John King Avenged!
The following includes an update to my story “Shots Fired!,” originally featured in UFOs Over Maine: Close Encounters from the Pine Tree State.
The Recap
In my first book, I wrote about John King, a man who came across a peculiar object as he drove on Mount Hope Avenue in Bangor, Maine. I wrote, “Mr. King was immediately snapped out of his happy-go-lucky state of mind when he observed a large, silver-domed disc hovering just a few feet over the road in front of him.” In conducting research for this book, I discovered a bit more to the story, as well as information about another encounter that occurred exactly thirty days later in Bingham, Maine. The two stories share some commonalities. I will begin with King’s encounter first.
The Update
It was late March of 1966 when John King drove along Mount Hope Avenue. During that time, the area included a swampy field near the Bangor Memorial Hospital. When King drove past the field, he was startled to see an overturned car. He slammed on his brakes, threw the gear shift into park, and jumped out to assist a fellow motorist since no emergency vehicles were yet on scene. He negotiated the marshier sections of the swamp and finally noticed that what he had seen from the road was not a car at all. The Bangor Daily News, in an interview with King, provided the following description of what he’d observed: “it was a luminous object hovering over the ground. It was an elliptical object, 6-7.5m diameter, with domed top which had a central yellow-orange light, a blue light to its right, a white light to the left.”
This frightened King and sent him running from the object, back to his vehicle. He stopped just before getting inside the car and observed the UFO rock back and forth. King described the movement this way: “The thing began rocking from side to side and began to approach within 60m scraping the elderberry bushes as it did so.” Panicked, he reached for a .22 revolver that he had in his vehicle and accidentally fired it off due to his agitated state. The UFO seemed unfazed by the gunshot and continued to approach. This time King aimed carefully and fired. Unfazed, the UFO kept moving toward him. He fired a third time when suddenly the UFO glowed bright and shot up into the sky. He took the opportunity to jump into his vehicle and flee the area. He went to the authorities and explained his odd encounter. With directions from King, police searched the area and found a scorched area of vegetation. Despite this bit of evidence, the police dropped the case.
Was It the Same UFO?
Thirty days later, on April 23, a six-year-old named Kim witnessed a most unusual sight. The Waterville Morning Sentinel reported that she and her cousins were at play in a field behind the Kennebec Mill area in Bingham. The cousins ran home to grab some more toys while Kim waited in the field for them to return. A moment later, a silver object descended into the field and landed approximately thirty feet from the child. Startled, yet fascinated by what she was witnessing, she couldn’t help but just stand there and stare. She described it as a “big ball” or a “bubble” with red and green blinking lights. She actually walked up to the object, afraid but curious, and noticed a “door.” She later described the UFO to a Morning Sentinel news reporter as “a sphere resembling a large bubble, the size of a large car, but higher” and “of a shiny metallic color, with a sort of door and window.”
Without warning, things soon got scary for Kim. She saw a man inside the craft. “I saw a man in it with something on or over his head. He took it off and smiled at me. He said something for I saw his lips move.” This is when Kim took off. Once home, she tried to explain what she had seen to her mother, but her mom initially dismissed the girl’s story. Days later, a family friend visited, to whom Kim retold the story. This time the mother listened and believed her daughter. The mother, a reporter, and the authorities went to the field in question and saw a scorched area of vegetation, like in John King’s encounter.
Authorities now supported the little girl’s story and agreed she was telling the truth as she had known it to be. Investigator Ray Fowler believed her as well and recommended the family take her to the police. An investigation ensued, but much like with King’s encounter, the case was quickly dropped due to the lack of evidence. Frustrated with the outcome, the family still defended the girl’s story.
The similarities to King’s encounter are interesting. King first thought his UFO was an overturned car, and the little girl described a bubble with a door and window; from a distance, this could look like a common vehicle. Both incidents had reports of scorched vegetation and happened only thirty days apart. If there is a connection, I am unsure of what it would mean other than that the same UFO was traveling about Maine. But perhaps the second visit was some sort of sign of goodwill from our alien brethren. I say this because the first encounter ended violently for King, shooting at the UFO approaching him. A month later, the UFO attempted contact again by ever so lightly, and kindly, landing in a field next to an innocent little girl.