Chris Ramsay and the DEBRIEFED team revisit the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction, retracing their Route 3 journey from Portsmouth to Lincoln, New Hampshire. Through interviews with niece Kathleen Marden and analysis of Dr. Benjamin Simon's regression sessions, they detail the couple's encounter with a metallic craft where Barney faced beings in black uniforms while Betty endured painful examinations, including a needle insertion into her navel. After discovering concentric circles on their trunk and Barney's hospitalization for ulcers, the hosts conclude that despite initial skepticism and a 1965 media leak that devastated their reputations, the Hills' corroborated trauma established them as pivotal figures in modern UFO lore. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The Night of September 1900:08:11
On the night of September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving home to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when they claimed they were taken aboard a craft not of this earth.
Their story became one of the most famous and controversial abduction cases in history, a case that still echoes through UFO research to this day.
64 years later, my friend Nelson and I set to retrace their exact pilgrimage from Montreal down through the mountains of New Hampshire on the same date, at the same hour.
To step directly into their path, to see what they saw, and to feel the weight of that night for ourselves.
And to help us tell this story with the depth it deserves, I reached out to Betty Hill's own niece, Kathleen Marden, one of the foremost experts on her aunt's case and a voice that has carried the Hill legacy forward for decades.
This is our journey into the unknown, following the footsteps of Betty and Barney Hill.
Well, I have never stopped investigating Betty and Barney's case.
So, I have always sought out scientists who had laboratories and could do a scientific analysis of the evidence.
I have always delved deeper and deeper into archival records, also, investigation of their case myself to carrying it to the furthest extent possible.
So, back when Stanton Friedman and I published our first book in 2007, we had a certain amount of Of information and evidence that we had collected to that point.
But over the years, much more has taken place.
Betty and Barney Hill were an interracial couple living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Betty was a social worker, Barney was a postal clerk and civil rights advocate.
In mid September 1961, they embarked on a spontaneous road trip to Montreal and Niagara Falls.
The journey was unplanned, and they traveled without formal reservations, choosing motels as they went.
What they experienced on their return journey changed their lives forever.
So, why did they take this trip?
Well, Betty and Barney were visiting my childhood home.
In August of 1961, I had been to Niagara Falls with Betty's sister and her husband, my aunt and uncle, another one, and my cousin.
And I was showing them my photographs.
Of Niagara Falls and talking about how much I enjoyed the trip.
And Barney turned to Betty and said, Do you think you'd like to go there sometime?
And he decided to surprise her with this trip to Niagara Falls.
They went on to Montreal and had an enjoyable time.
They were just tourists, you know, having a great time together, enjoying one another's company, doing that kind of thing.
And then they were going to spend the night in Montreal.
But they had their dog with them, and so they were going to have to stay on the outskirts of the city.
And Barney was driving toward that area.
There was heavy traffic.
It was late in the afternoon, and people were getting out of work.
And Barney decided that he would just continue driving, and then if they grew tired, they could stop for the night.
On the evening of September 19th, they began their return drive from Montreal, heading south through Vermont.
And into New Hampshire.
Their route took them along US Route 3, a scenic but isolated stretch winding through the White Mountains.
Folks, I am currently on my way to Betty and Barney Hill's house.
Today is September 19th, the exact day that Betty and Barney Hill left from Montreal to New Hampshire and where their famous story begins.
I'm not doing this trip alone, I'm doing this trip with Nelson.
He's on a phone call right now, but together we are going to try and retrace the steps we've mapped out.
Every single stop that they've taken along the way.
So, first stop is going to be Coat Cook, Quebec, which is a small town in Quebec.
This is before we crossed the border into the United States.
They stopped there for a quick snack.
There was a stop before they went to Coat Cook.
Really?
At a hot dog stand.
And then they stopped again at Coat Cook because the menu was in French.
They just kind of pointed to what they wanted and they received something different than they thought they were going.
To get so they got potato chips instead of french fries, right.
This is the last stop before the border.
And it's funny because we found this diner.
There are a few restaurants in this town, not very many.
It's a small town, but we found this particular diner and I asked the guy who's working at the cash, I was like, how long has this been around?
And he said, at least the 60s.
And so there's a big chance that this might have been the actual diner that Betty and Barney Hill stopped at, but they were so off put by the French because they came from Montreal, where, you know, generally bilingual, but out in these little townships, they're primarily French.
Something got lost in translation and were actually served potato chips instead of fries, making it, you know, a bit of a modest meal.
It was 172 miles to customs in Canaan.
They stop for a brief snack in Côte d'Ivoire, and it ends in a French English menu mix up.
They continue south and pass U.S. customs at Canaan at approximately 9 p.m.
All right, we just crossed the border from Canada into Vermont.
Tiniest of border patrols, just one guy and a tiny little.
I wish we would have filmed it.
I know.
He was curious about what we were doing here, and we explained the whole thing.
And then we just asked him if he had any experiences out here.
And he went into this whole story about his father in law in the late 70s.
