Friday, June 11, 2010

From Bill to Gill to Hill: Part Three--Hill.

The Betty and Barney Hill CE4 is the most famous UFO case other than Roswell. It is also, with Roswell, the most detailed. Because of that, I'll be skipping a lot of the detail in order to keep this short of a book. If you want to read a book, you can read John Fuller's The Interrupted Journey, which still does a good job of narrating the encounter. Very little, other than the hullaballoo about the "star map", has developed since Fuller did his very good work. [The star map is mentioned in Fuller but the raft of speculations about it came later.] For our purposes, "HILL" is the third step in the ["logical"? inevitable? reasonable?] chain of experiences which constitute the backbone of mainstream UFOlogy. "If there are aerial technologies, and if there are occupants associated with them, then there might be some instances where a human was taken on board". Whereas step two is almost forced by step one, step three is not. One can readily imagine "visitations" wherein no such close contact took place, and likewise imagine reasons why it might not be desirable by the visitors. So, although evidence for step one is rather overwhelming, and therefore the lesser but still substantial pile of step two cases have a strong foundation from which to find acceptance, "on-board experiences" are in a much more readily doubtable position and require an extra dose of solidity to make them believable. Some say such evidence is all over the place and the dilemma is solved. I don't find it so. Most of the popular evidence for on-board experiences, I find, turns out to be claim rather than substance. Some people say evidence for on-board experience is non-existent. I don't find that extreme to be true either. [the mere fact that both these positions exist in the UFO community shows how unsure all this CE4 business is, and how poorly the advocates have made their case.] My view, and I am just one more puzzled onlooker, is that there are a few well-documented and well-researched CE4s to find credibility in, but not a lot. This doesn't mean that a lot have not happened; it means that the work on them is, to me, unconvincing. The case that comes as close to "convincing" as any other is the Hill case. It is in many ways the "same" as most of the modern popular claims, but since it was nearly the first and widely publicized [even in a movie] presents the possibility that later likenesses are wannabees rather than realities. It also differs from the highly restrictive story prominent today, wherein all cases have to be almost assembly line clones of one another. Hopefully I'll remember to remark on some of the [what are to me] critical differences. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{this narrative of the case is taken as much as possible from the directly agreed upon thoughts of Betty Hill}. On the night of September 19/29, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were returning to their home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire through the White Mountains. They saw a bright object in the sky. Barney stopped the car and got out to look at it with binoculars. [Barney is at the left returning to the scene]. It reversed path and flew erratically. [This path was upon consideration geometric in nature like a continuous drawing of three-sided boxes or a square-toothed line in the air as it went forward]. They continued driving and occasionally stopping. Then the object approached the car more closely and to the front. It was flat with wrap-around windows. Barney got out and watched intently. He saw figures within the windows dressed in shiny black uniforms. Barney felt that there was some communication which terrified him and he ran back to the car laughing hysterically and saying that they were going to capture them. He rapidly drove off to the sound of close-by beeping noises directed at the car. Thirty miles further on, after not seeing the object again, they were bombarded by the same sounds. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------They arrived home apparently without incident and Betty called her sister telling her some of the story. Her sister called a physicist who suggested that radiation be checked. She also called police who suggested the Air Force. The Pease AFB official initially thought that they're nuts, but became interested when Barney got on the phone and told details of how the object looked. ---------------------On the 21st Pease called back and said they've been working on the case. They were filing a report for Blue Book. Both Betty and Barney were pretty frightened by the experience, and, despite not being particularly interested in UFOs before--especially Barney--, became of the opinion that they have had a close UFO encounter. Barney went to the local library and checked out a book by Keyhoe. Betty, always an "action" person, wrote Keyhoe soon [the 26th] and asked him for reading suggestions. She also mentions that their fascination about this is so great now, that they want to return to the site in hopes of re-seeing the object. -----------------------Keyhoe, always the paranoid when it came to anything smelling of contact, did not immediately respond substantively. Sometime later, Dick Hall wrote to legendary field case researcher Walt Webb and asked him to look in on the incident. This was not until mid-October. Meanwhile, as of September 30th, Betty began having vivid dreams of being captured and taken on board for a physical examination. Betty wrote these down, but hid them away and did not tell Barney. And Barney remained disturbed by all this, believing that he had some kind a mental block about something that he subconsciously didn't want to remember.