Late on the night of September 19, 1961 41 year old child welfare worker Betty Hill and her 39 year old husband Barney were travelling home after a pleasant vacation in Southern Canada. They were travelling along Interstate Route 3 which cuts through the White Mountain of New Hampshire on the long journey home to New England. For quite a while the Hills had been puzzled by the 'white star' that had seemed to be tailing them.
Barney, being sceptical by nature, thought it may be a plane heading towards Montreal. Traffic was very scare on the highway and the couple decided to stop to allow their dog, Delsey, to have some exercise.
It was now close to midnight and , as Betty walked the dog off the side of the road, Barney used binoculars to study the strange light more carefully.
After a few minutes further into their journey Barney felt the sudden urge to stop and leave the car. They were near an isolated spot called Indian Head and ignoring Betty's cries to return to the car, Barney walked deeper into the roadside tree cover, staring ahead at the white light in the sky.
It became apparent to Barney that the strange light was a UFO.
It had a shape described by both witnesses as like a pancake or a banana and Barney was sure he could see figures standing against a large picture window in front of the spacecraft.
Barney lowered the binoculars from his eyes and shouted 'I don't believe this!', then muttered something about a military helicopter playing tricks on them, then screamed out loud 'They're going to capture us!' with that, he fled back to the car. The couple then sped off southwards to begin the drive down from the mountains.
Further down the road, the Hills heard a strange 'beeping', a sound which, years later the Hills would describe as similar to a microwave oven. A second 'beeping' noise followed by a bump, and then everything returned back to normal.
The morning after they arrived home the Hills noticed some problems with their car. The vehicle had strange blotches where the paint had been removed revealing bare metal. Betty's sister suggested that they should see if the spots were magnetized. She asked this because she also had experienced a UFO before and had read that UFOs could stall car engines.
Using a hand-held compass they discovered that the compass needle swung wildly over the blotched areas of the car, suggesting that these spots, were indeed magnetized.
Distressed, the couple decided to ring the nearby Pease Air Force Base to report their experience with the UFO.
They were told nothing at the time, but documents researched 20 years later report of a similar UFO being reported at the base on September 20 at 2.15 a.m. in the morning.
The Hills also decided to report their encounter to a national UFO group.
UFOlogist and astronomer Walter Webb visited the Hills on October 21 and set in motion what was to become one of the most remarkable investigations in UFO history.
Barney was worried, because he could not explain the scuff marks on his shoes, as if he had been dragged roughly along the ground, and he was also suffering from an extremely painful back.
On September 30 Betty began to have a series of recurring nightmares that lasted for several nights. In them she would see horrible faces with cat-like eyes that belonged to creatures intent on kidnapping her and her husband. One fact that emerged during Walter Webbs investigation was that, during the Hills journey, they could not account for two hours of time, or 55km of their route.
By Spring 1962 the Hills problems were still evident and they were regularly seeking medical advice to relieve them of their mental torment.
Finally they were referred to psychiatrist Benjamin Simon in Boston. He recommended them to undergo regression as a way to free their subconscious minds of whatever was causing the problems. From the start the emotional impact of that September night was obvious.
Although both Betty and Barney were regressed separately a number of images surfaced from their subconscious minds that were remarkably similar. The Hills response under hypnosis undoubtedly shook Simon. On several occasions staff had to help him restrain Barney while he relived the events of that night and fought to escape the aliens that he visualised.
According to the evidence retrieved through these sessions the UFO had landed beside the road and rendered the Hills semi-conscious. The couple were then taken against their will aboard the craft by small beings with whitish skin and large cat-like eyes similar to greys.
Once on board the couple were separated and both given medical examinations. Barney had semen extracted by a suction device while Betty had to endure a large needle being stuck into her abdomen. Other samples such as nail and hair clippings were also taken.
The aliens also appeared fascinated by the differences between the couple. Barney, who was Ethiopian by birth, had dark skin.
After the tests Betty was shown around the UFO where she attempted to persuade what seemed to be the group leader to allow her to take away a book as proof of their adventure but this was denied.
One thing that skeptics cannot explain is that Betty could draw a detailed sketch of the star system Zeta Reticuli which is in the Reticulum constellation six years before astronomers even discovered it.
This case has become a landmark case in UFO folklore. The importance of the Hills abduction experience cannot be overemphasized. It changed the world of UFOlogy forever.
