PROJECT: Jackalope 003 - The Exeter UFO Incident

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Welcome to Project Jackalope.
My name is Jeremy, and this is

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where we document the cases that
refuse to be explained away, the

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encounters that survive
scrutiny, the witnesses who

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don't back down, and the
questions that the most powerful

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institutions in the world can't
answer.

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For File 003, we're heading to
the quiet seacoast of Southern

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New Hampshire, to a single field
off a dark stretch of Route 150.

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In the early hours of September
3rd, 1965, an 18 year old kid, 2

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veteran police officers, and an
entire community came face to

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face with something that the
United States Air Force

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eventually had no choice but to
officially label unidentified.

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From the pulsing blood red
lights over the dining farm, to

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the Pentagon's rare and
reluctant admission of the

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unexplained.
This is Project Jackalope, file

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003.
The Exeter UFO Incident The

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first Muscarillo Encounter At
2:24 in the morning on September

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3rd, 1965, eighteen year old
Norman Moscarello burst through

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the front door of the Exeter
Police Station, looking by all

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accounts, like he had just seen
something that had no business

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existing.
He was white as a ghost, shaking

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and barely holding it together.
Patrolman Reginald Tolin,

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nicknamed Scratch, was on desk
duty that night and knew the

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kid.
Muscarello was only three weeks

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out from shipping off to Navy
Boot Camp at Great Lakes Naval

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Station in Chicago, IL.
Tolin offered him a cigarette,

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lit it for him, and waited while
Muscarello tried to collect

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himself enough to get the words
out.

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And what came out wasn't clean
or linear.

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It came out in pieces, fragments
of something that the more

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Muscarello described it, the
less it sounded like anything

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that belonged in the world he
had walked out of an hour

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earlier.
So here's what happened.

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Norman had recently enlisted in
the Navy, and boot camp being

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only weeks away, he had sold his
car for some extra cash before

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he left on the night of the
second, he'd hitchhiked about 10

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miles South to Amesbury, MA, to
spend a few hours with his

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girlfriend.
Because when you're 18 and about

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to leave for the military,
that's kind of what you do.

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The plan was to catch a ride
back to Exeter, but the later it

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got, the fewer cars that were on
the road.

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And before he knew it, he was
walking on foot, alone,

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somewhere around 2:00 AM,
walking north on Route 150

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through the dark stretch that
cuts through Kensington, New

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Hampshire, just South of Exeter.
That's when he saw the lights.

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At first, he figured it was an
accident.

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Maybe a cop had pulled someone
over, red lights flashing on the

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side of the road.
But as the tree line broke open

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and field came into view between
two farmhouses, the explanation

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evaporated.
The lights weren't on the road.

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They weren't attached to a car.
They were in the air.

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A ring of brilliant, pulsing red
lights wrapped around the edge

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of a circular object, hovering
silently over the clearing.

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No sound, no engine.
Just this thing sitting in the

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sky, glowing.
And then it moved towards him,

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completely silent.
It began drifting directly at

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him, deliberately, almost like
it had noticed he was there.

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Muskarella stood frozen in the
road until the last possible

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second, then dove off the
shoulder into the shallow ditch

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near a Stonewall that lined the
farm.

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The craft drifted past them,
close enough to make the chimney

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of one of the nearby farmhouses
a near miss, slowly yawing as it

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went, that lazy, wobbling
rotation that witnesses would

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describe again and again
throughout this case.

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When it moved far enough away
that Muscarella felt like he

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could breathe, he ran to the
closest farmhouse and pounded on

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the door hard.
For several minutes, too.

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Nobody came, and while he stood
there hammering away, he watched

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the object drift E toward
Hampton and disappear.

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And that's when he saw
headlights.

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A car was coming down Route 150
from the direction of Hampton,

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heading towards Exeter.
Muscarella didn't wait.

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He ran straight into the middle
of the road and waved it down.

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The couple inside could have
kept going, but they didn't.

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They drove him directly to the
Exeter police station, where he

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walked through the front door
and into the beginning of one of

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the most well documented UFO
cases in American history.

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Now, most people who know the
Exeter incident know this part

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of the story.
But as we move forward, we're

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going to get into the details
that most people don't know.

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The pieces that aren't in the
highlight reels that got buried

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in the pages of a 1966 book are
simply lost to time.

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Before we get there, though,
there's one more piece of the

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commonly told story that we need
to cover.

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And that's what happens when
Officer Tolan gets back on that

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dispatch radio.
The Muscarello, Bertrand and

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Hunt encounter.
As soon as Officer Tolan heard

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Muscarello's full account, he
got on the dispatch radio and

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called for Cruiser 21 to swing
by the station.

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Within 5 minutes, Officer Eugene
Bertrand walked through the

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door.
Bertrand wasn't just any cop.

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He was a Korean War Air Force
veteran who had spent his

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service conducting air to air
refueling operations on KC

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Takers.
This was a man who knew

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aircraft, what they looked like,
what they sounded like, how they

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moved.
He sat down and listened

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carefully as Muscarolo told the
whole story for a second time.

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And by 3:00 AM, Bertrand and
Muscarolo were back in the

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cruiser heading out to Route
150.

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When they pulled up to the site,
Bertrand noted how clear the

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night was.
No clouds, the stars were sharp

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and unobstructed from one end of
the sky to the other.

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He parked on the shoulder next
to the telephone pole number 668

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and radio backed.
Tallinn, before they got out,

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told him there was nothing
visible at the moment, but that

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the kid was still rattled and he
was going to walk him out to the

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field just to look around and
help calm him down.

