Betty and Barney Hill were an
American couple who claimed to have been abducted by
extraterrestrials in a rural portion of
New Hampshire on September 19–20, 1961.
The couple's story, called the
Hill Abduction, and occasionally the
Zeta Reticuli Incident, was that they had been kidnapped for a short time by a
UFO. Theirs was the first widely-publicized claim of
alien abduction, adapted into the best-selling 1966 book
The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television movie
The UFO Incident.
Its importance is such that many of Betty Hill's notes, tapes, and
other items have been placed in a permanent collection at the
University of New Hampshire, her alma mater.
[1] As of July 2011, the site of the alleged craft's first close approach is marked by a state
historical marker.
[2]
Background
The Hills lived in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barney (1922–1969) was employed by the
U.S. Postal Service, while Betty (1919–2004) was a
social worker. Active in a
Unitarian congregation, the Hills were also members of the
NAACP and community leaders, and Barney sat on a local board of the
U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
They were an interracial couple at a time when it was particularly unusual in the United States; Barney was
black and Betty was white.
The UFO encounter
According to a variety of reports given by the Hills, the alleged UFO
sighting happened on September 19, 1961, at around 10:30 p.m. The Hills
were driving back to Portsmouth from a vacation in
Niagara Falls and
Montreal, Quebec,
Canada. There were only a few other cars on the road as they made their way home to New Hampshire's seacoast. Just south of
Lancaster, New Hampshire,
Betty claimed to have observed a bright point of light in the sky that
moved from below the moon and the planet Jupiter, upward to the west of
the moon. While Barney navigated
U.S. Route 3, Betty reasoned that she was observing a falling star, only it moved upward, like a plane or a satellite.
[3]
Since it moved erratically and grew bigger and brighter, Betty urged
Barney to stop the car for a closer look, as well as to walk their dog,
Delsey. Barney stopped at a scenic picnic area just south of
Twin Mountain. Worried about the presence of bears, Barney retrieved a pistol that he had concealed in the trunk of the car.
[4]
Betty, through binoculars, observed an "odd shaped" craft flashing multicolored lights travel across the face of the moon.
[5]
Because her sister had confided to her about having a flying saucer
sighting several years earlier, Betty thought it might be what she was
observing. Through binoculars Barney observed what he reasoned was a
commercial airliner traveling toward Vermont on its way to Montreal.
However, he soon changed his mind, because without looking as if it had
turned, the craft rapidly descended in his direction. This observation
caused Barney to realize, "this object that was a plane was
not a plane."
[6] He quickly returned to the car and drove toward
Franconia Notch, a narrow, mountainous stretch of the road.
The Hills claimed that they continued driving on the isolated road,
moving very slowly through Franconia Notch in order to observe the
object as it came even closer. At one point, the object passed above a
restaurant and signal tower on top of Cannon Mountain. It passed over
the mountain and came out near the 48' profile of the
Old Man of the Mountain.
Betty testified that it was at least one and a half times the length of
the granite profile and seemed to be rotating. The couple watched as
the silent, illuminated craft moved erratically and bounced back and
forth in the night sky.
[7]
As they drove along Route 3 through Franconia Notch, they stated that
it seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse with the couple.
Approximately one mile south of
Indian Head,
they said, the object rapidly descended toward their vehicle causing
Barney to stop directly in the middle of the highway. The huge, silent
craft hovered approximately 80–100 feet above the Hills'
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air
and filled the entire field of the windshield. It reminded Barney of a
huge pancake. Carrying his pistol in his pocket, he stepped away from
the vehicle and moved closer to the object. Using the binoculars, Barney
claimed to have seen about 8 to 11 humanoid figures who were peering
out of the craft's windows, seeming to look at him. In unison, all but
one figure moved to what appeared to be a panel on the rear wall of the
hallway that encircled the front portion of the craft. The one remaining
figure continued to look at Barney and communicated a message telling
him to "stay where you are and keep looking." Barney had a conscious,
continuous recollection of observing the humanoid forms wearing glossy
black uniforms and black caps. Red lights on what appeared to be
bat-wing fins began to telescope out of the sides of the craft and a
long structure descended from the bottom of the craft. The silent craft
approached to what Barney estimated was within 50–80 feet overhead and
300 feet away from him. On October 21, 1961, Barney reported to NICAP
Investigator Walter Webb, that the "beings were somehow not human".