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walt Webb visited the Hills on October 21st. His interview went well, he liked them and vice versa, and his report was his usual thorough job. He mailed it back to Keyhoe with "case sounds like a humdinger". Keyhoe had Webb's report on his desk when he was visited by two IBM personnel. Robert Hohmann was a science/engineering writer working out of the New York area [Kingston], and C.D. Jackson was a senior engineer, working out of [apparently] Huntsville, Alabama, where Werner von Braun's rocket boys worked. The Huntsville facility was a hot bed of UFO interest in the 1950s with senior engineers speaking to the press favorably on the subject, and von Braun's mentor, Hermann Oberth, residing there twice, his opinions on the extraterrestrial nature of UFOs well known. Hohmann and Jackson had become interested in the early 1900s attempts to receive extraterrestrial signals [by Tesla, Marconi, and Todd---H&J felt that TMT had succeeded] and had become convinced about UFOs at the same time. Keyhoe, probably impressed by the IBM credentials, pointed to Webb's brand new report and let them read it. This led to them ultimately contacting the Hills and visiting them on November 25th. They got along well, and during the conversations it became apparent to H&J that there was a significant period of lost time in the narrative. That along with Barney's mental block, indicated that there was more information to be dug out. [Betty said that they knew from the beginning that their arrival home was way too late, but had not focussed on that as significant.] Sometime thereafter a good friend of the Hills from Pease suggested hypnosis to pry the info out. Nothing happens immediately though. -----------------------------------------------------Worried that maybe all this is due to illness of some kind causing hallucinations, the Hills see a doctor in early 1962. Nothing is recommended. In the summer, Barney sees a psychiatrist about on-going anxiety. Again nothing. Betty may have mentioned her "capture" dreams during a UFO talk during this time. Barney remains very disturbed and by the end of 1963, friends at Pease encourage them to undergo hypnosis to find the cause. That is when Benjamin Simon was contacted. Simon had been formerly in the military and had used hypnosis for trauma victims of war. He was then in private practice [and expensive]. He worked with the Hills [in separated sessions] for seven months, once a week, and ended every session with suggestions that they would not remember the content of the hypnosis until the treatments were over. From these sessions came, of course the classic "abduction" account that is iconic for the genre. ----------------------------------I'll not go through all of that. Briefly, it involved the involuntary taking of the Hills from their car, dragging Barney along, placing them in separate rooms of a round craft, examining them on tables, messing about with Barney's private parts, being friendly with Betty, showing her the star map, and, among other things, letting them go with the comment that they wouldn't remember. Tapes of at least some of these sessions exist and are often spectacularly emotional. Simon was perplexed. The responses were so genuine that they had to be true at least in the minds of the Hills. But the story was so far beyond his ken that it had to be false. Publicly he seemed to always be grasping for some exotic psychiatric solution to the case, while admitting that the Hills were good honest people. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course everyone wanted to know about the creatures. As the story went, there were a great many of them, about a dozen or so being seen on the road at the first capture. Many if not all of these were described as wearing black uniforms and ballcaps. They were short, greyish or pallid, with thin limbs, large skulls with relatively broad foreheads, large deep-set eyes with pupils, significant sized noses and mouths. Their chests were broad though their hips were not. Mumbling or ooooo-ing sounds issued from them. The "leader" seemed to communicate with Betty non-verbally [telepathically?]. Note that although having areas of similarity with modern ideas of "Grays" which dominate the literature [and are claimed by some researchers to be the only real "alien" type], there are several differences. Although the eyes are broad, they are deep-set and not wrap-around like some form of ET-sunglasses. This is a much more understandable evolutionary feature, as are pupils, mouths, and noses. Hills' creatures also can make sounds. Although the necks are thin, they are not pencil-thin, as if belonging to robots or stick figures rather than organic beings. One thing that makes little sense either for Hills' ETs or modern "Grays" are the ultra-thin hips. No creature of evolutionary descent would have hips so narrow that the huge heads couldn't make it through the birth canal. One rescues this by saying that a) we're only dealing with males [and females are significantly sexually dimorphic] ; b) the race has been engaged in genetic engineering on a significant scale and has altered their basic forms and reproductive methods; or c) we really are only dealing with robotic techno-creations. The only one of these which could save the modern speculation that these things are interested in messing about with human genetics