Spreading the Word

After Barney’s death, Betty continued her quest. Why, she wondered, had they been selected by the aliens? What were the aliens planning? Telling her story endlessly, to experts, friends and the media, seemed to bring her comfort. Betty freely gave interviews to hundreds of publications, including Playboy magazine, and radio stations. She continued appearances on television talk shows, even taking a lie detector test with celebrity lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Betty passed with flying colors because she truly believed her story. Critics point out, however, that belief does not always equal reality. Betty welcomed curious visitors into her home and traveled internationally, finding kindred souls everywhere. And wherever she went, she talked about life with her beloved Barney Hill.

Considered the most documented of all alleged UFO abductions, the Hill story formed the bedrock of books and films that followed. Actor James Earl Jones was so drawn to the story of Barney Hill, an African American, that he purchased the screen rights to Fuller’s bestseller. The UFO Incident, a made-for-TV-movie adaptation, was released in 1975. Some say that film inspired Steven Speilberg’s 1977 blockbuster Close Encounters. As the Star Wars and X-Files craze continued, Betty’s celebrity grew, her story even making its way into classroom textbooks.

In the film The UFO Incident, James Earl Jones – the voice of CNN, Darth Vader and the Lion King -- plays Barney with the emotional range of King Lear. He sobs uncontrollably, explodes with rage, giggles, drones on in robotic tones, then coos and erupts in belly laughs. He is a man on the verge of a breakdown, stitched together only by convention and conscious will. Dr. Simon, who conducted the hypnosis sessions, never accepted the abduction theory. He was looking, instead, for psychological roots to Barney’s physical ailments and Betty’s nightmares. Actress Estelle Parsons plays Betty as shrill and intense, but deeply in love. In a scene in the film that is difficult to watch, Betty tearfully reports that she was subjected to an agonizing pregnancy test aboard the UFO when the aliens probed her navel with a needle. Portions of their hypnosis tapes, considered too intimate for public exposure, have never been released.

Riding Off the Rails

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what happened next. Encouraged by her growing band of converts and curious followers, Betty Hill came to think of herself as a human "transducer" who could communicate with UFOs. In the 1970s and 80s Betty returned continuously to her favorite landing sites, especially those in East Kingston, not far from the childhood farm she had once longed to escape. Often accompanied by friends and reporters, she photographed, filmed and logged the comings and goings of what she believed to be alien spacecraft.

In one period from 1982 to 1989, she and her amateur field crew recorded 2,998 UFOs in 204 trips. Betty gave countless slide presentations and continued telling her story to an ever-widening audience. Author John Fuller wrote privately to Betty imploring her to avoid publicity, to protect her reputation and to be less subjective. Betty did not listen. She was on a quest for the truth of a lost companion.

Through her niece and biographer Kathleen Marden, Betty donated many of her books papers, films and photos to her alma mater. Her famous blue dress, the one reputedly removed by alien fingers, rests in the Milne Special Collections room in the bottom floor of the Dimond Library at UNH. Among those items is her record of UFO sightings. A close reading of those carefully typed journals speaks of a love undimmed by time. Betty talks openly and telepathically to the UFOs that hover outside her car window. They play music for her in honor of Barney. She implores the flying saucers to bring peace to a fragile world. Communing with them became her meditation and her reality.

Toward the end of her journey, Betty wrote a book. A Common Sense Approach to UFOs is a rambling defense of her position as the original alien abductee. It is dedicated "to UFOs with Love." The aliens, at last, had become her best friends and a link to happier times. The lights she saw in the night sky were now always there, hovering like guardian angels. Like her, they remembered that night in 1961. Like her, they cared forever and ever about handsome, honest Barney Hill. And like Betty, they missed him terribly.

IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright © 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced in part or in whole in any form without expressed written permission of the author and SeacoastNH.com. Portions of this article have appeared in the UNH Magazine and in the Portsmouth Herald.