Talk:Exeter incident

message: I removed this troublesome paragraph:
Curiously, prior to the Exeter incident, a U.S. Air Force colonel made contact with James H. Trainor, then a graduate student in the physics department at the University of New Hampshire and a U.S. Air Force research fellow, inquiring about his ability to detect and measure UFO phenomena.  Trainor was dispatched to the rooftop of UNH's DeMeritt Hall with two portable instruments.  One instrument could detect UFOs if they utilized nuclear propulsion, and one instrument could measure heat at a distance.
The "U.S. Air Force colonel" is unidentified, no date for this mysterious incident is given (it would have to be before 1964), and I have no idea what kind of instrument "could detect UFOs if they utilized nuclear propulsion".  Also, I see no reason why this material is relevant to the subject of this article.
False vacuum (talk) 05:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  deleted paragraph 

message: i don't have the confidence to edit wikipedia myself, but i think someone should add a section to the article speculating as to what the "exeter ufos" really were.  it doesn't have to be original research.  i'm sure my "theory" has been propounded by other people in other places, if one were to bother to look for some quotes.
isn't it curious how many of these sightings seem to take place in the vicinity of air force bases?  it appears to me (and i'm sure this has occurred to many other people) that the exeter sightings were actually of a classified prototype aircraft.  the airforce wouldn't want to disclose the existence of this unconventional craft, hence the smokescreen: talk about temperature inversions, b-47's, training exercises, etc.  anything  but the truth.  i'm sure this is the solution to many ufo cases, not only in the united states but in countries such as the former soviet union as well.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.215.220 (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  prototype aircraft 

message: Joe Nickell, prominent paranormal investigator, and James McGaha, Major, USAF retired and astronomer, published a resolution to the Exeter incident in Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 35.6, November/December 2011.  Their explanation is available here.  I plan to add this as a new section of the article. Overjive (talk) 09:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a section to the article describing this explanation. I look forward to comments. Overjive (talk) 11:49, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: interesting addition, however I found your original edition a bit too POV. I've edited it to reflect the fact that the explanation is in fact only a theory, albeit a pretty good one. Still, conclusions should be left to the reader. The final sentence, "The KC-97 would surely have been used during Operation Big Blast which occurred that evening." Is clearly pure conjecture, unnecessary drawing of a conclusion so I removed it. Still, it was a good idea to add. --SentientParadox (talk) 06:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: My choice of the phrase "would surely" was taken directly from the source material:    "Just this type of craft operated out of Strategic Air Command bomber bases like that of Pease AFB and, indeed, would surely have been involved in a SAC/NORAD training exercise like that dubbed “Big Blast” of September 2–3, 1965." Overjive (talk) 02:36, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It would indeed be a good explanation, if we could account for: a) One of the police witnesses (Bertrand) had participated in a number of aerial refuelings involving KC-97s while serving in the USAF, and stated that there was no resemblance to a tanker aircraft, and b) it does not account for the fact that the object stopped, hovered, and turned on a dime on more than one occasion when sighted. The Air Force themselves admitted also that Operation 'Big Blast' was operationally over before any of the sightings. Just saying.Clark, J. UFO Encyclopedia 2nd Ed. vol. 1, pp 364-367Tonybaldacci (talk) 02:04, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: To me that last point is very important - the Air Force stated that the military operation was already over when police officers Bertrand and Hunt first saw the UFO, so it's hard to see how it could be a military aircraft. Also, given that the sighting occurred at very close range, it's hard to believe that two policemen, one of whom had served in the Air Force and had seen refueling operations take place, would not have noticed a large Air Force plane flying at low altitude overhead (the plane would have to have been very low for the explanation offered by Nickell and McGaha to work). Also, the McGaha/Nickell explanation doesn't explain all of the other sightings that took place in the Exeter area over the same time period. I suppose their explanation could be correct, of course, but it's hardly an "airtight" explanation, and should not be presented as such in this article, IMO. It should definitely be mentioned as a possible explanation, but not as a definitive one.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.4.210.144 (talk) 21:46, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skeptical Inquirer reports "‘Exeter Incident’ Solved!" 