Well, him and his now deceased wife had seen something walking on the ground in this area, like not just something in the sky.
Did he say also there was a craft and then there were beings on the ground?
And he said big heads.
Yeah, I asked him, like, is there any features of these big, sort of round heads?
Yeah.
And I asked him if he would be willing to be on camera and talk about it.
He's like, I don't, you know, you could tell he was very reluctant.
Yeah.
But man, we just crossed the border.
Yeah.
And we get a story like that.
Oh my God.
So cool.
I have done investigations in that part of New Hampshire.
When I lived in New Hampshire, I no longer do.
There were many reports, I should say several, you know, not many, but several reports of either abductions or close encounters.
And right before we crossed the border, too, like it was just golden hours, beautiful.
And we started listening to some music that was, I don't know, what would you say?
I'd say like meditation music.
Yeah, meditative music.
I know we were just alone, nothing on the street, nobody driving by us.
And Chris goes, Show us something!
Come on, give us a sign, we're here.
And then I shit you not, like barely a minute later, there was a baby moose that just came on the road.
I've never seen one before in person.
And of all times for it to show up, it just like ran with us as we drove by it.
It was beautiful and majestic.
You know, you're out here to see aliens.
But here's something that's alien to you.
Here's something you've never seen that's on your own planet.
You know, you're so worried about what's out there in the universe that you forget there's so many beautiful things that you haven't even seen here.
A Majestic Alien Sight00:14:48
From here, it's 185 miles to Portsmouth.
The ETA is about 2 or 3 a.m., if all goes well.
They reached Coldbrook, New Hampshire, and stopped at Howard's Restaurant.
We stopped in Coldbrook and had our lunch and had gas put in the car.
Because we knew we'd be heading down Route 3 through the White Mountain National Forest.
Barney ordered a cheeseburger, Betty, a chocolate cake, and coffee.
They checked their watches, 10 05 p.m.
The night was still young, and the road ahead was clear.
It was Howard's restaurant, and it did have a counter and a dining room.
And so they sat at the counter, and Barney ordered a hamburger, and Betty had a piece of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee.
They both had coffee to carry them through.
Their ride, their drive home.
And this was an important stop, not for, you know, nothing big happened at the stop, but it was a point where they remember looking at the time.
Yeah, they looked at the time on the clock and they looked at the time on their watches.
Their watches were running.
They wound their watches.
They did everything they needed to do to prepare for that drive home.
We already got our food.
We were good.
I guess they didn't like the chips that they were served at this other place, so that they came here and had a nice American burger instead.
Regression session number one for Barney.
Barney begins by recounting the final leg of the trip from Montreal.
He's calm but guarded, describing the drive through Vermont and into New Hampshire.
The road is quiet, the night cool.
He notes the isolation of the mountain pass and the occasional stops to let Delsie, their dog, out.
In Betty's third regression session, she recounts the light.
Betty's first session mirrors the drive.
She's more composed, more cautious.
She notes a bright star in the sky.
This was a normal star, and she didn't take much notice.
But later, she would notice a large, bright light nearby to this star, a light that wasn't there previously.
And this caught her attention.
It wasn't until they were south of Lancaster, New Hampshire, where Betty saw a new light in the sky.
And it moved in a way that she'd never seen before, so she started to watch it to try to identify what it was.
So my wife remarked, I was driving the car, and she remarked that the star had begun to move.
So this caused me to look through the windshield up toward the sky, and I told her that it was probably a satellite.
Nothing to get alarmed about.
We did have a pair of 7x50 crescent binoculars with us.
So I stopped the car, and we got out, and she took the binoculars and was looking at the object, and I reached under the seat to get our little doggy, a little dachshund, and put the chain on her to walk her about while my wife. Was looking at the object.
All of a sudden, I saw what I thought was a new star in the sky.
While I'm watching this, it began to move.
So we knew it was a satellite.
So we stopped the car to get out with the binoculars to look at the satellite.
And while we're watching this, it turned and started to come in towards us.
But that object started following their vehicle and came in.
Closer and closer.
So they made three stops just so that Barney could look at it.
But they didn't leave the car on those other stops.
They might have just stopped in the side of the road or in the middle of the road.
There wasn't much traffic on the road that night.
It moved erratically, arcing across the stars.
She watched it with growing curiosity.
Barney, ever the skeptic, dismissed it as a plane or satellite.
But the light didn't behave like any aircraft they knew.
It shifted, hovered, and seemed to follow them.
We just left Howard's restaurant where Betty and Barney Hill shared a little dinner.
And now we're on what is this?
What road is this?
Route 3.
So, about 30 miles south of where we just were, and about 20 miles from here, Betty notices something in the sky.
This is the first sighting.
We have our night vision camera.
At some point, we're going to stop.
We're going to do some sky watching.
Maybe we'll see something.
We're going to pull over soon and we'll have a look, but we're right on time.
If something's gonna happen, it's gonna be tonight.
Yeah.
Currently filming on my night vision camera because that's the Milky Way, folks.
Just decided because the sky Was so visible.
