Epilog: The Puntab Dog

You've read about my personal experiences with aliens and alien abductions. You've read some of the experiences other members of the Abductee Support Group shared, as well. But something I've left out is a weird series of dreams that came along. To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of them, myself. In fact, I almost didn't publish them at all.

In 1995, during the time I was active on the Encounters forum on CompuServe, I began to have a series of strange dreams. Now, if I'd had dreams about UFOs, that wouldn't have been surprising. Instead, I had dreams about a strange kind of dog! Moreover, I got the odd notion that these dreams were some kind of message, and that there would be twelve of them…and that I wouldn't have them all. They were to come from various members of the forum.

Sure enough, about the time I finally wrote up and posted the first two dreams, other members of the forum began having some which fit the pattern. And yet…we never did get all twelve.

Did anyone else have the remaining dreams?

I am putting this here, on the off-chance that someone will look up the keyword "Puntab" and find these pages. If so, as Robert Stack says…you, too, can help solve a mystery!

In the years since these dreams first occurred, I have tentatively interpreted some of them. I feel they are a narrative of the origins of the aliens responsible for the "abductions", and perhaps of our own history as well. My comments are in italics.

Dream #1

In this dream, I was walking along a foot-wide section of floor, alongside the top of a stairwell. There was no railing and I was very nervous, reaching for the wall where there was nothing to hold onto. I wondered why I was so nervous, since in the Grand Canyon I've walked Anasazi trails half that wide, much higher up and more dangerous, with no problem. Then I realized the house I was in was a little off balance and I decided that was why.

Later in the dream I was talking to somebody when my attention was caught by someone else in the room. It happened to be Howard Borden (from the old Newhart TV show). He was about to explain to someone what a "Puntab dog" was, but his mind suddenly went blank. I waved my arm frantically, joking "Me, teacher! Ask me!" He nodded at me as a teacher would, and I explained: "Puntab dogs were used in Florida in the last century, when there were vast expanses of grassy flatlands. They were used for transportation; they would pull a little wagon with a person in it." Thinking about what I had just said, I realized how unlikely it was, so I amended the story: "For loads too heavy for them to pull alone, they were sometimes used in teams."

When giving this description, I had a clear picture of what a Puntab dog looked like: medium small, about Terrier size, with wiry, dark, reddish-brown fur.

Obviously, the message is that a team can handle what one person—me—cannot.

Dream #2

I was with a team investigating the slopes of an old volcano. It had erupted twice, and there were two layers of lava, one on top of the other, separated by soil and ash. The geologists I was with were surprised; no one had suspected the inner layer. As I stood in the ash on the hillside excavation, with the slab of newer, solidified, lava above me, I pushed at the newer layer and it fell away, revealing a building that had been built on the older lava flow. A hidden past? Perhaps a lost civilization?

The building looked like a cabin or small house, and the door was locked and padlocked. However, on a whim I tried my gym locker key, which fit both locks. I went inside. I had the impression it had once been a barracks for a small army detachment. It was dark, musty, and filled with cobwebs. However, the electricity was still on. And there was a little dog still alive. He had survived by learning to open the refrigerator and even had been able to work his way into a can of food.

But the poor thing was starving so I rummaged in the refrigerator for something he could eat. I found some tuna salad but discarded it because, after all, it had been centuries and it must be spoiled by now! I finally found some baked beans and rice in a plastic container. He tore into it hungrily, but I knew he needed meat so I sent one of the geologists to the nearest store for dog food.

It occurred to me that the dog must have been eating something else to survive all that time. There was a big fat spider in the room, and I thought, maybe he'd learned to eat spiders. But that didn't seem right somehow. I awoke wondering how he'd fed himself.

Dream #3

I found myself in a hallway with a small dog, brown and black—like a Manchester Terrier. An elevator was close by. I wanted to get on it and lose the dog. I sensed that the dog wouldn't be safe in the elevator. I waved my hand as if to throw something so he would run to get it, so I could go up without him.

On the first throw, he only went a few feet and came back. On the second throw he went a little further. I made it into the elevator, but he scampered in before I could close the door. The third throw did the trick. I was relieved that the little guy was safe. The dream ended. By the way, I love dogs.

