William J Birnes - Aliens in America: A UFO Hunters Guide to Extraterrestrial Hotpspots Across the U.S.

PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Barney and Betty Hill were a very private couple. Spouses in a mixed-race marriage, uncommon enough in New Hampshire in 1961, they both worked for social causes in addition to their regular jobs. Barney worked for the United States Post Office and sat on the local Civil Rights Commission. Betty was a social worker, and both of them were members of the NAACP. At the dawn of the 1960s, a time before the civil rights movement began in earnest under President Johnson, the last thing the Hills wanted was national publicity. But that was exactly what they got the cover of Look Magazine when they had the misfortune to spot a huge bright light in the sky following their car along a lonely country road outside of Groveton, New Hampshire, on September 19, 1961.

The Hills had been vacationing in Quebec and were driving home to Portsmouth in the darkness when they first spotted the light. Betty believed that it was one of the satellites, maybe Telstar, that the United States had just launched. Barney, however, thought that it was a plane that seemed unusually bright against the very dark sky. But the light seemed brighter than a conventional aircraft and it seemed to be tracking them, making Barney who suffered from hypertension nervous. Betty insisted it was a satellite and urged Barney to stop the car so the couple could get out. Betty pulled out a pair of binoculars and got a better look at the object against the light of the moon. It wasn't a satellite at all, she realized, but something else: something that was illuminated with multicolored lights.

Betty said years later that she and Barney had the feeling that the object had suddenly noticed them. They became nervous, all alone on that New England country road at night. The Hills got back in the car and headed home. But the object matched their speed, and what had been eerie before was becoming downright frightening.

BETTY AND BARNEY HILL

The object seemed to track them for a few more miles and then began a sudden descent toward their car. It stopped and hovered about a hundred feet above the vehicle, directly in front of the windshield. Barney stopped in the middle of the road, grabbed the pistol he had been carrying, and took the binoculars for a better look. He later said that the object hovered and then seemed to lower right above the road. Barney approached the craft.

Through his binoculars, he could see actual humanoid figures looking at him through the windows. Barney didn't know what this thing was, where it was from, or why it was parked about fifty feet in front of his car on a dark New England country road, but he could see figures inside. They looked too much like humans, but not enough like humans to be humans. And they were looking at him. Barney had the impression that he was being ordered to stay where he was and wait. But he had the feeling that the humanoids, now descending from the craft, were going to capture him. He ran back toward the safety of the car.

The Hills tried to escape. Betty didn't get far from the car before something grabbed and dragged her into a small clearing in the woods about 150 feet away. The humanoids had already caught Barney and dragged him to the clearing, too. Betty saw her husband next to her and the figures around them. But that was all she could remember.

The next thing they knew, the Hills found themselves driving along a very familiar road and entering their driveway. It was almost dawn. They had no idea where they had been for the previous few hours.

This would be the beginning of a very revealing inner journey for the Hills. Try as they might, they simply could not return to a normal life.

Barney, who had suffered from hypertension a disease that finally killed him continued to be uneasy and had strange symptoms of physical problems. He was unusually worried about his genitals and complained that they pained him. He said his stomach was bothering him, and he was having trouble sleeping at night. Although he tried to remain calm, Barney also seemed to be unusually irritable, as if something were eating at him that he couldn't resolve. Thinking that this was some kind of underlying physical condition, Betty took him to their family doctor. But beyond high blood pressure, the doctor could find nothing wrong with Barney.

While Barney was manifesting physical symptoms, Betty was having serious nightmares. The day after the incident, Betty tried to describe everything to her niece Kathy Marden, but she still could not recall anything that happened between the time of their capture and returning to awareness just as they arrived home. The horrible, repressed memories resurfaced in her dreams.

She may not have been able to retell exactly what happened, but Betty did have proof. The dress she had been wearing that night had pink stains where she remembered the humanoids had touched her. The dress, Barney's symptoms, Betty's nightmares, and the bits and pieces they could remember convinced the Hills that their abduction had not just been a bad dream.