There's a lot of traffic, unfortunately.
This is probably the best night sky I've ever seen.
Yeah.
Like, that's the Milky Way right there, man.
That's crazy.
Betty has a bit of a curious nature about her.
She's definitely seems to be someone who, you know, is kind of has a more like sort of wondrous attitude and like, hey, what is this?
This is unique.
This seems abnormal.
Whereas Barney certainly.
Meets her with a little bit more skepticism towards these things.
And he was definitely, you know, trying to convince her, maybe himself at the same time, that this was just sort of a prosaic object, like some plane or satellite.
Absolutely.
He was giving her a hard time, which he enjoyed doing.
He chuckled about this.
He loved to tease Betty, he believed it was impossible.
Whereas Betty wasn't certain.
She thought that it could be true, but she had never read any books on it or watched any shows on it or anything like that.
So, you know, that was her position.
She was curious.
I'm curious, too.
She recalls urging Barney to stop.
She's frustrated by his skepticism.
She wants to understand what she's seeing.
Betty's excitement grew.
She eventually convinced Barney to stop, and the pair pulled over near Mount Cleveland picnic area.
We continued driving south, and my wife would occasionally remark that this object was still following us.
It was flying in a very erratic pattern, and she wanted me to stop, and I would occasionally look over toward her side, and I could see that this light was still out there moving about.
It would go up, and then it would come down at very rapid and odd patterns of flight.
I'm watching this through the binoculars, very unusual zigzagging, acting like a yo yo, going up and down, spinning.
She convinced Barney to pull over south of Twin Mountain, which is north of Franconia Notch.
She used the excuse that the dog needed to be walked, and otherwise Barney would not have stopped.
So they got out of the car, and since they were in a wilderness area and there were wild animals that might possibly come out of the woods at night, and he was walking the dog and relieving himself.
He went into the wheel well of the trunk and took out a weapon that he had put there when they were packing to leave on their trip.
We are currently at where Barney took the dog out for a walk.
It says it's like a scenic area.
It's literally right on the highway.
And then there's a trail that says it leads into the dark woods and it says toilet two miles.
I took two steps into the forest and it was dark and I heard a sound and I'm like, no, thank you.
So instead, what we're going to do is we're going to find a dirt path somewhere, get off the main road, because right now it's a little early, and I feel like if we're going to see something, it's going to happen after midnight.
Barney walks Delsie while Betty peered through binoculars.
The object was closer now silent, luminous, and deliberate in its movements.
She expressed irritation at Barney, who seemed to be trying to ignore what was happening and refusing to believe.
It almost reads like, if I don't admit it, it's not real.
Despite recalling, this is strange, I cannot tell, I cannot hear a motor, He convinces himself that this is just a plane.
Barney, that is not a plane.
and I'm still out there off in the distance, so I search for a place to pull off the road.
I see a dirt road to the right of the main highway, and I think this is a good place I can pull off.
stop and I look and I see it is still out there, off in the distance.
So I search for a place to pull off the road.
And I see a dirt road to the right of the main highway.
And I think this is a good place I can pull off.
And if any car comes, it won't strike me.
One mile south of Cannon Mountain, they stopped again.
The craft hovered beside the old man of the mountain, a rock profile etched into the cliffside.
It spun like a top, tilted vertically, and descended in a stair step motion.
Barney described it as a ball bouncing on a paddle.
I think of a paddle and a ball with a rubber.
And you hit the ball.
And the ball goes straight up and comes straight back without a circle.
This was a spot where they truly realized that there was no prosaic explanation for this observation of an aerial vehicle because the old man of the mountain's profile is 48 feet from forehead to chin, and this craft was at least one and a half times.
The length of the profile.
And it was, it had a twinkling effect because it was rotating.
And then it started to bounce back and forth in the sky.
Now, today, military officers who have seen these things compare it to a ping pong ball.
So we just got to Old Man of the Mountain.
It's this massive mountain that you're seeing here.
This is a shot with the night vision camera.
Trying to be too loud.
There's people here parked here as well.
I don't know if they're also, you know, trying to reroute Betty and Barney Hill's abduction, but I did a little bit of sky watching actually just a second ago.
And as we were looking up, we saw a few meteors, you know, whatever, shooting stars.
But then there was this like clear flash in the sky that wasn't, it was just one flash.
And I was like, oh, that's weird.
What was that?
You saw it too, right?
It It flashed like three times.
Didn't film it in time, but don't really know.
You know, it's a flash.
What are we talking about here?
Space debris, maybe?
I don't know.
Now, while passing near the old man of the mountain, they had direct line of sight to the object as it moved between the mountain peaks.
One of the mountain peaks was right here.
That's what I was filming.
The other mountain peak, my guess, would be on the other side.
So this would have been.
Exactly where they saw this craft.
This location is critical because this is where it turned from curiosity for Betty and Barney Hill into fear.
This is where the tension started growing, where they started to get scared.
It wasn't just a light in the sky anymore.
Now this became something that clearly was following them and observing them.
I don't see even like one satellite.
Huh?
