The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: Sky Watch 1967
The Hills’ spirit of scientific cooperation led to a plan, coordinated for the experimental team by Robert Hohmann, to again attempt contact with the ETs on June 10, 1967. Betty’s parents agreed to host the experimental team at their Kingston, N.H. farm, while Robert Hohmann worked to assemble what he assured the Hills would be a “friendly, cooperative, cordial, and truly scientific group.” This team would be made up of IBM personnel (mentioned earlier) and the UFO encounter investigation team, including C.D. Jackson, J. Allen Hynek’s personal representative, Jacques Vallee, John Fuller, and Dr. Benjamin Simon. The photographer was under contract to photograph exclusively the phenomena itself, should it appear. He guaranteed that there would be no publicity before, during, or after the test. This was an extremely important element to the project if the team were to rule out a hoax and avoid media publicity.
Jacques Vallee documented the experiment in his book, Forbidden Science. His journal states that on May 31, 1967, Allen Hynek asked him to act as an observer in a contact experiment that Betty Hill wanted to con- duct with John Fuller, Dr. Simon, and IBM engineer Robert Hohmann. (Again we see Hohmann misidentified as an engineer. This trend seems persistent.) Hynek told Vallee that Betty believed she had become a “transducer”—able to vector in a flying saucer and cause it to land.1 It does not mention the fact that this “psychophysics” experiment was planned by the experimental team in cooperation with Betty Hill or that Hynek took part in the initial phase of the planning. Although Betty hoped to contact her abductors and to secure a piece of hardware as evidence, in this case, she merely served as a “subject” following the scientific team’s precise instructions. Hohmann’s letter to Vallee included the following quote from a letter written by Betty: “I followed your suggestions regarding the message and I hope that the next manifestation will take place closer than that of Saturday evening in Kingston, very close, very clear, and just above the trees.” Again, Betty is referring to her desire to elicit positive results from her attempt to communicate the experimental team’s message to the extraterrestrials. Apparently, her attempt the previous Saturday night had once again failed to produce the desired result.
Betty wrote in her memoirs that from the inception of the experiment, she doubted that her attempts to communicate with the ETs would be successful. However, she continued, “We were contacted by a scientist, asking our cooperation in an experiment that they would like to at- tempt. We agreed to work with them.” In preparation for the event, the experimental team instructed Betty to communicate a message to the extraterrestrials beginning on Friday, June 2, and continuing until the day of the experiment. Betty had previously communicated to Hohmann that, in her opinion, from the first day of her attempted communication it had taken four months to produce the desired result. She attempted this experiment at a disadvantage. In accordance with her original methodology, Betty stood on the back porch of her home at 9 each evening and delivered the following message:
Today is (Friday, June 2), the (153rd) day of the year.
In eight more days go to my parents’ farm in Kingston, New Hampshire.
Best science men are there.
Come close to science men.
All is safe.
A week later, on Friday evening, June 9, Robert Hohmann and his colleague, the industrial electrician, arrived at the Kingston farm to ex- amine the general land area and set up tents and sleeping equipment. They were met by Betty and Barney who had arrived earlier that evening. On Saturday morning the group worked diligently to have facilities, food, sleeping bags, two tents, a portable stove, utensils, plates, and so on, ready to accommodate the nine participants. Additionally, Hohmann and his colleague set up the test layout, according to his sketch of a ground plan in preparation for extraterrestrial contact. The plan consisted of a central white circle containing a table, clock, compass, cameras, and a thermometer. All participants were instructed to enter the white circle if alien contact was made. Also, 500- and 1,000-foot distance markers ex- tending north, south, east, and west were assembled in preparation for the anticipated contact.
By late afternoon on Saturday, the remainder of the team had arrived. John Fuller drove up from Connecticut, stopping to pick up the Vallees and C.D. Jackson at Boston’s Logan Airport. From there they drove to Dr. Simon’s home in Arlington, Massachusetts, before heading north for Kingston, New Hampshire. According to Betty, one of the scientists, the astronomer, had an audiotape of strange beeping sounds that he played for the Hills. Betty wrote that it had been recorded in a very desolate area, and the military had constructed roads to access this area for testing. She reported that the strange beeping sounds seemed to affect all of the wildlife, driving it out of the area. The Hills listened to the sounds on the signal tape and determined that they did not resemble the mechanical buzzing sounds that bounced off the trunk of their car on September 19–20, 1961.
