This Paranormal Life - The UFO So Big it Turned the Sky Red - The Exeter Incident

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

The incident at Exeter, also known as the Exeter UFO, is maybe America’s most credible UFO case — yeah we’ll say it! What started as a long day in the life of Norman Muscarello turned into the longest night of his life when he saw lights setting the sky ablaze in the New Hampshire sky one night in 1965. Thankfully he immediately turned to local law enforcement, starting a paper trail that would go all the way to the highest echelons of governmental investigation, and make the unbelievable, well, believable! Get your tickets to our London Live Show! Become a commune member to get access to bonus episodes: ⁠https://thisparanormallife.com⁠ Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Researched by ⁠Ewen Friers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In September 1965, a recently graduated high school student called Norman Muscarello was hitching his way home after visiting his girlfriend in Amesbury, Massachusetts. It was 2 a.m. The roads were quiet and he couldn't catch a ride when he eventually spotted some lights up ahead on Route 50. He thought his problems were solved. Yet as the lights got closer, he discovered these weren't the beams of a car. These lights came from something hovering 100 feet above him. But what exactly did he see in Exeter, New Hampshire that night? How do the feds manage to track down other witnesses? And does the American Exeter contain as many pasties and scrumpy siders as the English one? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life!

Hello and welcome back to this paranormal life, the weekly comedy podcast, where every week we investigate a different paranormal case deciding whether we think it's real or not as the best paranormal investigators in the whole wide universe. How you doing today? Rory Powers. I'm doing great. Always excited to be back on the podcast discussing a brand new paranormal tale. Sounds like this week it is a hitchhiker

who hitched more than a hike. Jeez. You know? He might have hitched a probing. How big was that motherfuckering thumb? If you're hailing down a lift like that, got Mickey Mousees out here trying to get a lift home. God damn. Oh, I didn't want heading north.

That's because that's the thing, especially now about hitchhiking, is I think it's infamously quite hard to hitch a ride, you know? Do you think? Is it hard or is it just deemed societally unsafe? I don't. Yeah, probably unsafe. I feel like I think it's hard to get a reassuring ride, you know? I think it's hard to get a normal ride.

I think it might be quite easy to get a kind of. of crazy taxi level ride. I think there's a bit of a paradox with hitchhiking where it's easy to catch a ride if you're the kind of person that's probably going to get axe murdered. Okay. But it's hard to catch a ride if you're the kind of person that looks like they're going to do the axe murdering. Mm-hmm. Yes. And I think maybe in the past, when I've tried to hitch a ride, I've fallen to the axe

murderer category. Yeah. Have you tried to hitch a ride? Yeah. And successfully did it. Yeah, once in my life. It doesn't count if you were wasted after a night out at a club. That's exactly when it happens. That's the only time I've ever tried as well. Yeah, yeah.

I was like, I got kicked out of a nightclub. I was so wasted. I was like, hoof, like a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon. I was like, thanks for pulling over. And it's like, it's me, Rory, it's your mom. I've come to, they, they, the school phoned me to come pick you up. I can't go home. My mother will kill me.

Yeah, so. And it did work. Didn't work for me. Oh no, I think I told the story on the podcast before. It was four guys and we managed to hitch a ride home at like 2 a.m. with just a lady who was driving back to our hometown. Wow. And I was like, what did you want to happen?

Very strange. I was like, you are fine, but honestly, don't do this again. Don't pick up four strange men. One of the guys was like six foot nine. foot nine. Lazar. Yeah. Lazzar. Yeah. I was going to drop his government name on the podcast. I shouldn't do that. Lazar, yes. Dude, a foreign exchange student who went to our high school and at 14 years old was about six foot four with a six pack.

He was a government agent. He was sent to style or something. There's no way he was 15 years old. A 15 year old boy built like the T-1,000. Yeah. Genuinely, he looked like a robot. But I like that, yeah, she pulled over and was like, where do you guys need to get to? And you were like, what are you thinking? Get out of here. Yeah.

I was like, don't pull over. Keep driving. God. That's right. We're talking about the Exeter incident. Spoiler alert, also known as the Exeter UFO. Interestingly, today's subject is often described online as one of the most well-documented UFO sightings in history. That means we're getting some evidence.

Not sure how that can be. if two Tony Award-winning paranormal investigators right here haven't even heard of it, let alone covered it. But I think that's because, for some reason, a bit like Crash Bandicoot. It has faded from public interest in recent years. But it's time to change that. And by the way, thank you so much to Gregory Taylor Power,

who wrote this one in by saying, Hey, guys, you should check out the Exeter UFO incident. It's the second most famous UFO encounter in my home state of New Hampshire, USA. Behind that of Betty and Barney Hill. Wow! Wow! Which was a case that I brought to the podcast and we loved it. I actually think that one was a double yes.

Yeah, it's a good example of when one case is so famous, it completely overshadows other cases from that same area. It's like being a golfer from the same town as Tiger Woods. Good luck to you. He writes, there are credible witnesses, and there's even an annual UFO festival in Exeter to celebrate the incident. Hope you can cover it at some point. Cheers. Also, shout out to a couple other people who have suggested this one,

Stephanie Garaldi and Roland Montgomery. I'm probably missing others, but thank you so much if you have messaged it in. We are going to get straight into this investigation, but first, a reminder, guys, if you're enjoying this paranormal life, remember to smash follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or smash that subscribe button over on YouTube so you do not miss an episode. And remember that if you are enjoying this paranormal life, head over to this paranormal life.com to become a member of the commune today and gets hundreds of episodes right now. For as little as five bucks a month or about £4 pending your local currency, you can get access to everything today.