Not one.
You'd see.
Yeah, it's so weird.
I'm not saying that that's anomalous.
I'm just saying that's very strange.
Like, not even one satellite in here.
Oh, I see a blinking something there.
Oh, yeah.
Let me zoom into that.
Oh, what is that?
Oh, yeah.
It's way too high to be a plane.
How strange.
Like, it's way up there.
Do you see it?
Yeah, I don't know.
Like, it's so faint.
I'll show you the footage after.
And it doesn't seem to be moving in a straight line.
Oh, yeah.
It almost seems like it's like teleporting back and forth.
It's so bizarre.
Dude, that's so high up.
What is this?
So strange.
Come see this.
Yeah, I think it stopped.
It's gone.
I think it's going.
Can you point to bigger stars to orient me?
The movement was unnatural, controlled, and eerily silent.
Betty was transfixed.
Barney was stunned.
The craft was no longer a curiosity, it was a presence.
They left Franconia Notch.
They passed Indian Head and the Indian Head Resort.
Betty observed a man standing in the window of one of the cabins smoking a cigarette.
And then they were about a mile south of Indian Head when the craft swooped down.
Binoculars Reveal a Plan00:07:40
They reported that now the craft was as large as a dinner plate held at arm's length.
Keep in mind that the full moon is the size of an aspirin held at arm's length.
So, this is in the original reports, the documented evidence, the testimony that Betty and Barney gave to Paul Henderson.
The officer at Pease Air Force Base.
The state of New Hampshire erected a historical marker to commemorate this historical event.
It says Betty and Barney Hill incident on the night of September 19th and 20th, 1961, which is tonight, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Couple Betty and Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with an unidentified flying object and two hours of lost time while driving south on Route 3.
Near Lincoln.
They filed an official Air Force Project Blue Book report of a brightly lit cigar shaped craft the next day, but were not public with their story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler in 1965.
This was the first widely reported UFO abduction report in the United States.
How cool is this?
The fact that a sign says Project Blue Book, unidentified flying object.
I mean, at this point, Point in the night, they were exhausted, they'd been driving, it was super late at night, and they were trying to push through to get home in Portsmouth, still quite a ways away.
So, by the time they reached here, they were being followed very closely by this one particular object.
Now, what happened here, this is where things escalated quite rapidly and dramatically.
But the light they'd been watching suddenly plunged downward, rapidly descending in front of the car.
Yeah, it was no longer just the light, Barney could now see the outline of the structure.
Like the craft itself.
It wasn't just a light anymore.
Yeah, then the UFO stopped hovering over the treetops just ahead of them and blocked their path.
Betty remains in the car, this time noting that they had stopped in a bad spot.
Barney leaves the car and heads toward a field closer to the craft.
Using binoculars, Barney takes a closer look.
At this point in the hypnotic regression, Barney insists that he wants to wake up.
Dr. Simon calms Barney, reminding him that no harm can come to him during these sessions, that he will not wake up.
That he will remember.
At this, Barney begins to remember lots of detail, his voice shaking.
It's all right.
You can go right on, Brian said.
It will not hurt you now.
I got to get my gun.
Through the not hurt you now.
I got to get my gun.
I got to get my gun!
Alright.
Alright, that's all.
I got to get my gun!
Go this way, Steve.
You got to get now.
Oh, Lord.
You've forgotten.
Through the binoculars, Barney saw beings inside the craft.
And so he described rows of figures in the window of the craft under hypnosis later on, and he said they were not human.
She described Barney's observation of figures dressed in black, shiny uniforms that were somehow just so frightening that he had developed.
A block after that regarding the appearance of their faces.
He knew they were dressed in black, shiny uniforms.
They moved in unison, in, you know, not saying they were military officers, but they did move in unison, and only one remained at the window.
He had a black scarf around his neck, dangling over his left shoulder.
How did you see these figures so clearly at that distance?
I was looking at him with binoculars.
Oh.
His eyes.
One man, he surmises, is clearly the leader.
His uniform is different, he has a scarf.
And the other beings seem to be continuing work in the background whilst the leader catches Barney's gaze.
He finds himself unable to look away.
Barney feels he will stand there forever if he cannot look away.
It takes a lot of mental effort for Barney to be able to break the gaze.
He felt from what he was observing that this was a huge threat.
To him, that they had a plan, and that that plan was to capture him.
This creature, this leader, is telling me something, stay there and keep looking, just keeps looking.
And stay there and just keep looking.
Yeah, keep looking.
Could you hear each other?
Oh, I gotta pull these binoculars away from my eyes because if I don't, I'll just keep staying there.
Would you hear him tell you this?
Oh no, he didn't say it.
You felt he said it.
I know you know it is there.
Yeah, just stay there.
He's saying to me, it's all right, I'll take it my head.
This is all right.
Pull the binoculars away.
God give me strength.
All right, I gotta get away.
Oh oh, I'm driving.
telling me something.
Stay there and keep looking.
Just keep looking and stay there.
And just keep looking.
Just keep looking.
