CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH NORTHERN SKIES

Close Encounters with Northern Skies

Magnetic North, Winter 1985. pg. 10

 

                So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk

                Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming.

                Till having failed at hugger-mugging farming

                He burned his house down for the fire insurance

                And spent the proceeds on a telescope

                To satisfy a lifelong curiosity

                About our place in the infinities.

                                -Robert Frost "The Star-splitter"

 

     To the informed observer, the North Country sky on a cloudless winter night is an epic adventure.  The accompanying articles introduce the reader to this adventure: some of the Facts...and some of the Mysteries of the Northern Skies.

     For the Facts, meteorologist Mark Breen, Vermont Public Radio's "Eye in the Sky," offers a mini-sky chart that will prompt the novice star-gazer to speculate "about our place in the infinities" and, with luck, find Halley's Comet.  Mr. Breen is attached to the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury.  Consider visiting the Planetarium's special Halley's Comet exhibit - a perfect outing for those who prefer to star-gaze in toasty comfort.

     For the Mysteries of the Northern skies, Floyd Ramsey visits Betty Hill to obtain an update on her "Close Encounter of the Third Kind," the 1961 UFO adventure during which Betty and her late husband, Barney, claimed to have contacted extraterrestrial beings in the White Mountains.  We thank Mrs. Hill, "a spry, intelligent, incredibly energetic little lady," for her time and patience.  Because reported sightings of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are so common in the North Country, we thought her story deserved re-telling.  New Hampshire is said to rank fourth in the nation in such reported sightings.

     No, we have never seen a UFO, but we contacted several North Country citizens who have reported seeing these unexplained objects and we are convinced of the sincerity and sobriety of these witnesses.  Typically, a witness reports a single experience, is reticent about it and is not a "UFO buff."  All of these people hope that an official investigation will someday provide a logical explanation for what they saw.  The "visual contacts" they reports, so-called "Close Encounters of the First Kind," are very similar to sightings reported elsewhere in the world and described in the UFO literature.  (Rarer "Encounters of the Second Kind" leave physical evidence of the episode.)  The frequency of these sightings in the North Country is uncanny.

     Why so many?  UFO buffs theorize that these objects are visitors from outer space and that the White Mountain National Forest is a perfect staging area for an alien fleet:  remote and unpopulated.  Pursuing this extraterrestrial theory, some speculate that the geology of the area - nearly every mineral on earth can be found in the western Maine and northern New Hampshire - makes it a prime region for the collection of specimens.  A few say that the mountains contain a substance that fuels these craft.  Then, as Betty Hill says, the space travelers might just like the mountain scenery.  If true, that is ample proof of the intelligence and advancement of alien civilizations!

     With that in mind, let's put aside "hugger-mugger farming" and enjoy the North Country sky "as-is."

The Identifiable Objects - stars, comets, planets and galaxies - are compelling enough, as Brad McLaughlin said:

 

                "The best thing that we're put here for's to see;

                The strongest thing that's given us to see width

                A telescope.  Someone in every town

                Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.

                In Littleton it may as well be me."

                After such loose talk it was no surprise

                When he did what he did and burned his house down.

 

[From The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem.  Copyright 1923, (c) 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Copyright 1951 by Robert Frost.  Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston.]