From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exeter incident
Exeter incident
The Exeter incident was a highly-publicized UFO ing farm with Muscarello to investigate the field where
sighting that occurred on September 3, 1965 approxi- he had seen the UFO.
mately 5 miles from Exeter, New Hampshire, in the
neighboring community of Kensington. Although several
separate sightings had been made by numerous witness-
Enter Officers Bertrand and
es in the weeks leading up to September 3, the specific Hunt
incident, eventually to become by far the most famous,
Bertrand drove Muscarello back to the place of his sight-
involved a local teenager and two police officers. The Ex-
ing. From Bertrand’s patrol car they saw nothing unusu-
eter incident remains listed as unexplained by the United
al. However, when they left the car and walked towards
States Air Force.
the woods where Muscarello had first seen the objects,
some horses in a nearby corral began kicking their stalls
The Muscarello sighting and making loud, frightened noises. Dogs in the area also
At approximately 2 am on September 3, 1965, Norman began howling. Bertrand and Muscarello both saw an ob-
Muscarello was hitchhiking to his parents’ home in Ex- ject rise up from the woods beyond the corral. Bertrand
eter along Highway 150. Muscarello, 18, had recently described the UFO as "this huge, dark object as big as a
graduated from high school and was about to leave for barn over there, with red flashing lights on it." The ob-
service in the U.S. Navy. He had been visiting his girl- ject moved slowly towards them, swaying back and forth.
friend at her parents’ home in nearby Amesbury, Massa- Instinctively remembering his police training, Bertrand
chusetts; since he did not own a car he would catch a ride dropped to one knee, drew his pistol, and pointed it at
to and from his girlfriend’s home. However, at that time the object. He then decided that shooting would not be
of night there was little traffic on the highway, and as wise, so he reholstered the pistol, grabbed the stunned
he walked he noticed 5 flashing red lights in some near- Muscarello, and both men ran back to the patrol car.
by woods. The lights illuminated the woods and a nearby Bertrand radioed another Exeter policeman, David Hunt,
farmhouse (the farm belonged to the Dining family, who for assistance, and while the two men waited for Hunt
were not at home at the time). The lights soon moved to arrive they continued to watch the object. According
towards him, and Muscarello became terrified and dove to UFO historian Jerome Clark, Bertrand and Muscarel-
into a ditch. The lights moved away and hovered near lo "observed the object as it hovered 100 feet away and
the Dining farmhouse before going back into the woods. at 100 feet altitude. It rocked back and forth. The pul-
Muscarello ran to the farmhouse, pounded on the door sating red lights flashed in rapid sequence, first from
and yelled for help, but no one answered. When he saw right to left, then left to right, each cycle consuming no
a car coming down the road, he ran into the road and more than two seconds...the [local] animals continued
forced it to stop. The couple in the car drove him to the to act agitated."[1] When Hunt arrived he also watched
Exeter police station. the strange object. The object finally flew away over the
At the station Muscarello told his story to police of- woods and disappeared. Hunt soon saw a B-47 bomber
ficer Reginald Toland, who worked the night desk at the fly overhead and he later told journalist John G. Fuller
police station. Toland, who knew Muscarello, was im- that "You could tell the difference" between the UFO and
pressed by his obvious fear and agitated state. Toland ra- the bomber, "there was no comparison." [2] All three men
dioed police officer Eugene Bertrand, Jr., who had earlier drove back to the Exeter police station and immediate-
in the evening passed a distressed woman sitting in her ly filed separate reports on what they had seen. Bertrand
car on Highway 108. When Bertrand stopped and asked if then drove Muscarello home and told his mother what
she had a problem, the woman told him that a "huge ob- had happened.
ject with flashing red lights" had been following her car
for 12 miles and stopped over her car before flying away. Other Exeter sightings
Bertrand considered her a "kook" but did stay with her
The sightings by Muscarello and the two policemen re-
for approximately 15 minutes until she had calmed down
ceived national publicity. John G. Fuller, a journalist and
and was ready to resume her drive.
regular columnist for Saturday Review magazine, decided
After arriving at the police station and hearing Mus-
to travel to Exeter and investigate. Fuller interviewed a
carello’s story, Bertrand decided to drive back to the Din-
number of people in the Exeter area who also claimed
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exeter incident
ter Muscarello’s sighting, he was riding with his mother
and aunt one evening at 11:30. According to Smith, he,
his mother and aunt all saw an object with "a red light
on top and the bottom was white and glowed. It appeared
to be spinning. It passed over the car once and when it
passed over and got in front, it stopped in midair. Then it
went back over the car again."[3] Fuller also spoke to po-
lice officer Toland at Exeter’s police station. Toland told
Fuller of a number of calls he had received from Exeter-
area residents regarding UFO sightings. A good example
of the type of calls Toland had received came from Mrs.
