I was very young when I saw the made-for-TV movie, The UFO Incident, which starred Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones. The scene where Jones was hypnotized continues to haunt me to this day. Since then, I’ve read several books about UFO abduction cases and am in the middle of reading this latest book, Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The following is an interview with Kathleen Marden, niece of Betty Hill and co-author of Captured.

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1. Why did you decide to write Captured!, when the Betty and Barney Hill 1961, UFO abduction has been mentioned in so many books and articles?

Actually, up until this year only one book has provided the reader with a fairly complete and accurate account of the Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. That was The Interrupted Journey by John Fuller, a New York Times best-seller released in 1966. It focused primarily upon the Hills’ close encounter with an unconventional craft in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, their amnesia in conjunction with a period of missing time, and the hypnosis sessions with neurologist/psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, whose excellent reputation was built upon his success in the treatment of amnesia and conversion hysteria through the use of hypnosis.

Subsequently, over a period that spanned forty years, other books and articles addressed various issues in the Hill case. However, too often, accurate detailed information was omitted and replaced by false and misleading propaganda released by so-called skeptical writers. This misinformation, or some would call it disinformation, has been blindly accepted by many scientists and members of the mainstream media who have been deceived by debunkers who do their research by proclamation, not investigation.

To add to the muddied waters, over time, Betty’s memory of the UFO experience morphed as a result of the normal adaptive process that is characteristic of one’s recall of events long ago. This misinformation, unwittingly disseminated by Betty, has been published in recent years contributing to the creation of a modern myth.

My decision to write Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience was made, in part, due to the vast amount of solid, accurate, scientific research conducted by early investigators such as NICAP’s Walter Webb. Additionally, I found hundreds if not thousands of pages of letters, diary entries, memoirs, technical reports and scientific research meticulously done on the case. Most of this information has never been released to the public.

Then, in 1996, I hit pay dirt when Betty gave me a copy of the audiotapes of Barney’s and her separate hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon. I transcribed the tapes for comparative analysis, and when I examined the Hills’ individual testimony; I discovered that an abundance of information had never been made public. John Fuller had included the more emotionally charged excerpts of the Hills ’ hypnosis sessions in the Interrupted Journey, but often they were a combination of accurate and inaccurate information. I discovered that Dr. Simon had asked Betty and Barney the same questions 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times. With each new query about a specific event Dr. Simon was able to elicit more accurate information than he had during the emotionally charged sessions. It was only in the retelling of the event over and over again that an accurate and consistent picture emerged, and that story has never been told.

In order to confirm or refute Dr. Simon’s hypothesis that Barney had absorbed Betty’s dream material I conducted a comparative analysis of the hypnosis transcripts versus her five page “Dreams or Recall?” paper written in November, 1961. Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience provides the reader with a fresh look at all of the never before revealed information pertaining to the Hill case and it examines old information in a new context.

2. What were the Hills doing on the night they encountered a UFO? Briefly describe what they saw? What made it unusual?

Betty and Barney were returning home from an extended weekend vacation in Niagara Falls and Canada. They had planned to spend the night in Montreal, but as they were searching for a motel on the outskirts of the city, Barney decided to drive on to New Hampshire. At some point along the route they heard that a hurricane was coming up the coast, so they felt it was important to arrive home before the hurricane hit. This meant that Barney would have to drive during the night. But they agreed that if he became tired they would stop at a motel.

He’d had a good night’s sleep the previous night and a pleasant day in Montreal. Because he felt refreshed and energetic he continued to drive on through New Hampshire’s Wilderness and White Mountain regions. In the Groveton/Lancaster area Betty spotted what at first glance appeared to be a satellite or a shooting star, only it shot upward. As she watched it, the perplexing light increased in size and seemed to slowly descend in her direction. Finally she told Barney about her observation and requested that he stop the car for a closer look.

Just south of Twin Mountain, through binoculars she observed its unconventional appearance as it passed in front of the moon flashing long points of multicolored light. When Barney viewed it through binoculars it reminded him of a large aircraft coming in for a landing, only it was silent. Returning to their vehicle they traveled on through the 10 miles or so of Franconia Notch, a narrow cut through the mountains. Over the next several minutes, the object descended to a position just above the mountaintops; and sometimes it dropped down in front of or behind the mountain peaks.

Barney halted the car momentarily from time to time to get a better look at the enigmatic craft, and once, pulled to the side of the road for an unencumbered observation. It was then that he was able to notice the stair-step flight pattern—the rotation—the blue-white lights—and the fact that it was completely silent, although it descended to approximately 1000 feet. Betty’s description was identical to Barney’s, allowing for individual differences in phraseology.

