Over the last few months, I’ve heard a few tales of interesting sightings in the skies over Boothbay Harbor. Lest we think seeing strange lights in the sky is a modern phenomenon, here’s the story of America’s first UFO sighting in 1639. And if you like stories like this one, come to the first annual Spooky Story Swap at Pedego Electric Bikes Boothbay Harbor on October 22 from 6:00-8:00pm. This is a free event with light refreshments and Pedego swag for the taking. This gathering will be the first of a series of talks to be held over the winter months that will feature all manner of paranormal topics, including ghosts, UFOs, and cryptid animals. If you are curious about things that go bump in the night or have experienced something that you can’t explain, this will be a no-judgment place for discussion with like-minded people. 

In March of 1639, long before the advent of aircraft or other man-made flying objects with which UFOs are often confused, James Everall and two companions made America’s first documented UFO sighting in colonial Boston. Purportedly, the three Massachusetts colonists observed a startling, immense flying light in the sky near Muddy River. Their description, which was recorded and survives to this day, mentions a great light in the sky which, “when it stood still [hovered], it flamed up, and appeared about three yards square, and when it ran, it contracted into [a strange] figure...”.

James Everall and his two companions, thoroughly startled by the strange experience, made a formal report to John Winthrop, Governor of the colony. Winthrop, who considered the strange incident significant and credible enough to record it in writing, described Everall as “a sober, discreet man.” In his journal, Winthrop writes that Everall observed the flying object “run swift as an arrow towards Charleston, and so up and down for about two or three hours. Other credible people saw the same light, after, at about the same place....”

The object’s strange back-and-forth motion over a period of “two or three hours” seems to rule out a comet or meteor. No explanation for the curious light in the sky was ever determined.

Excerpt from Charles Turek Robinson’s book, “True New England Mysteries, Ghosts, Crimes & Oddities

Lisa (Farwell) Matthews, Roger’s wife and co-owner of Pedego Electric Bikes Boothbay Harbor, is a published author of “Haunted Texas Vacations: The Complete Ghostly Guide” and a lifetime researcher of the unexplained. She founded the Capital City Ghost Research Society in Austin, Texas.