Exclusive Incident at Exeter Interview  (Continued)

EXETER STUDENT:
How old were you then?

MUSCARELLO:
Eighteen, I had just graduated from high school.

EXETER STUDENT:
If you saw another UFO, would you report it?

MUSCARELLO:
You're darn right.

EXETER STUDENT:
Some people, after they have seen one, may be reluctant to report another because their friends will think they're really weird.

MUSCARELLO:
Well, you see, after Scratch had told me of this, he got on the blower (police radio). Here comes a cruiser. Gene Bertrand, some of you people might know him, he just retired, pulled up and said, Come on. I want to see what you're talking about. And the only reason I'm following this up is because we have other reports." Otherwise they would have sent me home.

Gene went up to the same spot where all this had taken place. He and I got out of the cruiser. He had a good-sized seal beam flashlight. We were on our way into the field. He wanted to actually go right down in there and look around. You could see the whole field from the road, but he wanted to do that anyway.

Before we got out to where we had stopped, another cruiser pulled up. It was David Hunt. I think he is working for the North Hampton Police Department now. And he's a character. "I'm from MO; (Missouri) I gotta see it. What you been drinking fellas?" I could hear him up there rattling and the first one to open his mouth, was Dave Hunt. He says, "What the hell is that?" We looked up and -- here she comes again. I don't know what it is. Gene reached for his gun. He had it out of his holster, I'm not. kidding.

EXETER STUDENT:
What was he going to do, shoot at it?

MUSCARELLO:
He didn't know. What are you gonna do? Human nature, response, something you don't understand you show fear. Well, I understand that now, but at the time I was more afraid of the gun than that thing because I know what the gun can do. So we boogied back to the cruiser and Gene got on the blower and he says, "Scratch, I see the damn thing myself." After that it was taking me home. And my mother was having a fit because she didn't know where I'd been. She sees the cruiser out there and says, "What did he do now?" Mr. Fuller who wrote this book, was coming down from Maine. He was doing a follow-up on some story up there and decided to check on this. He had an interview with me. On the hood of his car he asked me to sign something. And I never made a penny on this thing and that is the truth. Not one red cent. I'll tell you why I'm glad I didn't: Because I think it makes it more believable. I'm glad I'm not crazy. I'm glad somebody else, who was responsible and credible saw it, not just myself going and thinking for the rest of my life, "Am I a nut?" You know, I've been called a number of things. I would have believed myself that I had something loose up there.

EXETER STUDENT:
That is why it is such a famous story, in part because of the credibility of the police officers.

MUSCARELLO:
Once we get into this I can explain something else. Still to this day it is recorded in the archives in Washington, DC. This story cannot be explained scientifically at all. There were a few of your skeptics at the first - swamp gas or somebody had an antenna and it was sparking with the high tension wire. I'm just telling you what I saw.

EXETER STUDENT:
You say you feel good; it makes it more credible that you didn't make any money off it?

MUSCARELLO:
It would have been nice to make a few bucks, right?

EXETER STUDENT:
I wonder why you haven't said anything. I would assume that Mr. Fuller sold about a million copies and must have made a fair amount off of it.

MUSCARELLO:
I talked to John (Fuller) on the phone about four months ago. It was the first time I'd talked to him in fifteen years. I had lost my original copy and he sent me that one (points to book).

CONTINUE: NORMAN MUSCARELLO