for their own uses, is number one. The robots don't need anything biological, and super-genetic engineers don't need any help. And I don't buy the line about hybridization at all, as using human genes for anything is a waste of time when you're that advanced and can make anything you want for yourselves without invading the bedrooms of several million people. Note also two further major discrepancies with the common tale. This is no bedroom visitation [that begins showing up with gusto in the late 1970s in the HUMCAT reports to Ted Bloecher, and as an avalanche following Budd Hopkins' Missing Time.] The second thing is: Betty and Barney are not "repeaters". They have no on-going "abductions" over and over and stretching back through to childhood. Betty used to scoff [or worse] at this idea, which she stated very explicitly as the product of bad hypnosis techniques [more akin to stage hypnosis than the professional variety that Simon used, she said] and was in her view dangerous and leading people astray. She even went on a little crusade of sorts trying to talk "miss-led" persons out of their ET-abduction beliefs. Whatever one thinks of all that, the Hills had the benefit of a professional, highly qualified practitioner, who was not biased towards UFOlogy, and who documented everything, the contents of which are open for all to see. It's difficult to find these qualities in many CE4 situations, which reduces them to "believe it or not" in my mind. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A unique element of the case is the star map. This is a display in the room to which Betty was taken and which manifested itself sort of like a three dimensional holographic map "in" the wall. Betty asked the "leader" what this was, and it was clearly indicated as a map containing the home star system of the UFOnauts. Solid lines on the map were said to connect star systems which were commonly visited, and dashed lines were said to extend to systems only occasionally visited. Betty was told the names of none of the stars, and was not pointed out the location of the Sun on the map. All she had were her hypnotically-retrieved memories of the map's shape. This she set down during one session. People immediately began to try to figure the map out. Betty herself was fascinated and tried her hand. [It is interesting that Hohmann and Jackson, knowing nothing of any star map yet, talked to the Hills about their opinion of the likely location of ET life. Betty's "solution" contained neither of their two stars. She was an honest lady and an independent thinker]. During the 1970s, an Ohio State Master's degree student, Marjorie Fish, was creating a three dimensional map of the local star space. She heard of the Hills' map, and searched her own. She felt that she found a match and it was a non-random one. She denominated the Hill stars as all the Sun-like stars in the nearby space generally to galactic south of the Sun. It was an exciting claim [and could even be true]. "Home" was Zeta Reticuli, which is where that obscure system enters pop culture today. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Of course, astronomer skeptics yelled foul. Carl Sagan led the charge claiming that many such matches could be found in a place as big as the galaxy ["billions and billions", remember?] and that this was not a good geometrical match anyway. Well, he's right and wrong all at once [as nearly all extremist screamers turn out to be]. He's right about being able to draw a very large number of connections which would look vaguely like Betty's diagram---billions and billions it is. Marjorie Fish knows that. She felt that the connection of all the sun-like nearby stars, and only the sun-like nearby stars was intriguing. She's right, even if Carl doesn't want to give her that. It also doesn't prove that her match is true. It is intriguing. It is not proof of anything. Carl also showed that if you take away the connecting lines, the stars of the Hill map look nothing like the stars of the Fish map, as to geometry. He's right. But why would anyone want to erase those lines since they were the outstanding feature of Betty's memory? Carl has set up a straw man, just like all dishonest debaters do. What we should admit is that if Betty remembered this correctly [and that is asking a lot], she remembered a certain number of stars, in approximate positions, fortified by a clear set of connecting lines. Fish's map meets those criteria. And going to Sun-like systems makes some exploratory and even "colonial" sense. That's what we can say. That's all we can say--but it is more than Carl Sagan was willing to say. Intellectual honesty is an endangered species in all of the anomalistic studies.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allen Hynek ultimately went to New Hampshire [lot closer than Papua] to visit Betty and Barney, and even Benjamin Simon came to give a last hypnosis session, essentially for UFOlogy's "grand old man". Hynek was wowed [despite being, admittedly a clutz at asking questions]. Barney's terror blew him away. Hynek never knew what he should make of this [you can read his fiddling commentary in his book] but he was sure that he was witnessing the effects of something real. I'm with him on this. For me, the "All-The-Way-Fool" position is that the Hills' experience is what it seems to be: an on-board encounter. As a memorial of the great time, each one of the five members of that last session took home a card with them signed by all---a repro of it is above. A rather fine thing, methinks, and good sentiments.

