Diary Describes UFO Seen In 1808
by Hal Stokes

Back in 1808 in Camden, Maine, there certainly were no weather balloons or Air Force jets to be confused with flying saucers. George Washington's soldiers had barely gotten back home to their farms. But something odd happened one summer night that year which was recorded in the diary of a Potsdam man's great-grandmother.

Today the passage is interpreted by his wife, an historian who is studying the diary, as a first-hand account of a UFO sighting in the early 19th century.

"I thought she was describing a UFO when I first read it," said Dr. Judith Becker Ranlett, an historian who teaches at the State University College at Potsdam. "If she had seen something normal, she would have attempted to explain it as a natural phenomenon," according to Dr. Ranlett, who is using the diary as the basis for scholarly research on women's history.

The diary was written by Cynthia Everett, a Massachusetts-born school teacher who taught in Maine during the early 1800s. Born in Rutland, Mass., in 1785, she moved to Maine in 1804 with her family and kept the diary between 1804 and 1815, the year she married. The diary remained in the family.

The past year, Dr. Ranlett undertook the task of transcribing the manuscript into 600 typewritten pages. It was then that she first read the passage that she believes describes a UFO sighting. The account is written in a firm hand on yellowing rag paper that is in remarkably good condition. The entry begins as a new paragraph to her recollections of the events of July 22, 1808; it is quite unrelated to the passage that proceeds it.

"About 10 o'clock I saw a very strange appearance. It was a light which proceeded from the East. At the first sight, I thought it was a Metier, but from its motion I soon perceived it was not. I[t] seem to dart at first as quickly as light; and appeared to be in the Atmosphere, but lowered toward the ground and kept on at an equal distance sometimes ascending and sometimes descending. It moved round in the then visable Horison, (it was not very light) and then returned back again, nor did we view it till it was extinguished."

That is the only passage in the entire diary that mentions the sighting, according to Dr. Ranlett. She finds it significant that Cynthia Everett did not explain what she witnessed as a natural phenomenon, since she was well-educated and had first-hand knowledge about the night sky. "She was the kind of person who would have explained it as a natural phenomenon, if she could have," said Dr. Ranlett, "In fact she did, her first thought was that it was a meteor."

Cynthia Everett was a woman who was well aware of the occurrences of nature according to Dr. Ranlett. In her diary she recorded earthquakes and the appearance of a comet. Her son became the captain of a clipper ship and navigated by the stars on a ship out of Thomaston, Maine. Dr. Ranlett is quick to point out that she herself is personally not a fan of the extraterrestrial. "I have no feelings one way or the other on UFOs," she said.

The sighting must have been at night, Dr. Ranlett reasoned, because Cynthia would have been teaching school at 10 a.m. and besides she always made her entries in the diary just before she went to bed. Dr. Ranlett said she determined that the sighting was in Camden through the various people that are referred to on that day. Cynthia was 24 years old when she wrote about seeing the strange light. She was single but was living, as teachers did, with a family in the area of the school. She changed her lodgings about once a week, according to Dr. Ranlett.

The schoolteacher had a good education for the period, Dr. Ranlett said. She had attended Leicester Academy at Leicester, Mass., one of the few truly coeducational schools where women went to class with men. The diary was written until Cynthia was in her 30th year. Entries cease three days after her marriage to John Ranlett, a widower with six children. He later died, but she remarried and the diary went to her soon, who kept it in the family. Her grandson, who became a lawyer, did some work transcribing it about 1880. The manuscript was bound in a handmade cover made of cloth backed with newspaper.

The diary belongs to Dr. Ranlett's father-in-law, who loaned it to her. She said that she is not nearly as interested in the passage about the strange light as she is about the revelations of the woman earning her own living in the early 19th century.

[Source]

Maine Government News

Second Rabid Cat in Norridgewock

November 8, 2007
Human Services

The continued incidence of rabies among domestic animals has prompted the State’s Health Officer to remind Mainers to be aware of animals acting aggressively or not exhibiting their normal behavior, and to vaccinate their pets.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dora Anne Mills, MD, MPH 207-287-3270
Or John Martins, Director
Employee and Public Communications (207) 287-5012

AUGUSTA – The continued incidence of rabies among domestic animals has prompted the State’s Health Officer to remind Mainers to be aware of animals acting aggressively or not exhibiting their normal behavior, and to vaccinate their pets. A rabid cat from Norridgewock was identified earlier this week, this is the second rabid cat from Norridgewock this year and the third rabid domestic animals in the state.

On November 5, an outdoor, unvaccinated cat was killed by Norridgewock Animal Control after it bit two residents and exposure another person to its saliva. The animal was submitted to the Maine Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory and tested positive for rabies on November 6. To prevent human rabies infection, those bitten will receive a series of rabies shots. Several other domestic pets that had recent close contact with the rabid cat will be quarantined to assure they are not infected.

“Rabies is a fatal disease that is commonly found among wild animals in Maine.” said Dr. Dora Ann Mills, State Health Officer and Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC). “We have reason to be concerned about rabies among domestic animals. A rabid domestic animal is more likely to have contact with people, increasing the chances that the virus will spread.”

