{"it":{"id":"UFO-EXE1965","name":"Exeter incident","kind":"ufo","sub":"Historical sighting","place":"Exeter, New Hampshire, USA","lat":42.98,"lon":-70.95,"date":"1965-09-03","rep":"Silent, red pulsing lights.","off":"USAF: military aircraft; later Skeptical Inquirer: aerial refuelling.","src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"}],"tags":["Sightings"],"sum":"On 3 September 1965, two Exeter police officers saw silent, pulsing red lights a teenager had reported. They wrote to dispute the Pentagon's explanation.","nsrc":1,"new":1,"qs":["Two police officers formally told the Pentagon its explanation was wrong. When witnesses with nothing to gain push back, who carries the burden of proof?","Bombers in 1965, a refuelling tanker in 2011. If the first explanation was solid, why did skeptics need a new one?","Silent red lights, 80 to 90 feet across, over a New Hampshire field. How close does something have to come before 'aircraft' stops working?"],"yt":"Would refuelling be silent? Check.","rel":["UFO-PHX"],"hook":"Two Exeter patrolmen told Blue Book their 2 am object was no B-47. Months later, it could not name it.","why":"Signed statements and letters from two police officers who refused the official answer, and won a retraction of sorts."},"S":{},"rec":{"id":"UFO-EXE1965","sum":"Norman J. Muscarello was hitchhiking on Route 150, 3 miles southwest of Exeter, New Hampshire, at 0200 hours on 3 September 1965, when five bright red lights appeared over a house about 100 feet from him. They pulsed one after another, and once came so close, his signed statement says, that \"I jumped into a ditch to keep from being hit.\" After about 15 minutes he got a ride to the Exeter police station.\n\nPatrolmen Eugene Bertrand and David Hunt went back out with him. On December 2, 1965, they wrote to Major Hector Quintanilla, Jr., chief of Project Blue Book. Since the Pentagon's \"final evaluation\" they had been \"the subject of considerable ridicule,\" they said.\n\nThe object, they wrote, was no more than a couple of hundred feet up. There was no wind and no chance of a weather inversion. Bertrand had spent four years in the Air Force in refuelling operations. They did see a B-47 at high altitude after the object vanished, but it \"bore no relation at all.\" And they had gone out nearly an hour after 2:00 AM, after the exercise Big Blast had ended.\n\nOn February 9, 1966, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force replied that it was \"unable to identify the object you observed on September 3, 1965.\"\n\nIf the Air Force could not name it, who should have kept looking?","qs":["If the Air Force could not name it, who should have kept looking?","Why did the timing of the exercise matter?","What does it cost a police officer to report a light in the sky?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf/page1-1280px-Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf","title":"Project Blue Book report - 1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Project Blue Book","cap":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Exeter incident","alt":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Exeter incident"},{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Incident_at_Exeter_map.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Incident_at_Exeter_map.png","title":"Incident at Exeter map.png","lic":"Public domain","by":"United States Air Force","alt":"Incident at Exeter map"}],"ms":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"},{"id":"VUFO-EXE1965-2","t":"NICAP: Exeter, 3 September 1965, documents","u":"https://www.nicap.org/reports/650903exeter_docs.htm"}],"pts":[{"p":"Norman Muscarello estimated the object at 80–90 ft.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"},{"p":"Officers Bertrand and Hunt also saw it.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"},{"p":"Pentagon (Quintanilla) cited \"five B-47\" / Operation Big Blast aircraft.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"},{"p":"Officers' letter dated 29 Dec 1965 disputed the explanation.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"},{"p":"Skeptical Inquirer (2011) proposed a KC-97 refueling aircraft.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Exeter incident","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_incident"}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":null,"hs":{},"lh":{"s":"img/h/UFO-EXE1965.webp","w":1280,"h":866,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf/page1-1280px-Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1965-09-9373271-Exeter-NewHampshire.pdf.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}