Living Special Lives
Barney Hill was African American; at the time of the abduction, he was thirty- nine years old. Betty Hill, forty-one, was Caucasian. When Barney and Betty met in New Hampshire in the mid-1950s, both were nearing the end of what would be their first marriages. Barney and Betty wed in the late spring of 1960, and settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. People anxious to explain the Hills’ abduction in “rational” terms have suggested that because of the racial aspect of their relationship, the Hills existed “apart” from mainstream American society.
Because of this, the rational-explainers said, the Hills were predisposed to invent a situation that played on and reinforced their “outsider’ status. (Bear in mind that this racialist rationalization of the Hills’ encounter was offered just three years after Virginia authorities arrested a “mixed-race” couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, for “miscegenation,” and a full six years before the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that state laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional.) Betty developed a progressive turn of mind two decades earlier, while pursuing friendships with black students at the University of New Hampshire.
Barney grew up in Virginia, where he negotiated a segregated society and experienced the usual sorts of everyday slights. In the Army during World War II, his career followed the course usually reserved for black soldiers: a support job, driving a truck. Later, after marrying Betty in 1960 and settling in Portsmouth, Barney took the job with the post office.
Portsmouth was home to relatively few African Americans. Because the local black population had few advocates, Barney established a visible presence as a community civil rights leader. He maintained membership in the NAACP and was appointed to the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Commission. Plain and simple justice motivated him; for instance, local businesses that refused to serve blacks eventually got restrained but firm visits from Barney. Much of Betty’s activity as a social worker aided people of color.
The Hills’ activism, and Barney’s frequent night-shift hours, made for long separations. The Hills encountered the spacecraft while on a long-delayed vacation trip.
Local media covered the Hill case in 1961 but it was not until 1966 that the couple’s tale achieved national impact. A badly done 1966 Boston Traveler article prepared without the Hills’ involvement misrepresented the couples’ experience. Barney and Betty were bothered by that, and were receptive when approached by a writer named John G. Fuller. Fuller would shortly have success with Incident at Exeter, a book about another UFO experience (see chapter nine). The book he wrote with help from the Hills, The Interrupted Journey, enjoyed even more success, and helped transform Barney and Betty into important cultural figures. A sober TV-movie, The UFO Incident, aired on NBC in 1975. (The film is, regrettably, not presently available on commercial DVD.) Two important stage and film actors, James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons, effectively portrayed Barney and Betty, and brought the Hills’ story into millions of American homes.
The Hills’ details of their kidnapping startled the broader public and effectively put an end to the “benevolent alien” scenario propounded in the 1950s by George Adamski and others. Although Barney Hill died suddenly, of a cerebral hemorrhage, at age forty-six in 1969, Betty continued to speak about UFOs, and made claims of many additional encounters, including a craft that seemed to “visit” her on the day of her husband’s funeral. Betty Hill passed away in 2004, at eighty-five.
Reactions to Betty’s ongoing UFO activism varied. Some observers felt she damaged the veracity of the original account; others became more inclined to write her off as a kook or a publicity hound. Many doubters, untrained in psychology, declared that the Hills had flat-out lied. But among people inclined to believe the tale, the abduction of Barney and Betty Hill inspired considerable speculation. People (usually white people) wondered: Why did the visitors abduct a couple? Maybe aliens are curious about human sexuality. Were the Hills selected because of sexual qualities and experiences unique to them, or did they just happen to be the first couple the aliens encountered? What happened to the Hills during their time inside the ship? Did Barney and Betty Hill tell the whole story? Could they even remember the whole story?
The common argument against the Hills—that they fabricated a story in order to make money—doesn’t bear much scrutiny. The Hills approached their social activism with energy and seriousness. Far from looking to line their pockets, the Hills initially avoided talking about their experience in order not to compromise their community work. Inherent seriousness characterized them both. Neither was a frivolous person. Further, J. Allen Hynek and other trained observers were inclined to believe their story. Although the things that happened to Barney and Betty in September 1961 cannot be proved true, nothing in their story falls apart under careful examination. Their encounter was intensely personal rather than public. They did not seek fame. They became famous because of events quite out of their control.