The Allagash Alien Abduction Incident

By
Marcus Lowth
Published Date
November 17, 2018
Last Updated
November 22, 2021
Estimated Reading Time
10 min read
Comments
1
Posted in
Aliens, Abductions

While they would remain unreported for twelve years, the 1976 Allagash alien abduction of four young men, including twin brothers, while on a night fishing trip near their campsite is one of the most remarkable on record. All four witnesses, through hypnotic regression, would recall the same event. And, as we shall examine, one of the four would appear to continue to experience visitation events in the years following that bizarre night on the Allagash Waterway in Maine.

The four witnesses to the Allagash incident blended into a depiction of the incident

The four witnesses to the Allagash incident

It is a case that is well-known in the UFO community, and one that continues to fascinate. Perhaps not least because for the most part, it would appear to be one that is extremely credible. It would also be subject to one of the longest and most detailed UFO investigations in recent history. And one that would not only seem to provide an explanation for the events for that night in 1976 but would also unlock further and equally strange events experienced by the two brothers across their lifetimes. Lifelong events that can be found contained in numerous other abduction accounts from around the world.

A Feeling Of “Being Watched” On The Lake

Identical twin brothers, Jack and Jim Weiner, along with fellow art students, Charlie Foltz and Chuck Rak, would pack their vehicle with their belongings, and on 20th August 1976, would head out from Boston Massachusetts on their way to the Allagash River in Northern Maine. [1] They planned to canoe along the river, camp on the river bank, and do plenty of fishing. They would park their vehicle at a staging point, allowing a plane to fly them to Telos Lake, which resides on the Allagash Waterway.

The first six days went pretty much as planned. On the evening of the seventh day, though, on 26th August, as they set up camp on the banks of Eagle Lake, that would change. They had decided to spend the early hours night fishing. This particular evening it was pitch-black over the waters, so the four students built a large fire near their camp in order to use it as a beacon to find their way back.

Not long after settling in a position on the lake and beginning their attempts to snare a trout or two, Chuck began to get the strange feeling that someone was watching them. He would later state to MUFON investigators that as he turned around to scan his surroundings he would feel and see a “large bright sphere of colored light hovering motionless and soundless about 200 to 300 feet above the southeastern rim of the cove”.

He immediately got the attention of his fellow students who each turned to see the glowing object coming up from behind the trees.

The Fast-Approaching Beam Of Light

Each would later recall how the object had a “gyroscopic motion” to its surface. It appeared as though pure energy was flowing over the surface of the object, giving it a “rolling boil” look. It would also serve to separate the sphere into four different areas of color which would melt into each other with a heavy liquid effect.

While the other three students looked on in awe, Charlie quickly picked up the flashlight and began to “flash and blink” the light towards the object, as if in Morse Code. As soon as he did so, the object’s ascension came to a sudden stop. Then, it began moving toward the canoe and the four students. As it did so, a “tube-shaped beam of light” emerged from the underside of the craft stretching down to the water below. It continued on towards the canoe.

Now beyond panicked, each of the students frantically attempted to get to the other side of the lake and to their campsite. However, in seconds, the beam of light was upon them, the object above them. Everything was bright and confused.

The next thing Charlie knew, he was dragging himself from the waters and making his way to the camp area. Jack and Jim were already there. Each of them was staring back at the strange object, which now appeared to be moving away from them. Chuck, in the meantime, had remained in the canoe, almost in a trance staring at the bizarre glowing sphere. Eventually, as the others were watching the sphere move away, Chuck would appear to suddenly come to his senses. He would vacate the canoe and join the others on the river bank.

A depiction of a UFO over the woodland

The UFO approached the night fishers with great speed

Twenty Minutes Was Actually Over Two Hours!

From the twins’ perspective, they quickly realized they were not going to be able to outrun whatever this strange and suddenly menacing object was. However, as the object closed in, like Charlie, their memories would “leap forward” somewhat. Jack would recall, “The next thing I knew, we were on the shore”. From there, they could see the object was around twenty to thirty feet above the water’s surface. The beam still shining downward. Jack would estimate, it hovered there “completely silent” for around five minutes.

Then, the beam would suddenly point upwards, the object beginning to ascend once again as it did so. After an initial steady rise, the object “shot into the stars and was gone in just a second”.

Jim would add, “We all seemed to be in a state of shock. We just stood there unable to move or talk”.

