeries of our frantic thoughts and paranoia. They embody our fears, our unresolved life issues, and our buried archetypes. They dog our lives, seemingly anticipating our every move. Maybe the reason the Visitors track us so well, seemingly know our every move, and head us off at every attempt to understand them is not because of "implants" but the fact that they do so naturally! Because they are our "Duncan's Shadow".

Duncan's Shadow was not a figment of his imagination. A doggie psychologist would be wrong to tell Dunc that he was delusional, or hallucinating. He was not. His senses and defense programming fired up and performed flawlessly. A dark and threatening intruder was taunting him and tormenting him. And the intruder, the Visitor, was real, because shadows are real. They can be measured. They can be photographed. Sure, a shadow is something of an abstract. But it is real, and it exists in our real world. The Visitors exist in our reality too. They are not a delusion. (Well... not always a delusion)

Just as Duncan's Shadow assumed a distorted and weirdly shaped dog-like form, the Visitors assume their humanoid yet fearsome cloaks. And we are in terror, or are in worshipful awe, depending on our personalities and circumstances.

For me, the key question that then arises promptly is this: if Duncan the dog had his shadow projected across the street by truck headlights shining over the yard, what is the source of energy that casts our Visitor / Shadows onto the walls and surfaces of the real world? Could it be energy inherent in the Collective Unconscious of Jung? Or some unimagined stream of life force emanating from a central axis of the universe - the cosmic current from the Axis Mundi?

It occurred to me that Jacques Vallee once made an analogy that seemed appropriate. If a newcomer to our culture were to sit in a movie theater, it would be easy enough to presume that this person would become enraptured with the moving images and story on the screen. The images on the movie screen would be taken as a hard reality. Which in one sense, they are. But the greater truth, the greater reality with vastly broadened knowledge and wisdom would come only if the observer decides to notice the faint beam of light in the air over his head, and follow it backwards to its origin - the projection booth! This realization being achieved, the images on the screen can be now be accepted in terms of their true nature.

Maybe the ultimate secret of the Visitors has nothing to do with "them". Maybe the greatest discovery and the truest wisdom would come with understanding that which shines across the yards and alleyways of our souls, and casts those Visitor shadows if we are too opaque with karma and fear... for only the opaque can cast shadows. Collective Unconscious? Life Energy? God? The Over-soul? The Current? The Axis Mundi? Maybe this is the true Visitor Quest.

One of the key observations I made over the years between 1991 and 1996 was that the "abductions" - the Visitor Experience - did appear to periodically haunt certain individual's lives at times when great fear, stress, emotional turmoil, or personal transformation were underway. In many cases, the experiencer assumed that fear and stress from the "alien" abductions was tearing their lives apart. However, under close scrutiny, turbulent life issues and periods were already underway. What comes first, the dog or the shadow?

I used to pride myself on the diligence I exercised with keeping in regular contact with experiencers I had worked or corresponded with. I had, in a number of instances, been perplexed, though, when after a few months or a year of time, experiencers would tell me that things had become quiet, and they no longer felt that the aliens were a factor in their lives. A clever mind control tactic - psychotronically or implant induced nepenthe? I don't think so anymore. The Visitors went away because a period of transformation or transition was over. A bad marriage finally ended in divorce. An elderly ailing parent finally died. A childhood abuse issue was finally brought to light and closure was achieved. A problem teen finally went straight or moved out. A breakthrough occurred in therapy.

Interesting how even the most lauded of UFO abduction authors rarely take the time to look deeply at the lives of their case subjects, and consider them as a continuum or journey, with issues and trials and tests and triumphs. Then take the time to plot this "map" as an overlay with the periodicity of Visitor activity.

Tom Theofanous was about the only one I've known to admit this to me from first-hand work with abductees / experiencers. He mentioned it one evening back in '93 or so. The Visitors presented a phenomenon that could indeed exhibit an uncanny dose of physical reality. They were not classical hallucinations or lies. But Tom took a lot of time to understand the life issues of his case subjects. He guided some of them into sorely needed therapy and counseling. And he had the balls to admit that once the therapy began to help, and issues were being resolved, the abduction events ceased.

My own guess is that Jung would be looking at this heavily, if he were around. The Visitors have often alternated in experiencers' lives with massive rounds of synchronicity and archetypal appearances. However, generally they don't seem to appear at the exact same time. Many experiencers don't readily understand the presence of synchronicity, or if they do, they take it at face value as evidence of alien manipulation. How does synchronicity correlate to Duncan's Shadow? My personal guess at the moment is that synchronicity occurs when we are in the process of becoming transparent to the source of illumination. It is we ourselves witnessing our own opacity going away. Jung felt that synchronicity was the hallmark of transformation, or a transformative period.

Or maybe synchronicity is the dazzling array of images that we see if we turn away from our shadows and look right into that illuminating source without knowing it! Like staring at those truck headlights. Just as scary as the shadow, but even more puzzling...

Here is the thought in full. I have to wax a little to the metaphorical (and metaphysical) side, though. Maybe a psyche, a soul, in a pure state is as clear as glass to the unknown light that flows into us and sustains us. By virtue of karma, fears, desires and attachments parts of us are made opaque. And it's not a bad thing, necessarily. We need to see the opaque parts to understand them. Maybe the Visitor imagery does have some value after all - by examining that shadow we might be able to pick out attributes or shapes that we can identify from within ourselves. And no-one ever said that shadow puppetry isn't a fun pastime and art. Creating helpful and constructive reality shadows could be powerful transformative wizardry! On the other hand, without the light there is no shadow. So the deepest Quest is still there - following the mysterious beams that shine through us...and Duncan Dog too. Understanding where they come from and how they work. Maybe even to learn how to not just become transparent, but to begin to radiate and glow ourselves, with that same light.

When finally we do become transparent to the illuminating source, maybe by loving, accepting, and letting go without fear, the Visitors, like Duncan's Shadow, vanish from our lives. And like Duncan, we can quietly go back into the house to that friendly water bowl and blanket. Our Home.

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