The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: Psychophysics Experiments
Three and a half years after their initial contact, Robert Hohmann, the second investigator to examine the Hill case, penned a letter to NICAP’s original investigator, Walter Webb. Hohmann, a scientific writer, wrote that he had heard via NICAP Director Dick Hall that the Hills had successfully undergone professional hypnosis to remove the block that resulted from their extreme fright. He requested a tape or transcript of the information reported during the hypnotic state, along with Walter Webb’s opinion. Apparently, Mr. Webb passed the information onto the Hills, because on July 15, 1965, Betty reestablished contact with Hohmann via a long and informative letter.
This e letter is significant and appears in full as follows:
Dear Mr. Hohmann,
I hope this letter reaches you successfully for both Barney and I wish to thank you for your suggestion back in 1961 that we undergo hypnosis. [USAF Major James MacDonald was the first to make this suggestion.]
Since it has been such a long time since there has been any contact between us, you may remember us as the couple who had the experience with the UFO on Route 3 in the White Mountains on Sept. 19–20, 1961. At the time that you and Mr. Jackson visited us, there were many puzzles about our sighting that were unexplained, such as Barney’s “blackout” when he looked at the leader in the craft, loss of time on the trip, the orange moon on the ground, etc. In an attempt to clear up these aspects, you suggested hypnosis by a qualified psychiatrist.
Starting in January, 1964, Barney and I underwent hypnosis for a seven-month period of time with a highly qualified psychiatrist in Boston, at quite an expense to us. Before starting these sessions, he assured us that it is impossible to fabricate under hypnosis. He hypnotized us separately, and caused us to forget our tapings so that we could not communicate [them] with each other.
The results of these sessions were amazing and very difficult to believe. They were particularly upsetting to the psychiatrist, who does not believe in UFOs, and is searching for an explanation.
As to my opinion, I believe that the information that was revealed during these sessions is valid. We do have copies of the tapes, which show the extent of our fears during the experience.
They are filled with raw emotion where we scream, cry, become hysterical, etc. During these sessions, it was revealed that Barney and I were followed by the spacecraft, [and] stopped on the highway. We watched it descend fairly close to us. At that point where Barney had the “blackout,” it revealed that he was looking at the leader who was hypnotizing him and telling him to come closer, he was safe, he had nothing to be afraid of. As he was watching, he saw a ladder descending, and was able to break away and run to the safety of the car, although he was in somewhat of a trance.
Apparently, the first beeping sounds that we heard had some- what of a hypnotizing effect on me, although I was more conscious of what was happening. We did turn off Route 3 to a secondary road, to a third road—very desolate. The orange glow (moon) on the ground was the spacecraft, and 11 men were standing in the road. Our car motor and electrical system died. The men came up to the car, opened the doors, and took us out. At this point we both went into deep trances, but mine lasted only about five to 10 minutes. The men took us onboard the spacecraft and took Barney and me into separate rooms where they gave us physical exams.
They were very puzzled over the fact that Barney had dentures and I did not. Barney did not communicate with them, but I was able to do this with the leader and the examiner, but not the crew members. This is puzzling, for we did not speak English, but were able to understand each other, particularly the leader and I.
At first they were going to permit us to remember the experience and the leader gave me a book, but then they decided against this and he took the book away from me.
My main purpose in this letter is to tell you about the map, for I remember that you were interested in planets where there may be life. I have asked the leader where he was from and he showed me a map. During the sessions, the doctor told me that I would remember the map exactly as I saw it. I was to go home, be perfectly relaxed, and then draw the map as I saw it. I did this and gave the map to the doctor, more or less forgetting about it, until I read The New York Times of 4/13/65. In this paper was an article about the Russian report of radio signals from this source CTA-102, with a map giving the location. This map looked vaguely familiar, so I wrote to the doctor and asked him for a copy of my map. I am sending you a copy of this map with the addition of the names of the stars, planets, or whatever they are, which I have added from the Times map, as well as the Russians’ location of CTA-102.