That night the team scanned the skies for an unconventional flying object, but observed only conventional aircraft and satellites. Betty sat with Jacques Vallee, observing satellites crisscrossing the night sky through his telescope. But not one UFO was sighted. Betty wrote in dis- appointment, “All we attracted was mosquitoes!” On June 14, 1967, Robert Hohmann informed the Hills that no one was disappointed that the expected phenomenon did not appear on schedule. The team reassured Betty and Barney that the fact that they had made an active attempt to establish contact was more important. The transition from passive interest to an active effort had established a be- ginning point from which to refine their later steps.
On June 26, 1967, Hohmann told the Hills that three members of the original team planned to return to Kingston on Saturday, September 9, to repeat the experiment. This would allow Betty nearly three months to communicate the message to the UFO occupants—short of her four-month requirement, but greater than the brief time period she was al- lowed for the June 10 sky watch. In the interim, he asked Betty to inform him of any detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that could confirm that the original message had been received. Again, he assured her that all information she provided would remain confidential.
The September 9 experiment failed to produce the desired result, but the experimental team remained undeterred. According to Betty, Hohmann phoned Barney and her to ask them to check around to see if anyone in the area had reported a UFO sighting that weekend. Betty learned that a family who lived in Newton, New Hampshire, “a short distance” from the experimental site, had conducted a UFO contact experiment on the evening of September 8. This family’s land bordered a farm located approximately two air miles from the Barrett farm. The family informed Betty that shortly after dusk, they signaled a silent, red-orange light that appeared to be bobbing slowly along the top of the ridge behind their home. The family: a husband, wife, their children, and the wife’s brother, a NICAP investigator, flashed their flashlights and waved at the object.
In response, the UFO also turned its lights off and on. To their amazement, the UFO left the top of the hill and crossed the field to within close proximity of where they were standing. They said it sat in midair, not more than 20 feet off the ground, rocking back and forth. The disk-shaped craft had white flashing lights on its rim and a red light on top of its dome. The wife became frightened and retreated to the house with her children in tow, but the two men remained outside, observing the craft. Next, a jet appeared on the scene and the UFO turned its lights off. After the conventional craft left the area, the UFO turned its lights on and drifted back over the ridge of the hill, and was lost from sight.
This was one of four sightings reported by the family between July 27 and October 30, 1967. The NICAP investigator filed a preliminary re- port, but to Betty’s disappointment, no formal investigation ensued. With- out a formal investigation, one cannot make assumptions regarding the validity of the report. However, Betty seemed to believe that she had reaped limited success. The UFOs allegedly appeared within close proximity to her requested contact site. However, they seemed to appear at the wrong time or in the wrong location.
The experimental team tentatively interpreted the nearby sightings as a logical sequence of events: July 27, the preparatory stage; September 8, the principal phenomenon; September 30 and October 30, the follow- up stages. However, it stated in a letter that the greatest difficulty was in not knowing more about the UFO mission. Without more exact knowledge, the team of scientists/engineers was unable to understand fully how to interpret the meaning of the preparatory, principal phenomenon, or follow-up phases of the experiment. But it expressed the optimistic message that perhaps in time they would be able to get clearer answers.
Hohmann’s next letter, dated September 14, 1967, informed the Hills that the requirement seemed to be one of watching and waiting for some kind of advance signs or notice of some kind from the UFO occupants prior to the awaited contact event. The team’s challenge was to be able to recognize and understand what might be extremely subtle signs. He in- formed the Hills that they should remain continuously alert to things seen, as well as unseen, in order to prepare themselves for contact.
The experimental team seems to have given Betty an impossible order—to report even the most inconsequential anomalous event, assuming that it might be a sign from the ETs. Without a point of reference, Betty attempted to comply with the team’s request.
In a letter dated October 16, 1967, Hohmann updated the Hills on the results of an October 14 experiment conducted at a Lake Desolation, New York retreat. The retreat, best described by its name, “Desolation,” bordered thousands of acres of state forest in upstate New York. This was the first of a two-stage contact experiment. The experimental location was completely isolated with the exception of a house trailer, which the experimental subject planned to occupy, and his vehicle. On October 2, the experimental team had instructed Betty to attempt to communicate specific instructions to the ETs regarding the subject’s exact location on a composite map, including geographic, topographic, and aerial locations.
