In 1961, racial tensions in the United States were very high. At that time many American States especially those in the South prohibited Interracial union and thus interracial wedding.
Barney born in 1922 and Betty Hill born in 1920 were an interracial couple couple livivng in Portsmouth New Hampshire (U.S East Coast). Barney Hill, an African American worked as a mail sorter and his wife Betty Hill owned a Master's degree and was supervisor at the child welfare department. They were all concerned for people of color's rights and as an interracial couple a huge pressure was put upon them.
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| Barney Hill |
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| Betty, Barney Hill and their dog |
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| Old picture of Niagara falls |
As they drive to their homes, they notice a bright star in the sky which appear to be bigger. The moon was full that night and the car was driving in the mountains. As they look at the object, the object changes and it seems that it is folllowing them. The multicolor and silent object crosses the face of the moon and at one moment the object passed right above a restaurant and the lights of that restaurant automatically turn off. It would rotate and go vertically, then horizontally for a short distance and dip down. Arrived at a place called Indian head, Barney get out of the car and take his binoculars to see the object which doesn't look like an airplane. Betty stays inside. He sees trough the binoculars are, amber and green(multicolor) brigt light and a row of windows on a flat" pancake-like" object with figures inside.
Scared Barney returned to the car and start it. They all hear beeping sound coming from the trunk of the car. Concord is only 17 miles near. As they come back home in the morning of the next day, they notice that they have missed 2 hours, there were marks on their car and on Betty's dress. The car had an intense magnetization and Barney noticed marks on his shoes as if he was pulled and has a backache. They both feel weird and sleep at the same time in the afternoon. They have the feeling of contamination as if they had been touched. Betty calls the Air Force (her close friend Major Anderson) and they confirm that an object was detected on their radar that night.
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| Barney and Betty route from Sherbrooke Canada |
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| Dr Benjamin Simon |
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| Betty and Barney under hypnosis |
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| Their recordings and all their materials are conserved at the University of New Hampshire As the engine approaches, Barney sees figures inside the windows with one grinning. Barney feels like they are going to capture them. That creature, the "Leader" tells him to stay where he is and keep looking! Barney thinks"It's pounding in my head,! Just pull the binoculars away! God give me strength! Who in the hell! Run! God give me strength.! God give me strenght! God..I've gotta gett away!"
This is a transcript of Barney regression when he sees the "Nazi" inside the craft.
Barney: (He takes care to be extremely precise.) There was a row of windows. A huge row of windows. Only divided by struts – or structures that prevented it from being one solid window. Or then—it would have been one solid window. And the evil face on the— ( He starts to say Leader.) He looks like a German Nazi. He’s a Nazi. ( There is a questioning tone in his voice.)
Dr. Simon: He’s a Nazi. did he have on a uniform?
Barney: Yes
Dr. Simon: What kind of uniform?
Barney: ( With a small amount of surprise.) He had a black scarf around his neck, dangling over his left shoulder.
Dr. Simon: ( Another sharp probe.) How could you see the figures so clearly at that distance?
Barney: I was looking at them with binoculars.
Dr. Simon: Oh. Did they have faces like other people? You said one was like a red-headed Irishman.
Barney: ( Describing the scene very slowly and carefully.) His eyes were slanted. Oh– his eyes were slanted!. But not like a Chinese– Oh. Oh.
Dr. Simon: What was Betty doing all this time?
Barney: I can’t hear her.
Dr. Simon: Did you make an outcry to her like you did to me?
Barney: I-I can’t remember–I don’t know.
Dr. Simon: You would remember if you did.
Barney: ( His thoughts seem to be on the craft, and not on the Doctor.) I did not. I know this creature is telling me something.
Dr. Simon: Telling you something? How? How is it getting to you?
Barney: I can see it in his face. No, his lips are not moving.
Dr. Simon: Go on. He’s telling you something. What did he tell you?
Barney: Stay there–and just keep looking. Just keep looking–and stay there. and just keep looking. Just keep looking.
Dr. Simon: Could you hear him tell you?
Barney: Oh! I got the binoculars away from my eyes. ‘Cause if I don’t, I’ll just stand there.
Dr. Simon: Did you hear him tell you this?
Barney: Oh, no. He didn’t say it. ( More tremor in his voice. )
Dr. Simon: You felt he said it?
Barney: I know.
Dr. Simon: You know he said it?
Barney: Yes. “Just stay there”, he said. ( Now his voice breaks in extreme terror. ) It’s pounding in my head!! ( He screams again. ) I gotta get away, I gotta get away from here!
