Since the blockbuster film Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977, people around the world have been searching the skies for life of people outside our planet. In some ways, the movie gave the UFO movement a bit of legitimacy, as it was seen by many to be filled with kooks and crazies at the time. After the film’s release, nearly everyone knew that a “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” meant actual contact with an alien.
Alien-human contact began to be discussed more earnestly on shows that featured paranormal themes such as In Search of… And people started to seriously consider that we might not be alone. Attention was given to some previous cases of alien sightings, with one in particular receiving significant consideration—the Allagash abductions.
In late August of 1976, brothers Jim and Jack Weiner and their friends Charles Foltz and Charles Rak were camping in the wilderness near Allagash, Maine, on the United States-Canada border. On the night of August 20, the four college students decided to go for a moonlit canoe trip in two separate canoes. Then, all hell broke loose.
The men left a large bonfire burning that could be seen for miles; presumably, it burned for several hours. The men claimed that, while they were at the middle of the lake, they saw a large shinning object hovering just over the tree line a few hundred yards in front of them. Foltz stated that he took a flashlight and flashed SOS to the object, which responded by shining a blue light on the two canoes. The men claim they then began furiously rowing back to their camp.
The next thing they remembered was being on shore. It was like they had lost a few minutes, no big deal. But when they looked at their bonfire, they noticed it was just smoldering coals.
Could they really have been gone for hours?
They left their campsite the next day and asked a park ranger about the lights. The ranger claimed that they were searchlights, so the men went home and basically forgot about the entire situation. The four of them went through college, got jobs and married, but kept in contact.
Then, twelve years later, Jim Weiner suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him with epilepsy and strange dreams about bizarre-looking little creatures doing experiments on him and his friends from the camping trip. Jim’s doctors didn’t believe him, but as he told more and more people about his story, he eventually met some people who seemed to have the answer.
They told Jim that it sounded like he and his friends had been abducted by aliens.
Jim and the others were put into contact with part-time hypnotist Anthony Constantino, who put all four men under for a session.
Under hypnosis, all four men claimed to have seen the same thing. The blue light beamed them onboard a spaceship where they were experimented on by “Gray aliens,” who conducted medical experiments on them. Jack Wiener also had a mysterious growth removed from one of his legs that seemed to confirm the story.
It all seemed very good, perhaps a little too good.
The fact that all four related the exact same story began to raise suspicion. Witnesses to the same crime often see parts of it differently, and yet all four men seemed to have the same perspective of the incident. Others pointed out how unreliable hypnosis is and that Constantino was an English teacher by profession and a UFO enthusiast, making him far from objective.
Finally, as pressure over the case’s validity began to mount, Rak claimed in a 2016 interview that the abduction claim was a hoax. Rak claims that the group did see something that night that could be classified as a UFO as they were fishing on Big Eagle Lake, but that the abduction never happened. He says that he never recalled anything about an abduction while under hypnosis; he and the others perpetrated the fraudulent story simply for monetary reasons.
“The reason I supported the story at first was because I wanted to make money,” said Rak.
For their part, the other three men maintain that the abduction did happen.