Could you hear him tell you?
Oh, I gotta pull these binoculars away from my eyes.
Because if I don't, I'll just keep staying there.
Could you hear him tell you this?
Oh, no, he didn't say it.
You felt he said it.
I know.
You know he's there.
Yeah.
Just stay there.
He's saying to me.
It's about to get my head.
Pull the monocle in the way.
God, give me strength.
All right.
Pull him down.
Run!
Pull his monocle down and run.
God.
It's there for God.
Give me strength.
I gotta get away.
Oh.
Oh.
Babe!
We gotta get away, baby.
All right.
Calm down.
Calm down.
I'm driving.
I'm gonna get away.
During Betty's hypnotic regression sessions, she recalls this experience from her perspective.
I kept waiting and waiting, and Barney didn't come back.
And I was sitting there waiting, and I looked.
It was dark there, there weren't any streetlights or anything.
I noticed that when I looked out, he was quite a distance from the car, and he was still going away from the car.
So I leaned over the front seat, and I was saying, Barney, come back here.
Barney, you damn fool, get back here.
Ugh.
Come back.
If the damn fool out there doesn't come back, I'm going out after him.
And I'm hollering, Barney!
And I start to slide across.
I was going to get out in his side of the car because that door was still open a little bit.
And just as I started to slide across the seat and I got the door most of the way open, he came.
He was running like mad.
Down the street, when I saw him coming, I sat up, and it was lucky I did because he threw the binoculars in the car and they landed on the seat beside me.
And he was hysterical.
He was, I don't know if he was laughing or crying.
But he said that they were going to capture us.
We had to get the hell out of there.
Drops the binoculars, screaming to Betty, they're going to capture us.
Back to the car.
Yeah.
So now they have, they sprint back to the car.
Terrifying Men on the Road00:04:54
He and Betty speed away down Route 3 at full throttle.
And as they fled, this is when they start hearing these strange beeping or buzzing sounds in their car.
Betty and Barney.
Heard a series of code like buzzing sounds on the trunk of their vehicle as they went speeding down the highway.
And it caused the car to vibrate and for them to sense an electrical tingling sensation.
And Betty actually felt the metal of the car, but didn't receive an electric shock, fortunately.
The sounds were mechanical, rhythmic, and invasive.
Both felt a vibration through their bodies, a tingling sensation.
That they struggle to explain.
Then silence.
The next thing they knew, they were 30 to 35 miles down the highway, somewhere on Route 93.
From what I've been able to gather, or very close to Route 93, they heard a second series of these buzzing sounds, code like buzzing sounds, that Barney compared to the sound of a tuning fork being dropped.
And they had vague memories.
Betty recalled a vague impression, a roadblock, a red orange orb, a forested dirt road, but the craft was gone.
They went back time and time again for the next couple of years, trying to jog their memories, trying to find that dirt road with the tall trees.
Apparently, this is it.
This is where they got taken.
This is terrifying.
This is terrifying.
Right here.
Right.
Head west.
And now it's telling us to turn around.
Well, I'm not going to stick around here for much longer.
Jesus Christ.
On their return home, they try to document everything they can remember.
But it's not a lot, it's vague and disjointed.
And it wasn't until after their hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon that they were actually able to find it.
And this is the encounter at 11 35 p.m.
I don't know where we are.
I don't even know how we got here.
We've been driving, and I don't know how long, and we haven't even been talking.
I've just been sitting here feeling that something's going to happen.
She describes the car stalling and refusing to start as the beings approach the car.
I wasn't afraid.
I was afraid when I saw the men in the road.
I've never been so afraid in my life.
I've never been afraid of my life.
Standing in the highway, he stops the car, started to come up to the car.
They, they separated.
They came up in two.
in the road.
It's all right now.
You're safe here.
There were these men standing in the highway.
He stopped the car, and these men started to come up to the car.
They separated, they came up in two groups.
And when they started to do that, I got real scared.
There's a couple of men behind me, and then there's Bonnie.
There's a man on each side of him, and my eyes are open.
My Bonnie's still asleep.
He's walking and he's asleep.
Bonnie, why don't you wake up?
They assisted him out of his car.
He recalls keeping his eyes very tightly shut, telling himself that he has to.
Don't open them.
I don't want to be operated on.
Because my eyes are closed.
And I think I am going up a slight incline.
And my feet are not bumping on the rocks.
But I'm afraid to open my eyes.
I have been told to keep my eyes closed.
Who told you that?
Proof That It Happened00:10:42
The man.
What man?
That I saw through the binoculars.
On the physical interactions, Barney notes a distinct lack of physicality.
Whilst he knows that the beings helped him out of his car, it was like he couldn't feel them, despite knowing that they had a hold of him, almost as if he was floating.
Again, his eyes remained firmly shut.
Betty's examination.
Betty describes being approached by beings, describing them as short, uniformed figures with large, prominent eyes.
They communicate without speaking.
She's not afraid, just bewildered.
She repeats the recollection of being led into a craft.
The interior is sterile, metallic, and oddly shaped.