To date, three domestic cats have tested positive for rabies, two in the town of Norridgewock and one in Greene; during 2006, six domestic cats tested positive for rabies. An average of one domestic animal per year has tested positive in Maine since 2002. “Maine law requires that all dogs and cats be vaccinated because they are hunters by nature and may have contact with wild animals at high risk for rabies,” said Dr. Mills. Dogs and cats may be vaccinated for rabies after three months of age.

Livestock owners should also consult with their practicing veterinarians about vaccinating their animals for rabies. Currently there are rabies vaccines approved for horses, cattle and sheep, added Dr. Don Hoenig, State Veterinarian with the Maine Department of Agriculture.

Any bite, scratch or other exposure to an animal’s saliva may put a person at risk of rabies, if the animal is rabid. It’s recommended that the biting animal be captured and the incident should be reported to a local animal control officer and a health care provider. For more information on animal rabies in Maine, see the Maine CDC website: http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh/ddc/rabies_surveillance.htm or call 1-800-821-5821.

HAUNTED MAINE THE BOOTHBAY OPERA HOUSE BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE

THE BOOTHBAY OPERA HOUSE

The Boothbay Opera House building was originally constructed back in 1894 and for many years, it housed the local headquarters for the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order in line with the Freemasons. Later on, the building was turned into a theater and has hosted every story of entertainment imaginable for this small Maine town, including minstrel shows; plays; movies; town meetings and basketball games.... and if you believe the stories, it has also played host to a ghost.

No one knows who this resident spirit may be, although some have an idea, but he is said to haunt the second floor room that was the meeting place of the Knights of Pythias. Since 1949, visitors to the building have spoken of a strange presence in the room. It is usually said that the piano that is located here will play by itself, as if some spectral piano player is manipulating the keys. Different witnesses also recounted the same thing happening in 1957, during a town celebration and again in 1977.

Some believe that the ghost may be that of a man named Earl Cliff, who played the instrument for programs in the theater in the early 1900’s, but no one really knows for sure.

Boothbay Harbor is located east of Brunswick, Maine on the southwestern coast.

Copyright 1998 by Troy Taylor

FARMINGTON - Robert Brackley Jr. believes an old beehive discovered in a house he and his crew are dismantling was man-made and built into a wall of the structure, which he suspects was built in the late 1800s.

Brackley, of New Vineyard, the owner of Brackley's Nostalgic Restorations, is dismantling what was known as the Thomas House on the campus of the University of Maine at Farmington. The wood flooring, bricks and other material from the old house, which is located behind the Psychology House, a former church on Main Street, will be used in Brackley's restoration projects.

Brackley climbed up the stairs to the second floor of the house Thursday, sweat dripping from his face. He set up a ladder on a piece of wood spanning several floor joists before he climbed up next to the formerly active beehive built between wall studs near a chimney.

When they had started to tear the roof off the building, Brackley said, they found some boards that had some honeycomb on them. He began to wonder if they had bees, since he had raised them before and this was a tell-tale sign.

With more boards removed and more light let in, they could see what looked like a built-in hive.

He believes the house was built between 1870 and 1890.

All the evidence points to the beehive being built into the wall. It was active more than a hundred years ago, he said.

It was so symmetrical it looks like it was man-made, Brackley said.

There is a wooden plug near the bottom of the hive, firmly set in the hole Thursday, that would have been how the bees entered the hive, Brackley said. Honeycomb was still on the outside of the hive before it was torn down.

"It seems bizarre," he said, but it looks like the people built it into the wall and when they wanted honey, they would go up and get it.
Maine Gal's Blog

Body part a hand-me-down, police told

WALDOBORO — Contractors working on an old house
found a human hand that police later confirmed was severed 50
to 80 years ago, but it's still unclear whose hand it was and why
it was there.

Painters working for Bo Jespersen, who renovates and sells old
homes, discovered what appeared to be a man's hand in June.

"They called me and said they'd been losing sleep over
something they'd found," Jespersen said. When he saw the hand,
Jespersen was struck by its size, with fingers about an inch and
a half longer than his own.

"It's huge," he said. "And he didn't cut his nails."

The wrist portion appeared jagged, Jespersen said, as if the
hand had been removed violently, and 6 to 8 inches of what
appeared to be tendons were looped around it.

The mysterious body part was discovered by Derek Levasseur of
Clinton while he was painting what's known as the Depot Road
house, which was built in 1910. During a break, Levasseur was
in the garage looking at a small wood-burning stove, which
Jespersen had agreed he could have.

On top of the stove was a box, which Levasseur opened. At first
glance at the hand, Levasseur and his brother concluded it was
not real. It had a look of dried rawhide.

"We thought it was a prop," he said. "I touched the fingers on it,
and I thought, 'It can't be real.' "

Levasseur photographed the hand with his cell phone camera
and e-mailed the image to his wife, who works in Waterville at
the district attorney's office. While she was looking at it on her
computer, a retired Maine state trooper saw the image and said
he thought it was a real hand.

Levasseur called Jespersen, who contacted the woman who had
owned the house. He also called the state police, who came to
the house, tested ashes in the stove and interviewed the former
owner.

Police concluded that the hand had been ripped off 50 to 80
years ago. They also seized the hand because it's illegal to
possess such a body part.

The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a
man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his
father having the hand.

"She had heard it was from a farming accident," Jespersen said.