Somewhere in the Skies - The Allagash Abduction: Four Friends, Missing Time, and a Terrifying UFO Encounter

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

In August 1976, four friends set out on a canoe trip through the remote wilderness of northern Maine expecting nothing more than fishing, camping, and adventure. Instead, they experienced one of the most controversial UFO encounters in history. Ryan dives deep into the infamous Allagash Abduction, tracing the events from the group's sighting of a massive glowing object over Eagle Lake and a mysterious period of missing time, to the vivid nightmares, hypnotic regressions, polygraph tests, and alien abduction claims that would thrust the case into the national spotlight. Featuring firsthand testimony from Jim and Jack Weiner, Charlie Foltz, UFO researcher Raymond Fowler, audio from interviews and television appearances, and a detailed examination of both the supporting evidence and skeptical critiques, this episode explores why the Allagash case remains a cornerstone of UFO lore nearly fifty years later. Special thanks to: Alejandro Rojas: https://openminds.tv/ Jeremy T. Grant: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyTGrant Send us a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/SomewhereSkiesPod Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All socials and books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Email: [e-mail] Opening theme song by Septembryo Closing song by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #Allagash #Maine #Wilderness #Woods #Camping #AlienAbductions #Aliens #TheAllagashFour #TheAllagashUFO #UFOs #UFOlogy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Strange Familiers is a weekly podcast which explores the weird corners of the world. From Bigfoot and other cryptids to ghosts, UFOs, folklore, and forgotten history. We don't just talk to authors and researchers. We talk to actual witnesses of the paranormal. As he came in, the power flickered off again. I don't think I had ever been as scared of anything. It flickered back on and he was right beside me. And he got really close to my face and he said,

away from things you don't understand. We don't just talk about haunted places and spooky forests. We go there and we take the listeners with us. It's like it's right up on us, but there's nothing there. I know. You just hear that? Yeah, I totally heard that. It's right there.

Strange Familiar's coming to you from Spectrevision Radio. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we're at strangefamiliers.com. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. And I saw this giant, like eight-foot hairy creature just run across the road. She was claiming a man was talking to her through the sound machine.

If there are any spirits in this room, please give us a sign that you are here. And as soon as he finished that sentence, the door to the bedroom slammed shut and the candle blew out. And now the room is pitch black. as it walked It walked like an ape But human Though too awesome

But as they move towards us They grew in height And slenderized And became distorted We are the hollow sky podcast And welcome to the hollow cult Join us every Monday For Tales of the Strange and Unusual

Wherever you listen to podcasts And remember Stay safe Stay weird. Imagine yourself deep in the main wilderness, surrounded by endless forests and dark, silent waters, stretching for miles in every direction. It's the kind of place that promises peace and adventure, a rare chance to disconnect from the world entirely. That's exactly what four young friends were searching for in August of 1976, when they pushed their connection. into the remote waters of the Alicash Wilderness Waterway.

But for twin brothers, Jim and Jack Winer, and their friends, Charlie Fultz and Chuck Rack, this would be an adventure so bizarre and terrifying that it would haunt them for the rest of their lives. This is the Alagash abduction. While our government's official position is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other consequences. to use our imaginations. For if we consider that astros scientists agree on one point that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable.

Some field is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. This is somewhere in the skies with Ryan Sprague. Our story begins on August 20th, 1976 in Northern Maine. The Alagash Wilderness Waterway wasn't just remote. It was practically another world. Thousands of acres of dense northern Maine forest. A network of interconnected lakes and rivers, including Eagle Lake, were only accessible primarily by canoe or float plane. The nearest

towns were miles away, separated by vast stretches of uninhabited land. Nights here are a different kind of dark, an absolute pitch-black void where the stars seemed close enough to touch, and the silence is broken only by the sounds of the wild. It's beautiful, but also profoundly isolating. It's the kind of place where if something strange did happen, nobody would ever know. These four men in their early twenties were fresh out of or still attending the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. There were identical twins, Jim and Jack, their friend Charlie and Chuck,

who served as their guide for the trip. These guys were not seasoned woodsmen looking for any grand adventure. They were simply artists seeking a two-week escape from city life. They planned to canoe, fish, camp, and soak in the raw beauty of the wilderness, hoping that tranquility would spark some sort of creative inspiration, and even spark their imagination. Little did they know just how much of their imagination would be stretched in the next few days.

According to this interview with Open Minds TV, Charlie Fultz and Jack Winer would arrive first to the area. It was so remote and rugged, the only way in was by plane. Charlie and Jack would be the first to take the plane in. Jack and I went first and landed on a landing. lake, hitched the canoe from the pontoon. Then we loaded our gear from the plane into the canoe,

and Jack and I paddled over the shore. The plane took off, and about an hour later returned with Chuck and Jim. We had a good night's sleep the first night at Tilos Landing, and the next morning started our canoe trip. Both Jack and Jim, this was their first time ever canoeing. The first day, Chamberlain Lake, we were fighting a headwind as we were canoeing up Chamberlain Lake and we only made half the distance that we had hoped that we would make and we ended up

camping at a place called gravel beach near mud pond. The wind coming down the lake was just hammering this campsite that we had. selected directly across a small cove another campsite was set up but there were people there and after a couple of hours of battling this wind we knew it was going to be an all-night thing and we just abandoned that site went across the cove and shared a campsite with this other group they had lost two members of of their group, two young boys about 18, 19 years old, who had split off from their main body.

