Escape to
Witch Mountain
Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst whose career spanned thirty-five tumultuous years, first began his work after he graduated from the University of Vienna in 1922. His early case studies included working alongside Sigmund Freud, but their relationship was so fraught with complications and disagreements that Freud eventually distanced himself from Reich’s controversial practices. Reich was perceived as a radical figure among his peers, and even the patients under his care were leery of him.
The Wonderfully Weird World of Wilhelm
Wilhelm Reich’s field of study included sexual energy by way of a chemical called “orgone,” which he claimed to have discovered. He claimed that experiments with this chemical were to show its healing properties and in the early 1940s started construction on what he called “orgone accumulators.” This device would allow a patient to sit inside of it to harness the orgone chemical, which had numerous health benefits including a claim that it cured cancer.
Reich was often ridiculed by his peers, and a silent campaign against him and his work was launched in the mid-1940s. He then bought a home in the small, remote town of Rangeley, Maine, as he wanted to escape the onslaught of lawsuits and defamation. This campaign would eventually see the destruction of his writings and him being jailed; he eventually died in prison from heart failure in 1957.
In 1951, while still in Rangeley, Wilhelm Reich became a bit of a recluse as he continued his experiments with orgone therapy. Often his son Peter would visit and assist with his father’s experiments. During those visits, Reich claimed to have discovered a new energy, which he called “Deadly Orgone Radiation.” He blamed this as the cause of Rangeley’s desertification issues that year. Reich claimed he could harness the power of the orgone energy and help alleviate the drought concern. To do so, he designed a device called a “Cloud Buster.” This device was made up of twelve- to fifteen-foot aluminum pipes constructed on a movable table. The pipes were then wired and inserted into water. Reich argued that this device could unlock the orgone energy in the air and bring rain to a large area of the region. He and his son experimented with the Cloud Buster for a couple of years, painstakingly trying to perfect its performance. According to Myron Sharaf in his book Fury on Earth, the Bangor Daily News reported that local farmers hired Reich to use the Cloud Buster in their blueberry fields to save that season’s crop. On July 6, 1953, Reich fired off his device, and it was reported to have rained that very evening. He saved the farmers’ blueberry harvest and proved to the community that he had something quite special.
The following year, the eclectic nature of Reich’s research progressed into claims of alien activity in the skies above Rangeley. He purported that their crafts sprayed the area with “deadly orgone radiation.” He called these crafts “energy alphas” and described them as “shaped like thin cigars with windows,” arguing that if these extraterrestrials went untouched, they would spray this energy around the world, eventually destroying the Earth. Reich then wrote his book Contact with Space, describing these encounters and their dangerous potential. He vowed to wage a war against the energy alphas, his weapon of choice being the Cloud Buster. In the evenings, he and his son would sky-watch, searching for the crafts. Once spotted, the Reichs would fire off the Cloud Buster at the alien ships and claimed to drain them of the deadly orgone radiation. One evening he professed to have disoriented one of those crafts with the Cloud Buster, causing it to develop an inability to maintain flight. The UFO was then observed to have released what is referred to in ufology as “Angel Hair” throughout most of Rangeley.
In Contact with Space, Reich also explained that the UFOs he fired at had traveled to Rangeley through nearby portals. I could not find any witnesses or reports of portals in and around Rangeley; however, I did speak with witnesses in other unrelated sightings from the area. (The next chapter in this book, “The Woman Who Time Forgot,” discusses those encounters.) Interestingly, there is a report out of Casco, Maine, about two hours south of Rangeley, where a portal was reported.
The life and work of Wilhelm Reich is vast, intriguing, controversial, and outright weird. My book, of course, is not a biography of Reich but instead takes a look at how his presence in Maine played a part in the history of UFOs in the state. To get more information on Reich’s life and work, I recommend his books Character Analysis, The Function of the Orgasm, and Contact with Space. They will satisfy any enthusiast.
Putnam’s Portal
Ken Putnam, a retired government maintenance contractor, contacted me via Facebook Messenger to discuss UFO activity in the Casco area. We exchanged numbers, spoke on the phone a few times, and eventually met in August of 2016. Upon arrival at a local eatery, we discussed Reich’s work and Putnam’s encounters with UFOs. In the town of Casco, there is a small mountain locally called Pine Hill; Putnam lived on this mountain for years and had an interesting story to tell. He started by saying, “My interests in UFOs began when I was a young boy, but I got serious in 1972 when I was living in Boston. I met a fellow who told me an experience he’d had. He was walking to school with some of his family members one winter morning when they all observed five UFOs slowly flying over the treetops. Out of fear, they buried themselves into the snow. A few minutes later they poked their heads up, and to their surprise, the UFOs were still there when suddenly all took off at a high rate of speed.” He added that his fascination kept his interest piqued throughout the years, and in 1976 he moved to Casco and had a house built up on Pine Hill.
