Maine, USA — 22 July 1808
An old diary describes a maneuvering light
The diary of school teacher Cynthia Everett, who taught in Maine during the early 1800s, contains the following entry: “About 10 o ‘clock I saw a very strange appearance. It was a light which proceeded from the East. At first sight, I thought it was a Meteor, but from its motion I soon perceived it was not. It seemed 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 visible Horizon, (it was not very light) and then returned back again. ” Dr. Ranlett, a historian at the State University College at Potsdam, finds it significant that Cynthia Everett did not explain what she witnessed as a natural phenomenon, although she was well educated and had firsthand knowledge about the night sky. “She was the kind of person who would have explained it as natural phenomenon, if she could have.”
Source: New York (Ogdensburg) Journal, March 29, 1978. The article describes the work of Dr. Judith Becker Ranlett: while studying the diary of her husband’s great-great grandmother, she found this unusual sighting. 383. Case: W335