And these people were quite concerned because they hadn't seen them for many hours. And they asked if we had seen them. We told them that we had seen them earlier in the day. They continued to help look for the two boys at Chamberlain Lake. As they were searching the waters with binoculars, they noticed something odd in the skies above.

Here is Jim Weiner and Charlie Fultz describing what they saw. You were all looking for them with binoculars, seeing if we could spot them somewhere, and one of the gentlemen who was on the beach with us saw this light. We all turned and looked at it, and it was just around light, but it was moving slowly relative for our distance, but going into the wind.

And it was, if you drew a direct line from where we were to where this light was, it probably was right over Eagle Lake, where we were a few days later. And it was over the treetops. It looked like a very, very bright light. It was much brighter than a planet. We looked at it for a very brief period of time because it extinguished itself. And when I looked at it through the binoculars, it just looked like a large, spherical, a round, yellowish white light. But I noticed that it had this kind of odd quality to it.

It was not like the type of light you see coming from an airplane, you know, a wing light or a spotlight or anything that. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And then after observing this thing for maybe 30 seconds, it just winked out. So then we thought, oh, to get back to the job we're supposed to be doing, which is looking for these two guys. And it was a short while later that we saw them, the two young guys from this other group,

set up a campsite at gravel beach where we had just abandoned the site. And the following morning, we continued on with the leg of the trip that we had one. wanted to do day one. They spent the night and set out early the next morning. They had a trip to continue, tents to pitch, fish to catch. They didn't dwell on the strange light from the night prior.

But the seed had been planted that something was different about this area, something strange. And it had only just begun. Two nights later at the Smithbrook campsite on the shore of Eagle Lake, the group were doing some daytime fishing. When the fishing didn't yield much, they decided to try their luck under the cloak of darkness. Knowing how utterly black the wilderness night could be, they took a precaution. They built a massive bonfire near their camp. This wasn't just for warmth. It was intended to be a beacon, a blazing landmark they could easily spot from the canoe to guide them back to safety. They paddled out into the calm, dark waters of Eagle Lake.

After about 20 minutes or so, they saw a light, similar to the one they'd seen nights prior. Here's Jim, his brother, Jack, and Charles describing what they saw. We just began fishing when Chuck at the back of the canoe saw something and called our attention to it. And when I turned, I was in the front of the canoe, I turned and I looked, I thought, well, that's the moon. The first thing that we saw, the object itself was rising out of the forest. And it was about 200, maybe 250 yards away. The four of us were watching it, and it was rising up out of the forest very slowly until the whole thing was in view.

And then it just stopped and hovered above the trees. My first impression was this was the same thing I saw two nights prior. It had the same quality of light, and this time it was much closer. I mean, I'd estimate maybe 200, 250 yards away, and it was hovering above the treetops. I'd say maybe 100, 200 feet. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was something strange. For one thing, it didn't make any sound at all. Nothing.

Not a buzz, not a hum. Absolutely soundless. And it was large. I mean, I would estimate that it was probably, I remember thinking that it was big in diameter, as a tractor trailer truck is long. Well, we just sat there for a while, fishing poles in hand and watched as it approached.

The trees underneath this sphere, and it was about 15, 20 feet above the tops of the trees. The trees were all illuminated, so as it passed, the light, the ambient light, moved with this sphere. A yellowish-white light, almost like a sun and it had this weird, very weird, roiling effect. It was moving as if it was alive. And in those days, I was studying pottery at Boston University and I'm experts at firing kilts. And so when you look in a kiln at about 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere inside of the

count is it's almost like a roiling flux. It's like a, it's like a plasma. And it has this life to it. It moves and it roils. And that's exactly what this thing reminded me up. Staring at this impossible object, confounded and maybe even a little awestruck, Charlie did something impulsive. Here's all three men commenting on what happened next. When it was about 100 yards away from us, I picked up a flashlight, one of those old square battery camp flashlights with a handle. Holding it in my right hand, I put my left hand over the lens, turned the light on, and I flashed an SOS. It was the only code that I knew, three short, three long, three short. Just to see what response we would get from this light, if any at all.

Immediately when I did that, this thing stopped moving. And an instant later, this shaft of light came from somewhere in the bottom of this sphere. With this beam of light coming across the water right towards us, I turned around, I saw that. I did a couple paddles with my hand out the side of the canoe. I looked back again, and this time it was like it jumped in a second. It was like all of a sudden it was right there behind us. It seemed to have just gotten there in a flash.

