July 10, 2021 • 59 mins
In September of 1961, on an empty country road in rural New Hampshire, Barney and Betty Hill experienced the most profound, bizarre night of their lives in what would become the first widely-publicized account of an alien abduction in US history -- the case that would go on to influence hundreds, if not thousands, of abduction cases to follow. But what exactly happened that September night? Join the guys as they sit down with author Toby Ball, host of the Strange Arrivals podcast, to explore the facts, the claims, and the questions that remain unanswered in the modern day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It finally happened. The US government has issued their latest
report on what they call u a P S Unidentified
Aerial phenomenon the rest of us, all the UFOs. It
should go without saying, but we'll say it. Everybody at
the stuff there. What you know. FAM was massively excited
(00:22):
when this released, and we spent a lot of time
wondering what, if any revelations this report would contain, and
then it sent us off on our own rabbit hole. Guys,
we started looking at all of our old UFO episodes,
all the ones from the past, and uh, they kind
of build toward towards the same case that the U
(00:44):
a P report makes. I think, Oh, I think you're right.
I'm I made a silly analogy in an email chain earlier.
I felt like we were kids standing outside of our house.
If let's imagine that we're all a family and we
can hear the sound of an ice cream truck, but
it always seems like it's a couple of blocks away.
(01:05):
You can always hear it, and we just we were
just standing there day and night waiting and it never came.
And then it did and we got nine pages of
ice cream. Yeah, if you count like the title of
page of ice cream. I hope at least one of
them is one of those droopy, gumball eyed SpongeBob ice
(01:26):
cream bars that are so cool looking on the rapper
but terrifying looking in person. They freaked me out. But
it's speaking of freaking out. Our first episode here is
the story of Betty and Barney Hill. This is quite
literally the UFO abduction case that changed the conversation every
(01:49):
You can roughly categorize all stories of UFO counters into
like before the Hill case and after the Hill case.
And we're really excited because we did not go into
this endeavor alone. We spoke with the one and only
Toby Ball, friend of the show and the creator of
(02:09):
podcasts that dives deep into the story of the Hills.
That's right, it's called Strange Arrivals. You're gonna learn all
about it in this episode, and all about the Benny
and Barney Hill story. We highly recommend you continue listening
from this point forward. All right, we'll see you on
the other side. There's more coming after this. Get ready
for a bunch of UFO episodes. From UFOs to psychic
(02:33):
powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events.
You can turn back now or learn the stuff they
don't want you to know. A production of My Heart Rady,
(02:55):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They called me that, and we're joined
as always with our super producer Paul Michigan control decads.
Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Interestingly enough, uh,
many of our fellow listeners have written into us on
(03:17):
a regular basis over the years asking us to cover
more things about UFOs, whether that's just unexplained aerial phenomena,
whether that's uh, you know, allegations of visitations by extraterrestrial
or even extra dimensional entities. Uh. And we've we've taken
a swing at a lot of it. But today we're
(03:38):
bringing out the big guns. In fact, you could say
today's episode concerns the most important UFOs story in American history.
It's a strange, twisting tale. It begins all the way
back in nineteen sixty one, but it's a story that
has ramifications which continue to influence the world old of
(04:00):
UFO research here in the modern day. That's right, and
today we are not going to tackle this alone. We
have brought along and are joined by a journalist and author.
His name is Toby Ball. He is the host of
the new show Strange Arrivals that is executive produced by
arn Makeey. By the way, it's a new show on
(04:20):
our network that delves deep into the Betty and Barney
Hills story. Thanks for coming on the show, Toby. Thanks
for having me on. Now, Toby, before we begin today's show,
we would be remiss if we didn't mention the fact
that you are, in addition to being an author and
a journalist, you are also a podcaster in the world
(04:42):
of crime. Is that correct? That's right. For about five
and a half years, I've been one of the four
co hosts of Crime Writers on and every week we
review a couple of true crime properties. Occasionally um fictional
crime as well, if that happens to be hot at
the moment. So podcasts, you know, HBO series, documentaries, things
(05:05):
like that, and I would just say that, uh, they're
very honest in their reviews. They've they've done several of it.
I know Nolan I have made and U Ben you
might have one coming down the pike soon too. They're
really honest, and it is a It's a great show
if you want to get an objective take. Dare we
say brutally honest? Sometimes sometimes I think Nolan I have
(05:28):
both felt that before, felt the wrath. But I mean,
you know it's worth a listen. Did you did you
work on the Oregon Murder? I did? I did. Yeah, Yeah,
I think you were the one that you were the
one that dug it, but everybody else hated it apparently.
Actually I couldn't even bring myself to listen to it.
But yeah, you and I spoke a little bit, and
I know that you, uh, you stood up for it,
(05:49):
and I really appreciate them. Yeah, I I did. I
actually did really like that one. Um awesome, But that's
not what we're talking about. To No, it's not. And
I want to be the first to say I really
like Strange Arrivals, which is what we are here to
talk about. It's such a lushly sound designed and soundscaped
storytelling kind of bordering on true crime. It feels like
(06:10):
a mystery kind of. There's this wonderful atmosphere to it.
Your narration is super solid, the writings great, all the
archival stuff really enriches the experience, and you know, kudos
for for the first episode. I can't wait to hear more.
New episodes are out every Tuesday. As we record this,
we should note to be strange arrivals. It addresses, as
(06:31):
you have mentioned, Matt, it addresses the story of Betty
and Barney Hill. Now, a lot of people in our
audience today no sort of the the broad strokes of
some aspects of the tale, or they've at least heard
the name right the Hill case mentioned, But we were
hoping we could begin today with a little bit closer
(06:53):
look at the overall lay of the land. Uh. On
this show, we always like to start with the fact.
So for the here are the facts portion of our show,
could you give us maybe just a broad outline of
of what the story is. It starts on September nineteenth,
n right, yes, so what the base of the sort
(07:16):
of bones of the story are. Betty and Barney Hill
were a mixed race couple from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, professionals
in their community, leaders in the civil rights UH movement
in in our area of New Hampshire. This I live
in southeast New Hampshire as well. UH. So they went
on a vacation. Uh. They went to Niagara Falls, they
(07:39):
went up to Toronto, UM, and they were going to
go and spend a final night the night of September
nine in Montreal, and for some reason UH, and there's
been a number of reasons given as to why this
was UH, they didn't spend the night there. Instead, well
into the evening, they decided to draw all the way
(08:00):
back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was probably about a
seven hour drive at that time. So they started heading south.
They crossed the border, they stopped at a um A
diner to grab something to eat. As they were leaving
the diner, they noticed that it was about a little
bit after ten o'clock at night, and they continued to
(08:21):
head south and they started to notice they saw a
light in the sky that seemed a little brighter than others,
and UH and Betty in particular sort of fixated on that.
They stopped a couple of times. It seemed as though
it was following them. And then they stopped one time
just north of a place in the mountains called Franconia Notch.
(08:44):
They got out, they looked through binoculars, couldn't quite figure
out what it was, but it definitely seemed odd. It
wasn't another star. Uh. They thought maybe it was a plane, um,
but weren't weren't quite sure what to think. Got back
in the are They started to head down through Franconia Notch,
which is this area that cuts between uh these two
(09:07):
sort of sets of mountains. Um, it's very very steep
on either side. It feels it feels pretty um claustrophobic.
They pulled up to a place called the Old Man
in the Mountain, which uh is no longer there. It
actually uh crashed to the ground in two thousand and three,
I think, but it used to be this this sort
of natural rock formation that looked like an old Man.
(09:30):
And they saw an actual craft at this point with
with lights and it was hovering and it wasn't making
any noise, and so they looked at it and then
it it left again and they got back into their car,
and then you know, the hearts are pounding. They keep
driving south through Fanconia Notch, stopping every once in a
while to to see if they can see it. And
(09:52):
they get a little bit further south near a tourist
area called Indian Head, which is another sort of natural
rock formation that looks a tiny bit I guess, like
an Indian head. And then you know, they feel this
thing whoosh over their car. They stop their car in
the middle of the highway. I mean this is at
night in very world New Hampshire, so there's almost no traffic,
(10:13):
there's no ambient light, and they see a craft hovering
above a field. Barney gets out. Uh, he approaches the
craft with binoculars and sees beings looking back at him.
He panics, runs back to the car. They take off
down the highway. Uh, there's a sense that the UFO
(10:34):
is following them. It's like sort of hovering above them
as they move. Uh, they feel this here, this buzzing noise,
and feel like a little bit of a tinge in
their bodies. And then about thirty miles further down the
road they kind of come to you know, they haven't
said anything, they're not really clear of time passing, but
suddenly they're down by uh this town Ashelynd, New Hampshire,
(10:59):
and they wonder what happened. And so they've had this
strange experience and they drive home basically straight from there.
They make a quick stop trying to get some coffee,
but they end up arriving home, uh two or three
hours later than they're expecting to arrive home. They get there,
they unpacked their car. They notice a few interesting things.
(11:21):
They Betty's dresses torn, Barney's shoes are scoffed, their watches
have stopped at identical times, and they they called Betty's sisters.
Neighbor was a physicist, and they for whatever reason, Betty
thinks that maybe he'll have some insight into this. He
(11:41):
suggests they go and they put a compass over uh
their car to see if there's any strange magnetism. UH.
