New Hampshire has long been a focal point for tales of the unexplained, serving as the eerie backdrop for some of the most famous alleged UFO encounters. From abduction claims to mysterious sightings, the Granite State's history is intertwined with stories of extraterrestrial phenomena.
People who grew up in the Granite State might already be familiar with both the Hill Abduction and the Exeter Incident. You may have heard fragments of the stories in school, or through word-of-mouth recollections from those who either take these instances as truth or find them to be unverifiable ramblings. Being skeptical about UFOs and aliens is natural. Given that there isn’t any physical proof of extraterrestrial life in our universe, it makes sense to approach these tales with a lack of belief.
The Hill Abduction
In the 1960s, New Hampshire became a hotspot for alleged UFO activity. The oddities first began in 1961, when Portsmouth couple Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were abducted and experimented on by aliens. The first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in the United States was that of Betty and Barney Hill. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire, couple claimed to have been taken by extraterrestrials near Franconia Notch on the night of September 19, 1961. In September 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were traveling back to their home in Portsmouth following a trip to Canada. While driving along darkened roads near the White Mountains, the couple claimed to have seen peculiar lights hovering overhead.
Betty thought at first it was a shooting star, but then it changed direction and moved upward. They stopped the car for a closer look, and through binoculars they saw an odd-shaped craft flashing multicolored lights. Barney approached it, looking through binoculars, .32 pistol in hand, when the saucer displayed red lights and tilted toward him. He saw strange humanoid creatures through rectangular windows. Fearing capture, he ran back to the car, warning Betty.
Betty and Barney said that, after the lights first appeared, they watched a large spacecraft land in a nearby field. Illuminated in the craft’s window were humanlike creatures. This sighting was followed by two hours of unexplained lost time. Neither Betty nor Barney could say for certain what had happened-all they knew when they got home that evening was that neither of them could recall what took place during that specific stretch of time. Betty’s dress was stained and torn. Barney’s shoes were scuffed and the strap on his binoculars broken.
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They reported the incident to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in October, and Walter N. Webb, a NICAP member and astronomer, met with the couple shortly after. Webb interviewed the Hills for several hours, during which Barney indicated he couldn’t remember certain parts of that evening due to a mental block. The primary details he reported to Webb were the humanoid figures on the unusual aircraft. Eventually, the two decided to undergo hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon to help them remember that uncanny evening. Under hypnosis, both were able to recall what had happened and both had similar stories.
A Honeymoon Hijacked by Aliens | Alien Abduction: Betty & Barney Hill | discovery+
The Hills drove away at high speed. They heard some buzzing and beeping sounds, experienced a tingling sensation, and blacked out. When they regained consciousness, they had traveled nearly 35 miles south, although they didn’t recall the journey. Later, under hypnosis, the Hills described being taken onto the ship, where they were separated and examined. The beings performed what seemed to be an amniocentesis test on her. The aliens were confused about the function of a zipper and that Barney’s teeth came out but Betty’s did not. They took samples of hair and fingernails.
After the abduction, more issues came to light. Barney had a concentric circle of warts form where the aliens had placed a cupping device. Marks on the trunk of their car made a compass spin. Betty’s dress was soiled with a mysterious substance that could not be identified. Even their healthy dachshund, Delsey, had physical repercussions.
After completing these sessions, the Hills returned to their normal lives. Barney worked for the postal service, and Betty was a social worker. The way Betty and Barney Hill described both the creatures and their experiences aboard the UFO went on to impact the way modern culture portrayed aliens for decades to come. The publicity she received from her abduction made her internationally famous.
John G. Fuller, who penned the “Incident at Exeter” following his experience there, also authored a book about the Hills, titled “The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours Aboard a UFO: The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill.” His book was adapted into a popular TV movie, “The UFO Incident,” starring James Earl Jones as Barney and Estelle Parsons as Betty.
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Barney Hill died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1969. In the aftermath of his death, Betty devoted much of her time to studying and collecting UFO research. Some of her journals are accessible through the University of New Hampshire’s Betty and Barney Hill Collection. The collection contains journals ranging from 1967 to 1991 of strange events and sightings that Betty meticulously chronicled, as well as essays and speeches.
Betty, who was known as the “first lady of UFOs,” died in 2004 at her home in Portsmouth at the age of 85.