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The two men climbed out and
started moving through the field

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toward the farmhouse Muscarella
pounded on earlier.

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Bertrand swept the tree line
with his flashlight, saw

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nothing.
He knew this property.

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It belonged to the Dining
family.

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Karl Dining kept horses about
100 yards back, behind the tree

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line that split the field in
half.

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Bertrand was still trying to
talk Muscarella down, suggesting

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that what he'd seen was probably
a helicopter out of Portsmouth

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Naval Base in Maine, maybe 20
miles to the northeast.

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It was the kind of explanation A
rational man offers to a scared

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kid at 3:00 in the morning.
But then the horses started

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screaming, the barn erupted,
hooves kicking the walls, the

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dining farm dogs barking and
howling in a way that wasn't

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normal.
Bertrand turned toward the

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commotion, and that's when he
saw it, completely silent.

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A large, roundish object rose
above the tall Pines behind the

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corral, and the entire area was
instantly bathed in a brilliant

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red light.
Bertrand's hand dropped to the

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grip of his 38 service weapon.
He didn't draw it.

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What he did instead was grab
Moscarella by his shoulder.

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The kid had gone completely
rigid and he pushed him back

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toward the cruiser as fast as he
could move.

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Both men piled in and Bertrand
grabbed the radio.

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My God, I see the damn thing
myself.

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Back at the station, Officer
Tolan heard those words come out

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of the dispatch speaker from a
man who knew as one of the

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toughest, most level headed
officers on the force.

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That had to be a strange few
seconds.

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At the front desk.
From inside the cruiser, the two

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men watch the object hold
position roughly 100 feet above

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them.
It rocks slowly back and forward

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while it's lights pulsed in a
rotating sequence. 5 lights

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firing in order from left to
right, then reversing right to

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left. 1234554321, each full
cycle taking about two seconds.

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The red light washed over
everything around them,

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brightening and dimming with
each pass, and the whole

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landscape took on this slow,
pulsing red glow that Bertrand

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would later struggle to find
words for.

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After several minutes hovering
above the cruiser, the object

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began to drift back out over the
field, and that's when it opened

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up.
It started moving in tight,

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jagged patterns, Breakneck
acceleration in One Direction, a

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dead stop, a sharp 90° turn,
then hovering again with that

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same slow wobble.
It was simultaneously erratic

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and precise, like nothing either
man had a reference point for.

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That's when Cruiser 20 pulled
out Officer David Hunt.

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Hunt had been monitoring the
radio and drove out to see for

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himself.
He pulled up alongside Bertrand,

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got out, walked to the edge of
the road and just stood there

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watching.
Author John G Fuller in his book

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Incident at Exeter, Unidentified
Flying Objects over America.

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Now both Hunt directly on what
he saw.

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Quote.
It was going left to right

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between the tops of two big
trees.

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I could see those pulsing
lights.

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I could hear those horses
kicking out in the barn there.

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Those dogs were really hailing.
Then started moving slowly

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across the tops of the trees.
Well, just above the trees.

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It was rocking when it did this.
After it moved out of sight

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toward Hampton, toward the
ocean.

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We waited a while and AB 47 came
over.

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You could tell the difference
and there was no comparison.

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That last line is worth sitting
with for a second.

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Eugene Bertrand, Air Force
veteran aerial refueling

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specialist, is standing next to
another officer watching AB 47

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cross the sky.
Immediately after watching this

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thing performed and his
colleagues take away is there

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was no comparison.
These aren't civilians guessing

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at what they saw.
These are the men who know what

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aircraft look like in the dark.
At 4:30 AM, both officers drove

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Moscarella back to his mother's
apartment.

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Misses Dolores Gazza met them at
the door.

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She'd been up worried sick, of
course.

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She said later that the story
her son told her was hard to

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accept.
When she looked at him and

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looked at the two police
officers standing behind him who

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had seen the same thing, she
knew that whatever had happened

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to her son that night, he hadn't
made it up.

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Now, before we move on, I want
to leave you with something.

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At the end of the first chapter
of Incident at Exeter, Fuller

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quotes Officer Bertrand
reflecting on the whole

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experience.
I think it's one of the most

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honest things ever said by a
witness in a UFO case.

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Not because it draws A dramatic
conclusion, but because it

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doesn't.
This is a man who went out to

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the field to debunk a scared
teenager and came back without

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an answer.
And here it is in full quote.

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It's a startling thing and you
think about it because you

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wonder what it is.
Your mind imagines the

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impossible.
The world is going so fast and

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that it could be something from
outer space.

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It makes you wonder, It really
does.

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Dave and I talk about it often.
I get the feeling from him that

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he doesn't think it belongs to
the Air Force.

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I want to keep my mind open,
look for a reasonable

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explanation.
But then as I look back, my mind

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again, I can't help but wonder.
When I first heard the kid tell

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about it, I thought it must have
been a plane.

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But the more he talked I knew it
couldn't be 1.

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Then I was sure he was talking
about a helicopter.

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I did ask him on that four mile
ride out to the place, did you

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feel any wind?
I know from a helicopter he's

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bound to feel some wind from it,
but he said he didn't.

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I thought he might have got
scared and mistaken.

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When we watched it, Dave and I
and the kid tried to listen to

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hear a motor.
We did everything to check it

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out.
We weren't believing our eyes.

