By Gail Geraghty

Staff Writer

‘THAT’S NO PLANE’ — Leo Bousquet of Harrison captured this image of an unidentified object in the sky over Crystal Lake, witnessed by a group of around 10 people near midnight on Sept. 24.

HARRISON — The first time Judy Fleming saw a UFO over Crystal Lake, her late husband, who was sleeping at the time, didn’t believe her.

“You were dreaming,” he said.

“So why did the dog start barking, and practically tear off the screen door trying to get out?” she asked.

That was nearly 30 years ago. Then, the Saturday before last, on Sept. 24, Fleming said she saw another UFO — and this time, there were witnesses.

Around 10 of them, her family and friends, were sitting outside talking and playing cards near the beach at her home on Crystal Lake. The sky was clear; it was around 11:30 p.m.

Suddenly, a bright round object, “about the size of a Frisbee,” appeared in the dark sky to their right, said Fleming.

“Everybody’s mouth was open,” she said. “We were all pinching ourselves.”

The UFO was spinning in a circle, alternating bright flashes of red and yellow. “It just hovered. It stayed exactly where it was,” she said. It must be a plane, someone said.

“That’s no plane,” she said. “That’s a UFO!”

They sat frozen in place, staring, for several minutes until it started to dim. Her current partner, Leo Bousquet, jumped up to grab his camera. By the time he got back, the colors were gone, but the object was still there, glowing red. He snapped off a few shots before it blinked out, and was gone.

“It came very suddenly and it disappeared as quickly as it came,” said Fleming. “I was hoping it would come closer to us.”

Fleming called several newspapers and a radio station, but no one seemed inclined to believe her story. The Bridgton News called the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department, and a dispatcher there said there were no reports called in of a UFO in the skies over Harrison.

Fleming doesn’t care if anyone believes her, she says she knows what she saw, and it definitely was not a plane. It was a UFO, from where, who knows?

“I know Maine has a lot of them, so I hear, especially in the summertime,” she said. “What makes us think we’re the only ones alive in the universe?”