[8]
Barney tore the binoculars away from his eyes and ran back to his
car. In a near hysterical state, he told Betty, "They're going to
capture us!"
[9]
He saw the object again shift its location to directly above the
vehicle. He drove away at high speed, telling Betty to look for the
object. She rolled down the window and looked up, but saw only darkness
above them, even though it was a bright, starry night.
Almost immediately, the Hills heard a rhythmic series of beeping or
buzzing sounds which they said seemed to bounce off the trunk of their
vehicle. The car vibrated and a tingling sensation passed through the
Hills' bodies. Betty touched the metal on the passenger door expecting
to feel an electric shock, but felt only the vibration. The Hills said
that at this point in time they experienced the onset of an altered
state of consciousness that left their minds dulled. A second series of
codelike beeping or buzzing sounds returned the couple to full
consciousness. They found that they had traveled nearly 35 miles south
but had only vague, spotty memories of this section of road. They
recalled making a sudden unplanned turn, encountering a roadblock, and
observing a fiery orb in the road.
Immediate aftermath
Arriving home at about dawn, the Hills assert that they had some odd
sensations and impulses they could not readily explain: Betty insisted
their luggage be kept near the back door rather than in the main part of
the house. Their watches would never run again. Barney noted that the
leather strap for the binoculars was torn, though he could not recall it
tearing. The toes of his best dress shoes were inexplicably scraped.
Barney says he was compelled to examine his genitals in the bathroom,
though he found nothing unusual. They took long showers to remove
possible contamination and each drew a picture of what they had
observed. Their drawings were strikingly similar.
[10]
Perplexed, the Hills say they tried to reconstruct the chronology of
events as they witnessed the UFO and drove home. But immediately after
they heard the buzzing sounds, their memories became incomplete and
fragmented. They vaguely recalled a luminous moon shape sitting on the
road. Barney recalled saying "Oh no, not again". Betty thought Barney
had taken a sharp left turn off
Route 3.
[11]
After sleeping for a few hours, Betty awoke and placed the shoes and
clothing she had worn during the drive into her closet, observing that
the dress was torn at the hem, zipper and lining. Later, when she
retrieved the items from her closet, she noted a pinkish powder on her
dress. She hung the dress on her clothesline and the pink powder blew
away. But the dress was irreparably damaged. She threw it away, but then
changed her mind, retrieving the dress and hanging it in her closet.
Over the years, five laboratories have conducted chemical and forensic
analyses on the dress.
[12]
There were shiny, concentric circles on their car's trunk that had
not been there the previous day. Betty and Barney experimented with a
compass, noting that when they moved it close to the spots, the needle
would whirl rapidly. But when they moved it a few inches away from the
shiny spots, it would drop down.
[13]
Initial report to the U.S. Air Force and NICAP
On September 21, Betty telephoned
Pease Air Force Base
to report their UFO encounter, though for fear of being labeled
eccentric, she withheld some of the details. On September 22, Major Paul
W. Henderson telephoned the Hills for a more detailed interview.
Henderson's report, dated September 26, determined that the Hills had
probably misidentified the planet Jupiter. (This was later changed to
"optical condition", "inversion" and "insufficient data.") (Report
100-1-61, Air Intelligence Information Record) His report was forwarded
to
Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO research project.
Within days of the encounter, Betty borrowed a UFO book from a local library. It had been written by retired Marine Corps Major
Donald E. Keyhoe, who was also the head of
NICAP,
a civilian UFO research group. On September 26, Betty wrote to Keyhoe.
She related the full story, including the details about the humanoid
figures that Barney had observed through binoculars. Betty wrote that
she and Barney were considering hypnosis to help recall what had
happened. Her letter was eventually passed on to Walter N. Webb, a
Boston astronomer and NICAP member.
Webb met with the Hills on October 21, 1961. In a six-hour interview,
the Hills related all they could remember of the UFO encounter. Barney
asserted that he had developed a sort of "mental block" and that he
suspected there were some portions of the event that he
did not wish to remember.