And I could see that the beam of light was, I mean, it was going to get us. There was no outrunning this thing. And I remembered looking back to see where this thing was and thinking, You know, in my mind, it was like still fairly far away, and instead it was almost right on top of us. I mean, I thought to myself, there is no way we're going to get away from this thing. In that instant, the mood shattered. For Jack, Jim, and Charlie, curiosity turned to immediate fear. They started paddling frantically, using hands and oars, desperate to reach safety to the shore.

The beam of light intensified. the silent, glowing sphere moving relentlessly closer, engulfing the small canoe and its occupants in its overwhelming light. One moment the four men are in their canoe, bathed in this impossibly bright silent beam of light, descending upon them from the skies. The next coherent memory, any of them possessed, was finding themselves back on the shore of Eagle Lake,

near their campsite. Jim would describe what happened next. The next thing we all knew was our front of our canoe hit the beach at the camp, and we were aground. And we got out of the canoe, and this thing was hovering just over the water. It was probably like 30 feet over the water, maybe not even that high. And this beam was coming straight out of the bottom of it onto the water. It was almost like it was sitting on this beam.

of light and I remember thinking it was close enough that I could hit it with a stone. If I threw a stone at it, I could hit this thing with a stone. But we just stood there watching it, wondering what was going to happen. I picked the flashlight up a second time and I figured, well, I'll flash again and see what it does this time. I shined the light at it and repeated the SOS, but this time it began moving away from us. It went to the far side of the lake. from where we were and then began to ascend at a 45 degree angle in the night sky.

And then it winked out from the outside in, almost like a camera iris when it closes. And then it was gone. It was like just vanished. And then this, then an instant later, we saw this, the beam came on again and it, it, it, this thing followed this beam. It was like it projected this beam out ahead of it and then followed the beam up into the sky. And then it would wink out again. And then a second later it would come on again, only it would be much further away. And it was climbing the whole time.

So it gave you this odd impression, almost as if it was walking up a staircase. You'd see at one point, and then a further way and higher up and further away and higher up. And then it just zoomed away, and it was like a star. And this was only a matter of seconds. This thing was really going fast. There was no sound.

There was no sonic boom, no signature, sound signature or engine noise at all. It was totally silent. And in just a few seconds, it was like a star in the sky. And then it curved off to the southwest and disappeared over the tree line. Then came the chilling realization. The men collectively felt they had only been out on the water for a short period of time. Estimates ranged from maybe 15 to 20 minutes, maybe half an hour at the maximum. But then the men noticed something that puzzled them.

They had built this monumental bonfire as a beacon designed to burn brightly for hours. But now it was nothing more than a bed of smoldering embers. and ash. The physical evidence screamed that a significant chunk of time, possibly hours, had vanished without a trace from their conscious experience. This discrepancy between their subjective sense of time and the state of the fire would become one of the most compelling clues in the entire Alagash saga, a tangible marker of inexplicably lost time.

Yet, in the immediate aftermath, the reality, reaction was oddly subdued. Instead of panic discussion or frantic attempts to understand what had just happened and where the time had gone, they all felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, a deep fatigue. They secured their gear, exchanged few words, and simply went to their tents and fell asleep. Charles recalls what happened the next morning. Well, the next morning, we awoke and the only thing that we were talking about as we were preparing breakfast and breaking camp was this thing that had chased us across the lake.

We tried to speculate, you know, where do you think it came from? Will there be, you know, what do we do about this? We paddled up Eagle Lake to the connecting lakes. As we did so, we saw a ranger on the lake. And we hailed the ranger, and he came over. And we told him about having been chased across the lake by this light. And he sort of like squinted his eye a little bit, cocked his head.

And then this heavy main accent, he says, well, what you boys probably saw was as Hollywood searchlights. They've got a brand new heart. store down in Millenarket that they just opened up and they've got them Hollywood search lights shining in the night sky. Well, from where we were in a straight line of sight to Millenarket was about 90 miles and an obstruction directly in line of sight was Mount Katahdin, which is about one mile high. The Aligash Wilderness Trip ended, and the four friends returned to their lives in Massachusetts. They mentioned the strange light to some of their friends and family, but the story was largely

met with disbelief or just straight-up dismissal. Even the men themselves found the experience hard to process, the memories clouding over time. Sometime later, Jim Weiner would suffer a traumatic spinal cord and brain injury during a work accident, and it left him with epilepsy and seizures. But around that same time, he also began having very strange and vivid nightmares. And these nightmares were reoccurring. And every time that he'd have one, he also would suffer a seizure. He'd soon share this with his twin brother, Jack. And this is where things got even more bizarre, because Jack,