Dream #4

I was living in a San Francisco-style condo complex with retail stores downstairs. I was living with my lover, a blonde female (even though, in my waking life, I am straight). There was noise outside and I saw my ex-lover, Roger, fighting with his new lover, a dark-haired woman. Note that this makes four human characters altogether. He yelled to me to call the police, as she had cut off his toe. He ran away and she begged me not to call the police, saying that he was lying. I wasn't worried about him, but about my dog, a red/brown guy who roams the condo and goes in and out through double glass doors on the patio. I was worried that Roger's presence might upset the dog, or that Roger might try to come into the house through the dog's entrance. I didn't want to close the doors because that would restrict the dog's freedom.

The dream went on like that with me seeing Roger four times altogether. The first time he was in boxer shorts and I was dressed. The second time, he was well-dressed and I was naked, even though I was shopping in the mall. Each time I saw him, I would come back to the apartment to make sure the dog was comfortable and not restricted. I felt it was imperative that the dog be able to come and go and to have the run of the house.

Dream #5

The dream started out at the campground [he had been camping the previous weekend at the Russian River]. We were in the back of a blue truck; all of a sudden, there was a zombie after me, and he managed to open the back of the truck. He tried to crawl in but he couldn't so he just reached his arm in and was trying to grab me…I scooted back further into the bed of the truck. There was a window in the back of the truck leading to the cab. I pulled the latch and crawled into the cab and locked the window. A guy and I drove away.

The guy's name was Chris Connolly [this was the host of a TV game show called, Singled Out, which he had been watching before he went to bed. In this show, one girl eliminates 50 guys until she gets to the one she gets to date, then a guy does the same with 50 girls. It's full of bimbos and bimbettes]. We drove to a restaurant to use the phone to call home (there was none at the campground…in real life too!). The waiter and half the people in there were zombies, so we had to get out of there really quick.

[I asked him what are the other people doing who are not zombies? He said "They are disguising themselves just like we are… pretending to be zombies.."]

We finally got home, there were a few of my friends there, greeting us…I was in the front yard. I heard a something saying "Fi-ve, fi-ve", but I didn't see anybody in the room moving their lips, and I knew no one human could make that sound. It sounded like a dog howling "Five, five". I knew it must be a dog. The neighbors next door have a dog, and I went in the backyard where there is my white chair leaning against the fence. I stood on the chair and saw my neighbor, Lee [the 13 year old boy] and his dog, which he had just gotten…he was just a plain old average brown dog, and he was the one howling "Five, five".

I saw something walk into the house, I ran back and told Chris, he called an exterminator on my friend's cellular phone. We trapped the zombie in the house by locking the doors. They can't figure out how to undo the locks because they are stupid, but they can go through doors, metal, and glass, but not screens. The Orkin Man showed up in his big armor (like on the commercial) and pulled out his bug killing stuff, then he went inside and I looked through the screen as he shot the stuff at the zombie. The zombie died…I was happy about that! Then, I woke up because someone came to the door, in real life…That is my dream.

Dream #6

This time I found myself walking through a corridor in a futuristic building. There were square panels in some spots in the base of the walls. They were just big enough for me to squeeze through if I had to. One of them opened up and I could hear a dog(s) barking from within. It/they barked six times. I got the sense that I should go in and make a rescue, but didn't because I didn't think it was an emergency situation—I would come back later. I eventually found myself in another elevator on the 6th floor of a twelve story building. I made it a point of recalling which way it was going to go. Definitely down. It didn't move though, and the dream ended there.

Dream #7

I was in a glade. There were big trees with low, twisted limbs, perfect for climbing. The ground between the trees was firm, covered in tall grasses matted down. I thought I was alone, but when I wandered near one particular tree on a hillock, a man suddenly appeared. He was not pleased to see me, but couldn't speak. I decided, if he wasn't going to talk to me, I would ignore him; but he took a scrap of bark and an old nail and scratched words into the bark: "Leave the ZOO alone." I realized there were many little animals living in the tree: squirrels and such. He began tacking his little bark signs to many of the branches, labeling moss, tree violets, and other species I hadn't noticed before. Apparently he had turned this tree into a zoological and botanical park. He didn't seem to mind my being there as long as I didn't mess with the resident creatures.

His voice, which had consisted of grunts and barks, began to improve, and he eventually was able to speak normally. We left the tree and sat in the glade while he brought his dogs over. There were seven of them: five one-year-old pups, and their parents. —Except, the parents weren't actually present. The puppies were joyous little things, very cute and happy to see me, lick me, roll around on me, etc. I asked who their parents were; the man said they were Cory and Shana (my friend Ray's dogs). Cory is a great dog, but Shana and I do not tolerate each other. If she had actually been present I'd have been uncomfortable; but she wasn't.

