Sean Bartok - Alien Abductions
FRONT COVER - I have been asked to explain my artwork on the cover of my book, FLASHBACKS: An Artist's Memoir of Alien Abductions, Native Spirits, and Enlightenment. On January 15.1984 Sarah and I, with our two children, walked outside the kitchen on a snowy morning and found in our side yard, a strange circular track in the snow. Chapter 5 of my book explains the abduction events leading up to that morning and those tracks. Chapter 5 also has the 13 photographs taken that morning of, what could only be, a UFO beam-down circular track in the snow with alien and human footprints in the center. The cover is my artwork depicting how and when I think those footprints and the UFO beam-down circular track were made. I think they were made when I was returned after an abduction that took place the night of January 13 to the morning of January 14, 1984. The two sets of alien footprints along with mine in the center indicate that I was motionless (knocked out) and the two aliens' footprints indicated that they were moving around in the center of the circular track, probably getting ready to guide me back to the house and my bed.
Alien Abductions, Native Spirits & Enlightenment
BACK COVER - My artwork on the back cover of my book, FLASHBACKS: An Artist's memoir of Alien Abductions, Native Spirits, and Enlightenment depicts another of my abductions, the one in 1959, when I was 19 and a sophomore in college. I will take several excerpts from the book, Chapter 4, 1983, subchapter, "Catch and Release" to explain the relevance of the back cover.
(excerpt)..."Now, for some inexplicit reason I find myself speeding southeast toward Paola, Kansas late one Friday afternoon instead of drinking beer at the Wagon Wheel Bar with some of my fraternity brothers. I am acting on this irrational sudden urge to go fishing at what could be called my 'happy place.' My happy place is a small farm pond at my grandpa and grandma's property near Paola. I want to catch one last large bass in my life."
(excerpt).."As I look down at the water, I am surprised to see Sputnik silently making its way across the mirror-like surface of the pond. I look up and there it is above me as well! To see Sputnik plowing across the heavens is one thing, to see it reflected in this Kansas pond is mind boggling.
"I am now aware of and enthralled by the fact that my big-ass jitterbug is metaphorically moving through the Cosmos. The stars by this time of night are so bright that my lure is its own Sputnik. It is making its way across the inky watery pond's surface in an imaginary space among the beauty of the Milky Way that lies above. Suddenly, the Milky Way and the Cosmos disappear, and my lure is not visible. Without hesitation I look up and see with amazement a black void directly above me.
"I am standing in the overgrown two-track road looking up toward the barn and house. It is broad daylight, about mid-morning. I am somewhat confused and swaying around. I don't know if I am coming down from the house to go fishing or if I am going back to the house after fishing all night. I feel and see the sun is in the east, so it must be morning. I notice I am holding my rod in my left hand and my small tackle box in my right. That is odd, so I reverse their order back to how I normally hold them and start my way up the gentle hill to the barn."
(What these excerpts do not reveal is that this chapter is about my below- average grades, failed romance, and my planning to commit suicide at the pond that night. I strongly feel that the extraterrestrials intervened that night and kept me from committing suicide, revealing to me the future as this next excerpt shows).
(excerpt).."After leaving Grandpa and Grandma's farm, I drive home, not to Mom and Dad's, but to Lawrence. I am not filled with the same kind or depth of sorrow I had on the way down. Paradoxically, I have this pleasant but persistent feeling that someone has told me an incredible secret that I am not to repeat. I am also fighting the feeling of being very special to someone. I'm dying to tell the secret but I don't know what it is! The unknown secret is a great one, and makes the core of my soul happy in an all-knowing way. I never remember what it is, but the feeling stays with me and ushers me through the difficult years ahead. By my junior year, I am on the Dean's list every semester until graduation."