message: If anybody here ever gets the enthusiasm to wanting to write a more comprehensive account of the Exeter Incident, its problems and attempted explanations, I offer here an annotated bibliography of materials related to a less known solution.
Martin S. Kottmeyer, “The Exeter File – Part 1,” The REALL News, 4, #9;  September 1996; pp. 1, 5-6. http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n02/index.html 
This half provides the definitive critique arguing why this classic does not involve an alien craft.
Martin S. Kottmeyer, “The Exeter File – Part 2 – The Exeter Terrestrial Hypothesis,” The REALL News, 4, #10, October 1996, pp. 1, 6.: http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n02/index.html 
An inventive solution: A moving star kite.
Martin S. Kottmeyer, “Letter,” The REALL News, 4, #12, December 1996, pp. 4, 8:  http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n02/index.html
A response to Dennis Stacy’s early criticisms of this solution of the Exeter case.  
Thomas E. Bullard, The Myth and Mystery of UFOs, University Press of Kansas, 2010, pp.35-38, 305-8. 
Bullard is the most high-status critic of the kite solution and launders criticisms of less-notable critics in this account.  While he accepts Exeter is unlikely to be alien, he merely argues it is mysterious and fails to provide a new solution or say which solution is best.  Most of the criticisms are fairly frivolous like the late hour of the event and a strange geometric criticism which presumes the witnesses would not factor in the effects of perspective and not regard the 60-degree angle as implicitly constant relative to the ground rather than constant relative to themselves.  The most convincing-sounding criticism involves Officer Bertrand’s statement that the bottom lights pointed forward when the object moved.   A western wind would bear the kite east from the tether point, so the uppermost light on the line would point farthest eastward.  Since the UFO moved off to the east, the upper light would lead if the object were a kite.  It is important to point out that the information about the lights moving easterly is made by neither Bertrand nor Muscarello, but David R. Hunt who comes later on the scene than the other two.  He wrote “After observing the lights for a short period of time, they moved off in a southeasterly direction and disappeared in the distance.  The lights appeared to remain at the same altitude which I estimate to be about one-hundred feet.”   Now I look at that and think, thank goodness.  The object exited in basically the right direction.  The prankster finally realizes there are cops around.  What do you do? You let go and run and hide.  The wind carries the kite off in a basically easterly direction; consistent with Pease AFB’s saying the winds were uniformly from the west.  One might quibble that southeasterly is not precisely easterly, but, in practice there are angles consistent with both labels.  An overlap exists and so no outright contradiction is involved here.
Thomas E. Bullard, “Is the Anomalist on a Fool’s Errand”  Paranthropology 5, #1 (January 2014) pp. 4-31.
Bullard discusses Exeter at some length and notes some of the problems of the McGaha & Nickell explanation and shows some interest in a new solution by Michael Swords suggesting a distant formation of planes might work better.  The obvious problem is given in the next item.
Martin Kottmeyer, Comment on Gareth Davis & Reeves Cook.s discussion of the Exeter case February 8, 2014: http://www.mindsetcentral.com/archives/14182 
The angle made by a refueling boom is precisely mirror opposite what Officer Bertrand reported.  At least the kite explanation doesn’t look absurdly dyslexic. On this point and others, the kite solution is far less silly.
Nicholas, Callis, “Grey Matters: Erroneous at Exeter”  The Bent Spoon: http://thebentspoonmagazine.com/2013/03/24/erroneous-at-exeter/   
Why the light sequence of a refueling tanker does not match Exeter.
Ryan Mullahy, “The Exeter UFO Incident Remains Unsolved: A Rebuttal to "Exeter Incident’ Solved!" http://nhuforesearch.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-exeter-ufo-incident-remains.html 
A broad-stroked attack on the McGaha & Nickell explanation.
The original documents of the case as presented in Hynek UFO Report can be read here:  http://ufoevidence.org/Cases/CaseSubarticle.asp?ID=431
Exeteriorview (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kite Solution 

message: In a discussion with New Hampshire UFO Research, I was informed that Hunt died in 2011. Perhaps that should be noted.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.242.76.215 (talk) 08:52, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hunt Dead in 2011