The story of the couple Betty and Barney Hill, which took place in the early 1960s, is considered one of the strangest cases related to human abduction by extraterrestrial beings. The event occurred on a highway in a rural area of New Hampshire, USA, as they were returning from a trip in Canada. This story sparked a lot of debate, with some supporting it, particularly since strong evidence pointed to its validity, and more abduction cases started to emerge following a similar pattern. Others opposed the story, believing it to be mere visual hallucinations. To this day, neither side has been able to definitively prove their stance, leaving the case unresolved without any clear explanations.
The story began when the couple, Betty and Barney Hill, visited the office of psychiatrist Benjamin Simon in December 1963 for a consultation. Initially, the doctor assumed they were there to discuss problems arising from their interracial marriage, as they had different skin tones. However, his assumption was incorrect. Their actual complaint was about Betty experiencing recurrent, terrifying dreams that couldn’t be fully explained and Barney suffering from stomach ulcers and constant anxiety. They also had a feeling that something had happened to them, but they couldn’t remember what. As a result, Dr. Simon recommended that the couple undergo hypnosis sessions to try to recover the lost memories. Little did he know, surprises awaited him.
During the hypnosis sessions, Betty and Barney Hill revealed a shocking story that seemed stranger than fiction. It all started two years earlier, in September 1961, when they were driving home from a three-day vacation in Canada, during which they visited Niagara Falls. On their way back, they ran out of money, so they couldn’t stay in a hotel and had to drive through the night on a highway that was only lit by the moon and the light from their car. While driving through the White Mountains area, Betty noticed a particularly bright star in the sky, resembling a planet. Initially, she said nothing, but she soon observed that the bright star seemed to be getting larger and was following their car. She alerted Barney to this strange phenomenon, but he told her to ignore it, assuming it was a satellite or an off-course airplane. However, he began to feel uneasy as the object got closer and closer, making no sound, which indicated it wasn’t an airplane since they would have heard its engine from such a close range.
Betty and Barney Hill started feeling scared as it became clear that the object was indeed following them. It became more visible, resembling a glowing white disk and hovering right in front of them at an altitude of about 30 meters. Suddenly, they heard a high-pitched beeping sound and both felt an overwhelming sense of drowsiness and a tingling sensation, leaving them helpless. Afterward, they encountered gray beings with large eyes, who took them aboard the mysterious craft. Once inside, they were separated and examined in alternating rooms with curved walls and a large light hanging from the ceiling. Each was asked to lie on a very short metallic table. During the examinations, the beings removed their clothes, plucked hair samples, clipped their nails, and scraped their skin. Each sample was placed on a transparent material. Long wires attached to needles were used to explore their heads, arms, legs, and spines. A large needle, approximately 10 to 15 centimeters long, was inserted into Betty’s abdomen. During this time, there was an entity overseeing the examinations, whom they called “The Leader.” After Betty’s examination was over, the beings who were with Barney rushed to her room in amazement after discovering that Barney’s teeth could be removed. Betty explained that he had dentures, a fact that surprised the beings since they didn’t fully understand human aging. Later, Betty met with “The Leader” and asked him where they had come from. He joked, telling her that if she didn’t know much about the universe, it wouldn’t be useful to tell her where they were from. Later, under hypnosis, Betty drew a star map that she had seen aboard the ship.
After the examinations, the beings erased their memories. The couple awoke to find themselves inside their car, on the same highway, as if nothing had happened, with no recollection of the events. When they finally returned home at dawn, they didn’t feel right. Their watches had stopped working, Barney’s shoes were oddly torn, and Betty’s dress was similarly damaged. This was the story they told Dr. Simon during hypnosis. After awakening and learning what had happened, Betty was immediately ready to believe that they had encountered a UFO with alien beings, while Barney remained more skeptical. As for Dr. Simon, despite hearing their story, he didn’t believe it. Nevertheless, Betty and Barney Hill attracted journalists eager to cover their story, and it wasn’t long before they gained media attention.
The story of Betty and Barney Hill’s alien abduction was widely regarded as the first of its kind. Within two years, a television movie was broadcast about what had happened to the couple. Soon after, reports of other alien abductions of humans surged by 2500%. The common thread in all the abduction stories reported in the media was the memory of bright lights, loss of memory, and strange physical sensations afterward.
Skeptics, such as Dr. Simon, believed that Betty’s eagerness to believe in UFOs might have caused the couple to recall false memories under hypnosis, which is not a completely reliable method of recovering lost memories. He pointed out that the description of the aliens they gave matched creatures that had appeared in an episode of a popular television show aired just a few weeks before their alleged abduction. In the show, the aliens looked remarkably similar to the creatures with slanted eyes described by the Hills. Additionally, the bright lights they saw in the night sky were, in fact, the planets Jupiter and Saturn, whose positions matched the scene described by the couple. Others speculated that the stress of being an interracial couple living in a predominantly white country during a turbulent era like the Cold War might have contributed to such hallucinations. However, there were and still are thousands of people willing to believe the story of Betty and Barney Hill, paving the way for an entirely new type of mythology in modern America.