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Your mind is telling you this
can't be true, and yet you're

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seeing it.
So you check out your eyes to

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make sure you're seeing what
you're really seeing.

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We just couldn't come up with an
answer.

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I kept telling Dave, What is
that, Dave?

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What do you think he'd say?
I don't know.

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I had never seen an aircraft
like that before.

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I know damn well they haven't
changed that much since I was in

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the service.
False claim.

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In the 60 plus years since that
night in Exeter, a lot of people

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have taken a swing in explaining
the Muscarella, Bertrand and

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00:13:11,680 --> 00:13:14,240
Hunt saw, and the first one came
fast.

227
00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:18,400
A news report out of Amesbury,
MA hit the wire and spread

228
00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:21,080
across New England almost
immediately claiming that the

229
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:23,480
whole thing was a case of
mistaken identity.

230
00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:27,240
The terrifying silent red
pulsing object that had

231
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,600
paralyzed an 18 year old and
rattled a Korean War veteran.

232
00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:33,800
Well, it was just an advertising
plane.

233
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,440
A small fixed wing aircraft from
something called the Skylight

234
00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:40,760
Aerial Advertising Agency
carrying a lighted sign.

235
00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:43,320
Nothing to worry about, go back
to sleep.

236
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,280
And for a moment, people did.
There was a collective exhale

237
00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:50,880
across the Seacoast region.
A rational explanation had

238
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:54,880
arrived, and a community that
had been quietly unsettled for

239
00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:58,120
weeks grabbed onto it.
But it didn't last long.

240
00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:01,320
The most immediate problem with
the skylight theory wasn't a

241
00:14:01,320 --> 00:14:03,520
matter of opinion.
It was a matter of paperwork.

242
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:08,240
Joseph Budina, the owner of the
agency, didn't just deny the

243
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:10,320
claim.
He produced flight logs and

244
00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:12,880
maintenance records showing that
his aircraft had been completely

245
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:16,480
grounded for nearly three weeks
leading up to September 3rd.

246
00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:18,840
The plane wasn't in the air that
night.

247
00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:21,120
It wasn't in the air of the week
before.

248
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:25,320
The story was dead on arrival,
but even if the plane had been

249
00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:27,560
flying, the physics just didn't
work.

250
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:32,240
Skylights advertising aircraft
uses banks of bright white

251
00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:36,880
lights to spell out letters, not
high intensity blood red pulsing

252
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:39,320
lights rotating in A5 point
sequence.

253
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:42,680
A fixed wing plane has to
maintain forward airspeed to

254
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,440
stay aloft, which means it
cannot hover.

255
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:48,600
It cannot wobble silently in
place above a police cruiser for

256
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,120
several minutes.
It cannot accelerate to

257
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,920
breakneck speeds, snap into a
90° turn, and come to a dead

258
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:57,480
stop.
It also has an engine, and

259
00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:01,200
engines make noise, something
every single witness that night

260
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:04,240
specifically noted was
completely absent.

261
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:07,840
The skylight theory collapsed
almost as fast as it appeared.

262
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:10,520
But it said a pattern that would
repeat itself throughout this

263
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:12,720
case, and honestly, throughout
the history of UFO

264
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:16,680
investigations in general.
Reach for the most comfortable

265
00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:19,680
explanation first, push it out
to the public, and hope the

266
00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:24,480
details never catch up.
In Exeter, the details always

267
00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:26,840
caught up.
What the false claim actually

268
00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:30,080
accomplished in the end was the
opposite of what it intended.

269
00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:33,640
Because when the witnesses,
Muscarella, Bertrand and Hunt,

270
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:39,080
watched a tidy explanation fall
apart under basic scrutiny, it

271
00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:43,160
only hardened their position.
They knew what they saw didn't

272
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,800
fit inside the box of
conventional aviation.

273
00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:49,640
Now they had proof that people
were trying to put it there, and

274
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:54,600
they hadn't done their homework.
The Air Force shows interest.

275
00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:58,480
By 8:00 AM on the morning of
September 3rd, the overnight

276
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:01,200
shift had turned over at the
Exeter Police Station.

277
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:05,240
Lieutenant Warren Cottrell came
on duty, went through his

278
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:07,720
morning pass down, saw the
blotter entry from the night

279
00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:10,800
before, and did what any
reasonable watch commander would

280
00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:12,560
do.
He picked up the phone and

281
00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:16,400
called Pease Air Force Base.
By 1:00 PM, the Air Force had

282
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,680
two men on the ground.
Major Thomas Griffin and

283
00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:23,360
Lieutenant Alan Brandt drove out
to the field off Route 150 in

284
00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:26,320
Kensington and conducted
interviews with all three

285
00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:29,760
primary witnesses, Muscarello,
Bertrand, and Hunt.

286
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:33,760
They were professional, they
asked their questions, and then

287
00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:37,160
they left without offering a
single explanation for what 3

288
00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:41,240
credible witnesses had observed
less than 12 hours earlier.

289
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:45,200
That was just the beginning.
The Air Force's formal

290
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,760
involvement ran through Project
Blue Book, the military's

291
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,480
official program for
investigating UFO reports.

292
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:55,320
And from the outside at least,
it didn't look much like an

293
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,640
investigation.
It looked like a cleanup

294
00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:01,240
operation.
The institutional goal seemed

295
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,960
less focused on identifying the
craft and more focused on

296
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,280
finding a way to close the file.
The witnesses picked up on that

297
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:09,400
quickly, and it didn't sit very
well.

