Case description
At about 6:35 p.m. on December 4, 1980, a thirteen-year-old boy went into his Foxboro, Massachusetts, backyard to check the ground for dirt-bike riding before a Scout meeting. He heard a humming sound resembling a finger rubbed around a wineglass, then saw a saucer with illuminated windows hovering overhead. A beam struck his chest. He described tingling, inability to move and unintelligible voices or mumbling perceived inside his head. When the light diminished, he ran toward the house. His initial account ended with the object becoming a small red light and moving away.
His mother contacted Raymond Fowler, who alerted investigators Joe Nyman and Ed Fogg. They interviewed the family that evening after the boy returned from Scouts. Asked to inspect his body, he and his stepfather found a painless reddish mark across his chest. The investigators photographed it; the report illustrates its inverted-T-like outline and the mother’s drawing of its appearance the following morning.
That night, his parents recorded him talking in his sleep. His statements referred to being inside a ship, resisting tests, needing to attend Scouts, and encountering someone he addressed as Amelia Earhart. He did not recall these dreams the next morning. Those recordings supplied the apparent onboard account; they were separate from his consciously remembered backyard observation.
During hypnosis conducted by Claire Hayward on January 17, 1981, he described a large-headed, small-bodied figure at a craft window and a reassuring message about an examination. Asked whether an examination actually occurred, he said he did not know. He also recalled being told there would be another meeting. In February, the family reported footsteps, misplaced objects, unexplained water and electrical disturbances; a visiting Scoutmaster separately described odd occurrences. Illness, a custody dispute and the family’s move interrupted further investigation, with the investigators reporting their last contact on April 25.
The original investigators’ newsletters date the encounter to December 4. Some later retellings, including the linked programme, give December 5. The family’s names were withheld; the programme’s name “Steve” is a pseudonym.
