Somewhere in the Skies - The Exeter UFO Incident

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

On episode 339 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we head to Exeter, New Hampshire. In September of 1965, 18-year old Norman Muscarello spotted a massive cylindrical-shaped object hovering in a field in the sleepy town of Exeter. He frantically reported the event to local police. Several officers would accompany Muscarello back to the site to investigate. And the craft, whatever it was, was back. Witnessed by the officers and dozens around town, explanations by the local Air Force base were flat-out rejected by the witnesses. Soon, Project Blue Book would be called in to solve the case once and for all. This is the Exeter UFO incident. Co-written and researched by Marcus Lowth: www.ufoinsight.com Special thanks to our voiceover contributors: Kevin Crispin: www.sadtimespodcast.com Brent Hand: www.hysteria51.com Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2023 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exeter is a small town in Rockingham County in New Hampshire in the United States. It's a quiet and peaceful place, not the sort of place one would immediately link with UFOs. Yet in 1965, this sleepy town would be ground zero for a series of events that would thrust it into the public consciousness and become one of the best-known string of UFO sightings in history. This is the Exeter UFO incident. This is somewhere in the skies with Brian's bread. It was just after midnight on September 3rd, 1965. Police officer Eugene Bertrand would receive a strange call at the Exeter Police desk.

A young woman, in an obvious state of distress, claimed to have been chased by a flying object while driving. Scared for her life, she pulled the car to the side of the road. road on Route 101. The mysterious craft had now vanished in the distance, but she didn't dare move. Bertrand did his best to assure the frightened woman that she was in no danger. He strongly suspected it might be some kind of prank by teenagers to waste their time. Bertrand would proceed on his patrol duty, sure that the young woman had made a mistake. However, later that night, a call came over the police radio that made Bertrand rethink the strange report. Another claim of a bizarre sighting in the sky had come in, and the witness sat at the station ready to tell his tale. At around the

same time as the first reported events were unfolding, 18-year-old Norman Muscarello was attempting to hitchhike back to Exeter after having visited his girlfriend in nearby Amesbury. While no cars seemed to be in sight, he was relieved when he saw the glow of what he assumed were car headlights heading his way in the distance. However, he would soon realize that the light was something much, much more remarkable than a car. In a matter of seconds, an enormous ball of red and blue light shot upward and directly above Norman. It scared me half to death. Whatever this thing was, it was right above me. It was as big as a house. Norman could hear the agitated barks of several dogs in the area,

as well as disturbed cries of horses in their stalls at a nearby farm. Suddenly, though, a bizarre silence took over. It was like everything in the world just stopped. Then, without warning, the craft dropped downward, directly at Norman. He dove to the ground, laying as flat as he could, taking cover. But he couldn't help but look upward as it happened. The craft seemed to swoop and change its course at the last second. It was wobbling as it cut through the sky.

I couldn't tell if it was metallic or not, but it was definitely solid. Couldn't see the stars behind it, couldn't make out the exact shape as the lights from it were very bright. But if I had to say, it looked sort of cylindrical. The craft suddenly shot off into the night sky and disappeared. out of sight. After taking a few moments to gather his thoughts, Norman got himself to his feet and headed to a nearby house. It would later come to light that this is the home of a family known as the Russell's. I knocked and knocked on the front door. A light came on in the upstairs of the home, but nobody answered. They probably noticed I didn't have a car parked out there and

thought I was some crazy nut pounding on the door at such a late hour. Terrified and desperate to get away in the scene, Norman returned to the road and began waving his arms so that the next car that drove by would see him. To his relief, an actual vehicle this time did indeed head up the road a short time later. When it pulled over, the driver actually knew Norman and agreed to take him to the closest police station where he could report the incident. When Norman first arrived to the Exeter police station, Officer Reginald Toland would take his initial report. Rather than being met with outright ridicule, Tolan told Norman that he had just received several scattered reports

of something in the sky that sounded very much like what Norman had seen. In fact, one of the witnesses had even claimed that the object had chased her in her car. This was indeed the incident being pursued by Officer Eugene Bertrand from earlier. Officer Bertrand returned to the Exeter Police Station, where Toland would have Norman repeat the story. Bertrand then decided to accompany Norman back to the site to see if they could find any evidence of what had occurred.