She's examined.
Her skin is scraped and her limbs are manipulated.
A needle is inserted into her abdomen.
I asked him what he's going to do with it.
It's a simple step.
What?
And he said he just wants to put it in my neck.
It's just a simple step.
Oh, it won't hurt.
And I tell him it's hurting, it's hurting, it's hurting.
And then the leader, he goes over and he puts his hand in front of my eyes.
And he says, I'll be all right.
I won't feel it.
Our examinations are very much similar in that.
Something on the table.
It's not up very high, but I'll say right to the desk.
I lie down on the table, on my back, and he brings over this oh, how can I describe it?
They're like needles.
There's a whole cluster of needles, and each needle has a wire.
Running from it.
So then they roll me over on my back, and the examiner has a long needle in his hand, and I see the needle, and it's bigger than any needle I've ever seen.
And he said, he just wants to put it in my navel.
I ask him what he's going to do with it.
And he said, just a simple test, it won't hurt me.
And I asked him what.
It's just a simple test.
And I don't know, it won't hurt.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
And he said, no, it won't hurt.
And he sticks a navel into my navel and said, I I, I, I, I, And I'm crying, and I tell her it's hurting and hurting and hurting.
Hang it out.
And then the leader goes over and he puts his hand, resin hand, in front of my eyes.
And he says, I'll be all right.
I won't feel it.
Our examinations were very much similar in that with both Bonnie and I, they checked our eyes, ears, nose, Throat, took samples of our hair, fingernail, and they scraped our skin.
With me, they touched my body with little points on wires.
He said he was checking my nervous system.
And then they attempted to insert a needle-like instrument in my navel.
I objected that it would hurt, and he said it shouldn't hurt.
When he did this, it caused a great deal of pain.
He said it was a pregnancy test, and I said, well, that's no pregnancy test here.
After the needle incident, Betty was helped to a seated position, and they declared an end to the testing for the time being.
The other beings left the room, leaving Betty alone with the leader.
Examiner was helped.
And I swung around, and he gave me my shoes, and I put those on.
Oh, I said, I can go now.
I can go back to the car.
And he said, Barney isn't ready yet.
She asks questions.
The being responds mentally.
She exclaims that this is an amazing experience and that nobody will believe her.
She asks for evidence to take with her.
The aliens take her to choose something, and Betty chooses a book, which they agree to let her take.
This was later taken back by the beings before the pair were released.
This had been quite an experience.
It was unbelievable that no one would ever, ever be.
Believe me.
What I needed was some proof that this had really happened.
So he laughed and he said, What kind of proof did I want?
What would I like?
And I said, Well, if he could give me something to take back with me, then people would.
If he could give me something to take back, then people would believe it.
And so he told me to look around.
Maybe I could find something I would like to tell.
There was a book.
I barely had my hand on the book, and I said, could I have this?
And so he said that I could have the book if I wanted it.
And I picked it up, and I was delighted.
She's also shown a star.
And so he told me to look around and maybe I could find something I would like to take.
On the cabinet, there was a book, a fairly big book.
I put my hand on the book and I said, Could I have this?
And so he said that I could have the book if I wanted it.
And I picked it up and I was delighted.
She's also shown a star map depicting the origin of the beings.
She doesn't make sense of it, but commits it to memory.
And he did something.
He opened up.
It wasn't like a draw.
He thought I did something in the metal of the wall.
There was an opening.
And he pulled down a map.
He asked me, had I ever seen a map like this before?
And I leaned against the table and I looked at it.
And it was a map of, it was an oblong map.
And he said that the heavy lines were.
Trade routes.
And then the other lines were places they went occasionally.
The broken lines were expeditions.
At some point during this conversation with the leader, some of the other beings re enter the room and begin tugging at her teeth.
They are confused as to why Barney's came out but hers are stuck.
It was futile to try and explain the concept of dentures to an alien race, but Betty tried.
It devolved into a discussion on the meaning of getting old and of age.
It derailed further when Betty tried to explain that good food can help preserve teeth and the beings had no concept of what a vegetable was.
How do you explain something so alien to an alien?
Here's a passage from Betty's Regression describing this very interaction.
come in.
The exam has me open my mouth, and he starts checking my teeth.
He said that they couldn't make it.
in, and with them is the examiner.
And the examiner has me open my mouth, and he starts checking my teeth, and they're tugging at them.
He said that they couldn't figure it out.
Bonnie's teeth came out and I didn't.
And I was really laughing.
And I said that Bonnie had dentures and I didn't, and that's why his teeth would come out.
And so then they asked me, What were dentures?
Betty insisted that while she struggled communicating with the beings, there are people far smarter than she who would love to speak to them.
She urged them to speak to the right people.
There are other people in this country who are not like me, that they would be most happy to talk with him, that they could answer all his questions.
She recalls on being dropped off that the beings.
Took the book from her.
The book she was promised she could keep.
She felt angry.
The leader explained that they wish her not to remember anything, and so they cannot let her keep the book.
Betty remained resolute, insisting that she would remember, that her mind would not be broken so easily.
