Helplessness, Pain, and Fractured Memory
Since the 1990s, reported abductions of human beings by extraterrestrials have become increasingly common, and in a variety of ways: anecdotally (a wealth of isolated accounts); philosophically (what do they want with us?); sexually (“and then they inserted the probe . . .”); and institutionally (reflecting a common theory that aliens perform abduction experiments in collusion with the U.S. government). The fewest abduction reports come from Europe; the United States produces the most. According to researcher Mark Rodeghier, Australia and South America also account for significant numbers of abduction tales. Although UFO theory of very recent years has begun a shift from abductions and notions of UFOs as material, nuts and bolts spacecraft to thoughts of energy fields and parallel dimensions, the abduction narrative remains strong in UFOlogy and popular culture.
How did all this begin?
Just an Ordinary Drive
For a moment, confusion registered on the face of Betty Hill. When she lifted a hand, her husband Barney thought his wife had found a flaw in the windshield.
“Hnnh?” he said. “That light.”
Now Barney focused, and he saw it. A bright light in the midnight sky, near Lancaster, New Hampshire. He lifted his foot from the accelerator. All around the couple, U.S. Route 3 in central New Hampshire was dark and deserted.
September 19, 1961, was almost done. September 20 was minutes away.
The Hills’ car was moving south, and the light appeared to be headed north. “It’s moving,” Betty said.
Barney squinted and leaned forward. “Is it? Can’t tell ’cause the car’s moving too.” With that, he touched the brake and brought the car to a halt. He and Betty looked hard through the windshield and agreed that the light was not stationary.
It was in motion, and moving north.
Barney put the car in gear and drove, more slowly now, flicking his gaze between the dark road and the moving light. The illumination appeared to be more than just a light—it was an object, and what had been a subdued course of movement now became erratic, almost whimsical. The northward course was abruptly reversed—as no known aircraft could do—and the thing flew south, keeping pace with the Hills’ automobile. The object passed in front of the Moon, and moved closer to the car. Colored lights—red, green, amber, and blue— winked in a band on the thing’s surface. When the object began to keep pace with the car, the Hills knew that the thing was some sort of aircraft, and one capable of very tricky maneuvers.
The craft disappeared from view. Barney slowed even more, watching. And then the thing was back, now just three hundred feet to the car’s right and looming very large. The craft stopped and hovered.
Barney crushed the brakes and left the driver’s seat even before the car’s nose stopped bobbing. He kept binoculars with him, and clutched them as he settled his position on the road. The object, he said later, was just fifty feet in front of him. The craft emitted no engine or exhaust sounds, and the Hills discerned no motor noise when V-shaped “wings” (as Barney Hill described them), with red lighted tips, extended from the craft’s sides.
The object presented its wide, curved leading edge to Barney. Expansive windows dominated this surface. Barney gripped the binoculars tighter and adjusted the focus. He clearly saw humanoid figures: three that stood closely together, apparently piloting the ship, and two others that stood separately. One of those, to the immediate right (from the Hills’ point of view) of the threesome, had a bearing that suggested leadership. Farther still to the right was the fifth and final figure, and this one gave Barney a chill because it appeared to be grinning.
Barney had seen enough. He leapt back into the car and punched the accelerator, throwing up gravel from the shoulder and leaving skid marks on the macadam. The craft began to move again and followed the Hills for miles, flying erratically and filling the car’s cabin with audible vibration of the sort emitted by a tuning fork.
The Hills’ first account to authorities had some specifics and a great many ambiguities. As they initially recalled events, they heard a beeping sound as Barney drove. Then there is an apparent blank, for the next time they heard the beep, there were still driving—thirty-five miles from where the beep had begun.
They arrived at their Portsmouth, New Hampshire, home at about 5:00 in the morning. That was peculiar because they should have arrived at 3:00 a.m.
What happened to the two hours? How could they have no recollection of a thirty-five-mile drive?
The Hills immediately fell prey to anxiety caused by undefinable fear. The turmoil disrupted their sleep during that first night, and made their waking hours the next day an intellectual and emotional jumble. Acting on advice from Betty’s sister, the Hills reported their odd experience to officials at nearby Pease (New Hampshire) AFB, a heavy bomber base then under the control of Strategic Air Command.
