How do you feel about the Allagash abductions?

[WishfulDreamer]

Originally Posted by RobinW

BTW, on the DVD commentary over this segment, John Cosgrove said that Robert Stack was usually skeptical about most of the UFO stories, but even he seemed genuinely perturbed and shaken up by this case.

I really wish RS had been able to be part of the commentary. That would have been excellent and I'd love to hear more about his opinions on cases. It gives me chills to hear that even he was shaken up.

What was his opinion on the tiny UFO that flew through the bedroom window, I wonder? (I love that the lady was healed but I really have a hard time believing that one...)

[JannTosh]

someone came up with a theory that they made this story up in order to get publicity for their art.

[SageSlowdive]

Taken for what it is, I like the segment. However, in no way do I believe that this actually happened. I think like other people who heard humming and had rain fall on them randomly, they were looking for attention.

[mdl1981]

They experienced something bizarre. What it was, I have no idea. I do not believe they are lying. They are telling the truth of what they believe happened. Whether it really did happen, or it was some kind of drug induced hallucination? Dont know.

I tend to give their story more credence then most, because I do believe we have been visited and also have recovered downed alien spacecraft.

[amandab1234]

I think they were high. I really don’t believe any of the UFO stories as it is(they are interesting and I'll watch them but i dont believe them)… The fact that they could finish each other sentences when describing the incident just seems to me as they planned it out…

[LiveByTheSea]

IMO they were either on drugs and imagined the whole thing or they all made up the story together so that they could sell their paintings. I don't believe the men were abducted by a UFO.

[JannTosh]

yeah as well made as the segment was, this whole thing can easily be explained in that they just made it up or were on drugs.

[isotope]

Originally Posted by LiveByTheSea

IMO they were either on drugs and imagined the whole thing or they all made up the story together so that they could sell their paintings. I don't believe the men were abducted by a UFO.

Yup. Remote location (so no witnesses around to confirm there were no unusual lights in the sky) + memories "recovered" by some crank hypnotist = a load of nonsense.

Well made segment though, given the budget and special FX constraints of the time.

[TheCars1986]

It should also be noted that Jim Wiener held an interest in UFO's and alien abduction. He was the one who suggested to the specialists he was seeing that he and his friends may have been abducted.

[LiveByTheSea]

I've also read the guys came across a park ranger who told them there were searchlights in the area where they were camping. Perhaps, the searchlights could have been the UFO lights they saw?

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I don't put a lot into UFO stories. I usually fast-forwarded past them when I would record UM while I was in class at college. That being said, I thought this story was interesting, to say the least. SOMETHING happened, that's for sure. Was it the result of a bad acid trip or something more? I don't think we'll ever know.

The UFO story that REALLY got me was Frederick Valentich. "It's hovering... and its not an aircraft." Chilling.

[soilentgreen]

Chuck Rak created a comic book based on the incident; his account on his site mentions that a park ranger told the four men that a town around 75 miles away had searchlights beaming that same evening. It sounds like Rak believes that they did witness strange lights that night rather than searchlights, but he has some skepticism about the information recovered during the hypnotic sessions: http://www.chuckrak.com/index.php/allagash

A theory is that one of the Weiners sustained an injury years after the sighting which caused seizures and strange dreams of alien figures. He went to doctors and wasn't satisfied with their answers about what was causing the dreams, and eventually met Ray Fowler, a ufo researcher who sent them to the hypnotist.

[mdl1981]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

I don't put a lot into UFO stories. I usually fast-forwarded past them when I would record UM while I was in class at college. That being said, I thought this story was interesting, to say the least. SOMETHING happened, that's for sure. Was it the result of a bad acid trip or something more? I don't think we'll ever know.

The UFO story that REALLY got me was Frederick Valentich. "It's hovering... and its not an aircraft." Chilling.

Yeah the Valentich one is odd. No possible explanation I've heard (spatial disorientation, purposeful dissapearance) has been satisfying to me. I am not saying it was definetly a UFO....I dont know what it was. It's a strange story, that is all I know for sure.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by LiveByTheSea

I've also read the guys came across a park ranger who told them there were searchlights in the area where they were camping. Perhaps, the searchlights could have been the UFO lights they saw?

This is probably what that was. Why would the Park Ranger (who had no reason to lie) tell them there were searchlights if there weren't? This proves there was a search going on at the time in the area where the men were camping, and in all probability this is what they saw.

