First Recorded UFO Sighting In America

First Recorded UFO Sighting In America

Date: March 1639

Location: Muddy River, MA

America's first recorded UFO was sighted late one night over the Charles River in Muddy River, MA.

Lights sped back and forth across the Charles River from Back Bay Fens to Charlestown.

Governor John Winthrop made an entry in his journal regarding this strange event.

This account was later published in The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649, the witness and incident were described as follows:

One night in March of 1639 James Everell, a sober, discreet man, and 2 companions boarded a little boat and set out for a trip on the Muddy River.

They had been moving downstream for about a mile when the night's mysterious events began.

The 3 men were without warning, confronted with the appearance of a huge, bright light hovering in the sky.

The light flamed up as it hovered and appeared to be about 10' square.

As they watched, the light contracted into the figure of a swine, and moved swift as an arrow in the direction of Charlton, now Charlestown.

For 2 or 3 hours, the unidentified light moved back and forth in the sky between Everell's location and Charlton.

When the light finally disappeared, the men noticed to their dismay that they had somehow been carried against the tide back to the place where they had started their trip.

Governor Winthrop noted:

Diverse other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place.

Governor Winthrop appears to have been puzzled by the occurrence, devoting no less than 2 separate notes about it in the index to his history.

The first merely gives a lengthy rendering of the sobriety and piety of the primary witness James Everell, a good man of reputation, activity and good estate, and another detailed note speculating whether the sighting was due to demonic influences or was ghost lights or will o' the wisps, an early version of swamp gas.

It's worth noting that the figure in the sky appeared to turn into the figure of a swine.

Everell was a leather dresser, meaning he worked with the hides of animals, tanned them, and turned them into leather goods.

The swine or pig was the only shape in his mind that he could relate to.

A far as legs of the swine, is it possible that these were struts or landing gear of a craft?

Winthrop's account also claims the event lasted 2 or 3 hours, which rules out any chance of the object being a meteor.

1638 was almost 150 years before the first balloon flights, so the possibility of the object being man made is also ruled out.

The witness also claims that their small boat was pushed back against the tide about one mile, back to where they first set their boat in the water, while they watched the object in the sky.

This UFO close encounter may have been more close than originally thought.

As to Winthrop's trust of the witness, stating that he was a sober, discreet man, he also included a footnote about Everell

He was a man of reputation, activity and good estate in Boston many years afterwards.

With his wife, Elizabeth, he had been received into Boston church July 20, 1634, being Nos. 239, 240.

His will, made December 11, 1682, proved February 2, following, is found in our Probate Registry, vol. VI. 400.

The following footnote about the sighting was added in the 1825 edition of Winthrop's Journal:

This account of an ignis fatuus, pale light over marshy ground, may easily be believed on testimony less respectable than that which was adduced.

Some operation of the devil, or other power beyond the customary agents of nature, was probably imagined by the relaters and hearers of that age, and the wonder of being carried a mile against the tide became important corroboration of the imagination.

Perhaps they were wafted, carry lightly, during the 2 or 3 hours' astonishment, for so moderate a distance, by the wind, but, if this suggestion be rejected, we might suppose, that the eddy, whirlpool, flowing always, in our rivers, contrary to the tide in the channel, rather than the meteor, carried their lighter back.

Muddy River is located at Back Bay Fens, opposite Cambridge, MA, and diagonally across from Charlestown.

Back Bay wasn't filled in at that time, and a large area of open water existed in the river that was then called Broad Bay.

The distance to Charlton would have been more than 2 miles.

The Charles River, prior to being dammed, had great tidal flow, and would drain much of Back Bay each day, and then replenish it.

Muddy River likely had a larger volume of water flowing through it in 1639, but it is unlikely that a great eddy existed near its mouth.

Thus, it is unusual for witnesses to assert they were unmoved by tidal flow, in a small boat for more than 2 hours.

Muddy River, the hamlet, eventually became the separate town of Brookline.

Pigs and other cattle were stored there during summer while corn was growing in Boston.

It is safe to deduce that the UFO witnesses had seen or heard swine on the same day they observed the great light.

Thus, the lights resembled a common animal, making it probable they saw ignis fatuus mirage phenomena in the darkness.

In any case, the event was observed by many people, and noteworthy enough for the Puritan Governor to document it in his private journal.

It's also interesting that Winthrop, an overtly religious man, would summarily dismiss any supernatural origins to the story he heard.

Perhaps a glowing, flying pig didn't fit into his understanding of scripture, so his thoughts didn't go in that direction.

Besides the one paragraph and 2 footnotes, Winthrop writes nothing more on the subject of North America's first UFO sighting and possible alien abduction.

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