There's a ton of other cool rewards too. It's incredibly easy and I think there's a seven-day trial, free trial right now. Couldn't be easier. There's also a free tier. So you can hang out there afterwards if you wish. Check it out today. This paranormal life.com. Oh, and last bit of housekeeping, live show.

Sunday 11th of October. Come see us in London. to the live show. You don't want to miss it. Rory, let's get the story of September 3rd, 1965, from the most direct source possible, Norman Mascarello himself. Look, in the years after his encounter, he was pretty guarded about retelling this story and he gave very few interviews. But he did something I don't think I've ever seen in the paranormal world before, and I actually really rate this. Instead of talking to the press or trying to sell a book, the only time he gave his most extensive recounting of the events was to the students of Exeter Area High

School in 1980. Sounds like he definitely shouldn't have done that. It feels like he was probably brought in to talk about something completely different and then it just got, it just escaped out of him. Right. You know, they were like, Norman, you're a pillar of the community, you run a great long-standing HVAC repair business. If you could just talk to our kids about entrepreneurship, that would be great. 1965, remember 11. Cut the mic, cut the mic. He told the kids. I was thumbing down Route 50 towards Exeter in Kensington.

It was a clear night, no rain. There were plenty of stars in the sky. I observed planes in the sky earlier. And as if predicting the reaction from skeptics in advance, he added for clarity, It's pretty easy for me to understand the difference between a plane and what I saw. I'm sure if you experienced it, there wouldn't be any question in your mind. He goes home.

I just got past the dining farm. There's a little field on the right-hand side. I observed pulsating lights coming from the north, heading in a southwesternly direction towards where I was. I assume the speed must have been something terrific because it came up on me all of a sudden like this. He described the lights as pulsating erratically without any distinct pattern. And yes, I know the difference between.

a car's headlights and a UFO's headlights. These are like all the things people have had problems with in the past. I walk past the local hotel. And no, I hadn't been drinking at the bar before this. Yes. As others have pointed out, I was off my medication. Oh, no. But I don't know.

Okay. I was like, oh, shit. But my brain was working pretty well without Bill Gates' microchip in it for once. And yeah, I have. had a little bit of goo up my butthole when I left the house, but there was substantially more when I returned. It seems that the eerieness of this encounter was made way more extreme by the sand or lack of there was absolutely no sound other than the fact I heard horses in the dining's field, raising holy hell kick in the barn. Crickets seemed to just quit.

My attention was fixed on these lights. I didn't know what it was. but I do think that is really cool that the animals lost it which is really like a sci-fi movie or Jordan Peel's nope the animals are always the first to know Jordan Peel's nope also actually the title of my letterbox review

of that movie I'm just kidding I actually thought it was pretty clever that Jordan used his theme of kind of horses throughout the story it was really fitting because the movie itself was horse shit I actually wanted to get out

of some of his old movies when I was at the cinema. And like I understand he was trying to do something really dramatic and disturbing for the audience with that flashback scene of Stephen Yun surviving that traumatic event. But if anything,

I was just so jealous of the people who had their heads ripped off by a chimpanzee, at least they didn't have to witness the rest of the movie. Norman was in a state of total bewilderment and fear as he stood rooted to the spot watching the lights pass over him. The light phenomena was disorienting. but he eventually found the composure to run in the direction of the farmhouse across the road.

He dove into the ditch at the side of the highway and witnessed the entire side of the farmhouse lit up in red. Oh, hell yeah! Once the last sweep of lights had passed Norman, it, quote, took off and he made a dash for the farmhouse. He banged wildly on the front door, but to no avail. He would discover later that the farmer and his wife were inside but were too frightened to answer. Oh shit. He wrote, Mrs. Russell told me later that they were awake and they heard me pounding. But they're not going to answer the door with this crazy nut pounding at 2 o'clock in the morning.

That's fair. No car outside front or anything like that. So they didn't bother answering. But they did remember me. Which is good because even though they didn't open the door, you now have at least two more witnesses. Yes. To the events. Yeah, yeah.

It's a fun wrinkle to the story. I guess I never thought about that. But yeah, I don't know how. We never really have that. Someone just like seeing something paranormal and just being like, how? Just like hell no. Yeah, yeah. Why not?

Although I think a lot of the times in UFO cases like this, they don't get the chance. Yeah. It's usually. There's like a flash of white light and then you're like 200 miles down the road still driving your car. Like two hours have gone by in a flash. You go to scream, you go. Yeah, you're gone You're gone

Your belt's been done up But it's the wrong notch So this is Your underwear's on back to frog So this is Good to see Two more witnesses In theory

So Norman Still not safe Runs back out onto the road Where he finally spotted a car Now rather than taking any chances With trying to hitchhike again He just dove onto the road And frantically waved a car down

He asked the couple inside to take him directly to Exeter Police Station. Okay, he wants to go to the police station. At this point, there isn't really nothing's happened to him. Because he actually got away. Yeah. So he did, it's kind of, that's going to be a hard conversation to be like I saw something in the sky. There was bright lights. But, but I'm fine, really, you know.

That is tough. Right. Just the guy behind the desk is just eating a donut. He's right, I'm not really a crying. though, is it? Yeah. I mean... It kind of isn't

that you got scared on the road. But Rory, I think, ironically, your brain has been so f***ed by the insane paranormal stories

we've heard on this paranormal life. Also, all that glue I sniffed as a child. That too, yes. Yes. And the time that you drank the insides

of a magic eight ball, that too. Mm, to get all the answers. Now you can shake me and words appear in my eyes. If you ask Rory what the square root of nine is, he says, it's unclear. I do this. I shake him down and then something.