We're out into the corridor.
Barney's behind me.
There's Aisha.
There's a man on each side of him.
Jolita comes over and takes my book.
And I said, Oh, I'm furious.
I said, You promised me I could have the book.
You gave me a word I could have it.
And he said, I know it.
He said, But the others object.
They don't want you to have it.
And I said, But this is my proof.
If you take the book away from me, I'll have no proof that this has happened.
And he said, That's the whole point.
They don't want you to know it's happened.
They want you to forget all about it.
And that's why I'm taking the book.
I won't forget about it.
I know it.
He said, but the others object.
They don't want you to have it.
I said, but this is my proof.
If you take the book away from me, I'll have no proof that this has happened.
And he said, that whole point.
They don't want you to know it's happened.
They want you to forget all about it.
And that's why I'm taking the book.
I won't forget it.
You can take the book, but you never, never, never can make me forget about it.
others object.
They don't want you to have it.
And I said, but this is my proof.
If you take the book away from me, I'll have no proof that this has happened.
And he said, that's the whole point.
They don't want you to know it's happened, they want you to forget all about it.
And that's why I'm taking the book.
I won't forget about it.
You can take the book, but you never, never, never can make me forget about it.
Because I'll remember it's the last thing I ever do.
Keeping the Memory Alive00:02:52
Barney's Examination, Session Number Five.
Barney returns to the moment of contact.
He's reluctant, but the memories surface.
He describes being led into the craft.
He's terrified.
The beings are clinical, detached.
He's examined.
He recalls chest pressure, the use of instruments.
and a sense of being probed.
After getting And I thought, are they putting a cup around my private parts?
Then it stopped.
I thought, how funny if I keep real quiet.
And real still, I won't be harmed.
And it will be over.
After getting off the table, Barney felt a great sense of relief, remembering a huge grin on his face.
His eyes are still shut, but he is walking and being guided.
He was back in the car and could see Betty coming down the road toward the car.
I see Betty is coming down the road.
She gets into the car, and I am grinning at her, and she is grinning back at me.
And we both seem so elated, happy.
I'm thinking it isn't too bad.
How funny.
No reason to fear.
I see a bright moon.
I laugh and say, well, there it goes, happy.
Betty is coming down the road.
And she gets into the car, and I am grinning at her, and she is grinning back at me.
And we both seem so elated, and we are really happy.
And I'm thinking, it isn't too bad.
How funny.
I have no reason to fear.
And we look, and I see a bright moon.
Being escorted back to the car.
The beings are polite, almost gentle.
She's confused but not afraid.
She watches the craft depart, silent and swift.
She feels changed but doesn't know how.
They drove south to Concord, then east on US Highway 4.
The sun was rising.
They arrived home hours later than expected, feeling clammy and disoriented.
They feared radiation exposure.
They showered thoroughly.
Then they began to document.
Elated Yet Confused00:10:53
Okay.
I feel like I was abducted.
Yeah.
By sleep.
Lack of sleep.
Yeah, although not abducted, it is 3 23 in the morning.
So tired.
So tired.
We are currently at the Betty and Barney Hill area where they used to live now.
I don't think the house is there anymore because.
The pictures online look like this old, sort of like two story house, and in its place now is this sort of one story bungalow, which is a little new.
This is their whole ordeal.
Like, I'm just tired.
I can only imagine if I had been messed with in a spaceship.
Yeah, if you get home at 3 30 in the morning, like, I'm pretty messed up right now, and I would think also that I don't know if I wake up in a few days with like crazy nightmares, I'll be like, oh, maybe I got abducted too.
I have no idea.
There's definitely some time slips of me slipping in and out of consciousness on the way here.
It was a boring drive.
But yeah, this marks the end of the uninterrupted journey, as it were.
Nothing super eventful has occurred, but it was fun to retrace the footsteps.
Yeah.
I was even when you were past that, I was listening to the whole story again, and I could like place myself along the journey.
It was really special in that sense.
Yeah.
Imagine it fully.
We saw a couple of things in the sky, a little circles.
I don't know what they are, but they, yeah.
They discovered shiny concentric circles on the car trunk.
A compass needle spun wildly over the spots.
Their watches had stopped and never worked again.
Betty's dress was torn, stained with pink powder.
Barney's shoes were scraped on the top.
Vegetation clung to his pants.
A circular rash appeared on his groin.
In the days that followed, the hills struggled to make sense of the experience.
You know, because this induced great trauma, especially in Barney.
And he ended up developing bleeding ulcers in the hospital with this.
They couldn't be resolved with traditional medical treatment.
And so he ended up being referred to Dr. Simon eventually.
That therapy worked for both Betty and Barney because she had her own anxieties to work through regarding this as well.
But it was always to remain confidential.
They never wanted this to be made public.
They were willing to talk to scientists, to military officers, and to the family, but we were sworn to secrecy.
Betty and Barney had agreed not to speak with people about their experience for fear of ridicule, but that they had each other agreed to draw what they had saw in private and reveal them together.