On this map you will note a difference in the size of the planets as well as the lines drawn between them. This is the way I duplicate their map. The leader said they traded extensively with the planets near them, but the broken lines were expeditions.
I do not know the validity of this map, or the location of the planets, but the Russians said that it was the constellation of Pegasus. I do hope it will be of benefit to you for it is an amazing coincidence. [It was only a coincidence and does not correlate to the stars on Betty’s map or to the Fish model.] Another coincidence was some warts that Barney developed soon after our experience. They developed in a perfect circle.
During the hypnosis he found that they had placed a cup-like object on his body in the spot where the warts later developed. During his sessions when he found out how he received them, they became infected and he went to a skin specialist and had all 21 warts removed. The first specialist refused to remove them as he had never seen any like them and referred Barney to another specialist, who removed them but did not identify them.
Incidentally, the leader made me feel very stupid, as I was not able to answer his questions. In my attempt to let him know that there were more intelligent people on this Earth than I am, I invited them to return and I would introduce them to people who could answer their questions. He said that it was not his decision to make, but if they decided to do this, they would get in contact with me. I chided him about this—how would he find me in all of 204 b Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience the billions of people here? He told me that if this was their decision they would find me—that they always find the people that they want to find.
As a sidelight, since 1961 we have met many people who would be of interest and education to them and could discuss these things with them. In September 1961, we did not know anyone who would share their interests.
If you should have any questions, we will try to answer them for you now that we have more information from our hypnosis.
Sincerely,
This renewed correspondence led to a meeting between Hohmann and the Hills in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in early November of 1965. Hohmann, who traveled extensively on business, was scheduled to visit Plymouth State Teachers College during the weekend of November 5–6. Initially he requested a map and directions to the landing site along with a query regarding the assistance of a local guide. Betty and Barney, however, citing the fact that it would be difficult for him to locate the spots where the close encounter occurred, offered to give Hohmann a guided tour late in the afternoon of November 6. It was his intention to explore the Hills’ UFO encounter area to test the hypothesis that the UFO phenomenon is related to the geology of a region. The Hills met with Mr. Hohmann and escorted him through the encounter area and to the site where they observed the orange moon on the ground. Additionally, they discussed with him the hypnotically retrieved information regarding their abduction memories and the highly controversial status of its validity.
Later that month, Hohmann wrote a note to thank the Hills for their generosity and assistance in escorting him to the site of their UFO experience. He stated that although there were several aspects of the case he did not understand, he found Barney’s observation that his captors cloaked themselves in a conventional image to minimize the shock of seeing some- thing so completely foreign, to be profound. Citing the fact that this could best be understood by a therapist, not a layman like himself, he added that he could only respect Barney’s observation, not explain it.
His letter indicated that the Hills had, once again, discussed the possibility of reestablishing contact with the craft’s occupants in order to obtain physical evidence to support the Hills’ abduction claim. This evidence—possibly a piece of hardware, he assured Betty and Barney— would prevent their material from becoming tabloid news, a direction that they most certainly did not want to take.
This renewed contact led to ongoing communication throughout the next several years, and precipitated scientific interest in Betty’s stated desire to attempt to reestablish contact with her captors. Betty’s memoirs state that she and Barney entered into a series of experiments with two scientists in an attempt to contact the occupants of the craft that ab- ducted them. In interviews with Kathy, Betty identified the “scientists” as Robert Hohmann and C.D. Jackson. Throughout her lifetime, it was not clear to Betty that Hohmann was a writer, not a scientist. However, C.D. Jackson was correctly identified as a senior engineer/scientist. Betty stated that the two agreed to work with her under the condition that she would disassociate herself from UFO groups and work quietly, without publicity, with them.