Jack would tell Jim that he too was having strange and vivid nightmares. The problem was that they kept recurring over and over again, and it was the same intense dream of these non-human entities doing things to me, and I could see their faces and stuff, and it was just totally freaking me out. You know, I was dealing with it. I was going to work and stuff like that. that and I just figured, oh boy, you know, I don't know what's, what this is all about. And then, uh, I was talking to Jim and he was, he told me, I, he was having problems with

his, uh, epilepsy. And I was asking him, you know, how he was doing and stuff, because we're real close. And he said, well, you know, not doing good because I can't sleep. And so I was like, well, you know, I mean, epil, this. Epilepsy do that? And he said, well, I don't know, but I've been having these horrible nightmares. And I was like, really? What kind of nightmares? And he was describing the exact same thing that I was having nightmares about. The mention by Jack of strange beings stuck with Jim, because this was exactly what he was having nightmares about as well. So now, both the brothers were thinking,

what the hell happened during this missing time? For Jim, his dreams would find him in a starkly lit, sterile room. He saw himself, Jack, Charlie, and Chuck, sitting naked on a bench. He felt an overwhelming sense of fear and vulnerability. In these nightmares, strange figures were examining him, all while his friends just watched, seemingly paralyzed and unable to intervene. Jack's dreams also found himself in a brightly lit room, the naked friends on the bench, he would feel intense danger.

A dark, shadowy figure would sometimes emerge from the light, given an overwhelming feeling that the figure was in charge of whatever was happening. The fact that both twin brothers were experiencing such similar, specific, and traumatic nightmares, seemingly rooted in the 1976 camping trip, was staggering. It suggested that the fragmented memories of Eagle Lake, were hiding something far more complex and terrifying. This wasn't just a UFO sighting anymore. The persistent nightmares hinted at a repressed memory of some sort,

a shared trauma that was beginning to violently surface after lying dormant for so long. The similarities between the twins' independent experiences became the catalyst for seeking answers, propelling the Alagash story into its next chapter. Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here from Somewhere in the Skies. The podcast has always been and always will be completely free for you to listen to. But creating it every week takes a lot of time, research, and resources.

And to be honest, it's just never been free for me to create. That's why we've built a few simple ways for you to help support the show and keep it going strong. You can join us over on Patreon or through Apple Premium. Both offer the same awesome perks. Add free episodes, early access to new content, exclusive bonus shows, and even priority to ask our guests your listener questions. It's a quick and easy way to support what we do for just a few bucks a month. And right now, you can even try Patreon for free for a week to see if it's right for you.

To learn more and to join, head over to patreon.com slash somewhere skies. That's patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Or hit that subscribe button right at the top of your Apple podcast feed. Thank you so much for listening, for supporting, and as always, keep looking up. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core.

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You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Driven by the unsettling convergence of, these dreams, Jim decided he needed help in understanding what might have truly occurred that night in Alagash. He would reach out to a man named Raymond Fowler, a prominent and respected

UFO researcher based in Massachusetts. I have a BA, a liberal arts from Gordon College. Prior to that, I served with the United States Air Force Security Service where we did espionage work, electronic eavesdropping on our friends, the Russians. At that time, I held the top secret clearance and crypto clearance. From the Air Force and college days, I went to GTE, Slovenia, and worked for them for 25 years in the Strategic Systems Division and the communication systems division on a number of weapon systems, usually on contract of the United States Air Force. Fowler had extensive experience investigating sightings and alleged encounters, and he would carefully listen to and record Jim's account. The Eagle Lake sighting, the

missing time and the shared nightmares. Fowler was immediately struck by the case, particularly the multiple witness aspect and the involvement of the identical twins. Believing the nightmares could possibly be bleed-through memories of a repressed event, Fowler suggested a course of action that would define the next chapter of the Alagash case, the highly controversial approach of hypnotic regression therapy. All four men agreed to participate. The sessions were conducted individually by Anthony Constantino, a licensed hypnotherapist. Crucially, the men agreed not to discuss the content of their hypnosis sessions with each other until everyone had completed theirs, aiming to preserve the independence of their recalled accounts. And what emerged under hypnosis was astonishing,

and perhaps more importantly, consistent. Here is Jim describing his memories under hypnosis. The first time they did the hypnotic regression session with me, they actually had a lot of problems because when I started remembering this stuff, especially what happened, what I remembered on the craft, I got became very, very agitated, extremely agitated to the point where they were worried I was going to have a seizure again. So they had to keep bringing me out and then taking me back and bringing me out, taking me back.

I did a sketch of it and it kind of looked like an ant-head. If you can imagine when an antin had looks like without the antennae and the mandibles. That's how I remembered seeing them. I remember they were very thin. They had very thin arms and necks. They were about as tall as we were. Some of them were a little taller. Some of them were a little shorter.

Very thin. They wore almost like a skin-tight. I remember the clothing they wore reminded me of like skiers clothing. You know, like skin-tight clothes that skiers wear, almost like a rubberized, or not really rubberized, almost like a spandex or something. I remember that. I remember some of the devices that they had used. But that was all. I mean, I was pretty much in a state of terror the whole time. That was my feeling. Well, every time I would try to remember something, all I remembered was these things are going to kill me. I got to get out of here. Jack would describe his memories under hypnosis as well.