They apparently do this over the trunk where these bright
spots and the compass starts spinning wildly. So there was
all these little pieces of what they considered to be
evans that something strange had happened during that time. And
(12:04):
then about ten days later, Betty has this series of
very very intense nightmares about being brought aboard UH an
alien spacecraft and having sort of a medical examination done
to her on the spacecraft by aliens, and it is
(12:24):
very disturbed by this. She tells this story UH to
a variety of people, including her supervisor. She apparently, I
guess used to have tea with her supervisor and her sister,
and she she tells him about these nightmares she's having,
and her supervisor, uh, for whatever reason, says, you know,
(12:47):
maybe you know, maybe they're not just nightmares. Maybe you're
actually remembering something that actually happened really really quickly. So
this is so, I mean, this is you're you're going
through like all of these things that have happened and
so far through all of this except with the exception
of a few extra people there. These are the personal
experiences of two people and the stories that we're getting
(13:09):
from two points of view right there, or were the
only two people that we are to believe right now,
curly are Betty and Barney about what's happened besides the
neighbor and you know the supervisor right right, So there
wasn't any other sort of corroborating witness to see anything
that night they did, you know, they pretty immediately started
(13:32):
telling people about what they had seen, you know, So
it's not this isn't something where two years later there's like, oh,
by the way, you know, two years ago we saw
this thing. They they get in touch with a UFO
investigation group called Nightcap, which was pretty big at the time, um,
and they send an astronomer to come and interview them, um,
(13:53):
and he writes up a report. But at the time,
it really is the extent of it is seeing this
light in the sky and then having this very very
intense experience in this field by the Indian Head resort
and then heading home. And that's kind of what they remember, uh,
(14:16):
served consciously throughout the whole thing, and they you know,
they draw a picture of what they saw. Betty writes
down a narrative of her dreams nightcap. By the way,
for anyone who's interested, was a thing called the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, and it was active roughly
nine fifties to the nineteen eighties. So this was a
(14:36):
real this was a real prime time heyday for the organization.
I guess we would sum up then for our or
look at these unusual instances. So so Betty and Barney
see this anomalous thing. Uh. They also, uh, when they
(14:56):
kind of come to out of a fugue state, they've
lost time. Would it be fair to say that from
their account they have lost time? Yeah, they absolutely think that.
I think sort of the the unusual nature of the
whole experience makes the lost time part of it seemed
not as like that seems to kind of fall back
(15:17):
as compared to seeing, uh, you know, a spacecraft in
the middle of a field, but as time kind of
goes on um, and especially after she has those dreams,
that is something they're like, huh, you know, that is
kind of weird that it took an extra two hours
to get home. What what went on there? I'd like
to maybe bracket this just for a second, because what
(15:40):
what you've just outlined, uh succinctly and and very well
is the is the order of events in which they
occur that we that we know for sure per Betty
and Barney. For many people this would probably remain the
most in explicable, strangest experience of their adult lives. But
(16:04):
this is just sort of the beginning of the tale.
And one thing I like, without spoiling strange arrivals, one
thing I I was surprised to find and fascinated by,
was there's a segment early on in the podcast where
you talk a bit about your own personal experience. I
think it's at the very beginning of the very first episode.
(16:28):
Could you could you tell us a little bit just
so we have something to compare with Betty and Barney.
Could you tell us a little bit about your experience
and what you see as differences or commonalities and maybe
whether that inspired you to pursue this show. Yeah, so,
um strange arrivals. Actually it starts with me talking about
(16:49):
uh an experience and experiences is maybe putting it too strongly, Uh,
but uh, I was having So my family's got a
place up on an eye is land in a lake
in New Hampshire called Lake Winnipesake, which is you know,
it's about an hour and a half, two hours from
where Betty and Barney had their experience. And it was
(17:11):
right around dusk and we were having uh dinner and
drinks with a couple who are old friends of ours,
my wife and I and uh my wife saw these
red lights sort of hovering above, you know, sort of
the hills that you can see, uh from the porch
(17:31):
of our house. You know, it was just strange. You know,
I've been going up there for fifty years and I
hadn't seen anything quite like that before. And it was
enough that we we walked down from the porch, we
walked onto our dock to get a better look and
you know, the number of lights. I believe it started
with four and probably got up to about seven red lights.
(17:53):
And they were kind of moving around and it wasn't
clear you know, there there's some distance away, there was
no noise, and it wasn't clear if there are individual
things that were moving or whether it was a larger
thing that was kind of you know, moving in its
aspect to us, so that we were getting a different
view of what it was. I mean, that was sort
(18:14):
of the illusion that we had. And I just I
just I checked. My wife was checking. She wrote some
notes about this afterwards. Uh, and we watched it for
twenty minutes, you know, so it was a good long
time that we were watching this, you know, and it
never got to be more than just lights. You know,
we never saw like an outline of anything or ane
of the lights seemed to have uh you know, more
(18:36):
to them. So what's what's kind of interesting is, you know,
while we're watching this, my buddy and I are like,
how I wonder what that is? And my wife and
and my buddy's wife were like, oh, yeah, that's definitely
that's what those are. That's an alien spacecraft, like no
doubt about it. And then you know, if you talk
to us now, like my buddy and I are, the
(18:58):
way we remember it ending is the lights just kind
of blinked out one by one, like they just kind
of disappeared. And uh, my wife and and uh and
my buddy's wife are both say that they took off
at high speeds. You know, they just kind of took
off and disappeared. But there was movement involved. It wasn't
(19:19):
just blinking out. So this has been a source of
of some some dispute at various times after a few libations, um.
And so that was kind of it was an interesting
question to me. It's like, why did half of us
believe right off the bat, It's like, wow, that must
(19:40):
be something extraterrestrial, and then half of us were like,
it could be just about anything, have no clue what
it is, but it's definitely not that um. And that
was kind of what got me thinking about these kinds
of questions in general, like why are some people uh
skeptical about these things? Why are the people more prone
(20:01):
to believe these things when you're looking at exactly the
same thing. Right, the evidence that we had was identical.
And then based on that that first instinct, our memories
of what happened are are are very different. It's really fascinating.
The whole idea of like the fallibility of memory, I
think is a really interesting spin on this, And especially
(20:22):
when it was sort of split between the believers and
the nonbelievers as to how you actually visually, you know,
interpreted this information like and then took that and created like,
you know, this is this is this is this phenomenon.
I absolutely believe it. It's not such a leap to
think that. It's just really interesting to me that And
so what where did you guys land on that? Like
(20:43):
when you like, what do these debates sound like over
a few drinks like that? How do you make your case?
Was it just okay I canna this podcast? Yeah? Well
you know it's uh, you know, nobody budgets Basically, you know,
people dig in their heels and we have another beer
and we dig in our heels even further. And uh,
there really hasn't been any kind of movement towards the
(21:05):
center from anybody. I mean, you just the memories, the
memory um and and that's kind of what made it
compelling to me. Um. And when I was talking to
my friend about this podcast. He had the same same feeling.
It's like it is, it is super strange that we all,
you know, at this point it's what like six years ago.
(21:25):
It's not that long, UM, but our memories of it
are just are so different, and there's just no gift
to anybody. Everybody is very clear about what they remember.
So I was trying to figure out a way of like,
how do you approach like examining this, UM And that
(21:46):
was when I kind of latched onto the Betty and
Partey hillcase. Uh, partly because I live UM in the
same town as the University of New Hampshire and they've
got the Betty and Partney Hill papers and um a
lot of other kinds of documents, audio documents, video documents, uh, photographs,
(22:07):
So it seemed like it seemed like kind of a
natural as a way of taking a look at it,
because it does bring up a lot of the same
issues about you know, perception and memory and how how
do you approach how do you approach making sense of
things that that you experience that don't have an obvious explanation.
(22:28):
And we'll be back with our discussion with Toby Ball
after a word from our sponsor welcome back to the show.
Now let's keep you on with this conversation. You know,
we're we're talking about belief here. Something Ben has stated
on this podcast before. I'm gonna paraphrase, But each of
(22:53):
our understandings of the world, it's only the information that
we've ever taken in, right, You. We can't no things
necessarily that we've never accepted it like as as information
into our brains. So each of us has that different
perspective of all the information we know and then applying
(23:13):
it to what we're observing. Right, That's kind of what
you're exploring here. But the story really takes a turn
at the point where we left off a little while
ago there when we're getting into the concept of digging
into someone's brain, putting someone back into a fugue like state,
(23:34):
and digging through their brain to pull out new information
that hasn't been stated as a memory. Right. Yeah, That's
that's why I would ask you specifically, Toby, um, do
you think that, uh say, hypnotic regression might help solve
this long standing disagreement about what you saw? I would
(23:57):
it would be interesting to find out I uh my
sense is having uh talked to a lot of people
about hypnotic regression at this point is that we would
probably probably I'll tell the exact same stories. It's your
your recall through hypnotic regression is it's it's making it's
made with the same sort of fallible things that you're
(24:18):
conscious memory is made of, you know, when you're when
you're thinking about things. So it's it's taking the same
basic elements but just in sort of a different state
of consciousness to recreate them. And I didn't want to,
uh apologize if I'm derailing the conversation here, guys, but
I do mean it as, let's say, um sixty joking
(24:39):
with you and well what if, because that's, uh, that's
exactly what you're setting up, Matt, right, like the the
idea that the Hills eventually um and I think we
we have a little bit of a of a time
gap there, but eventually, uh, how inspired in part by
Betty's dream journal, inspired of course by these unusual events,
(25:01):
they they also uh turned to hypnosis. Right, is it
hypnotic regressions specifically or just I'm not a hypnotist. I
don't know the difference. So Barney had already had um
some anxiety issues and I believe it's already seeing a therapists.
(25:22):
But regardless of whether he was before or not, he
does end up seeing a therapist, but they're not really
talking about alien stuff. They're talking about other issues in
his life. But he does bring up this this thing
that happened um, and his therapist recommends that you go
down and see a psychiatrist uses hypnosis, whose name is
(25:44):
Dr Benjamin Simon, who's very well known for working with
returning soldiers who had PTSD. It wasn't known as PTSC
at the time, but but that's what it was. So
they go down there and and they do regression hypnosis.
So what he as as he says, you know, cast
yourself back to this date, tell me what happened. And
(26:06):
so they start to go through this story, and he
starts them off in in Montreal and going on the
different steps of the journey. But what they what they
find is that after this buzzing noise that I talked about,
after they have this uh sort of intense experience with
the UFO in the field, they both tell sort of
(26:27):
versions from their own viewpoints of this same story of
their driving down the highways Route three, they take a
turn off for some reason they don't really know why.
