What happened
Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony kept a running journal of colony affairs, and among the entries for 1639 he set down a short, strange report. James Everell, whom Winthrop vouched for as sober and discreet, was out at night with two other men near Muddy River, the marshy district that later became Brookline. They saw a great light. When it hovered it blazed up to about three yards square; when it moved it pulled into the shape of a pig and shot toward Charlestown as fast as an arrow, darting back and forth for two or three hours. The men had been coming downstream in their lighter, a small cargo boat. When the light was gone they found themselves about a mile back upstream, against the tide, at the spot they had started from, with no account of how. Winthrop added that other credible people later saw the same light in the same place. The entry is often called the first written UFO report in English-speaking North America.
The original account
In this year one James Everell, a sober, discreet man, and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River. When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square; when it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours. They were come down in their lighter about a mile, and, when it was over, they found themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from. Divers other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place.
John Winthrop, Journal ('History of New England'), entry for 1639; J. K. Hosmer ed., Winthrop's Journal vol. 1 (Scribner, 1908), p. 294 (public domain)
The official explanation
Later commentators have offered ignis fatuus (will-o'-the-wisp, a faint glow attributed to gases from rotting vegetation in marshes) as a natural candidate, since Muddy River was swampy ground. History.com's account of the case notes the difficulty that the light reportedly raced across the sky rather than hovering low over the marsh. The boat's displacement could reflect a wind shift, an eddy or a misjudged position in the dark on a tidal river. Winthrop himself offered no explanation for this entry, though elsewhere in the journal he read unusual lights as providence or omens.
The anomalous case
The witness is named and the recorder is no rumour-monger: Winthrop was the colony's chief magistrate, writing within the same year and noting that he trusted Everell's character. The description is behavioural rather than symbolic. The light hovered, changed shape between a square blaze and an elongated form when it moved, accelerated sharply and manoeuvred for hours. That does not suit marsh gas, which is faint and short-lived. The final detail is the one modern researchers seize on. The three men found themselves a mile upstream, against the tide, with no memory of rowing there. Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck, in their survey Wonders in the Sky, noted that a modern investigator would read that displacement and gap as a possible abduction-type episode. Winthrop also adds that other credible people saw the same light later at the same place, which suggests a recurring phenomenon rather than a single misperception.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Winthrop's Journal, 'History of New England' 1630-1649, vol. 1 (Hosmer ed., 1908), p. 294 report, archive.org
Sources
- Winthrop's Journal 'History of New England' 1630-1649, vol. 1, ed. James Kendall Hosmer (1908) Internet Archive (digitised by Google)
- America's First UFO Sighting (Christopher Klein) History.com
Witness reports elsewhere
These archives can't be republished here, so we link to them instead.