The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. She just burnt.

I know we were recording. Old burp. That would be horrifying for people to hear first as soon as they turn on their thing. I would love it if I turned on my radio when I heard of her.

My radio. My radio. We are all kinds of fucking goofy today. We're feeling wily today.

My case has to do with a UFO. Oh, so fantastic. I was like, we're feeling goofy. What's your case?

Yeah, that's the right energy to take into this, I think. I'm going to talk about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction story. Betty and Barney Hill, I would like to start this off by saying they are such a precious couple, and I love them both. I love them both so much.

And you will also love them by the end of this. They just seem delightful. I really love them right now. And, you know, you take what you will from this, but I think UFOs are real.

In fact, I wanted to shout out a new show that was actually not new, but it's new to me, that I've been watching on Showtime. I was telling you about it the other day. Oh, yeah. It's J.J.

Abrams' UFO show, and it is so good. It's either three or four parts. I watched the first two, and it is, like, chilling. It's an interesting subject, everyone.

But I know sometimes it gets the old look over. It's like, UFOs, I'm not really interested. It's like, I don't know, maybe you should be. You sure about that?

You sure about that? That's kind of, like, what the show goes over. Yeah. It's been like, oh, it looks so tiny.

When you really look into it, but. I mean, you look into it. We'll cover some more of these because they're very fascinating. I love them.

When you get, like, a mass sighting. Like, there's, like, 200 people. See one? Or, like, the one in the Berkshires in Massachusetts where, like, over 200 people saw it.

Something's awry there. Like, you know, we can't discount it. I love it. So let's get into this because it's quite a deal.

Get into it, yeah. So we're going to start with talking about who Betty and Barney Hill are. So you can get an idea of them, how they came together. All that fun.

How they're the cutest couple in the nation. They're real cute. So Eunice Elizabeth Betty Barrett was born June 28, 1919 in Newton, New Hampshire. A cancer.

Yeah, and grew up on a farm in Kingston, New Hampshire, which is a small town near the Massachusetts border. Massachusetts, what? You know, farming was definitely a difficult and somewhat unprofitable life at the time. But the Barretts were a super close-knit, very cute, very supportive family.

Seemed like everything was, you know, pretty top-notch on there. But, you know, she was a very curious, very creative, very highly intelligent child. And she spent a lot of her early life just dreaming about escaping the farm life and going on to other opportunities. According to her college friend, Marianne Franklin, who we'll mention later, too, Betty's first attempt at becoming independent and breaking out on her own was when she tried to join a traveling circus at an acrobat in training.

That's incredible. But her parents wouldn't let her go. Lame. They wouldn't let her join the circus.

I know. So after graduating from high school in 1937, she enrolled at the University of New Hampshire, UNH. I've been there many times. She met and befriended her college friend that we just mentioned, Marianne Franklin, there.

Marianne Franklin was the only black student on that campus at the time. Can you imagine being in that position? No, I cannot on any level in any galaxy. And what time period was this?

This was in 1937. Oh, God. So it was through Marianne Franklin that Betty learned, and this is like really the first she learned about the extent of the inequality and marginalization experienced by black Americans around the country, but particularly in the South. And this is when Betty began really taking part in advocating for liberal causes.

Hell yeah. Later, Franklin said she was very active. She may have had a problem as a result of that because so many people at the time were not accepting of racial equality. So she stepped out because she met Marianne Franklin, became her friend, and was like, fuck this.

I'm going to stand up for you. Hell yeah. I love that. Betty forever.

Betty forever. Now, in the summer following her sophomore year, she contracted a difficult and very long-lasting abdominal infection, and it actually stopped her from going back to UNH for her junior year. She was really sick. So instead, while she was kind of healing up and while she was feeling better but not able to return to school, she took a job waiting tables at Rudy's Farm Kitchen in Hampton, New Hampshire.

Rudy's? Hampton is like a seaside town not far away from where she grew up. I know Hampton. And working there is when she met Bob Stewart, who was a cook at Rudy's.

She was immediately drawn to Bob. This is not Bernie, by the way. I was like, I don't care about Bob. She was immediately drawn to Bob.

She said he had a very warm personality. He was very charming. He's just not Mary. Now, what she said about Bob was, Bob Stewart seemed like the best thing on the horizon, so I grabbed him.

Oh, that's cute. So they dated for a little bit and got married in June 1941. And according to Betty, Bob had an ex-wife at the time, and it was then that his ex-wife heard about him getting remarried. I was not pleased about it.

So Betty said she picked up the three kids and dumped them at Bob's mother's house. Oh. And at this time, Bob's mother was not able to care for three young children that were her grandchildren. That's a lot.

So Bob and Betty took sole custody of the children, and three years after this, Betty officially adopted them. Oh, wow. Yeah, and became a full-time mother, full-time homemaker. And Bob ended up getting a much better paying job at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, because the shipyard at the time was super, super active, because World War II was coming to a close.

So there's lots of stuff going on. So there's literally everything going on in the story already. Yeah, and at this point, you were like, okay, this seems positive. You know, like, they took the kids.

Betty stepped up and was like, you know, you're mine now. I'm going to take care of you. But then, you know, once he gets the job at the shipyard, all of a sudden, she found out that Bob had been cheating on her with multiple women. Oh, fuck, Bob.

