A: The true story of Betty and Barney Hill…..

B: But WAS it true? 

A: What? 

B: The Betty and Barney Hill story. I know they were good Unitarian Universalists, but maybe they were confused about what happened. I mean, some say that Barney was a highly suggestible person and Betty’s frightening dreams must have impressed themselves upon him. The “Amazing Randi” said that all they experienced was “a plasma phenomenon related to ball lightning.” Yet a third debunker said that both Betty and Barney were influenced by all the movies and TV shows about UFOs of the time. Definitely a concern for me has to do with the fact that hypnosis was a major factor enabling Betty and Barney to tell the full story about what happened–but what if the hypnotist planted the so-called “memories” in them? 

A: Whoa! 

B: See? When you put your sermon topics out there, I read ahead of time. 

A: You get an A+ Scott! Although, can we back up a bit? Let’s tell the basics of the story, including some truly tantalizing parts that maybe aren’t so easily dismissed. Sounds ok? 

B: Sure. Hmm. Well, here’s the story that Barney and Betty shared with Major Henderson of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. The official story: 

On the night of 19-20 September, 1961 … the observers were traveling by car in a southerly direction on Route 3 south of Lincoln, N.H., when they noticed a brightly lighted object ahead of their car at an angle of elevation of approximately 45 degrees. It appeared strange to them because of its shape and the intensity of its lights compared to the stars in the sky. Weather and sky were clear. They continued to observe the moving object from their moving car for a few minutes, then stopped. After stopping the car they used binoculars at times.

They report that the object was traveling north very fast. They report it changed directions rather abruptly and then headed south. Shortly thereafter, it stopped and hovered in the air. There was no sound evident up to this time. Both observers used the binoculars at this point. While hovering, objects began to appear from the body of the “object,” which they describe as looking like wings, which made a V-shape when extended. The “wings” had red lights on the tips. At this point they observed it to appear to swoop down in the general direction of their auto. The object continued to descend until it appeared to be only a matter of “hundreds of feet” above their car.

At this point they decided to get out of that area, and fast. Mr. Hill was driving, and Mrs. Hill watched the object by sticking her head out the window. It departed in a generally northwesterly direction, but Mrs. Hill was prevented from observing its full departure by her position in the car.

They report that while the object was above them after it had “swooped down” they heard a series of short, loud “buzzes,” which they described as sounding like someone had dropped a tuning fork. They report that they could feel these buzzing sounds in their auto. No further visual observation was made of the object. They continued on their trip and when they arrived in the vicinity of Ashland, N.H., about 30 miles from Lincoln, they again heard the “buzzing” sound of the “object”; however, they did not see it at this time.

Mrs. Hill reported the flight pattern of the “object” to be erratic; [it] changed directions rapidly, [and] during its flight it ascended and descended numerous times very rapidly. Its flight was described as jerky and not smooth.

Mr. Hill is a civil service employee in the Boston Post Office and doesn’t possess any technical or scientific training. Neither does his wife.

During a later conversation with Mr. Hill, he volunteered the observation that he did not originally intend to report the incident but in as much as he and his wife did in fact see this occurrence he decided to report it. He says that on looking back he feels that the whole thing is incredible and he feels somewhat foolish-he just cannot believe that such a thing could or did happen. He says, on the other hand, that they both saw what they reported, and this fact gives it some degree of reality.

A: So, that was the report Major Henderson submitted to the Air Force. Do you know what the Air Force’s ultimate conclusion was about what happened?

B: Yeah. The Air Force said that Betty and Barney probably just saw Jupiter. 

A: Incredible. Sounds like the Air Force wasn’t even trying. Look at this: 

It’s only an artist’s rendition of one moment of the “encounter,” but it’s at least faithful to the story–and that doesn’t look anything like Jupiter….

[sigh]

Betty kept a daily journal, and here’s how she described what happened when they got home: “We entered our home, turned on the lights, and went over to the window and looked skyward. We stood there for several minutes. Then, Barney said, ‘This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.’ We both wondered if they would come back.” Betty also recorded Barney’s comment that their arrival time (shortly after 5am) was later than expected: “We felt very calm, peaceful, relaxed. We sat at the kitchen table, looked at each other, shook our heads in puzzlement, and asked each other, ‘Do you believe what happened?’ We agreed that it was unbelievable, but it had really happened. We would return to the windows and look skyward.” 

Next morning, when they woke up, Barney suggested that they should go into separate rooms and draw the object they both observed, to see if they came up with similar pictures. The pictures were indeed remarkably alike. 