Then I was in a great, desert valley in ancient times. The valley was being quarried; something was being built, and I was in a village occupied by the builders. A young relative was playing with the other kids. I encouraged him to see how big a rock he could lift. He did all right, but another boy picked up a huge rock that impressed everyone—until they realized he had unwittingly taken a sacred rock from an idol. The punishment was death, a group of villagers said, the boy's father agreeing. The boy tried to make amends by getting rid of the rock; he tossed it and it landed in a passing wagon, perfectly into an arrangement of rocks it was carrying. The driver of the wagon was amazed and called to the boy. "That was incredible. That was the perfect rock for the capstone of the new arch. And you threw it exactly where it needed to go! Thank you!" The driver rode away, and there was no more talk of punishing the boy for taking the rock.

Still in the dream, years later I was visiting a place near the construction, where people performed ritual acts of atonement. They would each lie on a slab of rock, with another slab of rock leaned against their heads. Rocks would be added to the top slab until the person couldn't stand any more. Then he would lie there, under all this weight, until he felt his sins were forgiven. I recognized the boy who had lifted the heaviest rock, driving a wagon, grown to manhood. Apparently whatever had once been built with the sacred "capstone" had been destroyed; because it was on his wagon. Suddenly he stopped, lifted the rock, and threw it. It landed on one of the slabs; the added weight crushed the skull of the man beneath. "Why did you do that?" I asked. He replied, filled with loathing, "That was my father."

This rock culture was building a great labyrinth. The trick passages, however, were all on the outside. It was intended to provide a safe haven for those within. Anyone who tried to enter would almost certainly be caught in one of the trick doors which would revolve open and trap him in a cubbyhole beyond, then move no further—the unwary stranger would then die, trapped by the door that wasn't a door. The people would be "safe" within…with no sunlight, no food, no water, and no way out.

Eventually, the edifice was built, and the people did, indeed, hide themselves within. Millennia later, every external trace of their culture was gone. I climbed a grassy hillside and found one of the revolving stone doors, overgrown by weeds. At first I forgot what it was for, and pushed at it. It rumbled around, narrow, forcing me into its circular channel. Then it began to rotate vertically. I realized what was happening barely in time, and stopped it while I could still see a way out, though I would now have to crawl. But at least I wasn't trapped. Then I woke up.

Dream #8

I was in a small town, on a little hill in the center of town, near one of those giant oaks around which one often finds the town arranged. There were several children with me. Alongside the oak was a cast iron fence. The fence was old and had been painted over a number of times; now it was dark green, where the paint hadn't flaked. Some of the bars were missing; there was a section in front of me wide enough that I could step through.

On the other side of the fence were hundreds and hundreds of puppies. They were cute little things, with reddish black fur of medium length. They were all over the compound, but primarily in two groups, within more cast ironworks. I entered the compound through the hole in the fence and the kids and I went inside the building. Inside there were more cages and more puppies of various ages. I realized I was at one of those infamous "puppy mills" that churn out puppies for pet stores without taking adequate care of them.

The lady who ran the place came along and realized I was concerned, so she offered to take me on a tour of the place. It was pretty old, and smelt, but not too bad. The floors were old, partly rotted wood. Nothing fit well together or looked well-built. We entered a room where the puppies' parents were usually kept. There were eight cages, for four male and four female dogs. I knew the males had been run ragged and the females would have inch-long nipples hanging from having nursed all those puppies. However, the parent dogs weren't actually there to see. The lady said something about them being taken for a walk. In the previous dream, the parent dogs were also missing.

Later, the water rose and flooded the town. One of the kids, my daughter Jennifer, and I, swam in the giant, rolling waves. Dolphins and whales came by to guide us to the new shore, which we eventually reached.

Dream #9

I was in a cabin. It was winter. When I opened the door to look outside there was a fairly small dog sitting there. I stepped aside to allow it to come in. I then opened the fridge to see what I could get for the dog to eat and was very upset when I found it empty. Now the dog wants to leave. I won't open the door for him because I'm afraid he won't come back. The dream ended there.

Dream #10

Dream #11

Dream #12

This time I was walking a dog down a residential street. I had him on a leash. Another dog appeared on the street, running free. He is exploring everywhere on the block. I looked down at the dog on my leash and decided to release him so he can run free as the other dog. I'm not worried that he may not come back; I trust him now. If he doesn't, it won't matter…he is free!