He described in detail all that he could remember about the craft and
the appearance of the "somehow not human" figures aboard the craft.
[14]
Webb stated that "they were telling the truth and the incident probably
occurred exactly as reported except for some minor uncertainties and
technicalities that must be tolerated in any such observations where
human judgment is involved (e.g., exact time and length of visibility,
apparent sizes of object and occupants, distance and height of object,
etc.)."
[15]
Betty's dreams
Ten days after the UFO encounter, Betty began having a series of
vivid dreams. They continued for five successive nights. Never in her
memory had she recalled dreams in such detail and intensity. But they
stopped abruptly after five nights and never returned again. They
occupied her thoughts during the day. When she finally did mention them
to Barney, he was sympathetic, but not too concerned, and the matter was
dropped. Betty did not mention them to Barney again.
[16]
In November 1961, Betty began writing down the details of her
nightmarish dreams. In one dream, she and Barney encountered a roadblock
and men who surrounded their car. She lost consciousness but struggled
to regain it. She then realized that she was being forced by two small
men to walk in a forest in the nighttime, and of seeing Barney walking
behind her, though when she called to him, he seemed to be in a trance
or sleepwalking. The men stood about five feet to five feet four inches
tall, and wore matching uniforms, with caps similar to those worn by
military cadets. They appeared nearly human, but with bald heads, large
wraparound eyes, small ears and almost absent noses. Their skin was a
greyish colour.
[17]
In the dreams, Betty, Barney, and the men walked up a ramp into a
disc-shaped craft of metallic appearance. Once inside, Barney and Betty
were separated. She protested, and was told by a man she called "the
leader" that if she and Barney were examined together, it would take
much longer to conduct the exams. She and Barney were then taken to
separate rooms.
Betty then dreamt that a new man, similar to the others, entered to
conduct her exam with the leader. Betty called this new man "the
examiner" and said he had a pleasant, calm manner. Though the leader and
the examiner spoke to her in English, the examiner's command of the
language seemed imperfect and she had difficulty understanding him.
The examiner told Betty that he would conduct a few tests to note the
differences between humans and the craft's occupants. He seated her on a
chair, and a bright light was shone on her. The man cut off a lock of
Betty's hair. He examined her eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, throat and
hands. He saved trimmings from her fingernails. After examining her legs
and feet, the man then used a dull knife, similar to a letter opener to
scrape some of her skin onto what resembled
cellophane.
He then tested her nervous system and he thrust the needle into her
navel, which caused Betty agonizing pain. But the leader waved his hand
in front of her eyes and the pain vanished.
The examiner left the room and Betty engaged in conversation with the
"leader". She picked up a book with rows of strange symbols that the
"leader" said she could take home with her. She also asked where he was
from, and he pulled down an instructional map dotted with stars.
In Betty's dream account, the men began escorting the Hills from the
ship when a disagreement broke out. The leader then informed Betty that
she couldn't keep the book, stating that they had decided that the other
men did not want her to even remember the encounter. Betty insisted
that no matter what they did to her memory, she would one day recall the
events.
She and Barney were taken to their car, where the leader suggested
that they wait to watch the craft's departure. They did so, then resumed
their drive.
[18]
Medical help and more interviews
Missing time
On November 25, 1961, the Hills were again interviewed at length by
NICAP members, this time C.D. Jackson and Robert E. Hohman.
Having read Webb's initial report, Jackson and Hohman had many
questions for the Hills. One of their main questions was about the
length of the trip. Neither Webb nor the Hills had noted that, though
the drive should have taken about four hours, they did not arrive at
home until seven hours after their departure. When Hohman and Jackson
noted this discrepancy to the Hills, the couple had no explanation (a
frequently reported circumstance in alleged alien abduction cases that
some have called "
missing time"). As Clark writes, despite "all their efforts the Hills could recall almost nothing of the 35 miles between
Indian Head and
Ashland.
Although Betty's recall was somewhat fuller than Barney's, both were
able to recall an image of a fiery orb sitting on the ground. Betty and
Barney reasoned that it must have been the moon, but Hohman and Jackson
informed them that the moon had set earlier in the evening.
