"Something I Wasn't Supposed To Be Looking At..." A Recent UFO Sighting

I often write about UFOs in January. I'm not sure why. Maybe the cold, dark skies at this time of year remind me the Earth is just one little planet in a vast teeming universe. I see stars when I leave the house in the morning and stars when I come home at night. Who knows what else I might see?

Well, I might see a large diamond-shaped craft hovering in the sky. According to the National UFO Reporting Center (NURC), that's what a woman saw while driving home from work on Route 5 in Easthampton, Massachusetts on January 3, 2019. The sun had set and she was approaching the Easthampton/Northampton line when she noticed something unusual:

I saw three stationary bright white lights hovering over the Connecticut river between Mt. Tom and Skinner Mt. The lights were in a straight row, with the 2 outer lights being slightly larger. Of the three lights, the center one was strobing slowly which I thought was odd since planes usually have the lights on their wings flashing. This was a pure, bright, white light, not a yellow light that incandescent bulbs emit. The center light was level with the other two and was pulsating separately. The center light emitted a more "rainbow" like light, similar to a moonstone, but was mostly white-passing.

The witness pulled over to better see what was happening. Whatever she was seeing was about half a mile away. At first she thought it might be a plane landing at a nearby airfield, but these lights were not the normal lights usually seen on a plane. She then considered that it might be a helicopter, since it seemed to be stationary, but it was much too large. Maybe a drone? Much, much too large for that. 

The witness was able to see the bottom of the craft once it tilted and began to fly away. 

There were 4 identical sized pure white bright lights emitting from the bottom of the craft in a square/diamond shape. In addition, there were 2 more of the smaller center-strobing lights beneath the craft, below where the center one was seen when I first saw the craft facing toward me. I turned off my radio and lowered my window to hear if it was making any sound, but I didn't detect that it was.

Well, that certainly doesn't sound like an airplane to me. The witness provided some drawings of the craft to the NURC. See below. Large, rectangular, silent flying objects don't seem normal to me. 

The witness felt that this might not be a natural phenomenon and that the craft (if that's what it was) was aware that she was observing it. If she could see it, then could the beings inside see her?

I felt like I was looking at something I wasn't supposed to be looking at, as it only changed course after I had pulled off the road and started intently staring at it. I was shocked no one in front or behind me had pulled over to witness it with me. After about 1 minute of direct sight with the craft, it began travelling away from me, following the river north/northeast, I decided I wanted to head home as I was scared about the actuality of what I had just seen. 

It was not my first time seeing a UFO, but it was the first time I had seen one this close up.

I really like this phrase: "I felt like I was looking at something I wasn't supposed to be looking at..." It's ambiguous and very evocative. Was she seeing something secret that no one was supposed to see? She seems to imply the giant craft (which none of the other motorists even notice) flew away when its pilots realized she could see them. It's as if for a brief moment she was able to see behind the curtain - and saw one of the things that hover in our skies normally unseen. It was almost like a religious experience. Perhaps the craft wasn't even a physical object at all, which might explain why no one else seemed to witness it. 

"I felt like I was looking at something I wasn't supposed to be looking at..." That phrase could also be interpreted to mean she was looking at something that wasn't supposed to exist. Large diamond-shaped craft that hover silently in the sky aren't supposed to exist, at least according to what we know. It was something inexplicable and beyond the normal rules of our world. Overall, just a strange and beautiful UFO account. 

A Weed That Cures Witchcraft and Elf-Sickness

Today is cloudy and dark. A hurricane is churning off the coast. Autumn officially starts in a few days. All this puts me in the mood for some witchcraft. So here goes!

Whenever I walk around the Boston area, I see a lot of plants growing wild. They grow in yards, they grow in parks, they grow in empty lots and along the sidewalks. I suppose you might call them weeds, but that term seems a little derogatory, doesn't it? Many of these plants are actually herbs that historically have been associated with healing. We've just forgotten what they were used for.

Some of them I recognize, like mugwort, dandelion, and mullein, but I'm still learning the names of others. For example, I believe this inconspicuous looking plant growing on Memorial Drive is actually dock weed (or dock). I'm glad to know where it is. It might come in handy in case I am bewitched or afflicted by elves.

According to Pamela Jones's book Just Weeds: History, Myths and Uses (1994), the Medieval Anglo-Saxons valued dock weed as a cure for "elf-sickness." Like many other Europeans, the Anglo-Saxons believed that elves shot people with invisible arrows and made them sick. Many Anglo-Saxon sources also link elves with witches since they were both sources of illness and suffering.

For example, one Anglo-Saxon book of cures contains a recipe for an herbal salve to treat sickness caused by "the elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors and for the women with whom the devil hath carnal commerce." Another such book has a chapter dedicated to cures against "every evil wisewoman and the elfin race," while another, the Lacnunga, lists witches, elves, and Norse gods as possible causes for illness.

The Puritans who colonized New England did not worry about Norse gods, and they didn't really worry much about elves either. But they worried about witches a lot. A lot. The Salem witch trials of 1692 are the most famous New England trials, but there were many others before them, and even a few afterwards. For the Puritan settlers, witches were a real concern and they were always looking for ways to combat their malevolent magic.

For example, in 1685 a woman living in East Hampton, Connecticut* named Elizabeth Howell became strangely ill. She felt sharp piercing pains as if being stuck with pins, and claimed to see a strange black creature lurking at the foot of her bed. She also supposedly vomited up a pin. Before she died, Howell cried out that she was being bewitched by a neighbor, Elizabeth Garlick.

Goody Garlick was arrested and brought to trial for witchcraft. Several people testified against her, including one Goodwife Simons, who claimed that while suffering from fits two neighbors arrived with dock weed to cure her illness. When she learned that the dock weed had been provided by Goody Garlick she threw it onto the fire. She suspected that Goody Garlick was bewitching her and didn't trust the dock weed. Perhaps it would just make her feel worse! But it's clear that her neighbors thought the dock weed would help cure her. I think it's fascinating that a centuries-old belief dating back to the Anglo-Saxons appeared in 17th century Connecticut.

So there you go. Random weeds growing near the sidewalk actually have a connection to witchcraft, and perhaps even elves. New England is a great place to live!

*****

* East Hampton is now part of New York but for a time in the 1600s it was part of Connecticut. 

I got most of my information about Goody Garlick and the dock weed from this Smithsonian article and this article in the East Hampton Star. I also found another Anglo-Saxon leech book that mentions burning herbs as a cure for elf-sickness, but historians don't seem to think that is why Goodwife Simons threw the dock weed into her fire.