I remembered a lot in the regression. I remembered that when the beam hit the canoe, and I was looking up at it. That's when they got us somehow. That light thing was some type of transport beam or I don't know what you'd call it. But the next thing I remembered was, under hypnosis, was lying on my back

only being able to move my eyes. I was like paralyzed, but I could move my eyes. And I recalled looking towards my left and just out of the periphery of my vision I could tell that the other three guys were in this room with me

but they were like immobile they were just sitting on this like bench or something it was something that came out of this wall or something and that's all I could see but I knew they were there and I was thinking

you know, this, there's something really wrong here. And why aren't those guys helping me? What is with these guys? They're just sitting there doing nothing, and I'm over here paralyzed. What is going on? And I'm trying to figure out the space I was in, but it was impossible.

It was so bright. It was this bright, bright space that I couldn't even see the walls. It was like a fog, But it wasn't fog. It was from these bright, bright lights. And then the next thing I noticed were like these kind of hazy silhouette kind of things

coming out of this haze towards me. And there were three of them. There was one on each side and one at my feet. And when they got close to me, me, then I could see what was going on and they weren't human. They were obviously inhuman somethings. And they were just standing there looking at me. And I was freaking out.

I mean, I was wishing I could get up and run, but I couldn't move. Each man independently recounted a narrative of abduction. They described being drawn up from their canoe into the hovering craft via the powerful beam of light. Inside, they found themselves in a stark, cold, brightly lit environment. Charlie would comment on being regressed. After what seemed like almost no time at all,

I was back on the lake re-experiencing for the first time in probably about 10 years, the aligash again. And as I was regressed, I recalled this encounter. And I was extraordinarily agitated, uncomfortable, scared, and in total disbelief. I didn't even believe the things that I was seeing, recalling. They were just too uncomfortable and too unbelievable to accept. After being

regressed, I was shaking. My head was just like a raging river of images and thoughts and these emotions that were coming up and, you know, of having seeing these beings, of being handled like a specimen in a laboratory, all these things were just really difficult to deal with. After the regression, I was totally silent for about. the next 24 hours. I came back to the house and the first thing I did was I grabbed a napkin that was the first piece of paper that I saw and I started sketching what I had recalled from this regression. When I came out of the regression I was asked, well, how do you feel? And I said, I don't know. You know, this is, I don't know what

think about all this. They said, well, how long do you think you were addressed? And I said, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 minutes. I said, no, you were under for over three hours. All four men recalled being forced to strip naked and finding themselves in a strange zombie-like state, feeling paralyzed or unable to resist commands that seem to come telepathically. They described undergoing intrusive and often painful physical examinations. The beings took samples, skin scrapings from their chests, their arms, their legs, and even extracting fluid samples including blood, urine, and semen. The procedures seemed focused on biology, particularly reproductive systems, and perhaps

neurological assessment or brain scanning as well. The classic television series, Unsolved Mysteries, would eventually feature a segment on the Alagash incident. And the fantastic saga of the Alagash Four, four young men who claimed that they were abducted by aliens during a camping trip in the main wilderness. Their chilling story may seem unbelievable, but more and more people have become convinced that such accounts are based in fact, not fiction. And they were provided with the actual audio recordings of the men's hypnosis sessions. Here, host Robert Stack presents excerpts from the sessions. What follows are excerpts from the original hypnosis sessions recorded in 1988?

They don't know what to do. I think they think I'm going to come after them. I feel like I want to. I feel like I want to, the first one that comes near me, I'm going to throttle them. That's what I'm going to do is throttle them. I don't like these things. I don't care where they come from. They should be doing this to people.

Jim's brother Jack found the faces terrifying. They're right there. Their face is right in my face. I don't know why. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what they want. They're saying things. They're explaining things with their eyes in my head.

They're saying, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. We won't harm you. They say, do what we say. Just do what we say. Charlie Fultz was the next to be examined. I'm afraid that it's like a doctor's office. It's cold like a doctor's office.

It's cold. They put the panel over your chest. And they scrape your arms, your chest, their legs, and thighs. We shouldn't be here. Let's keep thinking I want to be back in the canoe. Chuck Rack had a good view of what the aliens were doing to Charlie. See some sort of device on him. They've got a, it looks like a silvery,

and it looks like it's got curves on it. It's almost like it sucks, something. something. He's got his head tipped way back. It's almost like he's in pain. We're just there. We can't help him. We're just, all we can do is watch him. The men's descriptions of the entities performing these procedures were remarkably similar. Small, slender beings, often gray-skinned, with large, hairless heads dominated by huge, dark, almond-shaped or metallic eyes. They noted long, thin necks and limbs, and hands with only four long insect-like or spider-like fingers, lacking an opposable thumb.