Both knew something extraordinary had happened. Both were perplexed that they lost around two hours of time. But they disagreed on what to do next. Barney said that “they should refrain from telling anyone, anticipating that because their experience was so fantastic, they would never be believed. Betty, a strong-willed, independent woman, promptly disagreed.” Betty called her sister the following day, to tell her what happened, and, next, her sister reached out to a friend who was a physicist, who told Betty she should go out to the car and test it with the compass. (Remember the buzzing sensation they had had in the car?) Barney didn’t want to. He wanted to forget what happened. But Betty persisted. This is what she said about it in her diary: “I walked around my car, not knowing what I was looking for. When I came to the trunk area, I saw many highly polished spots, about the size of a half-dollar or silver dollar. […] I placed the compass over them, and it began spinning and spinning. […] As I was watching this I was filled with an unexplained feeling of absolute terror.”      

B: There were other physical clues that something truly strange had happened. Betty’s new dress was torn, had weird stains on it, and her zipper was broken. The tops of Barney’s good dress shoes were badly scraped. Both their watches had stopped at the time of the event and later on could not be restarted. Even creepier is a fact learned much later on: that the Air Force had had a radar report from the same night, and radar contact had been established with an airborne object in the same area that Betty and Barney Hill had been in. 

A: One of the things that really stands out for me is how differently Barney and Betty approached what happened. Betty wanted to investigate. Barney did acknowledge that something truly mysterious had happened, but he didn’t want to become publicly known as a weirdo. Both of them were social justice activists at their Unitarian Universalist church, but Barney was a major community leader in Civil Rights and he did not want his public credibility destroyed. Neither of them wanted to go full-on public with their experience. But Betty would not be at peace with herself if she didn’t try to understand more deeply what happened. And Barney, despite his ambivalence, valued science and national security, and he felt a citizen’s obligation to do what he could to help. 

There were other pressures at play. Betty started having terrible nightmares. Barney was increasingly struggling with ulcers and nothing the doctors gave him was working. Barney also felt like he’d developed a “mental block” and suspected that there was more to the story he wasn’t allowing himself to know. For physical and psychological reasons both, they decided to pursue hypnotherapy, which they’d heard could be extremely effective. Enter Dr. Benjamin Simon, a widely respected hypnotherapist. 

B: And that’s when the rest of the story emerged–the part of the story that didn’t come out for Major Henderson of the Air Force. It turned out that Betty and Barney’s contact with the UFOs had been of the “Third Kind”–direct contact. The tops of Barney’s dress shoes were scraped because he’d been dragged inside the spaceship. Betty’s dress was torn and the zipper broken because the aliens apparently didn’t know how dresses worked, and they were wanting to remove it in order to conduct a physical examination–something on the order of amniocentesis (a procedure which would be mainly unknown to Americans until the late 1960s). The aliens conducted a physical examination on Barney and they were surprised to discover that Barney had false teeth which could be removed. (Betty says they got so worked up about this, she had to calm them down.) 

Betty even “remembered” having a conversation with the aliens about aging, and the topic was greatly confusing to them. Aging? What is aging? 

A: It all came out in the hypnosis sessions, facilitated by Dr. Benjamin Simon. Using today’s language, we would say that Betty and Barney had suffered “dissociative amnesia” from the trauma they’d experienced, and the hypnosis had made it safe enough for the split-off memories to be retrieved. 

Scott, I remember you sharing a moment ago your concern that Dr. Simon might have planted these strange ideas…. Am I remembering that right? 

B: You are

A: I was very surprised to find out that Dr. Simon was indeed trying to plant ideas in the Hill’s heads! But he was trying to plant the idea that it was all just a dream. That it had not happened in fact. 

B: What?!

A: Yeah, it’s really weird. I keep on using that word. Weird. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo…..

B: And, they never did want to go full-on public with their story. Other people who claimed to be “contactees” regularly did just that, so as to make money, or so as to feel important. Classic case: a guy named George Adamski in the 1950s. But that wasn’t Betty and Barney Hill. 

A: The story got out against their will. So-called “friends” had betrayed them. They spilled the story to journalist John H. Luttrell Sr. who published an article in the Boston Traveler on Oct. 25, 1965–that’s almost 4 years after the event happened–entitled, “UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?” THEY being the aliens.  Betty and Barney were devastated. They felt they had no choice but to go public in order to correct multiple inaccuracies in the article. This is how the authorized version of the story was told to the world: through John Fuller’s The Interrupted Journey, published in 1966: 

So… this retelling of the Betty and Barney Hill story started with you expressing some concerns. Did what happen, happen? Was it true? 

What do you think now? 

B: Reverend Anthony, it’s really hard to take UFO stories and alien abduction stories at face value. As a UU minister, you’re really good at helping people understand old stories in new ways. Is there another angle for us to consider? 

A: Stick around for part 3.