Ralph Lindsay. According to Toland "she called in here
early, just before dawn. She said it was right out her win-
dow as she was calling. It was like a big orange ball, al-
most as big as the harvest moon...and it wasn’t the moon,
either...all the time she was talking to me, her kids were
at the window watching it. Now why would people go to
all this trouble - people all over the area - if they weren’t
seeing something real"? [4]
Air Force investigation and ex-
planation
When Exeter’s police chief read the reports of Bertrand,
Hunt, and Muscarello he called nearby Pease Air Force
Base and reported a UFO sighting. The Air Force sent Ma-
jor David Griffin and Lieutenant Alan Brandt to interview
the three men. The Air Force officers asked all three men
to not report their sighting to the press, but since a re-
porter from the Manchester Union-Leader newspaper had
already interviewed them, it was too late. Major Griffin
sent a report of the incident to the staff of Project Blue
Book, the official Air Force research group assigned to
study UFO reports. Griffin wrote that "At this time I have
been unable to arrive at a probable cause of this sight-
ing. The three observers seem to be stable, reliable per-
sons, especially the two patrolmen. I viewed the area of
the sighting and found nothing in the area that could be
the probable cause. Pease AFB had five B-47 aircraft fly-
ing in the area but I do not believe that they had any con-
nection with this sighting."[5]
However, before Project Blue Book could send this
evaluation to the Pentagon, the Air Force had already is-
sued an explanation of Muscarello and the two police-
men’s sighting to the press. The Pentagon informed re-
porters that the three men had seen "nothing more than
stars and planets twinkling...owing to a temperature in-
version."[5] Project Blue Book then issued its own expla-
nation, stating that "Operation Big Blast...a SAC/NORAD
training mission" had been active on the night of the
Location of Kensington, New Hampshire
sighting and that it could have accounted for the UFO.
Project Blue Book’s supervisor, USAF Major Hector Quin-
to have witnessed strange lights and unusual objects. tanilla, wrote policemen Bertrand and Hunt that "in ad-
Among them were Ron Smith, a senior at Exeter High dition to aircraft from this operation [Big Blast], there
School, who told Fuller that about two or three weeks af- were also five B-47 aircraft flying in your area during this
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exeter incident
period...since there were many aircraft in the area, at the rassed officer slunk back into the seat of the staff car and
time, and there were no reports of unidentified objects drove off amongst the laughs and jeers of the crowd."[8]
from personnel engaged in this operation, we might then In January 1966 Lieutenant Colonel John Spaulding,
assume that the objects [you] observed between mid- from the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, finally
night and two am might be associated with this military replied to the policemen’s two letters. Spaulding wrote
air operation."[5] However, Quintanilla also added that that "based on additional information submitted to our
"If, however, these aircraft were noted by either of you, UFO investigation officer, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio,
this would tend to eliminate this air operation as a possi- we have been unable to identify the object you observed
ble explanation for the objects observed."[5] on September 3, 1965."[6]
Controversy and Air Force re- Aftermath
traction The Exeter UFO sightings - and especially the incident
involving Norman Muscarello and police officers Eugene
Muscarello, Bertrand, and Hunt all strongly disagreed Bertrand and David Hunt - remain among the best-docu-
with the Air Force explanation. The two policemen sent mented and best-publicized in UFO history. In 1966 Fuller
a letter to Project Blue Book in which they stated, "As would publish an account of his investigation into the
you can imagine, we have been the subject of consider- case. Entitled Incident at Exeter, it would make The New
able ridicule since the Pentagon released its ’final evalua- York Times bestseller list and remains one of the best-
tion’ of our sighting of September 3, 1965. In other words, selling UFO books in history. Of those who were directly
both Patrolman Hunt and myself saw this object at close involved with the case, only David Hunt and Raymond
range, checked it out with each other, confirmed and re- Fowler are still living as of 2010. Norman Muscarello died
confirmed that it was not any type of conventional air- after a sudden illness in April 2003; he insisted to his
craft...and went to considerable trouble to confirm that death that what he had witnessed was real and not an or-
the weather was clear, there was no wind, no chance of dinary object.
weather inversion, and that what we were seeing was in
no way a military or civilian aircraft."[6] Bertrand also
noted that their UFO sighting took place nearly an hour See also
after Operation Big Blast was said to have ended, which • List of major UFO sightings
eliminated the operation as a possible cause of the sight- • UFO
ing. When Project Blue Book did not respond to their let-
ter, on December 29, 1965 - nearly four months after the
sighting - the two men sent another letter to Blue Book References
in which they wrote that the object they observed "was • Clark, Jerome. The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the
absolutely silent with no rush of air from jets or chop- Extraterrestrial. Visible Ink Press, 1998.
per blades whatsoever. And it did not have any wings • Fowler, Raymond. Casebook of a UFO Investigator.
or tail...it lit up the entire field, and two nearby houses Prentice-Hall Books, 1981.
turned completely red."[6] • Fuller, John G. Incident at Exeter, the Interrupted
In addition to Muscarello and the policemen, John G. Journey: Two Landmark Investigations of UFO Encounters
Fuller also ridiculed the Air Force explanation in print. Together in One Volume. MJF, 1997. ISBN
He wrote that he had observed an unusual object near Ex- 1-5673-1134-2.
eter himself, and that it was being chased by an Air Force
jet fighter. Raymond Fowler, the New England investiga-
tor for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Footnotes
Phenomena (NICAP), also filed a detailed report on the [1] Clark 1998, p. 184.
Exeter sightings. In his view the Air Force explanation [2] Fuller 1997, p. 22.
was also incorrect.[7] At one point an Air Force officer [3] Fuller 1997, p. 73.
claimed that the UFOs people had been observing were [4] Fuller 1997, p. 84.
merely lights from nearby Pease AFB. To prove it, he had [5] ^ Clark 1998, p. 185.
the lights activated before a large crowd who were gath- [6] ^ Clark 1998, p. 186.
ered some distance away. According to Fowler, "he or- [7] Fowler 1997, p. 42.
dered personnel at the base to turn the lights on. Every- [8] Fowler 1981, p. 43.
body looked and waited - and nothing happened. Frus-
trated, he yelled into the mike to turn on the lights. A
voice replied that the lights were on. The very embar-
External links
• The Incident at Exeter
3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exeter incident
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Categories:
• UFO sightings
• 1965 in New Hampshire
• Exeter, New Hampshire
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