- Before I write what I am about to and have every UFO nut in the world scream at me here is the review of the book by Friedman and Marden about the case.
The book blurb reads:
" Today, 46 years after the UFO abduction of Betty and Henry Hill, more and more people are convinced that UFO's are real and that governments are covering up their existence. If you have doubts or questions about the Hill case or alien experiences ingeneral, CAPTURED! will give you the answers you're searching for.
The 1961 abduction of the Hills stirred worldwide interest, primarily because of the book The Interrupted Journey, the subsequent media coverage and a 1975 TV movie, The UFO Incident. The case is mentioned in almost all UFO abduction books. It, also, became a target for debunkers, who still attack it today. But the complete story of what really happened that day, its effect on the participants and the findings of investigators has never been told…until now.
In CAPTURED!...you'll get an insider's look at the alien abduction, previously unpublished information about the lives of the Hills before and after Barney's death in 1969, their status as celebrities, Betty's experiences as a UFO investigator and other activities before her death in 2004.
Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill's niece, shares details from her discussions with Betty and from the evidence of the UFO abduction. She, also, looks at the Hill's riveting hypnosis sessions about their time onboard the spacecraft. The transcripts of these sessions provide insight into the character of the aliens, including their curiosity, their democratic discussions and their desire to avoid inflicting pain.
In addition, co-author, physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman, the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident, reviews and refutes the arguments of those who have attacked the Hill case, including the star map Betty Hill saw inside the craft and later recreated."
I became interested in what accounts of "Occupants" (as we called them) of so-called flying saucers might be able to tell, since reports of lights-in-the-sky (LITS) told us literally nothing and those of seemingly constructed craft did not give us the "nuts and bolts" we needed. For me, finding out more about Occupant physiology might offer explanations in one form or another. Yes, our rockets took men into space and to the Moon and the rockets and capsules work like this or that -but how did the journey affect the men flying in them? How did they get chosen or trained to sit on multiple tons of explosive fuel and ride those flying bombs into space?
I very early on dismissed Adamski and other Contactees. The stories were so full of holes and how people were believing the crap they were dishing out dumbfounded me -but, yes, I was fascinated by how they accepted it -their thinking.
Then, in the early 1970s, I came across a book by John G. Fuller -The Interrupted Journey. People I spoke to kept referring to a "mixed race" couple which is pure nonsense. There is only one race on Earth -humans and who gives a flying fig what skin colour was involved? In fact, I had to take this into account later to understand the reasoning of some critics and Ufologists (pro or con) even though it was still irrelevant.
I was left in two minds. I had heard of "space-nappings" before such as Antonio Villas Boas, but this was the first that seemed to have any effort made to substantiate what happened, even if I was unsure how hypnosis was going to help.
When I finished the book I was stumped. What did other Ufologists think? Well, two that I recall responded with "Well, it was a white woman married to a black man -no idea what they might be up to!" Two less Ufologists to talk to, I thought. Others told me that believing this junk would mean no one taking me seriously -"at least Adamski had the foot-prints in the desert and photographs!" and they were being seriously. In fact, no one I talked to really wanted to commit themselves on the case -Norman Oliver, then of BUFORA, was one of the very rare ones who told me he believed the Hills.
But over the years there was "this" allegation and "that" explanation. I heard that Betty Hill thought she could telepathically communicate with aliens and would spend hours alone claiming to do so. There were the claims that Betty was a huge sci fi fan. Barney was the very impressionable husband who was brow-beaten by Betty into believing things. Betty claimed to have been abducted several times. It went on and on and yet, when you listened to the recordings of the hypnosis sessions that have been used you realise something must have happened.
Then the explanation. Betty and Barney being a "mixed race" couple were caught at a makshift roadblock by racist youths and attacked. it was so horrifying that the torch-light used to flag them down before the attack became a flying saucer and the attackers aliens. At least two magazines and then a lot of Ufologists accepted the idea. I mean, kidnappers from space? We all know how racist, violent and out-of-control youths are, right?
Utter pig-swill.
Then I recall Dr Carl Sagan, not one of my favourite people as I've explained before, dealt very briefly with the Hill's and the Fish "star map". He was a big science media star and in a few minutes destroyed the case and star-map...with complete and utter inaccuracies.
While building up the AE - CE IIIK data base and preparing work for a previously unpublished AOP Bureau report on these cases in the UK, I have been reading a lot of books. Karla Turner, Jacobs and others. So when I saw this book I thought "Why not?" I mean, Stanton T. Friedman has a solid reputation and Kathleen Marden was Betty Hill's niece and has all her notes and correspondence. To be truthful I was not expecting to find out a great deal -perhaps a little one-sided in the Hills' favour.