Ask again later. It's always ask again later. I only ate one answer. Okay, Rory, what's your home address? Does anyone at the table have any allergies? Okay, he's allergic to something now. Hey yo. So we asked this couple to take him to Exeter Police Station,

and I wish I could tell you these witnesses' names. But they never came forward, and they were never named. There's a weird reason why, Rory, can you put your detective hat on for a second and try and guess why these people have never come forward? The people who picked him up in the car? Yeah. You know, if I was a detective, I would go straight to some logical explanations.

Yes, please. First off, maybe they don't want their lives ruined. Maybe they just picked up a stranger, dropped them off, and they're like, we don't want any more part of this. Second off, they might not even live in the local area. They could have just been passing through. Maybe you can't reach them or find them because they continue to drive five hours to a different town. You know? Those are just logical.

I'm not even trying to be funny. Detective Lugo is in the room with us, guys. I mean, this is pretty good stuff. And yet it is something slightly weird. because, you know, maybe this is a small town that they live in. And maybe the guy in the car didn't want anyone to know who else was in the car. Okay, well, that felt like important information you probably should have told me. No, no, I'm just saying, because Norman put it in his own words, he said,

the reason he never disclosed his name is because it wasn't his wife in the car with him, if you know what I mean. Oh! He says, I'm not even going to disclose this guy's name now. name now. God. So it's like a weird Cohen Brothers moment where Norman is like,

Stop the car. What, Norman, what the hell's going on? You know, let me jump in. And he's like, who's this? And it's like, Norman, you can't tell anyone she was here. And he's like, all right,

just get me to the police station and I'll say this never happened. Oh, Norman, good to see you. This is Steve, my wrestling buddy. Which is why we're so sweaty and oiled up currently. Right, I waved on a car It was completely steamed up

And stationary Norman, is that you? Oh, this is Dennis, Steve, and Frank My wrestling buddies We were just talking about Q2 You know, we got work in the morning and all that So Steve, you're rock hard Yeah

Well, you know, I love financials And But what matters is he eventually made it to the police station And don't worry, we're going to get some more paranormal details very soon. Hmm. Norman was worried that the police would think he was crazy, but he was relieved when he saw someone he knew on the night desk.

Reginald Scratch Tolland. Yeah, that's the nickname. That's the kind of guy who's gonna listen to your story. Toland knew Norman and was impressed by his, quote, obvious fear and genuinely agitated state. What a worrying nickname to give a police officer. Scratch? That sounds like he's gonna scratch you.

You think? Like, while he's arresting you. Whereas if you're getting arrested, you really wanted to be done by Officer Bribey. You know? Because you're getting out of jail before midnight. Officer David Cash Johnson. Officer David Money Talks, Johnson.

My name's Sergeant B.J. Make it go away. Jesus Christ. Oh, f*** ill. Who made him a cop? Sergeant BJ. Okay, so Toland was on board. Not only that, Toland revealed to Norman, but they had had two other remarkably similar reports that very same night. Here we go.

One woman had reported being chased by a, quote, huge object with flashing red lights as she drove along the NH108. She alleged that the object followed her for 12 miles before hovering off. Wow! The other report had come from an anonymous caller. Norman later described a gentleman had called from a phone booth. He had described pretty much the same thing I'd seen. But when the police pulled up to the phone booth, the phone was just dangling. There was nobody around.

Is he okay? Does anyone have him on Find My Friends? Yeah. He might be in another galaxy by now. So Norman thought he was gonna get roasted, sauteed and flambayed, laughed out of the police headquarters, when instead Tolan picked up his radio and called Officer Bertrand and told him, we got a third sighting on our hands. Wow, that's really reassuring. Imagine, imagine being nervous to tell someone about it and they're like, you're the third person. Yeah, that would feel

so reassuring. Yeah, like in our famous episode where the man had his trousers sucked off by a UFO, imagine he had gone to the police station and they'd just been like, get in lying buddy, we got a 45 minute wait on trouser cases. Yeah, it's just a bunch of people in a line with no pants. Yeah. Officer BJ having a field day that day. What? With the witness right there on the station,

they decided to not waste any time. Officer Bertrand decided to come get Norman and drive out to the site in question together. The pair parked and wandered to an empty field around where the lights had first appeared. And yet again, Roy, can you imagine how disturbing this would have been when they're standing in the field? They're like, well, Norman, I don't really know what you're talking about. I mean, it's just a quiet field, quiet evening.

a New Hampshire night, well, I guess we, I bet, I get, I best we get her, get back to the police station, and then the horses start losing it. Again? I don't know why they're laughing. They start kicking, pounding. I'm grabbing the cops gun. I'm grabbing it from his holster. Hold it to your head.

I will do it. I will do it. If this thing comes back, I'm pulling the trigger. Or you just fire off a couple of warning shots. Hey, I'm going to fight. back, all right? Yeah. You ain't touching my... Is there a wall I can stand against? You ain't touching my butt. They said the craft was like completely silent flying in so maybe a bit of noise could scare it off. I could see that in some kind of like that movie. Is it signs where the, where the aliens don't like water?

Yep. Maybe they don't. Yeah, you could see that where they... Oh yeah, I picked the wrong movie. A quiet place. Yeah, you just got to f*** them up with signs. You got to blast that. 2006. Screen Benga remix. Some dubstep, quag, guang, guang, guag, gu, gu. And then their heads just unfortunately, 1965, we're still a long way off

dubstep. For another 40 years, the dubstep comes along. You can't play bangerang by Skrillix. Right. You know? The best you got is

find me a 12 inch of Elvis Presley. Little less conversation and a little more action. That's the noisiest thing that existed. Yeah, or like a real, real sexy saxophone jazz improvisation solo. Screaming like an elephant, you know.

