by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
The story of the September 1961 case involving the possible abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by UFO occupants has been related and examined in numerous publications and formats. It’s an intriguing case and was the first of the late 20th century UFO abduction reports to receive serious consideration (and publication) by investigators. This makes it a case worthy of attention because the story told by the Hills couldn’t have been influenced by previous abduction narratives. The main source for the abduction story that is focused on by most researchers, such as John Fuller who wrote the 1966 book about the case titled The Interrupted Journey, is the tapes from the hypnosis sessions the Hills went through in 1964 with Dr. Benjamin Simon. Before that, the case was considered to be merely a sighting report. That’s how it was presented by Walter Webb, the primary investigator who submitted a report dated October 26, 1961, to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. After news of the Hills possibly having been abducted got out, Webb was moved to submit an updated report, dated August 30, 1965, that contains the abduction account. Included in that report is a copy of the letter Betty Hill wrote to NICAP Director Donald Keyhoe dated September 26, 1961. This is the first document with a complete version the Hill’s sighting as it was consciously remembered. As for the abduction account, Webb included a copy of a five-page document, written by Betty a little over a month after the sighting, that shows that it actually originated in a series of dreams Betty had on consecutive nights shortly after the encounter. The letter and document are included in The Interrupted Journey, but their significance as the first recorded accounts of the Hills’ experience very close to the time of the event is not emphasized by Fuller.
In Betty’s letter to Keyhoe, she begins by asking if he’s written any more books about unidentified flying objects since The Flying Saucer Conspiracy, as she and Barney had been “unsuccessful” in their search for any more-up-to-date information. She then goes into the details of their sighting. According to her, around midnight on September 20th, she and Barney were driving through the National Forest section of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. She describes the area as “desolate” and “uninhabited.” They noticed a “bright object” moving rapidly in the sky. They stopped and got out to look at it with binoculars. It then suddenly reversed and went from moving north to southeast. It then “appeared to be flying in a very erratic pattern.”
They continued driving and repeatedly stopped to look at the object. It was spinning and seemed to be lit only on one side, and this gave it a “twinkling effect.” As they were driving, it approached their car and then hovered in front of them. Betty describes it as pancake-shaped with windows ringing the front “through which we could see bright blue-white lights.” Barney was standing in the road and two red lights suddenly appeared moving outwards on wing tips as they protruded.
According to Betty, the object moved closer and Barney was able to see figures “scurrying about” as if they were getting ready for something. She describes one figure that seemed to be watching her and Barney. From Betty and Barney’s point of view, the figure “appeared to be about the size of a pencil and seemed to be dressed in some type of shiny black uniform.”
Barney suddenly panicked. He had left the car running and he jumped back in, “laughing and repeating that they were going to capture us.” As he drove off, they heard “several buzzing and beeping sounds” which seemed to be hitting the trunk of the car.
They didn’t see the object leave, but they didn’t see it again after they drove off. When they were thirty miles further south, they “were again bombarded by these same beeping sounds.”
Betty tells Keyhoe that they reported their sighting “to an Air Force officer who seemed to be very interested in the wings and red lights.” She adds that they didn’t tell him what Barney saw inside the object “as it seems to be too fantastic to be true.”
Betty describes Barney’s mind as being “blacked out” regarding what he saw when he panicked and that he’s left “very frightened” whenever he attempts to recall the moment. She tells Keyhoe that they “are considering the possibility of a competent psychiatrist who uses hypnotism.”
Betty includes more details about the object, which she describes as being noiseless, “at least as large as a four motor plane,” and notes that the light from the interior didn’t reflect on the ground. She adds that there didn’t seem to be any damage to the car “from the beeping sounds.”
The document containing the abduction account is titled “Betty Hill’s Own Account of Her Dreams Written Nov.,1961.” According to Betty in her account, her dreams weren’t chronological, but she arranged them that way.
The story she tells picks up after the sighting as they’re driving home. They noticed a sharp left-hand turn in the road and that the road then curved back to the right and at this moment, they saw 8-11 men (Betty’s word) standing in front of them. Barney slowed down and the motor died. As he tried to restart it, the men surrounded the car. The Hills sat speechless (Betty describes being terrified), and the men opened their doors and took each of them by the arm.
Betty makes note that what follows comes from her first dream though she doesn’t define where the next dream begins. She describes struggling to wake up and that it was as if she was “at the bottom of a deep well” and must get out. She managed to get her eyes open and was “amazed.” She found herself walking on a path in the woods with a man on each side, two in the front, and two in the back. She then saw Barney with a man on each side of him and two in back of him, and she called out his name. He didn’t respond, and she describes him as “sleep walking.”
The man to her left spoke to her and asked her if what she called out was Barney’s name, and she refused to answer. The man then assured her that she and Barney would be all right. He explained that they needed to do some tests, that she and Barney would be returned to their car, and that they had nothing to fear.
Betty noticed that only one man spoke (English in a foreign accent) while the others were silent. She described them as being 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall, and “very human in their appearance.” She wrote that their chests were larger than a human’s and that they had large noses “like Jimmy Durante’s.” She described their skin as being grey, “like grey paint with a black base,” their eyes and hair as being “very dark, possibly black,” and their lips as having a “bluish tint.”
According to Betty, they all wore similar, slightly grey-shaded, navy blue clothing that she presumed were uniforms. They wore pants and had jackets that looked like zippered sports jackets, though she didn’t see any zippers or buttons. They wore low slip-on shoes, that looked like boots, and caps similar to those worn in the Air Force, “but not so broad on top.”
They got to a clearing where there was a disc about as big as a house. Betty describes it as metallic, with no windows she could see, but she felt they were approaching it from the back.
They stepped up to a ramp, and Betty got scared and refused to go further. “The leader” assured her there was nothing to be afraid of and emphasized that the less she cooperated the longer it would take to get back to her car. According to Betty, she shrugged her shoulders and agreed, since she had no choice, and thought they “might as well get it over with.”
Betty and Barney were taken to separate examination rooms and she protested until it was explained to her that they only had enough equipment in each room to examine a single person. Once in the room, she was left alone with a being she called “The Examiner.” He asked what their ages were and what they ate, and Betty found herself trying to explain the color yellow as she was describing squash, but she couldn’t make the creature understand.
Betty told this same story almost word for word during the Hills’ hypnosis sessions and this is examined in detail in Captured!, the 2007 book co-authored by Betty’s niece, Kathleen Marden, and Stanton Friedman. Three details that came out of the hypnosis sessions that are repeated throughout the literature on this case also showed up first in Betty’s dreams. One is her being given a pregnancy test using a long needle, much like a modern amniocentesis, which was far from common at the time and unknown to Betty. Another is the leader pulling at Betty’s teeth and being confused that they didn’t come out like Barney’s, whereupon Betty explained that Barney had dentures. The third is Betty being shown a star map with a binary star system and being told by the leader that that’s where they came from.
The story of Betty and Barney Hill has received a lot of attention over the years and the question of how much Betty’s dreams influenced her and Barney’s recall under hypnosis has been explored extensively, for example in Captured. As part of the NC Prosecutors Resource Online, there is section 664.1 “Repressed Memories and Hypnosis” where it is stated “There is an ongoing debate within the scientific community about the validity and accuracy of such recovered memories.” followed by references. As strange as the abduction experience seems to be, perhaps Betty’s dreams should be considered as being possibly more valid than her and Barney’s recollections under hypnosis. In any case, Betty’s letter and account are an excellent starting point for students of the case.
More material is available on this case at nicap.org in the September 2011 Casework Index in the file marked 610919indianhead.dir.