Documents / Document
This NICAP compilation of USAF Project Blue Book records covers the 3 September 1965 sighting near Exeter, New Hampshire. It holds signed statements from patrolmen Eugene Bertrand and David Hunt and from Norman Muscarello, the officers' UFO data sheets, and press clippings. It also includes the Air Force evaluation, which cites B-47 activity from Pease AFB during Operation Big Blast. The Air Force judged conventional aircraft a possible cause but listed the case as unidentified for statistical purposes.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## UFO INVESTIGATOR UFO PANIC (Continued from page 1) "He was white with fear and hardly able to talk," Desk Officer Reginald Toland said later. Muscarello told Toland and Officer Bertrand the story, and though it seemed incredible, Bertrand drove him back to the scene in his police cruiser. Muscarello and the officer walked into the field where the UFO had been seen. At first, nothing was visible. Then as Bertrand pointed his flashlight around Muscarello shouted, and Bertrand swung around in time to see a large dark object displaying "a straight row of extraordinarily bright red pulsating lights." The UFO, coming into the field at tree-top level, changed course and flew toward them, just clearing a 60-70 foot tree. Bertrand reached for his revolver, then thought better of it. Shouting for Muscarello to take cover in the car, he also jumped into the cruiser, fearing they might be burned by the blinding red lights closing in. As Bertrand radioed for help, he and Muscarello heard a dog barking furiously and horses in a nearbybarn whinnying and kicking their stalls. 12345 EXETER, N.H. SEPTEMBER 3, 1965 Brilliant red light pulsed in a smooth sequence: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 taking two seconds to complete a full cycle. The sequence in which the five lights pulsated -- 1-2-3-4-5-4- 3-2-1" gave Officer Bertrand the impression that the UFO was "an intelligently constructed vehicle." The brilliance of the lights created a halo effect; and at close range they were so blinding he could not look directly at them. But even though he could not see clearly behind the lights, their reflection from the UFO's body indicated a "large, dark, solid object as big as a house... It seemed compressed as if it were round or egg-shaped, with definitely no protrusions like wings, rudder or stabilizer." Officer David R. Hunt arrived from Exeter in time to view the UFO for about six minutes. By then it was moving away slowly, but he saw red lights pulsating in sequence "brighter than headlights at close range." Moving on a westward course, the UFO disappeared below the tree line. That night, Exeter police notified Pease AFB, and next day an AF major and a lieutenant interrogated the witnesses. Shortly afterward, NICAP Investigator Raymond Fowler also interviewed the policemen. They told him the AF officers showed special interest in the size and shape of the object. The policemen also said the AF men told them: 1. A USAF check revealed no aircraft in the area during the nighting. 2. Please AFB had been receiving other UFO reports in the New Hampshire area almost nightly for the previous week. 3. There had been a case in late July where a motorist came upon a UFO hovering over the road directly in front of his car. Most interesting of all, the police said the AF officers asked them to keep the story from the press to avoid frightening the public. But the details were already on the police blotter, and it was too late for secrecy. Besides the witnesses, Investigator Fowler talked with several area residents. Most of them seemed more curious than frightened-but they had not had close-range encounters. Later, the influential Saturday Review published details of this case after NICAP discussed it with John G. Fuller, writer of the Review's "Trade Winds" column. After a careful check with the Exeter police, Investigator Fowler and Pease AFB, Fuller wrote a serious report, including a new statement by Officer Bertrand: "My brain kept telling me this doesn't happen-but there it was, right in front of my eyes... it hovered there, about 100 feet away... I don't know what it was. All I can say is that it was there, and three of us saw it together." (Mr. Fuller's report, crediting NICAP, appeared in the Oct. 2 issue of the Saturday Review.)
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 33 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.