Then, only three miles south of the Franconia Notch the object suddenly stopped spinning and shifted ahead of Betty and Barney. Barney stopped the car directly in the middle of the road and jumped out to look at the craft. The elliptical object was now hovering only 80-100 feet above the car and a red right parted from each side of it. Almost immediately, it left its position and in a gliding motion, it shifted to an adjacent field. Fascinated, Barney walked toward it and through his binoculars observed 8-11 humanoid figures peering down at him.

Suddenly, with military precision, all but one moved toward what Barney thought was a control panel. Next, short bat-like wings began to slide out of each end of the craft and something dropped down through its bottom. At that moment, the figure in the window communicated a frightening message to Barney to stay there and just keep looking. He seemed to be losing the ability to carry out self initiated action and this loss of control frightened him immensely. But he managed to pull the binoculars down from his eyes, breaking the strap in the process, and flee toward his vehicle where Betty awaited his return. Hysterically laughing or weeping (Betty couldn’t determine which it was), Barney informed her that they were going to be captured. Barney shifted into first gear and hit the accelerator. As he sped down U.S. Route 3 the object, which had glided overhead, seemed to emit a series of code-like buzzing or electrical beeping sounds that caused the car to vibrate.

Soon, the object seemed to have left the area and the Hills continued along their route home to Portsmouth. However, without explanation Barney suddenly made a sharp left turn over a steel frame bridge twelve miles south of the field. He drove along NH State Highway 175 for approximately four miles before turning back toward U.S. Route 3 toward Plymouth and Ashland. Near Ashland, as far as they could recall, they observed a fiery red-orange orb behind a stand of trees. Next, they heard another series of buzzing/beeping sounds. Barney stopped the car and drove from side to side in a futile attempt to reproduce the enigmatic sounds. Betty asked Barney, “Now do you believe in flying saucers?” And he, being a confirmed skeptic and unwilling to admit that he had observed one at close range replied, “Don’t be ridiculous. That wasn’t a flying saucer.”

Their arrival home was a little later than they had anticipated, even allowing for slow driving and stops during the period of observation. Later that day they reported their UFO encounter to Betty’s family and Pease Air Force Base. A formal Air Intelligence report was made on 9/21/1961.

3. How were they abducted by the UFO’s alien crew? At the time, what did the Hills remember of the experience?

As you can see, the move toward abduction was a long, slow process taking about an hour to accomplish from its inception north of Franconia Notch. By the time Barney returned to his vehicle he was already under some form of mind control. Within 5-6 blocks Betty and Barney heard a series of electrical buzzing or beeping sounds that caused the car to vibrate and imparted a tingling sensation upon Betty and Barney.

This series of events seemed to deepen the leader’s control over Barney, while it initiated mild control over Betty. Her conscious memory remained clearer and was more detailed than Barney’s. She vaguely remembered passing the Jack-O-Lantern Resort eight miles south of the field, and a sharp left turn over a railroad type steel frame bridge.

Both consciously retained vague memories of a roadblock, but couldn’t place where it occurred or connect it to anything. Later, the Hills witnessed a fiery red-orange sphere silhouetted behind a stand of trees and heard a second series of beeping sounds. Then, full consciousness returned and the Hills traveled to their Portsmouth home, arriving, they realized on 11/25/61, more than two full hours later than they had anticipated.

Subsequently, they made many trips to the White Mountains to try to jog their memories, and over time, more and more details emerged into their consciousness. However, it wasn’t until 1964, after undergoing several expensive and grueling months of hypnotherapy with Dr. Simon that their amnesia was penetrated.

I should add that Betty experienced a series of frightening dreams a couple of weeks after the initial close encounter. In those dreams, she and Barney were abducted by humanlike men who escorted them to a spaceship where they endured physical examinations and she engaged in an interview with the craft’s leader. This has always added a perplexing element to the story. Did Barney absorb Betty’s dreams? This was Dr. Simon’s hypothesis. In Captured! I conducted a comparative analysis of the hypnosis tapes versus Betty’s dream transcripts to test Dr. Simon’s hypothesis.

4. How did it change their lives?

At first, it caused conflict between Betty and Barney. He wanted to avoid being labeled a crackpot and insisted that Betty forget the whole thing and never tell anyone. But Betty was a strong-willed, independent woman and she refused to obey his directives. She told her family and two of her tenants. Then she called Pease Air Force Base and reported it to Base Intelligence, and when they asked to speak to Barney, he conceded.

Within the next couple of months they were interviewed by NICAP investigator Walter Webb (10/21/61), and two additional investigators, Robert Hohmann and C.D. Jackson (11/25/61).

