The Incident at Exeter — New Hampshire

In the early hours of September 3, 1965, 18-year-old Norman Muscarello was hitchhiking along Route 150 near Exeter, New Hampshire when a huge, silent craft with rows of brilliant, pulsating red lights descended to within 100 feet of him, hovering over a nearby field. Muscarello threw himself in a ditch and eventually flagged down a car to the Exeter police station, visibly shaken.

Police Officer Eugene Bertrand — who had earlier that night encountered a distressed woman claiming a craft had followed her car — took Muscarello back to the location. Bertrand and Muscarello together watched the same craft return: a massive, silent object with five brilliant red lights pulsing in sequence, rising out of a field bordered by power lines and moving with a rocking motion unlike any aircraft. Bertrand grabbed Muscarello and pulled him behind his cruiser, fearing the object would strike them.

Officer David Hunt arrived as backup and also observed the object, providing a third independent law enforcement witness. All three described the same craft, the same movement pattern, and the same pulsating light sequence. Horses in a nearby corral were agitated, and dogs in the area were barking. The object eventually moved off toward the ocean.

Journalist John Fuller investigated the case thoroughly and published "Incident at Exeter" in 1966, which became one of the foundational texts of modern UAP literature. The Air Force initially attributed the sightings to aircraft from nearby Operation Big Blast, but the exercise had ended hours before the sightings. Officers Bertrand and Hunt wrote directly to Project Blue Book requesting their report not be attributed to the exercise. Blue Book classified the case as unidentified.