They take another turn onto a dirt road where they're
stopped by six figures in the road and they see
(26:48):
this glowing light behind them, and you know, they're they're
not quite clear what's going on. But Barney turns off
the car and then can't turn it back on again,
and the figures break into two groups come and take
them from their car and bring them on to a
bring him through the woods and onto a spacecraft. Yeah,
(27:11):
they they get on a spacecraft and don't the don't
the people talk to them while they're being pulled out
like it's it's interesting in that. So one of the
things that comes out of all this is Betty has
this very detailed, uh story about this whole thing. Barney
(27:33):
has a much less detailed story, and they both sort
of agree that that he was sort of put under
the alien control and then he had his eyes closed
and it was very scared. She, on the other hand, um,
you know, ends up talking to them, um, and there
was one who speaks English with an English accent, she says,
(27:53):
sort of a foreign English accent, and he's sort of
trying to reassure her that it's gonna be fine. We're
just gonna take you aboard the spaceship. You don't have
to worry, and then we'll bring you back and no
harm will come of you. And you know, she's wary,
as I think anybody would be about being brought onto
an alien spacecraft. But they do. They bring them aboard,
(28:15):
and they separate them into different rooms and uh they
undergo you know, medical uh, medical examinations at the hands
of a alien who they call the physician um. And
he doesn't speak English either. There's there's the leader who
speaks English, the physician who does the medical exams, and
(28:38):
then there's a whole bunch of you know, six or
seven sort of crew members or whatever who speak amongst
each other, but not in English or any language that
you know a human would understand. Now you mentioned, you know,
the divide that is obviously even in in listeners to
the show, and even between the three of us, between
(29:00):
you know, belief and skepticism um. And you know some
people can kind of their grades of that obviously, and
you can change over over the course of your life.
Have you found that this research and and looking into
the story and going deeper has changed you a little bit?
In terms of your belief or or made you more skeptical. Um,
that's a really interesting question. I feel as though I've
(29:23):
become more skeptical of my own memories of things that
seem that seemed real. UM. And I can kind of
give you a quick example. I my my sister has
a story up at that same island place where when
she was young, you know, three or four, opening the
door from our kitchen to the outside and seeing a
(29:46):
raccoon hanging from a screen and freaking out and then
having nobody believe her. And I have this absolutely crystal
clear memory of being in the kitchen when that happened,
in her opening the door and looking and seeing her
back and then seeing the raccoon hanging from the screen.
But it seems that that almost certainly did not happen.
(30:09):
It seems that she told me that story, and I,
you know, I was able to picture it in my
head so clearly that now it seems like this absolutely
concrete memory that oh yeah, I was there when my
sister opened the door and saw the raccoon. But based
on her memory of it, like, we both can't be right,
and I'm pretty sure she's probably the one who is
And I just imagine that happening so much. Uh, So
(30:31):
that's really been you know, more than I would have
expected myself too. I've really taken a look at things
that have happened in the past that I feel as
though I remember pretty well but don't necessarily feel consistent
with with other pieces of reality, um, and then sort
(30:51):
of questioning if my memory of that is accurate. So
that that's really been you know, it's been kind of
an eye opener, quite honestly. And then when you apply
it to the other part of my other podcasting stuff,
which is about you know, true crime, and you think
about you know, people going in front of going out
trial and having these witnesses with these people's lives in
(31:14):
their hands, and just knowing that their memories are probably
not as accurate as they think they are. Is Uh,
it's sobering. We talked about this all the time, and
you know, we've all worked on true crime shows as well,
but how eyewitness accounts are typically just awful. They're the
worst kinds, but they can absolutely convict somebody or if
you point somebody out in a lineup. And then we've
(31:35):
seen you know, experiments where people um don't remember faces
or they kind of twist it to fit their own narrative,
or maybe they really want someone to go down for
something and so they convinced themselves that that's the guy
that did this or whatever. I mean, it's really fascinating
the way we're able to almost delude ourselves, Like your
raccoon story is a form of that. It's it's less conscious,
(31:56):
but you basically invented a narrative by believing something so
much that you created this image in your mind that
seemed very very real. But now you've accepted Okay, I
think that was just It sort of speaks to the
power of belief, really, and how we're able to kind
of fool ourselves and trick ourselves into thinking that things
are are happening are real when they're absolutely not. We'll
(32:18):
be back with more from Toby Ball after a word
from our sponsor and we're back. So I want to
follow up with a question here. To me, one thing
that's fascinating about the raccoon story is, Toby, have you
(32:40):
ever heard of something called the Mandela effect? I don't
think so. So. Uh, maybe fifty years from now you
and I will look back and think that we both
did remember it because it's a uh, it's it's this
fascinating concept that's very close to what what we're talking
about today. Um wherein people can become convinced in a
(33:04):
group that something has happened and it didn't occur. It's
named the Mandela effect because the person who named it
they were in a group of people who were certain
that they knew um Nelson Mandela had or had not
died and exactly when that happened, and they were so
surprised that this was not the case at least in
(33:24):
their current timeline, that instead of just saying, well, maybe
we were wrong about it, they've doubled down and said
maybe they're having a memory from a different timeline. The
stupidest version of that is that there's a whole contingent
of people that believe Shaquille O'Neil played a genie named
Shazam in a movie, but it was actually Kazam I
(33:47):
think was the name of the movie. If I'm mistaken,
and it wasn't Shaquila no Sinbad, but it was actually
Shaquille O'Neil, And correct me on that one then. But
that's my favorite example of this. There's another one with
the baron Stein Bears versus the Baron's Stain Bears. So
many people believe it's spelled st e i N and
in their minds that's like just that's all it's ever been.
It's always been the Barren steam Bears, but it's actually
(34:09):
the Barren Stain Bears. It's interesting. I was actually tripped
up on that one a few years ago. Somebody pointed
that out to me. We did a whole episode on it,
and I don't think we've ever had more feedback episode
besides maybe the what the sleep paralysis episode maybe been?
I think maybe we got right right Matt sleep paralysis.
(34:31):
It's interesting because both the Mandela effect, the what I've
always called like the treachery of memory, and sleep paralysis, uh,
the situation wherein people experience vivid things, often nightmares, or
the sensation that they are not in control of their
body while they attempt to slumber. Those both could relate,
in a way, however, indirectly to the case of Barney
(34:54):
and Betty Hill. More skeptical people in the audience, for instance,
might say that perhaps Betty was experiencing some form of
sleep paralysis in her dreams. But what we like Toby.
The question about the dreams is fascinating to me because
they're a whole other world. What did Betty just have
(35:15):
like a short run of bad dreams or where they
recurring dreams? Did they change? What do we know about
her dreams? So it's interesting she actually wrote them down
in a document called Dreams or Recall, So she was
already kind of thinking about, you know, is this dreams
or is this actual memories of something that happened that
(35:36):
that's been repressed. And so what she said is she
does she doesn't dream them in sort of chronicle order,
of chronological order of of the way they happened. She
dreams them sort of out of order, and then she
puts them into order in this document. And and so
(35:56):
they kind of stitched together, but they don't follow one
after the other. There they kind of bounce around a
little bit. And I don't know, like I haven't come
up with anything that goes into any more detail on
on how that all worked. You basically just get you know,
this is my compiling these five dreams in a way
that sort of makes narrative sense going forward. And and
(36:20):
so it's this, you know, it's this I imagine quite
distressing a series of dreams again about being aboard a
spacecraft and and being under the control of alien visitors
and having them, you know, examine you, and and really
(36:41):
you know, you're you're sort of powerless in the face
of their technology, and they also seem to have some
kind of physical control over you, even if they're not
holding on. It's interesting how that scenario always is kind
of the trope of alien abductions. Like I kind of
wonder what the first one that has ever reported was
you happen to know anything about the history of this
(37:03):
scenario of being you know, probed or examined, Like it
didn't just come out of nowhere, you know, like whether
even if it's made up, is somebody made it up first.
I'm fascinated by how this is a repeating story we
see all the time with these abduction um remembrances. I
guess so. I think that's one of the interesting thing
about this case is that there really wasn't anything quite
(37:25):
like it beforehand, and this sort of sets the narrative
going forward, you know, And and so most abduction cases
that follow are are playing off this to a certain extent,
And and you know, it's like anything else where. It
escalates and escalates and escalates, and then you end up
in the eighties and nineties with you know, people being
(37:45):
de materialized through walls and you know, uh, you know,
tens or hundreds of thousands of people being abducted. But
before Betty and Barney Hill, there's really only one case
that was not well known own at the time, and
it took place in Brazil, and it was this guy
named Antonio Villis Bois who was abducted and brought on
(38:09):
a UFO and and sort of a little twist on
this has a a sort of sexual, uh sexual encounter
with a alien like this small female alien with bright
red hair who you know, screams like an animal and
rubs her belly and points up to the stars and
(38:31):
he takes it to me and she's gonna take their
baby back to her home planet, I guess, to raise
him or whatever. This hadn't really made it to uh,
the US unless you were like a real UFO aficionado.
So son Betty and Barney, Um, and I think there
is a question that that hasn't been answered about why
(38:53):
this sort of medical exam in particular, h she talks
about having a needle uh, plug into our navel with
the idea that it has something to do with reproduction
or pregnancy. Different people have different I think hypotheses, and
I think you can kind of, you know, guess what
they are about why they would why should be sort
(39:16):
of fixated on that in particular. But I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, nobody's I haven't read anything
where people are like, this is why these two people
in particular would be this concerned about, you know, sexual
matters when you're on board a spaceship. So it's just
a really good question, and I'm not sure what the
answer is. If there's something deeper, I want to get
(39:37):
into that and try and tie it back to their
work in the civil rights movement and like try and
compare or somehow find a way to compare that. But
before we do that, we're talking about the how influential
this story was from the you know, the abduction experience,
what actually happens when you're abducted, but also the the
(40:00):
extra supposed extraterrestrials that did the abducting there the descriptions
of them change quite a bit. Right over the course
of the oldest stories from Betty and Barney. Yeah, yeah. Um.
So when it first happened, immediately following their sighting on
(40:21):
on September nine, they describe seeing, you know, basically humans
looking back at them, humans who are wearing uniforms, um,
who are wearing caps some of them. And so that's
about what you get up until the point where they
undergo hypnosis. And then there's a slight change and part
(40:42):
of it is under hypnosis. Um. You know, when Barney's
describing being in the in the field and looking at
these beings looking back at him, he describes two of
these beings. One he describes as looking like an irishman, um.