One morning while drinking coffee, Ken had an interesting experience. “I heard this roaring noise unlike any I’d heard in my life; come right over the house,” he excitedly explained. “The house shook like there was a severe earthquake. When I looked to see what the hell was happening, I saw two fighter jets not fifty feet over my house! They turned so tight and were circling the peak of the mountain.” I asked Ken what he thought they were doing flying so low over that area. “I’ll tell ya,” he said. “They were looking for the UFO.” I asked, “Did that happen often?” He looked at me sarcastically and said, “There’s a portal on top of that mountain where they go in and out of, and occasionally jet fighters from Brunswick Naval Air Station (BNAS) scramble to search for these UFOs. But they can never find them because the UFOs go into that portal.” I asked Ken if he thought it was the same portal that Wilhelm Reich had referred to in his book. He wasn’t sure, but further explained, “I don’t think the portals are open all the time; they [UFOs] only use them when they need them. I’ve watched that mountain for years and I can tell you that portal is about two-hundred feet wide. I watched a UFO, as if it came from behind a curtain into that portal area, passed the line of the portal and disappeared on the other side. The UFO was about fifty feet in diameter and just vanished into that portal. Like it was going inside the mountain peak.” Fascinated and taking notes, I wrote down “Investigate Pine Hill, overnight.”
Ken added, “A year or two later they sent a P-3 Orion over to the mountain, and it went down. The government went nuts over this and conducted a three-month investigation. They shut down the roads up to the mountain, evacuated homes, brought in dogs, and investigators, it was crazy!” I asked Ken why a P-3 Orion would be flying in the area. He explained that it is a surveillance aircraft, and at the time it was one of the most technologically advanced aircraft that the Navy had, typically used for detecting submarines and maritime patrols. So he assumed it was tracking the UFOs.
A quick search on the internet can confirm Ken’s story of a downed P-3 Orion in Maine in 1978. A former safety officer from BNAS was given a briefing on the crash and helped with the recovery. He now maintains a Wiki page on the incident and writes, “During climb out, the #1 engine separated from the aircraft (passing up and over the wing). The Navy claims (disputed by Lockheed [manufacturer of the P-3 Orion]) that this was due to a ‘whirl mode’ event previously seen in several L-188 (the civilian ancestor to the P-3) accidents. This weakened the wing structure causing the piece outboard of that location to fold up and in, thus separating. This piece struck the port horizontal stabilizer, which sheared off. The aircraft, due to aerodynamic force, pitched nose down, then violently nose up with such force that the 3 remaining engines were flung down off the aircraft. Without the weight of engine #3 and #4 to counteract the lift force of the wing, that starboard wing broke off at the wing root. The body of the aircraft (with the inboard port wing section and starboard horizontal and vertical tail sections rolled inverted and impacted the ground, killing everyone.”
UFOs were not mentioned anywhere on the page, so I contacted BNAS, now known as Brunswick Executive Airport. The operator said they do not maintain any of the previous records from when BNAS was operational and that I would have better luck contacting the Navy directly. Duh … So I wrote them an email in late August of 2016. At the time of this writing, I had not heard back. Safe to say, I’ve probably been added to some sort of watch list (insert awkward laugh).
Ken and I continued to discuss UFOs, the government, and other related topics as we dined. Before we departed, I asked Ken if there was anything else that he would like to say or add. He suggested, “Get down to that mountain and check it out.” Good idea, so I did.
Race to Witch Mountain
I traveled to the Casco area in September of 2016 to conduct an overnight investigation of Pine Hill Mountain. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a light in the sky or, even more fantastic, UFOs flying in and out of “the portal.” I brought along with me a full-spectrum camera, an EMF detector, a parabolic microphone, binoculars, and a digital audio recorder. I followed my smartphone’s GPS instructions as I “expertly” navigated the dirt road terrain on my way to find Pine Hill. After numerous turnarounds, dead ends, and reception issues, I was finally at the last turn to head up the mountain.
The last road to get to Pine Hill.
Hacker’s Hill near Casco, Maine.
As I turned the corner to drive up the steep, narrow dirt road I was stopped dead in my tracks by Private Property signs, a roped-off road, and a sign that read “Smile, you’re on camera.” I put my vehicle in park and got out. I scanned the trees and ground for any sign of a camera but found none. “Camouflage,” I thought. I took some pictures and got back into the car. I sat there for a moment and thought to myself, “How odd, the one area I need to get to in the hopes of seeing and recording reported UFOs coming and going from a portal on the mountain and it’s roped off, and there’s cameras?!” That’s right, dear readers, your hero author was caught right in the middle of a conspiracy fraught with intrigue and quarantined roads. Or more likely, the road was too dangerous to maneuver and the owners or the town did not want anyone up there hurting themselves. But the cameras … it didn’t make sense. No matter, I had a plan B, and that was Hacker’s Hill.