It should also be noted that all the men were called telepathic messages like, don't be afraid, and just do what we say. When Raymond Fowler finally brought the four men together after all the sessions were complete, the men were stunned. As they shared their hypnotic recollections, they discovered their accounts matched in intricate detail. They found themselves finishing each other's sentences, confirming shared moments within the terrifying ordeal. And all of their respective drawings of certain aspects of the beings, the craft, the devices, they all lined up in startling ways. It was hard to ignore that either these men concocted a well-rehearsed story, or perhaps even more extraordinary. They were all telling the truth. Beyond the consistency of the narratives recovered through hypnosis and the corroborating artwork that the men would provide,

steps were taken to bolster the credibility of the forewitnesses themselves. Meanwhile, there were concerns about shared delusion, mental, instability or even outright fabrication when it came to alien abduction accounts. To address these concerns, the Alagash for underwent further scrutiny. Firstly, psychiatric evaluations were conducted. Independent mental health professionals assessed each man and concluded that they were all mentally stable. There were no signs of psychosis, schizophrenia, or other conditions that might readily explain their shared bizarre experiences as hallucinations or delusions. This finding was crucial in countering arguments that the men were simply mentally unwell.

Secondly, each of the four men submitted to polygraph examinations. After our regressions, we were taken individually for a series of polygraph tests, and they were given by a man who, by the name of Ernie Rehnie. Reid, who was a polygraph expert for the Massachusetts State Police Department. He had formerly been a polygraph technician and expert for the FBI. And when he retired from working with the FBI, he worked with the Massachusetts State Police. Ernie ran us through the polygraph hurdles and obstacle course. And after we finished our exams, he said, well, I said, well, what do you make of this?

He said, well, looking at the results, he said, you're being earnest, you're being forthright. And, you know, you've passed this polygraph test. According to the polygraph expert, it wasn't just Charlie who passed the examination. It was all four men who passed. Now, it's important to be clear about what polygraphs can and cannot do. They are not infallible truth machines, and their results are generally not admissible as definitive proof in court. They measure physiological responses like heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, based on the theory that deception causes stress which alters these responses.

Passing a polygraph doesn't necessarily mean an event happened exactly as described, but it strongly suggests that the person believes they are telling the truth. In the context of the Aligash case, the fact that all four men passed indicated that, as far as the tests could determine, they genuinely believed in the reality of their memories. This added another layer of intrigue and made dismissing their story as a simple hoax even more difficult. Raymond Fowler compiled his extensive research, including hypnosis transcripts, and the men's drawings and accounts into his 1993 book, The Alagash Abductions, Undeniable Evidence of Alien Intervention. The title itself reflected Fowler's conviction, and the book became a bit of the book.

a key text for those interested in the case and the abduction phenomenon in general. Soon, the four friends became reluctant celebrities, known collectively as the Alagash Four. They were invited to speak at UFO conferences, sharing their experiences with audiences eager for first-hand accounts of extraterrestrial encounters. They even made appearances on national television talk shows, famously including the Joan Rivers show. Here's an actual clip from the Joan Rivers interview with the Al-A-Gash 4, where they faced questions about their ordeal before a mainstream audience. August, 1976, four young men set out on a two-week, happy canoe trip in Northern Maine.

Little did they know that that trip would change their lives absolutely forever. Not only did they see a UFO, but 12 years later, under hypnosis, they discovered that they had actually been on board the spacecraft and had been suggesting. to a series of physical experimentations by alien beings. Here to tell their story for the first time on television and proud of it on our show first are Jack Weiner, his brother Jim Weiner, Charlie Foltz, and Chuck Rock. Please welcome the Lord.

Now you see this fall of light. What came next? Well, we were watching it. It had no sound, we were downwind from it. No noise whatsoever. No worrying, no humming, no purring, no sound of wind. absolutely nothing and it was huge it was as big as a two-story building perfectly spherical do you talk to each other you say oh my god yeah we were like holy mackerel what is this and

we knew that it was what we had seen two days before it's the same quality of light so at first we thought well geez is it a weather balloon no it doesn't look like a weather balloon it's too big we thought well it can't be a helicopter there's no noise so i mean we were like geez that's got to be a ufo what else could it possibly be I mean, I would be in that water and swimming ashore like Esther Williams. It was a real... I mean, we had mixed feelings. I mean, you're literally awed by this sight.

Because while you're looking at this, you're thinking, you're going through all this thing, what is this? It's not this, it's not that. Sooner or later, you come to the conclusion, well, it's got to be a UFO. That part of it is, it leaves you awestruck. Then what happened? Do you remember at that point? We have a period of time where we are very confused or can't remember how we got to shore and how we got to camp. So the next thing you all logically remembered was being on the beach.

Being on the beach. Watching it. We got to the beach. We got out of the canoe. We turned around. It was right in front of us. We're going to talk about what happened and how you all really found out what happened years and years later. And we'll be back because 12 years later, 12 years later, they found out that they really were abducted by you.

Aliens, fascinating choice. Here is Charlie detailing the experience and what happened when he went back to work after the Joan Rivers show. And we went on this program and Joan Rivers was going on about our polygraph exams and our experience. She was an incredibly receptive individual which surprised us. She was a very gracious woman and very deeply interested, or she projected that to us, very deeply interested in our experience. After that, you know, we had, you know, I didn't tell anybody that I worked with that I was going down to New York City to be on the Joan River show.

