The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: Betty’s Interview With the Leader
Betty’s conversation with the leader is unique in character. It was part of her hypnotic regression and dream material, but was not experienced by Barney. The leader explained to Betty that only one medical examination could be performed at a time, apparently because there was only one physician on the craft. Reportedly Barney was enduring a medical examination during this time frame. An analysis of Betty’s interview with the leader vis-à-vis her dream material should facilitate our under- standing of this strangest and most contested aspect of the abduction experience.
On March 14, 1964, Betty informed Dr. Simon that when her physical examination had been completed, the examiner left the room, leaving her alone with the leader. She was grateful to him because he had stopped her pain, and now feeling comfortable in his presence, she initiated a conversation with him. She explained that her experience had been so outrageous that no one would ever believe that it had actually happened.
In fact, she stated that most people didn’t even know that he existed, adding that what she needed was some proof to take home with her. He told her to look around and maybe she could find something she would like to take. On the cabinet was a fairly large book. She put her hand on the book and asked if she could have it. He told her to look in the book, and she did. It had pages and writing, but it was different from any book she had ever seen before. In a deep hypnotic trance that day, Betty described it to Dr. Simon as follows: “It went up and down. It was different…it had short lines, and some were very thin and some were medium and some were heavy. They had some dots and they had straight lines and curved lines.” When the leader asked Betty if she thought she could read the book, she replied that she wasn’t taking the book to read; it would serve as her proof that she and Barney had actually met people from another planet.
She added, “So, he said that I could have the book if I wanted it, and I picked it up, and I was delighted. I mean, this was more than I had ever hoped for. And I’m standing there and I’m saying that I had never seen anything like the book, and that I was very pleased that he had given it to me, and that maybe someway I could figure out in time how to read it.”1 When we compare this hypnotically retrieved information to Betty’s dream sequence, we find that they are nearly identical. However, the dream recall is not nearly as rich with detail as the hypnotic recall, which suggests that she might have confabulated to add more detail to her ac- count, but that is mere speculation.
In “Dreams or Reality?” she wrote, “I suggested that what was needed was absolute proof that this had happened; maybe he could give me something to take back with me. He agreed and asked what I would like. I looked around the room and found a large book. I asked if I could take this with me and he agreed. I was so happy, and thanked him. I opened the book and found symbols written in long, narrow columns. He asked jokingly if I thought I could read it, and I said that this was impossible; I had never seen anything like it. I was not taking this for reading purposes, but this was my absolute proof of the experience, and that I would always remember him as long as I lived.” Next, Betty interrogated the leader about the location of his home base.
She begins, “And so, then I said that…I asked him where he was from. I knew he wasn’t from the Earth and I wanted to know, where did he come from? He asked me if I knew anything about the universe and I told him no, that I know practically nothing, but that when I was in grade school we were taught that the sun was the center of the universe and that there were nine planets. And then, later of course, we did make advances and I told him about seeing…I think I met him one time…about Harlow Shapley [an American astronomer]. And he wrote a book too.
And I had seen photographs that he had taken of millions and millions of stars in the universe. But that was about all I knew.”2 Then the leader crossed the room and pulled a map out of an opening in the wall and asked Betty if she had ever seen a map like it before. She walked across the room and leaned against the table, looking up at the oblong map with dots scattered all over it. Some were little, just pin- points, and others were as big as a nickel. On some of the dots, there were curved lines going from one dot to another. Then, there was one large circle with several heavy, solid lines that connected it to another, slightly smaller, circle. When Betty asked the leader why some lines were solid and heavy, and others were dotted, he informed her that the broken lines were expeditions.
Next, Betty became curious about where the leader’s home port was located on the map. When she asked him where he was from, he asked, “Where are you on this map?” Betty laughed and informed him that she didn’t know, and he replied, “If you don’t know where you are, there wouldn’t be any point in my telling you where I am.” Then he rolled the map up and put it back in the space in the wall and closed it.