In the southern part of the state, enthusiasts can visit the Betty and Barney Hill Archive at UNH’s Dimond Library. The archive hosts correspondence, personal journals, manuscripts, photographs, and DVDs relating to the abduction and the discovery and exploration of the event that unfolded afterwards.
The Exeter Incident
The White Mountains aren’t the only corner of New Hampshire that has an extraterrestrial story to tell. Four years later, in September 1965, residents from the Exeter area reportedly saw something strange. Four years later, several people in Exeter reported seeing an unidentified flying object hovering overhead. The residents all said the same thing: It moved silently, almost as if it were mimicking the slow descent of a falling leaf.
On September 3, 1965, one of the most famous UFO events of all time occurred in Exeter, New Hampshire. As with the Hill incident, this was also turned into a 1966 bestseller by John G. Fuller, called Incident at Exeter. The Exeter incident or Incident at Exeter was a highly publicized UFO sighting that occurred on September 3, 1965, approximately 5 miles (8 km) south of Exeter, New Hampshire, in the neighboring town of Kensington.
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The first telephone call came on September 3 from a woman who claimed to have seen a flying object pass overhead while she was driving down Route 101. She said the object had red lights that flashed in an odd pattern. Fuller reports that a policeman patrolling Route 101 just after midnight stopped to check on a woman parked beside the road. The breathless woman claimed that a flying object with red flashing lights had been chasing her.
By the time Norman Muscarello burst into the Exeter Police Department to report his attack, the dispatcher had already fielded a number of similar reports. Although several separate sightings had been reported in the Exeter area by numerous witnesses in the weeks leading up to the specific incident, it was the September 3 sighting, involving a local teenager and two police officers which became, by far, the most famous.
A few hours later, an 18-year-old man arrived at the Exeter police station and claimed that while hitchhiking along Route 150, he’d seen a line of five bright lights over a house about 100 feet from where he stood. He said the lights moved out over a large field and disappeared and reappeared behind the tree line several times. The young Naval recruit was badly shaken as he told officers about an unidentified flying object he saw over Kensington while he was walking down Route 150. He recalled seeing lights in the night sky, which he initially thought belonged to a plane. The red lights, which appeared in a straight line, pulsed on and off in a pattern: One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one.
Muscarello had graduated from high school the previous June and was three weeks away from leaving for service in the United States Navy. After reaching Kensington, a few miles outside Exeter, Muscarello noticed five flashing bright red lights in the distance, which he initially believed to be the lights of a police car or fire engine. As he drew nearer, he was startled to see the lights were hovering in the air just above the trees and illuminating a nearby field and two houses in brilliant red light. He became terrified as the object, which made absolutely no sound, began to move steadily towards him. Panicking, he dived into a ditch beside the road.
After telling his story, Muscarello brought Officer Eugene Bertrand back with him to where he reportedly saw the UFO. Bertrand had recently spoken with two women stopped in a car outside of Exeter who claimed that an unidentified flying object with pulsing red lights followed them for 12 miles. The two men waited outside the farm where Muscarello first spotted the UFO passing overhead. It appeared, silently and suddenly, and alarmed Bertrand as much as it had initially scared Muscarello. As an Air Force veteran, Bertrand was familiar with a wide array of aircraft as an Air Force veteran, but even he had never seen anything like this, as it didn’t appear to have wings or a tail.
The lights then changed direction and hovered over the Dining farmhouse. Muscarello ran to the Russell's house, pounded on the door and yelled for help, but no one answered. The object then moved away and disappeared over the trees of the nearby woods. Seeing the headlights of an approaching car, Muscarello ran into the road and forced it to stop.
At the police station, Muscarello, pale and visibly shaken, told his story to officer Reginald Toland, who worked the night desk. Toland knew Muscarello, and was impressed by his obvious fear and genuinely agitated state. Toland radioed police officer Eugene Bertrand Jr., who earlier in the evening had passed a frightened woman sitting in her car on NH 108. When Bertrand stopped to ask if she had a problem, the woman told him that a "huge object with flashing red lights" had followed her car from Epping to Exeter, a distance of about 12 miles (19 km) and hovered over the car before flying away.
After Bertrand drove Muscarello back to the area of his sighting, they at first saw nothing unusual; however, when they left the car and walked into the field and towards the woods where Muscarello had first seen the lights, some horses in a nearby corral became frightened and began neighing loudly, kicking the fence and sides of a barn; dogs in the area also began barking and howling. Bertrand and Muscarello then saw an object slowly rise from the trees beyond the corral.
