Date:
October 16, 1984
Location: Keene, New Hampshire, United States
On
Oct. 16,1984, a mysterious craft was seen over Keene near
Route 12. Keene police Sgt. John C. Zeller got the call
and drove out to the highway to see what was going on.
He caught sight of something in the sky and shined his
cruiser's spotlight on a white, dirigible-shaped object
before it moved off. The following night it was back,
hovering above Keene again. A lot of people reported something
strange during those two nights.
Keene
police Sgt. John C. Zeller stands in the Route 12 area
in Keene where he saw a
white, dirigible-shaped object in the sky Oct. 16,1984.
(credit: Keene Sentinel)
Source:
Paul Montgomery, The Keene Sentinel (Keene, NH), Sept.
25, 1992
[excerpt
from "Do You Believe in UFOs?", Keene Sentinel
(Keene, NH), Sept. 25, 1992]
Among
N.H. UFO believers, it's known simply as "The Zeller
Incident."
On
Oct. 16, 1984, a mysterious craft was seen over Keene
near Route 12. Keene police Sgt. John C. Zeller got the
call and drove out to the highway to see what was going
on.
He
caught sight of something in the sky and shined his cruiser's
spotlight on a white, dirigible-shaped object before it
moved off.
The
following night, it was back, hovering above Keene again.
A
lot of people reported something strange during those
two nights. But the sighting was named after Zeller, probably
because of his position in the community. He even went
on television to detail what he had encountered.
To
this day, Zeller who's taken a bit of flak over
the years about his public account maintains the
object was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Still, he knows
what he saw. "It did not behave like any known
aircraft. It defied physics, and it was huge."
--------------------------------------------
Excerpt
from "UFO sightings: Just give me the facts",
Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, NH), June 2, 1985:
On
the night of Oct. 15, the Keene, N. H. police got an anonymous
phone call. The man refused to give his name because he
said his wife would think he was crazy. He told the police
something strange was hovering over the city.
A
skeptic familiar with crank calls, Sgt. John Zeller was
in no hurry to reach the section of Route 12 where the
object was reported.
As
he drove from West Street to Route 12, the car coming
toward him screeched to a stop, and two people got out,
pointing at the sky.
"There
was something, mostly lights, hovering five to 700 feet
off the ground, red, green, white pulsating types,"
Zeller says. "All you could see was the lights,
you couldn't see any outline. The strange thing was, this
was absolutely still, like it was stuck there. There was
no sound. I stood there probably two minutes."
Then
Sgt. Zeller aimed his 200,000 candlelight power spotlight
at the hovering lights.
"You
could see the light beam through the dark," Zeller
says. "The minute the light beam was put on it,
it came toward it, at an angle, lowering at the same time.
It was so clearly unconventional. The thing kept coming
about 100 feet from the cruiser, traveling as fast as
you'd ride a bicycle."
The
strange craft hovered over the cruiser, barely moving.
Zeller saw no markings, no openings, and can't remember
if he saw wings, but he described the object as 40-50
feet long, 10-15 feet wide, cream-colored with blunt ends,
ridged on the bottom like an old-fashioned bathtub.
"It
gave out a two-tone hum," Zeller says. "It
went over to a car wash and it did something which I assume
was turning around, then it went boom over
toward the Ramada Inn."
Zeller
admits he'd never seen anything like the thing that hovered
over his cruiser the night of Oct. 15, 1984.
"It
doesn't mean it came from Mars," he says.