[19]
The subject of
hypnosis
came up. Perhaps hypnosis could unlock the missing memories. Barney was
apprehensive about hypnosis, but thought it might help Betty put to
rest what Barney described as the 'nonsense' about her dreams."
[19]
By February 1962, the Hills were making frequent weekend drives to the
White Mountains,
hoping that revisiting the site might spark more memories. They were
unsuccessful in trying to locate the site where they observed a fiery
orb sitting in the road. However, they were able to eliminate several
possible routes. (They found the "capture" site on
Labor Day weekend in 1965.)
Private disclosure
On November 23, 1962, the Hills attended a meeting at the
parsonage of their church where the invited guest speaker was
Captain Ben H. Swett
of the U.S. Air Force, who had recently published a book of his poetry.
After he read selections of his poetry, the pastor asked him to discuss
his personal interest in hypnosis. After the meeting broke up, the
Hills approached Captain Swett privately and told him what they could
remember of their strange encounter. He was particularly interested in
the "missing time" of the Hills' account. The Hills asked Swett if he
would hypnotize them to recover their memories, but Swett said he was
not qualified to do that and cautioned them against going to an amateur
hypnotist, such as himself.
[20]
First public disclosure
On March 3, 1963, the Hills first publicly discussed the UFO encounter with a group at their church.
On September 7, 1963, Captain Swett gave a formal lecture on hypnosis to a meeting at the
Unitarian
Church. After the lecture, the Hills told him that Barney was going to a
psychiatrist, Dr. Stephens, whom he liked and trusted. Captain Swett
suggested that Barney ask Dr. Stephens about the use of hypnosis in his
case.
When Barney next met with Dr. Stephens, he asked about hypnosis. Stephens referred the Hills to Dr. Benjamin Simon of
Boston.
On November 3, 1963, the Hills spoke before an amateur UFO study group, the Two State UFO Study Group, in
Quincy Center,
Massachusetts.
The Hills first met Dr. Simon on December 14, 1963. Early in their
discussions, Simon determined that the UFO encounter was causing Barney
far more worry and anxiety than he was willing to admit. Though Simon
dismissed the popular
extraterrestrial hypothesis
as impossible, it seemed obvious to him that the Hills genuinely
thought they had witnessed a UFO with human-like occupants. Simon hoped
to uncover more about the experience through hypnosis.
Dr. Simon's hypnosis sessions
Simon began hypnotizing the Hills on January 4, 1964. He hypnotized
Betty and Barney several times each, and the sessions lasted until June
6, 1964. Simon conducted the sessions on Barney and Betty separately, so
they could not overhear one another's recollections. At the end of each
session he reinstated
amnesia.
Barney's sessions
Simon hypnotized Barney first. His recall of witnessing non-human
figures was quite emotional, punctuated with expressions of fear,
emotional outbursts and incredulity. Barney said that, due to his fear,
he kept his eyes closed for much of the abduction and physical
examination. Based on these early responses, Simon told Barney that he
would not remember the hypnosis sessions until he was certain he could
remember them without being further traumatized.
Under hypnosis (as was consistent with his conscious recall), Barney
reported that the binocular strap had broken when he ran from the UFO
back to his car. He recalled driving the car away from the UFO, but that
afterwards he felt irresistibly compelled to pull off the road, and
drive into the woods. He eventually sighted six men standing in the dirt
road. The car stalled and three of the men approached the car. They
told Barney to not fear them. He was still anxious, however, and he
reported that the leader told Barney to close his eyes. While
hypnotized, Barney said, "I felt like the eyes had pushed into my eyes."
[21]
Barney described the beings as generally similar to Betty's hypnotic,
not dream recollection. The beings often stared into his eyes, said
Barney, with a terrifying, mesmerizing effect. Under hypnosis, Barney
said things like, "Oh, those eyes. They're there in my brain" (from his
first hypnosis session) and "I was told to close my eyes because I saw
two eyes coming close to mine, and I felt like the eyes had pushed into
my eyes" (from his second hypnosis session) and "All I see are these
eyes... I'm not even afraid that they're not connected to a body.
