Barney and Betty Hill Abduction Case (Huge Overview)

Image above – Barney and Betty Hill, husband and wife abductees in the first famous case involving abduction and missing time.

This was the first physical abduction case to get so much publicity around the world. My mother had the book about this case on her bookcase in our home and I read it around age 14. It horrified me then, but I didn’t know if it was true at the time. Nobody was talking about UFOs in the late 1970’s early 1980’s. I mean, not much. At least not to teenagers.

I’ve since come to believe that their experience was absolutely true. I don’t know where the other beings came from or what exactly they wanted, but it seems to have been an egg-collection and sperm-collection project. Barney mentioned thinking he had a cup placed around his private parts and Betty remembered a horribly large needle being inserted into her abdomen by these beings.

The Barney and Betty Hill case is one of the most famous UFO abduction cases in history. It happened in 1961 when the couple was driving through rural New Hampshire. They reported seeing a UFO, and later, under hypnosis, both described similar experiences of being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and examined.

This case really set the stage for many aspects of UFO lore, including “missing time,” close encounters of the third kind, and the use of hypnosis to recover memories of the event. Their descriptions of the aliens also became somewhat of a prototype for the “gray aliens” commonly depicted in pop culture.

The physical evidence was pretty interesting too. Betty’s dress had some unexplained chemical residues, and Barney’s binocular strap was broken, and his shoes were scuffed on the top, as if he had been dragged. They also had some fragmented memories before hypnosis, like the “star map” Betty recalled.

On the night of September 20, 1961 during a drive back home to Portsmouth, New Hampshire after a vacation to Montreal, Québec, Betty and Barney Hill witnessed a large UFO above the car and later on the road as some beings took them from the car and into a craft of some sort.

Initially, the Hills didn’t remember being taken, but after some time – years – they realized there was more to that night than was coming to their conscious minds. They decided to try hypnosis to see if they could recollect anything about the night that they couldn’t consciously remember.

Dr. Benjamin Simon hypnotized the Hills beginning on January 4, 1964. He hypnotized Betty and Barney multiple times over the course of about 6 months. He handled each session separately and induced amnesia after each session so they wouldn’t talk about it at home.

After undergoing hypnotherapy, the couple recovered memories of being taken aboard a craft of some sort by non-human beings. There, they were given intrusive medical procedures which included a lot of pain for Betty.

Here is a copy of the original (first) hypnosis session Barney Hill took part in. You can hear the sheer terror in his voice. It’s quite obvious he isn’t faking any of this.

Barney Hill’s Hypnotic Regression in 1964

I got chills listening to this. Use headphones for better effect. After hearing this again, it makes the UFO threat very clear to me. It also leads me to believe, as Jaques Vallee has mentioned, these supposed super-intelligent beings don’t act all that intelligently.

Why would they need sperm and egg samples taken forcefully from the body? Can’t they use strands of hair and have all the genetic tissue they need? In Betty’s recollection below, she says the leader told her they gave her a pregnancy test.

What is really going on here?

Betty Hill’s Abduction Revealed in Hypnosis in 1964

Pay attention to around the 17-minute mark as Betty is describing who she thinks must be the ‘doctor’ as he comes over to her with the largest needle she’s ever seen in her life. She asks what he’s going to do. He said just a simple test. Then he says he’s going to insert it into her naval. She begs him not to – telling him how bad it will hurt. He insists it won’t hurt.

Well, it does hurt, a LOT. The ‘leader’ comes over and puts his hand in front of her eyes and tells her it won’t hurt. ‘Then all the pain goes away,’ she says.

Are these creatures super-intelligent? Are these beings who are concerned with our physical and mental well-being? I don’t see it. They don’t seem to have any problem with hurting us a lot, only to remove the pain later. This, for physical as well as psychological pain.

Timeline of Events in the Barney and Betty Hill UFO Abduction Case

• Wedding Date: They married in 1960, but the exact date doesn’t seem to be widely documented.
• Pre-Abduction Life: Barney worked for the U.S. Postal Service while Betty was a state child welfare supervisor. Both were active in the civil rights movement. They resided in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
• Vacation Trip: They decided to take a spontaneous short vacation to Niagara Falls and Montreal in mid-September 1961.
• September 19-20, 1961, Abduction Event: Driving back home through rural New Hampshire, they first spotted what they thought was a falling star that moved erratically near Franconia Notch. It was around 10:30 PM.
• Initial Sighting: Barney stopped the car at various points to observe the light with binoculars. Through them, he saw “a pancake-shaped” craft with a row of windows and figures inside.
• Close Encounter: At one point, Barney panicked, convinced they were going to be captured. He ran back to the car, and they sped away, trying to avoid the object which seemed to be following them.
• Missing Time: They experienced the feeling of a tingling sensation, heard beeping or buzzing sounds, and blacked out. When they regained consciousness, they were 35 miles down the road, around two hours later, but with no memory of what happened in between.
• Reaching Home: When they got home, Betty insisted their luggage be kept near the back door rather than in the main part of the house because she felt it was contaminated. Barney found the leather strap for his binoculars was torn, though he couldn’t recall it tearing. Betty’s dress had unexplained tears and a pinkish powder on it. Barney also had scuffed shoes on the top, as if he’d been dragged.
• Initial Reporting: Betty called Pease Air Force Base on September 21 to report the UFO, and an Air Force Major came to their home to interview them.
• Nightmares and Anxiety: Betty had recurring dreams in which she and Barney were taken aboard a spacecraft. In her dreams, they were separated, and both underwent physical examinations. She recounted these dreams in a series of letters to a close friend.
• Hypnosis Sessions: Starting in 1964, both the Hills underwent separate hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon in Boston. Under hypnosis, they provided remarkably similar accounts of their experiences, including being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and examined by non-human entities.
• Publicity: Their story first broke publicly in a five-part series in the Boston “Traveler” in 1965.
• Star Map: Under hypnosis, Betty drew a star map she claimed was shown to her during her abduction. The map was subject to various interpretations, but some believe it resembles the Zeta Reticuli star system.
• Aftermath: They became somewhat reluctant celebrities in the UFO community, featured in the book “The Interrupted Journey” in 1966 and the 1975 TV movie “The UFO Incident.”
• Barney’s Death: Barney Hill died on February 25, 1969, due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
• Betty’s Later Life: Betty Hill passed away on October 17, 2004. She remained active in the UFO community, even claiming to have had several more encounters with UFOs in the years following the original incident.