Betty and Barney Hill Abduction

Barney and Betty Hill lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barney was an Army veteran and a postal worker, active in the Portsmouth NAACP. Betty was a social worker and civil-rights activist. He was Black and she was white, which was rare for a couple in 1961. That September they were driving home from Niagara Falls and Montreal, south on US Route 3, with their dachshund, Delsey.

About 10:30 p.m. Just south of Lancaster. Betty saw a bright point of light near the Moon. At a picnic area south of Twin Mountain she raised the binoculars. An "odd-shaped" craft, flashing multicolored lights, was travelling across the face of the Moon. Barney thought it was an airliner. Then it descended in his direction. Through Franconia Notch they drove very slowly, watching it pass above Cannon Mountain.

About one mile south of Indian Head, it came down toward them. Barney stopped in the middle of the highway. The huge, silent craft hovered 80 to 100 feet above their 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. Barney got out with the binoculars. Behind a row of windows, eight to eleven humanoid figures were peering out. Red lights on bat-wing fins telescoped from its sides. Barney ran for the car. As they sped away, they heard a strange beeping. Then a daze.

They reached home at dawn. Their watches would never work again. Betty's dress was torn. Shiny, concentric circles marked the trunk of the car. The drive should have taken about four hours. It took about seven. Of the 35 miles between Indian Head and Ashland, they remembered nothing.

Ten days later, Betty began to dream. Two small men. Greyish skin, bluish lips. Later, in hypnosis sessions with Boston psychiatrist Dr Benjamin Simon, both Hills described being taken aboard. Samples of hair, nails and skin. A needle in Betty's navel, which the beings called a pregnancy test. A star map. On February 22, 1964, Barney drew a being with wraparound eyes. "Oh, those eyes. They're there in my brain."

Betty reported the sighting, and Maj. Paul W. Henderson of Pease Air Force Base filed a report for Project Blue Book. Secondary sources say he first blamed Jupiter. The case was later listed as insufficient data. Pease radar had logged a target that morning, which Blue Book put down to a strong inversion. In October, NICAP's Walter N. Webb, an astronomer, questioned the Hills for six hours. He concluded they were "telling the truth."

The Hills asked that their story not be printed. On October 25, 1965, the Boston Traveler ran it on the front page anyway: "UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?" In 1966, John G. Fuller's The Interrupted Journey took it national.

Dr Simon called the case "a singular psychological aberration". In his view it was a fantasy built from Betty's dreams. Navy navigator James D. Macdonald argued the light was the Cannon Mountain beacon. Robert Sheaffer blamed "stress, sleep deprivation, and false memories." Martin Kottmeyer noted that The Outer Limits aired a big-eyed alien twelve days before Barney's drawing session. Marjorie Fish matched Betty's star map to Zeta Reticuli. Carl Sagan and Steven Soter called it "a random alignment of chance points." After newer star data came in, Fish withdrew the match.

In 1975 NBC aired The UFO Incident, with James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. In 2011 a state historical marker went up on Route 3 in Lincoln. The University of New Hampshire keeps Betty's dress, the star map and the hypnosis tapes. The lonely road, the lost hours, the examination. Few encounters have been retold so often.