Miles Davis shit was Miles Davis back then, I don't even know. Yeah, that might do it. All right, as I said, the horses are losing it. The dogs are barking. And sure enough, the lights appeared again. Out of nowhere, these swaying erratic beams of light move closer and closer, completely silent. Officer Bertrand reached for his gun.

But thinking better of it, he rehostered his pistol, and the two ran back to their police cruiser. They watched the lights for a number of minutes, and finally we get a slightly better description. Officer Bertrand stated, quote, this huge dark object as big as a barn with red flashing lights on it. Whoa! The UFO historian Jerome Clark studied this case and all the police reports wrote, They observed this object as it hovered about 100 feet away and 100 feet in altitude. It rocked back and forth. The pulsating red lights flashed in rapid sequence from right to left and left to right,

each cycle consuming no more than two seconds and the animals were all losing it nearby. Roy, as I said, I know there's cases where we're on Jupiter by this point in the story. Yeah. But some part of me appreciates a story which is this grounded in just a strange thing with lots of reputable witnesses to it. Yeah, the tempo is very comforting in this case. And it's great to see that we already have someone who is an officer of the law involved. Yeah.

Because usually that's a pretty credible source in cases with witnesses regarding UFOs. And hopefully that means 1965, not that long ago, police officers involved, are we going to see some evidence? Is there a police report? Is there some physical documentation of these encounters that we can whip out today on the podcast? We've got more than that coming, Big Dog. Hell yeah. You are right.

The police, you know, being involved, look, it's the 60s, so everyone was on blow. Sure. You know, if it's a policeman, what this means is that man presumably was sober, at least at the start of his shift. and at some point in the earlier history he passed a job interview so we at least have some basic criteria to say that this guy is saying yes absolutely

Norman we have no idea but the policeman and it keeps going Bertrand radioed another local officer David Hunt were back up when Hunt arrived he too witnessed a UFO now with three credible witnesses the craft eventually hovered over a nearby tree line and drifted off into the dark. And soon after that, a B-47 from the nearby Air Force base

passed over the area. Now, as far as I understand, the B-47 is a, what is that, a bomber? I might need to... Phil, what is it a B-47? Is that like a bomber plane? Yeah, yeah, it's a bomber, American long range, turbojet powered, strategic bomber. There you go.

So again, Norman knows what is a plane, and what's not a plane. Well, of course, the name will probably sound familiar. to a lot of people because of the B-52s. Oh. Which is the musical band, also named after a military plane. Crazy. Yeah.

Swing. I know. To call your band after a... The B-52s. Yeah. Great band. My dad actually went to school with them. Oh.

In Georgia. Yeah, fun fact. Jeez. Crazy. Georgia royalty. Which is wild because at the time it was like, maybe it was in college, but it was like that was like the local college band. It was like, you want to go see this like local band,

the B-52s. They wrote a song called Rock Lobster. And it's like, no, I don't want to see that. That sounds terrible. And then they just became one of the biggest bands in the world. Crazy. Yeah, wow. Isn't that nuts?

My dad could have been a B-52. It must suck if you go to school with someone who becomes a global superstar sensation. Because then you're like, well, fuck odds are it's not going to work out in my favor, is it? I mean, statistically. Yeah. Am I going to play in the NBA?

you know, at this rate, if, if, you know, I went to school with Taylor Swift. It just, you can't have so many famous people in one school class, you know. Last time we had it was Matt Damon, Ben Affleck. Did they go to school together? Yeah, and that's, then they like wrote Goodwill Hunting together. Oh. They wrote Goodwill Hunting together, cast themselves as the two lead, the audacity was, was off the charts. But then now just both two of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Crazy. Absolutely insane. And then it's crazy to not. have like one person's career outshine the others. I know. Yes. Yeah. Because you know in mine and yours time we grew up together but your career has and will

continue to really eclipse mine in kind of just a in kind of just a really shitting on me and my legacy way that that only serves to highlight just what a diminutive man I am in comparison. And you know and it just I think you know. in the history books of our school, I think not only will I not be a footnote, I think they'll probably erase me from the record books, whereas you will, they're probably building a statue of you any day night.

Well, I've talked about how bitter I am that at one point I was on our high school's Wikipedia page and then somebody removed me. Right, the school steps in and said, we don't know her. And it was the most embarrassing way for me to discover it because I was trying to show a group of people at a pub

that I was on my high school's Wikipedia page and I brought it up this is Dominican College Port Stewart and I brought it up to show them only to see in that moment

that I had been removed and everyone boriskel laughing we can display the Wikipedia page at this point because this is why you guys need to subscribe to this paranormal life.com need to hit that follow button

hit the subscribe is so that we can get because we want to update y'all I'm back you're back up you're cheating oh oh you guys don't have to follow it all

Hold on. Oh, hold on. Rory Powers, born, summer, co-founder of RKG Productions. Let's go. He's back, baby.

Yes. Is the Lincoln, is the Lincoln, red or blue? It's blue. Rory Powers is. Everyone else is, but not Rory Pounder.

I'll take it. Okay, he's got in the ground floor. Now, I want to call into question. Can we pull up VAR on this real quick? And I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter. I don't know why you'd think that.

But. I'm under a candidate. category called controversial alumni? You know in Inglorious Bastards, the famous scene where the person holds up their fingers to count three and they're doing it

the wrong way. Oh, right. And it's the tell. Roy Pardt, born summer, is a little bit of a tell as to who might have added. That's an RKG fan right there. But hey, an RKG fan

with the power to make the big calls. So... I'll take it. I will take it. Take it. So Rory's on the notable alumni. I need to get an in at Wikipedia. Can we do something about this?