See, I knew he was no Barry. Yeah, and she said, at first, I thought he was a pretty good guy, and it took me years to find out different. And so she bought her own house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and found a job at a local department store. She was like, I'm going to start over.

So not long after she moved into the house, she suddenly was approached by a representative from the Gulf Oil Company, and they wanted to buy the house on behalf of the company. What? She's like, I literally just bought this. Well, then she was like, I just bought it.

This is like my first independent foray into the world. I'm feeling a little, like, territorial about this. Yeah. And she was like, you know what?

I'm going to be a boss bitch, and I'm going to negotiate with the shit out of this. And she ended up getting more than twice what the company had initially offered, and happily sold them the house. Betty is a boss-ass bitch. So not long after, though, she was like, well, it was nice.

She was like, I'm a little worried I'm going to miss that house, because it was like my first independent thing. You know, like, she was like, wait, I kind of feel like I kind of gave that up a little too quick. So she went back to the Gulf representative, just out of curiosity. She was like, I'm just going to shoot my shot.

And she said, what do you plan to do with that? You know, I never really asked you. What do you plan to do with that? And they said, oh, we're just going to tear it down.

Why? And she was like, okay, how would I offer you $1, and I take the house and have it relocated to another lot, and you can keep the lot? Are you serious? And they agreed.

So she made twice the money they offered her on that house, and then got to keep it. She bought the house back for $1, got to keep the entire thing, and just gave them the property. What a story. Yeah, already.

And she moved the house to a nearby lot, and she lived there for the rest of her life. Incredible. I love that. I'm so glad that she didn't have to give it up.

I know, because it worked out. Your first house is so special. Yeah, like, you get on your own, you know? After what you went through, it's like, hell yeah, Betty.

So in the summer of 1956, that house is being relocated from one lot to another, and during that time, Betty had to stay at a boarding house that was owned by a couple who recently moved to New Hampshire from Philadelphia. Now, while at this boarding house, she met Barney Hill. Let's go! Now, at the time, Barney was in the area on vacation with his wife, Ruby, and their young children, and stayed at the, like, just for a time at the boarding house while they were passing through.

Initially, the Hills and Betty, they all got along very well. She liked all of them. They were all friends. They kept in touch.

They decided that, you know, everything was cool. Okay. And later, Barney and his wife ended up separating in 1957, and they were not together, like, this was all long distance. It's not like they were, like, meeting up or anything like that.

Like, they were genuinely friends. It just happened. And they ended up separating. Right.

Immediately, he was, like, he ended up talking to Betty and was, like, she's such a good friend. And soon their friendship developed into romance. And, you know, there was no funny business beforehand. It doesn't sound like it's just friendship that developed into something else.

That's beautiful. Now, let's talk about Barney. Let's. So, Barney Hill.

I was talking about Barry earlier. I'm sorry. That's okay. I was going to say he's no Barry.

I mean, that guy was no Barry either. That's the thing. So, you were right. He's not that.

So, Barney Hill was born July 29th, 1922. What does that make him? July 29th? Hold on.

Hold on. My brain is farting. Fucking. Okay, my sister's birthday is July 25th, and she is a Leo.

I think that's Leo. Okay. I'll take it. So, a Leo and a Cancer.

I don't know how those two things line up. Yeah, that's fine. He was born in Newport, News, Virginia, but little is known about his early life. He ended up dropping out of high school, and he worked a bit as a store clerk, and then he ended up joining the Army.

He served there for three years as a truck driver in World War II. He ended up being honorably discharged in 1943 after a grenade incident. Oh, wow. And it was during his time in the military that he met and married his first wife, Ruby, and they had two sons in the decade that followed.

Now, after his discharge, he found work as a mail carrier with the post office in Philadelphia. And this is when he became very active in what was, at the time, the very burgeoning civil rights movement and other community causes. He served as a committee man for his son's Boy Scout troop. Oh, yeah.

Now, at first, Betty and Barney's relationship, like I said, was long distance. They ended up really just talking through letters and phone calls. How romantic. I know, but then it changed in the summer of 1957 because she re-enrolled at UNH and took an internship position with the Leighton Farm School, which was a home for delinquent girls in Philadelphia.

Oh, wow. Now, the internship in Philadelphia made it possible for Betty and Barney to be together in person. Love it. They were romance, romance, romance.

And when the internship ended a few months later, they were now facing being long distance again. No. So Barney made the decision to relocate with Betty. I love that.

So for Barney, he had spent most of his life in and around Philadelphia. So this was a big decision, a big move. He was uprooting his whole life. Yeah, and a children, too.

Yeah, he did. So he was like, I'm going to have to really make this work. And he was also going to be relocating to New Hampshire, which was a place where he would be one of very few black people in the entire state. Yeah.

Even today, the population is only 10% people of color, most of whom live in the larger city, not like the smaller areas. Right. So this was like, at the time, especially a big source of stress. Yeah, nerve wracking.

I cannot claim to know what this feels like. No way. So for Barney, the shift was very stressful, but he did acclimate very quickly to life in Portsmouth. So he ended up making a lot of friends very easily with the tenants in Betty's building and some of the people in her social circle.

