On September 3, 1965, at approximately 2:00 a.m., 18 year old Norman Muscarello was hitchhiking to his home in Exeter along New Hampshire Route 150. Muscarello had recently graduated from high school and was three weeks away from leaving for service in the United States Navy. He had been visiting his girlfriend at her parents' home in nearby Amesbury, Massachusetts; since he did not own a car, he would hitchhike to and from his girlfriend's home, a distance of about ; however, at that hour of the morning there was little traffic on the highway, and Muscarello had walked a good part of the distance. After reaching Kensington, a few miles outside Exeter, Muscarello noticed five flashing bright red lights in a distant field, which he initially thought might be the lights of a police car or fire engine. As he drew nearer to the field, he saw the lights illuminated the surrounding woods and two nearby houses in brilliant red light and made absolutely no sound. (One house belonged to the Dining family, who were not at home at the time.) Muscarello became terrified as the object, which he estimated to be in diameter, began to move silently towards him; Panicking, he dived into a ditch beside the road. The lights changed direction and hovered over the Dining farmhouse; Muscarello ran to the house, pounded on the door and yelled for help, but no one answered. The object then moved away and disappeared into the woods. Seeing the headlights of an approaching car, Muscarello ran into the road and forced it to stop. The middle-aged couple in the car drove the frightened youth to the Exeter police station.