298
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:11,800
Then came the official
explanation.

299
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:15,400
The Air Force concluded that
Musgarella, Bertrand and Hunt

300
00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:20,359
had misidentified aircraft
involved in a Strategic Air

301
00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:24,160
Command exercise called
Operation Big Blast High

302
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:28,640
Altitude B-47 bombers running a
training drill in the area that

303
00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:31,880
night.
Bertrand didn't just disagree

304
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:35,720
with that, he was offended.
This was a man who spent his

305
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:39,040
military service refueling
aircraft in the air.

306
00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,560
He knew what AB 47 looked like
from the ground.

307
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:48,240
He knew what 6 jet engines sound
like at altitude and at treetop

308
00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:50,640
level.
The noise would have been

309
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:54,280
deafening.
The object he and Muscarello had

310
00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:58,200
watched hover silently 100 feet
above their cruiser made no

311
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:00,560
sound at all.
Not a hum, not a rumble,

312
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:05,400
nothing. 47 cannot hover.
It cannot wobble in place.

313
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:09,160
It cannot snap into a 90° turn
and stop dead.

314
00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:13,400
The explanation wasn't just
wrong, it was an insult to the

315
00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:16,400
professional judgement of every
officer involved.

316
00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:20,000
So they pushed back.
Bertrand and Hunt, backed by the

317
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,320
Exeter Police Department and the
broader community, launched a

318
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:27,240
letter writing campaign directed
at the Pentagon and Project Blue

319
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,560
Book headquarters at Wright
Patterson Air Force Base.

320
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:34,320
The message was straightforward.
Retract the misidentification

321
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:39,520
conclusion because labeling
their report as pilot error was

322
00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:42,360
the same as calling them
incompetent at their jobs.

323
00:18:43,120 --> 00:18:46,520
For two officers who had put
their names on official police

324
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:49,880
reports, that wasn't something
they were willing to let stand.

325
00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:55,040
And the pressure worked.
On February 9th, 1966, in the

326
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:57,960
move that almost never happens,
the Office of the Secretary of

327
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:02,240
the Air Force put it in writing.
They had been unable to identify

328
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,600
the object observed on the night
of September 3rd, 1965.

329
00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:09,360
The case status was officially
changed from identified to

330
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:11,760
unidentified.
They didn't say it was

331
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,800
extraterrestrial.
They were careful about that,

332
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:17,760
but they said they couldn't
explain it.

333
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:21,440
And in the language of
government institutions, that's

334
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,760
about as close to an admission
as you're going to get from

335
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:29,080
Muscarello, Bertrand and Hunt.
It was validation, the kind that

336
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:32,080
comes on official letterhead
from the most powerful military

337
00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:36,240
in the world, confirming what
they saw on that dark stretch of

338
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:40,800
Route 150 was real, it was
physical, and nobody could tell

339
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:46,840
them what it was.
John G Fuller If the Exeter

340
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:49,920
incident had stayed inside the
walls of the police station and

341
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:53,080
the pages of a local blotter, it
probably would have faded the

342
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,560
way most of these cases do,
quietly, without resolution,

343
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:58,640
remembered only by the people
who lived it.

344
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:02,640
What kept that from happening
was a columnist from New England

345
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:04,800
who almost stumbled into the
story by accident.

346
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,960
John G Fuller wrote a regular
column for Saturday Review, a

347
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,120
well read American weekly called
Tradewinds.

348
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,800
In the fall of 1965.
He was behind on his deadline

349
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,480
and looked for a topic when he
came across a piece in the

350
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:22,160
August 3rd edition of the New
York Times covering a mass UFO

351
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,960
sighting that had stretched
across 4 states, Oklahoma,

352
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:28,960
Texas, New Mexico and Kansas.
Civilian witnesses, police

353
00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:32,000
officers, meteorologists, radar
operators, military

354
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,960
installations, the kind of multi
source cross jurisdiction report

355
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:39,280
that's hard to wave away.
Fuller got hooked.

356
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:43,040
He reached out to Richard Hall,
the then assistant director of

357
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:46,320
NICAP, or the National
Investigations Committee on

358
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:49,800
Aerial Phenomenon, based in
Washington DC, looking for

359
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:52,360
anything more recent than the
four state sighting.

360
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:55,960
Hall mentioned 2 incidents that
occurred on the exact same

361
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,520
night.
One was out of Houston, TX where

362
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:01,240
two police officers had fled
back to their cruiser when a

363
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:05,120
purple lit object they were
investigating made a sudden move

364
00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:07,280
toward them.
The other involved 2 police

365
00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:12,640
officers and an 18 year old kid
in Exeter, NH Fuller was from

366
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,000
New England.
He didn't have to think about it

367
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:17,720
long.
Hall connected him with Raymond

368
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:21,320
Fowler, Nightcap's New England
subcommittee member, and Fuller

369
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:24,920
called him the same day.
It turned out Fuller had just

370
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,360
returned from Exeter and had
already mailed an 18 page report

371
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:30,400
to Nightcap.
Headquarters signed statements

372
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,880
from both officers and
Muscarello included.

373
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:36,560
When Fuller asked him what he
thought of the case, Fowler

374
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:38,880
didn't hedge.
Quote.

375
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,000
I can't find any holes in it.
Both officers are intelligent,

376
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:44,760
capable and seem to know what
they're talking about.

377
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:47,280
The sighting was near, and it
was low.

