Lyndia Morel's Encounter at Goffstown, New Hampshire

Lyndia Morel worked as a masseuse at the Swedish Sauna in Manchester, New Hampshire. On Friday, November 2, 1973, she signed out at 2:45 a.m., stopped for coffee and gas, and drove northwest on Route 114A toward Goffstown. It was the autumn of the humanoid wave. And Goffstown lies about 100 miles from the site of the Betty and Barney Hill encounter.

Near Pinardville she saw a large, bright, yellow light in the sky to her left and ahead of her, flashing red, green and blue. She took it for a planet. Near the junction of Routes 114A and 114 it went out. Then it reappeared in the same spot. It went out again near a nursing home and came back brighter. On the edge of Goffstown it vanished once more, returned for perhaps 15 seconds, then stayed dark.

At the junction of Routes 114 and 13 it was there. Dead ahead down North Mast Road. Larger. Closer. Lower. It seemed to pull her car toward it like a magnet.

It was an orange and gold globe, completely covered with a honeycomb design of hexagons, with an oval window of paler color on the upper left. It hung at the height of a three-story building, at least as big as a large automobile. A steady, thin, high-pitched whine sent a tingling sensation through her body. In the window was a figure. A rounded grayish head. Skin wrinkled like an elephant's hide. Two large egg-shaped eyes with large dark pupils. A mouth-slit turned down at the corners. She had the impression it was telling her "don't be afraid."

Her hands would not leave the steering wheel. She felt her eyes pulled toward it, as if it was taking control of her body. Then nearly half a mile vanished from her memory. When she came to, the car was moving at a high rate of speed, out of her control.

Shielding her eyes, she swerved into the Beaudoins' driveway. Their growling German Shepherd came at her. She was normally afraid of strange dogs. She belted it across the mouth, pounded on the kitchen door and fell into Mr. Beaudoin's arms. "Help me! I'm not drunk! I'm not on drugs!" The kitchen clock read 4:30 a.m.

Mrs. Beaudoin saw her eyes wide open with terror, her hands over her ears. Patrolman Daniel Jubinville, 23, of the Goffstown Police arrived at 4:40. The car still had its lights on and its motor running. He found her quite shaken up, with no evidence of alcohol or drug influence. Then all four went outside. They saw a light that seemed to go out when a flashlight was trained on it.

APRO assigned two investigators. Walter Webb, its astronomy consultant. And Betty Hill, its field investigator for New Hampshire, the same Betty Hill of 1961. Their reports became "Occupant Encounter in New Hampshire" in the APRO Bulletin for January and February 1974, with drawings by Brian James based on Morel's sketch.

Walter Webb plotted the object's positions and found a drastic shift in azimuth of 95 degrees. Mars stood too close to the estimated position of the later light to be dismissed, so he ruled the four-person sighting "ambiguous and therefore nonsupportive." The close encounter he kept apart.

David Webb listed the case as Report 41 in 1973: Year of the Humanoids, published by the Center for UFO Studies in 1976. No hoax allegation has surfaced. No photograph or physical trace exists. Later commentators called it inconclusive, citing stress, fatigue or misperception. What remains is a terrified woman at a kitchen door, and a patrolman who saw no sign of drink or drugs.