18 comments:

  1. What's long struck me about the Hill case is that NOBODY--not those incarnations of pure reason, the Skeptics, not ufologists, not Dr. Simon or any later-interested psychiatrist/psychologist, not any casual kibitzers of the media, not children in the street--ever seems to have suggested that Betty Hill try drawing that map again, with or without hypnotic reassurance she could do it. Instead, everyone (including the staff and consultants of Astronomy magazine) acted as if it were a photographic reproduction instead of a quite possibly variable "impression" of the original (whether a real map or a hypnotic conflation).

    What is it about this subject that makes everyone mentally roll on the ground with the teething puppies?

    Frank John Reid

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  2. Well, my good friend Frank, I believe that almost all of our distress at the way cases have been treated by "researchers" can be laid at the feet of "Hobbyism". UFOlogy isn't anybody's profession and nobody gets paid [the few exceptions that have ever existed to this have been either administrators or lecturers or crooks]. Once something is "done", the hobbyist wants it to be done---and happily [and partly in ignorance] moves on to the next exciting new thing. Because UFOlogy never is really felt [in a tangible cultural way] to ever establish anything, there is little thought to "building upon" that "nothing". Going back to anything in the field is viewed as unexciting and a waste of time. Any hope for solid UFOlogy will come from people who have a passion for history and getting things right. They are rare birds, and rarer still candidates for the talk circuit. People have admired the tenacity with which Walt Webb stayed after certain cases, while not wanting to personally make his kind of commitment. People have marveled at Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle hammering away at Roswell; all it generally got them has been the enmity of people in the field, and charges of clouded biased minds without. Without a real "field" you can't win. We need somewhere to stand. Our history is what we have and we're overdue using it.

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  3. Good Day, Professor.

    Great article, and great comments, so far.

    I am generally pro "the Hills", but there was one item about the Hill case, regarding her dream memories, which I noted as per my own background, and this was the mentioning, by Betty, of the blue "Eisenhower cut" jackets these UFOnauts wore.

    Maybe she remembered it the way it was, but I can't help acknowledging that all those years ago, the Post Office Carriers actually wore that style of jacket, and Barney worked for the P.O.

    It doesn't really explain anything, I guess, but I don't recall anyone ever mentioning it before...not even one of the mean-spirited detractors.

    Thanks again for your great blog!!

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  4. Dear Professor,

    I was curious on your take regarding Betty's descriptions of the entities she claims to have encountered. A careful read reveals that she was describing two different types of entities, with the "Leader" and the "Doctor" being taller and with a skin color described as beige or possibly brown. I am reminded of the being depicted on the cover of Striebers "Communion" and also described elsewhere in the literature. If I recall correctly, Betty seemed quite sure that they were not of the same species. The idea was dismissed by both Dr. Simon and, I believe, Barney as well, but these descriptions are indeed part of Betty's record. It is understandable that the implication, at the time, that there may have actually been more than one type of being and that they were working together in some way, was absolutely far fetched and was therefore dismissed. And yet, Betty's starmap and her description of the lines drawn between some of the systems they visited as indicating, in some cases, trading routes would seem to bear out or support at least the possibility of a consortium of some sort. Are you aware of any cases prior to the Hill case that may indicate that such a suggestion might be a possible?

    I think it adds credence to the case that since then, many reports have included multiple types of entities. The Strieber case is a good example of this - the combination of tall beige beings and short stout "Blue Doctors" as well as Greys - working in some sort of hierarchy. Might this also explain discrepancies in the drawings made by the Hills, in that the "Leader/Doctor" may have had more wrap around eyes and the Greys having more forward set eyes, in essence, because they were different species?

    Your thoughts here deeply appreciated.

    BTW and off topic...how's your Mom doing?