So he really just fell right into it. He had a good community. Yeah. And as a U.S.

postal worker, he was able to transfer from his job in Philadelphia to one in Boston pretty easily. Nice. So that wasn't an issue. But the transfer meant that he would be working one of the shittiest shifts because he was transferred in, which happened to be opposite Betty's schedule.

So they hardly saw each other at first. Oh, that sucks. Like they're just getting out of this long distance thing. Now, when Betty and Barney married in May 1960, their work schedules were so intense that they couldn't even take a honeymoon at first.

They had to go right back to work after getting married. It would end up being 16 months before Barney was able to take time off from his postal route to actually go on to leave the honeymoon. Oh my God, that sucks. So on September 15th, 1961, he finally got approval to take a few days off from his job.

And he decided he was going to surprise Betty with a trip to Niagara Falls in Montreal. Oh my gosh, awesome. And he got the news on a Friday evening. So he planned to wait until Monday.

He was like, he told her what was going to happen. He was like, we're going to go Monday because that's when the banks open and we can begin our trip. Right. But Betty was like, I don't even care what we do.

I just want to be together and like go. So she was like, I don't even care about the banks. I don't care about getting more money. Like, so they just pulled the cash they had on hand, which was $70 in total.

Oh my God. And Betty was like, that's enough. It's fine with me. And she was like, if we stick to a tight budget, we bring food with us.

We just don't need a ton of restaurants. We'll be good. We just want to like spend time together. Yeah, let's just go.

So I love them. Now, early Sunday morning, September 17th, they packed up some food, their stuff, and they brought their Dax and Delcy in the backseat and they began making their way to Canada. I love this. Now, they very strictly adhere to their budget on the first few days.

So Betty and Barney decided, you know what? We're going to make our way to downtown Montreal on Tuesday morning, September 19th. We'll book a motel for the night. We'll take in a show in the city.

It'll be great. It's in Manhattan. I know. But they got directions from somebody.

And unfortunately, that person only spoke French. So they misunderstood. And it caused them to get lost on their way from Niagara to Montreal. So they were driving east and they realized they'd gotten very lost from the downtown area.

Where the hell are we? They'd kind of wasted a lot of their day. So they decided, you know what? Let's just find a hotel for the night.

We'll try again tomorrow. But then they realized, oh, wait, it's difficult to find a hotel that's going to let a dog in. Oh, true. So to make matters worse, there was also a tropical storm making its way up the east coast from the southern states.

It was going to make driving conditions difficult. It kind of felt like it was like all converging at once. Yeah. So they're like, you know what?

Why don't we just start the five hour drive back to New Hampshire? Oh, you know what? We're still together. We're still making a bit together.

So even though they'd heard that storm warning, they said that the skies were very clear and that they were by all weather accounts by the time that Betty and Barney passed over the border into the mountains of northern New Hampshire. So they were driving south along I-93 in Ashland when Betty saw what she thought was a shooting large and they both said was cigar shaped seeming at the time. It began to move forward slowly and then it began going upwards, like ascending again. And this is when Betty was like, Barney, pull over on the side of the road.

We need to get a better look at this. Like, what the fuck is that? So outside of the car, they looked up at this wild thing above them. Yeah.

They were super confused, not really understanding what the hell was up there. And they were also wondering, how is this thing just hovering motionless in the air like that? Yeah, like gravity doesn't necessarily work like that. And they couldn't hear anything, like propellers like a helicopter.

That's creepy. So Betty gave Barney the binoculars they brought with them on the trip. And Betty later recalled, and as he looked up, he could see a row of men standing in the windows looking down at them. I'm looking at the pictures right now that they drew.

And I'm like, uh, what? Uh, what? So one by one, apparently the figures watching through the window walked away and then the ship began descending in their direction. So they had no idea what to do.

So they both jumped back in the car and headed south on route three. And the object is following them now. And they said it was moving in a very erratic pattern above them. Yeah.

And so Barney really didn't want to freak Betty out. So he was trying to act like everything's fine. And he said he was trying to be as calm as possible and just drive home. Yeah.

And his only reason was he didn't want to upset Betty. So at one point, Barney entertained the idea of stopping at a cabin or a motor lodge, maybe just to be near other people because he was like, we were just freaked out. Yeah. But he was like, honestly, I think we should just keep going.

So they drove for about a half hour and then they rounded a curve near Indian Head, which is a natural rock formation and actually a landmark in Franconia, Franconia Notch. And they came to this like large open area. And as soon as they came into this area, they saw the flying object hovering about 100 feet up in the area right in front of their car. And so Barney was startled by this.

And he said he slammed his foot on the brake because he wasn't ready for it. And it was in the middle of the road that they came to a stop. And he said he grabbed Betty's revolver and binoculars and got out of the car and moved closer to see what the fuck this thing was. And he said he approached and the thing tilted forward slightly and two red lights began to glow as fins on the side of the object began to part and the object started moving slowly forward.

So he was fucking terrified. And he rushed back into the car and told Betty, we got to get the fuck out of here. Yelly, goodbye. Now they raced down the highway.

