Exeter incident

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The Exeter incident, also called the Incident at Exeter, was a famous UFO sighting that happened on September 3, 1965, near Exeter, New Hampshire (in the nearby town of Kensington). Earlier in the weeks before, several people had reported unusual lights in the area, but the September 3 sighting became the best known.

At about 2:00 a.m., 18-year-old Norman Muscarello was walking along Route 150 when he saw five flashing red lights in the distance. He thought they might be a police car or fire engine, but as he got closer he realized the lights were hovering in the air above a field. The object, estimated to be 80–90 feet across, moved silently toward him. Terrified, Muscarello dived into a ditch. The object then hovered over the Dining family’s farmhouse and moved away. Muscarello ran to the Russell family home and pounded on the door, but no one answered. An approaching car stopped and drove him to the Exeter police station.

At the station, Muscarello described what he had seen to Officer Reginald Toland. Toland contacted Officer Eugene Bertrand Jr., who had earlier stopped a frightened woman who said a large red-lit object had followed her car for about 12 miles. Bertrand and Muscarello drove back to the Dining property to investigate. They saw the object rise from the trees—“a huge, dark object with red flashing lights”—hovering about 100 feet away. Bertrand drew his revolver but did not shoot; the two ran back to the patrol car. They were joined by Officer David Hunt, and together they watched the object for several minutes as it hovered and its red lights flashed in a rapid pattern. The object then rose and disappeared over the trees. A B-47 bomber was heard overhead shortly afterward.

The three men filed separate reports, and the sighting received national publicity. Investigators from Pease Air Force Base interviewed them, and Major Quintanilla of Project Blue Book received their report. The Air Force initially suggested the sighting could be explained by stars, planets, and a weather inversion, and that a SAC/NORAD training mission called Operation Big Blast might account for it. Bertrand and Hunt disputed this explanation in letters to Blue Book, noting that the weather was clear and that the object did not resemble any aircraft.

The Exeter sightings became one of the best-documented UFO cases in history. In 1966, John G. Fuller published Incident at Exeter, which became a bestseller. Muscarello remained convinced of what he saw, and Bertrand and Hunt continued to defend their account. The case inspired the Exeter UFO Festival, started in 2010 to benefit local charities. In 2011, skeptics suggested a mundane explanation linking the red lights to KC-97 in-flight refueling aircraft, whose lights could resemble the observed pattern.