THE HILL ABDUCTION CASE
Betty and Barney Hill were allegedly abducted by aliens in
September 1961.
Barney, then aged 39, worked as a mail sorter in Boston,
commuting the 120-mile round trip from Portsmouth each day.
Betty, aged 41, was a social worker for the State of New
Hampshire. They had decided on the spur of the moment to drive
to the Niagara Falls for a short break. The Hills decided on an
all-night drive home from Montreal to Portsmouth to avoid a
storm.
On US Highway 3, near Lancaster, NH, Betty noticed a bright light
near the Moon. The light seemed to be pacing them and several
times they stopped the car to see it better. At one point Betty saw
it cross the face of the Moon. The light dropped to tree height, and
they stopped again. Barney took his binoculars and walked
across a field towards the light, and came within 50ft (15m) of it.
He could now tell it was an object 'like a big pancake' with a row
of windows. Through the binoculars he could see several
occupants, dressed in Nazi-style uniforms. Suddenly convinced
he was about to be captured, he fled back to the car in terror. At
some point, they realized they had somehow driven off the main
highway. The couple remembered little after this until they
eventually rejoined US 3 near Ashland, when they heard another
set of beeps. They reached Portsmouth as day was breaking,
having taken 7 hours to cover the last 190 miles of their trip. From
29 September to 3 October Betty had a series of nightmares in
which she saw a group of humanoids blocking US 3; she and
Barney were then led aboard the UFO.
Under hypnosis with psychiatrist Dr Benjamin Simon in 1963,
both told approximately the same story. Uniformed humanoids
with large, wrap-around eyes, small, flattened noses, and slitted,
lipless mouths had appeared in the headlights, waving them to a
halt. On board the UFO, each was given a medical examination in
separate rooms. A skin sample was taken from Betty's arm, part
of a fingernail was cut off, and a hair was pulled from her head; a
long needle was inserted into Betty's navel: she was told this was
a pregnancy test. Barney had a circular instrument applied to his
groin, apparently to extract semen.
After her examination, Betty had a conversation with the leader of
her captors. When she asked where they came from, she was
shown a star map with no legend on it, and was given a book as a
keepsake of the event. (Later, this was taken from her and she
was told she would not remember the experience.) Each
understood the other as if they were speaking plain English, but
Betty had the impression that they communicate telepathically.
The humanoids used colloquial English, but were sometimes
confused by very basic concepts asking, for example: 'What are
vegetables? What is yellow?' They seemed to have no notion of
time, although they used phrases like 'Just a minute'.
They were particularly intrigued by Barney's dentures, and when
Betty explained that he had them because of an injury but that
many people had them in old age, they did not understand the
idea of aging. The couple were walked back to their car by the
aliens, and watched the UFO depart as a glowing orange ball.
Dr Simon noted that Betty's account under hypnosis precisely
matched the content of her dreams, and concluded that the Hills
had had an imaginary experience whose content was based on
Betty's dreams, which had been brought on by fear after a
genuine close encounter with a UFO.
Betty Hill has continued to believe in the reality of her abduction.
Barney died in 1969 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