They'd find plenty more than that. It was some time after 3 a.m. when Officer Bertrand and Norman arrived at the field. A moment after they exited the police vehicle, another patrolling police officer, David Hunt, pulled his car to the side of the road. He began poking fun at Bertrand and Norman regarding the apparent UFO. But that soon changed when all three of them looked up into the sky.

It was back. Whatever it was, it was back. On instinct, Bertrand began to get to his knee and reach for his gun. However, given the incredible nature of the situation, he decided against drawing the weapon. He looked up in awe at the object, which he would later recall looked to be, quote, the size of a barn, noting how it appeared to light up the entire field in which they stood. Around them, the sounds of the horses kicking against their stalls in agitation,

hit their ears, and like before, the sound of equally agitated barks and wines came from dogs that happened to be in the vicinity. The strange object remained overhead, performing magnificent maneuvers for several minutes, before shooting off into the distance at an alarming speed. Just like before it was there, and then it just wasn't. More than a little shaken by what they had just seen,

the police officers, along with Norman, returned to the police station. More calls would continue to jam the police phone throughout the early hours of the morning from concerned and anxious residents. A reporter from a local newspaper, the Haverhill Gazette, saw the huge craft at very close range, hovering for over five minutes over her neighbor's house. Another call claimed that a bizarre object with red flashing lights had followed his car. The ample number of witnesses convinced Officer Bertrand that something truly spectacular was taking place in his district. When he contacted the military to see if they had anything to do with it, they fled. flat out denied any involvement and refused to help investigate, at least for the time being.

But someone was willing to investigate from the civilian world. And that was UFO researcher Raymond Fowler. And his involvement would crack this case wide open. I have a BA, a liberal arts from Gordon College. Prior to that, I served with the United States Air Force Security Service, where we did espionage work, electronic eavesdropping, on our friends, the Russians. At that time, I held a top secret clearance and the crypto clearance. From the Air Force and college days, I went to GTE, Slovenia,

and worked for them for 25 years in the Strategic Systems Division and the Communication Systems Division on a number of weapons systems, usually on contract of the United States Air Force. Raymond Fowler began interviewing people all around Exeter, and he would discover several other local residents who had also seen the object that night. One of these was a schoolteacher who was driving along Route 133 on her way to Ipswich from Exeter.

According to the witness, all of a sudden she felt a static electricity in the air around her. The next thing she knew, she was looking at a, quote, round object with glowing ports. She was in such awe that she actually drove her car off the road to continue watching for a few moments. The object then disappeared out of sight. Norman would eventually meet with Raymond Fowler, but while he would detail his personal sightings from the night in question,

he would also detail an interesting event that took place the following morning. Norman would awake to the constant barrage of phone calls and knocks at his door from people wanting to speak to him about what had happened. This ranged from concerned and curious neighbors to members of the press wanting to get a scoop. But one particular pair of visitors, according to Norman, stood out from the rest. Two men from the United States Air Force showed up at my front door. One of them had a small attache case handcuffed to his wrist. My mother offered the men some coffee to which they obliged. The man with the case detached it from his wrist and opened it to retrieve something.

But I directed the men to the living room to talk, and for some reason, he forgot the case and left it there. While my mother was preparing the coffee, she peeked inside the case and saw that it contained pictures of objects in the sky and other pictures of what looked like strange imprints on the ground. While we were talking, the one man remembered the case and went back to the kitchen. That's when he caught my mother looking inside. and started yelling at her for snooping.

Norman was none too happy with the tone this man was speaking to his mother with. He sprung up and went to the kitchen. I lost my temper. I told those two men to get the hell out of our house. One of them tells me I should shut my mouth and not to say another word about the incident. He even went so far as to tell me that what I'd seen wasn't what I thought it was, to which I told him I know exactly what I saw. They took their attach a case and I escorted them out.

