The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: The Hills Begin Their Own Investigation
On March 12, 1962, Betty and Barney wrote to Dr. Patrick Quirk, a psychiatrist from Georgetown, Massachusetts, to request a Saturday morning appointment, explaining that they were both employed week- days. They enclosed NICAP’s “UFO Investigator,” a bulletin that briefly described their September 19–20 experience, and informed Dr. Quirk that they had been interviewed by Walter Webb and two “electronic engineers,” Mr. Robert Hohmann and Mr. C.D. Jackson, from Hyde Park, New York. They continued, “Many puzzling aspects remain, so it is felt that hypnotism could clarify these. We have handled this experience with confidentiality, with the exception of NICAP and a very few close friends. Our motive is to obtain information that could be helpful in a scientific way.” An appointment was arranged, but Dr. Quirk did not attempt hypnosis. He recommended that the Hills should wait to see if more conscious memories of the experience would emerge. Betty and Barney were beginning to remember information that they had previously forgotten, and Dr. Quirk explained that, in time, they would remember more with- out the use of hypnosis.
Then, in November, Betty and Barney received a package from Robert Hohmann and C.D. Jackson, the two investigators who had interviewed them the previous November. It contained a report that the two had been working on, titled “A Historic Report on Life in Space: Tesla, Marconi, Todd.” They presented it to the American Rocket Society’s 17th Annual Meeting and Space Flight Symposium on November 13–18, 1962. The purpose of the paper was to examine the original data of Tesla, Marconi, and Todd to determine whether or not current science was duplicating the effort made by these men to detect radio frequency communication from extraterrestrial life forms on some distant planet. They explored Tesla’s experiments in high frequency (1892–1907) involving possible interplanetary communication. Tesla stated, “The nature of my experiments precluded the possibility of the changes being produced by atmospheric disturbances….Although I could not decipher their meaning, it is impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental…a purpose was behind these signals. They are the results of an attempt by some hu- man beings, not of this world; to speak to us by signals…I am absolutely certain that they are not caused by anything terrestrial.”
Hohmann and Jackson then discussed Marconi and Todd’s observations and experimentation (1899–1924), including Marconi’s wireless trans- mission experiment across the English Channel in 1899. In September 1921, Marconi was in the Mediterranean Sea aboard his 220-foot yacht when he detected the phenomenon that he described as interplanetary communication. He expressed the belief that the signal had originated in outer space, and he spoke of a listening experiment conducted by Amherst College astronomy professor David Todd. He, in cooperation with the United States government, used a radio-photo message device to attempt to detect signals from the planet Mars as it made a close approach on August 22, 1924.
Hohmann and Jackson, who were assembling all data regarding these signals into a historical model, examined the hypothesis of Dr. Frank D. Drake that older civilizations that were searching for life would detect the transmissions of a young civilization that had just discovered radio. If this were followed to its logical end, Tesla’s 1899 experiments would have transmitted radio signals to some of our nearer planets. Hohmann and Jackson cited research by Su-Shu-Huang of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton that suggests that stars nearly identical to the sun are most likely to have developed life. They believed that scientific investigation must follow even strange paths. As we shall see in Chapter 19, their work with the Hills attempted to launch the beginning of such a path and to remove some of the strangeness pertaining to interplanetary communication.
Carl Sagan, who held a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Chicago, also spoke at the American Rocket Society Conference.
Betty and Barney read an article about his address in the Boston Globe, and in a letter dated November 25, 1962, reported the following to NICAP investigator Walter Webb:
Dr. Sagan, assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard, has worked out an equation as his way of expressing the mathematical probability that intelligent beings from outer space have visited the Earth. As expressed in numbers, the formula means that at least one million of the hundred million stars in our Milky Way galaxy have planets which have developed civilizations capable of travel between the stars. This means that every star, such as our sun, would be visited at least once every million years. If life is found, visits would be more frequent, possibly every few thousand years. The next step would be the maintenance of some kind of base within the solar system to provide continuity for successive expeditions. He believes the moon would be a reasonable place for this.
The Hills stated that they found their ever-increasing knowledge of the science of extraterrestrial communication to be both interesting and exciting. They also had recently taken part in an interesting meeting at the home of their minister.
It involved both a discussion about hypnosis and a discussion about UFOs with Air Force officers from Pease Air Force Base. In a letter to NICAP Investigator Walter Webb dated November 27, 1962, they wrote:
Dear Walter, Last Friday night we met with a small group of people to discuss our sighting. This was not a planned meeting, as far as we know. Present were: colonel in intelligence, research engineer, pilot, navigator, hypnotist, minister, and us. Actually, the minister whom we have known for some time invited us to visit at his home and casually mentioned that a few of his friends would be there. The hypnotist discussed this art and read some poetry which he had published and was being released that day.
