"It was duskish. I saw a ball of bright white light with golden-yellowish edges about 20 feet above my head," recalled Andrew Ulery of his encounter with a glowing orb on Park Street, when he was a freshman in high school. "It was following me for about a full minute, until I reached the bridge that crosses the railroad." (Visitors to Exeter have reported observing a pyramid of lights above this section of the railroad tracks.)

Ulery, the black-bearded manager of the Loaf and Ladle, who is seldom separated from a sporty cap, said the "ball of lightning" was about the size of a basketball and he remembered "being glad I didn't scuff my feet — that lightning thing."

As Ulery reached the bridge, the object "just took off" and he recalled a "surreal feeling" and being mesmerized by it.

A ball of bright light hung suspended in the air just outside the window of a Phillips Exeter Academy house/dormitory. Two young mothers — spouses of academy instructors, each with little children at the time — watched in surprise as the glowing object, about the size of a soccer ball, traveled down Tan Lane, over the rooftop of an academy building and disappeared from sight.

According to one of the women, a former teacher who has requested anonymity, the event was in the late 1960s around the time when there was much talk of probes being sent out from UFOs.

Another Exeter academician, one of the town's "super moms" and a member of the Exonian family, related an incident dating to when she resided on Tan Lane. Her children and their friends, who "were always outside playing and traveled about in a pack everywhere together," burst through the door "agoggle." They breathlessly spewed out a description of a UFO they saw descend onto the academy grounds. "I was non-judgemental as I listened," she said, recalling that one of her sons, now 28, was 9 years old at the time.

Peter Geremia of Rye, UFO researcher and MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) director emeritus, said while such ball of light reports are not common, they do occur. He cited two examples, one of a man driving south on Route 93 from Concord, who was followed by a ball of light that moved in front of his windshield for two or three seconds before it disappeared.

The other incident, this in Eliot, Maine, involved a couple who watched a ball of light descend onto their property boundary and with precision follow along two legs of their four-acre property line before disappearing, leaving them with no recall of its departure.

It is not uncommon, according to Geremia, for people to report seeing such an apparition and have no recollection as to how it left. "They just do not know," he said.

The aforementioned retired school teacher also recalled a three-night period when mysterious lights appeared in the evening sky above the PEA football stadium. She said each night a number of Exonians, herself included, sojourned across the fields to observe the "dancing lights."

Mysterious flashes in Exeter's night skies are part of the area phenomena. UFO Roundup's Internet site, in 1997, recorded two reports of a mysterious blindingly bright blue flash that lighted the sky over the town. Both sightings were in the same vicinity, one seen in November, the other in December. The cases were investigated by MUFON NH, according to Geremia.

In addition to the glowing orb, Andrew Ulery has also seen two UFO crafts. One was a large triangular UFO, which came over the ancient chestnut trees at the head of the PEA pathway and traveled over his head at the High Street/Portsmouth Avenue intersection. The craft "came low and slow" and "veered" toward the former Globe store where it disappeared from sight. People in other cars saw it too, he said.

Ulery's other sighting was with his dad, on Route 150 near Great Meadows, not far from where the original 1965 "incident" occurred. He described this craft as cigar-shaped.

A cigar-shaped UFO was also sighted in Exeter in July 2005, by a man referred to only as "David" by Exeter News-Letter's Adam Dolge. According to Dolge's account, "David" was a retired Navy chief petty officer, a former flight engineer with more than 10,000 hours of flight experience. At about 3 p.m. on July 20, David went out to mow his lawn and there in the sky was a silver cigar-shaped object, roughly the size of two aircraft carriers. David watched as the UFO changed color to an orange-red, before stretching to twice its original size and disappearing.

A woman from East Kingston told the Exeter News-Letter she saw the same object on July 25. She said it was pill-shaped with dark spots and was in the air for about 30 seconds before mimicking the expansion mode observed by David and disappearing.

According to Kathy Marden, alien abduction researcher and co-author of "Captured," the generalized Exeter geographical quadrant is an historically active area for UFO sightings. Marden's aunt, the late Betty Hill, believed there was a UFO window in this vicinity.

Marden said her aunt sighted UFOs on nearby Sanborn Hill and Giles Road in East Kingston. She said there have been many sightings in Brentwood and toward the Fremont town line. A couple also sighted a UFO off Court Street in Exeter, not far from PEA, she said.