The object is literally above them, still pursuing them, essentially. Right. And after a few minutes, Betty and Barney could hear a buzzing sound. And then they felt a strong.

strong vibration and a few minutes later they heard the buzzing again louder now followed by much stronger vibration and this is when they said there was haziness like this part is kind of missed time because they later said that they would uh they were called encountering some kind of road block and seeing a large red orb on the ground but they couldn't like the details were really fuzzy they're like i can't i don't i can't put these pieces right so the next thing they really remember was feeling this desperate need to be around other people they just didn't want to be alone and so barney drove for a while searching for a restaurant that would be open something that other people would be around but they couldn't find anything open at that time so they're like let's just get home so based on when they left montreal and how long they've been driving they expected to reach portsmouth around 3 a.m but when they did reach home they were surprised because the sun was coming up what and benny wrote in her diary we entered our home turned on the lights and went over to the window and looked skyward we felt very calm peaceful relaxed we sat at the kitchen table looked at each other shook our heads in puzzlement and asked each other do you believe what happened we agreed it was unbelievable but it had really happened so they're exhausted yeah confused they don't have a chunk of time and benny and barney decided you know let's get some sleep let's have a little nap like sleep it off see how we feel in the morning when we wake up in a few hours sure and when they woke up a few hours later barney said you know what this is still bothering both of us so he said why don't you go into another room i'll sit here and we're gonna draw what we saw okay so they did that and they drew what they saw and when they reconvened a few minutes later they saw that it was remarkably similar right around so they they took that as okay we both saw this like this wasn't a hallucination we saw it now as far as barney was concerned though even through this he was like this story even though i believe we saw it is beyond belief and he's like for our jobs and for our reputation in the community we should just keep this to ourselves i get that i just have this experience with each other especially that time period you don't want to like go stir with no and of course betty who was never one to give him any public pressure very much disagreed with this but she was like this was incredible like we can just keep this to ourselves but she was like you know what i respect and understand your concern and so she was like you know i'm not gonna run wild but can i tell my sister he was like of course you can the other thing is technically he's like a government employee so he's probably like i'm not a bunch of talk about their shit and he was they were both very active in the um civil rights community yeah in activism and they didn't want this to overshadow or take away from any of the work they were doing so they were worried about that which is really sad it is really sad so she called her sister janet and who she called the only person who she could tell her story to without prejudice janet listened and she was like wow this is wild but i believe you and then she was like okay i'll call you back so after hearing her sister's story janet miller phoned her neighbor who's a physicist and asked for advice about like anything he could tell him you know a physicist that seems like a right person to talk to he's like you're really smart yeah and coincidentally the neighbor had guests over that night and one of them was the former chief of police from the nearby town of newton okay he said no this isn't crazy like don't worry and he said all ufo sightings should be reported to the peace air force base like that's what we do so like tell her to report it okay so janet thanked him hung up told betty you know this is what you need to do and also gave her a basic experiment that the physicist had suggested that she try okay now according to the physicist betty was to take a compass out to the car and walk slowly around the vehicle and just make note of any unusual changes in the compass as she walked now barney was like i'm not doing that he's like i'm done with this like i want this behind us i don't even want to do this so he refused to go outside so betty did it by herself uh she said nothing unusual happened as she walked around the car and then she said and then she reached the trunk and she said she noticed a bunch of unusual shiny spots on the surface and she said about a size of a half dollar or silver dollar pretty big and she said she'd never seen them before so she placed the compass on the spots and it would spin wildly and she said as i was watching this i was filled with an unexplained feeling of absolute terror i was standing there in the rain under the streetlight and telling myself don't scream keep calm and don't be afraid everything is all right i hope he's here too so a few days later betty did as her sister suggested as well and called the peace air force base to report the whole experience so they gave a basic description of what they'd seen you know but they but he insisted they leave out the part about seeing the humanoid figures looking at them out the window because he was like i don't want to tell you he was very ashamed of this and it was very sad so a few hours later they got a call back okay from major paul henderson who had several follow-up questions and later betty and barney would learn that henderson had taken detailed notes and submitted their description to project blue book which is a study of unidentified flying objects conducted by the u.s air force between 1952 and 1969 so major henderson's report to project blue book is basically what we described it's almost exactly that just it includes but it also included a comment that provides um a little more insight into after their trip in the report he notes during a later conversation with mr hill he volunteered the observation that he did not originally intend to report the incident he says that on looking back he feels that the whole thing is incredible and he feels somewhat foolish he just cannot believe that such a thing could or did happen so in 1961 barney hill was the local chairman of the naacp and a strong proud civil rights activist who was working tirelessly to advance the cause of equality in the community and in a community that wasn't very receptive yeah to begin with so he was he was working fucking hard over time and so he was also the founding board member of the rockingham community action program which is an organization that provides social and financial support to those in need wow and one that is still a vital part of the social service network on the seacoast today and he's also a black man from the south who was married to a white woman in a state where many residents were not going to accept or you know we're actively speaking out against interracial marriage right so because of all that to barney the ufo incident was it was distracting from all his work he was doing and he said it was embarrassing and he was worried that any tabloid kind of publicity that came along with it would tarnish the battle that both of them were fighting