Is someone... All right, come on. What are we doing here? I'm going to, like, hijack a plane or something. I think, at this point... Right. That's the only way to do it is do something really bad, yeah. Oh, no, bad message.

My God. All right, come on. I'm going to become Northern Ireland's Joker. Such a cursed phrase. You'll be called the chancer. Which, if you're in the Irish, that really means nothing to you. The chancer! Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season.

Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready. with a whole world and more. Let me take this opportunity to get back to the story. Can we pull up the first piece of evidence, Phil? This is just to get a little visual on all our witnesses. This is, I don't actually know the order of whom I'm looking at here,

but here, this is like the FF2s of the Exeter incident. We've got, I believe in no particular order, Norman Bertrand at all. We have the police officers in question on the night, and that must be Norman on the left-hand side. Okay. Okay. A lot of trustworthy-looking individuals, I'd say. Yeah. They're all smiling, though. They're all really...

That's actually a bad sign. Norman's not smiling. Norman isn't he... The guy at the center of this all is not smiling. Yeah, but everyone else is... I don't know. Maybe not taking me seriously. Maybe they were like, hey, before we go investigate this thing, let's get a quick group picture.

Because this is hilarious. And I bet the rest of this night will continue to be hilarious. Yeah. So let's get a fun group picture. Norman's like, it's not funny, guys. It was really traumatic. And then after they went to the site and all saw it, they were like, okay. In hindsight, the picture is starting to look distasteful.

Now, paranormal investigators have made the valid point that the B-47 bomber had just mentioned that flew over would have almost certainly witnessed something about this UFO. It had a particularly good view being up in the sky. Yet no report from this flight or any others in the area ever came to light. And as we'll see, this wouldn't be the only instance where the authorities were strangely quiet about the exosurates. the Exeter incident. I can actually jump to the second piece of evidence. We do have a diagram, please, Phil, made of this UFO visitation from the time.

I assume from the chaos of this drawing that it was made by Norman literally mid-abduction. Hmm. But just, you know, we're not getting too much from this, but it's kind of cool to see something jotted down at the time. This is really cool. Yeah. As you said, it's very kind of like primitive. It's more like, it looks like a map.

It's basically just like showing the motion where everything was. Yeah, showing, yeah, I guess all the beats we talked about, he mentioned the Dining's Farm, Carl Dining's Farm, which is where it happened, the border to the farm, where the siding was, where the road was, where the car. Okay, the car, I was hoping the car was going to name the two saucy minks who were up to no good. No, it says police cruiser. Yeah. And second sighting. I do like the idea here of, you know, UFO investigators being like, oh, sure, a military plane and a B-47 flew by. Oh, that's great.

Great timing. Why don't we just ask them where the UFO went? Oh, and you know what? While we're at it, why don't we ask the hamburger if he could watch our quarter-pounders while we're gone? How naive do you have to be to think that the Air Force are going to cough up that kind of intel? Right. You think it's going to be a lot of tight-lipped individuals. Yes.

You think the B-47 was just on a midnight stroll across the skies. Yeah. And they didn't see anything. Brother, they were in hot pursuit. If you called the military and asked about the B-47, you could look up in the sky, B-47 changes direction. Starts coming towards the police station. It's got a new target confirmed. Yeah.

Oh, we're actually sending back up. It's on its way. Oh, great. You just hear. So we have witnesses on witnesses to the phenomena at this point. And after both officers Hunt and Bertrand made full police reports, Roy is what you were looking for, about what they'd seen, other accounts came to light.

At least anecdotally, many inhabitants in the area had seen strange light phenomena in the days running up to the 3rd of September. This is something we do see in other cases. It's weird. It's like aliens start sniffing around an area in the days. leading up to the events. Sure. Yeah, yeah, they're not just going to appear in one moment and then disappear the next. Yeah. Similar to us, you know, when when astronauts visit the moon, they don't just go down, touch the moon, bounce off it and return home. You know, there's a craft

orbiting it. They go down, they take samples, they'll move around, send a lunar rover. It's an extensive mission. So it makes sense you'd see something similar with. people visiting us. Yeah, why do you expect them to come and go so instantly? Maybe they've booked off five days of annual leave and they're like, we're on holiday. Yeah. Do you take a trip to Disneyland, get to the car park and say like, that was cool and then leave? No. Nah, you hang around, you get a churro, you go on Space Mountain. Budget permitting, we stay in one of the Star Wars themed hotels. Yeah. One interesting witness in the following weeks was a Mrs. Ralph Lindsay. She reported a large orange orb floating right outside her window.

She described the phenomenon on the phone to Officer Toland as it happened. And he was convinced she was sincere, later stating, Now why would people go to all this trouble? People all over the area, if they weren't seeing something real. We actually do have an artist's interpretation of what she saw that night. Boy, she was live dialing? Yeah.

Like a radio drama? She was just like telling him exactly what was happening? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And now it's, it's landing. Yeah. Okay. And now I can see, yep, two eyes. Oh, yeah, they're terrifying. Oh, yeah. This is horrible. There is a beam hitting me. Yeah, the beam. Now the beam appears to be, yes, melting the flesh off my bones very gradually. And I feel like I have contracted some sort of alien disease. Can I call you back? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, two grades just walked in. Okay. Yeah, fair play. The artist's interpretation looks exactly like a cloud. Yeah. Yeah.

But hey, an orange orb floating close to the house. Yeah. Well, you love Jordan Peel's Nope. Which is also... I'm starting to think Nope is based on this tale. Like the horses, the bar and the farmhouse, you know? It probably was loosely inspired by some real UFO stories. Also, like, atmospheric beasts.

