The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: The Abduction Experience
It has often been alleged that the richness of content in Betty’s experience compared to the paucity of detail in Barney’s suggests that he absorbed her dream/nightmare material. It is our contention that John Fuller’s book, The Interrupted Journey, focused primarily upon Betty’s complex abduction scenario, but omitted the more significant details of Barney’s. In order to avoid repetition, Fuller often omitted entire segments of the hypnosis sessions, although Dr. Simon explored this material repeatedly. Additionally, sensitive areas of Barney’s exam were modified or excluded completely to protect his privacy.
In this chapter, we shall examine a comprehensive account of the craft’s interior and the physical examinations, including Barney’s examination. We will begin with Betty’s entrance into the examination room.
In her last hypnosis session she stated, “I went up the ramp and I went inside and there was a corridor. And there was a door and there was a light inside…and there was a room, and there was a light inside this room. It was a bluish light. And I wanted them to take Barney and me into the same room. When I got up to the door, Barney was behind me, and I started to go into the room…and I just started to…and they take Barney past the door. There were two men…the first two, and then, there were two men in front of me and two on each side of the door. The man who was beside me showed me the door, and I went through, and he came in behind me, and the other men stayed with Barney.”
Barney’s description of the examining room is consistent with Betty’s hypnotic recall. He reported that it resembled, “a hospital operating room. It was a pale blue, sky blue.” It is interesting to note that although both individuals recall a bright bluish light that seems to permeate the surface of the walls, Betty’s dream sequence mentions a conventional “bright overhead light with a bluish shade.” The Hills’ hypnotically recovered description is inconsistent with Betty’s dream material—Barney could not have absorbed this information from overhearing Betty’s dream ac- count. However, each independently recalled identical environmental characteristics.
Next, he told Dr. Simon that this room did not resemble the operating room where he had an appendectomy as a child. “I was carried into a room and I got on a table and I was afraid, but somehow, not afraid enough to run. I thought it would soon be over if they don’t harm me.”1 Later, Barney added, “It looked like an operating table…or an examining table. I don’t know. I just know that I could be supported fully on it and it was very clean…nothing elaborate…just that I could be on it, and my feet extended out from the bottom of it…overlapped it from the position I was laying in” (March 14, 1964).
On the same date Betty described it as follows: “It wasn’t like the examining table that some doctors…I don’t know if all doctors have the same kind of examining table. This was more like a long table but not awfully long [approximately 4 feet]. I guess it was like a regular examining table. It was light. I mean it was white or metal. It was metal. I know…it was hard. It wasn’t soft or that type of thing.” In this case, Betty’s description is more detailed than Barney’s, but their individual accounts remain consistent—and different from Betty’s dream material. In “Dreams or Reality?” she mentions only that it is an examining table.
Barney’s ensuing physical examination is rich with descriptive detail that has never before been made public.
He narrates the exam as follows:
I felt my shoes being removed and my pants being opened. And, I could hear a humming-like sound that they seemed to be making. They pulled my pants all the way down to where my legs were. I could feel them turning me over and putting something in my rectum. It was like a tube. It was not painful. I thought it was just a little larger than a pencil. I felt it go in very easily and then it was withdrawn. They looked at my back and I could feel them touching my skin right down my back as if they were counting my spinal column. I felt something touch right at the base of my spine, like a finger pushing…a single finger. I could only hear this mum…mum…mum,mum,mum,mum, mum,mum,mum…mum [rapid humming] like sound and then I was turned over again.
And, my mouth was opened and I could feel two fingers pulling it back. And then I heard as if some more men came in and I could hear them rustling around on the left side of the table I was laying on, and, something scratched very lightly like a stick on my arm. And these men left and I was left with what I thought were three men….The two that had brought me in and the other one that seemed to follow these two men. I could tell that there was more than one person in the room. But only one man seemed to be moving around my body all the time.
Later, Barney recalled that the examiner had also checked his ears, adding that the examiner seemed particularly curious about his bone structure. In another account Barney describes his abductors’ vocalizations, noting, “Their mouths moved and I could see them.” When their mouths moved sounds came out from them that Barney described as sounding like (quivering) “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. They opened their mouths but they were not talking to me.” He said that they did not talk to him, but just made sounds when they communicated with each other. He had never heard this sound made by either human or animal.
Betty’s account of her captor’s communication is consistent with Barney’s, as evidenced by the following: “Oh, he makes a sound…I don’t understand it in English. The crew made different sounds…like ah-ah-ah- ah-ah [humming] that went up and down but it wasn’t humming like we hum.” The leader and the examiner “didn’t make mumbling sounds like the crew. They were like words…like sounds of words.” Betty stated that she heard these sounds in an unfamiliar language and understood it as if it were English. She could under- stand almost everything that the leader said, but only some things that the examiner said. Again, the Hills independently contribute detailed in- formation that cannot be found in Betty’s dreams.
As Barney continued to elaborate on the procedures used during his physical exam, he, in a conscious interview with Dr. Simon, explained, “I have the most peculiar feeling that something was placed against my genital parts. It was more as if it was in a solution of something that was there, that had substance to it…that had body to it.” Barney said he felt “a tug or a pressure or something,” but he told Dr. Simon that there was not an erection or an ejaculation, and no pleasure was associated with it. It is not entirely clear that the exam even included a reproductive component, although in a later session Barney mentioned that he suspected they were taking a sperm sample. His descriptions suggest that specimens were extracted from every orifice in his body.