378
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:51,280
Bertrand's experience in the Air
Force refueling of all types of

379
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:55,240
aircraft makes him capable of
discriminating between a UFO and

380
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,960
anything else in the air,
commercial or military.

381
00:21:58,360 --> 00:22:01,040
Fuller kept making calls.
He reached Lieutenant Warren

382
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,240
Cottrell at the Exeter police
station, who told him that both

383
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,320
Bertrand and Hunt were extremely
level headed men and that

384
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:11,000
Bertrand, who Cottrell described
as the toughest officer on the

385
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,640
force, had been visibly shaken
after that night.

386
00:22:14,360 --> 00:22:16,680
Then Cottrell said something
Fuller wasn't expecting.

387
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,560
The station had been getting too
many reports from too many

388
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,400
reliable people to question the
fact that something was being

389
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:28,120
seen regularly.
They're still coming in from all

390
00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:31,240
over, and either you believe
these people or you call them

391
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,000
nuts.
Well, I know a lot of them, and

392
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,720
they definitely are not nuts.
They're good, quiet, respectable

393
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,640
people who wouldn't be inclined
to go around making up yarns

394
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,280
like this.
Then he called the Hampton

395
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,640
Police Department.
Next, same story.

396
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,360
Quote, We've been getting an
awful lot of calls lately, and

397
00:22:49,360 --> 00:22:51,000
they seem to be responsible
people.

398
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,720
I don't really know what the
heck is going on, but something

399
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,320
is on a long shot.
Fuller called the public

400
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:58,720
information office at Pease Air
Force Base.

401
00:22:59,360 --> 00:23:02,680
He didn't expect much, and what
he got was Sergeant Robert

402
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:07,280
Savarez, who was just barely
more forthcoming than expected.

403
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,640
Quote About the only thing I can
do is confirm the fact that

404
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,600
there have been a large number
of sightings reported to us.

405
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:16,720
Some of them come from important
and influential people, and

406
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:19,680
there's no doubt about that.
That was enough for a column.

407
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:24,480
Fuller published his Tradewinds
piece in the October 2nd, 1965

408
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:28,560
edition of Saturday Review,
covering the four state flap and

409
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,720
giving the Exeter incident a
significant portion of ink.

410
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:36,320
He got it out on time, but he
wasn't happy about what he'd had

411
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,560
to cut.
There was just too much story

412
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:43,520
for a magazine column.
So he tried Look magazine next.

413
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,520
Same problem.
More story than the format could

414
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,400
hold.
And it had gotten bigger.

415
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,920
Because somewhere in the middle
of this Exeter research, Fuller

416
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,720
had pulled on a thread that led
him 100 miles north to a case

417
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,920
from four years earlier.
A case that didn't just involve

418
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,520
an unidentified crap, but actual
reported contact with its

419
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:08,240
occupants, a married couple from
Portsmouth, NH, named Betty and

420
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,120
Barney Hill.
That discovery made the decision

421
00:24:11,120 --> 00:24:14,400
easier, Fuller wrote.
A book, Incident at Exeter,

422
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:18,120
Unidentified Flying Objects Over
America Now, was published on

423
00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:22,840
January 1st, 1966.
In October of 1966, he followed

424
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,560
it with The Interrupted Journey,
the full account of the Betty

425
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,680
and Barney Hill abduction case.
Both books are still in print.

426
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,240
That's not nothing.
There were others.

427
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,040
There's something that tends to
get lost in the way the Exeter

428
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:38,760
incident gets told.
Muscarillo's report wasn't the

429
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:40,720
first of the night.
It wasn't even the first

430
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,400
encounter Officer Eugene
Bertrand had personally been

431
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,040
called to that evening.
Somewhere between 1:30 and 1:45

432
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,160
in the morning, about an hour
before Bertrand showed up at the

433
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,000
station to hear Muscarillo's
story, he was on a routine

434
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,720
patrol when he came across a
woman pulled over on the side of

435
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,880
Route 101 near an overpass about
two miles outside of Exeter.

436
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:03,680
She was visibly shaken, barely
holding herself together, doing

437
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,880
her best to stay composed in
front of the officer.

438
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:11,280
Her story was this For nearly 12
miles from Epping to Exeter, a

439
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,160
massive, completely silent
object with pulsing red lights

440
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,560
had followed her car.
Not at a distance, but close.

441
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:21,080
Close enough that she was
convinced for most of the drive

442
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:22,960
that it was only a few feet
above her.

443
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,320
It had stayed with her the
entire way until she approached

444
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,720
the overpass, at which point it
shot upward at what she

445
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,280
described as a tremendous speed
and disappeared into the sky.

446
00:25:34,120 --> 00:25:37,360
John Keel covered this encounter
in his book Operation Trojan

447
00:25:37,360 --> 00:25:40,280
Horse, describing Bertrand
finding the woman trembling on

448
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,000
the side of the road.
Bertrand listened, calmed her

449
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,400
down, and then, as he later
admitted, the Fuller didn't

450
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,600
radio it in his exact words.
Quote.

451
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,840
I thought she was a kook.
She didn't file a report.

452
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,280
The encounter officially doesn't
exist, but here's why it

453
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:57,440
matters.
When Bertrand arrived at the

454
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,560
station a short time later and
heard Muscarello describe what

455
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:05,160
he'd seen and went pulsing, red
lights hovering enormous, he

456
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,120
turned to the kid and asked if
it sounded like what the woman

457
00:26:08,120 --> 00:26:11,760
on Route 101 had described.
Muscarello's answer was

458
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,160
immediate.
Sounds exactly like it.