for equality and dignity so as far as he was concerned they'd done their duty they reported the sighting to the proper authorities and now we're moving on right now betty on the other hand was she wasn't like forcefully doing anything she just was having trouble letting the experience go which i can understand outside of it too how could you not have trouble exactly so just days after reporting the incident she went to the library and started checking out books about aliens and ufos and she just wanted to hear other similar experiences just i think she was also just trying to convince herself i didn't like have a so her motivation was definitely just like you know betty was a stubborn gal yeah she's strong well but also strange things have been happening since this whole situation that she didn't know what to do about even aside from those like half dollar things yeah so about 10 days after coming home uh betty started having nightmares about the experience and she would also have these really scary early morning flashbacks um and these flashbacks were really scary experiences from that evening but ones she didn't initially remember okay they were like she wasn't certain if they were real if they were a dream what was happening but they were very vivid flashbacks yeah and she said at first i didn't tell anyone about them they were so weird oh so from her reading all the library books betty eventually came across a report written by donald keogh which was um he was a former major with the u.s marines and was the director of the national investigations committee on aerial phenomena which is nikep uh this is a civilian group dedicated to investigating reports of ufos okay in october 1961 betty wrote a letter to nikep told them about the experience and was just like i just want to let you guys know about this if you can just take a look into things see if it's similar to something else yeah so she got a response a few weeks later and um they let her know that they would be con that she was going to be contacted by boston-based nikep member walter webb they were very interested now a few weeks later webb did come in contact with the hills and recorded their story for nikep in a report titled a dramatic ufo encounter in the white mountains of new hampshire now the description of the experience in webb's report is again the same one that was given to project blue book but this time barney allowed them to include the part about seeing the humanoid creatures in the window but they it was like it was really the the missing time that was the thing that was really bothering the hills it was like this is all weird yeah so like we're more concerned what the fuck happened in this time period that neither one of us can remember right and it was webb's report that brought betty and barney's story to the attention of robert homan who was a former interrogator for the u.s army who was now working for ibm in the 1960s homan was really interested as well in that missing time element of their story and as a former interrogator he knew there were plenty of ways of recovering memories or forgotten details that could be useful right you had to do it but contrary to apparently popular belief about this it wasn't homan who eventually suggested hypnosis as a way of figuring this out it was actually his friend and fellow nikep member jim mcdonalds okay jim mcdonalds was a former member of the u.s military and the cia shit uh he met the hills through homan and in the later half of 1961 he became very interested and very involved in filling in those gaps of missing time for them he would go back to the scene of the encounter like they really went for this so these efforts eventually led them to a hypnosis session and this is when the details were uncovered so throughout 1962 and 63 betty and to a much lesser extent barney dove way deeper into the investigation into their experience um they were very encouraged by the members of nikep and former military members who had taken intense interest in this so they were still you know barney was still very conscious about how this could make them look if the story really got out so he was a little reluctant to spend time diving into the investigation but he tried to help whenever he could yeah um and unfortunately about a year after the initial experience barney's health took a turn oh no and he started experiencing debilitating headaches and nausea and what's worse is his primary care doctors couldn't figure out why radiation so believing the cause of barney's symptoms was probably largely psychological his doctor referred him to dr benjamin simon who was a very well-known renowned and celebrated neuropsychiatrist and had a practice in boston boston's back bay neighborhood okay so according to betty's niece and niece catherine martin dr simon quote was skeptical about the existence of ufos as extraterrestrial aircraft but he agreed to work with barney because he was worried and he truly believed that this problem was psychological in nature oh no so when barney and betty actually went to boston for his initial consult with dr simon uh in december 1963 they both told the story together and it was so elaborate and they were so insistent on it that dr simon was like i'm gonna insist that you also receive treatment with me to betty okay and she was like you know what i want to help barney get better so i'll do it so sure like i'll absolutely go through this okay so he was one of the country's leading neuropsychiatrist at the time so he made a name for himself with a lot of things but um one of the things he made a name for himself with was incorporating hypnosis into his treatment plans that's cool um but he was quick to let the hills know you may have seen stage hypnosis or like on late night shows or on you know these little things but this is very different and he said he had actually pioneered the use of hypnosis to treat ptsd and soldiers returning from world war ii oh shit so to simon he said barney's symptoms bear to striking resemblance to the trauma-related symptoms of soldiers which led him to believe that this could be beneficial for both of them now beginning in late february 1964 they began a three-week period of very intense hypnosis sessions uh to try to uncover these memories so for the first session dr simon was very pleased he said because it seemed like betty and barney were excellent subjects for this he said they had a great ability to fall into a deep trance-like state pretty quickly and easily and he put them in different soundproof rooms so that they couldn't influence each other of course and in the earliest sessions both betty and barney described the drive from niagara or to niagara of looking for a motel of barney's apprehension because he was very uncertain of the civil rights situation in canada so he was a little nervous okay and in the second session simon moved forward in time and started asking about their experiences while in niagara falls and it was during the second session that betty and barney's descriptions of events kind of differed a little bit um with betty stated they got lost after asking for directions and barney stated that he misread the map okay insignificant difference in the grand scheme yeah i don't think that's like a big thing so through the first few sessions with dr simon it was clear that betty and barney's accounts of the trip differed in a lot of very insignificant ways um this is kind of hinting