It is tempting to link the Owl imagery to the experience of alien abductees who report screen-memories of Owls in order to black out the alleged truth of their stories. However, the evidence in the series points away from this interpretation. First, the fact that Project Bluebook started out investigating UFOs and then changed their focus to the events of the TP woods indicates that they believed there were terrestrial explanations for the UFO reports. Also, the messages that at first appear to be coming from outer space actually turn out to have emanated from the woods. So I don't think the Owls are part of an extra-terrestrial phenomenon.

However, the Owls are not what they seem, as is repeated in the series. I propose that they are actually servants of the Lodges. Initially, the Owls worked for the WL spirits, and their job was to scout for love. It is possible that they are also able to collect love and transform it into water. I don't believe that these actually are Owls, rather they are servant spirits (also known as 'familiars') that take possession of the Owls. There are still some Owls working for the WL, but most have been taken over by BL spirits now, and their role is to scout for and harness fear rather than love. The Owls do not create fear, but they seek it, and either report back to the spirits or harness the fear for them. When Earle learns that fear opens the gateway to the BL (ep28) he exclaims "Of course! These night creatures that hover on the edge of our nightmares are drawn to us when we radiate fear, their bread and butter!" I think here he is referring specifically to the Owls as the night-time creatures on the edge of our nightmares. Note that Owls do appear several times as visions in nightmares (eg. to Coop in ep9). Recall also that: the Log Lady heard the same Owl call on the night her husband died and on the night Laura died (ep24), an Owl watches as Leo terrorises Shelley in ep21, when Coop and the others visit the Log Lady (in ep5) she takes them inside and says "The Owls won't see us in here", then the log tells the story of what happened on the night Laura died : as there were screams in the darkness "the Owls were flying" and "the Owls were near". The reason I believe that there are still some WL Owls is that the Owls are linked to the abduction of Major Briggs. The Owl appears to Coop in the woods (ep17) and the Major remembers a giant Owl that is "big enough to cloud [his] mind and memory" (ep20). If the Major is being abducted by WL spirits, then they too seem to take the form of Owls. The Major describes the Owl image as 'disturbing', but he doesn't seem to fear it in the way that people who have visions of BL spirits do.