Dr. Simon: All right. All right. calm down.
Barney: ( Still breathless. ) Gotta get away.
Dr. Simon: Calm down. How can you be sure he was telling you this?
Barney: ( He speaks now with awe.) His eyes! . His eyes. . I’ve never seen eyes like that.
Dr. Simon: You said they were friendly.
Barney: Not the Leader’s. I said the one looking over his shoulder.
Dr. Simon: How did you know the other one was the Leader.
Barney: ( In careful level tones again. ) Because everybody moved – everybody was standing there looking at me. But everybody moved. These levers that were in the back….or they went to a big board, it looked like a board. And only this one, with the black, black shiny jacket and the scarf stayed at the window.
Note: Barney said the one looking over his shoulder was nice and that he looked like a redhead Irish even if he had a round head. He adds: "Irish tend to be hostiles towards Negroes, this entity was nice to me; if I would find a nice Irish man I would be nice to him." |
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| Barney (reenactment) |
The spacecraft with two red lights as wings
Scared, Barney returns to his car. He states" I don't know why I made a right turn and I was lost." Tens of humanoids are coming. The car motor dies. He tries to get his gun in the back of the car in order to shoot at what he believes to be Nazis. It's too late. They open the car's doors and escort Barney and Betty out of the car to the landed spacecraft in a glade in the forest. Barney fell asleep with a humanoid on each side holding him from his armpits making his shoes trailing on the ground. Betty doesn't want to enter, she doesn't know what's going to happen. She looks back to Barney and screams"Barney!", "Barney" but he doesn't react. The leader ask her "Is Barney his name?". Betty doesn't reply. She doesn't want to. The leader smile and says:
"There is no reason to be scared, we just want to make some examinations. Once finished we wil put you back to your car you will not have enough time to notice anything that you will be on your way back."The entities seem to have difficuly walking, they are slowly dragging their feet and had to hang onto things to move and one of them says" Help me for my energies are running out!", they seem to have difficulty breathing and appear as though they're about to collapse.
They all go up a ramp into the craft and inside, there is a long corridor that leads to a bright bluish room, there are two men on either side of the door, two in front of Betty and two besides Barney.They are both separated, Betty tell them that she doesn't want to be separated from him, she insists to stay with him but they tell her that if they are experimented in a same room it will take much more time. Barney is naked on a table where his feet exceed its far end, these beings have huge heads, small size and wide eyes like cats. They touch him, his body turn him over and over again; and he says during the hypnosis "I don't like that they put their hands on me, I don't like when they touch me.
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| Look of the humanoids inside the craft |
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| Drawing of the Alien by Barney |
"What's your feeling now? Have you been abducted or not?"
Barney(eyes closed, in trance, monotonous voice): I think I was abducted.
Simon: Have you been abducted?
Barney( staying quiet): I don't want to believe that I was abducted.
Simon: But you are convinced that you were abducted...
Barney: I said :"I think" because it will get easier to admit something that I don't want to have occured
Simon: What's easier for you?
Barney: For me to say "I think"
Simon: Do you mean, it would be worst to laugh" I was abducted."
Barney(still neutral without expressions): It's not worst
Simon: Easier tthe other way.
Barney: I like the other way
Simon: What bothers you?
Barney: Because it's such a weird story. If other people would tell me this would have happened to them I would not believe them. And I don't like being accused of something I didn't do when I know that I didn't do it...
Simon(interrupting Barney): What have you been accused of?
Barney:...or if they don't believe I have done something when I know that I have done that thing.
Simon: Well supposed you have just absorbed Betty's dreams? You would like that ?... Could it be true?
Barney(without hesitating): No!
Simon: Why not?
Barney( breathing deeply, opening and closing the eyes, screaming): Because I don't like when they touch me!
Simon: Everything is okay Barney, Don't worrry. Relax
Barney(crying, twisting on his chair): I don't like when they put their hands on me! I don't like when they touch me!
Barney kept his eyes closed while in the spacecraft. They kept scratching his body with an instrument in order to get skin tissues. They analized every orifice of his body they also used a cylindrical object with the same shape as a pencil inserted into his anus also made to detect his spine. The goal of the experiment was to get Barney and Betty's DNA and to know at what degree of physical evolution Earthlings were evolved since the cataclysm that stroke on Earth more than 10,000 years ago that made humans mutate a second time. They put a circular recipient with substance in it under Barney's genitals in order to collect his seeds, it just gives a feeling of pressure. They told him that he doesn't have to be scared. During the session Barney would finish his sentences saying "Isn't that funny?"
