Town celebrates notable ’65 UFO sighting

EXETER, N.H. — They say a lightning strike started a fire in the Exeter, New Hampshire, town hall that caused the cancellation of a UFO festival the first year it was hosted by the local Kiwanis Club.

That’s what they say anyway. (Cue the eerie music and get Steven Spielberg on the line right away.)

Fifty years ago, a frightened 18-year-old high school graduate and future Navy seaman named Norman Muscarello told police he had seen an unidentified flying object. The event that became known as “The Incident at Exeter” sparked an Air Force investigation and became one of the nation’s most celebrated and scrutinized sightings.

The Exeter UFO Festival that runs through this weekend brings together a gathering of notable UFO-logists, true believers, skeptics and the merely curious to raise money for kids’ charities and talk about just what the heck happened that night.

Bill Smith, president of the Kiwanis Club of the Exeter Area, said the festival was the brainchild of Dean Merchant, a Kiwanian and UFO enthusiast and researcher. The Kiwanis has been sponsoring it for the past six of its seven years.

“He just was fascinated as to just what happened 50 years ago,” Smith said. “He was saying, ‘Nobody talks about it anymore. Nobody recognizes the significance of the event anymore.’ ”

Here’s the story:

Muscarello, who died in 2003, was hitchhiking home on Sept. 3, 1965, when he saw strange lights in the woods in nearby Kensington. The lights moved toward him. He panicked, dove into a ditch and, when the lights moved back into the woods, bolted for a nearby farmhouse for help. The house was empty so he flagged down a motorist who took him to the Exeter Police Department. An officer went back to the farmhouse with Muscarello and later said he had also seen a flying object that he couldn’t explain. Sightings came in from others in the area, too.

The U.S. Air Force said the sightings were either a mirage caused by a temperature inversion or one of five B-47 planes in the area at the time. A definitive answer was never given.

The Exeter festival is still, at its heart, a fundraiser for children’s charities supported by Kiwanis. It’s not the big affair that draws thousands each July to Roswell, New Mexico, where the 1947 crash of a flying object ignited a still-burning debate over the existence of extraterrestrial life.

But this anniversary year will attract 600 to 700 people who’ll buy little green aliens, spaceships, T-shirts, coffee mugs and hot dogs. They’ll also hear from UFO researchers including Stanton Friedman, Richard Dolan and Jennifer Stein.

The event is family-friendly and geared for fun. But Smith cautions that there’s a line between having fun and poking fun.

“A large percentage of the audience are true believers,” he said. “They do take it seriously.”

Not everybody does, he said.

“Quite frankly, we’ll get people who aren’t happy about this and they’ll say, ‘Do you really believe in this stuff?’ There’s still some of that. Not as much as in the past when they’d say, ‘Man, you guys are a bunch of whack jobs!’ ”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.