In fact, this book is far better than The Interrupted Journey and includes data never revealed in that book. Those 21 growths on Barney's groin that could not be identified but were medically removed -if only they had been preserved! We learn that there was a USAF radar-visual incident involving a UFO and a possible air-intercept attempt along with a UFO sighting on the same evening as the couple claimed they were abducted.
The whole Marjorie Fish star-map story is gone into and, honestly, I came away feeling that this was a strong piece of evidence and, no, Betty would not have been able to fake the chart based on looking at astronomy books at the time.
Page 199-200 refers to what may be one of the first recorded trance "experiencers" and that I found fascinating because at that time this had never been encountered before.
I think, reading the book, that the sighting of a craft with possible occupant after Barney's death may well have been an hallucination -if you read the book you'll see why. However that in no way denigrates the original case because there was no extreme stress or ill health involved. A photo taken by Betty and reproduced on p. 214 is said to show a shadowy figure in a craft window and " possibly stereotypical gray alien emerging from the right side of the disk." Sadly, due to reproduction of the image on a text page all I can see is two white dots and certainly no shadowy alien or gray let alone a disc-shaped craft. For that reason I have to throw that out and was one of the weaker elements of the book -but essential to give an overall picture of events.
When it comes to "Betty's fall from grace" in Ufological circles I can say only that it seems that age and Betty wanting to prove UFO reality combined, and yet she so succinctly summed up modern abduction investigators and abductees (pp. 271-272). And she refers to Dr Simon (who conducted their treatment in the early 1960s) concern that hypnosis would be incorrectly used and exploited by individuals not properly trained -40 years on he is proven correct.
The explanation for claims that Betty thought she could telepathically communicate with aliens is interesting. In fact most of those claims were bogus. Betty was taking part in experiments under supervision of no less than Dr J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee amongst others. These were scientifically minded people who had to become radical thinkers to try to solve the UFO mystery in one way or another.
Oh, and Betty was not a sci fi fan.
If there is a reason for why Betty came "off track" other than her ill health in later years it was because she wanted to help others who had seen UFOs or claimed to have been abducted and wanted to prove the reality of UFOs. And this is where Ufology let her down. Rather than look at the possibility that repeater sightings were possible -or prove they were not (I recall arguing with Ufologists in the 1970s over this: one case from a witness was accepted but a week later the man reported a similar object moving in another direction -both reports were marked as "unreliable" because the witness had two sightings!). And while working on the AOP Bureau's Grey Book report I realised that there was nothing "weird" or "unbelievable" or even other worldly about someone saying "I sensed something was going to happen and looked over the field and suddenly a UFO appeared" -the explanation lay in science and this might be why Betty realised something was "off" and saw later objects.
Was this book slanted with a Hill bias? Yes. But only because Marden and Friedman possessed the information that Ufologists had not seen or known of before.
I am accused of being a Skeptic. I have defined what that means before but it does not mean dismiss all material/evidence because you can without looking at it.
I read this book over Saturday and Sunday (with a break for the Rugby World Cup) and had expected to come up with a list of reasons why the Hill case might be "just another explainable abduction" after all these years.
I actually put the book down realising that Betty and Barney Hill were not the people portrayed by debunkers. They were plain ordinary human beings who fought for civil rights and social justice and were held in high esteem in their local and wider communities. They did not become rich from re-telling their story. They never claimed repeated abductions. They just told their story and stuck to it. In fact, it is quite clear that the couple probably would have been much happier had they not encountered that UFO. Had they not needed to see Dr Simon to try to find out why Barney was suffering ill health and stress.
In a way, Antonio Villas Boas was lucky. He reported his account and carried on with his life as normal. The Hills, due to betrayal of confidence from a number of sources, never had that option. There is the case of Lydia whose abduction Betty helped investigate. When word got out Lydia and her family moved to another state and, I assume, settled down to carry on their lives. The Hills never had that option.
It does not make me feel uneasy to write this (after 40+ years of looking at these cases that would be odd!) but, unlike the Abduction Epidemic since the mid 1980s and all the claims, I have to write that I believe the Hills. Betty stated that she believed these beings came down, took someone onto their craft, did their tests and made them forget (even if not permanently) and released them. That's it. Not many millions of abductees as some claim.
But two days ago I never expected to sit down and write that, after 40 years, I am even more certain that Betty and Barney Hill were abducted by aliens. Pure and simple.