Bertrand described the UFO as "this huge, dark object as big as a barn over there, with red flashing lights on it." The object moved silently towards them, swaying back and forth. Instinctively remembering his police training, Bertrand dropped to one knee, drew his revolver, and pointed it at the object. He then decided that shooting would not be wise, so he reholstered the revolver, grabbed Muscarello, and both ran back to the patrol car. Bertrand radioed another Exeter policeman, David Hunt, for assistance, and while the two waited in the car for Hunt to arrive they continued to observe the object. According to UFO historian Jerome Clark, Bertrand and Muscarello "observed the object as it hovered 100 feet away and at 100 feet altitude. It rocked back and forth. The pulsating red lights flashed in rapid sequence, first from right to left, then left to right, each cycle consuming no more than two seconds; the [local] animals continued to act agitated." The object was still there when Hunt arrived a few minutes later and he also watched it. Finally, the object rose over the trees and disappeared. Hunt soon heard the engines of a B-47 bomber as it flew overhead, and he later told journalist John G. Fuller that "You could tell the difference" between the UFO and the bomber, "there was no comparison." The three men drove back to the Exeter police station and immediately filed separate reports on what they had seen. The sightings by Muscarello and the two policemen received national publicity.
He radioed back to the station, and fellow officer David Hunt joined the two men shortly thereafter. Hunt also witnessed the unusual flying object.
After driving to the site with the young man, the same policeman witnessed the lights, as did another officer who arrived a short time later. Over the weeks that followed, authorities received about 60 reports of UFO sightings near Exeter.
In yet another alien-encounter just 5 years after the Betty and Barney Hill incident, young Norman Muscarello saw what appeared to be a hovering UFO in Kensington, NH on September 3, 1965. After reporting it to local authorities, they confirmed the sight, and the experience made national headlines.
Investigations and Explanations
The Air Force opened an investigation into what would come to be known as “The Exeter Incident.” Major David H. Griffin, who was the Base Disaster Control Officer and a Command Pilot at Pease, filed an official report following the investigation. He wrote, “At this time have been unable to arrive at a probable cause of this sighting. The three observers seem to be stable reliable persons, especially the two patrolman. I viewed the area of the sighting and found nothing in the area that could be the probable cause. Major Griffin noted in the report that “the object was erratic in movement and would disappear behind trees and houses in the area. It would then appear at a position other than where it disappeared.
After Exeter's police chief read the reports of Muscarello, Bertrand, Hunt, he called nearby Pease Air Force Base and reported a UFO sighting. The Air Force sent Major David Griffin and Lieutenant Alan Brandt to interview the three men. Major Griffin sent a report of the incident to USAF Major Hector Quintanilla, supervisor of Project Blue Book, the official Air Force research group assigned to investigate UFO reports. Griffin wrote that "At this time I have been unable to arrive at a probable cause of this sighting. The three observers seem to be stable, reliable persons, especially the two patrolmen. I viewed the area of the sighting and found nothing in the area that could be the probable cause.
Despite the mounting number of witnesses, an Air Force spokesperson told reporters that what people were seeing was an aircraft performing a high altitude exercise. As for the pulsating lights, the spokesperson explained that a weather inversion can sometimes make stars appear to move, and the case was effectively closed. Before Project Blue Book could send this evaluation to the Pentagon, however, Griffen and Brandt had already issued their explanation of Muscarello and the two policemen's sighting to the press. The Pentagon informed reporters that the three men had seen "nothing more than stars and planets twinkling ... owing to a temperature inversion. Project Blue Book then issued its own explanation, stating that "Operation Big Blast ... a SAC/NORAD training mission" had been active on the night of the sighting and that it could have accounted for the UFO. Major Quintanilla, in a letter to policemen Bertrand and Hunt, wrote "in addition to aircraft from this operation [Big Blast], there were also five B-47 aircraft flying in your area during this period ...
Investigative journalist John G. In particular, Fuller felt that Bertrand and Hunt were reliable individuals whose accounts of that evening should be taken more seriously. Bertrand and Hunt were inclined to agree with him. They added, “We would both appreciate it very much if you would help us eliminate the possible conclusion that some people have made in that we might have A) made up the story, or B) were incompetent observers. - We appreciate the problems the Air Force must have with a lot of irresponsible reports on this subject, and don’t want to cause you any unnecessary trouble.
