The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: The Trouble With Betty’s Dreams
It is clear that, throughout the Hills’ psychotherapy, Dr. Simon continually tested his hypothesis that Barney had absorbed Betty’s dream material and produced fantasies to fill in the period of missing time. He used suggestion and persuasion in an attempt to convince the Hills that their abduction memories were not objectively real. However, through- out the hypnosis sessions, Betty and Barney remained unshakable. They insisted that they were reliving an actual experience that followed a continuous course from their conscious memories of the craft making con- tact with their vehicle, through a series of beeping or buzzing code-like sounds, until they saw a fiery orb on the ground, and later heard a second series of beeping sounds in Ashland, New Hampshire. The conscious memory of the huge UFO, Barney’s face-to-face contact with humanoid beings through his binoculars, his fear that they were about to be captured, and his sharp turn off the highway formed a continuous memory to the abduction site.
Skeptics have used Dr. Simon’s dream hypothesis to argue that the abduction has no foundation in reality. They contend that Betty’s night- mares match her and Barney’s hypnotic recall of abduction almost exactly. Given our current knowledge of the fallibility of hypnotic regression and the formation of false memories, it becomes essential that we seek independent confirmation to determine their veracity. This will be accomplished through a comparative analysis of the Hills’ hypnotically re- covered memories versus Betty’s dream material. It seems prudent to examine the content of Betty’s dream material before we proceed to the hypnosis transcripts. This material will be scrutinized in an attempt to explore the formative process of false memory creation. Then, the bio- graphical context of the recovered memories will be scrutinized and evidence will be examined.
Days after the Hills encountered an anomalous object in New Hampshire’s skies, Betty was awakened mornings by a series of frightening nightmares, which she jotted down on a note pad. Although the night- mares failed to follow a sequential story line, Betty rearranged them in logical order. Thus, she developed a frightening account of abduction by aliens from another solar system. Incorporated into her nightmares were events of which she and Barney were consciously aware. They had al- ready reported a huge, fiery, bright orange ball that seemed to be sitting on the ground, silhouetted by evergreen trees. They consciously recalled turning to each other with the troubling words, “Oh no, not again,” but consoled themselves with the explanation that it was only the setting moon. She asked Barney if he now believed in flying saucers and he replied, “Don’t be ridiculous.” They had also completed a formal Air Intelligence Re- port to Pease Air Force Base that described the unconventional craft and its two sets of mechanical code-like buzzing sounds reflecting off the trunk of their 1957 Chevy. However, the nightmares contained information for which Betty had no conscious memory.
These nightmares so troubled Betty that she sought a professional opinion from her supervisor in the State Office. In a taped interview with Kathy, Betty said, “My supervisor in child welfare came out of the State Office, oh maybe three days in two weeks. When she was going to be in Portsmouth for two days in a row, she would stay overnight. Barney would be working nights so she and I would usually go out to eat and she would come back to the house and we’d sit around and talk. We did this for a while, and then, I brought [the nightmares] up because it was bothering me. I showed her the report that Walter Webb had written and she was very, very interested. She seemed to be open-minded about it.
Then I told her about the dreams and we would talk about them for a while. One day she told me, ‘Well Betty, for heaven’s sake why don’t you realize that this has actually happened to you?’ She said, ‘This must have happened, because if had not happened, then you wouldn’t be reacting this way.’” Betty’s nightmares contained details of being stopped and surrounded by space people with primarily human characteristics. The men in her dreams were taller than the petite Betty: 5 feet to 5 feet 4 inches in stature, with large chests and prominent, Jimmy Durante noses. Their hair and eyes were dark. Only one spoke, and that was in English with a heavy foreign accent. Their complexions had a grey pallor with bluish-tinted lips. All of the men were dressed alike in light navy blue/gray trousers and short jackets that gave the appearance of having zippers, though none were seen. They all wore low boots and military caps.
In Betty’s nightmares, they took the Hills to a clearing in the woods and onto a darkened, landed disk where they were subjected to unconventional physical examinations. Nail clippings, skin scrapings, ear wax, and hair samples were collected on clear glass or plastic slides, then covered and wrapped in cloth. Betty was given a classic neurological examination that included an EEG, but without a tracing machine. Next, her dress was removed and a 4- to 6-inch long needle was inserted into her navel, causing her to experience great pain, twisting and moaning. When the leader noticed that this pregnancy test was causing discomfort, he leaned over Betty and waved his hand in front of her eyes. Immediately the pain subsided, and Betty became appreciative and realized that she had found a new friend.
Next, she engaged in a conversation with the leader who smiled and apologized for frightening her. Suddenly, some of the men hurried into the examining room using words and tones that she could not identify. When the leader followed the crew out of the room, she became concerned that something had gone wrong with Barney’s testing. But when the examiner returned and checked her teeth, she realized that they had removed Barney’s dentures. She explained to them the reason for Barney’s loss of teeth and the effects of the aging process. These human-like men shook their heads in an unbelieving manner.
Later, in the nightmare sequence, Betty searched for a souvenir to take back with her to prove that she hadn’t lost her mind. She found a large book full of symbols written in long, narrow columns. After joking with her, the leader agreed to give Betty the proof that she needed to confirm that her abduction was real. When the remaining crew members discovered that she had the book, they took it from her, and she became very angry. Then the leader apologized, stating that he saw no harm in giving it to her. However, he had been overruled. The crew had decided not to permit Betty and Barney to remember their experience, and there- fore, the book was taken away.
When Betty queried the leader about his planet of origin, he pulled an instructional map of the heavens down from the wall. It contained numerous points of light, connected by curved lines. Some were heavy, others light; some were broken, and some connected stars in a series of lines. The leader dis- played the very human trait of sarcasm when she asked him to point out our sun on his map. He refused and snapped the 1960s-era instructional map back into place.
In Betty’s dream, after the completion of Barney’s examination, all of the men accompanied both of the Hills back to their vehicle, where they watched the ship become a bright, glowing ball that turned over three or four times and sailed into the sky. Betty was exuberant. The primary question that has been a hot topic of debate for more than 40 years is, did Betty’s frightening dreams reflect reality, or were they no more than wish-fulfillment generated by Betty’s fantasies?