In 2023 my wife and I moved to a new home in Hampton, New Hampshire, a seacoast town near Exeter, home of Philips Academy. I soon discovered that the area was known not only for the prep school, a gateway to the Ivy League, but also as the place where in 1965 an unidentified flying object was seen—and, it develops, the venue of many other such sightings. Local booksellers asked extortionate prices for a paperback of Incident at Exeter, newspaper writer John G. Fuller’s 1966 investigation into the matter. In due time I bought one ($8.97, Ebay, shipping included).
The recent (8 May 2026) release by the White House of government files on UFOs, featuring videos, finally prompted me to read—well, “slog through”—Fuller’s account. For those who have heard enough about UFO’s and the current administration and want no more, my report can be summed up in five words: “one valid point, dull book.”
Here, for other folks, is more.
Around 2:30 AM 3 September 1965 a teenager walking by a field outside the town of Exeter ran into the local police station saying he had seen a huge circular “thing” with winking red lights around the rim. The police, who had heard a similar report that night, dispatched an officer to accompany the teenager. They both viewed it. Patrolman Barnard dragooned another officer into joining them; now three saw it. It was real.
The story made the Exeter paper, was picked up nationally, and prompted Fuller to start an independent investigation of UFO encounters in the Exeter-Hampton-Kensington, New Hampshire, area. He found no shortage of them.
Fuller contacted Pease Air Force base, outside Portsmouth, for their take on the matter. He was stonewalled. In fact, government response to similar reports (in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, etc.) was, and is, to ascribe such claims to military exercises, illusions (if sincere), or meteorological phenomena. (Roswell? “Weather balloons.”) Fuller interviewed fifty or more people with like experiences. Notwithstanding the agreement of reports and “facts” and the probity and intelligence of witnesses, government authorities persisted in evading and discounting. Incident at Exeter is mind-numbingly repetitive and plodding—but on this point persuasive.
Two moments stand out. At one point, Fuller has his own unsatisfactory witnessing. He and another man see a fighter jet trying to catch an orange-red ball UFO escaping across the sky with remarkable speed. “The whole thing happened so fast, that I’m not sure how I reacted,” Fuller writes.
The story of Mr. and Mrs. Barney Hill, a Dover, NH, couple who was abducted and taken aboard an alien craft and examined by “human-like” creatures for two hours needs further treatment. They claimed not to remember what happened. The government hypnotized the Hills and obtained some data, but the Hills either cannot or will not go into detail. If there is a book on this, I haven’t read it.
As for the newly released videos. I watched 6 of 28 clips. A white dot moves across a grey field; a fuzzy white configuration moving across a grey field; or black geometric configuration moves against a grey field. It’s a little more intriguing than Incident at Exeter and mercifully shorter.