Pat McGuire's Strange Adventure
by
Bonnie McGuire
Many years ago we were visiting relatives in Wyoming, and I asked an aunt if she knew anything about the strange cattle mutilations reported throughout the west. She quietly nodded and brought out some news clippings about a Cousin's personal experiences concerning cattle mutilations, his abduction and other events connected with UFO's. According to detailed accounts in The Casper Star-Tribune (6/29/80, 9/28/80, 6/2/83) his adventure began when he felt a compulsion to dig a well on his ranch, a 1,100 acre parcel situated about 30 miles north of Laramie near Bosler. The prairie basin area is about 7,200 feet above sea level, and (in 1971) was mostly covered with sagebrush. Most people didn't think there was any water, and well digger companies refused to drill for what wasn't there. Pat was convinced there was water, so he and a friend built their own rig and started drilling. A geologist was helping Pat in the final days of digging the well. Pat had invented a special drill blade to cut through the rocky ground. One evening there was a huge bang on the side of the trailer house where Pat and the geologist were sleeping. The geologist was scared to death. Pat jumped out of bed and into his boots. He hit the floor running and yelling, "the water is here, the water is here." Sure enough the well gushed 8,000 gallons of pure, soft water per minute.
His neighbors thought he was crazy, but their jokes turned to awed disbelief when they realized he'd tapped into an underground river at 350 feet. Pat was able to turn his sagebrush ranch into an oasis of irrigated grassland. His was the only land in the area with enough water for cash farming. Neighboring ranches failed to find any water. The next summer Pat planted crops. Through difficulty he got the water wheels to water the crops. In the mornings he would go out to inspect the equipment. More often than not he would find that someone had tampered with the wheels and he would have to repair them. He did see someone once at night through his telescopic scope. Pat never did figure out who was sabotaging his water system. After the crops were harvested Pat took them to the elevator. It was a prime crop, perfect in every way. All the elevators were full so they stockpiled the crops on the ground. When it was time to sell the crop someone had mixed a lot of other types of crops into his The buyers said it was tainted and would not take it. Pat had been counting on the money from the crops to pay for the ranch and the water system. After that everything went downhill for him.
We remembered seeing a strange story on television's "That's Incredible." In October 1973, a man elk hunting with his brother-in-law in Wyoming's Teton Mountains became lost for six hours. When he was found he couldn't remember anything during those hours. At the time we didn't realize the man was Pat. It wasn't until 1978 that Pat began to realize what happened. That's when he met Dr. Leo Sprinkle, a noted parapsychologist and UFO authority at the University of Wyoming. Under hypnosis, Pat recalled being lost in a snowstorm while hunting Elk in the Tetons near Jackson, and of being taken aboard a spacecraft into an oval room, where aliens telepathically instructed him to plan for the well. The aliens appeared to be humans about 6 feet tall, weighing around 200 pounds. They had large eyes, thin lips, were bald and had no bridge on the nose. Their clothing was black except for silver belt buckles with raised stars resembling the Star of David. Pat wasn't sure about them being from outer space, or another dimension, but their craft was propelled by a sophisticated magnetic system. If the destination was a distant planet, the system simply locked onto the planet, and the planet's magnetic pull drew the craft to it at tremendous speed. They could hover motionless indefinitely, or perform impossible maneuvers.
The aliens told him that they were monitoring his well for some reason. Once he tried to shoot at them, but they paralyzed him from the neck down until they left, so he decided to leave them alone. Dr. Sprinkle believed his experiences, descriptions of the craft and beings, because they were similar to the accounts of about 200 others he'd worked with.
In 1980 Pat invited Dr. Richard Fleck from the University of Wyoming, Star-Tribune newspaper photographer Richard Foertsch and reporter Greg Bean out to the ranch to "watch the show" as Pat called it. That night they camped on a hillside overlooking the vast basin where the farm was with cameras ready to photograph their first UFO. Around 3:00 a.m., a strange sequential light flashing blue, red, yellow and white appeared on the horizon. It moved straight up and down...several hundred feet at a time. Then stopped and rocked back and forth across the sky. For about fifteen minutes the object continued it's cosmic dance and then flashed across the sky. According to the reporter, "The landscape was too dark to allow a photograph with perspective, and the object was too far away to recognize any exact detail." The witnesses weren't certain about what they saw, but felt less skeptical.
