Buff Ledge Camp Abduction
Two teenage camp workers on Lake Champlain saw lights in August 1968 and lost time. Separate hypnosis sessions years later produced matching abduction accounts.
On the evening of 7 August 1968, two teenagers working at Buff Ledge Camp on Lake Champlain in Colchester, Vermont, saw bright lights over the water and later could not account for part of the evening. Years later, under hypnosis, both described being taken aboard a craft. The case is one of the better known abduction reports, but it rests on recovered memories, and the best sources we could open are secondary ones. Some websites date it to 1969 or 1967. Most accounts, and the Hynek Center book on the case, put it in 1968.
What Was Reported
Buff Ledge was a girls’ summer camp. Michael, who was 16 and worked in maintenance, and Janet, who was 19 and taught water skiing, were on the camp’s waterfront in the evening while most of the camp was away. Popular accounts name them Michael Lapp and Janet Cornell. We could not confirm that these are their real names, so this page uses first names only. They described a bright light that came toward them over the lake and then several objects moving in odd ways. One object came close. Their next clear memory was of it being dark, with time unaccounted for. Neither spoke much about it, and they lost touch when the summer ended.
The Investigation
Michael later had recurring nightmares. In 1978 he contacted Walter N. Webb, a UFO investigator and lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium in Boston. Webb traced Janet, who had not been in contact with Michael, and the investigation ran for about five years. Each was hypnotised separately. Under hypnosis both described being lifted aboard a craft and examined by small beings with large dark eyes. Webb also reported other witnesses who saw lights over the lake that summer. He published the case as Encounter at Buff Ledge: A UFO Case History, from the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, in the mid-1990s.
Assessment
Supporters point to the two separate sessions and the matching details. Sceptics note that hypnosis is a poor way to recover memories and can create vivid false ones. Both witnesses had also lived for a decade in a culture that already knew the grey alien image, and the abduction details appeared only under hypnosis. The lights over the lake are the only part of the story with any outside support, and we could not verify that independently. A plain sighting of aircraft or atmospheric lights, plus an ordinary lapse in memory, would also fit what they recalled before hypnosis.
Sources
- Podcast 423: Buff Ledge (New England Legends) - date, town, ages, Webb and the 1995 book
- Buff Ledge UFO Incident (Planet Today) - summary of the sighting and hypnosis sessions