The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Case

The Betty and Barney Hill..

It is hard to believe that sixty years have transpired since Betty and Barney Hill entered the annals of UFOlogy as our most famous and intriguing case of alien abduction.

 The UFO close contact incident

It all happened on the night of September 19/20, 1961, on a lonely highway late at night in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 

The craft swooped down over the Hills’ 1957 Chevy Bel Air at about midnight on US Highway 3 in Lincoln. The Hills had already stopped twice to observe the craft that appeared to be rotating and lighted on only one side. It had captured their interest and the non-human occupants, in return, were attracted to the curious couple. It hovered only 200 feet above the highway and then shifted over an apple orchard. Binoculars in hand, Barney followed it into the field. 

The silent disc loomed only 100 feet overhead. A rational skeptic, Barney held the binoculars to his eyes convinced that he could identify it as an aircraft from Pease Air Force Base. He realized his futility when he observed figures dressed in shiny black uniforms peering down at him. All but one moved to a panel and almost immediately red lights slid out on finlike structures. Something, he didn’t know what, emerged from the underside of the craft. This is when he knew that it was nothing that he had ever witnessed. He sensed, he said, that these were beings of a superior type, “beings that were somehow not human.” (Letter to NICAP, 9/26/1061) Sensing danger, he reasoned that their hurried preparation was directed at him.

 He told NICAP investigator and astronomer Walter Webb that he sensed he would be captured “like a bug in a net. Breathless and in a state of shock and panic he fled for his vehicle. The motor had been left running. 

Moments later, the craft closed in on the Hills. They heard a series of code-like buzzing tones striking their trunk, the car vibrated, and they sensed a tingling sensation in their bodies. As if only a moment had passed, they found themselves 35 miles south of their previous position and heard a second set of buzzing tones. The Hills harbored vague memories of a dirt road, a roadblock, and a fiery orb. They arrived home more than two hours later than they had calculated. It took them seven hours to drive 190 miles. Each discovered perplexing evidence that could not be explained. The rest is history.

 

This is a case of firsts in many ways. There was obvious missing time. There was experimentation. Mind Control. Much was made of the fact then and now that it was an inter-racial couple and by extension a uniquely inter-racial encounter with possible entities from another world. Yet, the non-humans treated Betty and Barney as people, not as a mixed-race couple, and reassured them repeatedly that no harm would come to them. They needed only to carry out a few simple tests and the couple would then be on their way home. 

Some thirty months later, famed neuropsychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon asked Barney if he felt that had been kidnapped. To this question Barney replied, “I can only use that word intellectually. I did not feel that I had been kidnapped. But I think of kidnapping when you are being harmed. Dr. Simon asked, You mean you weren’t harmed? And Barney replied “No.” (2/29/1964 hypnosis session) 

Betty even recalled being shown a star chart that seems to have been proven accurate. She observed alien symbols imbedded in a strange tablet and attempted to carry it off the craft until a small crew member exerted his authority. The case even had its whimsical moments when the little strangers discovered Barney had a set of false teeth. They were obviously thrown for a loop by this and it showed they may not be as all knowing and sophisticated as we humans may make them out to be. 

The picture Betty draw about the craft..

There was the torn dress and the mysterious pink powder that coated it, the scrapes on Barney’s best dress shoes, the magnetized shiny spots on their car trunk, the radar reports, and the newly discovered witnesses. 

Perhaps the most important legacy of this encounter is that Betty Hill’s niece 

Kathleen Marden went on to research the perplexing nature of UFOs and the non-human entities associated with highly advanced aerial vehicles via her own groundbreaking research, investigation, and experimentation. Her research has extended to archival collections and the US government’s involvement in the investigation of UFOs and its major studies. This has combined to give her a depth of knowledge that few possess. 

 

Not only is Kathleen a wonderful and influential force of nature to be reckoned with in the MUFON organization, but she and her fellow Experiencer Research Team (ERT)

member Denise Stoner went on to write the section in the MUFON Field Investigator’s Manual on how to investigate these high strangeness cases that often leave the experiencer distraught and searching for answers. Her efforts led to the creation of MUFON’s Experiencer Research Team (now “Resource Team”) and the incredibly in-depth questionnaire that MUFON uses to identify the traits and background of who these people are who have been “taken!”

She, Denise Stoner, and several Ph.D. academics have worked on three comprehensive studies on nearly 5,000 experiencers, two of which she initiated. She has five professionally published books and is working on a sixth. Her bestseller with nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman (1934-2019) is “Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience”. She and Stanton worked together for nearly 14 years and collaborated on two additional books “Science Was Wrong” and “Fact, Fiction, and Flying Saucers”.

Her book with Denise Stoner “The Alien Abduction Files” includes her investigation of six intergenerational cases of abduction/contact. Her fifth book “Extra Terrestrial Contact: What to Do When You’ve Been Abducted” is a comprehensive guide to contact for Experiencers, those who love them, professionals who work with Experiencers, and the interested public.

 Additionally, she is a contributor to the Edgar Mitchell FREE Foundation’s “Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness and Contact with Non-Human Intelligence”. Her essays have been published in several additional books and magazines. Her books are available in all formats at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Autographed copies can be purchased on her website at www.kathleen-marden.com. Additionally, she has appeared on numerous documentary films and television shows and lectured at conferences in the US and abroad. 

 

Kathleen has recently stepped down from her position as the director of MUFON’s ERT due to her husband’s failing health and time constraints. She writes that he is now recovering from successful surgery and has a good prognosis. She was reluctant to leave her much loved position and close contact with some 55team members but felt a higher calling to care for her loved one. 

Gwen Farrell, a longtime UFO abduction researcher, hypnotherapist, and author from Arizona MUFON has been appointed the new director of MUFON’s Experiencer Resource Team. She is joined by assistant director George Medich, MD, and Denise Stoner, special assistant to the director. Kathleen now volunteers as a consultant to the ERT.