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  5. Dear Jonah, you've got me on this. I have no clear memory of Betty's views or hypnotic comments on the details of different skin color or subtle other differences which might indicate different species. My file, on a somewhat sloppy page-turning survey, didn't help me on this either. So, you may be right, but I can't add evidence from my file, so I'll just be open to the idea. I would note only one thing which could be relevant: if you stood Shaquille O'Neal next to Danny Devito, you'd be tempted to say that they were members of different species too, for perhaps more spectacular extremes than were evident in the difference between the Hill Leader and the others. That doesn't count as proof of anything but just a caution. The idea of a consortium is not repellent to me, but neither is the idea of a significant bell-curve of body types, nor a combination of organics and robots. -------------------------------------Concerning cases prior to the Hills which might have multiple species: I can't recall any that one would place confidence in---because nearly every pre-Hill case is either contactee or at somewhat greater distance, one would have had to have seen distinctly different sort of beings mulling about "on the ground" or some such thing---this may be in the literature but I don't recall it. The most spectacular multiple being type case comes later, of course, with Travis Walton. I know this isn't much help but when I'm ignorant I might as well admit it.-------------------------------------As far as mother is concerned, she is slowly weaker and a bit less competent to do things of a simple nature [even operating the TV set or opening a package or putting a piece of paper into a plastic page protector so we can make an album] but if we're lucky we can still have good days and she can feel that life still is worth going on with. Thank you for your sentiments and your good thoughts. We need them.

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  6. Just a general note about the Hill case. The newish book by Stan Friedman and Kathleen Marden, called "Captured!" is well worth reading. Marden is Betty's niece, and knew her well. She is also the keeper of Betty's papers. There is a lot of background information in there that clears up many of the discrepancies in various versions of the Hills' experience. The case has been through the wringer so many times that there is a lot of junk floating around about it, which is pretty much par for the course. Friedman was one of the investigators early on, and knew the Hills well. I don't imagine it to be the most objective study, given the closeness of the authors to the subject, but there is a great deal of interesting detail and some information that was never published before, if memory serves.

    One of my frustrations with online discussions of the paranormal is you often see pages and pages of "debate" between various participants who have not read even some of the most basic material. The Hill case is a great example of this. Recently I saw a long and rather unpleasant thread about the Hills between people who had apparently never even heard of the book "Captured!" I do not mean to imply that I think that of present company, it's just that the Hill case has been mangled by shoddy treatment over the years and still suffers because of sloppy work done decades ago by people who should have known better.

    The book also provides a good look at who the Hills really were, and it turns out they were interesting people by any measure, all paranormal issues aside. Also, there is finally some discussion of the reported magnetic amomalies found on the car they were driving that night. Supposedly there were some spots on the trunk lid that had very odd magnetic properties, and it has always baffled me that no one seems to have been interested enough to investigate those before they faded away. Bruce Maccabee goes on at some length about them in his foreword, and for good reason it seems to me.

    Finally, something very specific. The thing that "did it" for me when I was first looking into the Hill case was Barney's shoes. He was apparently quite particular about his shoes, and was upset when he saw, after their encounter, that they were badly scuffed on the tops of the toes, which corresponds to his being dragged to the "ship" or whatever it was. That's just too real for me to keep dreaming up ways the event could be something other than a physical experience of some kind. My opinion, of course. Everyone has their own.