at the unreliability of hypnosis because emotions factor into our perception and memories of course yeah everybody perceives things differently and this is what's interesting because they definitely had different priorities and different different um focuses on this trip right i think it it really colored their experience because in the transcripts of barney's hypnosis sessions it's clear that the trip to canada or anywhere at that time was really stressful for him and dominated by anxiety and concerns over how them as an interracial couple would be received in unfamiliar parts of the usa and canada i hate that he had to even go through that while he was on his honeymoon yeah like that was his main concern for that anybody has to go through that and in betty's accounts hers are focused on the logistics of travel and anxieties about reaching their destination right so this is i don't believe they're in you know their inconsistencies and discrepancies are like deceit i mean they're very insignificant not like the deceit wouldn't make sense and it's not the details of like the the incident or whatever i think it's just that there's obvious differences in their priorities and fears and worries and it makes sense and it comes out during hypnosis right which is interesting yeah now by late march dr simon had done a ton of sessions to establish a baseline okay and he was finally ready to go into the experience so betty and barney um at first both described the scenario the exact same way that they did to the authorities at peace air force base and high cap and still under hypnosis and like interesting and barney said while the craft was falling down the highway following them down the highway he said i began to feel very alarmed and hope for some traffic so again i wanted other people to be around great now when he came to the part of the story where they had rounded indian head uh barney became visibly distressed and he actually asked to be woken up oh and dr simon showed him you're safe you're in my office nothing's going to happen to you like please continue right and so barney said in a very anxious tone it's right over my head god what is it and i try to maintain control so betty cannot tell i'm scared god i'm scared and then heartbreaking now clearly upset at this point he became screaming uncontrollably oh my god and then became hysterical and needed several minutes to compose himself before they went on well he should have to get woken up well i think i think they composed him while asleep but then he continued and he said this this is the transcript this is ridiculous oh it's huge oh my god i can see it it's there and there are lights oh geez i don't believe this i don't believe this i don't believe this it's huge and there are people there and they're looking back at me oh my god help me if there is a god help me coming closer i'm coming closer there's a man up there and he's not gonna let me go away oh oh it's big 80 feet look at it oh look at it two red lights they're on the side of it it's like it's like a pancake it looks i'm not gonna say it i don't believe flying saucers are i'm not gonna say it i don't ever want to say that word again oh like so even under hypnosis i know i'm like oh my goodness and he struggled to continue but eventually composed himself enough to describe the feeling of panic he felt when he said the humanoid creatures when he saw those human creatures um he said he saw one man who he believed to be the leader he was round-faced and reminded him of a red-headed irishman he said was he was a not too big man dressed in a military style cap and black shiny jacket with a scarf dangling over his left shoulder barney also said he noticed the man had almond-shaped eyes which he'd never seen before and that he conveyed the eyes conveyed a terrifying menace the likes of which he had experienced but he said only with some of the worst people he had ever encountered and later he remarked the man in black in the black shiny jacket reminded me of a nazi oh wow now in the session that followed he dr simon pressed barney on what happened next and he said that they tried to get away but encountered a roadblock that he previously described as a fiery red ball so the transcript says i made a turn and i never knew this i don't know why had to make that turn and i was lost i saw i was on a strange area of the highway that i'd never been before and i was being stopped i was very uncomfortable but somehow the eyes of the men in the craft were telling me that i should be calm and i would not be harmed and to relax and i saw those men coming towards me in her sessions betty's recollection was very similar okay and to the dreams that she was having after they got home so in her session she described watching as the men emerged from the craft took hold of barney and led almost carrying him into the craft and then came back to get her and she said they had him under some kind of control and he couldn't get away and she said when they returned for her she remembered walking voluntarily to the ship with the men she's like my man is in there yeah she's like i'll go get him right so she said i was more or less walking under my own power and then she said as we neared the door um that she began fighting the men until they got a hold of her and marched her inside okay she said they bruised me a little bit i had torn my dress in the struggle it had built-in lining and i was struggling so badly that the stitching on the inside of the dress had been torn out so in places it was hanging down oh wow now inside the ship betty described being taken to an examination room with barney which he described as being like a hospital operating room and in betty's recollection she said her clothing were removed and they began examining her body she said and this is gonna get like kind of graphic just let everybody know okay i could feel them turning me over and putting something in my rectum she said i felt it go in very easily and then it was withdrawn as they examined her body and collected specimens she said nothing hurt she said she could hear them humming in a low tone and she said she believed they were communicating to each other that way it sounded like a conversation about hums okay and later barney also described here at seeing the men communicate with hums okay and he said but he saw them open their mouth to make the noise so she hadn't seen them when they were communicating sure so like betty barney also recalled being proked and prodded by the captors and he said i have the most peculiar feeling that something was placed against my genital parts and he said it was more as if my parts were in a solution of something that was there that had such substance to it that had body to it so he claimed that the men took many samples from every orifice of his body wow leaving him with the feeling of having been touched so in the final exam betty says the men performed what she understood to be kind of a pregnancy test by inserting a large needle in her navel and she said i would say the needle was four inches long six inches maybe and she said there was a tube attached to it and they didn't leave it in very long just a second what now once it was removed she was left alone in the room with the man they believe to be the leader okay and she started she said we had a conversation so according to betty the leader gave her a book to read and she said the text went up and down it