Muscarello, Bertrand, and Hunt all strongly disagreed with the Air Force explanation. The two policemen sent a letter to Project Blue Book in which they stated, "As you can imagine, we have been the subject of considerable ridicule since the Pentagon released its 'final evaluation' of our sighting of September 3, 1965...both Patrolman Hunt and myself saw this object at close range, checked it out with each other, confirmed and reconfirmed that it was not any type of conventional aircraft ... and went to considerable trouble to confirm that the weather was clear, there was no wind, no chance of weather inversion, and that what we were seeing was in no way a military or civilian aircraft." Bertrand also noted that their UFO sighting took place nearly an hour after Operation Big Blast was said to have ended, which eliminated the operation as a possible cause of the sighting. When Project Blue Book did not respond to their letter, on December 29, 1965-nearly four months after the sighting-the two men sent another letter to Blue Book in which they wrote that the object they observed "was absolutely silent with no rush of air from jets or chopper blades whatsoever. And it did not have any wings or tail ...
Project Blue Book did not respond to the initial letter, but the two men were persistent and sent another. Then, in January 1966, Lieutenant Colonel John Spaulding finally replied.
In 2011, Joe Nickell, a prominent skeptic, and James McGaha, a retired Air Force major, proposed a possible explanation for the incident in Skeptical Inquirer. As a pilot, McGaha had been refueled in flight by KC-97 tanker aircraft like the ones stationed at Pease AFB near Exeter in 1965. In the article, he claimed to have recognized the flashing red light pattern reported by the witnesses Bertrand and Muscarello: one, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one. According to Nickell and McGaha, before refueling, the underbelly of the KC-97 tankers flashed five very bright red lights in that same pattern.
Time passed, and Bertrand, Muscarello, and Hunt maintained that what they saw that early September morning was real-even if they were unable to explain what it was, exactly, that they saw.
Norman’s brother, Thomas Muscarello, has spoken about Norman’s claims several times over the years, particularly after Norman’s death in 2003. Thomas believes his brother’s story and wishes that others did as well.
Speaking with Seacoastonline in 2012, Thomas summed up New Hampshire’s history with extraterrestrials best: “A lot more people are getting their eyes opened.
The Enduring Fascination
Ever since Ezekiel saw a fiery, celestial wheel-in-a-wheel in the skies of ancient Chaldea, people have been sharing their tales of instrusions into our Earthly airspace, but few such tales echo in the vaults of history. New Hampshire is the setting for two that do, and these two still shape the way we look at - and look for - UFOs. This year, “disclosure” efforts are underway in Congress and the Department of Defense, and it’s been 75 years since the world was told that a flying saucer had crashed in Roswell, New Mexico - a report that was quickly denied and covered up.
America's film industry has always been one of the most influential in the world, and a wave of science fiction films in the 1950s, like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," perpetuated the idea that there are other life-forms out there. In April 2020, the Department of Defense released multiple videos filmed by military pilots that were thought to possibly capture UFOs. military has been keeping important information on "nonhuman" sightings secret since the 1930s.
Just like it did in the 1950s amid Cold War paranoia, the lore of UFOs is also currently experiencing a resurgence as many Americans grow concerned about national security. The infamous Chinese spy balloon panic in 2023 and fears over being infiltrated by the Russian government have led to many reporting seeing UFOs in the sky. People are also mistaking the spike in Starlink satellites for extraterrestrial activity.
While New Mexico and Nevada are perhaps best known for UFO sightings, the National UFO Reporting Center data shows that the state with the most sightings is California, with more than 16,500 reports as of April 25, 2025. Stacker compiled a ranking of cities with the most UFO sightings in New Hampshire using data from the National UFO Reporting Center. Data encompasses all reports of UFO sightings dating back to 1995. government's official stance is that extraterrestrial life does not exist. But if the last century is any indicator, that will do little to curb America's alien obsession.
In a state like New Hampshire with a deep history, it comes as no surprise that there are some dark and curious stories of the past. The first ever internationally publicized alien abduction account occurred right here in New Hampshire on a fateful night in September of 1961. A series of lights and a mysterious aircraft following Betty and Barney Hill left the pair feeling uneasy, and when they suddenly came to 2 hours later and 35 miles further down the road - they knew something had occurred.