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  7. I'll not comment on the Marden-Friedman book, as I'm not sure how much it really adds to the case. I am also a little worried about the role natural affection for Betty by her niece would play. But I don't feel that we really need much more than the original work by Simon and Webb and Betty and Barney themselves. The case seems loaded with honesty and quality work to me. It tells a coherent tale and even the skeptic was left thinking that the Hills thought that this was real. The element of the new book that brings Betty and Barney "to life" is. of course worthwhile---and also of course, those of us who have studied their case and even met them, didn't need to be convinced--we already knew that they were fine people and "interesting in their own right". --------John Timmerman, who had also met Betty personally, was at the CUFOS mall exhibit when two people showed up and wanted to talk to him about Barney Hill. While on his letter route stopped at their house to explain to them the story published by John Fuller that was sweeping the nation. "He came and he sat and had coffee with my mom and me. Because he was embarrassed about the article that was in the magazine. Not that he didn't believe that the facts were true; because he DID believe they were true. But within his own mind he couldn't explain them and he didn't want us--that's why he sat and talked--he didn't want us to think differently of him because he valued our friendship...And he also said and he explained that this had come out through hypnosis, that he couldn't--he didn't know why it had come out. He didn't understand--he couldn't explain it. That's what I'm trying to say. He couldn't explain it but he believed that it was a true thing that had happened. -- It was just a matter of--he was very embarrassed. .... It is because of Barney that my husband is so interested in UFOs because, again, he was someone we respected and someone we knew and therefore we know he didn't lie." ------People are impressed with different parts of the case. The scuffed shoes are one such element. Isaac Asimov almost crapped when he saw the star-map, and it became Friedman's core element in his pop lectures at one time. I like that there were two witnesses and a pro hypnotist who had to invent weird ideas to try to explain it away.

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  8. Professor,

    You'll find discussion of Betty's notion of a difference between the entities described near the end of 'The Interrupted Journey". On page 264, Betty states "When they talked among themselves, they made a noise that had no meaning to me at all. And I had this impression that the leader seemed to look differently from the others, but again I might have been distorting on this." I suspect that because she felt shut down by both Simon and Barney, she never felt comfortable pressing the difference. I will have to hunt down my copy to quote her description of brown or beige skin. If anyone out there has their copy at hand and can help me out, please do.

    What I find most interesting is that in Marsdens "Captured", Chapter 13- "The Occupants" pg. 139, she goes on to describe a third (given to James Harder of APRO). "..but at least one was physically different than the rest. He was diminutive in size, approximately 3 1/2 feet tall His head resembled a basketball,with an enlarged cranial structure, but a flat large eyed face. The vertical measurement of his ocular orbit was longer than wide, and the eye...". "The nose was broad, flat, and small, with a thin, wide slit for a mouth. He had a very sturdy build with a thick neck, broad shoulders and a barrel chest. His hands had at least four short stubby fingers and a thunb, but no fingernails." "They are not like the leaders fingers". This was the entity that seemed to make demands to the others that she leave the book she was given behind (according to the report).

    This completes a triad of sorts and describes in approximate detail, the three entity types Strieber claims to have engaged with 30 some years later. The Greys, the taller beige Mantis types and the little blue doctors.

    Maybe I'm out on a limb but here but I don't think so. Trade routes indeed...

    Thanks so much for the update on your Mom.

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  9. hmmm...thanks for the reasoning and the attempts to dig facts---this is rarely done by anyone as people prefer to remain reading spectators for the most part. I am still pretty unconvinced that these things are good matches for entities in Strieber [who ultimately talks about all manner of things including paranormal entities, witchcraft elements, and even stranger things if you read all his writings---he even said that "Mr. Peanut" menaced him as a child]. But even if we stick to his more HOPKINSIAN stage, I really don't see good correlation to the "Mantis" people in Betty and Barney Hill. And as to being out on a limb, of course you are, we all are. It's a friendly limb though, and, I believe a pretty strong one. Just don't walk off the end.

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  10. Regarding the artwork on the cover of Streiber's Communion - I recall reading (maybe in Communion itself?) that he didn't present the true appearance of the main female being he had the most contact with because it would be too distressing for the viewer. In other words, it's a prettied-up, airbrushed version of what Streiber claimed to have seen (which was much more frightening to look at -- bulbous headed, huge eyes, no nose and slit for a mouth).

    About Betty Hill....I recall reading (and darn it, I can't think where exactly) that she had previous sightings before this life-altering event. It may have been written in a ufo-related magazine, years ago, but it jumped out at me. If Betty had been seeing UFOs, it seemed to me that she may have been the target of this encounter, with Barney brought along for the ride (no pun intended).

    I do realize that just because she may have spotted ufos, in her earlier years, does not necessarily mean she was an 'abductee'. But, considering what abduction research has fleshed out since the early 1970s, there seems to be a pattern of encounters for 'abductees'. [Even if we exclude the controversial hypnosis-obsessed Jacobs and Hopkins, there are other researchers that picked up on the repeat-effect before those two, such as Fowler, Druffel, Imbrogno and more]

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  11. A couple of things...

