Its high-beams cutting a path through the dark, the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop coupe raced south through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Inside, Barney and Betty Hill were heading home after a belated honeymoon in Niagara Falls of Canada.
While the Hills saw no other cars, they knew they were not alone. The Hills were trying desperately avoid capture. Above them, a flying saucer evidently piloted by alien astronauts followed the car.
This was the night and morning of September 19-20, 1961. The Hills, accompanied by their Dachshund Dulsey, had driven through Ontario and Toronto, and on through Quebec past Montreal. Worried about an approaching storm, they had decided to drive overnight to Portsmouth.
They turned south and crossed into Vermont. Following a short stretch of Vermont 114 east, they entered New Hampshire to join US 3, the Daniel Webster Highway. The plan was to continue south until Concord, where they’d take US 4 home.
The aliens could not have selected a better couple to select for examination. Barney and Betty Hill were two of the best people on all of planet earth.
‘You’ve Never Seen Anything Like This In Your Life.’
The wandering star continued to approach and parallel their course through the mountains and valleys. And it moved erratically — jumping and zig-zagging from place to place in the sky. It also was getting closer.
“Barney,” she said, “stop the car and look! You've never seen anything like this in your life.”
He stopped to get a better look — and to let Delcey, their dachshund, take a potty walk. Through binoculars, Barney saw the object was not a star, nor a wandering satellite nor an airplane.
They returned to the Chevy and continued their drive. A short while later, the Hills found the flying saucer hovering over the road directly ahead. It was very close, perhaps just 200-feet overhead and about 200-feet away. As they stopped the car, the object drifted across the road and over a field.
Barney got out with his binoculars and even though he felt like “a hunted rabbit trying to hide behind a blade of grass.” Overcoming his fear, he walked toward the object and stopped to examine it through the binoculars.
“It looked like a giant pancake stopped mid-air, hovering about 200 feet above the road in front of us,” Barney said. “It had bright red lights on two sides. It had a row of windows that stretched around the perimeter. Through them I could see 9 to 11 men in the crew. They were dressed in a shiny black uniform. They looking through the windows down to me.”
The saucer seemed to tip toward Barney and Betty below and dropped in altitude. As it tipped, some in the crew put their hands on the glass, as if to keep their footing, Barney said. Stopping at about 100-feet altitude, he saw most of the figures turn to stations along an interior wall, where they seemed to operate levers and manipulate instruments or controls. One figure remained and watched Barney.
“He’s talking in my head,” Barney said. “The captain is telling me that he can see me and to stay where I am.”
Barney continued to observe as the saucer seemed to transform, extending two “fins” from the outer sides. A ramp or stairway extended from underneath the saucer. At that moment, Barney ripped the binocs from his eyes, breaking the strap in two. He ran to the car, informing Betty that the object was looking to capture them.
“I’d never been so afraid in all my life,” Betty said.
Barney put the idling Chevy in drive and floored the gas pedal. As they zoomed down the road, he asked Betty to take a look and see if they were still being followed. Later he remembered seeing a big white full moon in the sky over the mountains. Then both heard — and felt — an odd “beep-beep-beep” sound that seemed to emanate from the trunk of the car.
“It felt like a tuning fork being placed over a spot on my skin,” Barney said. “It had a very subtle vibration.”
That was among Barney and Betty’s last clear, conscious memories of the event, although they did recall seeing the object take-off.
“There it goes,” Barney said.
“Do you believe in flying saucers, now?” Betty said.
“Oh, of course not,” Barney said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
The Hills later reported from then on they largely drove in silence, atypical for the erudite couple. Something else that was disturbing to enlightened people of today was how many in the United States of the late 1950s and early ‘60s treated the Hills, because theirs was called a “mixed-race” marriage.
They soon found they were about 30 miles from the general area of their close encounter where the object was sighted near near Mount Pemigewasset, named after the nearby river and its swift current, or “Indian Head,” after a popular rock formation on the summit.
When the Hills returned home, they wondered if what they had seen and experienced and remembered had really occurred. Much of their what they experienced was repressed or buried, hinted if not revealed in nightmarish dreams experienced by Betty and serious health issues experienced by Barney.
