BRIGHTER THAN A STAR — Chris Maglione captured around 15 seconds of video of what appears to be a UFO on his mini-cam while stargazing Monday night in West Bridgton. (Geraghty Photo)

By Gail Geraghty

Staff Writer

On a mountainside in West Bridgton Monday night, 18-year-old Chris Maglione trained the lens of his new mini-cam skyward, so his mother could remember the stars.

“She was just so amazed at the stars outside,” he said, the last time they came to visit his grandmother, Cathy McKinley, of Little Mountain Lane. Their clarity seemed in stark contrast to the night sky above their home in Dorchester, Mass., Boston’s largest neighborhood.

His Canon camcorder couldn’t pick up any stars, though; they were too distant. But then he noticed a bright light, much closer, “Not anywhere near as far away as the stars,” he said.

“My first reaction was kind of like, wow, it’s a UFO,” said Chris. He started the video over again. “It was like…the ‘Where’s Waldo’ of the whole thing.”

His second reaction was to immediately share his footage with the local newspaper. McKinley said her grandson could barely contain his excitement. They both arrived at The News the next afternoon.

The footage shows a diamond-shaped white object looming large in the flip-out LCD screen that appears to be moving erratically. But Chris said the jiggling movement was his own shaking hands, as he held the mini-cam in both hands above his head while craning his neck back. “It was vibrating, but just a little bit,” he said.

He kept shooting the object for around 15 seconds, he said, then raced for the house to tell his grandmother. She was on the phone, though, and rather than yell at her, he said he ran back outside. By that time, though, the object was gone.

Several of those in the newspaper office that viewed the footage were suitably impressed, and encouraged him to post the video online, perhaps on YouTube, or on a website that invites submissions from people around the country that have filmed what they believe was a UFO.

Chris, who is studying to be an actor at Roxbury Community College, said he isn’t yet sure what he’ll do with the footage; the whole experience was still sinking in. Of one thing, however, he has no doubt:

“I genuinely think it was a UFO.”