DREAD: The Unsolved Looks at The Allagash Alien Abductions
August 1976: As summer drew to a close, four men — brothers Jack and Jim Weiner, along with Chuck Rak, and Charlie Foltz — decide to spend the dwindling days of the season on a camping and canoe trip in Allagash, Maine. None of them could have imagined that what would happen in the wilderness of Allagash would resonate through the rest of their lives. Visions of abduction, experimentation, and extraterrestrials would catapult them into the spotlight and eventually divide them.
A strip of northern paradise at the top of the state, Allagash is home to less than 300 full-time residents. The thousands of miles of pristine woodland are a crown on northern Maine. The men made camp their first day and decided to canoe up the river. After stoking a roaring fire, they headed out. As they traveled along the river, each, in turn, noticed something strange. A light was following them, seeming to stay on them as they went down the river. They continued on and thought nothing of it.
Two nights later, the light was back. The men were out on the river fishing when they noticed it. Charlie decided to try and signal the light. He signaled S.O.S. And the light beamed down on the men. They decided to paddle back to their camp, and according to them, the light followed the entire way. When they arrived back at camp, their fire, which they had been stocking well before each outing, had completely burnt out, as if they’d been gone for hours upon hours, instead of just a few minutes.
While strange, the men chalked it up as one of the small mysteries of life and continued on with their trip. The rest of their time in Allagash was uneventful. When they returned home, they claim they told their families about the strange life. Other than letting their families know about what they experienced in the wilderness, it would be 12 full years before they even really thought of Allagash again.
Fast forward to 1988. Jim and Jack Weiner have not been sleeping well. Allegedly, nightmares are keeping them awake. Nightmares about their camping trip. In these nightmares, all 4 men from the camping trip are on a strange craft, sitting naked on a bench. They report feeling fearful. Confused by these nocturnal terrors, they seek out UFO researcher Ray Fowler.
After speaking with Charlie and Chuck, all four men agreed to undergo hypnosis to try and figure out what happened in 1976. Allegedly, they agreed to be hypnotized separately and to not tell the other men what they remembered of that night. When the four men were brought together, it was found that each had remembered roughly the same thing: They were taken to a ship and experimented on by extraterrestrials.
Jack recalled the aliens’ faces, calling them “terrifying”. Charlie claimed the ship was like a doctor’s office, and that they had put a panel over his chest and scraped his skin off. Chuck revealed that he had seen the aliens working on Charlie. These revelations rocketed the four men into the spotlight. An appearance on The Joan Rivers Show and their very own episode of Unsolved Mysteries thrust them into the alien zeitgeist. Convention appearances and book deals soon followed.
In 2016, Charlie Rak, after having a falling out with the other three men, dropped a bombshell: The abductions never happened, and the Allagash Incident was all a moneymaking scheme. He stated that although he publicly announced that the hypnosis had uncovered long-buried memories, he was lying. As for a motive for this long-running plot, Charlie had this to say:
“We were compelled to stay together, all speculating that this thing could go into the millions of dollars for each of us. We made very little.”
He would go on to admit that the men were using hashish on their fishing trip, and that other than seeing a strange light, he couldn’t speak to any other strange happenings. The other men, for their part, remain steadfast in their belief that an abduction happened. The other men claim that Charlie Rak is a short-tempered man with mental problems, lashing out at his former friends. Since the revelations in 2016, Jim and Jack Weiner, along with Chuck Foltz, continue making appearances at UFO conventions, spreading the tale of the time that they were experimented on by aliens.
What, do you think? Were the Allagash four actual abductees? Or was it a ploy to get paid? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @DreadUnsolved. You can also find me on Instagram @DreadTheUnsolved or on Facebook. If you have an abduction story, you can reach out to me at TheUnsolved@DreadCentral.com
Thanks for watching.
Categorized:Dread: The Unsolved
