Exeter Incident

The night of September 3, 1965, began unremarkably in the small New Hampshire town of Exeter. By dawn, it would become the subject of one of the most thoroughly documented UFO cases in American history, investigated by the Air Force, reported in major newspapers, and eventually immortalized in a bestselling book that brought the incident to national attention. What makes the Exeter incident particularly compelling is the quality of the witnesses. When a terrified teenager reported being chased by a massive UFO, skeptics might have dismissed his account. But when two experienced police officers witnessed the same object, the case became impossible to ignore.

Norman Muscarello’s ordeal began at approximately 2:00 AM as he walked along Route 150 toward his home in Exeter. He had been visiting his girlfriend in Amesbury, Massachusetts, and was hitchhiking back through the quiet countryside. The road was empty, the houses dark, and the only illumination came from the stars overhead. Then he saw the lights. Rising from behind a line of trees near a large open field, a massive object emerged, covered in brilliant red pulsating lights. The lights moved in a sequential pattern, one after another, creating an effect unlike anything Muscarello had ever seen. The object was huge, perhaps eighty to ninety feet in diameter, and it made no sound whatsoever. The object moved toward him. Muscarello, terrified, dove into a ditch beside the road. The craft passed directly overhead, so close he could feel its presence, though he heard nothing but the pounding of his own heart. It then drifted toward a nearby house, hovering mere feet from the building before moving away. Muscarello ran to the house and pounded on the door, but the occupants, an elderly couple, were too frightened to open up. He ran back to the road and flagged down a passing car. The driver, a middle-aged woman, was so alarmed by his condition that she drove him directly to the Exeter police station.

Officer Eugene Bertrand arrived at the station, visibly shaken, pale, and struggling to describe what he had seen. The desk officer listened with understandable skepticism. Teenagers telling wild stories in the early morning hours was not unprecedented. But Bertrand had heard something similar earlier that night. He had stopped to assist a woman sitting in her car on Route 101, clearly upset. She had told him that a large object with red lights had followed her car for several miles before moving away. Bertrand had dismissed her account at the time, but now here was a second witness describing the same thing. Bertrand decided to investigate. He drove Muscarello back to the location where the sighting had occurred, a field off Route 150 known locally as the Carl Dining field. They parked near the open area and got out of the cruiser. At first, they saw nothing unusual. The field was quiet, the horses in a nearby corral standing peacefully. Then the horses began to stir, and the dogs in the vicinity started barking wildly. And then, from behind the trees, the object rose again.

What Bertrand and Muscarello saw defied explanation. A massive craft, at least the size of a house, rose silently from behind the trees and drifted toward them across the field. It was covered with brilliant red lights that pulsed in sequence, casting an eerie glow across the landscape. The object wobbled slightly as it moved, as if it were a leaf floating on water. Bertrand, a veteran of the Air Force with extensive experience identifying aircraft, knew immediately that this was no airplane, helicopter, or conventional craft. He drew his service revolver instinctively before thinking better of it. Both he and Muscarello ran back toward the patrol car, putting distance between themselves and the approaching object. At that moment, Officer David Hunt arrived, responding to Bertrand’s earlier radio call. Hunt saw the object hovering near the field before it rose rapidly and shot away to the east. Three witnesses had now observed the same object, and their descriptions matched precisely.

The Exeter incident was reported to Pease Air Force Base and subsequently investigated by Project Blue Book, the official Air Force UFO investigation program. The initial explanation offered was that the witnesses had observed advertising aircraft or possibly military aircraft conducting exercises in the area. This explanation was rejected by all three witnesses, who pointed out that they had seen aircraft before and this was nothing like any aircraft they knew. The Air Force later changed its explanation to suggest that the witnesses had observed the planet Jupiter or temperature inversions creating optical illusions. This explanation was even less satisfactory. Jupiter does not hover over fields, does not pulsate with red lights, and does not cause horses and dogs to panic. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who served as scientific consultant to Project Blue Book, personally investigated the Exeter case. He found the witnesses credible and the official explanations inadequate. The case became one of many that contributed to Hynek’s growing disillusionment with Project Blue Book’s methods.

Journalist John G. Fuller was intrigued by the Exeter incident and spent months investigating the case. His research revealed that the September 3 sighting was not an isolated event. Multiple witnesses in the Exeter area had reported similar objects in the days and weeks surrounding the main incident. Fuller documented dozens of sightings, interviewed witnesses, and examined the official response. His book, “Incident at Exeter,” was published in 1966 and became a bestseller. It brought national attention to the case and established the Exeter incident as one of the classic UFO cases of the era. Fuller’s thorough documentation ensured that the testimony of the witnesses would be preserved for future study.

What Fuller discovered was that Exeter was experiencing a wave of UFO activity throughout the late summer and fall of 1965. Night after night, residents reported strange lights and structured objects in the skies over southeastern New Hampshire. The main incident on September 3 was simply the best-documented event in a much larger pattern. Multiple families reported objects hovering over their homes, motorists described being followed by silent craft, farm animals displayed unusual behavior during sightings, some witnesses reported electrical interference with vehicles and lights, and sightings continued for weeks after the main incident. This pattern of concentrated activity, known as a UFO “flap,” has been observed in other locations and time periods. Why certain areas experience waves of sightings while others remain quiet is unknown.

The Exeter incident set a new standard for UFO documentation. The combination of multiple credible witnesses, including two police officers, the immediate official investigation, and Fuller’s thorough journalistic research created a record that has withstood decades of scrutiny. Officer Bertrand and Officer Hunt never changed their accounts. Norman Muscarello maintained his story throughout his life. The physical object they observed, whatever it was, left an impression that none of them ever forgot. For researchers, Exeter demonstrated that UFO sightings could occur in ways that resisted conventional explanation. The witnesses were trained observers, the sighting occurred at close range, multiple people saw the same thing, and the official explanations were transparently inadequate. The Exeter incident remains a landmark in UFO history, a case where the evidence for something genuinely unknown is strong enough to resist easy dismissal. What flew over the fields of New Hampshire on that September night in 1965 has never been identified, and after more than half a century, an explanation remains elusive.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Exeter Incident”
• Project Blue Book — National Archives — USAF UFO investigation files, 1947–1969
• CIA UFO/UAP Reading Room — Declassified CIA documents on UAP
• UK National Archives — UFO Files — MoD UFO investigation records
• British Newspaper Archive — UK press archive