The identity of the two men remains a mystery. However, Fowler's research suggests that two officers, from P's Air Force Base, did visit Exeter on the day in question, to speak with local law enforcement about the reports. Furthermore, according to Fowler, the two officers had made a request that the police not speak publicly of the case, only to be informed. that they had already spoken to the media who were about to run their stories. Some reports even suggested a half-hearted effort by these officers to purchase all of the newspapers they could find available in the area. Fowler's research would further show that these officers also spoke extensively with local farmers in Exeter.

They inquired with these farmers whether their cows were still producing milk in the same amount as usual, or whether chickens were producing the same number of eggs. Fowler found this interesting, and that it shows that the military seemingly had reason to think animals and livestock could be affected by the strange craft above. Some sources even state that a circular, burned area was discovered in one of the farmer's fields. Several explanations for the UFO and Exeter were put forward rather quickly. The first was that an advertiser,

plane was in the area. Newspapers in Exeter ascribed the lights to a, quote, flying billboard, or an ad plane, owned by the Skylight Aerial Advertising Agency out of Boston. The Amesbury News

claimed that the UFO had, quote, finally been identified. The only problem was that the plane was grounded between August 21st and September 10th, and furthermore, it bore no red flashing lights, as reported. Instead, having a, quote, rectangular sign carrying white flashing lights.

Another explanation brought forward was that all of these witnesses had all merely seen stars and planets twinkling due to a temperature inversion, which is basically a phenomenon in which a layer of warm air is trapped above cold night air, and thus is capable of causing visual distortions. However, this was quickly ruled out as well by local meteorologists, and it also didn't explain the large structured craft witnessed by so many. Raymond Fowler would also report that the P's Air Force Space officers even called a last-minute press conference in the very field where the object had been witnessed. They would claim that what had been seen was nothing more than landing lights from P's Air Force Base.

Even having those who had gathered there to turn their attention to the direction of the base in ordering the lights to be switched on. When they were, no one could see them. It became clear that the people of Exeter weren't going to accept the threats, inquiries, and measly explanations being offered by media and the officers from P's Air Force Base.

And the case only grew in interest, both in and beyond Exeter. And while Raymond Fowler began to actively investigate, it was clear that a larger investigation was soon to be undertaken. And this would be done by none other than the United States Air Force's very own UFO investigation unit. Project Blue Book. The Summer in the Sky's podcast is free to listen to every week,

but if you would like to help support the show, we have a very active Patreon page where you give what you think the show is worth. In return, you'll get early access to the main show, bonus episodes, and priority to ask our guests your listener questions. Your support truly makes the show continue and grow. So, to learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. A massive UFO had plagued the skies over Exeter, New Heardt. Hampshire on September 3, 1965. Law enforcement had not only taken down countless reports, but several police officers had witnessed a massive strange craft with their own eyes.

The nearby Air Force Base was sent into town to calm the nerves and offer explanations, but failed at every turn, and it was now time for Project Blue Book to step in. After several days of interviews with witnesses, visits to the sites where the strange UFO had been seen, and speaking directly with representatives at P's Air Force Base, Project Blue Book offered its final explanation. Operation Big Blast Operation Big Blast was a strategic air command and NORAD training mission that had been active on the night of the sighting. and in the traffic pattern utilized by air traffic control in the recovery of these aircraft to Pisa Air Force Base. According to Blue Book, the exercise was active between midnight and 2 a.m.

However, Officer Bertrand would eventually note that he and Norman had witnessed the craft nearly an hour after 2 a.m., which would ostensibly eliminate Operation Big Blast as an explanation. Another explanation would be brought forward many years later in 2011, but not by the Air Force, but by two authors with Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Investigator Joe Nickel, together, together with retired USAF major James McGaha, speculated that the sit-in resulted from a K-C-97 refueling operation. That aircraft type was stationed at P's Air Force Base, and according to the authors,

the red light pattern of the unexplained object matched similar patterns of lights on the underbelly of the KC97. Moreover, the swaying witnesses claimed to have seen, the authors argued, could have resulted from the fluttering of a refueling boom, which hangs at a 60-degree angle from the tanker. However, it should be noted that Officer Bertrand, who again, had seen this strange craft himself, was a tanker crewman during his previous four-year Air Force enlistment, and was therefore likely as anyone to be able to identify such an aircraft, which he didn't.

