By Natalie Myers
In this series of articles, Natalie takes a detailed look at a number of abduction events that have taken place over the years, starting with the famous Betty and Barney Hill case.
The case of the Hills documents one of the first and most widely discussed abduction cases of all times. Both Betty and Barney Hill lived a ‘normal’ life. Betty was a social worker and Barney a postal worker. They were well respected within their communities as active church members and Barney sat on the United States Commission for Civil rights. Both resided in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA.
So the story goes something like this……
The Hills had been on holiday to Niagara Falls and were driving home to New Hampshire when Betty spotted what she thought was a star moving across the night sky above US Route 3. Betty and Barney decided to pull over both to walk the dog and also to observe this star which now appeared to be moving erratically.
Barney speculated it was a commercial aircraft, however observing it move in strange directions, and appearing to be coming towards them, they did what most people would do and quickly retreated to the car.
Now, shortly before midnight on September 19, 1961 the incident increases in pace. Driving on a more secluded part of the road, again they observed a craft in the sky making odd movements. As it descended towards the car, Barney stopped in the middle of the road as he couldn’t quite take in what was occurring. The Hills report that the craft then was very close to them hovering with no noise around 30 feet above the car, illuminating the car and the surrounding areas in bright light.
Barney, stepping out of the car used his binoculars to take a closer look and reported seeing around ten humanoid figures peeking out at them from the crafts windows. Barney then reports he received a telepathic message from the beings telling him to stay there and keep looking at them. He recalled them to be dressed in shiny black uniforms with matching hats.
In a state of sheer panic and terror, Barney raced back to the car and sped off at high speed, instructing Betty to see if she could see the craft following them. Barney stated he knew at this point “there was an intention to capture them”.
Just after this, both report the sound of strange humming and rhythmic sound waves pounding on the car and into their bodies. It was at this point they both felt they were falling into an altered conscious state. Suddenly a second round of the humming began and they found themselves approximately 35 miles further down the road with no clear recollection of how they got there.
The perplexed pair arrived home around dawn with a sense of strange feelings and sensations in their body they couldn’t explain. Their watches never worked again and both had showers following an impulse that they needed to ‘decontaminate’.
Barney had scuffed dress shoes on and Betty had a torn dress (on the lining and zip lines) and later reported that it had some odd pink coloured powder on it which blew off when she hung it outside. Knowing something had happened and once they had rested, they began to record the night’s events and work out some sort of timeline. They also found strange circular markings on their car. On placing a compass next to it, they found it whirl around, but when moved away from the marks, it would behave as expected.
Knowing they needed to report the incident, but with fear of ridicule at the back of their minds, Betty called Pease Airforce Base to report what had happened, although she decided to leave some details out so it didn’t sound so odd. Reports were taken and concluded that there was “insufficient data”, however were forwarded to Project Blue Book for archiving.
Some ten days after the strange event, Betty had five nights of strange dreams. Initially ignoring them, she began to document what she was remembering. She recalled being taken into the woods, escorted by two short beings dressed in a blue/black uniform and hats. Betty recalled Barney being with her but recalled he looked as if he was sleepwalking. They were led up a ramp to a ship, disc like in appearance and metallic in colour.
Once on board, they were separated and taken for examination. Betty recalled being studied by a being who she later nicknamed ‘the examiner’. She recalled he spoke with her in English and had a pleasant manner, however she also recalls another being also present in which they talked in a language she was unable to understand. Betty named the other being the ‘leader’.
Various tests were carried out whilst they were on board including skin scrapes, examination of her eyes and ears, hair and nail clippings and an agonising probe put into Betty’s navel. Betty stated she remembered the leader waving his hand and all the pain went away.
Betty was also given a book containing strange symbols and was shown via a star map where the craft had come from. The book was later taken away when an argument broke out between the aliens as if they did not want this information being viewed. Or so it is speculated but many say this is just something that had been added over time.
Hypnosis was then a natural progression for the couple to aid in the understanding of the events of September 19 1961.
The glaring difference when listening to the hypnosis tapes is the interpretation of events by both parties. Barney was traumatised by the occurrence but his wife saw it more favourably as an adventure. Barney, having been sober for a number of years, started to drink again and was showing signs of anxiety and depression.
Prior to the hypnosis sessions beginning, Barney had begun therapy. His physical health was also showing signs of deterioration with high blood pressure, stomach ulcers and strange genital markings that appeared that needed three small operations to clear them up. Were these issues caused as a result of their alleged abduction or as some say were simply psychosomatic in nature and stress related.
Barney recalled during his hypnosis that the beings that took him slightly resembled humans and recalled some finer details like the type of uniforms, hats and scarves they had on. He describes them as very small with large slanted eyes, dressed like Nazis.
Once details of the Hill’s experiences started to emerge, stories were in newspapers; books were published and they began to give small lectures to discuss their case and gained somewhat of a celebrity status. Still struggling with his inner demons, Barney died from a cerebral haemorrhage just seven years later at the age of 48. Betty continued to tell their story and embraced her popularity until she passed away in 1994.
So was it true?
As with most abduction cases, speculation, criticism and wanting to disprove comes as a standard. It was the same for the case involving the Hills.
It was reported that the hypnosis sessions took place some two years after the initial abduction. Sceptics say this afforded the couple a change to ‘get the story straight’. It is also doubted by the lack of physical evidence. Then again, physical evidence is often short in availability in such cases.
Critics place the story telling at the hands of Betty as the first to see the “space ship” and the person who had quite detailed recall of the incident in comparison to her husband. Indeed much credence is given to a television episode aired a few days before the alleged abduction that depicted very similar alien type beings, sharing similar physical characteristics. The episode of the show the Outer Limits named “The Bellero Shield” was never watched by the Hills nor did they know about it, when later asked about the comparisons.
A theory was also put forward by psychiatrists that the event was nothing more than a hallucination due to the stress of being an interracial couple in the 1960s. There was and is no evidence to support this as the Hills appeared to have a happy marriage and be well integrated into the community.
In 1974, Betty Hill was interviewed by Tom Lombardo, a budding journalist. The significance of this was what reportedly occurred when the interview was over and the Dictaphone off. Tom later wrote..
“After I turned off the tape recorder in that 1974 interview, Betty Hill lit another cigarette, drew deeply, and exhaled. Then in her gravelly voice, she asked: “Is that thing off now”? I assured her it was. And she said something that ruined it all for me: “I’m going to make my million off this story.” She mentioned that James Earl Jones had taken an interest in her story, and that he wanted to play the role of Barney, who was African-American.
It is also widely reported that Betty Hill had somewhat of a fascination with UFO’s. Her first experience was actually in 1957 when her sister experienced a alleged UFO sighting. Betty would go on to be a very much in demand speaker at conferences and seminars on the subject, however was criticised more and more over the years for her increasingly outlandish stories and poor presentation evidence. Columnist Robert Shafer wrote;
‘I was present at the National UFO Conference in New York City in 1980, at which Betty presented some of the UFO photos she had taken. She showed what must have been well over two hundred slides, mostly of blips, blurs, and blobs against a dark background. These were supposed to be UFOs coming in close, chasing her car, landing, etc… After her talk had exceeded about twice its allotted time, Betty was literally jeered off the stage by what had been at first a very sympathetic audience’.
