The unofficial start of summer is here, and with it marks the return of intergalactic tourists to Maine! It is an unspoken belief that extraterrestrials love vacationing in Maine. This phenomenon was first brought to my attention on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend in 2016 when Sgt. Tim Farris of the Portland Police captured on video a UFO rocketing over the city. Oh sure the American Meteor Society dismissed it as simply a meteor. But I know the truth! Even Aliens can’t resist the lure of Maine, especially this year. Thanks to beaches being closed and social distancing they thought they could sneak back undetected, but one alert citizen foiled their invasion….or did she?

Over the holiday weekend, Danielle Callow-Ivers was enjoying a walk along the beach at Peaks Island when she came across an Alien on vacation. At first she described it as looking like a mandala laying on the sand. However, upon closer inspection she realized the purple blob, estimated to be 5 feet long, was a giant sea monster!

According to biologist Nick Record, of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences who has been studying this phenomenon since 2014, it wasn’t a monster, but instead a giant jellyfish. As he explained, it is common to find jellyfish along the coast of Maine, and in recent years they have become noticeably larger in size. Typically in New England jellyfish only grow to be about the size of a dinner plate. However in an interview with a local news station Record revealed, “Over the last couple of years, the lion’s mane jellyfish have been getting startlingly large. The largest ones I’d seen were maybe one or two feet across. Two years ago, I started getting a lot of reports that they were maybe three feet across. Then last year there was one monster up in Lamoine, Maine, that was four or five feet across.” Jellyfish getting bigger in a short amount of time? There’s something very fishy going on here!

In fact, this monster jellyfish isn’t the only one to wash up on a Maine beach in recent months. Last month a similar looking creature was found on Old Orchard Beach. Coincidence? This Dog Ufologist says, “No!” Now I’m not one to disagree with the experts, but clearly this person is not up to date on my research regarding Aliens in Maine. In fact, I will go as far as to say these so-called jellyfish are not from our planet! For the record, Record even ads credence to my theory by stating that it is “difficult to study jellyfish because they can appear and disappear for long periods of time.” Of course they can easily disappear for long periods of time! They are traveling back and forth from their home planet! Everyone knows space travel takes time, especially if it is to a galaxy far, far away.

So this summer, if you find yourself confronting one of these strange intergalactic tourists, I caution you to keep your distance! The jellyfish uses its tentacles to capture prey, and its sting can be painful to humans, even after the creature is dead. Although the stings are not typically life-threatening, they can require medical attention. If you’d like to help monitor these strange tourists, Record created a citizen jellyfish reporting system. You can email jellyfish sightings to jellyfish@bigelow.org or tweet them with the hashtag #MaineJellies. Please include date, time, and location, as well as any descriptive information such as size or type.

Now you have to ask yourself has Maine become the vacation destination of choice for intergalactic tourists? This Dog Ufologist says, “YES!”