In addition to the team’s specific instructions, they planned to introduce a severe discontinuity factor, completely unrelated to the other words in Betty’s communication. This would make the communication nearly impossible to comply with, but if compliance did take place, it would nearly eliminate the possibility of coincidence. In return, Betty was instructed to request specific instructions from the UFO occupants.
On the evening of October 14, the experimental subject placed a 4- by 5-inch file card bearing the message “Huntsville, Alabama—East to West” face-down in a clip-holder and attached the clip-holder to the dashboard of his car, which was parked approximately 15 feet from the window of the house trailer at Lake Desolation. He stationed himself at the window of the house trailer to watch for any unusual activity. At approximately 12:15 he observed the car door open, which switched on the interior dome light. Approximately three minutes later, when he went outside to check for a communicated message, he found that everything was intact and undisturbed. The card, face-down, was still in the clip-holder, just as he had left it. He anticipated that if the opening of the car door had any experimental significance, at some future, unspecified date, there would be an east-to-west phenomenon over Huntsville, Alabama.
A prior experiment, conducted on June 26, 1967 attempted to communicate instructions for a UFO to appear in an east-to-west line over the Mt. Montesano landmark in Huntsville, Alabama. It failed to pro- duce the desired result. However, perhaps coincidentally, a UFO phenomenon did occur in an east–west line over Montesano, Washington on July 5, 1967. In an attempt to eliminate the element of coincidence, the team revised its experiment.
The revision introduced a severe discontinuity factor in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of coincidence. The experimental team was attempting to find language or phonetic factors for an outgoing message that could be easily complied with. If this added element were successful it would increase the possibility of a response from the UFO occupants.
The phonetic message, “reply by new moccasins” according to the Hohmann’s letter, represented a “discontinuity factor” unrelated to other words in the communication. This discontinuity factor would eliminate the possibility of coincidence by being nearly impossible to comply with.
If compliance did take place, according to the experimental team, it would nearly eliminate the possibility of coincidence. Therefore, if a UFO appeared in a location named “moccasin,” a correlation could be drawn between Betty’s communication with the ETs and the event. Addition- ally, Betty was instructed to send a UFO in an east-to-west line in view of Montesano—a mountain in Huntsville, Alabama, topped with a large illuminated cross.
The team strove to examine the psychophysical communication’s capability, and to construct an experiment designed to produce no coincidental results. It wanted to continue the experiment using language/ phonetic factors that were usable in an outgoing message, thus the “new moccasins” explanation. At 3:45 a.m. on November 18, 1967, a team member, who served as an uninformed control subject, and five additional witnesses, observed a UFO near East Fishkill, New York. The team member pinpointed the exact location in the immediate proximity of Moccasin View Street. This first phase of the moccasin discontinuity experiment seemed to have reaped success. However, the team would have to watch and wait for results in the Montesano experiment.
Then, at 7:30 p.m. on December 1, 1967, the 12-year-old son of a team member observed a “phenomenon” on an east–west route over Huntsville, Alabama. Two nights later, it reappeared in the sky, traveling in a west–east direction. When these experimental results came under scientific scrutiny, it became evident that coincidence rather than correlation had to be factored into the equation. The experimental team learned that a UFO sighting that involved the keyword “new moccasin” had also occurred in New Zealand. Additionally, a 1965 New York sighting also listed the word “moccasin.” The experimental team seemed confounded by this apparent coincidence.
The repeated failure of the “psychophysics” experiments to produce solid, correlating evidence seems to have soured some of the team’s enthusiasm. Team members, who had previously expressed commitment toward the series of experiments, lost their enthusiasm when the experiments failed to produce scientifically verifiable results. The drudgery of months of personal commitment and extraneous work ended the cooperative effort between the experimental team and Betty Hill to vector in a UFO.
This marked the end of formal experimentation by a courageous team of scientists and observers who quietly, without publicity, attempted to contact intelligent life forms who were allegedly visiting our planet. Betty, however, with resolute determination, continued the contact experiments, without the benefit of scientific design and supervision. On Friday evening, July 13, 1973, Betty and 35 observers, mostly members of UFO study groups, assembled at a quiet location in the Kingston area. Shortly before midnight they assembled their vehicles in a circle and switched their headlights off and on in an attempt to signal the occupants of a UFO. The experiment failed to produce the desired result, but a member of the media reported the event in the Boston Globe.
Thereafter, the formerly respectable, conservative scientific nature of Betty’s contact experiments was replaced by a new tabloid news quality.