My tastes in New England folklore are pretty broad. Sometimes my attention is captured by a 17th witchcraft story, sometimes by something more contemporary and paranormal. I say that because I was planning to write about an old witchcraft story from the New Hampshire mountains today, but at a party last night someone told me something too good to ignore. The witch story will wait until next week.
My friend David lives on Beaver Lake in Derry, New Hampshire. While talking with him at a birthday party for a mutual friend he asked me if I knew about the UFOs that had been seen in his neighborhood. When I said no, he pulled out his cellphone and showed me this video:
I don't know if the video is real or not, and I certainly don't like the creepy "UFOs are Satanic" preface. However I do think it is interesting and, like all UFO videos, a little freaky. What are these lights? Why are they hovering over a small lake in a residential neighborhood? I'm sure we'll never have authoritative answers to those questions, but David said he and his neighbors have also seen the lights in the sky.
As I wrote a few years ago, Beaver Lake is connected with some of the rare fairy folklore found in New England. A fairy named Tsienneto supposedly lived in the lake, and helped local heroes Hannah Duston and John Spark (who coined the phrase "Live free or die").
Some authors who write about the paranormal, like Patrick Harpur or Jacques Vallee, claim fairies and UFOs are two sides of the same coin. They're both both visitors from another world, but while our ancestors often placed this other world underground or in a mystical realm, we place it in outer space. Maybe Tsienneto has just upgraded her mode of transportation.
By the way, this isn't the first time UFOs have been seen in Derry. In October 1973 multiple witnesses saw a UFO splash into the waters of Rainbow Lake. According to an article in the Derry News, police divers searched the lake but did not find anything.
Here's another interesting video I found while poking around on YouTube. The video was uploaded recently, but apparently it is really from 2010. A Hubbardston, Vermont man noticed that apples had been disappearing from his orchard. When he set up a camera to capture the thief he got a photo of Bigfoot!
I love apples myself, so I can sympathize with Bigfoot here.
Next week I'm going to write about something "Olde Tyme", but as this week's videos show lots of strange things continue to happen in New England.
5 comments:
oooooh! very interesting and strange video! Maybe the UFO's were just getting a bit of late night fishing in :p Though I do like the idea that UFO's and fairies could be one and the same.
Jodie x
Hi Jodie,
Yes, the video is interesting. I think the whole 'UFOs and fairies are the same" idea was first and most famously suggested by Jacques Vallee in a book called Passport to Magonia. Patrick Harpur takes a similar approach and expands it in his book Daimonic Reality, which I really like. He brings in Jung, the artistic imagination, the Anima Mundi, etc. but still keeps it readable. A good book if you want an approach that can accommodate both skepticism and interest in strange phenomena.
I live in Derry, we are about 7 miles from Manchester/Boston Airport. Planes constantly bank and turn over Derry and Londonderry as they prepare for landing. What you see in the video are lights from an airplane setting up for landing. As the planes change direction and bank their wings, they often take on seemingly abnormal shapes and lights appear as various parts of the plane come into view. This is a daily occurence here and anyone who lives here is more than familiar with it.
Hi Leonard,
Thanks for the comment. I suppose that sounds like a good explanation. Do you know anything about the other strange Derry phenomena?
There is a ton of UFO sightings in derry. Had multiple sightings growing up..check out the
supposed UFO crash on rainbow lake in derry. Kinda crazy not even 2 miles from beaver lake
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