They're just there. They're just up close to me, pressing against my
eyes."
[22]
Barney related that he and Betty were taken onto the disc-shaped
craft, where they were separated. He was escorted to a room by three of
the men and told to lie on a small rectangular exam table. Unlike Betty,
Barney's narrative of the exam was fragmented, and he continued to keep
his eyes closed for most of the exam. A cup-like device was placed over
his genitals. He did not experience an
orgasm though Barney thought that a
sperm sample had been taken. The men scraped his skin, and peered in his ears and mouth. A tube or cylinder was inserted in his
anus. Someone felt his spine, and seemed to be counting his
vertebrae.
While Betty reported extended conversations with the beings in
English, Barney said that he heard them speaking in a mumbling language
he did not understand. Betty also mentioned this detail. The few times
they communicated with him, Barney said it seemed to be "thought
transference"; at that time, he was unfamiliar with the word "
telepathy".
[23] Both Betty and Barney stated that they hadn't observed the beings' mouths moving when they communicated in English with them.
He recalled being escorted from the ship, and taken to his car, which
was now near the road rather than in the woods. In a daze, he watched
the ship leave. Barney remembered a light appearing on the road, and he
said, "Oh no, not again." He recalled Betty's speculation that the light
might have been the moon, though the moon had in fact set several hours
earlier. He also stated that he attempted to produce the code-like
buzzing sounds which seemed to strike the car's trunk a second time by
driving from side to side and stopping and starting the vehicle. His
attempt was unsuccessful.
Betty's sessions
Under hypnosis, Betty's account was very similar to the events of her
five dreams about the UFO abduction, but there were also notable
differences. Under hypnosis, her capture and release were different. The
technology on the craft was different. The short men had a
significantly different physical appearance than the ones in her dreams.
The sequential order of the abduction event was also different than in
Betty's dream account. She filled in many details that were not in her
dreams and contradicted some of her dream content. It is interesting
that Barney's and Betty's memories in hypnotic regression were
consistent but contradicted some of the information in Betty's dreams.
[24]
Betty exhibited considerable emotional distress during her capture
and examination. Dr. Simon ended one session early because tears were
flowing down her cheeks and she was in considerable agony.
Dr. Simon gave Betty the post hypnotic suggestion that she could
sketch a copy of the "star map" that she later described as a three
dimensional projection similar to a
hologram.
She hesitated, thinking she would be unable to accurately depict the
three-dimensional quality of the map she says she saw on the ship.
Eventually, however, she did what Simon suggested. Although she said the
map had many stars, she drew only those that stood out in her memory.
Her map consisted of twelve prominent stars connected by lines and three
lesser ones that formed a distinctive triangle. (
see below)
She said she was told the stars connected by solid lines formed "trade
routes", whereas dashed lines were to less-traveled stars.
Dr. Simon's conclusions
After extensive hypnosis sessions, Dr. Simon concluded that Barney's
recall of the UFO encounter was a fantasy inspired by Betty's dreams.
Though Simon admitted this hypothesis did not explain every aspect of
the experience, he thought it was the most plausible and consistent
explanation. Barney rejected this idea, noting that while their memories
were in some regards interlocking, there were also portions of both
their narratives that were unique to each. Barney was now ready to
accept that they had been abducted by the occupants of a UFO, though he
never embraced it as fully as Betty did.
Though the Hills and Simon disagreed about the nature of the case,
they all concurred that the hypnosis sessions were effective: the Hills
were no longer tormented by anxiety about the UFO encounter.
Afterwards, Simon wrote an article about the Hills for the journal
Psychiatric Opinion, explaining his conclusions that the case was a singular psychological aberration.
Publicity after the hypnosis sessions
The Hills went back to their regular lives. They were willing to
discuss the UFO encounter with friends, family and the occasional UFO
researcher, but the Hills apparently made no effort to seek publicity.
But on October 25, 1965, a newspaper story changed everything: A
front page story on the
Boston Traveler asked "UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?"
