The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: The Occupants
In 1980, through a referral from Dr. James Harder, Betty communicated detailed descriptive information to a mainstream scientist who wishes to remain anonymous.
On April 8, 1980, she wrote the following to the scientist:
As for the examiner, the one who did the testing of us was about 4 1/2 feet tall; his head shape was more like ours, and did not seem to be as large in size as the “little guy,” but was more in proportion to his body size. Facial features were similar to the “little guy,” but had a “bumpy” appearance. It is difficult to describe, but the skin was not smooth. The leader was the “good-looking” one—having a closer re- semblance to us. His face was of a triangular shape, tapering down to a very small chin and jawbone. I observed a very small mouth and nose. His height was approximately the same as mine—5 feet.
I think the eight crew members were similar to the leader and examiner, although I did not observe them closely, for they were in the dark most of the time. While I was being examined they remained in an unlighted corridor. As for height and appearance, they gave the impression of similarity.
As far as I could determine, all lacked hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. I did not observe the protruding part of the ear. Their skin seemed to have a gray tone. Their hands had four fingers and one thumb and were long and slender. I do not recall seeing fingernails, but during my examination, I was terribly frightened, and most of the time my eyes were closed. I did open them occasionally, particularly when I thought they were getting some kind of equipment to be used in my examination. At that point, my curiosity overcame my fears. Frankly, I did not want to see their appearance.
Barney and I did attempt to withhold some aspects of their physical characteristics from the public. Since you are interested in their evolution, I will confidentially reveal some of these. When Barney was lying on the table, looking up, he saw inside the mouth of the examiner. There were no teeth, but possibly a small tongue. He also observed a membrane, which fluttered when the examiner spoke in his own language to his group. This was apparently used for communication. They also had the appearance of being top-heavy—their chest area seemed to be larger in proportion to their body build than ours, whereas their legs and hip region seemed smaller. When they walked outdoors, they did so with a rolling gait, as though they had sea legs, and were somewhat unsure of their balance. However, two of them carried Barney along without difficulty. For their size, they must have been very strong. I had the opportunity to observe very little walking onboard the craft, but from what I can recall, I didn’t notice anything unusual about their gait, although the door was open. Additionally, outside, one of the crew members gave the appearance of gulping air— opening his mouth almost like a fish. This gave me the impression he was having difficulty breathing our air.
As for the craft itself, the air seemed cooler than on the outside. The night air was warm for that time of year, possibly as a result of the hurricane coming up the coast. I was wearing a short-sleeved dress, without a sweater, and was comfortable. But I did notice a temperature difference.
As for the lighting in the examining room, it was extremely bright, indirect lighting that seemed to shine through the walls and ceiling. The brilliant, blue-white light hurt my eyes at first, causing me to keep them closed for a while.
One aspect of the examination seemed to amaze them. Although I could not understand their communication with each other, I sensed their excitement when they examined my skin through what I thought was some kind of microscope. They seemed astonished. The examiner looked first; then the leader. Then they took turns. I assume they were examining my cell structure or genetic code. So many times since then I have wished I asked the leader if we were genetically related. Could they be our descendents? I suspect they are.
It is impossible to write all I have learned in the past several years in one letter. However, I have been developing an assumption pertaining to their origin. Based upon the work of Marjorie Fish and others, I assume they are from Zeta Reticuli, a planet which could be 6 to 11 billion years old. I have made the assumption that their home base has less sunlight, less gravity, and less water than Earth. Their planet could have adjusted to life without food as we know it. I think they are researching nearby star systems, of which we are one, but these systems vary in age from early development to far beyond us. They may be transporting forms of life from one planet to another to study their adaptability to new environments.
I hope I have not overwhelmed you with some of my speculative ideas. I have been pondering these areas for nearly 20 years, and my thinking has not always been easy. However, it is based upon knowledge gained, which is too lengthy for one letter. So, if you would like to speculate, it would be interesting to me.
Sincerely, Betty Hill
On April 18, 1980, the scientist replied as follows:
In my correspondence with Jim [Dr. James Harder, APRO’s director of investigations] I was tentatively of the opinion that perhaps type-A aliens (his classification), of the kind you met, may have been derived from us by other aliens and bred more or less as we breed domestic animals to produce desirable mental and physical characteristics. From your descriptions, this now seems unlikely to me.
To begin with the normal aliens (i.e. not the “little guy”):
- The proportions of the head and the body of the examiner are indicative of a somewhat higher level of encephalization than in our species. I want to replot the curve derived for maximum terrestrial encephalization levels, based on better data, before evaluating the relative encephalization of the examiner.
- “Skin not smooth—gray tone”—recent publications imply that in some desert animals, dark color is not related to heat-dumping, but to assimilating heat during periods of cold stress without the necessity of elevating metabolic rates. Of course, there is also a relationship between melanization and exposure to ultraviolet light.
- The weak jaw of the leader could certainly be interpreted as evidence of ingestion of nonresistant food— or a preprocessed food. Cf. also small size of mouth.
- Body size on Earth seems to be correlated with the abundance and ubiquitous availability of food. It is probably also inversely correlated with gravity.
- The large chest would seem to suggest a proportionally greater need to ventilate. Due to low oxygen content of parental atmosphere? Or high metabolic rates? Or rarefied parental atmosphere? Or inefficient oxygen assimilation mechanisms (cf. Octopus)? The difficulty one crew member has in “gulping” air might suggest that the greater (?) density of our atmosphere increased air turbulence in his breathing apparatus which may have been too finely tubed.