459
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,640
That connection is what changed
the trajectory of the night

460
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,160
without the woman's counter
fresh in his mind.

461
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,000
There's a real argument that
Bertrand drives Moscarello home,

462
00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:26,200
writes it off, and the most
documented UFO case in New

463
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,320
England history ends right there
at the front desk of the Exeter

464
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:35,560
police station.
A man in a phone booth almost

465
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,720
immediately after the object
departed the dining farm field,

466
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,320
leading E toward Hampton.
Officer Tolman received a call

467
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,360
at the station from a nighttime
phone operator in Exeter.

468
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,920
She was relaying a report from a
man calling from a payphone in

469
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,000
Hampton, roughly 6 miles in the
exact direction the craft had

470
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,760
just gone.
She said the man was frantic,

471
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,600
struggling to get his words out.
What she was able to piece

472
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,440
together was that he was
claiming a flying saucer and

473
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,000
nearly hit him.
And then the line went dead.

474
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,360
That was it.
Toland thanked the operator,

475
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,920
immediately called the Hampton
Police Department and Hampton

476
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,280
notified Pees Air Force Base the
official Hampton Police bought

477
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,760
her entry from the night, reads
this quote.

478
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:21,920
September 3rd, 1965 3:00 AM
Exeter Police Department reports

479
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:23,840
unidentified flying object in
the area.

480
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:29,800
Units 24 and Pees Air Force
alerted at 317 AMI received a

481
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,800
call from Exeter operator and
officer.

482
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,000
Toland advised that a male
subject called and asked for the

483
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,720
Police Department, further
stating that the call was in

484
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:42,360
response to a large unidentified
flying object, but the call was

485
00:27:42,360 --> 00:27:44,760
cut off.
Call received from Hampton Pay

486
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:49,440
phone location unknown.
Nobody ever identified this man.

487
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,320
Nobody ever found what he saw.
The call was cut off and he was

488
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,640
never heard from again, but the
timing and the location put him

489
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,520
directly in the path of the
object that had just left the

490
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:04,640
field.
Ron Smith About 3 weeks after

491
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,840
the Muscarello incident, 17 year
old Ron Smith had his own

492
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,400
encounter roughly half a mile
from the dining farm.

493
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,080
Smith worked at the grocery
store across from the police

494
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,200
station, which made him easy for
Fuller to track down.

495
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,840
The interview took place in the
small courthouse next door.

496
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,800
Smith had been driving late at
night with his mother and aunt

497
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:26,080
when his aunt told everyone to
look at the sky behind them.

498
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,680
He describes an object with a
bright red light on top and a

499
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:34,080
white light on the bottom,
appearing to spin, or at least

500
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,640
giving off that sort of effect.
It passed directly over their

501
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,400
car.
Smith hit the brakes.

502
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,200
The object stopped, too,
hovering just ahead of where the

503
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,760
car had come to a stop.
Then it drifted back, settled

504
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,040
directly above them, swung
forward again and then steadily

505
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,560
moved off.
Then Smith floored it.

506
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,160
A few miles down the road, once
the adrenaline had burned off a

507
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,080
little, he made a decision That
says a lot about the kind of

508
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,440
person he was.
He turned the car around and

509
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,160
went back.
Sure enough, the object

510
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,920
reappeared and went through a
similar routine before finally

511
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,800
moving on.
Three witnesses in that car,

512
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,200
Smith, his mother and his arm
all reported the same object,

513
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:13,880
the same behavior, the same
details.

514
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,160
And it happened twice in the
same night, in the same

515
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:17,960
location, within minutes of each
other.

516
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,000
Miss Pierce Miss Pierce had been
watching these objects long

517
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,840
before September 3rd.
Her first documented sighting

518
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,960
was July 15th, 1965, nearly two
months before Moscarello's

519
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:35,160
encounter near Hampton, where
she witnessed a large glowing

520
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:39,440
orange red object moving with an
oscillating, unnatural motion.

521
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:41,760
It wasn't a one time thing
either.

522
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:45,000
She had seen them repeatedly
alongside her teenage daughter

523
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,000
and several of her neighbors.
She reported it to Pease Air

524
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,720
Force Base, and when she got
back was a rotating menu of

525
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,280
dismissals.
Weather balloon, Bright star.

526
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,080
The pulsing lights from a flight
line 10 miles away, each

527
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,720
explanation more condescending
than the last.

528
00:29:59,960 --> 00:30:03,400
Miss Pierce was not the kind of
woman who took that quietly.

529
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,800
When Fuller came to Exeter to
investigate, he knocked on Miss

530
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,720
Pierce's door and walked into a
living room full of people.

531
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,080
She had organized it
deliberately.

532
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,960
Neighbors.
Fellow witnesses, people who had

533
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,560
been too intimidated to come
forward on their own.

534
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:23,520
She had essentially convened a
town meeting in her parlor and

535
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,640
handed Fuller the community
story he didn't know he needed

536
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,520
because of her.
The Exeter incident isn't just a

537
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,000
police report in a field in
Kingston.

538
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,200
It's a portrait of an entire
region that spent months

539
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,840
watching something move through
their sky that nobody could

540
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:43,320
explain.
Fuller's own sighting.