[25] Reporter John H. Lutrell of the
Traveler had allegedly been given an
audio tape
recording of the lecture the Hills had made in Quincy Center in late
1963. Lutrell learned that the Hills had undergone hypnosis with Dr.
Simon; he also obtained notes from confidential interviews the Hills had
given to
UFO investigators. On October 26, the
UPI picked up Lutrell's story, and the Hills earned
international attention.
In 1966, writer
John G. Fuller secured the cooperation of the Hills and Dr. Simon, and wrote the book
The Interrupted Journey
about the case. The book included a copy of Betty's sketch of the "star
map". The book was a quick success, and went through several printings.
[26]
Barney died of a
cerebral hemorrhage on February 25, 1969, at age 46; Betty Hill died of cancer on October 17, 2004, at age 85.
Analyzing the star map
Margorie Fish interpretation of Betty Hill’s purported alien star map,
with "Sol" (upper right) being the Latin name for the Sun.
In 1968, Marjorie Fish of
Oak Harbor, Ohio read Fuller's
Interrupted Journey. She was an
elementary school teacher and amateur astronomer. Intrigued by the "star map", Fish wondered if it might be "deciphered" to determine which
star system the UFO came from. Assuming that one of the fifteen stars on the map must represent the Earth's
Sun,
Fish constructed a three-dimensional model of nearby Sun-like stars
using thread and beads, basing stellar distances on those published in
the 1969
Gliese Star Catalogue.
Studying thousands of vantage points over several years, the only one
that seemed to match the Hill map was from the viewpoint of the
double star system of
Zeta Reticuli.
Distance information needed to match three stars, forming the
distinctive triangle Hill said she remembered, was not generally
available until the 1969 Gliese Catalogue came out.
Fish sent her analysis to Webb. Agreeing with her conclusions, Webb sent the map to
Terence Dickinson,
editor of the popular magazine
Astronomy. Dickinson did not endorse Fish and Webb's conclusions, but for the first time in the journal's history,
Astronomy
invited comments and debate on a UFO report, starting with an opening
article in the December 1974 issue. For about a year afterward, the
opinions page of
Astronomy carried
arguments for and against Fish's star map. Notable was an argument made by
Carl Sagan and
Steven Soter,
[27] arguing that the seeming "star map" was little more than a
random
alignment of chance points. In contrast, those more favorable to the
map, such as Dr. David Saunders, a statistician who had been on the
Condon UFO study,
argued that unusual alignment of key Sun-like stars in a plane centered
around Zeta Reticuli (first described by Fish) was statistically
improbable to have happened by chance from a random group of stars in
our immediate neighborhood.
[28][29]
Skeptic
Robert Sheaffer,
in an accompanying article said that a map devised by Charles W.
Atterberg, about the same time as Fish, was an even better match to
Hill's map and made more sense. The base stars,
Epsilon Indi and
Epsilon Eridani, plus the others were also closer to the Sun than the Hill map. Fish counterargued that the base stars in the
Atterberg map
were considered much less likely to harbor life than Zeta Reticuli and
the map lacked a consistent grouping of Sun-like stars along the lined
routes.
[citation needed]
In 1993, two
German crop circle enthusiasts, Joachim Koch and Hans-Jürgen Kyborg, suggested that the map depicted planets in the
solar system,
not nearby stars. The objects in the map, they said, closely match the
positions of the Sun, the six inner planets and several asteroids around
the time of the incident.
[30]
This would parallel other abduction accounts where witnesses claim to
be shown such depictions, though admittedly often elaborate and
unmistakably our own solar system.
[citation needed]
Interrupted Journey
The 1966
publication of
Interrupted Journey, by John G. Fuller, details much of the Hills' claims. Excerpts of the book were published in
Look magazine, and
Interrupted Journey
went on to sell many copies and greatly publicize the Hills' account.
Betty's niece Kathleen Marden explored Fuller's themes along with
scientist
Stanton T. Friedman in her book
Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. Marden knew Betty well and had spoken with her at great length about the encounter.
[31]
Later, Betty claimed to have seen UFOs a number of times after the
initial abduction, and she "became a celebrity in the UFO community."
