I remember August of 1976 very well. That summer, the northern lights in Aroostook County, Maine were vibrant, nearly alive in their sheer command of the summer night sky. Ribbons of light rippled across the entire sky from north to south.The Sun was at one of the high points its cycle. That was the summer I spent lying on the ground by the fire, watching the stars and studying the universe in the relative comfort of my backyard. Little did I know that four friends visiting my northern land would experience something akin to high strangeness in the backwaters of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway not more than one hundred miles from where I lay, taking in the infinite. Their experiences, if they can be believed, are laid out in several venues, from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries to a new children's book published last year (2014) by author Cathie Pelletier called "The Summer Experiment".

What I am referring to is known in UFO circles as "The Allagash Abductions". It is a classic in the literature and is often cited as one of the most completely documented cases of alien contact and experimentation on humans ever presented to the public. The fact that the events that allegedly transpired nearly forty years ago are still intriguing to so many makes it perfect food for thought on a summer evening, like tonight...

Let's travel back in time. It is the evening of August 20, 1976. Four young art students from Boston, Massachusetts are taking a break in the northern forest of the Allagash River on the tip of northern Maine. Their names are Jack and Jim Weiner, Charlie Foltz, and Chuck Rak. Specifically, they are camping on the edge of Eagle Lake. It is nearly dark. They have set a rather large fire at the edge of the lake near the shore and their plan is to do a little night fishing from their canoes. The fire would mark the spot of their campsite, otherwise they might become disoriented in the deep darkness that befalls the night in far northern Maine.

Almost immediately after starting to fish, Chuck Rak spied a large bright sphere of colored light hovering motionless and soundless over the water of Eagle Lake, about 300 feet above the southeastern rim of the cove. Chuck shouted to his friends who also witnessed what they describe as a huge oval glowing object. They describe it as being split into four quarters, almost like a gyroscope. The four quadrants of light glowed with an oscillating motion around the equator and from pole to pole. It was as though the object was made of some metallic liquid.

It is at this point that Charlie Folt claims he did something very odd indeed, something that most people would not have done, given the circumstances. He picks up his flashlight and begins rhymically flashing it at the object in the sky. Why he does this, he does not say. Almost immediately, the object stops pulsating and begins to move toward Charlie's canoe. A ray or tube of light issues forth from the glowing object and hits the surface of the water. Then, the beam begins to seek out the canoe, hunting it. The four art students begin to panic and paddle madly toward the shore and their bonfire. I can't help but wonder why the bonfire and the shore might in any way seem safer than where they were. I also wonder if art students might or might not be experimenting with substances in the relative obscurity of far northern Maine that might make them believe they were seeing a large pulsating multi-colored glowing ball.

They make it to the shore. They stand at the water's edge near the fire and they watch the object slowly move away and disappear. Twin brothers Jim and Jack Weiner recall how frightened they were, paddling with every ounce of strength they had until suddenly, they found themselves safely on the shore. They saw a light beam not more than one hundred feet from where they stood and then they saw the object leave. For along while, the four young men simply stood there in silence.

They began to notice lost time