Barney was a levelheaded, intelligent, strong-willed individual who felt that no good could come from dwelling upon the strange events of September 19-20, 1961. Although he conceded that he had encountered an unconventional craft and its crew, he preferred to focus upon church, family and social and political activism. But Betty’s avid curiosity about the sighting and the apparent missing time caused her to search for answers. Barney thought it was nonsense, but the close encounter with humanoid beings who frightened him terribly, coupled with his awareness that two hours of missing time had occurred, troubled him. Subsequently, he developed health problems that failed to respond to traditional medical treatment. Eventually, this led the Hills to Dr. Simon.

Over time, their lives changed in many ways, particularly after the hypnosis. The information was leaked to a Boston newspaper reporter who made it public against the Hills’ objections. Then they decided to go public with a book written by John Fuller—The Interrupted Journey. The story received worldwide attention and the Hills gained much notoriety. However, as Barney had predicted, they endured manipulation, criticism and skepticism.

5. What did the aliens look like? How did they communicate with the Hills? Were they aggressive, peaceful, or frightening?

The Hills’ captors bore little resemblance to the 5’ to 5’4” men in Betty’s dreams, who had black hair, large noses, dark eyes, blue lips, grayish skin, and were dressed in short blue-gray jackets with matching trousers.

Betty and Barney described two groups of aliens aboard the UFO. The leader and examiner were taller than the crew—4 ½ to 5 feet tall. Whereas, at least one crew member resembled the typical 3 ½ foot tall large headed stereotypical “Gray.”

Chapter 13 in Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience provides a full detailed description of the aliens, including never before revealed information about their physical and social characteristics.

The Hills observed a membrane inside the alien’s mouths that fluttered when they communicated. However, their vocalizations could not be understood by Betty and Barney. Communication was probably telepathic or through an advanced technological communication device. The Hills understood the leader and examiner in English.

Betty and Barney responded to their captors differently. Barney was fully under their control and couldn’t lash out. He seemed tranquilized and compliant. He later stated that he sensed they had so little regard for the sanctity of human life, if they had accidentally severed his arm they would probably have discarded it.

Betty was terrified during the initial stage of the abduction and lashed out in self-defense. But her captors didn’t harm her even when she attacked them. They merely incapacitated her, rendering her helpless to resist. She found one crew member to be very hostile and frightening, whereas she sensed empathy from the leader.

6. So many people today report multiple abductions. Were the Hills abducted more than once?

Betty insisted that she was abducted only one time. As you will learn in Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience this is open to speculation.

7. Did the Hills report their UFO encounter to the local authorities or to the Air Force? If so, tell us about what happened. Was there a cover-up?

Betty reported the sighting to a Newton, NH police officer who advised her to make a formal report to Pease Air Force Base. She later stated in interviews that she placed her initial phone call to the 100th Bomb Wing at Pease on the evening of September 20, 1961, but the Air Intelligence Report is dated 21 September.

She and Barney gave the interviewing officer a general description of the craft they had observed, but Barney omitted his observation of the humanoid figures fearing that he might be judged a “crackpot.” Later that day, Major Paul W. Henderson phoned the Hills and questioned them extensively before transferring them to another location where their testimony was monitored. The following day, he informed the Hills that he had been up all night working on the report and would require a few more details. He also informed them that the control tower had reported “a strange incident” at 2:14 AM on September 20 that could hint of a possible relationship due to time and distance.

The initial project record card indicated that an object was observed through ground-visual and air intercept radar. However, this was altered in later reports, and debunked as nothing more than a ground target due to strong inversion.

Even the initial report stated that both the radar and visual sighting was probably due to an optical condition resulting from a strong inversion in the Lincoln, NH area on the morning of the sighting. However, the Mount Washington Weather Station’s archival material for the evening of 9/19-20, 1961 refutes the information given by the Air Force. It seems that either the Air Force mishandled the Hills’ report through incompetence or a cover-up was in process almost immediately.

Chapter 3 in Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience provides accurate technical information about the Air Intelligence Report and Project Blue Book’s mishandling of it.

8. What led to an investigation of their sighting? Who investigated it? Was there any evidence to support their claim?

Three days after her close encounter with a UFO Betty visited her local library in an attempt to gain additional information. She checked out The Flying Saucer Conspiracy by Major Donald Keyhoe, the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. UFO witnesses were instructed to write to NICAP’s address to report a sighting. Betty wrote to NICAP and on October 21, 1961, investigator Walter Webb initiated a preliminary investigation in a six-hour interview at the Hills’ home.

Over a period of several years Webb conducted an extensive, meticulous investigation of the Hills’ sighting. Additionally, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. James McDonald, Robert Hohmann and C.D. Jackson, Dr. James Harder, Stanton Friedman, Karl Pflock, and myself, to name a few, have engaged in the research and investigation of the Hill case.

There was substantial evidence to support the Hills’ claim, including the scraped tops of Barney’s dress shoes, broken watches, 12-18 circular highly polished, silver dollar size spots on the trunk of their vehicle that caused a compass needle to spin and spin, only over the spots on the trunk, and Betty’s new dress that was badly torn and later became degraded by a pink powdery substance that ruined it. The dress has undergone chemical and forensic analysis and the scientific reports appear in Chapter 24 of Captured!.