So true. Sky jellyfish, all those kind of like weird UFOs where it's... It's a category of unidentified. flying objects where people believe the thing is alive. It is intelligent, it's sentient. It's not like a metal ship in the sky. They're like, the ship is the alien, you know, which is very cool and terrifying thing to think about. Seems like in this case that isn't what's happening because they said it was shaped like a barn and had lights and windows and stuff. So it wasn't shaped like a barn. Sorry, it was as big as a barn. Yes, that's a distinction. Size of a barn. All right, Rory,

You mentioned it would be great if this case were to transmogrify from something happening in the sky to something happening on a piece of paper. Is that a real word as you make that up? I think it's from science fiction. That was a villain from Power Rangers. Transmogrify. Hell yeah, I support trans, right? The right to transmogrify into an ancient beast. that we could get this thing from the sky onto the page,

into a police report, get some written descriptions. Yeah. I promised you we would go much further than that. Again, you don't have to. I'd really be happy with just any... We're skipping the police report, Roy. We're going straight to space. Yeah, this is what I don't want to happen.

Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. Your ears are going to... Your interest is about to be peeked. It said that the local Air Force base's top man, Major David Griffin asked the local police to, you know, keep the story quiet. Oh. It's not hard to believe, given all the other paranormal UFO cases we've looked at before. But the cat was a little bit out of the back. The police know about it. Local witnesses know about it.

And so, Air Force man David Griffin was kind of left no choice, but to send the case further up the chain all the way to Project Blue Book. Hell yeah, let's go. This is what we like to see. Do you want to, because I've been talking too much, do you want to tell the people, remind the three people who are listening who haven't heard of Project Blue Book, what we're talking about? Oh, if you don't know by now, Project Blue Book was a secret government task force that was legitimately created by the government to investigate UFOs.

And at the top of the helm was an individual named Dr. J. Allen Heineck, an absolute paranormal UFO legend. And if you want to know all about him from start to finish, we actually did an entire bonus episode recently that was the Dr. J. L. and Hinex special, which was so much fun, it went through his whole history of being a paranormal investigator.

It was a great case, but he was the leader of Project Blue Book. And it sounds like, let me see, 1965, well, yeah, he could appear right now in this case. He's not going to appear. Damn it. But that's a nice idea. Yeah, that's a good point.

This paranormalLife.com, head over to become a member. you can check out that episode on Jay Allen Hynick, some real deep UFO paranormal lore. Very cool stuff. We actually have the note here that was sent from the Air Force Major to another major involved in Project Blue Book here.

And I really like that it just feels so reluctant that he's having to send this up the chain of command. He writes, quote, At this time, I have been unable to arrive at a probable cause of this sighting. The three observers seemed to be stable, reliable persons, especially the two patrolmen. I viewed the area of the sighting and found nothing in the area that could be a probable cause. We had five B-47 aircraft flying in the area, but I do not believe that they had any connection with the sighting.

And after some initial interest, the Pentagon and Blue Book came back with their verdict. They said, guys, we've looked into it, and everything you're describing was nothing more than routine U.S. Air Force scheduled training exercises. Case closed. Which, okay, if that is true, then what was the flying barn? Because there is a world where they are telling the truth, and maybe it was a kind of routine thing. That means they're testing some very bizarre space blimp. And the way for them to test that was for it to just do flybys on civilians. which really doesn't make any sense. I like that they said it was a scheduled exercise.

It's like, yeah. So we were all chilling. Then a two mile wide UFO entered the sky. So we very quickly scheduled a training exercise. Here's an exercise for you. Shoot down them aliens. It's like anything is scheduled when you schedule it right as the event happens. Yeah.

It's like, no, it sounds like the B-47 bombers. That was the scheduled exercise. Right. which may have been a response to what was happening. It's very easy in retrospect to say something was all planned out. But yeah, you're right. We see this all the time. People claiming that something was aircraft testing.

Everything that's swept under the rug of experimental aircraft testing. But as you say, it's like, okay, well, it's been 60 years. So what was the aircraft? Point to the image on the chart. Yeah. Also, in Exeter? I don't know a lot about this location. Is it like particularly close to any aircraft bases?

I guess it is if there's bombers like flying around. There is an Air Force base, but is it close to, you know, a known experimental air force base like Groom Lake, aka Area 51? No. So, you know, anything is possible, but I think we can all agree that the descriptions go far beyond something we know about today. Yeah. And despite numerous requests from Hunt and... Bertrand for the case to be reinvestigated, those requests were denied. Also it's worth saying, Roy, that you talk about in the Project Blue Book investigation.

The whole deal with Project Blue Book, TLDR, spoiler alert, they were a legit group of people trying to investigate the paranormal. The outcomes of those investigations were bought and sold. They were, everything was an open and closed verdict of they were all but told. all but told by the powers that be, y'all can investigate this as long as you say, aliens aren't real. Yeah, at the end, basically, for that to always be your conclusion. Yeah. Which now we've found out that internally, that was not always the conclusion. Yeah. To the point where that's why Dr. Heineck left. He was like, I'm not going to keep saying this shit ain't real. Yeah. You can't keep showing me aliens and then telling me to tell everyone that they're not real.

It seems that one of the only people who was willing to take this case seriously, very publicly, and champion these witnesses was an investigative reporter called John G. Fuller, who came in as a skeptic to investigate this story, but then was pretty won over by it, eventually writing a book titled Incident at Exeter, Unidentified Flying Objects Over America Now. He needs an editor for that title. I do have... One more time?

