The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: Betty’s Fall From Grace
three more UFOs before they arrived at David’s parents’ home at 6:35 a.m. They were dazed and unable to regain their equilibrium or to speak fluently. Their hands and feet were red, swollen, and tingling, and their teeth were loose and sore. Both had orange circles around their eyes that later faded to a pale amber. Glenn’s tongue was coated with a brown substance and there was a brown ring around David’s neck. Two days later, David reported that a tall man in business attire knocked on his door. When he opened it, the man threatened him, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
David was referred to a nearby medical doctor who was trained in the use of hypnosis. Under hypnotic regression he told of being abducted and given a physical examination in a circular gray room. His captors were approximately 4 1/2 feet tall with hairless, pale-white skin and large slanting eyes, a very small nose, and no visible ear flaps. He could not remember the appearance of their mouths. They had three webbed fingers and a thumb. A bright light was shining on him, and although he attempted to strike out at his captors, he was completely under their control. A large, square, lighted machine on a movable extension arm was placed over his chest. Then, his body was examined from head to toe and samples were extracted, similar to Barney Hill’s exam.
Nearly a year later, Betty received a letter from Shirley Fickett from the International UFO Bureau, the primary investigator, informing her that on September 11, 1976, David’s doctor had received a frightening visit from a man in black.
Betty visited him at his home and subsequently wrote the following report:
I called Dr. H and visited at his home regarding his contact with the MIB on September 11, 1976. Dr. H said that his family had all gone out to a drive-in movie. He was not interested so he stayed at home. About 8 p.m. his phone rang and a man’s voice said he was vice president of a UFO research group in New Jersey and understood that he was the one who worked with David, and he would like to discuss this case. The doctor invited him to visit. He put down the phone and went to the porch to turn on the light.
The man was standing there, ringing the bell. [This is before the invention of the cell phone.] He invited him in and the man sat on the couch while the doctor sat on a chair across the room. He verified that the doctor had done the hypnosis, had the tapes of this, letters, and other materials about UFOs.
Then he said that he knew the doctor had two coins in his pocket—correct. He told him to take out one of them and to hold it in his outstretched hand. He told him to watch the coin, not him. He did this and saw the penny change to a silver color, then to a blue color, become hazy, indistinct, and vanish. The doctor said that this was a good trick, and now he asked him to bring it back. The man said that no one on this plane would ever see that coin again.
Next, he asked the doctor if he knew how Barney Hill died.
The doctor said he had heard that he had a heart attack. The man said that this is right; they had taken his heart just as he had taken the coin. Then he said that Barney knew too much. [This information is incorrect. Barney died from a cerebral hemorrhage.] Then, he told the doctor to get rid of all his materials about UFOs—the tapes, letters, and all books—to forget about UFOs.
He went on to say that the information he had received about David was correct.
The man said, “My energies are getting low and I must leave.” He had difficulty getting off the couch, walking to the door, and was staggering as he went down the stairs. He turned the corner, and was gone.
The doctor ran to the window to see where he had gone—no car. He saw a bright white flash of light beside the corner of the house, and the man was not there.
The man was described as about 5 feet, 6 inches tall. He was dressed as a funeral director—black suit, tie, shoes, white shirt, derby hat, and wearing dark gray kidskin gloves. He removed his hat, and his head was completely bald. His eyes were normal, although the doctor could not tell the color of them. He had no eyelashes or eyebrows and no facial hair. His skin color was a pasty white—very pale. His ears were small and were set lower on his head than ours. His mouth was a thin slit and he was wearing red lipstick. At one time, he rubbed his glove across his mouth and the lipstick came off on his glove. His nose was a small bubble type—no ridge or bone. His body structure seemed different. His clothing hung on him—his pants had a razor-sharp crease, and his legs did not fill them out when he sat down. His shoes were the same as we wear. He did not remove his gloves.
His voice was monotone. He used perfect, precise English, but he apparently did not understand the fine meaning of words. When he came to the end of sentence, his voice did not drop down—he just stopped talking.
I had taken the French publication Ceux Venus S’Ailleurs with me and the doctor pinpointed my alien as looking the most like the one he saw. Of course, this drawing is not very much like the actual ones that I saw, but it does have similarities.
We talked about Barney’s death and the doctor knows now that he died of a stroke—he was relieved about this and relaxed some. He was very uptight about his experience.
He erased the tapes and then burned them, burned or got rid of all letters, books, etc. about UFOs.
During the mid-1970s through the 1980s Betty became thoroughly engrossed in the UFO field. She joined the UFO lecture circuit, traveling from conference to conference, spoke in regional lecture halls and at colleges, and was a frequent guest speaker at Pease Air Force Base. It was during these engagements that she met several individuals who told her of their own close encounters. Three of these contacts suspected that they had been abducted and agreed to permit Betty to investigate their claims. She arranged for a UFO investigator who was qualified to hypnotize them, studied their life histories, met their families, and maintained a close relationship with them. Simultaneously, she was confidentially dis- cussing their cases with a psychiatrist who was cooperating in the investigation. As it turned out, each was afflicted by a major mental illness with accompanying psychotic delusions.
Then, as UFO abduction came to the forefront of popular culture through best-selling books and docudramas, hundreds of alleged abductees sought help from the well-known abduction investigators. Betty’s past experiences with mentally ill alleged abductees were difficult for her. The hypnosis sessions that she had arranged were damaging to those whom she sought to help. The trauma inflicted by the recovered memories may have precipitated destabilizing episodes that required psychiatric intervention in some of her alleged abductees. Perhaps they would have suffered a psychotic episode without her intervention, but there is documented evidence that each was committed to a psychiatric hospital within months of undergoing hypnotic regression. These regressions were not con- ducted by a hypnotherapist with a background in psychology or psychiatry. Amnesia was not imposed, and Dr. Simon’s professional methods were not adhered to. Information was the main focus, and there was little regard for the victim’s emotional well-being, except by Betty. It seems that Betty not only blamed the hypnotist, but also took personal responsibility for the misuse of hypnosis and her failure to identify the symptoms of mental illness in her subjects prior to their hypnosis. This failure brought about a diametrically opposite shift in her investigation of abductees: Thereafter, she reassured suspected abductees that they had not been abducted, and dissuaded them from undergoing hypnotic regression.
In the early 1990s Betty was agonizing over the direction that the UFO field was taking in abduction investigations. She was outraged by what she perceived to be the misuse of hypnosis for the economic gain of a few at the expense of many. She argued that Dr. Simon’s greatest fear was being realized. Prior to the publication of The Interrupted Journey, he had voiced his apprehension about the possible misuse of hypnosis in UFO abduction investigations. He feared that this extremely useful tool in the treatment of traumatic amnesia would ultimately be discredited, not because it was ineffective, but because it was employed by individuals less qualified than he. The ethical and psychological implications were profound.