Finally, Nicol and McGaha's explanation failed to address the silence that accompanied the object. A refueling operation would have made some sense. sort of noise, one would assume. It's only getting every customer's order right. It's only a point of sale system connected by Spectrum fiber-powered business internet, helping you track hundreds of secure transactions.

And it's all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based customer support and local technicians. It's only everything. Get business internet advantage free forever when you get four mobile lines from Spectrum. Visit Spectrum.com slash free for life to find out how. Restrictions apply.

Service is not available in all areas. interest in the Exeter case, both overtly by investigators and discreetly by the military, continued for months after the sighting. According to a Project Blue Book file on the incident dated October 15, 1965, there had been a quote unusually high number of reported sightings of UFOs in the P's Air Force Base, New Hampshire area. Project Blue Book also added that the sighting had been the subject. of much discussion and numerous newspaper, radio, and television reports. The report would label the Exeter incident the, quote,

most interesting sighting of all of the recent events that Project Blue Book had looked at, not least due to the fact that two police officers saw a strange object at very close range. Writing in his book, The Incident at Exeter, author John Fuller, describes meeting officers Bertrand and Hunt several weeks after the incident. If I could debunk the story, I was going to debunk it. I could get a little ghost story about a New England town, you know, with the reactions of people, the psychological feelings. That would have been trying to.

But I get up there, and I found that this case checked out so thoroughly and was documented so completely by really tough-minded cynical officers, police officers, one of whom was an Air Force veteran. Then I found that I unearthed 60 confident, reliable people whom I checked out as to character, confidence, and capacity for observation. And I grilled them, I interrogated them, tape recorded, everything. If I hadn't a tape recorder, I would have buried this story. I can't help feeling that there is a remote possibility that this could be the biggest newsbreaking history. Hunt recalled that for several weeks after the sighting,

quote, three or four phone calls at night would come into the station reporting similar strange objects. He would add that most of those who made reports were pretty sensible people. Bertrand would add that, quote, a lot of people are really afraid to report seeing these things. He would further recall that immediately after the bizarre object had raced off into the distance, an Air Force jet appeared overhead, which allowed both he and Hunt to do an immediate comparison between it and the object that had just disappeared.

In short, there was no comparison at all between them in either lighting or configuration, or sound, or anything else. And given that the object was at such a low altitude, it was impossible that they could have mistaken a plane for this. Even more intriguing, Bertrand would inform Fuller of another sighting on the same road around three weeks after the initial encounter. The witness this time was another local teenager, Ron Smith, who was with his mother and aunt when they witnessed an almost identical craft.

It was around 11.30 p.m., and Smith was driving with his mother and aunt. All of a sudden, his aunt alerted them to something strange in the sky. Ron looked upward and saw it too, bringing the car to a stop. Above them was a spinning object with a glowing white bottom half and a red light on the top. The object passed over their car several times before suddenly coming to a complete stop in mid-air. They could all hear a low humming sound as the object hovered above. Then the object began to wobble, and in the blink of an eye it sped off into the distance. Ron, his mother, and his aunt gathered their thoughts for a moment and set out back toward Exeter.

However, Ron turned the car around in the opposite direction to his mother in aunt's dismay to see if he could see anything else. To his surprise, and now his dismay, he did. The object was heading right towards them again. It swooped down at the car as they all took cover inside. But, according to Ron, at the very last moment, he looked out the front of the car and saw the object shoot upward and disappear into the darkness of the sky. Fuller would later learn from police that they had had over a dozen reports from witnesses that night, most of whom wished to remain anonymous. Furthermore, many more people had volunteered their sightings to officers, quote, off the record when they had bumped into them around town. Yet another encounter that Foller would uncover came from one Sergeant Joe Farnsworth of the Hampton Beach Police Station.