And he worked in Boston, and as an African American,
(41:03):
it was very clear that he saw Irish as being
sort of agents of racial animosity. Uh. So this is
like a stressful image to him. The other one he
describes as a Nazi. So again it's this sort of
a figure that would cause him anxiety. Um. And he
(41:24):
actually talks in radio interviews about how he didn't feel
that they were sinister, but that the situation itself was sinister.
But the way he describes them, certainly to me, sort
of indicates that at some level he thought it was
they were sinister. But this changes when they go aboard
the UFO and he he talks about you know, basically
(41:48):
you know what you would think of as a gray
or sort of like a proto gray of like you know,
the slit mouth and the very small nose or almost
non existent nose, and uh, you know, the big eyes.
And he even goes he has this very weird thing
about there being a film over the mouth that makes
this kind of weird, you know, slurpy kind of noise. Uh,
(42:09):
and it's very you know, it would be an alarming
thing to open your eyes up to. Betty, on the
other hand, and her dreams, talks about them as little
guys with big noses like Jimmy Duranty, and people kind
of say, well, she heard what Barney's description was and
kind of changes her story a little bit to fit his,
(42:32):
uh not to mention the fact that you know, people's
reaction is is that it's like, oh, like Jimmy Durranty
and you chuckle, like aliens like Jimmy Durranty, How's that happened?
So they come out of this doing doing all this
hypnosis with this basic idea of sort of what the
aliens look like, and it's sort of on the way
(42:52):
to being what we think of now as a typical alien.
And they spend some time trying to refine this, and
they end up working with a New Hampshire artists named
David Baker in the late sixties, and he's sketching drawings
of of what Betty and Barney think they look like.
And they're getting back to him, they're like, see sketches,
(43:14):
and they'll get back and they'll they'll say, you know,
make these changes. This isn't this is the stuff that
was wrong. And then he'll get back with a new um,
a new sketch, and they actually, you know, if at
the UNH Library, University of New Hampshire Library, they've got
the copies of those um those sketches, and they're they're
(43:34):
really they're they're a little bit spooky, like in all honesty,
and they're just kind of hazy and vague enough that
they're very evocative of this idea that you're kind of
like trying to bring up a memory um in a
way that I thought was really kind of cool and interesting.
And the other the other piece that they try to
put together to sort of document their memories of this
(43:58):
is this strange little bust called JR. And it was
something that Betty commissioned a woman named Marjorie Fish, who
plays a big part in the story in another way,
to create and it's it's like a little bust of
a gray, you know, like a primitive version of a gray.
(44:23):
And it's about the size of a small human head.
I've held it. It's got a little hole in the
back from where she knocked it off pedestal during a
talk she was giving in Cincinnati, and it's it's just
a very very odd thing, but but it is. I mean,
that's that's what she says is the closest representation to
what she saw during that experience and that classic kind
(44:46):
of gray alien image that is just so ubiquitous and
pop culture. Now this is kind of the origin of that,
Like this is really where that kind of came into existence.
The story. Yeah, so this is the first time I
think it's been put forward as being a um, you know,
an actual alien, like I saw an alien and that's
what it looked like. There's been uh people have tried
(45:10):
to say where where did they get this vision? And
they point to a there's an episode of the Outer
Limits that ran just a couple of weeks before they
started Hypnosis, and it was called the Bolero Shield. And
it's got this alien in it that kind of looks
(45:31):
like a gray It looks very loosely. Yeah, I mean,
I think you the only way you can really make
it work is if you try and describe it and
then somebody hears it and then they draw something that
sort of looks a little bit like it. You might
come up with the gray, but it's not so close.
And then I've actually heard Brian Dunning from Skeptoid had
(45:52):
heard from somebody that there was another Twilight Zone episode
that was about a year and a half before that
that was called, um, hocus Pocus and Frisbee that has
another similar kind of I mean, this is all this
is stuff from like, you know, the early sixties. So
the alien is basically a guy in a mask, and
(46:15):
I think in hocus Pocus and Frisbee, he's actually wearing
a suit while he's being an alien. Uh, And it's
it's all, it's kind of ridiculous, but it does have
the basic idea of big eyes, not much of a nose,
just a little slip for a mouth. So for what
it's worth. Another fascinating detail that ends up coming out
(46:37):
of the hypnosis session sessions and the memories then that
are kind of brought back from the time that Betty
I think it is particularly Betty when the time that
she supposedly spent on this spacecraft UM was that she
saw some kind of dotted lights or line of light
(47:00):
which she interpreted to be I believe a star map.
Is that correct? Yeah? So while she's after she gets
her exam, uh, she apparently gets quite comfortable uh and
starts having a conversation with this alien. She calls the
leader and she asked him, you know where did where
did you come from? And his response is to sort
(47:25):
of pull out this what they call a star map
UM and apparently is in some ways a three D
type thing UM. Regardless, he pulls it out and she says, well,
which one is yours? And he says, well, can you
point out where your son is on on this map?
(47:46):
And she says now, and he says, well, then it
doesn't make any difference, right, like, you know, you can't
orient yourself, So he puts it away. So she tells
this story under hypnosis and Dr Simon, Uh, the hypnotist.
It's just intrigued by it, and says, you know, sometime
when you're not hypnotized, if you if you want to,
(48:09):
why don't you draw that map that you saw. So
she draws the map later, and it's you know, I
think it's twenty one sort of circles of various sizes,
and some of them are connected by lines, and some
of them are connected by more than one line. And
so this is a star map. So this is supposed
(48:29):
to be a exact replica of what she saw on board.
And what makes it the really interesting part of the
story is that this woman, Marjorie Fish, the very same
Marjorie Fish who did the bust of Junior the alien.
She looks at it and thinks, maybe I can use
(48:49):
that to determine where the aliens came from, Like what's
the what's the vantage point in the galaxy from which
this map was made. So this isn't the pre you know,
home computer age. So what she does is she gets
uh the latest information on stars and their distance from
(49:12):
the Earth and each other um and she makes these
really really elaborate models of the near galaxy in her
living room. And what she does is she puts you know,
black paper or fabric around the walls, and then from
the ceiling she hangs beads from thread and it's all
(49:34):
done with these like super exact measurements to get them
as close as possible to exactly where they would be
in space based on what we knew. Then you know
this is you know, this takes place over a course
of years, and I think she does twenty or twenty
one different models, and then she takes a camera and
(49:55):
she's taking pictures from different angles, right, so she's trying
to get it to match, get a picture that will
match the star map. And so she gets to a
point it's very you know, as you can imagine, it's
very detailed, exacting, frustrating work. She can't find a match.
And then um, this new uh astronomy catalog sort of
(50:22):
the astronomy Bible at the time comes out and it's
identified a few new stars and there's three stars that
when she adds them to one of her models, it
fits the star map. Um, and then so you know what,
what's her proponents of the Hills story say, is you
(50:42):
know that Matt wouldn't have existed as humans couldn't have
made that map with what they knew at the time
that she drew it, Like you had to have had
advanced understanding of the location of different stars in order
to create that map. Um. So yeah, she she identified
they're sort of uh stars of origin as Zeta Reticuli,
(51:07):
which is a a binary star system which she thought
could sustain a planet that could have life. So it's really,
you know, uh completely sort of obsessive quest to uh
find a match in something that would be really daunting
(51:27):
today with computers, but back then when you're just like
literally hanging beads from a ceiling. Uh, it is unbelievable.
And the pictures there's no pictures on the internet, um,
but there are, or at least that I could find.
But they do have a lot of those pictures at
the University of New Hampshire Special Collections and I've I've
checked them out, um, and it's it's really it's quite something.
(51:51):
It's interesting because it reminds me of the old, the
older story of the Dogon tribe that um, I think
this was actually after or the Betting and Barney hillcase.
You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but the
Dogon tribe had a similar experience being able to UM
name stars or star system, a serious system that was,
(52:15):
according to the tail uh, something that human technology was
not at the time able to view. UH. And it's
strange to me because, you know, like someone else pointed
out earlier, we're seeing tropes there. And now that we
know this story for the Dogon may have happened or
come to attention after the Betty and Barney Hill story,
(52:38):
we have to we have to ask ourselves just how
profoundly the experience of these folks has has informed UFO
of folklore UFO. UM. I don't even want to say tropes,
but you know, has informed the commonalities that people say
they experience. When you're in the course of your research
(52:58):
here uh and you're you're finding all these exclusive materials
that are, as you said, uh, not available on the
internet or not widely available. Have you run into other
people researching this story, or if you had anybody, um,
anybody contact you with some kind of exclusive or some
(53:19):
kind of what they feel is an insight. I guess
what I'm asking Toby is have you had other people
who feel they've experienced an abduction reach out to you? Uh?
Not yet, although I I feel so that may come
at some point in the future as we as strange
arrivals kind of continues on. Um, yeah, I haven't. It's
(53:42):
the Betty and Barney Hill archives are as you imagine
the most sort of viewed things that they have at
the University of New Hampshire. There's a big UFO conference
in Exeter, New Hampshire, which is about twenty minutes away.
Uh So during that sort of week slash weekend, a
(54:02):
lot of people come in and if only to see
like the Junior Boss star Betty's torn dress, which is
also there. Um, it's sort of a pilgrimage. Um. But yeah,
I haven't. I haven't anybody reach out to me yet,
but I'll keep you in the loop if I do.
Please do because towards the end of this episode, we're
(54:23):
going to tell people where to find you, ha ha,
which is actually guys, what we're about to do now. Um,
really quickly, if you do want to check out the
special collections at the University of New Hampshire, if you
cannot physically go there, you can go to Library dot
(54:43):
U n H dot e D. You just do a
little search within there for Betty and Barney Hill and
you'll see the special collections that they have. Um, they've
really it's it's really just kind of a list of
the materials that are available there and like which box
they're in and where you can find them if you're
physically there. But it's a great list of things as
(55:04):
well as just some overall information about the the case.
I actually I believe they're going to be digitizing making
some of it available digitally over the next few months.