    I agree that the connections are extremely tenuous. That said, if indeed the skin of the aliens described by Betty as the Leader and Doctor was brown and they are taller (and in 'Captured" described as weak-chinned amongst other descriptors)-AND- she goes on later to absolutely describe an entity (the barrel chested 3 1/2 footer with the wide face) then the possibility strongly exist that much of what has been written about the case may be incorrect. For example, let's say that indeed they were of a different origin/system than what is commonly described as "Greys". And it was this entity that presented the Map to Betty after being asked where it was from. It stands to reason that if we've inferred all these years that it is the Grey's that come from Zeti Reticuli (based on the Hill case) and yet it wasn't a Grey that showed her the Map, but a brown/beige skinned being, then we should reconsider the whole Grey/Zeti connection. They may have been from another system shown on the map connected with Trade Route dots. As for the Mantis connection, if anyone has ever seen the end if the film "Communion" based on Striebers work, they will know that there is indeed an insectoid connection. Lastly, regarding Little Blue Doctors, I absolutely recall a web page posted a few years back by somebody connected with Betty asking for info on Striebers little blue acquaintances. I never really made the connection until now.

    The Hill case was, again with a careful read, a multiple entity abduction case. Probably the first recorded. And they've kept coming ever since, but since no one really recognizes this, there really can't be any claim of contamination. This only strengthens the case for both -IMO.

    Somebody really needs to examine this aspect of the case with more academic rigor than I can muster. Preferably someone who can write the story well. Any takers?

    Friendly, strong limbs are the reason I'm here. And even if I fall, I feel confident I'll be helped up.

    "Maybe this will prove the existence of God" - Barney Hill

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  12. To Brownie: well, all I can say is "maybe". I have no information that leads me to believe that Betty was a multiple abductee, and she herself certainly didn't think so during the 1960s and 1970s where I have read sources quoting her on this sort of thing. We know that later in life, when she seemed to many observers that her obsession with trying to find out what this was had gotten her a bit "off", she was taking people out to see the "UFO landing zone", where unfortunately all manner of airplanes, car lights, flashlights were being interpreted as UFOs. I heard her talk on these things and it was pretty sad. Other people who even had affection for her, felt badly upon visiting this site and seeing what was really going on, too. So, I'll need some real documentation to change my opinion that Betty was a multiple abductee and had many early sightings. I remain ready to learn.-------------------------To Jonah:Again, maybe. It's obvious that you are a good open-minded reader of the field, so I don't need to say that it will be important to actually find primary resources [i.e. quotes from Betty or Barney or someone present at the sessions] saying these descriptive things in a clarity which leads one strongly to the conclusion that you suggest. I wish that I had such information myself but I do not. I'll have to leave your hypothesis in the gray basket until more information comes across my eyeballs.

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  13. Prof - Yes, very sad indeed what happened in Betty's post-public-abduction revealing years. She seemed to have gotten caught up in the 'love and light', we can vector 'them' in by flashlights contactee mess.

    Of course her last few years were racked with cancer pain and I'd excuse anything she said or did (having a mother who I cared for, for over 5 years as she died slowly, painfully from terminal cancer - I know of what I speak).

    I suspect that whether it's ufo sightings/encounters or paranormal events(ghost sightings/poltergeists)...certain people are magnets for these extraordinary events. That's why I think Betty may have been the magnet in this case.

    And when I'd read she'd seen ufos previously, that resonated with me. Of course it might not mean a thing and proof with ufo sightings in general is nill to skimpy. And there are lots of large and small airports and a.f. bases concentrated in a relatively small area up here in the no. east that could confuse even those of us that are use to seeing lots of 'normal' air traffic all of our lives.

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  14. I am completely forgiving of Betty's later UFO "sightings". She was always a warrior for the cause of truth in these matters, and obsessions later in life should be treated with respect and understanding for someone like her. It is too bad that some cheap shot artists will use things like this to smear reputations and "debunk" sightings which have nothing to do with what transpired later.

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  15. Looking at this case now, over a half century old, in spite of the many speculations, considerations etc- really it has been 'deconstructed' so many times, dismissed in its absurdity, but accepted for the same- well it is just as perplexing now as it was then.