The Hills’ call was taken by Maj. Paul Henderson of the 100th Bomb Wing.
Henderson followed routine, recording the Hills’ information on USAF Form 112, designating it Report No. 100-1-61. Henderson’s transcription is dispassionate and unadorned. Many important points are expressed in numbered lists. “The weather and sky was clear at the time.” “Continuous band of lights— cigar-shaped at all times despite change of direction.” “Tail, trail or exhaust: None observed.” “Angle of elevation, first observed: about 45 deg.” [sic] “Length of observation: Approx 30 min’s.” [sic] In the latter part of the report, Major Henderson wrote, “Mr. Hill is a Civil Service employee in the Boston Post Office and doesn’t possess any technical or scientific training. Neither does his wife.” Henderson noted Barney Hill’s statement to the effect that he nearly did not make a report, as he found “the whole thing . . . incredible” and that Barney felt “somewhat foolish.” Major Henderson finished his report: Information contained herein was collected by means of telephone conversation between the observers and the preparing individual. The reliability of the observer cannot be judged and while his apparent honesty and seriousness appears to be valid it cannot be judged at this time.
In an odd turn, the Air Force dragged its heels about forwarding the Hill report to Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio—a peculiar circumstance considering the following: six or seven hours before the Hills’ sighting, radar at nearby North Concord (Vermont) Air Force Station picked up a UFO. And just two hours after the Hill incident, a UFO was tracked by precision approach radar at Pease AFB. (Remember that the Hills lost two hours of their personal timelines.) Despite the close proximities in time and distance of the air base sightings, and to the Hills’ experience on that lonely stretch of New Hampshire highway, a report about the Concord sighting was not wired to Blue Book for three days. That decision directly contravened Air Force policy, which was to wire relevant reports to Blue Book immediately. Further, the complete Hill report, and an appended note about the Pease AFB sighting, wasn’t wired to Blue Book at all. Instead, Pease AFB mailed the information to Blue Book on September 29, 1961—nine days after the Hill encounter and the Pease radar sightings. The packet could not have arrived at Blue Book before September 30 or October 1.
When the information of September 19–20 finally got to Blue Book, that body did only a cursory investigation. There is no evidence of special Blue Book research into weather balloon launches and tracking in the area on those dates.
Nevertheless, the Blue Book summation of the North Concord AFS radar sighting ends with this: “Conclusion: Probably balloon.” Further, Blue Book failed to follow up on the Hill case and the Pease AFB sighting, despite this on page one of Major Henderson’s form 112: “Time and distance between the events could hint of a possible relationship.” Despite that finding, Blue Book took the Hill sighting no more seriously than it did the North Concord event. The Blue Book Project 10073 Record Card is brief, and elucidates just twelve points about the Hills and the Pease radar. Point 11 is labeled “Comments,” and reads:
Both radar and visual sighting are probably due to conditions resulting from strong inversion which prevailed in area on morning of sighting. Actual source of light viewed is not known but it has all the characteristics of an advertising searchlight.
In other words, Blue Book hazarded an unsubstantiated guess.
The Project’s conclusions about Hill/Pease AFB originally said, “Optical condition.” Afterward, the conclusion was changed (on the same card) to “inversion” and later still to “insufficient data.” Independent of Blue Book, official USAF explanations for Hill/Pease AFB included “optical conditions” (whatever that means) and the planet Jupiter. The Air Force also picked up on Blue Book’s weather inversion, even though neither Blue Book nor the Air Force investigated atmospheric conditions that might have produced the sightings. The Air Force, like Blue Book, came up with” insufficient data,” citing the Hills’ failure to note a direction of the light’s course. As we’ve seen, of course, the Hills did provide a direction of travel: north followed by south.
Whether the official obfuscation suggests a conspiracy or just professional lassitude can’t be known for certain. (Betty herself wrote to Blue Book, and to Major Keyhoe at NICAP, on September 26.) At the least, official investigators felt like investigating very little about what was observed by Barney and Betty Hill.