Hacker’s Hill is also in the town of Casco, located off Quaker Ridge Road. It is a sprawling twenty-seven-acre area that is 750 feet above sea level, which provides a view of the White Mountains, the nearby Lakes Regions, and Pine Hill. I drove up the long, winding road to the top of Hacker’s Hill and parked my vehicle between the trees and cell towers (there are two a stone’s throw away). It was about 6:00 p.m. by the time I got there, so I settled in, unpacked my homemade dinner, and waited. I had a full view of all the mountain peaks in the area and my head was “on a swivel.”
A few hours passed, during which I finished my meal, sipped on coffee, and went through the various equipment I had with me. Darkness arrived, yet I was vigilant in my pursuit of the portal. I tracked satellites and airplanes. In the distance below, as lights turned on in neighborhood homes, they appeared to me as lazily laid Christmas lights switching on throughout the mountainous area. One light appeared much brighter than the others; it lay just west of Pine Hill. I grabbed my binoculars for a better look. The bright light burned intensely and caused a glare through the binocular’s lenses, so I had to look away. “Was this a landed UFO?!” I thought. With the naked eye, it was brighter than the rest of the lights, so again I peered through the binoculars. Once my eyes adjusted I could see an object behind the light: a barn. Looked as though the landed UFO was nothing more than a large bulb atop the roof of an old barn, dang it!
As time ticked away and boredom settled in, I looked at the time—1:03 a.m. I forged ahead and continued my pursuits with more sips of my coffee, cigarettes, and a full scan of the sky every couple of minutes; sometimes inside the car, sometimes outside of it. Of note is that while outside my car, I heard an odd sound from some type of “animal” coming from the tall grass in front of me. I had never heard a sound like that before, and I can only describe it as some sort of weird groan as it stalked through the grass. It was getting closer, and I don’t play, y’all, so I got back into my car and turned on the headlights. If you can believe it, my eyes were clenched shut, and as I slowly opened them, my mind envisioned all the ghastly figures that might appear before me: Sasquatch, Dogman, Jason Voorhees!
With my lids fully open, the scene wasn’t as horrific as I had expected. In reality, there was nothing. Just the tall grass blowing in the wind. The animal was probably harmless, and it seemed my imagination was getting the better of me. At this point I decided to try some UFO summoning. This is not the sort of activity I am typically interested in trying, but as the hours ticked by and there was no sign of UFOs, I thought “What the hell” and gave it a go. Before my trip, I’d researched some techniques by way of James Gilliland. You can research more about “Gilliland Ranch” at his ECETI website. The ranch is a paranormal hotspot with reports of UFOs, Sasquatch, and more, located in south-central Washington State within the Mount Adams wilderness area.
I started my mental summoning by repeating, “Please reveal yourselves to me.” I laughed to myself and thought “What the hell am I doing?” I felt awkward yet open to the idea, much like documentarian Mitch Fillion must have felt in his film Calling Occupants, in which he and some friends attempt UFO summoning with startling results. I thought “If Mitch can do it, so can I!” I raised my fist triumphantly and smirked. (If you would like to check out Mitch’s documentary, it can be viewed on his Near Death Films website.)
About ten minutes passed and nothing happened. With my head still on a swivel, I looked behind me for the umpteenth time, out over the water. To my surprise, a light was just sitting there! It hovered above the water, silent and motionless. It hadn’t been there before, and I fumbled for my cameras. I used my cell phone and the full-spectrum cam and started recording. As I did this, a vehicle drove into the parking area, less than one hundred yards from me. Concerned, I stopped recording until I figured out it was a car full of college-aged fellas enjoying some “recreational use,” if you know what I mean. I turned back around to continue recording the light and was frustrated to see that it was gone. I scanned the entire skyline to no avail, though I did have about nineteen seconds of it recorded on my phone. It can be viewed on my YouTube channel (search “Nomar Slevik”) or by typing the title “Hacker’s Hill UFO” into the YouTube search bar.
I stayed up on the hill for another couple of hours and eventually decided it was time to make the trek back to my hotel. The next morning, I surveyed my footage again. Although interesting, the video showed nothing more than a light in the sky. Nonetheless, I was glad I had captured it and wondered if my “summoning” had actually worked. Who knows? I then listened to my audio recorder that had been running the entire night, just in case. Unfortunately, most of it was either whatever music I was playing, the wind, or plain silence. I was starting to feel a little discouraged about it all when I said to myself, “No, that is not fair. You came to the mountain and recorded a friggin’ light in the sky and that’s cool as hell. You should feel good about this.”
I agreed with my inner thoughts and prepared to write this story. I referred to my notes and audio recording from my meeting with Ken. I researched some more information about the area and rewatched the video from my cell phone. I began feeling a sense of pride in the effort I had put forth and felt good about the potential this story had. I hope you agree with me, and that it sparks you to do some research of your own. Check out the video I shot and the pics from the mountain. And if nothing else, you can tell your friends about Nomar, the investigator who was thwarted in his attempts to report on the portal … Or you could just tell them about Reich, the orgone-crazed UFO fighter from Rangeley.