When the pictures matched very closely, Betty was excited and called her sister.
Barney describes the days following the encounter.
He's anxious, sleepless, and physically ill.
His ulcers worsen.
He avoids the topic.
He fears ridicule.
He fears what he saw.
Dr. Simon notes the depth of Barney's trauma.
It's not imagined, it's lived.
What was that like for you as a young girl, sort of hearing these tales?
Did that, I mean, obviously that must have helped shape how you see the phenomenon, but like seeing someone who you trusted and looked up to and really cared about, you know, speak about things like this nature, what was that like for you?
I was curious, I was interested, and I was concerned.
For Betty and Barney, and especially Barney, because of the trauma that he was just unable to work through until he finally received a referral.
And he was so much better after that that he went back to working full time in his spare time for civil rights.
He was a civil rights activist.
He was appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as a state advisory board member.
He had used funding from the Office of Economic Opportunity to set up the Rottenham County Community Action Program.
He was the chairman of the committee.
He received that award.
He was working on voters' rights.
So he and Betty were both doing a lot of great things for their community and the people of their state, particularly the underprivileged.
They were doing very, very well until there was a violation of confidentiality.
And then it just threw them back.
What happened to them is something that should never happen to anybody, in my opinion.
I still feel angry about it.
I blamed the reporter.
I was furious with him, as was Betty.
For Barney, it brought people who doubted his credibility.
This was a man who was upstanding in the community.
His reputation mattered greatly, and all of a sudden he was thrown into a kook category.
And it was, in a sense, devastating again.
So, this is something Betty and Barney took active steps to avoid, but it was beyond their control because someone spilled the beans.
There was a violation of confidentiality that had a lifelong impact on them.
Like in hindsight, I mean, kind of bittersweet, right?
Obviously, a violation of their rights.
And, you know, if they don't want it to be public, then it should never be public.
That's just the way that that goes.
But the fact that it did go public, you know, provided, you know, so much to people looking into this.
And it provided, you know, so much information and so many answers, I guess, for a lot of other people who might have gone through a similar ordeal.
And so there is, I guess, I suppose a silver lining to this.
Well, you might.
Say that there was a silver lining to it in terms of other people who had had this same experience, in terms of Betty being asked to speak with them, to offer guidance to them and support, that kind of thing.
For Barney, he had a cerebral hemorrhage when he was 46 years old.
It was fatal.
Yeah.
Wow.
Betty recounts her dreams.
They mirror the hypnosis, but with embellishments.
She's aware of the difference.
She doesn't trust the dreams fully.
But they feel real.
I did a comparative analysis of five dreams that Betty had and wrote about in detail that happened for the five nights beginning 10 days after the event occurred.
And so, you know, that dream account was different than what Betty and Barney remembered under hypnosis.
There was some overlap there, but the details were different.
And fundamentally, I mean, there is something there.
Like, even Betty acknowledged that.
You know, her dreams weren't portraying reality and that there was some type of, you know, mix up there.
But the underlying event is still there, you know, and that I think is the important thing to highlight here.
Yes.
And I think that what we need to highlight is the parts for which they had conscious memory, not the hypnosis.
Barney, although Dr. Simon took precautions to make sure they didn't lie, that they were telling the whole truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that sort of thing.
And later, Betty passed a lie detector test after Barney died.
But Barney initially had a false memory.
He remembered things out of sequence.
But then Dr. Simon had to go back and go through it again and again and again.
And then Barney did remember it in proper sequence.
What else to say here, Kathleen?
This has been just such a, I mean, an incredible journey for myself to like look into.
And I'm sure for many others, even just discovering this, you know, maybe some of the younger audience not familiar with this.
Again, I suggest you check out Captured, the Betty and Barney Hill UFO experience.
I'll leave the link in the description.
But I want to thank you so much, Kathleen, for opening up and for setting me straight on a few of these facts that I might not get on the first go around.
But it's really greatly appreciated.
And your work.
Is so appreciated for all of us researching this topic.
You know, we need people who are hard nosed, evidence based, and science, you know, grounded in science.
And that's something that I can firmly say that you are and continue to be.
So thank you so much for everything you've done.
Well, it was my pleasure.
And it was all out of my curiosity about what happened to my family to try to get to the truth of it.
And it has taken up most of my.
Adult life after I left my own profession in investigation.
I had read a lot.
I had talked to Betty and over and over again I'd taken those trips with her.
But then with my own investigation and the many, many years I've devoted to this, I now know precisely what happened and where.
Thank you, Kathleen.
My pleasure.
Regression session 10.
Betty.
Betty reflects on the experience.
She believes it happened.
She doesn't know why, but she's certain.
She wants to share the story.
She wants others to know.
She's not afraid of ridicule.
She's driven by truth.
Dr. Simon ends the sessions.
Thank you so much for watching, and thank you to Kathleen Marden for helping us tell the story of her aunt and uncle.
Driven by Truth00:00:26
And also, a special thank you to Sasako for providing some really cool animations that we played throughout this episode.
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