**Mysterious 60-Foot Light Column Rose From Atlantic Ocean Off Maine Coast in 1978, Witnessed by Multiple Fishing Vessels**

About this episode

The episode discusses a mysterious light column witnessed by fishermen off the coast of Maine in 1978.

On June 12th, 1978, something extraordinary happened in the small coastal town of Stonington, Maine that has never been adequately explained. Local fishermen returning to harbor just after dawn reported seeing what they described as a massive column of crystalline light rising from the ocean surface approximately three miles offshore. The phenomenon wasn't a typical waterspout or lightning strike. Witnesses insisted the light had an almost solid quality to it, as if someone had constructed a pillar of frosted glass that stretched from the water to the low-hanging clouds above. Captain Harold Merrick, a veteran lobsterman with over thirty years of experience on those waters, was among the first to spot it. He described the column as being at least sixty feet in diameter and perfectly cylindrical, rotating slowly on its axis. The surface of this light pillar seemed to shimmer with colors that shifted between pale blue, silver, and an unusual greenish-white that he'd never seen before or since. Most unsettling was the absolute silence. The ocean around the phenomenon was completely calm, with no wind, no wave action, and no sound whatsoever within what appeared to be a quarter-mile…

Topics covered

• unexplained phenomena
• light column
• fishing vessels
• Maine
• 1978
• witness accounts

Keywords

• light column
• Maine
• fishing vessels
• unexplained phenomena
• 1978
• Captain Harold Merrick
• crystalline light
• ocean

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Stonington, Maine, Atlantic Ocean

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