So depending on how quickly people are listening to this,
there may be more stuff there. At the very bottom
of the page of that special Collection of Betty Barney Hill,
(55:26):
there is a picture of the alien bust if you
want to go and see what that looks like. So
if you want to do that, you know, if you
want to learn more about this story, then just listen
to Strange Arrivals. That would be my recommendation. Uh. We
kind of talked about the experience, the sonic experience you're
gonna get in that show. Um, we really think it's
worth your time. It feels like you're there. There's like
(55:49):
some recreations that have been done correct where it makes
you feel like you're with Betty and Barney, um, and
you're aren't there actual isn't their actual hypnosis tape in
the show too? Yeah, there's a in a couple of instances,
we do have the actual hypnosis tape um that we play. Uh,
(56:10):
there's a part where Betty's talking about being taken from
the car and being brought aboard the ship, um Barney
experiencing uh the UFO in the in the in the field. Wow. Yeah,
So if you want to do that? What should what
should people do to find you? And Strange arrivals? Toby, So,
strange arrivals, uh, you know, should be available on whatever
(56:34):
podcast app you use. Uh, if you want to, uh
get in touch with me, I'm on Twitter at Toby
Ball n H and my website is Toby ball dot com. Awesome. Well, hey,
thank you so much for joining us and talking about
this really really interesting case. I'm glad that you're making
the show you're making because I want to know more
(56:56):
and I'm sure a lot of us do. Agreed. Agreed,
And also thanks for the solid Outer Limits and Twilight
Zone Rex in this episode. And if you can, I
don't know if you can see my background, but I
changed it to the uh hocus Pocus and Frisbee alien
kind of scheme mask looking dude, but he really does
have the two kind of almond shaped eyes and the
(57:16):
two little nostrils. Actually, now I'm noticing which I think
is a pretty key part of the gray face facial structure.
So I'm actually kind of on board with this having
been an influence for for those descriptions now that I'm
looking at it. Yeah, you check it out online. Uh,
you can if you put into Google that they've got
pictures of it. It's you know, it's getting there. It's
(57:41):
getting there, and we are getting to the end of
today's episode. Please check out Strange Arrivals. Don't take our
word for it, experience it yourself wherever podcasts are available.
We also like to hear your stories about allegations of
extraterrestrial activity at UFO Sightings. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. We are conspiracy stuff on most of those
(58:04):
conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. If you don't want to
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you know, appreciates these jokes, I'm sure every week. But
if you want to give us a call, we are
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(58:28):
You can leave a message, talk to us about this episode,
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(59:05):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
It finally happened. The US government has issued their latest
report on what they call u a P S Unidentified
Aerial phenomenon the rest of us, all the UFOs. It
should go without saying, but we'll say it. Everybody at
the stuff there. What you know. FAM was massively excited
(00:22):
when this released, and we spent a lot of time
wondering what, if any revelations this report would contain, and
then it sent us off on our own rabbit hole. Guys,
we started looking at all of our old UFO episodes,
all the ones from the past, and uh, they kind
of build toward towards the same case that the U
(00:44):
a P report makes. I think, Oh, I think you're right.
I'm I made a silly analogy in an email chain earlier.
I felt like we were kids standing outside of our house.
If let's imagine that we're all a family and we
can hear the sound of an ice cream truck, but
it always seems like it's a couple of blocks away.
(01:05):
You can always hear it, and we just we were
just standing there day and night waiting and it never came.
And then it did and we got nine pages of
ice cream. Yeah, if you count like the title of
page of ice cream. I hope at least one of
them is one of those droopy, gumball eyed SpongeBob ice
(01:26):
cream bars that are so cool looking on the rapper
but terrifying looking in person. They freaked me out. But
it's speaking of freaking out. Our first episode here is
the story of Betty and Barney Hill. This is quite
literally the UFO abduction case that changed the conversation every
(01:49):
You can roughly categorize all stories of UFO counters into
like before the Hill case and after the Hill case.
And we're really excited because we did not go into
this endeavor alone. We spoke with the one and only
Toby Ball, friend of the show and the creator of
(02:09):
podcasts that dives deep into the story of the Hills.
That's right, it's called Strange Arrivals. You're gonna learn all
about it in this episode, and all about the Benny
and Barney Hill story. We highly recommend you continue listening
from this point forward. All right, we'll see you on
the other side. There's more coming after this. Get ready
for a bunch of UFO episodes. From UFOs to psychic
(02:33):
powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events.
You can turn back now or learn the stuff they
don't want you to know. A production of My Heart Rady,
(02:55):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They called me that, and we're joined
as always with our super producer Paul Michigan control decads.
Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Interestingly enough, uh,
many of our fellow listeners have written into us on
(03:17):
a regular basis over the years asking us to cover
more things about UFOs, whether that's just unexplained aerial phenomena,
whether that's uh, you know, allegations of visitations by extraterrestrial
or even extra dimensional entities. Uh. And we've we've taken
a swing at a lot of it. But today we're
(03:38):
bringing out the big guns. In fact, you could say
today's episode concerns the most important UFOs story in American history.
It's a strange, twisting tale. It begins all the way
back in nineteen sixty one, but it's a story that
has ramifications which continue to influence the world old of
(04:00):
UFO research here in the modern day. That's right, and
today we are not going to tackle this alone. We
have brought along and are joined by a journalist and author.
His name is Toby Ball. He is the host of
the new show Strange Arrivals that is executive produced by
arn Makeey. By the way, it's a new show on
(04:20):
our network that delves deep into the Betty and Barney
Hills story. Thanks for coming on the show, Toby. Thanks
for having me on. Now, Toby, before we begin today's show,
we would be remiss if we didn't mention the fact
that you are, in addition to being an author and
a journalist, you are also a podcaster in the world
(04:42):
of crime. Is that correct? That's right. For about five
and a half years, I've been one of the four
co hosts of Crime Writers on and every week we
review a couple of true crime properties. Occasionally um fictional
crime as well, if that happens to be hot at
the moment. So podcasts, you know, HBO series, documentaries, things
(05:05):
like that, and I would just say that, uh, they're
very honest in their reviews. They've they've done several of it.
I know Nolan I have made and U Ben you
might have one coming down the pike soon too. They're
really honest, and it is a It's a great show
if you want to get an objective take. Dare we
say brutally honest? Sometimes sometimes I think Nolan I have
(05:28):
both felt that before, felt the wrath. But I mean,
you know it's worth a listen. Did you did you
work on the Oregon Murder? I did? I did. Yeah, Yeah,
I think you were the one that you were the
one that dug it, but everybody else hated it apparently.
Actually I couldn't even bring myself to listen to it.
But yeah, you and I spoke a little bit, and
I know that you, uh, you stood up for it,
(05:49):
and I really appreciate them. Yeah, I I did. I
actually did really like that one. Um awesome, But that's
not what we're talking about. To No, it's not. And
I want to be the first to say I really
like Strange Arrivals, which is what we are here to
talk about. It's such a lushly sound designed and soundscaped
storytelling kind of bordering on true crime. It feels like
(06:10):
a mystery kind of. There's this wonderful atmosphere to it.
Your narration is super solid, the writings great, all the
archival stuff really enriches the experience, and you know, kudos
for for the first episode. I can't wait to hear more.
New episodes are out every Tuesday. As we record this,
we should note to be strange arrivals. It addresses, as
(06:31):
you have mentioned, Matt, it addresses the story of Betty
and Barney Hill. Now, a lot of people in our
audience today no sort of the the broad strokes of
some aspects of the tale, or they've at least heard
the name right the Hill case mentioned, But we were
hoping we could begin today with a little bit closer
(06:53):
look at the overall lay of the land. Uh. On
this show, we always like to start with the fact.
So for the here are the facts portion of our show,
could you give us maybe just a broad outline of
of what the story is. It starts on September nineteenth,
n right, yes, so what the base of the sort
(07:16):
of bones of the story are. Betty and Barney Hill
were a mixed race couple from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, professionals
in their community, leaders in the civil rights UH movement
in in our area of New Hampshire. This I live
in southeast New Hampshire as well. UH. So they went
on a vacation. Uh. They went to Niagara Falls, they
(07:39):
went up to Toronto, UM, and they were going to
go and spend a final night the night of September
nine in Montreal, and for some reason UH, and there's
been a number of reasons given as to why this
was UH, they didn't spend the night there. Instead, well
into the evening, they decided to draw all the way
(08:00):
back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was probably about a
seven hour drive at that time. So they started heading south.
They crossed the border, they stopped at a um A
diner to grab something to eat. As they were leaving
the diner, they noticed that it was about a little
bit after ten o'clock at night, and they continued to
(08:21):
head south and they started to notice they saw a
light in the sky that seemed a little brighter than others,
and UH and Betty in particular sort of fixated on that.
They stopped a couple of times. It seemed as though
it was following them. And then they stopped one time
just north of a place in the mountains called Franconia Notch.
(08:44):
They got out, they looked through binoculars, couldn't quite figure
out what it was, but it definitely seemed odd. It
wasn't another star. Uh. They thought maybe it was a plane, um,
but weren't weren't quite sure what to think. Got back
in the are They started to head down through Franconia Notch,
which is this area that cuts between uh these two
(09:07):
sort of sets of mountains. Um, it's very very steep
on either side. It feels it feels pretty um claustrophobic.
They pulled up to a place called the Old Man
in the Mountain, which uh is no longer there. It
actually uh crashed to the ground in two thousand and three,
I think, but it used to be this this sort
of natural rock formation that looked like an old Man.
(09:30):
And they saw an actual craft at this point with
with lights and it was hovering and it wasn't making
any noise, and so they looked at it and then
it it left again and they got back into their car,
and then you know, the hearts are pounding. They keep
driving south through Fanconia Notch, stopping every once in a
while to to see if they can see it. And
(09:52):
they get a little bit further south near a tourist
area called Indian Head, which is another sort of natural
rock formation that looks a tiny bit I guess, like
an Indian head. And then you know, they feel this
thing whoosh over their car. They stop their car in
the middle of the highway. I mean this is at
night in very world New Hampshire, so there's almost no traffic,
(10:13):
there's no ambient light, and they see a craft hovering
above a field. Barney gets out. Uh, he approaches the
craft with binoculars and sees beings looking back at him.