Only later did the Hills discover that they had lost two hours on their journey home, missing time and events they explored two years later with the help of Boston psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, MD, a pioneer in treating the impact of wartime traumatic experiences through psychiatry and hypnotherapy. Audio recordings made of these sessions revealed the real terror in their voices, honest emotions that are most difficult to forget.
Two Good People of Earth
Betty Hill earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and became a licensed social worker to serve the children and families of her home state. In addition to working long hours as a state employee, she was active in the work to advance civil rights and to end racial discrimination in the United States. In her professional career, she also helped children in need of adoption by loving families and the stability of permanent homes. She had dedicated her professional life to help those most in need of help — children without parents or the love of family.
Barney Hill also was a government employee, serving as a mail carrier for the US Post Office. During World War 2, he drove a truck to deliver supplies to the front lines and received a Purple Heart for wounds received in combat. Before the war, with an IQ of 140, he dreamed of becoming an engineer, but was frustrated in his attempts to pursue the profession due to the pigmentation of his skin. After the war, he and 1.2 million other “Negro” veterans were subject to discrimination by bigoted members of the “White” majority, including education, housing and healthcare services provided in the GI Bill to which they were equally entitled. Thus, Barney Hill became active in the work to advance civil rights and to end racial discrimination in the United States.
Both Barney and Betty Hill were active in civic and cultural affairs in Portsmouth. The couple were each in their second marriage and supported by their extended families. Both were respected in their Unitarian Church congregation. They dated for three years before marriage.
While Betty Hill had expressed a positive belief in flying saucers, Barney Hill had previously thought that the subject was largely imaginary or perhaps glimpses at undisclosed military technology — until that night on a lonesome stretch of highway. After their encounter, both shared their story, as best as they could remember, with others in their immediate circles and later church and civic groups.
Both were respected members of the community. The couple were known by their country and community to be true to their word. What they said goes, goes. What they said happened, happened. Thus, their community and family wholeheartedly supported the couple and their story.
Ambassadors to the Galaxy
Betty proudly said: “My husband Barney and I were the first people abducted by astronauts from another solar system.” She may be absolutely correct.
Based on evidence in the form of 20 or so strange, shiny circular marks made (and photographed) on the trunk of the Hills’ Chevy, DNA information retrieved from the never-again worn dress Betty wore that night; and the team at Pease Air Force Base, in 1961 a Strategic Air Command facility housing bombers armed with nuclear weapons, recorded the passage of an unidentified object that night and place on radar.
The abduction and examination of Barney and Betty Hill by alien astronauts may be the smaller part of a bigger story. Perhaps, if there was some type of evaluation, planet earth might be worth visiting and humanity just might be worth observing, let alone protecting and helping.
The most important part is that the Hills would show the alien astronauts that human beings have so much goodness in them. If they can communicate telepathically, perhaps the aliens also can record human thoughts and memories or even entire experiences, as well, and share it with their fellow explorers, wherever they are and are from.
Real Resources
The story of Barney and Betty Hill and their abduction by evidently real alien astronauts was broken in the Boston Traveler newspaper published “A UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?” in 1965. Written by John H. Luttrell, the investigative reporter later would write that he had received corroborating reports from between “12 to 14 people” living and traveling in the area and the same time where Barney and Betty Hill were abducted. Ufologist and filmmaker Bryce Zabel has created an excellent account online.
Several books have been written and films produced about the Hills’ encounter with the UFO phenomenon, including “The Interrupted Journey” by John G. Fuller; “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens” by Dr. John E. Mack, MD; and “Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience” by Stanton E. Friedman and Kathleen Marden (who is Betty Hill’s niece).
Several films have staged and documented the story, including “The UFO Incident,” a remarkable 1975 television adaptation starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons, and the 2021 documentary, “Alien Abduction: Betty and Barney Hill,” an accurate and compelling narrative of the encounter and aftermath, including interviews with the principals.
Online there are today a good many websites that chronicle the abduction of Barney and Betty Hill. These include an early civilian UFO investigation by NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena). I have been awed by the testimony and treasure the information Betty’s niece, Kathleen Marden provides on her historical resource with the Hill’s own words, from which several of the photographs and the illustration of the aliens above come. Barney and Betty Hill’s papers and personal effects related to their encounter are preserved at the University of New Hampshire.