was different it had short lines and some were very thin and some were medium and some were heavy they had some dots and they had some straight lines and curved lines and she asked the leader where they had come from and the man asked how much she knew about the universe and then got up and directed her attention to a large map on the wall and she said the map looked like what she assumed were stars or like the galaxy of some sort but she said very different from any star map i've ever seen it doesn't look like what you were picturing but she said something about it felt like that's what it was yeah context clues and the leader asked betty um where betty thought she was on the map what and she laughed and said i have no idea and he said if you don't know where you are there wouldn't be any point in telling you where i am what's like chilling that's so i don't even understand like i could point to you where i'm from but if you don't know where you are right now then what's the point so creepy i was like okay okay mr depth yeah for real like that was like philosophical i was like i liked that but according to betty she spoke with him for a little more a little more time about various aspects of human life on earth until finally the conversation ended and betty and barney were allowed to dress and were escorted back to their car by two men and they regained what i guess could be described as consciousness at that point and were just driving along route three towards portsmouth weird so the whole thing took like a couple hours i guess i guess like the time just like jumped yeah so from the moment he began working with the hills dr simon was very clear that he had little if any interest in ufos wow and was entirely motivated by his desire to just help barney hill relieve his stress symptoms yeah um so when he was asked questions later like years later about this whole experience he was very reluctant to engage in anything that could treat ufos as a serious subject he was like like in the introduction to a book about the hills experience called the interrupted journey um he wrote the charisma of hypnosis has tended to foster the belief that hypnosis is a magical and loyal road to the truth in one sense this is so but it must be understood that hypnosis is the pathway to the truth as it is felt and understood by the patient the truth is what he believes to be the truth and this may or not be consistent with the ultimate non-personal truth okay so when the hypnosis session was done betty and barney continued their relationship with dr simon through more traditional therapy as well um over a year actually and they ended up being in correspondence for many years after like they kept in touch they were they kept the relationship nice and i think dr simon's like listen this is what was told the transcripts are true they both had genuine reactions their emotions about it were genuine they were in different rooms when they told these stories and they line up almost perfectly and he said and he's saying they are not deceiving us this could very well be the truth like the absolute non-personal truth of reality yeah or it could be that both of them truly believe that this happened and that this is what they experienced in some way shape or form whether it be whatever you know i mean like this could be just their truth but we will not know like that all we know is that they both came out with these things under hypnosis in separate rooms with very real emotions attached to them and no sign of deceit that's crazy which is like that's really all you can take out of that right that's pretty incredible it is that's i think that's the perfect word for incredible and honestly this probably would have been the end of their experience with like the world of ufos and alien abductions like them going through the hypnosis session um but an unexpected newspaper item in the boston traveler in the fall of 1965 took them out of the ordinary citizens who just went through this and dealt with it on their own kind of thing to like the biggest names in the ufo community yeah so november 1963 the way it happened is really shitty too i feel bad for them they didn't seek this out i hate that so betty and barney were invited by the two-state ufo study group to present their story to the group's members at a private event in quincy massachusetts the group had found out about the hills through nightcap and had reached out to betty um at the time when she was very desperate for answers so she was like i'll participate to this like private event no no you're investigators like you're all just like it's the same kind of thing as nightcap like this is it's private it's private they're just trying to understand this they're not here for publicity um and what sucks is that she didn't know and a lot of other people didn't know that a reporter for the boston traveler john latrell was in the audience that night and recorded the entire presentation isn't illegal it's a real shit move and it gets shittier because you can't record people without their consent i don't know what the situation is there huh but two years later in the fall of 65 latrell was writing an article about another reported ufo incident in exeter new hampshire which is known as the exeter incident and he reached out to the hills for comment on this talking about this other incident and he said he wanted to include their story in the article to kind of beef it up and they still wanted to remain anonymous a little bit they're like we dealt with this on our own we shared our story with the you know with the private group so they could do their investigation to help them but we're not looking to be in newspapers and shit so they declined to speak with him they're like no we would like and they said the only thing we will ask is do not include us in the article at all fair we don't want our incident there we don't want any of it so um so yeah it's so and betty said i do not know that this is what she had said i do not know what effect publicity would have on barney's position and so many of the things he's doing that's what she said to him i don't want publicity because it's gonna ruin what he's done for the community and that's been his number one thing through this whole process ordeal um being a slimy fuck and ignoring the hills request to remain unhonest which was very black and white like literally told him do not include us in that he still published the article in the boston traveler on october 25th 1965 and he frequently referenced the hills experience and quoted heavily from betty's presentation at the conference in quincy how did he get away with that not only that it also very much trivialized and sensationalized their story for like his own game yeah um and it also caused them to seriously question who the fuck they could trust anymore they're like what the fuck we told you not to include us so because aside from that presentation in 1963 to the private group and talking to the government agents they talked about with it betty had only told her sister and maybe like one or two close friends right isn't it private so the fact that he was doing this felt like a betrayal on like a massive friends what an asshole so the article in the boston traveler prompted a ton of calls from reporters all around new england all wanting comments and interviews and betty recalled i took the newspaper and locked myself in the bathroom i was stunned unbelieving