The book is far superior to Fuller's and I recommend this one highly.
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This case is now over 60 years old. Despite what is said and written, mainly by hucksters in the U.S. ufological community and thpose outside the U. S. who really have donre no research other than watch You Tube videos or read trash and badly researche popular UFO books, it was not the first ever reported UFO 'abduction'. The case was exposed to the press and media via a betrayal of confidence (one thing you are guaranteed with when dealing with Ufologists). Even so, the Hills were far from "media hungry" and despite another claim by debunkers this was not "the greatest UFO hoax in history" -they like to keep labelling every case that way, bless 'em.
If you ignore all the facts and background then, yes, you can call it a hoax. At that time such a claim could not just have destroyed the career of Betty Hill but would have had an even bigger impact on Barney Hill considering all the civil rights work he was involved in. Also, claiming that you met aliens was not a money-spinner. The idea that this was a planned out hoax makes no logical sense but saying that it was helps the debunker feel less scared about the possibility of there being aliens (I swear some of these people would be hiding under the blankets if they saw anything odd in the night sky).
I am not saying that the Hills were abducted by aliens. I cannot because I was not there but having spent over 40 years looking at all the claims and counter-claims it is clear that something very strange took place that defies an earthly explanation.
The same applies to the Travis Walton and the Parker and Hickson cases. So much extra information and no one knows what happened other than those involved.
Hickson and Parker involved in the Pascagoula incident
The Erica Lukes podcast featured (three parts in total) a never-before-heard-of "documentary maker" who was going to make a film on the Walton case but states (much later when it seems that nothing is to come of this) that he was driving along the same road that Walton and his crew took over forty years before and then decided that was the explanation and the line his film was going to take -after adopting a seeming very two-faced stance with Walton and others. It was all a fire tower. After three gas-lighting episodes (a psychologist I know stated he could not believe how the podcast was taken over and the presenters fell for the "classic gas-lighting line" ) we learnt...nothing. Nothing new was presented and I have already gone into this so let's move on. https://terryhooper.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-travis-walton-abduction-with-mike.html
Antonio Villas Boas whose encounter was publicised before the Hills and long before that of Travis Walton (below)
Coming back to the Hill case it is pointless to still go digging for dirt when the two percipients are dead and, well, who really cares any more -it was 60 years ago.
There are other cases out there. Some older and far more detailed and interesting than the Hills (I may be a little unfair in writing that). And here is the thing; most were never investigated by Ufologists. Let's say go back to a totally uninvestigated multi-witnesses incident that took place at the height of regional UFO activity. Witnesses in one vehicle approacxhing two objects (one which landed on the Interstate Road) and seeing an entity emerge while, approahing from the other direction, a car was seen to brake, do a U-turn and speed away. Pascagouls had Ufologists crawling out of the woodwork to get involved. Local Ufologists based in the area of the Interstate landing, in Mississippi, were over every UFO sighting report they came across. Not this one despite being asked by Ted Bloecher -the top man on such cases- to follow it up. Why? All of the witnesses were "black". 2019/2020 I tried to get MUFON involved but guess what ? Not in the least interested. That is the Euporia case that should haunt U.S. Ufology because it totally and utterly ignored it (deliberately) because of seeming racist attitudes. I (thousands of miles away in the UK) had to compile a report on what we know based on files held at the Centre for UFO Studies. With increasing age it is possible we will never hear the first hand description of those involved -just the radio interview notes that Bloecher and Co made.
The ladies involved in the "Liberty, Kentucky" UFO case Louise Smith, Elaine Thomas and Mona Stafford -Stafford (far right) still stressed and suffering anxiety 40 plus years later and the sole survivor of the trio.
Hopkins, Jacobs and others who promoted the False Abduction Scenario derailed serious investigation and research and any reports where the witnesses were not willing to be told they were abductees were ignored.
We even have to question the whole use of the term "abduction". In a good few cases those involved were asked whether they wanted to board an alleged craft. A good few declined the offer and so the brief contact ended -no lost time. There are even reports labelled as abductions by Ufologists that were not -percipients willingly entered (allegedly) craft and things (proceeded from there). I believe we might even question the spo called "alien induced memory block" and the fictitious "screen image" so popularised by Hopkins and Jacobs et al
Putting aside physiologial effects of encounters with UFOs and alleged crews there is the greater effect in many cases that I have written and talked about for almost 40 years yet which is only being accepted in the last ten years or so. The psychological effects. These are far reaching and continue throughout life - the shock of what happened, the shattering of a world view about "silly flying saucer" reports because they (allegedly) have encountered an alien craft and crew and that in itself may have created a mental block in the percipient -we have studies looking at this is war veterans as well as others so there is data to look at. We could argue back and forth all month on whetherthis amnesia (or partial amnesia) is self induced or induced by an outside force and the reason for this. In many cases partial recall may lead a percipent to state something happened that didn't because "it fits" in their minds.