My boss knew, one of my coworkers knew, because I didn't share this with anybody at work because I worked in a medical teaching hospital. We were affiliated with Harvard Medical School, BU Medical School, and Tufts School of Medicine. And these are some of the most prestigious medical education facilities in the United States. And, you know, these people are really like straight-nosed, no nonsense. And so I didn't want my experience to be shared with them because I was already accepted as a professional, treated as a professional, and my work was very professional.

So there I am. there we are on Joan Rivers show sharing our experience. Unknown to me was it was a live television broadcast. And at the hospital that I worked at, they have television sets in all the patient waiting areas in the lobbies. And boom, there I am on the Joan River show. My co-workers seen me. Within minutes, every television in patients' rooms where there were no patient, the nursing staff, the medical staff, engineering, housekeeping.

I mean, every section of the medical facility I worked at was now aware of Charlie Fultz having a UFO encounter. It's all unknown. I come back to Boston. I go to work. And I had probably about 10 guys, employees, all veterans, many of them in the Air Force, all come up to me and share things of high strangeness that they saw while they were in the service. The media attention brought validation for. from believers and researchers within the UFO community.

But it also exposed the men to widespread public ridicule, skepticism, and accusations of fabrication, forever linking their names to one of America's most bizarre and controversial tales of alien abduction. And as the Alagash story gained notoriety, it inevitably attracted intense scrutiny and skepticism. While believers pointed toward the consistency, and polygraph results, critics highlighted several significant points of contention, questioning the

validity of the abduction claims. The most prominent criticism centered on the use of hypnotic regression itself. Skeptics argue that hypnosis is not a reliable tool for retrieving accurate memories, especially those related to traumatic or unusual events. Instead, they contend that hypnosis can easily easily create false memories through suggestion, intentional or unintentional from a therapist, or through a process called confabulation, where the subject fills in memory gaps with plausible, sometimes elaborate, but ultimately fabricated details. Tied to this is the argument of popular culture influence. By 1988, when the hypnosis sessions with the men occurred, the idea of alien abduction, particularly, involved in the

The idea of alien abduction, particularly involving gray aliens and medical examinations, was already circulating in books, movies, and television. Skeptics proposed that the men's recovered memories might have been unconsciously shaped by these existing narratives, leading them to recall experiences that aligned with established alien abduction tropes. Finally, while psychiatric evaluations deemed them unstable, skeptics don't entirely rule out the possible. rule out the possibility of a shared psychological phenomenon, or even a deliberate, well-rehearsed hoax. Though the latter seems less likely given the polygraph results suggesting genuine belief. The core skepticism often returns to the unreliable nature of the memories themselves,

especially those recovered through hypnosis, years after the alleged event. No matter the case, the men would stick to their story for, many, many years. But that would all change in 2016, when one of the men would come forward and drop a bombshell that would put the entire Al-A-Gash incident into question. For decades, the Al-A-Gash-4

presented a united front. Their shared story, a cornerstone of multiple witness abduction claims. But in 2016, a full 40-year, years after the incident, and nearly 30 years after the hypnosis sessions, Chuck Rack would publicly declare that the abduction part of the story was a complete fabrication. Now, Rack did not completely abandon the story altogether. He continued to insist that the group had witnessed strange unidentified object over Eagle Lake, as well as another citing two

nights earlier. What Rack rejected, however, were the later claims that the men had been taken aboard a craft and subjected to examinations by alien beings. He argued that the elaborate abduction narrative, much of which emerged during hypnosis sessions involving the other three witnesses, was not real at all. Instead, he characterized it as an exercise in imaginative storytelling. Rack admitted that he initially supported the story because he believed it would lead to financial success. According to Rack, the group had discussed the possibility of making millions from the case, although he later acknowledged they earned very little. He also claimed that the group had been smoking hashish,

specifically Afghan Temple Ball, on the night of the main sighting, directly contradicting the long-held assertion by the others that they had consumed nothing stronger than a couple beers during the trip. Chuck Rack's reversal sent shockwaves through the UFO research community. Skeptics immediately seized upon his statements as evidence that the entire abduction story had been fabricated. While supporters were left struggling to reconcile why one of the four central witnesses would dramatically change his account, after so many years. The remaining witnesses strongly rejected Rack's claims and accused him of lying. They portrayed him as a bitter and resentful individual following a personal falling out with a group. Charlie Fultz described Rack

as volatile and emotionally unstable while also claiming that Rack had been barred from certain UFO conventions because of his behavior. Jim Winer suggested that Rack's bitterness stemmed from feeling abandoned by his former friends. The three men also claimed that it had actually been Chuck Rack, who first suggested exploiting the case by manufacturing controversy in hopes of becoming wealthy, an idea they insisted that they refused unethical grounds. UFO researcher Raymond Fowler also supported their position, noting that Chuck Rack appeared to struggle during hypnosis sessions.

and lacked the vivid, detailed recollections experienced by the others. Chuck Rack himself would acknowledge the falling out with his friends, stating that once he had been pushed out of the group, he finally felt free to tell what he believed was the truth. The dispute added a deeply human layer of conflict, resentment, and uncertainty to an already controversial and deeply puzzling case. Despite the controversy ignited by Chuck Rack's 2016 recantation, the other three members of the original Alagash Four have never wavered from their story.

