ANRECAT Case Directory
  Category 4, Animal Reaction Cases 
 
  Preliminary Rating: 5  

                                   
     

The Exeter / Muscarello Case
September 3, 1965
Exeter, New Hampshire

Richard Hall:
September 3, 1965; Exeter, New Hampshire (BBU 9890)
1:30 A.M. While hitchhiking home in the early hours, teenager Norman Muscarello was terrorized by a large object with four or five bright red lights that approached from nearby woods and hovered over a field near the road. Horses spooked. He went to the Exeter police station, pale and shaken, and reported the incident. Officer Eugene Bertrand drove him back to the field to investigate. About an hour earlier Bertrand had come across a woman parked on Route 101. "She was real upset," he said, "and told me that a red glowing object had chased her" When he was called to investigate Muscarello's report, the earlier incident caused him to pay attention. At first Bertrand and Muscarello saw nothing, but when Bertrand flashed a light around the field, a huge dark object with red flashing lights rose up over the trees, moving back and forth, tilted, and came toward them.

Brad Sparks:
September 3, 1965; Exeter, New Hampshire (BBU 9890)
1-3 a.m. (EDT). Exeter Patrolmen Eugene Bertrand, Jr. and David Hunt, and Norman Muscarello saw a large silent, dark, elliptical object with a row of 5 bright red lights oriented about 60° to horizontal, move slowly and erratically around houses and trees at 100 ft height to SE [or 60-70 ft height 100 ft away], lighting up the ground and houses in red light, while lights blinked in sequence; falling leaf motion. Farm animals very noisy. Disappeared at 160° magnetic after covering about 135° arc [from NNE?]. (Berliner; cf. Hynek UFO Rpt pp. 154-166; UFOE II, Section V)

The A-Team:
All one needs to do is to read the actual interviews of Bertrand, Hunt, and Muscarello to dump this newest "explanation" (*) into the garbage where it belongs. The "new" theory is laughingly preposterous. Reported facts: 1). The brightness of the lights. So bright that the whole house was bathed in red; so bright that the shape of the object was obscured, but Bertrand could see that there WAS some sort of object uniting them; so bright that they feared that they would be BURNED by them and so ran from them. 2). All the main observers say that the lights were at ANGLES at various times during the flight, and wobbled during the flight as well . 3). Object/Light-line changed from "Quarter-at-arm's-length" to "Grapefruit-at-arm's-length" during the few minute sighting. The light-line also flew flat, then dipped at reasonably sharp angle, then rose at an angle again as it proceeded across the sky. And, when Betrand first became involved, they could not see any object, went down into the field, i.e. closer to the treeline than the road, and the object STILL rose up "suddenly" over those trees. 4). Bertrand saw the object go from quarter to grapefruit apparent size as said. In doing so he had a bit of data which might give him SOME idea as to how distant it was. He said that it "maneuvered" around a tree circa 100 feet away.  [The investigating officer at Pease wrote in his report that Pease had 5 B-47s in the air "but do not believe they had any connection with this sighting".] Finally, the animals weren't just noisy. (Ridge, Waskiewicz, Wilson, Swiatek, Davenport, Fowler, Ledger, Swords, Maccabee, Rodeghier)

Bertrand:
"Yeh, you could hear them neighing and kicking in their stalls. Even the dogs around here started howling. When Dave arrived, the three of us just stood there and watched it. It floated, wobbled, and did things that no plane could do. Then it just darted away over those trees toward Hampton."

Audio:
audio/650903_bertrand_audio.mp3 (Wendy Connors)

Detailed reports and documents
Full-Scale Investigation by NICAP (Ray Fowler)
Official Documents (Ray Fowler)
Comments on the case (J. Allen Hynek, "The Hynek UFO Report", paperback, 154-166)
"Exeter_incident" solved_a_classic_ufo_case_forty-five_years_"cold" (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry)  *
reports/650903exeter_davenport.htm (Peter Davenport)
reports/650903exeter_shough.pdf (Martin Shough)
reports/650903exeter_swords_compass.htm (Mike Swords)
reports/650903exeter_shough_analysis_compass (Martin Shough)
http://www.nicap.org/reports/650903_directions_analysis_shough2.pdf (Martin Shough)
reports/650903_directions_analysis_shough.pdf (Martin Shough)

Articles:
articles/650903exeter_article.pdf
http://www.nicap.org/articles/650903exeter_fsr66_article.pdf (FSR Vol12, No1, Jan-Feb 1966)
http://www.nicap.org/articles/650903exeter_fsr67_article.pdf (FSR Vol13, No5, Sep-Oct 1967)
Article from "Trade Winds" (The Saturday Review, Oct. 2, 1965; pp. 12 and 16)
External links:

http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1965oct02-00010-FSR Vol13, No5, Sep-Oct 1967

Article from "Trade Winds" (The Saturday Review, Jan. 22, 1966; pp 14-15)

http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1966jan22-00014

Article from "A Communication Concerning the UFOs" (The Saturday Review, Feb. 4, 1967; pp. 70-72)

http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1967feb04-00070

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