The Case of the Shrunken Brothers
The town of New Gloucester, in Cumberland County in southern Maine, is home to the last active Shaker village in the United States. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village is located right off Route 26, about eight miles north of Exit 63 on the Maine Turnpike. An odd encounter happened to two brothers and several of their friends near the village, as reported on the website UF-Devoe. While the area is typically serene, this story will make you a bit more vigilant should you find yourself on that road one summer evening.
It was a clear, early summer evening in 1973 when the group was traveling on Route 26. They were actually looking for signs of the infamous “Route 26 Lady in White,” who has been reported in the area. They parked near the Shaker Village. Tony (pseudonym) looked out the window from the passenger seat and observed an unusually orange crescent moon in the western part of the sky. He watched the moon for a while and was startled to see it wobble and then descend to a frighteningly low altitude. He brought the oddity to his brother’s attention, and they both later recalled the ominous feeling they had when viewing the “moon.” They understood that the lighted object was not a celestial body and felt unsafe in the presence of it. As they started to drive again, it kept pace with their car, traveling just above the treetops. Suddenly, the light dipped low in front of the tree line and was close to their vehicle. This frightened the friends, so they turned left and headed toward the town of Oxford to evade the light. As he did so, the environment around them changed. Tony explained, “We noticed that all traffic had ceased on this usually busy and well-traveled road and the sun had gone down awfully fast and now the stars appeared and were HUGE, as if I could reach out to them. We noticed the usual cricket sounds for this area were missing and I could feel and hear my heart beating in my ears as it seemed like we were inside a vacuumed bottle; all we could hear is us talking to each other and all the usual outside noises were silenced.” The experience unsettled them, but relief soon set in as the light did not follow their turn off Route 26.
Feeling better, the brothers discussed the light and surmised that it was a genuine UFO since they could not readily identify it. They were anxious to get home to tell their mother of the encounter and as they rounded a bend, an apple orchard came into view. Terror filled them as the light hovered silently over the orchard as if waiting for them. They slammed on the brakes, the light dimmed slightly, and they observed an object behind the light. Tony wrote, “This UFO was big and round and lit up orange and totally quiet and we all just stared at it … ” Nobody spoke as they observed the mysterious object. Scott (pseudonym) recalled Tony getting out of the car and then saying “Let’s get the hell out of here!” but all Scott could remember was asking, “What happened? What happened?”
Eventually the UFO had vanished, but neither brother realized it immediately. They seemed to have come out of some sort of hypnotic state. They stared at each other for a moment, then started the car. They drove in silence as they thought about the encounter. As they drove, the evening sky seemed to get brighter, like the sun was just beginning to rise. They checked the time and audibly gasped in trepidation. They found that many hours had passed! The time showed it was now morning, but to them it felt like only an hour had passed.
That thought weighed heavily on their minds as they drove. It went unspoken for a moment, and then the realization washed over them like a remembered dream and they exclaimed to each other that they must have been abducted! They were so frightened by the thought that they reported the event to the Auburn police department. The authorities saw that the boys were bruised, battered, and scared, but in no way could the police confirm their abduction story. They took their statements but did not investigate further. The brothers went to the hospital for treatment. (I contacted the Auburn police department about this incident, but my messages were not returned.)
At the hospital, the boys appeared weak and complained of a burning feeling in their lungs. The staff noticed that the whites of their eyes were orange in color and were concerned that the pair might have the beginning stages of jaundice. Initial urine tests ruled out the disease, but another alarming matter was soon discovered. During the examination, Tony’s height and weight were checked and the nurse recorded his height as 5 foot 9. When Tony heard this, he proclaimed to the nurse that it was highly inaccurate and explained that he had recently been measured at school and was over 5 foot 10. The nurse could see how distraught this made the boy and recalibrated the scale to check again. She came up with the same result. Tony explained, “I showed the authorities my eighteenth birthday photo taken about two weeks before our abduction and told them to examine my high school medical records for my physical size and please make out the comparison between then and how I am now, and I asked them how many eighteen-year-olds lose an inch overnight?” The nurses could not provide the boy with a satisfactory answer.
Despite being a bit bruised and battered, the boys were in overall good health. The burning sensation in their lungs ceased, and the hospital released them. They wondered what they could possibly tell their mother, and whether she would believe them. She was of course agitated and angry at them for staying out all night without a phone call and rightfully demanded an answer. The brothers tried to explain what had happened, but she would not listen. She continued to scold them, but as she looked them over, she noticed how frightened the boys were. She saw the bruises on their arms and face and their discolored eyes and knew that something had physically happened to them. She said, “What happened? You both have shrunk [and] what is wrong with your eyes?”
Years later, in 2004, Tony disclosed on the UF-Devoe website that this was not their first otherworldly experience and that they regularly saw lights in the sky around their home and experienced paranormal activity. Their other encounters and those of their family can be read on the UF-Devoe website.
Of note is the fact that the year of their incident correlates with thousands of other sightings in that same time frame. A chronology of worldwide events can be found on the NICAP (National Investigations Committee of Aerial Phenomena) website under the “Chronos” section. Click on the report titled “1973fullrep” and comb through the multiple unusual encounters. More to the point, check out the reports from April 15 in Pennsylvania, and the October 16 report from Lehi, Utah. You’ll find similar descriptions of the UFO that these two brothers described. Lastly, there’s a report at the top of the “1973” page of two other young men who were abducted in October of that same year. They seem to have been plagued by similar events; perhaps they are connected.