A couple driving home encountered a UFO in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
On September 19, 1961 Betty and Barney Hill were driving home on Interstate Route 3 in New Hampshire after enjoying a short vacation in Canada. It was a clear night, and very few cars were on the highway. Just after 10 p.m. Barney noticed a strange white light in the sky and grabbed his binoculars to take a closer look at the object. He stopped his car and got out, and walked to the trees by the side of the road. As the light got closer to the ground the object appeared to Barney like it was in the shape of a pancake, and there were windows along the sides. On the other side of those windows were the occupants of the craft. Barney got into the car and drove down the highway as fast as he could.
They both heard a beeping sound in their car once, then twice. In an instant, they had travelled more than 50 kilometres down the road. The couple had lost two hours without realizing it.
Missing Time
They had no memory of what happened. But the next day the Hills had begun to notice that a few things were amiss. The side of their car was missing some paint, and Barney's shoes had scuff marks that weren't there before he saw the UFO. When Betty called Pease Air Force Base it was confirmed that a UFO was also picked up by their radar. Even more disturbing was the fact that Betty was having recurring nightmares about aliens with large catlike eyes, and Barney had severe back pain. The couple decided to report their experience to a UFO group, and UFO researcher Walter Webb visited the Hills in late October 1961. It wasn't long before an unknown married couple from New England became two of the most well known people in the United States.
Regression Hypnosis
The Hills contacted Dr. Benjamin Simon, a respected psychiatrist based in Boston, Massachusetts. Although he didn't put any stock in the subject of UFOs, he said the Hills were suffering from anxiety syndrome and decided the best way to get to the bottom of the mystery was to put both of them under hypnosis. After a period of months he concluded the Hills were abducted after all. They remembered more details about the beings who took them aboard the alien ship, saying they were bald, about five feet tall, with grey skin and unusually large heads. Dr. Simon was sure the Hills were not being untruthful about their experience.
Star System Map
One aspect of the investigation that can't be explained to this day is that in 1963, two years after the abduction, Betty Hill drew a detailed map of a star system that wasn't discovered until 1969. The Zeta Reticuli system is in the constellation Reticulum, almost 40 light years from Earth. She claimed that when she asked the alien beings where they had come from, she was shown a map of this distant region of the galaxy. At Ohio State University astronomers compared their computer generated map with the one drawn by Betty Hill, and they were exactly alike.
More than forty years later, there is no evidence to prove this was a hoax.