    Dr. Schwartz spent some time with Betty Hill- his 'Talks with Betty Hill' are interesting in their own right. Her doppelgangers of Raymond Fowler are curious and funny at the same time, especially from the background of her abduction experience. You can find one of his articles here...

    http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/avistamientos_ovnis/Schwarz,Betty%20Hill%20Humanoids-1,FSR77V23N2.pdf

    Really the comment above by Double Nought Spy about Barney's shoes are to the point. The book Betty was never able to bring back from her experience is such a dream like element it is hard to believe it was more than a dream. Yet it obviously was... the experience left a deep impression on them the passing of the years was never able to shake loose.

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  16. Whether or not the case is veridical as Betty and Barney told it, it is a powerful enigma which is FAR from debunked. I've had the privilege [if not the pleasure] of listening to the actual recordings of Barney screaming in terror at his "lab-examination" experience. Any thought that this was not thoroughly believed by Barney immediately goes to zero.

    Betty, FAR calmer than Barney, believed it too, and it's a damm shame that her understandable obsession with what happened to the two of them ultimately made her balmy as far as [much] later experiences were interpreted. She is a spectacular example of persons we see all the time in UFOlogy: good first case leading to extreme interest and future errors of interpretation.

    If we lived in an age where we had already had some distant interactions with extraterrestrials which blew away our prejudices against the idea, the Hill case would be rapidly accepted as at least highly probable. The quality of the witnesses, the UFOlogists early involved, the hypnotist, could hardly have been better. The initial story has always hung together. And, as I say, the session tapes.....wow.

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  17. Thanks Professor! I had wanted to include from Fortean Times a link re Betty, the paranormal, and doppelgangers...

    http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/903/doppelgnger_effect.html

    From that article:

    The first example I stumbled upon was contained in Berthold Eric Schwarz’s extensive interviews with the late Betty Hill (see obituary in FT195:24 and many earlier references). Although Betty was best known for her abduction by aliens in 1961, Schwarz’s work indicates that she also had a huge number of ghostly and supernatural experiences. It was while giving lectures about her abduction that Betty kept seeing a person in the audience who resembled her friend Raymond Fowler. At the time, he was a UFO investigator who is now best known for his long-standing investigation of the Betty Andreasson abduction case.


    The same article speculates about someone monitoring her whereabouts etc...

    We might speculate that all the strange happenings experienced by Betty – which included trouble with the telephone and postal services along with break-ins and visitations by mysterious men – indicated that, as she toured the UFO lecture circuit sharing stories of her now-famous abduction, she was being closely monitored.

    Last but not least I wanted to mention Val Germann’s article from some time ago still alive and well on the internet... in several places but here is one...

    http://www.ufoera.com/articles/the-hill-abduction-case_1190310616.html

    And from that article...

    CONSIDER THIS. In ALIENS FROM SPACE Keyhoe says that "A well-known journalist, John Fuller, had learned of the case in a confidential talk at NICAP. It was arranged that he should prepare the record using Dr. Simon's taped questions
    and the Hill's answers." Then Keyhoe says: INTERRUPTED JOURNEY received a sur-
    prising amount of serious attention compared to the usual treatment of "contactee stories." How interesting.

    YES--AND THE "abduction story" has become a staple of the UFO investigator. Indeed, the sanitized Hill story became the ONLY abduction movie ever made --- before COMMUNION, 1989. And the Hill saga appeared only on the small screen, it never ran in theaters. The same could almost be said for COMMUNION which was not widely distributed and died a very quick death. It will be in video stores by mid-1990 which, I think, is the idea.

    The speculation is of course that Betty herself had a 'handler', perhaps from CIA, but maybe one whose acronym is not so widely known. Anyway there are many folds and layers to this case and the star map is now a gateway to an entire mythology.

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  18. i think its should be mentioned that Betty Hill is a psychic since little girl. Her family also not a stranger to psychic happening. I think UFO phenomena are attracted to psychic , including abductee and repeater. Just like some people can easily see apparation/ghost and some people can't. Off course trying to prove it scientifically will be futile as current science cant measure spirit/psychic phenomena.

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