- “Sea legs”—If they were actually carrying your husband without some levitation device (which seems to be suggested in the book—cf. p. 155 of soft-back edition) they would have been strong. The limbs then have been powerful in spite of their small size. Was the peculiar gait then the result of imperfect adjustment to a somewhat weaker gravity?
- The large eyes and brilliant interior lighting present a bit of a paradox. I’ll try to check this aspect indirectly with some colleagues. However, you note that the corridors were unlighted. Could their eyes accommodate a larger range of illumination? I assume they wore no optical devices during the examination? Enclosed are Xerox copies of Gecko eyes to show the great range of pupil dilation. Is there any resemblance here to the eyes of the aliens?
- The coolness of the interior environment and naked- ness of the skin suggests the desirability of heat flow from them into the environment. This would be consistent with high metabolic rates.
- Your comment on their reaction to the cellular (?) construction of your skin is very interesting. Would scientists in a similar situation be more excited by fundamental differences or fundamental resemblances? Perhaps the latter, for fundamental resemblances would be more rapidly understood than fundamental differences. I suspect, personally, that much of the organization of the multicellular organisms derives from the nature of the cell. The appearance of the aliens is much closer to ours than is that of many other terrestrial organisms. Might not our fundamental building blocks be also similar? I must admit, it would be too much if the DNA structure and gene loci arrangements were closely similar—I’d wonder if someone were stacking the deck on me
There are some astonishing parallelisms, e.g.:
- Their five-fingeredness, as basically in terrestrial vertebrates. Were their fingers unequally jointed as in lizards or about equally jointed (divided into equal segments) as in our case?
- The fact that they had nostrils and a mouth, through which air is passed when speaking—cf. fluttering of membrane which is functionally a secondary palate? I wonder if the membrane is used in modulating sounds in the same manner as our tongue. The intercommunication between the digestion and the respiratory systems in the oral cavity at first blush is not the kind of coincidence that one would predict.
In speculating on the reason for the adaptive specializations of these creatures, we should probably keep in mind the possibility that they may have been dwelling in space stations for evolutionarily significant spans of time. Their morphology may derive from a mixture of temporally discrete suites of selective pressures. Thus, could the “sea-legs” behaviour be a result of adaptation or previous acclimatization to a rotating artificial gravity of a space station? Could the large chest be partly the effects of natural selection and reduced air pressure in space stations?
I find your ideas about Zeta Reticulians evolving in an older, relatively impoverished biological system appealing. As Terry Dickinson points out in his article, Zeta Reticuli is lean in metals relative to the solar system. I suspect, but am as yet unable to propose a quantitative relation, that the availability of nutrients is directly related to the rapidity of evolutionary rates. Thus the aliens you saw, assuming them to be indeed derived from this star system, are only about as encephalized as we are in spite of the relatively great age of their natal star system.
On April 30, 1980, Betty made the following comments in her return correspondence:
In reference to your comment #5, “The large chest would seem to suggest a proportionally greater need to ventilate,” I know of two cases of face-to-face contact with aliens. After being in our atmosphere for approximately 20 minutes, both groups experienced great difficulty breathing. On both occasions, an alien said, “Help me, for my energies are running out.” They had great difficulty in walking, needing to hang onto things to move, and slowly dragged their feet, walking and moving with great effort. They appeared as though they were about to collapse.
Comment #6—regarding their strength in carrying Barney, although they were smaller than us in size, I found them to be quite powerful. Barney was carried along by two aliens, one on each side of him, who placed their hands under his armpits. They were reaching up to do this. Barney weighed about 160 pounds. Another example happened when I refused to go onboard the craft and fought to get away. One alien took each arm and pulled me firmly onboard the craft. I was struggling to the point that my dress was badly torn.
Comment #7—their eyes: Barney and I said repeatedly that we had never seen eyes like theirs before. In some manner, both of us blocked out a full description of these. Whenever Dr. Simon said “eyes” to me, I burst out crying. Something about the eyes was terribly upsetting to me. Now, I have a hint as to the cause of my upset. When I looked at the eyes of the Wall Gecko, I became physically ill, a feeling of horror. I cannot say with certainty that the eyes are the same, but from my reaction to this, I suspect that they are. Often I would say that they had a similarity, in some strange way, to the eyes of a cat, but now I suspect it is a similarity to the eyes of a Wall Gecko. Now, while I am writing this, the same reactions are returning—feelings of being upset, ill, etc.— extreme fright. As for the gecko, I have no fear of reptiles, snakes, etc., so I am certain it is not that. I grew up in an area with many snakes and have often handled them.
As for their fingers, I remember them as being similar to our fingers, but I had a feeling of coolness when I was touched. Whether this was from a cooler body temperature, or from my own fears, I do not know. I did not note any differences in the rapidity of their breathing.
I was puffing from fighting to get away, but they seemed to be breathing normally. Also, I did not see any evidence of fatigue at the end of our encounter. I could not say whether their legs were bony, lumpy, etc. They were covered, but seemed smaller than our legs in that the pant legs were not as well filled out as with the average male, so I assume they were smooth.
I think they had an orifice in the place of ears, but I could not swear to this. Both the leader and examiner were wearing caps, with no protrusion of the external ear. In total, Betty and the scientist communicated in letter form over a period of six months. This intellectual curiosity and depth of scientific knowledge has contributed significantly to the general public’s under- standing of possible alien environments. It is unfortunate that this type of speculation cannot be carried out in a public forum, but mainstream science is extremely conservative. One who strays too far from the narrow path of accepted dogma risks intellectual controversy and ostracism from the mainstream.