i noted it was going to be a serious to run for five days oh no now the next day when she went to work betty to work at the new hampshire division of welfare she was met at the door by a flurry of reporters all trying to get a comment and later when betty and barney arrived home after work the phone was ringing off the hook and they just want to like go on with their lives yeah they did their due diligence they did everything they were asked to do right they didn't seek this and the days after that they were approached by strangers everywhere they went asking questions some people wanted autographs oh that's so weird and it sucks it's so sad and it's like all of this they had no way of knowing that doing that private speech just to people who they were trying to help and not gain any publicity that it was going to have the potential to compromise their jobs and undermine all the civil rights work that barney and betty had done up until this point so seeing no other option at this moment betty and barney were like all right we got to try to get in front of this now it's out right so now we got to take control of it so they said not luttrell's article included their story but also quoted them without their permission so that was a series of misrepresentation right they had no way of controlling that um it misrepresented their experience and it misrepresented them as people so they were like you know what we'll go out and we'll tell the story and we'll be like we have to now so on the evening of november 30th 1965 they held their own event at the garrison inn in dover new hampshire which was only a few miles from their home in portsmouth and they talked to a crowd of more than 600 people who attended oh my god and we're probably so nervous yeah and betty opened up the program by giving a brief overview of the history of ufo sightings i love her she said up until the 19th century there have been over 300 scientific recordings of ufo's and this rate has continued up until the present time and as evidence betty shared stories of sailors and other respectable citizens who reported the sightings including the recent sighting in exeter that had started this whole thing so with the introduction after the introduction betty and barney began the presentation part and they told their entire version of the events barney said i thought it was probably a helicopter but i heard no familiar whirring of the propellers i then became quite apprehensive got back into the car and continued driving southward he finished telling the story and then the audience just went nuts asking questions uh wanting to know whether they appeared threatening hostile like very normal questions sure and they you know the answer they did not feel like at first they were scared but they didn't come off as hostile or threatening and they didn't hurt them um and the audience was like we're like did you suffer any ill effects from this like were you hurt did you you know and barney said no we feel pretty fine and we both felt like we had just been in contact with something and he said alien it's a very very hard feeling to describe so for betty and barney so that worked out well because people were asking genuine questions so for betty and barney who were very anxious telling their story publicly the overwhelmingly positive response from the audience was definitely validation for their experience and this did begin a lifelong um involvement in the pursuit of evidence of ufos extraterrestrials earth it's really hard to say um in the years that followed their experience became you know a popular book the interrupted journey which was adapted into a television film the ufo incident um starring james earl jones and estelle parsons as betty and barney love there were books movies lots of media that followed all that craziness now unfortunately on february 25th 1969 barney hill died unexpectedly from cerebral hemorrhage oh my god he's only 46 years old oh my god they only got that much time together that's awful and what's even worse is despite everything he had done in his life for the civil rights movement his community his obituary in the portsmouth herald's focused almost entirely on the ufo incident that's really shitty the opening paragraph describes his as a portsmouth postman who maintained he and his wife were taken captive aboard a ufo in the white mountains it's like okay he did like a gazillion other wonderful things i was like that's so shitty um now he died only a year after betty's father died oh god and a few months after their beloved dash and belsey died no so she was devastated and it took months before she could even you know function yeah but her lifelong friend marianne franklin from college um said she always suspected that betty never stopped grieving for her soulmate like just ruined me ruin me absolutely no in the years after barney died betty threw herself into the world of ufo stuff um you know speaking at conferences she gave interviews she would she investigated she was like i'm gonna find answers yeah well you probably spend the rest of your life wondering what the fuck happened to me but she also maintained her full-time job as a social worker for the new hampshire department of welfare wow and by the late 1990s at that point she was like you know i'll just fade into the background of the ufo stuff like i'm gonna gracefully bow out and just let someone else take that over yeah and she was kind of done with the attention at that point um and so she said you know what she said i'm no longer really questions i consumed with questions about the universe so i feel like very content peaceful and so she's like i decided to transfer into a new hobby which is family genealogy she said she was just really interested that some of her ancestors met the pilgrims um no on october 17th 2004 betty hill died from lung cancer in the portsmouth home she lived in since the 1950s the one that you bought for a dollar back back for a dollar she's 85 years old hell yeah and although betty and barney hill will definitely be remembered by most for this fantastic tale that occurred in september 1961 it is very important to remember them as also hugely important in their in civil rights movements in their community inequality of course like they committed their entire lives to help them to that like that should be also right up there with this wild incident that happened perhaps about it one might exactly so that is the story of betty and barney hill what a wild story i believe something happened man i believe yeah i believe something happened that shit is so scary it'll be interesting to see what you guys believe and just be nice especially now so much more shit is coming out about yeah aliens if you don't believe it that's fine just don't don't be mean to people who do or people who are interested in it yeah exactly there's plenty of things that people are interested in that you're not nervous sometimes the internet can make it like if you believe certain things then you're a piece of dog shit and i'm gonna shit all over you for it don't do that don't be that person on the internet don't be that guy have important discussions about it because this is interesting it is interesting i agree and betty and barney hill for life i love their love yeah wow so yeah well with that we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird that's weird that you get abducted by aliens yeah don't keep it that weird bye