Additionally, Dr. Simon instructed Betty, through posthypnotic suggestion to draw that star map that she reported seeing onboard the alien craft, only if she could recreate it accurately. The stars on the resulting star map were later identified through the painstaking work of Marjorie Fish and underwent scientific review. Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman discusses the star map investigation in chapters 22 and 23.

Finally, the Hills’ individual testimony under hypnotic regression is subjected to a comparative analysis. They were hypnotized separately and the posthypnotic suggestion for amnesia was enforced, so they were unable to remember even their own testimony under hypnosis. Therefore, one could not communicate information to the other that might contaminate their testimony. The only source of contamination could have been from “Betty’s Dreams or Recall?” paper, written two months after the close encounter with an unconventional craft. Months later, Dr. Simon slowly and carefully permitted the Hills to remember their hypnotic testimony. Kathleen Marden has carefully dissected the Hills’ hypnosis transcripts in seven chapters.

9. How did the Hills’ story become public? Didn’t they seek publicity?

The Hills sought to avoid publicity and attempted to retain anonymity regarding their sighting and subsequent abduction. They were well-liked, respected members of their community who were primarily interested in promoting civil rights, educational opportunity and economic equality. Barney served on the NH state Advisory Committee to the US Civil Rights Commission, on the Human Rights Commission, and on the New England Board of the NAACP. He and Betty were founding members of the Rockingham County Community Action Program through the Office of Economic Opportunity and Barney served as its first executive director.

Their story became public when an unscrupulous newspaper reporter accessed information that the Hills presented to the Two State UFO Study Group in November 1963. Through a betrayal of trust, individuals in whom the Hills confided their story violated confidentiality and revealed the information that emerged under hypnosis. Two years later, over their protests and refusal to cooperate he published five newspaper articles.

10. Why has their story been the subject of skepticism and doubt for all these years?

All UFO observations and/or abduction claims are the subject of skepticism and doubt, even when they are multiple witness sightings made by trained observers, with gun radar or photographic evidence. Archival photographic evidence has been meticulously evaluated by physicist Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D. and he can find no evidence of a hoax in some photos. A substantial amount of physical trace evidence has been collected from all over the world over the past 38 years by Ted Phillips. Analytical chemist Phyllis Budinger has conducted a chemical analysis on Betty’s dress (See Chapter 24) and on other substances found in the presence of alleged abductees. Dr. Roger Leir has removed possible alien implants from alleged abductees and laboratory tests have revealed interesting findings. Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr. has recently written the true story of his father’s involvement in the Roswell crash of 1947. Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman has devoted nearly fifty years to the study and investigation of the UFO mystery. He has found that the evidence is overwhelming that Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial vehicles. Visit their websites and read their many articles and books. Then, tell me why there is so much skepticism and doubt. Could it be that what Friedman refers to as the nasty, noisy negativists who do their research by proclamation, not investigation have prevailed in the mainstream media? Why won’t we listen to the scientists who have researched the subject for so many years? The astronauts? The high ranking military officers who have had close encounters? Even presidents? Perhaps we prefer to bury our heads in the sand. When ignorance and fear prevail, enlightenment falls to the shadows.

The polls show that most people accept the notion of UFO reality. Many people have indicated to me that it was the Hill case, as portrayed on TV and in LOOK Magazine and in The Interrupted Journey that stimulated their interest in investigating and researching UFOs. That said there are still people who reject the notion that we have traveled to the moon.

To specifically address the question of skepticism and doubt about the Hill case, we must examine what the skeptics have alleged. We’ve all read that Betty and Barney spotted a star-like object in the sky that seemed to be pursuing them. They became nervous and turned off the main highway onto narrow, winding mountain roads. False and misleading! Some have alleged that Betty was a science fiction fan who absorbed this popular cultural mythology and came to believe that she had been abducted. False! Some have even alleged that Barney watched “The Bellero Shield” on the 1960’s television program Outer Limits and imagined that his aliens resembled the ones he had seen only twelve days before his hypnosis session with Dr. Simon! False! I challenge anyone to read the description of “The Occupants” in Captured and find a correlation. Further, the masters of deception have informed us that Barney was highly suggestible—a man who would think almost anything that his dominant wife told him to believe. False! Read the results of their personality profiles in Chapter 15. I won’t go into the more outrageous and disgusting false claims recently leveled against the Hills.

After you have read Captured examine the misinformation that some mainstream scientists have swallowed, hook, line and sinker. When scientists don’t do their homework the Disinformants succeed in deceiving the public. It stands to reason that skepticism and doubt will prevail as long as ignorance reigns.