He panics, runs back to the car. They take off
down the highway. Uh, there's a sense that the UFO
(10:34):
is following them. It's like sort of hovering above them
as they move. Uh, they feel this here, this buzzing noise,
and feel like a little bit of a tinge in
their bodies. And then about thirty miles further down the
road they kind of come to you know, they haven't
said anything, they're not really clear of time passing, but
suddenly they're down by uh this town Ashelynd, New Hampshire,
(10:59):
and they wonder what happened. And so they've had this
strange experience and they drive home basically straight from there.
They make a quick stop trying to get some coffee,
but they end up arriving home, uh two or three
hours later than they're expecting to arrive home. They get there,
they unpacked their car. They notice a few interesting things.
(11:21):
They Betty's dresses torn, Barney's shoes are scoffed, their watches
have stopped at identical times, and they they called Betty's sisters.
Neighbor was a physicist, and they for whatever reason, Betty
thinks that maybe he'll have some insight into this. He
(11:41):
suggests they go and they put a compass over uh
their car to see if there's any strange magnetism. UH.
They apparently do this over the trunk where these bright
spots and the compass starts spinning wildly. So there was
all these little pieces of what they considered to be
evans that something strange had happened during that time. And
(12:04):
then about ten days later, Betty has this series of
very very intense nightmares about being brought aboard UH an
alien spacecraft and having sort of a medical examination done
to her on the spacecraft by aliens, and it is
(12:24):
very disturbed by this. She tells this story UH to
a variety of people, including her supervisor. She apparently, I
guess used to have tea with her supervisor and her sister,
and she she tells him about these nightmares she's having,
and her supervisor, uh, for whatever reason, says, you know,
(12:47):
maybe you know, maybe they're not just nightmares. Maybe you're
actually remembering something that actually happened really really quickly. So
this is so, I mean, this is you're you're going
through like all of these things that have happened and
so far through all of this except with the exception
of a few extra people there. These are the personal
experiences of two people and the stories that we're getting
(13:09):
from two points of view right there, or were the
only two people that we are to believe right now,
curly are Betty and Barney about what's happened besides the
neighbor and you know the supervisor right right, So there
wasn't any other sort of corroborating witness to see anything
that night they did, you know, they pretty immediately started
(13:32):
telling people about what they had seen, you know, So
it's not this isn't something where two years later there's like, oh,
by the way, you know, two years ago we saw
this thing. They they get in touch with a UFO
investigation group called Nightcap, which was pretty big at the time, um,
and they send an astronomer to come and interview them, um,
(13:53):
and he writes up a report. But at the time,
it really is the extent of it is seeing this
light in the sky and then having this very very
intense experience in this field by the Indian Head resort
and then heading home. And that's kind of what they remember, uh,
(14:16):
served consciously throughout the whole thing, and they you know,
they draw a picture of what they saw. Betty writes
down a narrative of her dreams nightcap. By the way,
for anyone who's interested, was a thing called the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, and it was active roughly
nine fifties to the nineteen eighties. So this was a
(14:36):
real this was a real prime time heyday for the organization.
I guess we would sum up then for our or
look at these unusual instances. So so Betty and Barney
see this anomalous thing. Uh. They also, uh, when they
(14:56):
kind of come to out of a fugue state, they've
lost time. Would it be fair to say that from
their account they have lost time? Yeah, they absolutely think that.
I think sort of the the unusual nature of the
whole experience makes the lost time part of it seemed
not as like that seems to kind of fall back
(15:17):
as compared to seeing, uh, you know, a spacecraft in
the middle of a field, but as time kind of
goes on um, and especially after she has those dreams,
that is something they're like, huh, you know, that is
kind of weird that it took an extra two hours
to get home. What what went on there? I'd like
to maybe bracket this just for a second, because what
(15:40):
what you've just outlined, uh succinctly and and very well
is the is the order of events in which they
occur that we that we know for sure per Betty
and Barney. For many people this would probably remain the
most in explicable, strangest experience of their adult lives. But
(16:04):
this is just sort of the beginning of the tale.
And one thing I like, without spoiling strange arrivals, one
thing I I was surprised to find and fascinated by,
was there's a segment early on in the podcast where
you talk a bit about your own personal experience. I
think it's at the very beginning of the very first episode.
(16:28):
Could you could you tell us a little bit just
so we have something to compare with Betty and Barney.
Could you tell us a little bit about your experience
and what you see as differences or commonalities and maybe
whether that inspired you to pursue this show. Yeah, so,
um strange arrivals. Actually it starts with me talking about
(16:49):
uh an experience and experiences is maybe putting it too strongly, Uh,
but uh, I was having So my family's got a
place up on an eye is land in a lake
in New Hampshire called Lake Winnipesake, which is you know,
it's about an hour and a half, two hours from
where Betty and Barney had their experience. And it was
(17:11):
right around dusk and we were having uh dinner and
drinks with a couple who are old friends of ours,
my wife and I and uh my wife saw these
red lights sort of hovering above, you know, sort of
the hills that you can see, uh from the porch
(17:31):
of our house. You know, it was just strange. You know,
I've been going up there for fifty years and I
hadn't seen anything quite like that before. And it was
enough that we we walked down from the porch, we
walked onto our dock to get a better look and
you know, the number of lights. I believe it started
with four and probably got up to about seven red lights.
(17:53):
And they were kind of moving around and it wasn't
clear you know, there there's some distance away, there was
no noise, and it wasn't clear if there are individual
things that were moving or whether it was a larger
thing that was kind of you know, moving in its
aspect to us, so that we were getting a different
view of what it was. I mean, that was sort
(18:14):
of the illusion that we had. And I just I
just I checked. My wife was checking. She wrote some
notes about this afterwards. Uh, and we watched it for
twenty minutes, you know, so it was a good long
time that we were watching this, you know, and it
never got to be more than just lights. You know,
we never saw like an outline of anything or ane
of the lights seemed to have uh you know, more
(18:36):
to them. So what's what's kind of interesting is, you know,
while we're watching this, my buddy and I are like,
how I wonder what that is? And my wife and
and my buddy's wife were like, oh, yeah, that's definitely
that's what those are. That's an alien spacecraft, like no
doubt about it. And then you know, if you talk
to us now, like my buddy and I are, the
(18:58):
way we remember it ending is the lights just kind
of blinked out one by one, like they just kind
of disappeared. And uh, my wife and and uh and
my buddy's wife are both say that they took off
at high speeds. You know, they just kind of took
off and disappeared. But there was movement involved. It wasn't
(19:19):
just blinking out. So this has been a source of
of some some dispute at various times after a few libations, um.
And so that was kind of it was an interesting
question to me. It's like, why did half of us
believe right off the bat, It's like, wow, that must
(19:40):
be something extraterrestrial, and then half of us were like,
it could be just about anything, have no clue what
it is, but it's definitely not that um. And that
was kind of what got me thinking about these kinds
of questions in general, like why are some people uh
skeptical about these things? Why are the people more prone
(20:01):
to believe these things when you're looking at exactly the
same thing. Right, the evidence that we had was identical.
And then based on that that first instinct, our memories
of what happened are are are very different. It's really fascinating.
The whole idea of like the fallibility of memory, I
think is a really interesting spin on this, And especially
(20:22):
when it was sort of split between the believers and
the nonbelievers as to how you actually visually, you know,
interpreted this information like and then took that and created like,
you know, this is this is this is this phenomenon.
I absolutely believe it. It's not such a leap to
think that. It's just really interesting to me that And
so what where did you guys land on that? Like
(20:43):
when you like, what do these debates sound like over
a few drinks like that? How do you make your case?
Was it just okay I canna this podcast? Yeah? Well
you know it's uh, you know, nobody budgets Basically, you know,
people dig in their heels and we have another beer
and we dig in our heels even further. And uh,
there really hasn't been any kind of movement towards the
(21:05):
center from anybody. I mean, you just the memories, the
memory um and and that's kind of what made it
compelling to me. Um. And when I was talking to
my friend about this podcast. He had the same same feeling.
It's like it is, it is super strange that we all,
you know, at this point it's what like six years ago.
(21:25):
It's not that long, UM, but our memories of it
are just are so different, and there's just no gift
to anybody. Everybody is very clear about what they remember.
So I was trying to figure out a way of like,
how do you approach like examining this, UM And that
(21:46):
was when I kind of latched onto the Betty and
Partey hillcase. Uh, partly because I live UM in the
same town as the University of New Hampshire and they've
got the Betty and Partney Hill papers and um a
lot of other kinds of documents, audio documents, video documents, uh, photographs,
(22:07):
So it seemed like it seemed like kind of a
natural as a way of taking a look at it,
because it does bring up a lot of the same
issues about you know, perception and memory and how how
do you approach how do you approach making sense of
things that that you experience that don't have an obvious explanation.
(22:28):
And we'll be back with our discussion with Toby Ball
after a word from our sponsor welcome back to the show.
Now let's keep you on with this conversation. You know,
we're we're talking about belief here. Something Ben has stated
on this podcast before. I'm gonna paraphrase, But each of
(22:53):
our understandings of the world, it's only the information that
we've ever taken in, right, You. We can't no things
necessarily that we've never accepted it like as as information
into our brains. So each of us has that different
perspective of all the information we know and then applying
(23:13):
it to what we're observing. Right, That's kind of what
you're exploring here. But the story really takes a turn
at the point where we left off a little while
ago there when we're getting into the concept of digging
into someone's brain, putting someone back into a fugue like state,
(23:34):
and digging through their brain to pull out new information
that hasn't been stated as a memory. Right. Yeah, That's
that's why I would ask you specifically, Toby, um, do
you think that, uh say, hypnotic regression might help solve
this long standing disagreement about what you saw? I would
(23:57):
it would be interesting to find out I uh my
sense is having uh talked to a lot of people
about hypnotic regression at this point is that we would
probably probably I'll tell the exact same stories. It's your
your recall through hypnotic regression is it's it's making it's
made with the same sort of fallible things that you're
(24:18):
conscious memory is made of, you know, when you're when
you're thinking about things. So it's it's taking the same
basic elements but just in sort of a different state
of consciousness to recreate them. And I didn't want to,
uh apologize if I'm derailing the conversation here, guys, but
I do mean it as, let's say, um sixty joking
(24:39):
with you and well what if, because that's, uh, that's
exactly what you're setting up, Matt, right, like the the
idea that the Hills eventually um and I think we
we have a little bit of a of a time
gap there, but eventually, uh, how inspired in part by
Betty's dream journal, inspired of course by these unusual events,
(25:01):
they they also uh turned to hypnosis. Right, is it
hypnotic regressions specifically or just I'm not a hypnotist. I
don't know the difference. So Barney had already had um
some anxiety issues and I believe it's already seeing a therapists.