Most of the people left, leaving the above-mentioned group. We found out that the colonel has known of our sighting for some time. Also, we were made aware that the Air Force does know of the existence of UFOs, but that they publicly deny this, because they are swamped with fictitious reports that waste their time, money, and effort in disproving these. They need to be free to concentrate on the valid reports.
The group seemed to reach the following conclusions (theories): The red lights on the wing tips were not running lights to guard against collision as our planes have, but were probably some type of equipment which might have been used in “beeping” us. The beeping sounds, maybe a sonar type, were to test our reactions, or a means of establishing communication with us, or some type of listening device, or a way of attempting to control us.
This beeping device left a neutralizing effect on the trunk of the car, resulting in the clean, clear spots on the metal where no dirt or dust accumulated for a few days, and this agent deteriorated. We talked with the hypnotist for a long time, and he appeared at first to be interested in hypnotizing us. Of course, we are still puzzling over the length of time our return trip took; also Betty’s dreams of being captured, fantastic as they are.
Coincidentally, Ben, the hypnotist, asked about the same questions that the psychiatrist whom we consulted last spring asked. He came to the same conclusions, although he did make us aware of the reasons for his questions. To summarize, both said that there was a very good possibility that we had been captured and made to forget this by the use of hypnotism. Both felt that hypnotism was too dangerous to use at this time, but to concentrate on this and we may remember by the natural process of recall.
Ben questioned both of us closely about our feelings the first– second days after the sighting, and decided that our reactions were typical of a post-hypnotic state and some suggestion: our intent to forget all about this at first and then later deciding against this; our feelings of being “suspended,” not of shock, or fear, or curiosity—these came later. Ben said that many times if hypnotic amnesia is used, the person will recall in dreams, particularly if one tries to block the amnesia, such as Betty dreamed she tried to do. If one does not try to block, then that person will not recall, or will need a long time to do this.
Ben reached the decision that in his opinion, we were captured. The use of hypnotism to bring this back was too dangerous; the possibility of shock, convulsions, or—if the experience was too terrorizing—amnesia for a while. Secondly, he did not know where hypnotic blocks had been set up to control us, and this could be “messy.” Our impulse might be to run, so we would need to be restrained to prevent us from running through a window or into a wall. This would add to our fear.
He did cheer us up a bit; he said that undoubtedly somewhere there is a scientist writing his thesis on prehistoric Earth people and we have contributed to his study. This whole situation is unbelievable, fantastic, and weird, but we felt that you might like to know about this; also confidential. We were wondering if this meeting Friday night could be some type of Air Force investigation being done on a very quiet basis, or just a group of men interested in UFOs on a personal basis. So many unanswered questions! We wonder if we will ever know fully what happened that night. It was a pleasure seeing you, and whenever you are in this area, visit us.
Very truly yours,
The hypnotist at the meeting was Captain Ben Swett, a B-47 navigator for the 509th Bombardment Wing of the Strategic Air Command at Pease Air Force Base. In retired Colonel Swett’s sworn testimony, dated December 29, 2006, he recollected that he read some of his poems from a book of poetry he had recently published to a group at the Unitarian Church Rectory in Portsmouth. After the poetry reading, the minister said he had heard that Swett was studying hypnosis, and that those present would like to hear about it. So he was invited to read poetry, and then he was questioned about hypnosis.
He wrote, “I wasn’t a member of the church and didn’t know anyone there except the pastor. After my poetry reading, he said he had heard I was studying hypnosis, and they would like to hear about it. Those who came for the poetry left, and a few remained. I gave them a brief over- view of hypnosis, including some of its uses and abuses. As I was about to leave, two people came up to me, introduced themselves as Betty and Barney Hill, and asked me if hypnosis could be used to re- cover lost periods of memory. I said, ‘Yes, that’s one of the classical uses of clinical hypnosis.’”2 In the same sworn statement, retired Colonel Swett wrote the following: They started telling me about something that happened to them as they were driving home from Canada on the night of 19–20 September 1961— a light in the sky that seemed to follow them and then circled them, and being stopped on the road, and how they later realized they had a three-hour gap in their memories. As they told the story, Barney’s face kept twitching spasmodically on one side.
Swett’s career in the Air Force spanned from 1955 to 1985, when he retired as a full colonel. He served in several Air Force bases in the United States, in Vietnam (1970), and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. His last assignment was as the director of engineering and standardization for the Defense Industry Supply Center in Philadelphia.
I didn’t like the looks of that. They said some of their friends thought the light that followed them was a UFO and asked me what I thought about UFOs. I said, “There are a lot of reports by credible people.” Then they asked me if I would hypnotize them to recover the gap in their memories. My first thought was, “I don’t want to wade into whatever is making his face twitch like that. I’m not a psychiatrist.” Then I thought, “UFOs…I’m an Air Force officer…hypnosis…I have no credentials.” So I said, “No, I’m not qualified to do that.” There was some discussion of UFOs.