I'm just going to show you the book, so can we see the cover of the book? Okay, yeah, the title of the book is Incident at Exeter Unidentified Flying Objects Over America Now. Really did not need the now. I think it kind of works. Unidentified flying objects over America. Now.

Yeah. And the now is such an eye on it needs its own line. It communicates. Sure. He's actually done it in Sharpie. No, it communicates they're here right, they're here today, right now. Yeah. They're here now.

But every day that goes past now this, it's not now. Yeah, but it's generally speaking now. The unidentified flying objects over America. It's not, it's not two years ago. It's not. What is the photograph? You can't make someone from Ulster say no over and over again. It's not our favorite word to say, no.

It also says at the top of this book cover, a nationwide bestseller, which I don't understand how they've put that on the artwork for a book, presumably before it's printed. Do you understand how books work, bro? These shit's come in editions. You know the way you hear about first edition, second edition, third edition, fourth edition? Oh, and this is the lying edition. That's cool. Don't want to just making shit up? It comes out, then the first edition didn't say bestseller,

and then it sold a shit ton of copies. And then when they did the second, third, fourth, fifth edition, they were like, oh, it was a bestseller. So let's print bestseller on it. Well, they're obviously not very confident in the book because in the artwork on the cover, it says that it used to cost $6 and now it cost $75. Well, you know, this is probably the fifth edition.

We're running out of steam, you know. But it didn't stop it. being a bestseller at the time. Can you stop pulling? This is the thing you're a problem with in this story? I mean, I should be relieved. You're actually on board with the story and you just have a massive issue with the cover of this novel.

It is funny that if you... Sorry, not novel, investigative journalism. It is funny to be someone who comes in as a skeptic and you're immediately so convinced that you decide to write a book about the thing that you were set out to prove doesn't exist. Yeah. You know?

Well, look, we have talked about this on the podcast before. investigative journalism is a thing that kind of exists today in a kind of a pale version of its former self to what it used to be. It used to be very common for journalists to go, you know, boots on the ground. Like, the New York Times would just give you an unlimited black Amex credit card and a fucking new passport with a new identity and send you to Nicaragua for three years. Yeah. to write a story about drug cartels or something. Yeah. They don't really do that anymore.

No one really gets that luxury anymore. But whenever independent investigative journalists like this would do something, yeah, they might spend six months a year, two years on a case. If you want to get paid for that work, a great way to do that is to write a book about it, you know? Yeah. Because let's face it, there's no money being made in the book that says that aliens aren't real. Yeah.

Well, you know... Apparently there's not a money. a lot of money be made in the book that tells you they are real either. Well, there is some money in saying it's not real, but it's like, okay, maybe you get, you know, a piece in the New York Times or the Washington Post on this topic. But, you know, people didn't love to write about these topics. They've been fringe topics for a long time.

And you're not going to maybe get paid as much for it. Maybe he went in thinking he was going to write a piece for, maybe even went in, you know, on spec for a newspaper. But then he went, you know what? There's a whole book here. I'm going to write it. Yeah. Now, you're not going to appreciate me bringing this up, Kit,

but usually this is also can be a bit of a red flag in a case. If there's an individual who has decided that a paranormal experience is real, and instead of sort of dedicating their life to it and raising awareness, they slap their name on a book and try and sell it and make a lot of money. not, this guy has nothing to do with the witnesses. This guy came in as a journalist studying the case. True. And this is the way he would get the word out if he did genuinely believe in it. I can tell you what did happen to the rest of the witnesses. This book revealed that government agents had even interviewed Norman, our original witness, at his mother's house in the direct

aftermath of the sighting. He wrote that one of the government agents who visited Norman was even handcuffed to an attaché case. Let's go. The men urged Norman to join the Navy, because according to Norman, quote, then I'd be military property. And in maybe the strangest twist that I really didn't see coming, Norman did join the Navy. I guess the agents were very persuasive.

And in a kind of last, almost movie style scene, whenever he was in the Navy on shore leave during the Vietnam War, he was in a bookshop in Singapore. when he stumbled across that book. Wow. That was how he found out about it. That's so trippy. That's really cool.

And John Fuller, by all accounts, made a bunch of money off the book. As Norman later stated, quote, he told me he made a bundle off of Norman's story. That's kind of shitty. If you're going to say that, then it's usually followed up by, and now here's your cut. Hey, buddy. You know, I hope you're keeping well out in Checks Notes.

Vietnam War. Anyway, I just want to let you know that, man, people love your story. They're going crazy. I just bought an island. I've been rocking around in a private jet, and I just want to say, thanks. Do you believe people are buying this shit? They actually believe all that shit you said all those years ago. Yeah, I actually can't believe you didn't write your own book. It's kind of fucked up when I think about, yeah, wow. You really fumbled the bag on that one, Chief. Anywho, hope you survive. And yet, Hunt, Bertrand, and Norman Muscarello himself never found or sought fame or fortune after the events.

And the case drifted into relative obscurity. I'm going to leave the last words to our first witness, Norman, when he was talking to those Exeter High School students back in 1980. He said, How naive and ignorant do we have to be to stand here and say that we're the only intelligent beings in the entire? galaxy, solar system and cosmos. I don't believe that we are. Presumably, he was then dragged away by school security. Yeah. But Rory, what do we believe here on TPL today? Was the incident at Exeter a truly paranormal case of alien visitation or little more than a misidentified military aircraft? And lastly, are we going to do a company trip to the Exeter UFO festival with, uh, it has talks, merchandise,

refreshments and jazz music held every year at Exeter Town Hall. Whoa. All right. Well, first off, we go to find out when it is. See if it can coincide with the Shag Harbor UFO Festival. Yes. The annual celebration. Well, I'm not welcome at that one is the problem.