Betty says: "They took me to that room and some of them came in. I didn't know who they were. I thought they were part of the crew... Then another man came. I think he was a doctor. They put a kind of machine with a huge lens over my body, and made a cut on my arm... After the incision, they put some of my blood on a piece of transparent plastic or glass they'd prepared."
The abductors seemed interested in Betty and Barney's anatomy. At one moment when they were looking in the big lens that was put over Betty and were impressed about something. Betty said it could be about a cell or the DNA structure). They used light to see their eyes, they also looked inside their mouth and they analysed their limbs(arms and legs).
At one point the examiner leaves the room leaving Betty and the Leader alone; Betty was grateful to the Leader because she was feeling comfortable in his presence and Betty tells him that no one would ever believe anything that happened in fact, she needed a proof and the leader tells Betty to look around for something to take. She finds a large plastic like book encrypted with kinds of hyeroglyphes she couldn't read.
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| Symbols on the book |
Betty hypnotic regression session:
"And then I asked him where he was from because I knew they weren't from Earth and I wanted to know where. And then, he asked me if I knew the geography of the Universe. Everything that I knew was what I was taught at school; Sun is the centre of the universe and there are 9 planets. But we made progress ever since. I talked about Harlow Shapley, he wrote a book. And I saw pictures he had taken of millions of millions of stars in the universe. But I didn't know more. And he told me that he would like me to know a little bit more; and I agreed. And then he crossed the room, to the top of the table and made something that kind of opened the metal of the wall. And he brought out a map and asked me if I had already seen one like that.
-Where do you locate yourself on the map?
I looked carrefully, I laughed and said:
-I don't know.
Then he said:
-"If you don't know where your planet is, there would be no point to tell you what world I come from.
He rolled the map and put it in the opening of the wall he then closed.
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| Betty's sketch |
After the discussion, they hear noise and the examiner looks at Betty's mouth, they couldn't understandbecause Barney teeth came out but hers not. One of the crew came with Barney's dentures, and Barney would be angry that someone knew he was wearing them. The leader asks Bettys about dentures and she explains that as people grow older they have to have lot teeth replaced with dentures... that Barney it's different because he had a problem.
The leader asks:-what's old age?
Betty:-It varies but as a persons ages there are physical changes.
Leader: What's age?
Betty: -Oh, it's the lifetime
Leader: How long is this
Betty: A lifespan is supposed to be 100 years but people die before due to disease and accidents... The average length is 65 or 70 years.
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| The "Leader" |
Betty had have to explain that on Earth we eat meat, potatoes, vegetables, milk and so on; so he asks what are vegetables, she replies that there are too many because it is a borad term but the one she likes are squash. And he ask about squash, Betty says that it's yellow and he asks again "What is yellow?", she says"well, I'll show you." She walks around the room and can't find anything yellow.
When they're about to leave the craft, Betty sees the same figure that was starring at her before raising an argument in angry attittude , and they explain to her that she has to give them back the book she was going to take as evidence of the encounter.
Betty says:
"You promised me that I could get the book!"
-I know but other people don't want.
Betty: But it's my proof!
The Alien: The reason is there, they don't want you to know what happened. They want you to erase the memory of this encounter.
Betty(leaving the spacecarft on a ramp): I will never forget what happened! Even if I don't have your book you will not make me forget what happened!
The leader laughed and replied : "Maybe you will remember I don't know. I hope you don't but maybe you will. But it won't do any good if you do, because Barney won't. Barney won't remember a single thing. And not only that, if he should remember anything at all, he is going to remember it differently from you, and all you're going to do is get each other so confused, you won't know what's going on. It would be better if you forget it anyway."
Barney was already placed into their vehicle and the leader asked Barney and Betty to stay and look at the spacecraft taking off. From their consiousness, they just see a bright orange ball disappearing in the sky. Barney says "Oh God!...Not again!" They are already driving on the road. The town of Concord is only 17 miles close.
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| After their encounters, Betty and Barney Hill will become popular |
The map drawn by Betty showing different stars appeared to be a physical space in the Universe. Those stars were discovered 8 years later and computers were needed in order to assemble them and locate them. The big circle was Zeta Reticulli 2 and the smaller one Zeta Reticulli 1 joined by a straight line to our solar system(Sol). So, Betty could draw a map of stars that would be discovered by modern science one decade later. Also, the pregnancy test made on Betty by inserting a needle was practised several years later by doctors.
Their story was adapted as a movie "The UFO incident" in 1975, 6 years after Barney's decease.