Betty’s and Barney’s 1965 meeting with Mr. Hohmann apparently aroused his interest in assembling a loosely structured team brave enough to pursue scientific investigation in attempted ET contact, even though it was a strange path to follow. This occurred prior to the series of UFO sightings by the Hills that convinced them their captors were continuing to monitor them. These proposed experiments would serve as Betty’s opportunity to acquire physical evidence to prove the veracity of her belief that she had been abducted by aliens. Further, the fact that scientists had indicated interest in attempting contact with the Hills’ captors leant a sense of respectability to the experiments.
The experiments involved what the team termed “psychophysical” communication between Betty and the ETs. Initially, Betty attempted to reestablish contact with her captors by placing the star map she had drawn under posthypnotic suggestion, as well as some of the materials that were present in her vehicle during the Hills’ initial contact in September of 1961 in her car. Additionally, she and Barney were instructed to report to the team any and all unusual occurrences, regardless of how insignificant they seemed.
In a letter dated January 14, 1966, Betty described her family as hard- headed practical realists who were beginning to feel “on edge” over the intrusion of paranormal activities into their homes. She wrote, “These things are happening to Barney and me as well as to most of my relatives, but they have been witnessed by other people who were present. We do not believe in ghosts, but we do believe in space travel and life on other planets, so we wonder if these space travelers might have the ability to be unseen to us.” Next, Betty described numerous puzzling, intrusive events, including the December 10, 1965 appearance of a chunk of ice on her kitchen table.
She wrote, “Barney and I returned home from work and found a chunk of ice on the kitchen table, under a newspaper. The newspaper was in the same spot I had left it in that morning. At the time there was no ice outdoors, only ice cubes in the refrigerator. It was oval-shaped and had some kind of imprint on it. We were so shocked about this that we hurriedly put it in the sink to melt so we could forget about it.”
Betty wrote the following more detailed account in her diary:
I put the newspaper into the trash and we stood there, staring at this “ice,” wondering. It looked as though it had been frozen in a bowl; it had some small pieces of leaves, twigs, and dirt in it. It appeared as though there were a pattern in the bowl-shaped chunk of ice, like the design one might find on the sides of a cut-glass dish. But this was inside the ice, not on its surface. I picked it up and the outsides edges were smooth.
There was no wetness on the table and no traces that it had been there. It felt ice cold but it did not have the weight of a block of ice that size. Also, it did not have the solid hardness of ice, but had flexibility to it. We put it into the sink and ran hot water on it. As I was preparing for bed, I turned on the hot water and let it run until all traces of the ice were gone. Barney and I have more puzzles in our lives then we can handle without adding one more to them. So, we solved the puzzle by destroying it and deciding we would forget this one.
In her January 14 letter to Robert Hohmann, Betty also reported, “Recently Barney and I heard the front door open, someone stamp his feet and walk upstairs. We checked and found no one and the door was still locked. This happened in the middle of the night and it awoke both of us. All of our apartments are empty as the servicemen have been transferred elsewhere. As I sit here and write this, I can hear the sliding door on a closet in one apartment going back and forth; in another apartment we can hear the water running in one of the bathrooms. Also, on three occasions we found a light turned on in one of the apartments. On Christmas week as we were going into the apartment to turn the light off, and we were unlocking the door, it went off by itself.” Although the above intrusive acts may have been human in origin, paranormal events were beginning to manifest in Betty’s and Barney’s home. She reported that these strange occurrences were also taking place in the homes of her family members. One involved four witnesses who were astonished to observe the exterior storm door of a relative’s home open out and an interior door open in, seemingly without human intervention. The family cat entered the house and both doors closed behind it, although no one was observed in the vicinity of the doors.
Then, in another inexplicable incident, a vehicle seemed to have entered a family driveway at night, and a man with indistinguishable features exited the car and seemingly lit a cigarette. When no one appeared at the door, the eight witnesses went to look for him. They could not locate the man or his car, but they observed a large ball of light traveling about 10 to 20 feet above the ground. They watched in bewilderment as the ball of light traveled across the street, through the adjacent yard, and disappeared behind a garage located approximately 100 feet from the witnesses. This was the first of many observations of anomalous balls of light by Betty’s family members and their guests.