During the 1970s, Exeter experienced its second UFO "flap," jargon for a period of UFO sightings. It was within this time frame that the Exeter teacher left downtown Exeter one evening and headed along the Newmarket Road toward home. Following the Squamscott River, she had almost reached the narrow railroad trestle bridge near the town forest when between the trestle and the river loomed a large UFO, about the distance of two football fields away. She described it as "very big and very bright with a round bottom," and said it was "both exciting and scary." She rushed home and retrieved her husband, but when they returned to the location the craft was gone.

During the presidential primary season Congressman Dennis Kucinich stopped for a nosh at the Blue Moon Market and Green Earth Café, related manager Meadow Ulery. Kucinich, who personally experienced a close encounter, is well aware of Exeter's fame as a UFO window.

In her newest book, Shirley MacLaine described Kucinich's encounter (which occurred at her home) with a "gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him." She wrote that Kucinich found the experience "extremely moving" and that "he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

The late Tim Russert questioned Kucinich about his UFO sighting. Kucinich confirmed the account and flipped back, —¦I'm also going to move my campaign office to Roswell, N.M., and another one in Exeter, N.H."

At a town meeting in Exeter's old Town Hall, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani fielded a question from a young boy, who asked, "If something's living on another planet and it's bad and it comes over here, what would you do?" Giuliani responded, "Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens."

It's raining. Andrew Ulery, who said he was a friend of the late Norman Muscarello, the catalyst of "The Incident at Exeter," opens his new umbrella ...; new to Ulery since Barack Obama left it during a snow storm on a visit to the Loaf and Ladle. Ulery steps out into the misty night. A short walk down street sits the old Town Hall where Giuliani strode upon the hardwood floor proclaiming if they come, we will be ready. Beneath him is the space formerly occupied by the Exeter Police Department, where four decades ago Officer Reginald "Scratch" Toland lighted a cigarette for a distraught Muscarello, who was excitedly telling him they had already arrived.

Stratham's Pete Wiggin is a man born to his mission. The passionate historian's DNA follows a direct line from Captain Thomas Wiggin, first settler at Sandy Point, and New Hampshire's first governor.

Wiggin scours early colonial wills and land deeds to carefully reconstruct and chronicle historical events of Exeter and its environs. He has discovered rare and important snippets in obscure tomes that constantly enrich the Squamscott River communities' heritage.

While researching Gov. John Winthrop's journal, Wiggin learned that on Sept. 7, 1639, his (Wiggin's) Puritan ancestor, Captain Tom, was chastised by authorities for helping the Rev. Wheelwright (the two had arrived together in 1630 on Winthrop's fleet) and his followers establish themselves at Exeter. The troop had been booted out of Mass Bay by their less-liberal-minded kin. These new arrivals at the head of the river had no precognition of Exeter's future fame in ufology, but as Wiggin discovered, they arrived with an awareness of UFO occurrences, possible alien abductions and strange happenings.

Wiggin read in Winthrop's journal, "In this year (1639) one James Everell, a sober, discreet man, and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River. When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square; when it ran it was contracted into the figure of a swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours. They were come down in their lighter about a mile, and, when it was over, they found themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from. Diverse other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place."

The antinomians' tenure was brief; most soon departed for Wells, Maine. Over time the community grew into a stronghold for rebels and served as the revolutionary capital of New Hampshire. In the late 1700s, John Phillips begifted the town with an academy and today Exonians hold a vast portion of undeveloped land in the quadrant, running to the Great Meadows, the site of "The incident at Exeter."

Rita Podalsky resides just outside Kensington center, in the middle of the Exeter quadrant and also in close proximity to Great Meadows. It was in the heavily wooded area near her home that the preschool teacher had a close encounter with Unidentified Flying Objects 31 years ago.

Podalsky reflected, "My daughter was seven at the time. The family was watching TV in the bedroom and the drapes were open to the big picture window." Podalsky and her husband noticed lights coming through the trees. The couple ran through the house and out the front door to the yard. "It looked like a big car with two bright headlights coming low and over the tops of the trees," said Podalsky. In actuality, the beams were from dual crafts, which Podalsky said were "slow and silent." They passed just over the rooftop and disappeared over the Kensington Church.

Podalsky's husband served in "Nam," she said, and he suggested that the Air Force had developed such silent craft, and that they must be helicopters from Pease Air Force Base. But Podalsky never accepted that explanation because of the closeness and complete silence. "They made no noise at all," she emphasized.