[32]
Skeptical arguments
- Psychiatrists reportedly later suggested that the supposed abduction was a hallucination brought on by the stress of being an interracial couple in early 1960s United States.[33]
Betty discounted this suggestion, noting her relationship with Barney
was happy, and their interracial marriage caused no notable problems
with their friends or family. As noted in The Interrupted Journey, Dr. Simon thought that the Hills' marital status had nothing to do with the UFO encounter.
- Skeptic blogger Brian Dunning
reports that the hypnosis sessions occurred over two years after the
reported abductions, plenty of time for the couple to discuss their
encounter. In a 2008 article, Dunning calls their story "merely an
inventive tale from the mind of a lifelong UFO fanatic.. [and] is
unsupported by any useful evidence, and is perfectly consistent with the
purely natural explanation."[34]
Dunning's statements, however, are not supported by factual
information. Betty was not a lifelong UFO enthusiast. According to
Barney's 1961 letter to Major Donald Keyhoe and early investigative
reports, she had not read even one book about UFOs before her close
encounter on September 19, 1961, nor had he.
An alien (played by actor
John Hoyt) depicted on TV twelve days before the making of Hill's 'Grey' hypnosis tape
In his 1990 article "Entirely Unpredisposed", Martin Kottmeyer
suggested that Barney's memories revealed under hypnosis might have been
influenced by an episode of the
science fiction television show The Outer Limits titled "
The Bellero Shield",
which was broadcast about two weeks before Barney's first hypnotic
session. The episode featured an extraterrestrial with large eyes who
says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes,
all who have eyes have eyes that speak." The report from the regression
featured a scenario that was in some respects similar to the television
show. In part, Kottmeyer wrote:
[35]
- "Wraparound eyes are an extreme rarity in science fiction films. I
know of only one instance. They appeared on the alien of an episode of
an old TV series The Outer Limits
entitled "The Bellero Shield". A person familiar with Barney's sketch
in "The Interrupted Journey" and the sketch done in collaboration with
the artist David Baker will find a "frisson" of "déjà vu"
creeping up his spine when seeing this episode. The resemblance is much
abetted by an absence of ears, hair, and nose on both aliens. Could it
be by chance? Consider this: Barney first described and drew the
wraparound eyes during the hypnosis session dated 22 February 1964. "The
Bellero Shield" was first broadcast on "10 February 1964. Only twelve
days separate the two instances. If the identification is admitted, the
commonness of wraparound eyes in the abduction literature falls to
cultural forces."
When a different researcher asked Betty about
The Outer Limits, she insisted she had "never heard of it".
[36] Kottmeyer also pointed out that some motifs in the Hills' account were present in the 1953 film,
Invaders from Mars.
[37]
A careful analysis of Barney's description of the non-human entities
that he observed reveals significant differences between the "Bifrost
Man" and Barney's descriptive details. One must also take into account
Barney's conscious recall of the entities he observed on the hovering
craft. They were dressed in black, shiny uniforms and were "somehow not
human".
- Jim Macdonald,
a resident of the area in which the Hills claimed to have been
abducted, has produced a detailed analysis of their journey which
concludes that the episode was in fact provoked by their misperceiving
an aircraft warning beacon on Cannon Mountain as a UFO.[38][39]
Macdonald notes that from the road the Hills took the beacon appears
and disappears at exactly the same time the Hills describe the UFO as
appearing and disappearing. The remainder of the experience is ascribed
to stress, sleep deprivation, and false memories 'recovered' under hypnosis. UFO expert Robert Sheaffer writes after reading Macdonald's recreation that the Hills are the "poster children" for not driving when sleep deprived.[40]
Macdonald's article focuses primarily on the Hill's observations of the
light in the sky and the timing of the journey, discounting the Hill's
accounts of close encounters south of Cannon Mountain as recovered memories.
- Sheaffer reports that Betty Hill as late as 1977 would still go on
UFO vigils three times a week. During one evening she was joined by UFO
enthusiast John Oswald. When asked about Betty's continuing UFO
observations, Oswald stated "She is not really seeing UFO's but she is
calling them that." On the night they went out together "Mrs. Hill was
unable to 'distinguish between a landed UFO and a streetlight'". In a
later interview, Sheaffer recounts that Betty Hill writes "'UFO's are a new science... and our science cannot explain them'".[41]
In popular culture
See also