Pat's sister said she didn't believe him either when she and her husband first moved there, "But when one of the things lands in the field in front of the house, or hovers directly overhead, it's hard to ignore." At first Pat's children were frightened, but eventually got used to the intrusions. The craft were about 300 feet wide and 60 feet tall. The Star-Tribune reported that the only time Pat was frightened was after he and his brother-in-law saw a hovering craft pick up a young calf one evening in 1976. He thought it was a government craft. He became determined to catch whomever was doing it. Night after night he watched and sure enough one night a light from a craft came down an picked up a calf. At that point he was watching through his telescopic lens on his rifle. He started to squeeze the trigger. At that moment he became completely paralyzed. He could only move his head. An entity named Michael allegedly appeared for the first time right beside him. Pat almost had a heart attack. The entity was six feet tall, and wore a black, skin tight jump suit that looked like spandex material. He wore a belt with the insignia of a six pointed star on the buckle. Two weeks prior to the incident, two of Pat's cows had been mutilated within a few miles of the house. After that there were no other mutilations or other aggressive actions, so the family felt relatively safe.
A 1983 article by Peter Rondinone in Anuti Matter magazine (p. 151) related that Wyoming's Governor Ed Herschler defeated Pat (in 1982) after one of the most bizarre gubernatorial primaries in American history. During his first rally in a shopping mall, he yelled, "A vote for me is a vote for extra-terrestrials." The governor expressed dismay that the 8,000 votes for Pat proved a lot of people in Wyoming had seen UFO's. However, Pat thought his UFO pro-Israel claims made some people think he was nuts. In fact, his children were asked by classmates if that crazy man was their father. Things got worse. On June 2, 1983, Pat notified the Star-Tribune that he was going to file suit in the federal court at Cheyenne against the CIA, the FBI and Air Force intelligence. His complaint was that these agencies suppressed information that UFO's working with an unnamed foreign power were vandalizing his property. He asserted that the FBI said they knew who was doing it but they couldn't tell him. The overall result was that he suffered complete financial ruin and the State Loan Board foreclosed on his property. According to one of his acquaintances, "The land was confiscated and sold at auction to the Federal Land Bank...Last we heard it was sold to the University of Wyoming."
His experience was so bazaar that relatives don't want to talk about it. The more we read about his contacts with the entity Michael, the more schizophrenic he appeared to be. His recollection of the "men in black," seems to have occurred during his 24 hypnotic sessions with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, after which he followed the political directives of the entity Michael. This prompted me to visit Sprinkle's web site. Researching on the Internet is like stepping inside an encyclopedia shopping mall. I found it interesting that the University of Wyoming psychologist also recalled having been on board a UFO when he was a boy. "It happened when I was a fifth grader in a small town in Colorado. I was aboard a space vehicle of some kind, looking out a large window at the stars rushing by. A tall man (at least I believe it was a man) was standing beside me, his hand resting on my shoulder...He said to me, 'Leo, learn to read and write well. Then, when you become a man, you can help people learn about their purpose in life." Here's an interesting video concerning UFO's and hypnosis.
Many scholars wonder about the effects of hypnosis on those subjected to it. Consequently, criminal evidence obtained in this manner is no longer acceptable. Pat's strange experiences became reality after hypnosis. The aunt who gave us the newspaper articles wrote us that, "This McGuire never drank or smoked that I know of. He had a real nice wife and children. He wanted to do big things....and went up this side of Laramie and drilled a well. It put out a terrible big stream of water. I saw him plug the pipe so kids wouldn't crawl in it..." She mentioned that after he got in with Dr. Sprinkle he changed, wound up divorcing his wife and married someone else. "The Federal government took part of his place on top, and the State took the other part." She said, "He didn't talk about the UFO's anymore, although they were reported all over the country..."whether this is real or imagination...time will tell, I suppose."
The McGuire family
The result of Pat's strange experience was summed up by his friend who wrote, "Through the years I have observed him going through many disheartening events until today he is a broken man, without hope. If ever there was a person that needed help and compassion from his fellow man, it is Pat. The last time I saw him the laughter was gone and I found it hard to coax a smile out of him. Pat is an Irishman and you all know how they love to laugh. When he laughs the sparks jump right out of his bright blue eyes. He is a great person to be friends with."
It appears that Pat wanted to get to the bottom of things that were happening on his ranch, so he went to an expert at the University for help. Instead of getting better, things went from bad to worse.
Pat passed away May 14, 2009 at Lovelock, Colorado
Epilogue
On October 21, 2009 I received this email from John Tricas regarding his experience with Pat along with a couple of nice photos of Pat and his family that he took in 1980.
Ms. McGuire-
Came across your family recollections regarding Pat McGuire of Wyoming.
Thought you might wish to know that I did a television profile on Mr. McGuire back in 1980 and am very familiar with Pat and his story. I have little doubt that Pat was having legitimate UFO experiences as I and my cameraman did see some very unusual aerial phenomena at the property. (I am aware of the later bizarre claims he was making and didn’t agree with his interpretations. But that doesn’t take away from other events.)
I am currently writing a manuscript that includes my experience at Pat’s and wondered if you still have copies of The Casper Star-Tribune articles from 9/28/80 and 6/2/83. I have the 6/29/80 article. (I can send you a digital copy if you would like.)
Great family Web site. That’s a nice tribute to the McGuire clan.
Best regards,
jft
John F. Tricas__
