Exeter, New Hampshire Incident
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Evidence quality · 6 components
Behavioral anomalousness · 4 components
TL;DR
Two Exeter Police officers and a civilian observed a large craft with five pulsing red lights at 100-200 feet altitude for over two hours, filed official reports the same night, then wrote to the Air Force disputing its attempted explanations - resulting in Project Blue Book classifying the case 'Unidentified' (Case 9890).
Confirmed
- ✓Project Blue Book classified the case Unidentified (Case 9890) after failing to establish a conventional explanation
- ✓Police officers Bertrand and Hunt filed official incident reports the same night
- ✓Officers wrote formally to the Air Force disputing its initial 'military aircraft on maneuver' and 'stars and planets' explanations
- ✓An independent prior witness - a frightened woman who flagged down Bertrand's patrol car earlier that evening - reported a craft had followed her car for miles, establishing a pattern before the primary encounter
Unresolved
- ?Identity of the craft with five pulsing red lights
- ?Whether B-47 aircraft on Strategic Air Command night maneuvers can be definitively eliminated by independent research
- ?Why the object appeared in the same area earlier that evening and followed the prior witness's car
- ?Whether any radar confirmation exists in records not yet made public
Strongest mundane explanation
Strategic Air Command B-47 aircraft were conducting operations in the New England region at the time - but Officers Bertrand and Hunt specifically rejected this explanation in formal written correspondence to the Air Force, citing the object's silence, hovering behavior, and flight characteristics as incompatible with any known aircraft, and Blue Book itself abandoned the military aircraft explanation and reclassified as Unidentified.
A prolonged close-range encounter near Exeter, New Hampshire involving a police officer, a civilian, and a large low-flying craft with brilliant flashing lights. The incident lasted over two hours, involved multiple independent witnesses including two police officers, and generated an official Project Blue Book investigation that ultimately classified it 'Unidentified' (Case 9890). John Fuller's subsequent book 'Incident at Exeter' (1966) made it one of the most thoroughly documented civilian UAP cases of the era.
Key Facts
- ›Primary encounter lasted approximately two hours beginning around 2:00 AM on September 3, 1965
- ›Witnesses included civilian Norman Muscarello and two Exeter police officers - Eugene Bertrand Jr. and David Hunt
- ›Object described as roughly 100 feet across, with five brilliant red lights pulsing in sequence, hovering 100-200 feet above a field
- ›Bertrand had earlier that evening spoken with a woman who flagged him down, frightened, claiming a craft had followed her car for miles - providing an independent prior encounter
- ›The object maneuvered silently, tilting and dipping, before moving off toward Hampton
- ›Both officers filed official reports; Bertrand and Hunt subsequently wrote to the Air Force disputing Blue Book's attempted explanations
- ›Project Blue Book classified the case 'Unidentified' (Case 9890) after failing to establish a conventional explanation
- ›John Fuller investigated and published 'Incident at Exeter' (Putnam, 1966), providing the most thorough documentary record of the case