541
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:47,680
By the time Fuller was wrapping
up his investigation, he had

542
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,840
stopped being just a journalist
covering the story and started

543
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:54,480
going out at night to the areas
where sightings were most

544
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,680
frequently reported.
One of those nights, he saw it

545
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,480
himself.
A brilliant orange red object,

546
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,400
solid and luminous, nothing like
the strobing navigating lights

547
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,080
of a conventional aircraft.
What made the encounter

548
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,480
definitive for him was what
happened next.

549
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,360
An Air Force jet appeared in the
same airspace, and it was

550
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,440
clearly chasing the object.
Fuller watched as the

551
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,400
interceptor attempted to close
the distance and watch as the

552
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,800
orange light simply left it
behind, accelerating away with a

553
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,160
kind of effortless, physics
defying ease that made the jet

554
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,680
look like it was standing still.
After that, Fuller said he was

555
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,720
done entertaining the operation.
Big blast explanation.

556
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,760
He had seen the object, he had
seen the military's response to

557
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,480
it, and he had watched the
object make that response look

558
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,920
completely inadequate.
There are dozens of other

559
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,520
accounts in Fuller's book,
objects hovering over power

560
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:49,640
lines over the Exeter Hospital,
drifting through neighborhoods

561
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,280
like they were on a slow survey
of the area.

562
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,400
The witnesses span every part of
the community, kids, teenagers,

563
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,120
mothers, police officers,
tradesmen.

564
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,800
If you want the full scope of
what was happening in that

565
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:04,960
corner of New Hampshire in the
fall of 1965, the book is the

566
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,880
only way to get there.
Incident at the Exeter

567
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,720
Unidentified flying objects over
America, now still in print and

568
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,600
worth every page.
Power lines.

569
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,160
As Fuller mapped out the
sighting reports coming in from

570
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,960
across the Seacoast region,
something started to emerge that

571
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,200
had nothing to do with the sky.
It had to do with the ground,

572
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:30,640
specifically what was running
underneath the flight paths.

573
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,760
High tension power lines, the
345,000 Volt transmission lines

574
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,760
that cut across the New England
landscape, weren't just

575
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,200
occasionally near these
sightings, they were

576
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:44,160
consistently near them.
When Fuller started charting the

577
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:48,000
paths described by Muscarello,
the Dining Farm witnesses, Miss

578
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,480
Pierce, Ron Smith, and dozens of
others, the correlation was hard

579
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,400
to ignore.
These objects weren't drifting

580
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,160
randomly across the sky, they
were moving along the grid.

581
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,240
That realization changed the
whole shape of the investigation

582
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,480
for Fuller.
This wasn't a collection of

583
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,960
isolated ghost stories anymore.
There was a geographical logic

584
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,040
to it, and that logic pointed
directly at the electrical

585
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,640
infrastructure of New England.
Witnesses had been describing

586
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,840
the objects hovering just feet
above the transmission lines,

587
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:19,080
moving in a slow, deliberate way
that looked less like flight and

588
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,360
more like surveying.
Several reported that the red

589
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,440
pulsing lights seemed to
intensify when the craft was

590
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:27,480
directly over a transmission
tower.

591
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:32,040
Brighter, more aggressive.
Others described a low frequency

592
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,160
hum coming from the direction of
the object.

593
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,640
Something felt as much as heard,
distinct from the standard

594
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,400
electrical buzz of the lines
themselves, and the

595
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:42,880
electromagnetic effects kept
showing up in the witness

596
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,440
accounts.
Rod Smith's car reacting as the

597
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,600
object approached.
Being one of the cleaner

598
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,800
examples, Fuller brought this
data to physicists and started

599
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,480
asking a specific question.
Could a physical craft extract

600
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,280
energy from a high voltage
transmission line without making

601
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,680
direct contact?
The answer, rooted in the

602
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:04,920
principles of electromagnetic
induction, was that it was

603
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,040
theoretically possible a
conductor moving through the

604
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,440
external magnetic field
generated by a high current line

605
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,120
could, under the right
conditions, have energy transfer

606
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,800
to it without touching anything.
Fuller latched onto this.

607
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,760
It became a cornerstone of his
framework for the case, the

608
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,199
possibility that these objects
weren't just observing the power

609
00:34:25,199 --> 00:34:29,840
grid, but actively using it.
Then November 1965 happened.

610
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,120
Fuller was in the final stages
of writing the manuscript when

611
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,840
on November 9th, the Great NE
Blackout knocked out power

612
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,159
across a massive stretch of the
eastern seaboard and into

613
00:34:40,159 --> 00:34:43,480
Canada. 10s of millions of
people plunged Into Darkness

614
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,320
simultaneously.
Failure was traced to a

615
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,560
transmission line in Ontario,
and as the reports came in

616
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,199
during and after the blackout, a
pattern emerged that Fuller

617
00:34:53,199 --> 00:34:56,159
couldn't set aside.
Glowing objects have been seen

618
00:34:56,159 --> 00:35:00,200
near key substations and along
the specific transmission lines

619
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:04,200
involved in the cascading
failure in the hours surrounding

620
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,800
the event.
He didn't claim to know exactly

621
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,480
what that meant, but he made the
argument plainly.

622
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,760
The Exeter flap, concentrated
along those same high tension

623
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:18,360
corridors just months earlier,
looked less like a coincidence

624
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,880
and more like a reconnaissance,
a testing ground, a preliminary

625
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,880
Passover, the infrastructure
before something larger happened

626
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:27,640
to it.
It's a framework that the Air

627
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:29,560
Force's explanation never
accounted for.

