A lot of people use the word paranormal when they are talking about strange modern phenomena. 'Paranormal' sounds more scientific than 'folklore,' and I suppose it suits the technological era that we live in. But I don't think it's dismissive to lump modern paranormal phenomena with older folklore. Both terms refer to the same thing: weird activity or stories that don't comfortably fit in other more reputable categories like history, science, or religion.
Anyway, regardless of terminology, on December 1, 2014 someone stopped at a traffic light in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and saw a UFO. They didn't see a metallic spaceship or anything of that sort, but instead some mysterious lights in the sky. Shining through the cloud cover they could see a large white circle of lights. Sometimes the lights had a bluish tinge, sometimes pinkish, but mostly they remained white.
There was an additional light that rotated around the circle of lights, but the circle itself stayed stationary.
It stayed in the same place with the bigger light just rotating around the circle of stationary light. I kept trying to see if there was a craft there, but could not make out any shape of a craft as this was just above the cloud cover. My first thought is that whoever it was must have thought they were hiding above the cloud, but the lights were clearly visible.
When the traffic light turned green the witness drive forward and pulled off the road, but when he looked back up the UFO had disappeared.
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| Carl Jung in 1910 (from Wikipedia) |
It's a cool sighting! I don't know what UFOs are, but people have been seeing them for centuries. There are many theories about what they are, but the psychiatrist Carl Jung might be able to shed light (forgive the pun) on this particular incident. Jung claimed there were similarities between UFOs and the many circular holy symbols in world religions. For example, he drew connections between saints' halos, Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, the wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, and modern UFOs. Jung claimed all of these were mystical experiences, and that circular shapes symbolized spiritual wholeness.
I like that theory, but what would he say about the large number of triangular UFOs seen in New Hampshire? Mark Podell, an investigator with MUFON (Mutual UFO Network), investigates 5 - 10 New Hampshire UFO sightings each month. Many people see circular UFOs, but many others see triangular lights in the sky. If you want to see one yourself, you might want to visit Franconia Notch at night. Podell says that's where 80% of the reports come from. I've been up there many times myself, and it is very, very dark at night. It's probably a good place to witness strange phenomena.
You can hear more from Mark Podell, and see a video of a possible UFO seen in Derry, in the video below.
I found the information about the UFO in Portsmouth from the MUFON website, which is always interesting.
4 comments:
Dan Boudillion had an interesting point about UFOs before he went radio silent a few years ago. Sitings of UFOs in "formation" whether in circles or triangles, must be aligning exactly to the perspective of the viewer to achieve the observed shape. Whether that suggests a subjective phenomenon relating to the viewer or a targeting of the viewer is open to discussion. I think this does suggest a Jungian experience of a spiritual rather than physical nature.
And I support your point that today's paranormal becomes tomorrow's folklore.
Hi Papijoe!
That's an interesting idea - people do often seem to have really good views of the UFOs. I never thought of it that way!
Anonymous reader and fan of NE Folklore here.... Whatever happened to Boudillion? That guy had some great write ups on local oddities, visited a few based on his very interesting website.
Hi Anonymous Fan! Thanks for the comment. I sadly never met Dan Boudilion but have only seen his stuff on the web. Maybe he decided his work on this topic was done? His stuff was great and I am glad it is still available.
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