I tend to not put too much faith in single percipient/witness reports unless there is evidence that an unusual object was sighted at the time by others nearby, there may have been some physical effect on the local environment etc. The reason is that the person may have entered an "altered state" or even be someone classed as suffering with "Ruth Syndrome" (see UFO Contact). Altered state or Ruth Syndrome may well explain the sincerity and claims of certain contactees -because, quite literally- they are not lying.
Ufologists and their ramshackle idea of investigation and all of massive drawbacks to Ufology as it exists may well be driving real percipients away. Who can they report encounters to? With MUFON you might get promised confidentiality but are immediately labelled an "experiencer" (thus an abductee) and MUFON has sold all information on such peopleto Robert Bigelow before now -as have other researchers.
Since 1974, although it could have made me money (which I need), I have never once betrayed a witness confidentiality -in my wildlife work, UFO work and other areas and some reports will never see the light of day because a promise was made.
Unfortunately, although I do have a legally obligated person check anything I use to I can provethe report is genuine, in 100% of cases with Ufologists it is a case of "No. No info -you have to tame my word on it!" which means that I do not and neither should anyone else. A solicitor/lawyer is obliged by oath to reveal no information a clint oes not want revealed but can look over documents signed and submitted and state that he/she has seen them and they are authentic and from a witness. One Ufologist tells me he gets a hundred or more alien abduction reports from the UK every month but does not quote the percipient accounts but rather "re-writes them" in his own words to protect the reportee. So, anyone can state quite rightly that he is writing fiction. He is providing no evidence just stories and yet he gets angry at sceptics stating this because "the evidence I have gathered is irrefutable and 100% genuine" just no one but him has seen this evidence which makes it non-evidence.
If precipients/witnesses to old cases, however far back, are still alive they need to be contacted and spoken to and first hand (not old press snippets) accounts written down. And we then need to continue doing this while applying careful witness appraisals (again see UFO Contact). Data gathered has to be as accurate as we can get it.
We need to move on from talking about the same old 45, 50 or 60 year old reports. I doubt Euporia or any of the other cases in the U.S. or outside of it will ever be looked into seriously. But I will continue to tilt my lance at windmills.
__________________________________________________________
"...an impressive body of work. I appreciate your lively writing, use of original sources as much as possible, and forceful opinions about the cases, investigators, etc. And I concur with your evaluations of cases that have been pushed aside, such as Kelly, or Pascagoula."
Other UFO researchers who have read the book are of similar opinions. So are you going to just carry on reading the same old same old half truths and lies or try to find out what is REALLY going on?
UFO Contact?
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Since 1947 it has been claimed that UFOs/flying saucers are evidence of aliens visiting the Earth. Since the 1950s claims of encounters with landed craft and alien beings were talked about but not taken seriously.
In the 1960s the subject of UFO abduction was a "slow-burner" until the whole "Grey" abduction phenomenon and claims made by researchers such as Budd Hopkins, Prof. John Mack and Dr David Jacobs and Whitley Streiber.
But is there evidence to back up any of the claims -and what about those encountering Alien Entities but who were not abducted?
Are these people all hoaxers, psychotic or suffering from some other mental illness as some claim?
Are those people who were exposed by Ufologists against their wishes, people who wanted to report what happened and then just get back to their everyday lives -thrust into the media glare against their will?
And if US authorities were so interested that in one case at least they broke into the home of two abductees and this was later proven -why?
Why did a hard core of these people never want publicity or to make money from what happened to them?
Above all, why did a major UFO landing incident take place on a US Inbterstate road in front of a large number of observers (all willing to talk to investigators) never get investigated? If it were not for a radio presenter interviewing and taking notes we would know nothing of the case -it would be labelled "insubstantial".
James and Coral Lorensen -the Scopolamine Kids; using a very notorious "truth drug" on alleged UFO witnesses and selling stories to newspapers. An investigator (a veteran) showing a witness images of "aliens" encountered in other cases before any memories were retrieved. Worst of all, the constant "pissing competition" and breaches of trust between UFO investigators.
2017 is the time to assess the past evidence and look at the faults within Ufology.
Not everyone is going to be happy -debunkers or ufologists.
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