He would state that the encounter was not on the official police records, as they had simply, quote, turned the whole thing over to the U.S. Coast Guard station. Although he wasn't certain of the exact date, it was definitely early September or late August, essentially around the same time as the Exeter incident of September 3rd. Some 10 miles away from Exeter, Farnsworth would state how he was patrolling the area at around 4 a.m. When he noticed a parked car at the side of the road, he made the decision to pull over and investigate. He would find two teenage boys in the car. As soon as they noticed him, they jumped out of the vehicle and approached him,

obviously extremely frightened by something. One of the boys told the officer that he was never going to believe them. After he checked that the two young men were not drunk, they were laid the bizarre and disturbing tale. They claimed they had been driving down the stretch of road when they noticed something come out of the ocean and pass right over their vehicle. Then it stopped and hovered directly over them. They described the object as oblong, a grayish white color, with no control surfaces, wings, or signs of propulsion. It wobbled above them for a few moments, and they could feel a vibration in their car. The boy driving suddenly pressed down on the pedal in an attempt to leave the area.

However, as they went, the object followed, eventually swooping down on them, causing them to pull the car to the side of the road. The object pulled up and at the very last second disappeared into the distance with immense speed. in part because the incident had happened near the coast and involved a strange object seemingly coming out of the ocean, Farnsworth turned the incident and the two teenagers over to the Coast Guard station. Once there, the pair were asked to write a statement of what they'd witnessed and were then interviewed by someone from the air base.

While it was clear that something truly strange had happened in Exeter and that Norman Muscarello had not been the only one to work, witness this, it didn't exactly put Norman at ease. I served in Vietnam, and while there were several times where I believed I was in imminent mortal danger, the fear I felt then was not half as much as what happened that one night in Exeter. I'm not lying to you. That scared the living hell right out of me. What terrifies me the most is that I'll most likely never know what it was I witnessed that night. I'll never know where it came from or why it was there. In all honesty, I wish it had never

happened. While many explanations have been brought forward for the Exeter UFO incident throughout the years, none of those explanations could put the case to rest. In fact, officers Bertrand and Hunt were so displeased and frustrated with the work done by Project Blue Book that they sent several letters directly to then-director of Project Blue Book, Hector Quentinia. which read. As you can imagine, we've been the subject of considerable ridicule since the Pentagon release its final evaluation of our sightings on September 3rd, 1965. In other words, both patrolmen hunted myself saw the object at close range, checked it out with each other, confirmed and reconfirmed that it was not any type of conventional aircraft, and went to

considerable trouble to confirm that the weather was clear, there was no wind, no chance of weather inversion. What we saw was absolutely silent with no rush of air from jets or chopper blades whatsoever. And it did not have any wings or tail. It was in no way as you ascertained a military or civilian aircraft. In January of 1966, with the case ostensibly being closed, one lieutenant colonel, John Spalding, from the office of the secretary of the Air Force, finally replied to the letter of the Exeter police officers. Spalding would state the following. Based on additional information submitted to our UFO investigation office,

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, we have been enabled to adequately identify the object you observed on September 3, 1965. So it appeared that to both the United States Air Forces Project Blue Book and to the witnesses in Exeter, whatever happened that night in 1965 over the skies of New Hampshire, officially remains unexplained. This episode was co-researched by Marcus Loth. To learn more, visit UFOinsight.com.

Please take a moment to rate and review somewhere in the skies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever possible. It helps us gain visibility and find new listeners. You can support us on Patreon, Apple Premium, in our merch shop, or in many other ways. Visit the show notes to learn more, and thank you in advance. You can follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Somewhere Skies, and Instagram at Somewhere Skies pod. Special thanks to our voiceover artists in this episode, Kevin Crispin and Brent Hand. You can learn more about their work at the links in our show notes.

Thank you for listening. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching Somewhere in the Skies. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.