Kathy Marden, co-author of "Captured," related that a woman in South Hampton, which borders Kensington, reported a very low-flying craft, that landed in a field behind her house. According to Marden, the incident was reported in the newspaper and afterwards an Air Force officer arrived at the woman's home. He told her she had not seen a UFO, but a helicopter. The woman asked him, "Have you ever seen a silent helicopter?"

Marden also told of an incident that crossed her radar screen involving a youth group from Newton (which borders South Hampton). The teens saw a UFO in a field, said Marden, and watched "little beings" in the field, seemingly collecting soil samples.

According to a source in Exeter, a group of blueberry pickers also observed a little being in the Epping Woods, across from the Star Speedway. The source, an Exeter engineer descended from an illustrious founding family (who stressed "for God's sake, don't use my name"), said the incident occurred before the highway was put in, when it was all woods.

"Blueberry pickers had gone into the woods and saw one of these creatures, about 3 feet tall, with alien features." The engineer said it was General Store-cracker barrel talk at the time, and a hot-button topic.

The engineer also told of the experiences of an Exeter High Street pillar of society, who around 1978, on more than one occasion, saw a round UFO hovering outside an upper story window. The woman, who lived a short distance from the PEA walking trails (and curiously close to the domed, PEA Grainger Astrological Observatory), could see the occupants inside the UFO, said the engineer. She became concerned after seeing the craft a number of times, but was ridiculed when she shared her experience. She vowed she would never speak of it again.

With his molecules almost at a boil, the engineer bubbled out, "Do you know what she said they looked like?" After a pause, he sighed, "She said they did not really look that much different from us."

Nighttime UFO safaris have been particularly popular in the Exeter area quadrant, especially during UFO flaps.

Robert E. Cahill, in his book "New England's Visitors from Outer Space," told of such a safari that he and two pals took with the late Betty Hill in Kingston (her parents and sister had homes in Kingston). The group first went to a railroad junction and adjacent power lines where Hill said saucers frequently stopped.

Hill then took them to a "secret airfield" which was a turned over farm field, secluded by "high trees and bushes." After six hours and a few beers, the men ended their unproductive vigil.

Les Cooper, a retired social studies teacher, perennially popular with his students, and a dedicated collector of Exeter ephemia, resides in a family homestead tucked behind Exeter Hospital. The scholarly gentleman said his mother and stepfather, who enjoyed taking UFO safaris about the Exeter quadrant, were on more than one occasion successful in their quest. Cooper said that many people saw UFOs at the time. He added that at the height of the UFO fervor, a woman from Hampton took people on guided tours in search of UFOs.

The precedent for nighttime UFO safaris had been set by the "Incident at Exeter," when for weeks dozens of cars took nightly excursions to the notorious field. The owner of the land was forced to block off his property with wire and post "Keep Out" signs against the curiosity seekers, who littered the roadside with beer cans and cigarettes.

It may be an advantageous time for UFO enthusiasts who hope for a sighting. Just two weeks ago, a young woman was on her way to work at 3:30 a.m. to put on the coffee for sleepy commuters. She drove an extra loop to allow time to listen to her favorite music. She was startled out of her solitude when a UFO passed above her at the junction of Ash Swamp Road and Route 88. The early morning store opener requested anonymity to avoid potential teasing from her jocular morning patrons.

The bio-region of UFO interest encompasses lonely roads that wind through and past such places as Shaws Hill, Giles Hill, Hog Hill Swamp, Bugsmouth Hill, Wild Pasture Lane, Trundle Bed Lane and Stumpfield Road.

The heart of the region is bisected by Drinkwater Road. On the side opposite Great Meadows ("Incident") is another large swamp of marsh and mire known as The Cove. Two electrical power lines penetrate the interior of each swamp. The Cove is bounded to the east by Route 88, a vicinity of many UFO sightings.

Are these isolated power lines used by UFOs to draw off energy? According to the aforementioned engineer, a craft was seen by a number of people, hovering above high tension lines in the Pine Road area of Brentwood in the 1960s. Projecting from the UFO, he said, was a silver tube line that ran right down to the electrical lines.

It might be concluded that there has been a continually utilized UFO window in the Exeter quadrant since the town's founding. There are factors that may be leading to the renewed interest and resurgence of "visitors" to the area.

A revived Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with a new generation of nuclear submarines, and a second reactor at Seabrook Station looming in John McCain's planned nuclear renaissance, combined with a world in turmoil, follows an historic pattern of such events that seem to magnetize the interest and concern of UFO occupants.

Are they once again being drawn to Exeter?