After Chuck had joined the other three on the shore, the group would make their way back to the camp. To their shock, and only further adding to the confusion, they would discover their bonfire, which was blazing away only minutes before, was now a dull red glow of embers. Before they had set out in the canoe, the group had placed several large logs on the fire “to burn for a good two or three hours”. They originally believed they had been on the water for no longer than twenty minutes or so. However, in light of the state of the fire, came the realization the amount of time was at least two hours.

This window of missing time would privately weigh on each of the young men’s minds for the next twelve years until a chance encounter would bring the group back together to discover the events of that summer’s evening in 1976.

Head Injury Reveals Nightmare Memories

As the seventies passed the baton of time on to the eighties, the four young men, while remaining friends, by and large, forgot the incident and went about their respective lives. Jim, though, would suffer a head injury several years later. One of the consequences of this injury was tempero-limbic epilepsy.

During his regular treatment for this condition, recurring nightmares would strike Jim. In them, he and his fellow three art students from their 1976 camping trip were all in a “strange place”. Furthermore, and for reasons he didn’t know, they were all nude. Even more bizarre, “strange bug-eyed humanoids” were all around them.

Perhaps the strangest and most chilling consequence of the head injury and the tempero-limbic epilepsy that it caused, was the times he would awaken at night and find creatures surrounding his bed. Sometimes they would “levitate him” upwards, although he himself was paralyzed during the encounters.

Fascinated, his doctor would ask if he had ever been involved in any “unusual activity”. It was then that Jim would reveal the episode on Eagle Lake in Allagash. And the missing time that none of the group could still recall. Through the usual interacting between medical specialists, Jim’s doctor was relatively familiar with UFO sightings, and more specifically, the claims of alien abduction that sometimes surfaced as a result of them. With that in mind, when he noticed that UFO researcher and investigator, Ray Fowler was due to hold a lecture on the subject in May 1988, he would succeed in convincing Jim and the rest of the group to attend. Following the talk, Jim would approach Fowler and tell him of their encounter. And of the missing time that they wished to retrieve from their own minds.

Artist's impression of the incident

Artist’s impression of the incident

The Start Of Regression

The official investigation by Fowler along with MUFON investigator, David Webb, and MUFON consultant and hypnotist, Tony Constantino, would begin in January 1989. It was one of the most detailed in recent history and would take over two years to complete. As is standard procedure in such regression cases, all four would go under alone and separate from the others. All four would produce the same account.

According to the statements, when the strange beam of light hit them, they were literally enveloped within it, as if it was a “hollow tube”. It would “transfer them” to the object overhead. When they came to their senses on board this otherworldly ship, “strange humanoid creatures” awaited them. Even more unnerving, these creatures immediately took control of the four students’ minds, meaning they were physically unable to resist any order these creatures would issue them.

Each of them was instructed to remove their clothes. Upon doing so, they were told to sit on a cold, plastic bench. The room had a “diffuse white-light”. The creatures would examine their eyes and their mouths with a “pencil-sized rod”. They would further examine the flexibility of their arms and legs before instructing each of them, in turn, to lay on a nearby table. Numerous strange devices and instruments scanned over their bodies during this procedure. It would appear the creatures would collect various samples including skin, saliva, blood, and sperm.

The “Round Portal” In The Wall

Then, came instructions to dress and enter into another room. They would line up in front of a “round portal” in one of the walls. One by one, they would step into this portal. Upon doing so they would “float down” to the canoe on the water below. As well as the “strange sensation” each felt in their bodies, each would also note how the light seemed to “hold the canoe steady” while each of them dropped into it. What is even stranger, whether by coincidence or not, each would find themselves in the exact same positions as when the UFO arrived.

At this point, they came to their senses, and scrambled to the water’s edge, turning in time to see the craft move off in the distance. The detail about the portal is an extremely interesting one. Several other accounts of alien abduction mention stepping into such a portal and returning to the point of abduction.

Of more concern to the investigators in the Allagash case, though, was the emerging evidence from the regression sessions that Jack and Jim had not only had several “visitations” since the incident in 1976, but both had experiences stretching back to early childhood. Each of them would describe, in detail and matching the other’s account, of strange creatures waking them in their bedrooms when they were young children. They would then leave with these creatures on board a craft waiting discreetly above their house.

In fact, as recently (then) as May 1988, Jack and his wife, Mary, would experience an abduction incident from their home in a remote and quiet area of Townshend, Vermont.

Witness sketch of the abduction

Witness sketch of the abduction

May 1988 – “There’s Something In The House!”

