ISLESBORO — The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday confirmed it is investigating reports of a low-flying jet that witnesses said “buzzed” the island home of actor John Travolta one evening last week.

The sightings prompted talk along the island grapevine that Travolta was either piloting or a passenger in the aircraft, which an FAA spokeswoman confirmed was a large carrier-type jet.

The FAA would not confirm who was piloting or flying in the plane.

People reported seeing the jet about 8:30 p.m. Monday, July 26.

Agatha Cabaniss, a longtime Islesboro resident, publishes the local newspaper, The Island News. She also lives in the only home that has views of the 42-room house Travolta and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, share across a small cove, she said.

“I don’t want to ever see a 707 in front of my house as close as that again,” she said Friday, referring to a type of Boeing Co. jet.

Cabaniss said the plane banked and circled three times over the cove, apparently “buzzing” the Travolta house.

“He was not 500 feet from my window,” she said of the pilot. Though no one will say whether Travolta was piloting the aircraft, many islanders assume he was.

Travolta could not be reached for comment Friday. He reportedly is working on a movie in Montreal and regularly flies from Bangor to the film set.

He followed his friend, TV star Kirstie Alley, to Islesboro in the early 1990s, restoring a 1903 home near the village of Dark Harbor.

Islesboro is in Penobscot Bay, southeast of Belfast. The island’s 600 residents generally respect and protect the privacy of the rich and famous. But the incident late last month has sharpened the division between those who love Travolta and what he does for the local economy and those who remain unimpressed by his celebrity.

Since moving into the island house, Travolta has regularly flown his Gulf Stream jet into nearby Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head. He then is shuttled out to the island in a smaller, propeller-driven plane.

Travolta, 45, is known to have earned several airplane pilot’s licenses. He reportedly leases jets larger than the Gulf Stream and lands them at Bangor International Airport, which has a 2-mile runway, long enough to accommodate the aircraft. He then flies to the island in a helicopter.

“He regularly uses BIA,” said Jeff Russell, the airport’s marketing and sales manager. “He’s a regular and valued client of the airport,” he said, “and he’s an excellent pilot.”

Travolta holds several complex pilot ratings, Russell said, and has a good reputation in aviation circles.

After the July 26 incident, Cabaniss said, one island resident called the tower at BIA to complain. The FAA sent an investigator to the island to interview residents who said they witnessed the low-flying aircraft, she said.

FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salas confirmed the investigation Friday, but refused to offer information about who owned or was piloting the plane in question, citing federal law that protects the privacy of individual owners of aircraft. Should the investigation conclude with any charges, that information would be made public, she said.

All aircraft are prohibited from flying lower than 1,000 feet in developed areas and from flying under 500 feet in more sparsely developed areas. Salas did not know how Islesboro is categorized.

Cabaniss said islanders have seen Travolta fly over his house before.

“He’s buzzed up there before, but in smaller planes, and nobody complained,” she said. “Everyone’s entitled to make some noise once in a while, but this was egregious,” she said of the July 26 incident. Other witnesses of the incident wrote letters to the FAA, she said.

A supporter of Travolta’s hung a handmade sign on a bulletin board in an island store, encouraging Travolta to “keep on flying,” Cabaniss said. Residents seem divided on the matter, she said. “He’s very popular among certain circles,” she said. “He’s a big economic factor,” she conceded, employing many in his home.

Cabaniss describes herself as “indifferent” to Travolta. “I have no animosity toward him at all,” she said, but believes the flying maneuver — no matter who did it — was dangerous. Some of those who witnessed the incident assumed a plane was crashing, she said.