September 19th and 20th are the dates Barney and Betty Hill of New Hampshire claim they were abducted by extraterrestrial beings. The incident was also later called the ‘Zeta Reticuli incident’ because the couple claimed that the aliens were from the Zeta Reticuli system.
The couple was driving back home from a vacation in Montreal and Niagara Falls. Betty thought she saw a falling star that was moving below the moon. However, the falling star was growing brighter and bigger and was moving in an erratic motion. She urged her spouse to stop the car so that they could observe it better. Betty grabbed a pair of binoculars and saw a craft that looked bizarre and had flashing lights that were multi-colored. She immediately thought that it had to be a flying saucer as her sister had confided to her of a UFO sighting a few years back. Barney, however, held that it was just a regular airplane. In a matter of moments, the supposed airplane sharply began to drop in his direction, which led him to believe that he had judged it wrongly. They got back into their vehicle and drove on to perhaps get a better view.
After about a mile of driving, the object descended toward their car, which caused Barney to suddenly halt. It was large and quiet and occupied their entire field of view. He took hold of his binoculars and his loaded pistol, got out of the car, and steadily but slowly moved towards it. Through the binoculars, he could observe at least eight to eleven humanoid creatures. The object then began moving closer toward him and he got a better view of the creatures and claimed that they did not appear human. In hysteria, he sprinted back towards his vehicle and yelled to his wife that he thought that these humanoid creatures were out to capture them.
Barney drove as fast as he could, asking his wife to keep check of the other object. After a negligible period of time, they could hear a sequence of beeps and buzzes in sequence. This left them in a state of daze and altered their consciousness and state of mind. They heard the second set of beeps and buzzes which brought them back to their senses. They established that they had driven for 35 miles down the road, but had no recollection of it at all other than 3 very short instances in the whole journey.
The couple arrived back home at dawn. They tried to reconstruct the chronology of it all, but could not recollect most of it. Likewise, they did not remember some things like how their clothes got torn. Their watches also never worked again, and there were shiny circle patches on the bonnet of their car. These circles would alter the direction of a compass if it was brought close to them.
Betty’s dress also had a pink powder all over it. She initially thought to throw it away fearing contamination and did, but she later recovered it in the hope of possibly finding answers from it.
The couple eventually got into contact with the Air Force and informed them of their encounter. However, they held back on some of the details with the fear that they would be judged as lunatics. Their case was eventually forwarded to Project Blue Book which was responsible for getting to the bottom of it. But by now, what lesson have we learned from our good friends down at Project Blue Book?
Betty nonetheless, decided that she wanted to investigate the matter on her own and borrowed a book on UFOs from the local library. She ended up writing to the author of the book, retired Marine Corp, Major Donald Keyhoe. Her letter eventually landed in the possession of an astronomer, Walter Webb since Betty had mentioned that the couple was considering hypnosis to try and reconstruct the whole event. Webb eventually met up with the couple and after about six hours of listening to their narrations and questions and answers, he believed that the Hills were telling the truth due to the consistency of their narrations. There were only a few uncertainties, but he ignored them and claimed that those were as a result of the human judgment.
The couple eventually underwent hypnosis sessions. Barney would go first and then Betty, and they did this over a long time to try and establish what really happened. However, there were discrepancies in their recollections, for instance, Barney did not fully agree that they were abducted by the aliens and thought it was more of a coming together. The doctor, Benjamin Simon, noted that Barney’s recollection might have been mixed up with the dreams that Betty had relayed to him and that Betty’s account was the more accurate one. They all agreed though that the hypnosis session helped shed light on the issue. The hypnosis also relieved the Hill couple from the anxiety they had faced during the period after the ordeal.
The Hills were open to speaking about their interactions with humanoid beings. They shared information freely and were not shy to speak on it. Through their collaboration together with Benjamin Simon, author John G Fuller published a famous and successful book that narrates the encounter with the extraterrestrials that the couple heard.
A story like this, of course, would have some strong refutations one would believe, and the rift was right down the middle. A good number of people did believe the couple, but similarly, a good number also did not.
There was the obvious fact that the Air Force report did not in any way correlate with that of the Hill couple. In fact, the Air Force suggests that the only possible thing they could have seen was a weather balloon. It is also worth noting that Betty was a lifelong UFO fanatic, which then brings the credibility of the entire sighting into question. It is reported that Betty would occasionally spend hours, three to four times a week, staying awake in the hope of getting a glimpse of a UFO. Her fanaticism got to the point that she could not distinguish between a streetlight and a UFO, not to mention that she would also likewise claim that other objects were UFOs. There also is the bit that the hypnosis sessions took two years, which was more than enough for Betty and Barney to construct and master their story then narrate it perfectly during the sessions, even adding a few discrepancies to it simply to bring in that human judgment aspect into it.
However, the two main bits that totally disapprove the Hills’ story is one, the blatant lack of evidence. Most other UFO sightings have had quite a number of people who can back up the account, for instance, the Washington Invasion, the Level land case, and Shag Harbor. The Hills’ account was only between the couple and a third party, their dog. One would think that for such a vivid encounter, someone else would have noticed, even just one person. Second, researchers found out that the accounts given by the Hills had absurdly resounding similarities from fictional films, such as Invaders from Mars and The Outer Limits. At some point, it even felt like a mere reconstruction.
In conclusion, there is to date a lot of uncertainty on Unidentified Flying Objects let alone the existence of extraterrestrial life. This certainly means that, believer or not, we cannot and should not discredit any alleged sightings, encounters, or even abductions until they can be proven beyond reasonable doubt to being false, illegitimate and/or invalid. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that the Hills got this one horribly wrong. This was a simple case of fanaticism and delusion
Barney passed away aged 46 as a result of a brain hemorrhage on February the 25th , nine years later in 1969. Betty remained unmarried until her passing due to cancer on 17th October 2004.