Late on the evening of 20th May 1988, Jack would wake to hear his dog scratching at the door downstairs. He would make his way out of bed and towards the door in the kitchen. When he arrived, however, the room was aglow in a bright, blue wash entering the glass from outside. He opened the door, and right in front of him, hovering in a field opposite his house was a blue, glowing object. On the night in question, Jim had quickly brought his dog back inside and went back to bed. However, now, under hypnosis, the true events of that evening would come out.

Originally, after opening the door, Jack had started to make his way towards the blue light. However, he then changed his mind, returning inside. However, he also knew that the light was approaching him and getting nearer all the time. He shut the door, now scared. In his regression tape, he states his thoughts as “I don’t want to deal with this now. Why are they here now?”

He would return to his bed. The terror ran through him so quickly that he would pull the covers high up over his and Mary’s heads. He would state in the regression “I know that something’s in the house. I know that they’re here”.

Then, the bed covers began to move down from the top of his head. As they came down completely, standing over the bed are several creatures with “big eyes and a big head”. As he turned his head to look at Mary, he could see another creature approaching her.

Physical Evidence Left Behind

Much like they did on the craft over a decade earlier, these creatures would assert a mental-control over the pair. Both he and Mary received instructions to walk towards the light crashing into the room. An order they were powerless to resist. They would make their way outside where a “huge house-sized glowing object” was hovering over the yard, a long column of light extending down from its underside. The color would change color several times, going from white, yellow, and orange, before returning back to the bright white.

They would walk directly into the light and then instantly transferred onto the craft above. Once on board, their hosts would separate them. Then, the examinations of an extremely similar nature to the ones over Allagash went ahead. When these were complete, they were matter-of-factly “floated” back to the house, through the door and to their bedroom. Once there, despite the heavy confusion in their minds, they simply went to bed and went to sleep.

This particular incident would result in the discovery of strange burn marks on the bottom of Jack’s feet, as well as a “biopsy-like scoop” mark on his ankle. Again, whether coincidentally or not, this mark was directly above a mark remaining from an operation Jack had several years previously. This was to remove a sudden lump that appeared out of nowhere. What is further interesting here is developments following the removal of the lump. They would inform Jack they were unaware of what it was and were investigating further. When MUFON investigators would attempt to track down the records of this operation, they were with the “military pathologists”. The military gave no further information despite repeated requests for access to the files of the medical procedure.

Check out the video below.

Intriguing Insight Into Alien Abduction

While there are the obvious and usual sceptics to the incident, investigations at the time would suggest that none of the witnesses had any inclination or likelihood of lying. Not only that, but the overall general “moral character” of each of the group was “extraordinary”. And the chances of them concocting such a hoax were unlikely at best.

Another interesting discovery of the initial investigation, particularly in reference to Jim and Jack and their experiences with UFO activity dating back to their childhood was the amount of “paranormal experiences” each of them recalls having. Paranormal encounters that were much more likely to be extraterrestrial.

We should perhaps note several stories from around 2015. If true, Chuck Rak would state that the UFO sighting was real. However, he had doubts as to the authenticity of their apparent memories of an abduction. What is interesting here, is not so much the claims themselves. But that all reference (besides in chat forums) appear to be deleted. Might this be an attempt to discredit the case? Or might Rak’s claims be legitimate enough? If so, why are they no longer there?

Perhaps an unintended, and often overlooked aspect of this particular case was that each of the witnesses are all artists. So, not only would they be able to recall and draw in relative intricate detail of the things they witnessed. But it would be highly likely their natural inclination to relay such information would be through this medium anyway. Indeed, much of the artwork that would come forth from the witnesses is of immense value to UFO researchers. As they examine other cases, from the past, present, and the ones that are surely upcoming in the future.

The video below looks at this fascinating case a little further.

References

References
1 Allagash Abduction: Truth or Fiction?, Shelly Barclay, Paranorms, June 2013 https://paranorms.com/allagash-abduction/

Marcus Lowth

Marcus Lowth is a writer with a love for UFOs, aliens, and the Ancient Astronaut Theory, to the paranormal, general conspiracies, and unsolved mysteries. He has been writing and researching with over 20 years of experience.

Marcus has been Editor-in-Chief for several years due to his excellent knowledge in these fields. Marcus also regularly appears as an expert on radio talk shows including Troubled Minds and Unexplained Radio discussing these topics.

Read Marcus' full bio.

You can contact Marcus via email.

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1 Comment

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  • Doc says:

    Have known about this case over thirty years. I am sure it happened and have had my own experiences which i now charge off to demonic sources! These beings are maqlevolent and not friendly to humans. The after effects last for a very long period and amount to pernicious and harmful effects, which are significantly injurious and harmful to a person’s peace of mind!

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