(25:22):
But regardless of whether he was before or not, he
does end up seeing a therapist, but they're not really
talking about alien stuff. They're talking about other issues in
his life. But he does bring up this this thing
that happened um, and his therapist recommends that you go
down and see a psychiatrist uses hypnosis, whose name is
(25:44):
Dr Benjamin Simon, who's very well known for working with
returning soldiers who had PTSD. It wasn't known as PTSC
at the time, but but that's what it was. So
they go down there and and they do regression hypnosis.
So what he as as he says, you know, cast
yourself back to this date, tell me what happened. And
(26:06):
so they start to go through this story, and he
starts them off in in Montreal and going on the
different steps of the journey. But what they what they
find is that after this buzzing noise that I talked about,
after they have this uh sort of intense experience with
the UFO in the field, they both tell sort of
(26:27):
versions from their own viewpoints of this same story of
their driving down the highways Route three, they take a
turn off for some reason they don't really know why.
They take another turn onto a dirt road where they're
stopped by six figures in the road and they see
(26:48):
this glowing light behind them, and you know, they're they're
not quite clear what's going on. But Barney turns off
the car and then can't turn it back on again,
and the figures break into two groups come and take
them from their car and bring them on to a
bring him through the woods and onto a spacecraft. Yeah,
(27:11):
they they get on a spacecraft and don't the don't
the people talk to them while they're being pulled out
like it's it's interesting in that. So one of the
things that comes out of all this is Betty has
this very detailed, uh story about this whole thing. Barney
(27:33):
has a much less detailed story, and they both sort
of agree that that he was sort of put under
the alien control and then he had his eyes closed
and it was very scared. She, on the other hand, um,
you know, ends up talking to them, um, and there
was one who speaks English with an English accent, she says,
(27:53):
sort of a foreign English accent, and he's sort of
trying to reassure her that it's gonna be fine. We're
just gonna take you aboard the spaceship. You don't have
to worry, and then we'll bring you back and no
harm will come of you. And you know, she's wary,
as I think anybody would be about being brought onto
an alien spacecraft. But they do. They bring them aboard,
(28:15):
and they separate them into different rooms and uh they
undergo you know, medical uh, medical examinations at the hands
of a alien who they call the physician um. And
he doesn't speak English either. There's there's the leader who
speaks English, the physician who does the medical exams, and
(28:38):
then there's a whole bunch of you know, six or
seven sort of crew members or whatever who speak amongst
each other, but not in English or any language that
you know a human would understand. Now you mentioned, you know,
the divide that is obviously even in in listeners to
the show, and even between the three of us, between
(29:00):
you know, belief and skepticism um. And you know some
people can kind of their grades of that obviously, and
you can change over over the course of your life.
Have you found that this research and and looking into
the story and going deeper has changed you a little bit?
In terms of your belief or or made you more skeptical. Um,
that's a really interesting question. I feel as though I've
(29:23):
become more skeptical of my own memories of things that
seem that seemed real. UM. And I can kind of
give you a quick example. I my my sister has
a story up at that same island place where when
she was young, you know, three or four, opening the
door from our kitchen to the outside and seeing a
(29:46):
raccoon hanging from a screen and freaking out and then
having nobody believe her. And I have this absolutely crystal
clear memory of being in the kitchen when that happened,
in her opening the door and looking and seeing her
back and then seeing the raccoon hanging from the screen.
But it seems that that almost certainly did not happen.
(30:09):
It seems that she told me that story, and I,
you know, I was able to picture it in my
head so clearly that now it seems like this absolutely
concrete memory that oh yeah, I was there when my
sister opened the door and saw the raccoon. But based
on her memory of it, like, we both can't be right,
and I'm pretty sure she's probably the one who is
And I just imagine that happening so much. Uh, So
(30:31):
that's really been you know, more than I would have
expected myself too. I've really taken a look at things
that have happened in the past that I feel as
though I remember pretty well but don't necessarily feel consistent
with with other pieces of reality, um, and then sort
(30:51):
of questioning if my memory of that is accurate. So
that that's really been you know, it's been kind of
an eye opener, quite honestly. And then when you apply
it to the other part of my other podcasting stuff,
which is about you know, true crime, and you think
about you know, people going in front of going out
trial and having these witnesses with these people's lives in
(31:14):
their hands, and just knowing that their memories are probably
not as accurate as they think they are. Is Uh,
it's sobering. We talked about this all the time, and
you know, we've all worked on true crime shows as well,
but how eyewitness accounts are typically just awful. They're the
worst kinds, but they can absolutely convict somebody or if
you point somebody out in a lineup. And then we've
(31:35):
seen you know, experiments where people um don't remember faces
or they kind of twist it to fit their own narrative,
or maybe they really want someone to go down for
something and so they convinced themselves that that's the guy
that did this or whatever. I mean, it's really fascinating
the way we're able to almost delude ourselves, Like your
raccoon story is a form of that. It's it's less conscious,
(31:56):
but you basically invented a narrative by believing something so
much that you created this image in your mind that
seemed very very real. But now you've accepted Okay, I
think that was just It sort of speaks to the
power of belief, really, and how we're able to kind
of fool ourselves and trick ourselves into thinking that things
are are happening are real when they're absolutely not. We'll
(32:18):
be back with more from Toby Ball after a word
from our sponsor and we're back. So I want to
follow up with a question here. To me, one thing
that's fascinating about the raccoon story is, Toby, have you
(32:40):
ever heard of something called the Mandela effect? I don't
think so. So. Uh, maybe fifty years from now you
and I will look back and think that we both
did remember it because it's a uh, it's it's this
fascinating concept that's very close to what what we're talking
about today. Um wherein people can become convinced in a
(33:04):
group that something has happened and it didn't occur. It's
named the Mandela effect because the person who named it
they were in a group of people who were certain
that they knew um Nelson Mandela had or had not
died and exactly when that happened, and they were so
surprised that this was not the case at least in
(33:24):
their current timeline, that instead of just saying, well, maybe
we were wrong about it, they've doubled down and said
maybe they're having a memory from a different timeline. The
stupidest version of that is that there's a whole contingent
of people that believe Shaquille O'Neil played a genie named
Shazam in a movie, but it was actually Kazam I
(33:47):
think was the name of the movie. If I'm mistaken,
and it wasn't Shaquila no Sinbad, but it was actually
Shaquille O'Neil, And correct me on that one then. But
that's my favorite example of this. There's another one with
the baron Stein Bears versus the Baron's Stain Bears. So
many people believe it's spelled st e i N and
in their minds that's like just that's all it's ever been.
It's always been the Barren steam Bears, but it's actually
(34:09):
the Barren Stain Bears. It's interesting. I was actually tripped
up on that one a few years ago. Somebody pointed
that out to me. We did a whole episode on it,
and I don't think we've ever had more feedback episode
besides maybe the what the sleep paralysis episode maybe been?
I think maybe we got right right Matt sleep paralysis.
(34:31):
It's interesting because both the Mandela effect, the what I've
always called like the treachery of memory, and sleep paralysis, uh,
the situation wherein people experience vivid things, often nightmares, or
the sensation that they are not in control of their
body while they attempt to slumber. Those both could relate,
in a way, however, indirectly to the case of Barney
(34:54):
and Betty Hill. More skeptical people in the audience, for instance,
might say that perhaps Betty was experiencing some form of
sleep paralysis in her dreams. But what we like Toby.
The question about the dreams is fascinating to me because
they're a whole other world. What did Betty just have
(35:15):
like a short run of bad dreams or where they
recurring dreams? Did they change? What do we know about
her dreams? So it's interesting she actually wrote them down
in a document called Dreams or Recall, So she was
already kind of thinking about, you know, is this dreams
or is this actual memories of something that happened that
(35:36):
that's been repressed. And so what she said is she
does she doesn't dream them in sort of chronicle order,
of chronological order of of the way they happened. She
dreams them sort of out of order, and then she
puts them into order in this document. And and so
(35:56):
they kind of stitched together, but they don't follow one
after the other. There they kind of bounce around a
little bit. And I don't know, like I haven't come
up with anything that goes into any more detail on
on how that all worked. You basically just get you know,
this is my compiling these five dreams in a way
that sort of makes narrative sense going forward. And and
(36:20):
so it's this, you know, it's this I imagine quite
distressing a series of dreams again about being aboard a
spacecraft and and being under the control of alien visitors
and having them, you know, examine you, and and really
(36:41):
you know, you're you're sort of powerless in the face
of their technology, and they also seem to have some
kind of physical control over you, even if they're not
holding on. It's interesting how that scenario always is kind
of the trope of alien abductions. Like I kind of
wonder what the first one that has ever reported was
you happen to know anything about the history of this
(37:03):
scenario of being you know, probed or examined, Like it
didn't just come out of nowhere, you know, like whether
even if it's made up, is somebody made it up first.
I'm fascinated by how this is a repeating story we
see all the time with these abduction um remembrances. I
guess so. I think that's one of the interesting thing
about this case is that there really wasn't anything quite
(37:25):
like it beforehand, and this sort of sets the narrative
going forward, you know, And and so most abduction cases
that follow are are playing off this to a certain extent,
And and you know, it's like anything else where. It
escalates and escalates and escalates, and then you end up
in the eighties and nineties with you know, people being
(37:45):
de materialized through walls and you know, uh, you know,
tens or hundreds of thousands of people being abducted. But
before Betty and Barney Hill, there's really only one case
that was not well known own at the time, and
it took place in Brazil, and it was this guy
named Antonio Villis Bois who was abducted and brought on
(38:09):
a UFO and and sort of a little twist on
this has a a sort of sexual, uh sexual encounter
with a alien like this small female alien with bright
red hair who you know, screams like an animal and
rubs her belly and points up to the stars and
(38:31):
he takes it to me and she's gonna take their
baby back to her home planet, I guess, to raise
him or whatever. This hadn't really made it to uh,
the US unless you were like a real UFO aficionado.