Again, Betty’s dream sequence is nearly identical to her hypnotic recall. In “Dreams or Reality?” she wrote, “Then I asked where he was from and he asked if I knew anything about the universe. I said, ‘No, but I would like to learn.’ He went over to the wall and pulled down a map.” It is apparent that Betty’s dream mimics 1961 technology: The leader pulls down a map reminiscent of classroom geographical maps, which he later snapped back in place. Under hypnosis, Betty said he removed the map from a hole in the wall. However, when she later consciously re- called this portion of the abduction in an interview with Kathy, the map became “almost like looking out a window about three feet wide and two feet high. The pattern was in the forefront. Other stars were there but not so noticeable. The stars in which I had an interest were those that were connected by lines, although three others were noticeable to me, maybe from the angle from which I was looking.”
The Hills’ hypnotic recall breaks down when Betty describes an incident involving the removal of Barney’s dentures. Betty recalled, “All of a sudden there is a noise out in the hall and some of the other men come in, and with them is the examiner and they are quite excited. So, I ask the leader, ‘What’s the matter? Has something happened to Barney? What is it? It’s something to do with Barney.’ And the examiner has me open my mouth and he starts checking my teeth and they are tugging at them. And I ask them, ‘What are they trying to do?’ And the examiner said [copious laughter]… he said that they couldn’t figure it out—Barney’s teeth came out and mine didn’t.”
In a mid-April, 1964 interview, Betty told Dr. Simon, “While I was waiting, I was talking to the leader, and when I was talking with him, one of the men came in with Barney’s dentures in his hand. This is very funny because Barney is very sensitive about this. Most people don’t know he wears dentures and he doesn’t like to have people know this. I thought, well he’s going to be angry about this.”
When the leader inquired about Barney’s dentures, Betty explained that as people grew older they had to go to the dentist and have their teeth extracted and replaced with dentures. Referring to Barney’s tooth loss, she added that he had to have dentures because he had a mouth injury that had necessitated the extraction of his teeth.
Curiously, the leader seemed ignorant of the human aging process.
He asked Betty, “What’s old age?” And she said, “‘Well, it varies, but as a person gets older, there are changes in him, particularly physically. He sort of begins to break down with old age.’ And so he said, ‘Well, what is age?’ What did I mean by age? I said that it is the life span, the lifetime that people lived. And he said, ‘How long was this?’ And I said, ‘I think a life span is supposed to be about 100 years, but people can die before that, and most of them do because of disease or accidents’—this type of thing. That…and I think the average length of time was near, I don’t know, 65 or 70.”
The leader indicated to Betty that he had no under- standing of time or aging, so Betty told him that she didn’t know exactly how it was figured out but it had some- thing to do with the Earth’s rotation, the position of the planets, and the seasons. But somehow she couldn’t make him understand.
This portion of Betty’s hypnotic recall is nearly identical, word for word, to her dream. However, with the exception of the removal of Barney’s dentures (he remembered only that his mouth was opened), it is not part of Barney’s experience. Our inability to correlate this hypnotically recovered information casts doubt upon its authenticity. It fills in the gap in the time sequence between Betty’s physical exam and the completion of Barney’s, but there is no independent verification.
The following scenario was also part of Betty’s dream, although it appeared in a different sequential order. It too is suggestive of a fantasy sequence. She explained to the leader, “I said that we eat meat, potatoes, vegetables, and milk and all. So he asked me, ‘What are vegetables?’ And I said that this was a broad term and could cover a great variety of certain kinds of foods we eat. And I couldn’t explain just what vegetables were.
There were too many. So he said, was there one kind that I liked that I ate, and I said that I ate a great many, but my favorite was squash. So, he said, ‘Well, tell me about squash.’ So, I said, ‘Well it was yellow, usually in color.’ So, he said, ‘Well what is yellow?’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ll show you,’ and I started walking around the room looking and I couldn’t find anything yellow at all.”4 There is an apparent contradiction in this sequence: Betty alleges that the leader can communicate with her in English, but he seems to lack even a rudimentary understanding of it. Additionally, he seems to lack familiarity with the concept of yellow. However, Betty describes the craft flashing multicolored lights as it passes in front of the moon. (This was part of her conscious, continuous memory.) One of these colors is amber, a shade of yellow. This portion of Betty’s interview does not stand up under scrutiny. It is clearly characteristic of the rich fantasy material found in dreams…perhaps her subconscious mind’s attempt to add acceptable elements to an otherwise traumatic event.
The star map is the only portion of Betty’s interview with the leader that has been tested scientifically. Marjorie Fish and Stanton have engaged in an extensive investigation of this aspect of the abduction, detailed in Chapter 22