Is Exeter, NH the East Coast "Roswell"?

A multi-part article in www.seacoastonline.com (Part 1 is here) relates accounts of UFO sightings in and around Exeter, New Hampshire, dating all the way back to 1693, when the town was founded by upstarts booted out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

According to a journal quoted in today's article, describes the "Incident at Exeter":

"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."

Modern sightings have been reported since the 1970s (possibly from nearby Pease AFB), although one group of blueberry pickers from Newton reported a UFO in a field with "little beings" collecting soil samples.

Even Congressman Dennis Kucinich (who—is this a punchline?—had a UFO encounter while visiting Shirley MacLaine's house) quipped during the presidential campaign he was going to open a campaign office in Roswell, NM and Exeter, NH.

(Photo: Andrew Ulery, manager of Exeter's "Loaf & Ladle" points to the location where he saw a "glowing orb" in the sky, using an umbrella left in his restaurant by Barack Obama during the primary season. No, really.)