They continue to stand firmly by their account of being abducted and examined by extraterrestrial beings on that August night in 1976. They maintain that their story is true, often countering accusations of fabrication by stating that they had little to gain financially and so much to lose in terms of public ridicule and personal peace. For the remaining three men, the experience wasn't just a story. It was a life-altering event with tangible lingering effects. The recurring nightmares and persistent anxiety are testaments to the deep psychological impact.

regardless of whether one attributes it to alien encounters or some other form of trauma. The emotional toll of recounting the humiliating details of the alleged examinations, compounded by public skepticism, was clearly significant and left an undeniable mark on each of the men in many different ways. Perhaps on a more optimistic and almost esoteric level, the twins, Jim and Jack, would both say that after the abduction experience, something was almost changed or unlocked within them artistically. Jim, having studied ceramics, and Jack, having studied painting,

would go on to describe the changes that occurred in detail. Immediately after that incident on Eagle Lake, I started having these very weird, I call them insights. I kept having these kinds of things over and over and over again, and I realized that I could use the processes involved, these natural processes that occur in nature, in the clay medium,

either as techniques to form clay pieces and create surface texture and integrate the firing techniques, all together so that they were all totally integrated. So when we returned to Boston, I started working in this vein, trying to figure out how to work these processes of nature into my artwork,

and that's what I spent the next two years doing. Before we went to the Alagash, I was in art school, and my major was painting, painting and that was a very traditional painter. Landscapes is what I was into. Landscapes and still lives, you know, setting things up, painting pictures, that kind of stuff. It was very traditional. Immediately, in fact, after the Alagash, I never painted again. I never used paint. Immediately after I came back, I became obsessed with mathematics and geometry and trigonometry and trigonometry. and four-dimensional physics and all this weird stuff.

I don't know where it was coming from, but I was obsessed with it. I started making these constructions out of paper and string and tax, and it was three-dimensional math. It was all three-dimensional mathematics. And I was folding paper. I was drawing these mathematical patterns that were based on, And I didn't understand why. I was a, it was a compulsion.

I was making these things constantly. I mean, my whole life became obsessed with this mathematics. I became obsessive, compulsive about ancient temple architecture. Somehow I had it in my head and I don't know where this came from, from, but I just became obsessed with the belief that ancient temple sites were actually macrochip technology. They had, they functioned as macrochip computer, almost like a computer motherboard. And I've been, and I just became obsessed with this, and I'm still obsessed with it. So, were these gifts or obsessions brought on by the abductors themselves?

Had something been unintentionally unlocked in their brains? Or was it all pure coincidence? Only the brothers knew for sure. Or, perhaps the answer to that, like most creative inspiration, is better left unknown. So where does this leave us with the allegation abduction? It undoubtedly remains one of the most compelling, complex, and controversial cases in the history of euphology. Its fame or infamy rests on the powerful combination of factors. Four seemingly credible witnesses, initially consistent accounts recovered independently through hypnotic regression,

detailed artistic renderings, past polygraph tests, and the tangible mystery of the missing time suggested by the campfire site. For decades, the case stood as a benchmark example of a multiple participant abduction event. Yet the story is undeniably complicated. The inherent questions surrounding the reliability of hypnosis for factual recall looms large. The potential influence of cultural narratives about aliens also can't be dismissed. But most significantly, the dramatic recantation of Chak fundamentally challenged the narrative's integrity, introducing a plausible alternative motivation

like financial gain and personal resentment. The Alagash abduction thus becomes a fascinating case study, not just in the possibility of alien encounters, but in the very nature of memory, trauma, belief, and storytelling. Was it truly, quote, undeniable evidence of alien intervention, as Raymond Fowler's book title proclaims? Or is it a powerful testament to how shared experience, psychological stress, controversial therapeutic techniques, and perhaps even deliberate embellishment can construct an extraordinary

narrative? For believers and skeptics alike, Charlie Fultz would have a parting message in his interview on unsolved mysteries. This happened. If you'd believe it, that's all right. If you don't believe it, I don't care. I don't care because it did. The man gives no F's, and I respect that. No matter what, the allegation abduction continues to fascinate,

because it pushes against the boundaries of our accepted reality. It forces us to consider possibilities that are, unsettling, to be honest. It's a story woven into the fabric of abduction lore, almost like a campfire tale writ large under the vast dark skies of the main wilderness. And it prompts us to look up and wonder what mysteries might lay hidden just beyond that tree line, just beyond our understanding, and also somewhere in the skies. Special thanks to Alejandro Ruffalo. and Open Minds for the majority of audio clips in this episode, you can find all of their work at openminds.tv. If you enjoyed this episode of Summer in the Skies, be sure to rate and review

the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It truly helps us gain visibility and find new curious minds and listeners. You can also help support us by joining Patreon by becoming a YouTube channel member or by subscribing through Apple Premium for ad free and bonus content. Links to all three of these options can be found in the show notes along with all of our socials. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the sky. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty.

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