One mystifying element that occurred during the hypnosis involves a concentric circle of wart-like growths that appeared on Barney’s groin shortly after his UFO encounter. It was in the exact location where the cup-like appliance was pressed against him, and he had never before had these growths. In the spring of 1964, as Barney relived his physical examination at the hands of his abductors, his growths became inflamed and required surgical removal. Although his physician had initially diagnosed them as venereal warts, the specialist who removed the 21, three-quarter- inch growths, said that they were not. They didn’t have the cauliflower appearance of venereal warts. In fact, they were not warts at all. They were removed more for cosmetic purposes than as a medical necessity.
Barney examined his groin on the morning of September 20, 1961. He felt that he had somehow been contaminated and was looking for evidence, but he did not observe an injury to this part of his body until January or February of 1962. Dr. Simon did not seem to draw a correlation between Barney’s warts and his memory of a cup-like instrument being placed in their exact location. The hypnosis tapes indicate that Dr. Simon examined the lesions. However, he seems to have concluded that this was a mere coincidence. Barney recoiled in opposition to Dr. Simon’s incredulity, insisting that he had “been touched.”
Betty’s exam was similar to Barney’s. Her dress and shoes were re- moved, she was forced to lie upon a table, her skin was scraped, and her mouth as examined. Later, a neurological and a so-called pregnancy test were accomplished. Although Betty’s account is somewhat more detailed than Barney’s, she did not mention a rectal or vaginal specimen.
It is interesting to note that Betty’s physical exam onboard the craft closely correlates with her dream material. It causes one to wonder, did Barney fail to mention portions of the entire examination to Dr. Simon, or did Betty confabulate, adding more procedures than actually occurred? Or did the examiner, as the Hills later stated, focus primarily upon Betty’s skin and Barney’s skeletal system? As we explore Betty’s exam, we will note that although her dream material parallels her hypnotic recall, it is less detailed and somewhat different.
Betty’s March 7, 1964 regression begins, “I go into this room and some of the men come in the room with this man who speaks English and they stay for a minute. I don’t know who they are. I guess they’re the crew, but they only stay for a minute. The man who speaks English is there, and another man comes in, and I haven’t seen him before. I think he’s a doctor. There’s a stool…a white…is it white? I don’t know if it’s white or chrome. There’s a stool and they put me on the stool. There’s a little bracket. My head is resting against the bracket.”
It is interesting to note that although Betty describes a scenario similar to her dream, the dream material does not contain a detailed description of the stool.
Next, the examiner began his medical procedure.
Betty recalled:
I have a light blue dress on and they push up the sleeve of my dress and they look at my arm here, and they look at my arm. They turn my arm over and they look at it. They have a machine.
I don’t know what it is. They bring the machine over and they put it…I don’t know what kind of machine. It’s something like a microscope, only a microscope with a big lens. And they put a…I don’t know. I had an idea they were taking a picture of my skin.
And they both look through this machine here and here, and then they talk. I don’t know…I couldn’t understand what they were saying. And then they took something like a letter-opener, only it wasn’t. They scraped my arm here…They scraped and they looked like little skin….You know how your skin gets dry and flaky sometimes, like little particles of skin? They put…there was something like a little piece of cellophane plastic…something like that. And they put what came off on the plastic. The examiner opens my eyes and looks in them with a light. And he opens my mouth and he looks at my throat and my teeth and he looks in my ears. And then he takes like a swab or Q-tip and he puts it in my left ear. And he puts this on another piece of material.
The leader takes it and rolls it up and puts it in the top drawer. Oh, then he feels my hair, then the back of my neck. And they take a couple of strands of my hair and they pull it out and he gives this to the leader and he wraps that up and puts that in the top drawer. Then he takes something that may be like scissors. I don’t know what it is, and then, they cut a piece of my hair here. They cut off a piece of it and he gives it to him. And then he feels my neck and through my shoulders around my collarbone. And then they take off my shoes and they look at my feet and my hands. They look at my hands all over and he takes…uh….The light is very bright and so some…I don’t always…my eyes aren’t open. I am still a little scared, too. I’m not particularly interested in looking at them. And so, I try to keep my eyes shut, and then, I do open…you know, not all the time. I sort of give myself a little relief by not looking at them.
I shut my eyes and he takes something and he goes underneath my fingernail. And then he takes something…I don’t know, probably manicure scissors or something, and he cuts off a piece of my fingernail. They look at my feet all over. I don’t think they do anything to them. They just feel my feet and toes and all.
This description of Betty’s medical examination closely parallels her dream material. It is interesting to note that she revealed to Dr. Simon that her eyes were closed during much of this exam. She captured only fleeting glimpses of the procedures that were taking place. This information leads one to speculate whether or not Betty was actually filling in the visual gaps with dream material. Betty’s exam may actually have been more similar to Barney’s. Additionally, during this part of the hypnosis, her speech was rapid and facile, further suggesting that she was substituting familiar dream material, instead of re-experiencing the traumatic exam.