A UFO Double-hitter?
CASE NO.1
Location: Exeter, New Hampshire, September 3, 1965. Late evening; Just before midnight; and approx. 1:40 a.m.
Object: Unidentified object with several very bright red lights, flew low (about 100 ft), erratic at times, silent, and no vibration.
On September 3, 1965, in states geographically distant from one another two extraordinary sets of incidences occurred. Many people are aware of the "Incident at Exeter" due to a bestselling book on the subject and many skeptics and true believers have promoted it as evidence of confusion or proof of alien presence.
The stories are similar also in that both have law officers playing primary roles in the events. As witnesses they are the guys in the "white hats" and hard to ignore. In Exeter, there are also two women driving on the road, a woman in a local farmhouse and a young man hitchhiking to get home. Each one of these people would have significant testimony and a lot to say.
The Air Force would try its hardest to prove they had seen (1) only the lights of Pease Air Base (they were embarrassingly shown to be invisible from the locations), then it was a desperate attempt to claim that (2) refueling aircraft on maneuvers were in the area, (3) a night infra-red photographic practice run, but then (2) and (3) were categorically proven unable to account because thet exercise ended much earlier and too far away to be involved and all requests for proof of the infra-red flight proved "inconclusive."
In more recent days, skeptics have taken one piece of evidence and made it fit a refueling scenario while ignoring other, and very blatant facts, such as the low elevation of the object seen was too low for a refueling maneuver (about 100 feet above a tree). They ignore the witness statements that the lights came very close, there was no sound and no vibrations associated with the lights. Also ignored, the frank admittance that there was nothing in the area at the time to account for the described objects.
From the PBB file: Project Big Blast had a/c in the area but the times they were there did "NOT correspond to the times of the observation. Since no aircraft can be placed in the area at 0200 hours the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force." Also, same file, "no refueling in NE area for Big Blast. No refueling on nights 2-3 & 6 of September." Yet, recent skeptics select to ignore the inconvenient facts that argue against their answers.
After being ignored, insulted, and accused of all types of fabrications, the Air Force finally had to say the case was an "unknown." The cover sheet of the Project Blue Book states that but hurriedly added the non-fact that a refueling exercise was going on in the area. In not noting the time conflict it is clear the desire of the Air Force was to read it as "we are calling it unknown but we really think it was this but can't prove it." Once again, ignoring witness testimony that contradicts the presumptive answer.
A timeline based on testimony indicates--
3:30 p.m. There were many sightings in southern New Hampshire of somethings. Details are sketchy; this may be sightings of Operation Big Blast as it seems to conform to some information as to their activities.
10:00 p.m. A M/M Clyde Russell, Kensington, New Hampshire said they saw a large, mysterious object that looked like a large red ball with flashing lights.
12:30 Exeter Policeman Bertrand encounters two women in a car who have been very frightened by a large red object that followed them and hovered over their car. If this was "refueling" tanker, there was reckless endangerment involved to fly that large a aircraft low enough to appear to be following and hovering over an automobile along a road.
1:00 a.m. - Young Muscarello, hitch-hiking home, was walking down HWY 150 was traumatized by a red object and lights that kept pace and he observed for about an hour. The weather was clear with no winds but the object(s) would appear erratic, would disappear behind trees and houses. It would then reappear in a position different than it had been previously. He noticed a motion he described as a "floating leaf" (note this is a term that appears in several other Project Blue Book cases. See June 21, 1947 – 11:50 am, 8 discs seen near Spokane, Washington. Witnesses said they fell with a ‘falling leaf motion.”) Air Force authorities will try to insist this was a fuel nozzle on a rank 'flopping' in the air; again, as it refuels at a low altitude over towns and farms.
When the object finally departed it headed away at a 160-degree angle. Times vary through the report records and printed accounts. Generally, it can be said that around midnight Muscarello contacted the police. The NICAP report (NICAP often got the jump on the Air Force in both detail and speed of data gathering and witness locating) placed the time Bertrand found the two women at 12:30 a.m. Muscarello walking down the road at about 1 a.m. and his arrive at the Exeter Police Station at 1:45 a.m.
1:45 a.m. Muscarello reports to Police Station. Officers go out and encounter the red lights as well.
All told witnesses in the area observed for about two hours the strange red lights that flew very low, barely skirting the tops of tree lines and rooftops of farms and barns (often at an altitude of no more than 100 feet). The red lights appeared to be a line of lights (red) with two a little forward of the others, The lights bathed the area in a red glow and were bright enough the basic shape of the silent object was merely a dark vague form.
Of note is that 15 October Pease AFB would see a high number of sightings reported. The two Police Officers had to write several letters to Air Force officials attempting to clear their names and reputations. No real communication was received by them for nearly a year and just with the notice the file was "unidentified."
CASE No. 2
Location: Damon, Brazoria County, Texas, Sept. 3, 1965, 11 p.m.
Object: Described as having one or more bright red lights, on one side. On the other was a vivid PURPLE light or lights. Object a triangular dark mass, thicker in the middle and tapering off to "tips" with a canister type shape at the end. Details obscured by night and brightness of lights. One set of lights seen appeared to rotate in a sequence (off/on). All witnesses mentioned red lights and that they were low over treetops and roofs.
Less well known is the fact that on the very same night - in Brazoria County, Texas along HWY 36 linking Damon and West Columbia, north of Houston, strange lights were also seen. The witnesses were two Deputy Sheriff's and they saw not only lights but an odd craft sitting or hovering just above the ground as well.
The men were traveling county roads on business when they saw some lights off the road and across a desert line field or pasture. Oil Wells were in the area and at first one officer assumed that was what they were seeing. Then they noticed the object with the lights was moving, swinging itself around, above the ground. When that happened, it was apparent that the lights were far brighter than any oil wells, and there was a distinct strangeness to the lights and the colors. Purple was an extremely odd color to see. Some experts have pointed out that witnesses might confuse the blue and red lights of a craft - at a great distance - with a purple tone but this was a definite purple.
It should be noted that a dark and mysterious craft landed in a Kansas pasture northeast of Wichita in the early 1960's and one of the lights witnesses reported was a PURPLE light. The lights of the craft were so bright fire departments and police from several Kansas towns had searched the backroads trying to locate a fire to account for the bright lights.
To date - no craft with a Purple light system has been found in researching experimental craft of the 1960's. No record of the FAA approving such a color system has been found either.
The officers had been traveling from Damon, Texas to West Columbia on HWY 36. The object was seen off the road on their left and was thought to be moving to the south, slowly.
The next days both the Air Force and civilian investigators returned the men to the area, took photos, and had them retell their stories in great detail and at great length. In waning years, both men affirmed the truth of everything they had told officials at the time.
Both cases were labeled "UNKNOWN." Both occurred on the same night. After the famous "summer of the saucers" of 1965 and prior to bigger things in 1966, these two cases stand out as eerie and meaningful.
What was really going on?