628
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:33,320
Operation Big Blast doesn't
explain why the objects followed

629
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,040
power lines instead of roads or
towns.

630
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,800
Stars and weather balloons don't
pace transmission towers at low

631
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,160
altitude and make car engines
stutter.

632
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,440
Fuller's contribution to the
Exeter case wasn't just

633
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,560
documenting when people saw it,
was documenting where they saw

634
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,080
it and asking what that
geography meant.

635
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:53,560
He never got a definitive
answer.

636
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,240
Nobody has.
But sixty years later, the power

637
00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:00,440
line correlation remains one of
the most unexplained and least

638
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:05,320
discuss aspects of the Exeter
incident, and one with the most

639
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,920
interesting.
The Exeter incident has lasted

640
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,680
60 years in the conversation for
one reason.

641
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,480
It's hard to dismiss, maybe even
impossible.

642
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,920
But people have tried.
We've watched the attempts in

643
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,520
real time across this file.
The advertising plane that was

644
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,680
never in the air, the B-47
bombers that can't hover, the

645
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,000
official explanation that got
officially retracted.

646
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:33,400
Every off ramp the skeptics
offered, the evidence closed

647
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,800
off.
What you're left with when you

648
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:39,400
work through all of it is a case
built on the testimony of people

649
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,000
who had every reason not to come
forward.

650
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,800
A teenager about to enter the
military, a Korean War veteran

651
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,240
with his professional reputation
on the line, and a Police

652
00:36:48,240 --> 00:36:51,400
Department that went toe to toe
with the Pentagon and won.

653
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:53,720
That's what makes Exeter
different.

654
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,160
It's not a blurry photograph or
story that only one person

655
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,760
remembers.
It's signed statements, official

656
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,880
blotter entries, a letter from
the Office of the Secretary of

657
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,600
the Air Force, and a community
that refuses to be talked out of

658
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,800
what it witnessed.
Norman Muscarello saw something

659
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,360
on Route 150 that changed the
direction of his life.

660
00:37:13,720 --> 00:37:17,480
Eugene Bertrand stood underneath
it with his hand on his weapon.

661
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,920
David Hunt watched it move
between 2 trees and watched the

662
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:25,160
B-47 cross the same sky and said
there was no comparison.

663
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,360
And underneath all of it, those
power lines running through the

664
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,440
landscape, connecting the dots
between witnesses tying the

665
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,760
Exeter flat to a blackout that
darkened the entire Northeastern

666
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,880
seaboard two months later.
Fuller never claimed to have the

667
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,000
answer.
He just documented the question

668
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,480
clearly enough that it hasn't
gone away.

669
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,960
That's the legacy of this case,
not resolution, but credibility,

670
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:52,440
the proof that when enough
grounded, respected people stand

671
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,200
up together and say we saw
something that doesn't fit

672
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,880
inside your explanation, the
institutions designed to explain

673
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:00,520
things away eventually have to
blink.

674
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,600
The Air Force blinked.
The file stayed open.

675
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,600
Whatever was moving through the
skies above Southern New

676
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,480
Hampshire in the fall of 1965,
hovering over farms, following

677
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,000
power lines, disappearing into
the ocean at the edge of the

678
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,000
coast, nobody has ever
identified it.

679
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:21,200
Nobody has ever explained it.
And 60 years later, the question

680
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,560
that Norman Moscarello carried
through the front door of the

681
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,080
police station at 2:24 in the
morning is still officially

682
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,080
unanswered.
This has been Project Jackalope

683
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,720
Files 003, the Exeter UFO
incident.

684
00:38:33,720 --> 00:38:37,160
If this is your first time
finding Project Jackalope, every

685
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,200
file we've released is available
right now.

686
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,720
Wherever you listen to podcasts
under the Infinite Rabbit Hole

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00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:45,480
RSS feed and on YouTube at the
Infinite Rabbit Hole Podcast

688
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,400
channel, hit subscribe so you
don't miss what's coming next.

689
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:50,960
If you've been with us for a
while and you haven't left a

690
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,120
review yet, that is generally
one of the best things that you

691
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,000
can do to help the show reach
more people.

692
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,000
It takes 2 minutes and it makes
a real difference.

693
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:01,960
We'd appreciate it more than you
know.

694
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:04,240
And if you want to stay
connected between episodes, come

695
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:06,040
find us on social media.
We're out there.

696
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:09,000
We post regularly, and that's
where a lot of the conversation

697
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,120
around these cases continues
after the file closes.

698
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:15,680
And until next time, we'll see
you right here in the next fork

699
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,920
in the path of the Infinite
Rabbit Hole.

700
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,960
I'm Jeremy Socia.
I was your host for this file of

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00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:24,880
Project Jackalope.
Goodbye.

702
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:37,240
Hey everybody, thanks for
checking out the Infinite Rabbit

703
00:39:37,240 --> 00:39:39,320
Hole podcast.
If you're looking for more of

704
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,480
our stuff, head on over to
infiniterabbithole.com where you

705
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,160
can find links to all the
podcast players that we are

706
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,720
available on and even our video
platforms such as TikTok and

707
00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:50,600
YouTube.
While you're there, make sure to

708
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,600
check out all the links for our
socials and hit that follow so

709
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,680
you know when all the new stuff
from our podcast comes out.

710
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:00,600
And until next time, travelers,
we'll see you right here in the

711
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,080
next fork in the path of the
Infinite Rabbit hole.

712
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:04,080
Bye.