Incident at Exeter, the Interrupted Journey: Two Landmark Investigations of Ufo Encounters Together in One Volume

Rating:
Summary: Two classic UFO books combined into one volume!
Review: John G. Fuller, who died in 1990, was a regular columnist for the "Saturday Review" magazine. In the mid-1960's he personally investigated and wrote two seperate books on two of the most famous UFO incidents in American history. Both books were bestsellers and both were given considerable publicity because they were written not by some "lunatic" UFO "nut", but rather by a respected and well-known writer who wrote seriously about UFOs. This reprint combines both books into a single volume and should be considered a "must" for any serious student of ufology. The first book, "Incident at Exeter", describes a series of fantastic UFO sightings in the small city of Exeter, New Hampshire in the fall of 1965. It all began when Norman Muscarello, a local boy and recent high school graduate, was hitchhiking home along a quiet rural highway outside of town. At around 2:30 am Muscarello was shocked when a huge object which gave off a intense red glow rose up from some nearby woods and moved towards him. He banged on the door of a nearby house but there was no answer, meanwhile farm animals nearby were kicking in their stalls and making loud, frightened noises. The object eventually flew back over the woods, Muscarello caught a car and, badly frightened, made his way to the Exeter police department. He eventually convinced two policemen to return with him to the site, and this time all three men saw the UFO at close range. Their stories were given national publicity and soon others in the Exeter area were reporting similiar objects in the night sky. The Air Force declared that Muscarello and the two policemen had simply seen military planes from a nearby Air Force base on training maneuvers, but all three men, as well as those who had investigated the case, strongly disputed this and said that the Air Force explanation was absurd. Fuller gives a complete description of the Exeter UFO sightings, which went on for several weeks, and he clearly sympathizes with the UFO witnesses (especially Muscarello and the policemen) and criticizes the Air Force explanation. The second book, entitled "The Interrupted Journey", is even more important in UFO lore. This is THE first book to make a serious case that credible witnesses were not only seeing UFOs but being abducted by them as well. In September 1961 Betty and Barney Hill were returning from a vacation in Canada. They were driving late at night through the almost deserted White Mountains of New Hampshire when they spotted a bright object in the sky which seemed to be following their car. The object finally came close enough for Barney to stop the car and view it through binoculars, and what he saw terrified him - he claimed to see a UFO with the occupants looking back at him. He ran back to the car and drove away. They soon heard an odd humming sound - and then they were at least two hours farther down the highway with no idea of how they had spent the last two hours. Strangely thinking no more of it, they traveled on to their home near Boston. Soon, however, they both began to have terrible nightmares, and they decided to go to a psychiatrist (and UFO skeptic) for help. He put them under hypnosis, and then they both told a remarkably similiar story. The UFO had apparently taken over the couple's minds, causing them to turn off on a side road. The UFO landed in front of them, the "UFOnauts" got out and took the dazed couple inside their ship and conducted a kind of medical and scientific examination (among other things, they were apparently mystified when they could remove Barney's false teeth, but couldn't remove Betty's real ones!). The aliens were apparently friendly, although Barney was far more scared than Betty, and in the psychiatrist's audiotapes of the hypnosis sessions (which still exist), you can hear Barney screaming with terror as he recounts the story. The couple gave remarkably similiar descriptions (under hypnosis) of the ship and its crew. The psychiatrist never believed that the couple had seen or been kidnapped by a UFO for two hours. Instead, he wrote off the experience as a result of severe job stress (for Barney) and the tensions of being an interracial couple who had experienced some bigotry (Barney was black, Betty white). However, Fuller did believe the Hills story and agreed to write a book about their experience. Few UFO incidents have aroused more controversy and debate than the Hill's encounter, and even some pro-UFO researchers are doubtful of their story. If you're a believer, then you'll find these two books to be a "must" for your UFO book collection. But even if you don't believe in UFOs, then you'll still find these books to be a good read (or nighttime "ghost stories") thanks to Fuller's writing skills.

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Batch of Work from Early UFO Days
Review: Okay, I have a soft spot in my heart for Incident at Exeter (that's in New Hampshire) because I was born there in 1957, the time period covered here. Fuller's work provides a nice window into the 50-60's era of UFOology, before we were paranoid and weirded out by the X-Files et al. At some times these works may seem naively tame, at others just innocently silly, and I suppose that if you are a True Believer, these should be required reading as among the first works to take a look at UFO sightings through a reasonably legit lens, rather than scribblings from the lunatic fringe.

Rating:
Summary: the fairy who lost a toe
Review: this book was very magical