And that link to Chuck Rak's website basically says he was lying (under hypnosis) because he thought of all the money that they could make on the alien abduction story. He does state that they saw something they couldn't identify, but doesn't mention anything about missing time, or a large fire disappearing immediately, etc.

"I heard Charlie knifing his paddle blade into the water as the twins wildly clawed the surface with their hands. I remained fixed on the object with the paddle in my lap thinking, wasn’t the point to communicate? The object was responding to our signal. Wasn’t this what we wanted? Besides, where were we going at night in the middle of the lake? In response to the commotion, the beam started withdrawing, and the object began turning away. I was angry. This was a chance few people get to interface with vastly superior intelligence and the vastly inferior intelligence in the boat was throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime like four year olds running from a neighbors Halloween mask.

As I sat there amidst the pandemonium, with the paddle in my lap, I never broke my spellbound attention on the object and its behavior. Slowly at first, it turned from a full moon to a brightly lit crescent, with the beam ascending skyward and playing out ahead of the orb in an upward and southerly trajectory. In an accelerating, somewhat wobbly progression, the thing passed in front of the first strip of alto stratus cloud, then behind the second strip, reemerged and faded into the distance over Mt. Katahdin. This was the totality of the experience as I remember, at least in a visceral way.

We beached the canoe with all our fishing gear and paddles intact and accounted for. Being such a mild evening, the fire was of minor concern. We made our way up a small rise from the beach, to a nearby picnic table and discussed the incident for some time. The light from the fire eventually dimmed to coals and Charlie made a half hearted offer to stoke it. Feeling tired and subdued, we opted to crawl in to our sleeping bags."

And during the hypnosis:

"I knew the point of the whole exercise was to substantiate the ground work put in place by Ray Fowler and the twins, which was ALIEN ABDUCTION. After all, it was in our best interests to sell the story by means of Rays book, TV appearances, interviews, UFO conventions and movie rights. As he was putting me under a light trance, I’m sure Tony couldn’t help notice the dollar signs in my eyeballs.

Tony was sitting directly in front of me almost as close as a dental hygienist. Ray was on a bench a few feet away. Tony brought me to the point in the story where the beam was approaching the canoe. He asked me what happened next. All I could think of was what actually happened; the panic and the beam going away, but I felt that would have been an unacceptable answer. I sat there and tried to allow my artists imagination take over. I pondered the void of my memory. “WHO’S ON THE BENCH?,” Ray commanded with military bearing. Why Ray and Tony, I thought to say but that answer would have been even more unacceptable. Finally with all that was at stake, I relaxed, let what was out there enter my mind and let it interact with what was inside. Thus, what came forth was a series of vague snippets of being levitated aboard a craft, witnessing an examination performed on the prone figure of Charlie Foltz, by alien beings and an amorphous source of light, like my friend Brads house where he has draped different colored blankets below the fixtures in preparation for the bi weekly acupuncture clinic. This was not part of the visceral testimony to which I have so far described. Instead it was a form of mental imagery, which I later used to create the colorful art work displayed on the Allagash portion of my website gallery. The graphite images (black and white), and color images of the Allagash UFO itself, appearing as part of the publication “The Allagash Incident,” by Chuck Rak and Jack Weiner, represent my actual memories without any hypnotic induction. The computer graphics by Jack Weiner represent his memories while under hypnosis."

[unsolved1981]

I am neutral on UFO phenomenon as a whole (but open to the possibility). I saw another interview with them where they scoffed at the 'they were on drugs' claim, as all as the publicity for art, considering none of them put it into drawings/paintings for years afterwards.

I think Chuck Rak's take was probably correct; they saw a strange light on 2 occasions that they couldn't explain (but unlike the UM segment, Rak mentions that the first incident there were more witnesses to than just the four of them), and the rest of it was cooked in their heads by the 'regression hypnosis' thing. Rak seems annoyed at skepticism of the 'lights' he did see, and near the end does mention believing that there is something 'out there'.

Still a striking segment. We have to remember that several Unexplained segments of UM showed undoubtedly true yet unexplained phenomenon - the Oakville Blobs and the Gurdon Light (which I have been told, is fairly easy to see) fall into that category, maybe the light they saw was something else strange like that, who knows.