And depending on our conclusion today, we might not be welcome at the Exeter. That is true. God damn, this is a crazy case. Once again, I kept asking for some evidence in you. You kept saying, I've got something better. We've got more than that coming, big dog. Hell yeah. And then refusing to give me any more evidence.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. So we have, what do they say in history? Shit, first-hand accounts or primary sources. Yes. Which are the police reports and the Project Blue Book report. You know, on this podcast, on this paranormal life, we talk about the golden pyramid of truth. Yes.

And it is made up of pillars for some reason, even though there are no pillars in a Pyramers upholds the Pyramid of Truth. Oh, okay. And the pillars that uphold the pyramid of truth, the golden pyramid of truth, is a man's word, hearsay. I have rumors, I believe. And rumors. We have plenty of that today to support the Golden Pyramid of Truth.

Unfortunately, sometimes the pillars are shaky. The pillars, I don't know if the pillars could be trusted. I don't know if there's support pillars, let's say. Yeah, because the pyramid is golden, but sometimes the pillars are made of like plywood and shit. Yeah, they're shaking. Right. And I would have liked maybe a little bit more today.

Even like police reports. There is a police report. What do you do? We don't have a picture of it, but there's a police report. Well, you didn't show me one. You show me a map drawn on it, really, because sorry, I kicked over a bottle. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, I can only go off of what you've shown me in today's case.

Yeah. And you've had hearsay rumors in a man's word that there are police reports and a project blue book. Hey, I didn't make up the project blue book stuff. And we don't get to Project Blue Book without some police reports. That is true. That is true. And you did read some police reports to me. I don't know.

It's a... It's a... It's a tough one. I don't think it's outlandish to want a photo. I don't think that's outlandish, particularly when we had, I think, like, two or three subsequent sightings. The police went out on, like, you know,

on at least one more occasion where, like, two guys more saw it. But no one had a camera. I think we've talked about this before. Sometimes that's a weird thing with the police, where, like, that's not the police's job, weirdly. No. So I think this dog, happen. I also don't think that's unreasonable that the police when called to the site of an

incident of something that they don't aren't, they're not there with their Nikon F80 ready to snap it up. Yeah, they're not crime scene investigators. Yeah, which, but that's frustrating. I appreciate it. I don't know. What are you thinking? Where's, where's your head at? I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's funny. Like, sometimes it must be frustrating as a listener of this paranormal life to hear us like for a case, just catch us in a good mood or a bad mood because sometimes our boss. for like a good case is like higher or lower than other days. But there's something I almost appreciate about the just simple nature of this case, that it doesn't, maybe because we have had so many that descend into, you know,

12 years of repeated abductions or something about the purity of a good old fashioned f*** up thing in the sky. Yeah. We get very, very close to really good optics on only 100 feet away with multiple witnesses, police reports, a good old fashion project blue. Blue Book investigation and potential Project Blue Book cover-up that sometimes, I don't know, sometimes I like when it's just, we've just got solid witnesses and they saw something crazy. Yeah, I have to remind myself what the craft was actually like.

Yeah. Because the normal, the weird but normal explanation would be that the military were just testing some kind of weird plane and that's it, which isn't, I mean, it's kind of paranormal, but not actually like extraterrestrial. But the thing made no noise. Yeah. It moved weird. Exactly.

Which... I'm back in the 60s, everything was like a 7.8 diesel engine. Yeah. generating somehow 50 horsepower. Everything was loud as fuck. Oh my God. Run on dinosaur bone juice. Yeah.

You'd be like, I'm going to call my friends real quick, see if they're free this weekend. Do, do, do, do, do, bring, bring. Everything had to make some noise for some reason. You had to fire up the telephone. It was like an old airplane. Even TVs that had nothing playing were static blasting through. Surely the default should be no noise coming to. But they were like, no, if there's no signal, let's just make it sound like the ocean on drugs.

That'd be great. It's a yes for me this way. a yes for me too. It's a double yes on the X-in-O UFO incident. We've got a book tickets to New Hampshire, apparently. Can we? Well, when's the UFO festival? Is it tomorrow? We'll go. We'll go if it's tomorrow. If it's today, that's slightly short notice. It's September 5th and September 6. That's actually really doable. I have reasons that I can't do that, that I'm going to tell the audience about soon. You can go, though. You guys can go. Because of those reasons, I have a lot of free time on my hands. Yes. So what do you think? Are you guys going to

go. 100%. We can expense that, right? Is, yes. As long as you come back with some sort of evidence, we're going to send you with a camera. The only reason that I might not go is because, guys, I have already written and prepared next week's episode of the podcast. It is going to be an incredible episode that I think if I have to choose, I might want to spend the company's savings investigating this case. Oh, interesting. the next one. Yeah.

Stay tuned for that. You're telling me you don't need a week on the ground in New Hampshire, rural New Hampshire. I'm sure it's lovely there. The case wide open. I'm sure it's beautiful, but I might rather go to this other place. Because I'm not going to lie, research you and did supply me with an image of Exeter Town Hall for the festival. And they kind of just strapped up a few, like, inflatable alien grays. You know, it's kind of a family festival.

You know, I think Phil's got the image right now. All right. Okay. Well, hey, that's a nice teaser for what is coming. for next week's podcast. Yeah. Guys, a double. Yes.

Right. Boom. We haven't had one of those in a while, I don't think. The drought is broken. Drop a comment right here on YouTube, on Spotify, with what you guys are thinking. If you're feeling this case, let us know. If you just simply loved it, drop a heart in the comments. Thank you guys for tuning into this week's episode of this paranormal life.

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