September 3, 1965 — Exeter, NH
Around 1:00 a.m. Exeter, New Hampshire, Police Officer Eugene F. Bertrand Jr. comes across a woman parked on State Highway 101. “She was real upset,” he says, “and told me that a red glowing object had chased her.” Around 2:00 a.m., while walking home to Exeter on Route 150 (Amesbury Road) near Kensington, New Hampshire, teenager Norman J. Muscarello is terrorized by a large object with four or five bright red lights that approaches from nearby woods and hovers over a field. Horses are spooked. Muscarello gets a ride to the Exeter police station, pale and shaken, and reports the incident at 2:24 a.m. Officer Bertrand drives him back to the field along Route 150 to investigate. When he is called to investigate Muscarello’s report, the earlier incident causes him to pay attention. At first Bertrand and Muscarello see nothing, but when Bertrand flashes a light around the field around 3:00 a.m., a huge dark object with red flashing lights rises up over the trees, moving back and forth, tilts, and comes toward them. They both see pulsating red lights that dim from left to right then right to left in a 5-4-3-2-1 then 1-2-3-4-5 pattern. Each cycle takes about 2 seconds. The object hovers for several minutes, and everything is silent except for the dogs and horses. Then it darts, turns sharply, slows down, and begins to move away. Another patrolman, David R. Hunt, pulls up and sees the pulsating lights and the UFO. Bertrand says the lights are always in a line and at a 60° angle; when the object moves, the lower lights are always forward of the others. In the daytime, the police station calls Pease AFB [now Pease Air National Guard Base] in Portsmouth to reconfirm the incident. By 1:00 p.m., 2–4 police officers arrive to interview the three witnesses at length. Journalist John G. Fuller investigates the case during the next month. He finds a huge gap between media coverage and local perceptions. Raymond Fowler finds that the local advertising plane operated by Sky-Lite Aerial Advertising Agency of Boston was not running between August 21 and September 10. [Eberhart]
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Sources:
“Unidentified Flying Objects Witnessed by Exeter Police,” Exeter (N.H.) News-Letter, September 9, 1965, p. 1;
“UFOs Panic Police, Motorists,” UFO Investigator 3, no. 4 (Aug./Sept. 1965): 1, 3–4;
“The Exeter, N.H. Case,” APRO Bulletin, Nov./Dec. 1965, pp. 7–8;
John G. Fuller, “Outer-Space Ghost Story,” Look, February 22, 1966, pp. 36–42;
John G. Fuller, Incident at Exeter, Putnam’s Sons, 1966, pp. 11–17, 67–72, 79–82;
[Testimony of Raymond E. Fowler], Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearing of the US House Armed Services Committee, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., April 5, 1966, pp. 6010–6042;
A. Schopick, A Study of Secondary Effects, pp. 197–199;
Jean Fuller, “The Exeter Incidents,” Flying Saucer Review 13, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1967): 25–27;
Philip J. Klass, UFOs—Identified, Random House, 1968, pp. 12–19, 276;
J Allen Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report, pp. 154–166;
Raymond E. Fowler, Casebook of a UFO Investigator, Prentice-Hall, 1981, pp. 34–43;
Robert Sheaffer, The UFO Verdict, Prometheus, 1981, pp. 111–119;
“Tale of an ‘Exeter Terrestrial,’” IUR 8, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1983): 12–14, excerpted from Exeter Area High School newspaper, Talon 5, no. 1 (1981);
Kim Hansen, “UFO Casebook,” UFOs 1947–1987, Fortean Tomes, 1987, pp. 69–72;
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 1638, p. 318;
Martin Kottmeyer, “The Exeter File,” Part 1, Part 2, Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land;
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, Volume II, pp. 182–183;
John F. Schuessler, “The Exeter, N.H. UFO Case, September 3, 1965: Briefing Document,” October 2002;
Michael D. Swords, GrassRoots UFOs: Case Reports from the Timmerman Files, Fund for UFO Research, 2005, pp. 143–145;
James McGaha and Joe Nickell, “‘Exeter Incident’ Solved!” Skeptical Inquirer 35, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 2011);
Martin Shough, “Exeunt Exeter? Should This 1965 New Hampshire Classic Finally Shuffle Off the Stage?” April 2012;
http://www.martinshough.com/aerialphenomena/EXETER%20N.H.%20Sep%202-3%201965.pdf
Wendy Connors, “Cops and Saucers: Law Enforcement and UFO’s, 1957–1981 Guide,” November 20, 2013, audioclip 15;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 440–444;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., pp. 485–489;
Wikipedia, “Exeter incident”;
Center for UFO Studies, [case documents];
Center for UFO Studies, [John G. Fuller tape-recorded interview transcripts, part one, part two];
“Incident at Exeter: Norman Muscarello and His Frightening 1965 UFO Encounter,” Eyes on Cinema YouTube channel, January 6, 2024;
“Norman Muscarello and Other Eyewitnesses Recall the 1965 UFO Incident in Exeter, New Hampshire,” Eyes on Cinema YouTube channel, May 3, 2024;
Patrick Gross, “The Exeter Cases, 1965”;