So son Betty and Barney, Um, and I think there
is a question that that hasn't been answered about why
(38:53):
this sort of medical exam in particular, h she talks
about having a needle uh, plug into our navel with
the idea that it has something to do with reproduction
or pregnancy. Different people have different I think hypotheses, and
I think you can kind of, you know, guess what
they are about why they would why should be sort
(39:16):
of fixated on that in particular. But I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, nobody's I haven't read anything
where people are like, this is why these two people
in particular would be this concerned about, you know, sexual
matters when you're on board a spaceship. So it's just
a really good question, and I'm not sure what the
answer is. If there's something deeper, I want to get
(39:37):
into that and try and tie it back to their
work in the civil rights movement and like try and
compare or somehow find a way to compare that. But
before we do that, we're talking about the how influential
this story was from the you know, the abduction experience,
what actually happens when you're abducted, but also the the
(40:00):
extra supposed extraterrestrials that did the abducting there the descriptions
of them change quite a bit. Right over the course
of the oldest stories from Betty and Barney. Yeah, yeah. Um.
So when it first happened, immediately following their sighting on
(40:21):
on September nine, they describe seeing, you know, basically humans
looking back at them, humans who are wearing uniforms, um,
who are wearing caps some of them. And so that's
about what you get up until the point where they
undergo hypnosis. And then there's a slight change and part
(40:42):
of it is under hypnosis. Um. You know, when Barney's
describing being in the in the field and looking at
these beings looking back at him, he describes two of
these beings. One he describes as looking like an irishman, um.
And he worked in Boston, and as an African American,
(41:03):
it was very clear that he saw Irish as being
sort of agents of racial animosity. Uh. So this is
like a stressful image to him. The other one he
describes as a Nazi. So again it's this sort of
a figure that would cause him anxiety. Um. And he
(41:24):
actually talks in radio interviews about how he didn't feel
that they were sinister, but that the situation itself was sinister.
But the way he describes them, certainly to me, sort
of indicates that at some level he thought it was
they were sinister. But this changes when they go aboard
the UFO and he he talks about you know, basically
(41:48):
you know what you would think of as a gray
or sort of like a proto gray of like you know,
the slit mouth and the very small nose or almost
non existent nose, and uh, you know, the big eyes.
And he even goes he has this very weird thing
about there being a film over the mouth that makes
this kind of weird, you know, slurpy kind of noise. Uh,
(42:09):
and it's very you know, it would be an alarming
thing to open your eyes up to. Betty, on the
other hand, and her dreams, talks about them as little
guys with big noses like Jimmy Duranty, and people kind
of say, well, she heard what Barney's description was and
kind of changes her story a little bit to fit his,
(42:32):
uh not to mention the fact that you know, people's
reaction is is that it's like, oh, like Jimmy Durranty
and you chuckle, like aliens like Jimmy Durranty, How's that happened?
So they come out of this doing doing all this
hypnosis with this basic idea of sort of what the
aliens look like, and it's sort of on the way
(42:52):
to being what we think of now as a typical alien.
And they spend some time trying to refine this, and
they end up working with a New Hampshire artists named
David Baker in the late sixties, and he's sketching drawings
of of what Betty and Barney think they look like.
And they're getting back to him, they're like, see sketches,
(43:14):
and they'll get back and they'll they'll say, you know,
make these changes. This isn't this is the stuff that
was wrong. And then he'll get back with a new um,
a new sketch, and they actually, you know, if at
the UNH Library, University of New Hampshire Library, they've got
the copies of those um those sketches, and they're they're
(43:34):
really they're they're a little bit spooky, like in all honesty,
and they're just kind of hazy and vague enough that
they're very evocative of this idea that you're kind of
like trying to bring up a memory um in a
way that I thought was really kind of cool and interesting.
And the other the other piece that they try to
put together to sort of document their memories of this
(43:58):
is this strange little bust called JR. And it was
something that Betty commissioned a woman named Marjorie Fish, who
plays a big part in the story in another way,
to create and it's it's like a little bust of
a gray, you know, like a primitive version of a gray.
(44:23):
And it's about the size of a small human head.
I've held it. It's got a little hole in the
back from where she knocked it off pedestal during a
talk she was giving in Cincinnati, and it's it's just
a very very odd thing, but but it is. I mean,
that's that's what she says is the closest representation to
what she saw during that experience and that classic kind
(44:46):
of gray alien image that is just so ubiquitous and
pop culture. Now this is kind of the origin of that,
Like this is really where that kind of came into existence.
The story. Yeah, so this is the first time I
think it's been put forward as being a um, you know,
an actual alien, like I saw an alien and that's
what it looked like. There's been uh people have tried
(45:10):
to say where where did they get this vision? And
they point to a there's an episode of the Outer
Limits that ran just a couple of weeks before they
started Hypnosis, and it was called the Bolero Shield. And
it's got this alien in it that kind of looks
(45:31):
like a gray It looks very loosely. Yeah, I mean,
I think you the only way you can really make
it work is if you try and describe it and
then somebody hears it and then they draw something that
sort of looks a little bit like it. You might
come up with the gray, but it's not so close.
And then I've actually heard Brian Dunning from Skeptoid had
(45:52):
heard from somebody that there was another Twilight Zone episode
that was about a year and a half before that
that was called, um, hocus Pocus and Frisbee that has
another similar kind of I mean, this is all this
is stuff from like, you know, the early sixties. So
the alien is basically a guy in a mask, and
(46:15):
I think in hocus Pocus and Frisbee, he's actually wearing
a suit while he's being an alien. Uh, And it's
it's all, it's kind of ridiculous, but it does have
the basic idea of big eyes, not much of a nose,
just a little slip for a mouth. So for what
it's worth. Another fascinating detail that ends up coming out
(46:37):
of the hypnosis session sessions and the memories then that
are kind of brought back from the time that Betty
I think it is particularly Betty when the time that
she supposedly spent on this spacecraft UM was that she
saw some kind of dotted lights or line of light
(47:00):
which she interpreted to be I believe a star map.
Is that correct? Yeah? So while she's after she gets
her exam, uh, she apparently gets quite comfortable uh and
starts having a conversation with this alien. She calls the
leader and she asked him, you know where did where
did you come from? And his response is to sort
(47:25):
of pull out this what they call a star map
UM and apparently is in some ways a three D
type thing UM. Regardless, he pulls it out and she says, well,
which one is yours? And he says, well, can you
point out where your son is on on this map?
(47:46):
And she says now, and he says, well, then it
doesn't make any difference, right, like, you know, you can't
orient yourself, So he puts it away. So she tells
this story under hypnosis and Dr Simon, Uh, the hypnotist.
It's just intrigued by it, and says, you know, sometime
when you're not hypnotized, if you if you want to,
(48:09):
why don't you draw that map that you saw. So
she draws the map later, and it's you know, I
think it's twenty one sort of circles of various sizes,
and some of them are connected by lines, and some
of them are connected by more than one line. And
so this is a star map. So this is supposed
(48:29):
to be a exact replica of what she saw on board.
And what makes it the really interesting part of the
story is that this woman, Marjorie Fish, the very same
Marjorie Fish who did the bust of Junior the alien.
She looks at it and thinks, maybe I can use
(48:49):
that to determine where the aliens came from, Like what's
the what's the vantage point in the galaxy from which
this map was made. So this isn't the pre you know,
home computer age. So what she does is she gets
uh the latest information on stars and their distance from
(49:12):
the Earth and each other um and she makes these
really really elaborate models of the near galaxy in her
living room. And what she does is she puts you know,
black paper or fabric around the walls, and then from
the ceiling she hangs beads from thread and it's all
(49:34):
done with these like super exact measurements to get them
as close as possible to exactly where they would be
in space based on what we knew. Then you know
this is you know, this takes place over a course
of years, and I think she does twenty or twenty
one different models, and then she takes a camera and
(49:55):
she's taking pictures from different angles, right, so she's trying
to get it to match, get a picture that will
match the star map. And so she gets to a
point it's very you know, as you can imagine, it's
very detailed, exacting, frustrating work. She can't find a match.
And then um, this new uh astronomy catalog sort of
(50:22):
the astronomy Bible at the time comes out and it's
identified a few new stars and there's three stars that
when she adds them to one of her models, it
fits the star map. Um, and then so you know what,
what's her proponents of the Hills story say, is you
(50:42):
know that Matt wouldn't have existed as humans couldn't have
made that map with what they knew at the time
that she drew it, Like you had to have had
advanced understanding of the location of different stars in order
to create that map. Um. So yeah, she she identified
they're sort of uh stars of origin as Zeta Reticuli,
(51:07):
which is a a binary star system which she thought
could sustain a planet that could have life. So it's really,
you know, uh completely sort of obsessive quest to uh
find a match in something that would be really daunting
(51:27):
today with computers, but back then when you're just like
literally hanging beads from a ceiling. Uh, it is unbelievable.
And the pictures there's no pictures on the internet, um,
but there are, or at least that I could find.
But they do have a lot of those pictures at
the University of New Hampshire Special Collections and I've I've
checked them out, um, and it's it's really it's quite something.
(51:51):
It's interesting because it reminds me of the old, the
older story of the Dogon tribe that um, I think
this was actually after or the Betting and Barney hillcase.
You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but the
Dogon tribe had a similar experience being able to UM
name stars or star system, a serious system that was,
(52:15):
according to the tail uh, something that human technology was
not at the time able to view. UH. And it's
strange to me because, you know, like someone else pointed
out earlier, we're seeing tropes there. And now that we
know this story for the Dogon may have happened or
come to attention after the Betty and Barney Hill story,
(52:38):
we have to we have to ask ourselves just how
profoundly the experience of these folks has has informed UFO
of folklore UFO. UM. I don't even want to say tropes,
but you know, has informed the commonalities that people say
they experience. When you're in the course of your research
(52:58):
here uh and you're you're finding all these exclusive materials
that are, as you said, uh, not available on the
internet or not widely available. Have you run into other
people researching this story, or if you had anybody, um,
anybody contact you with some kind of exclusive or some
(53:19):
kind of what they feel is an insight. I guess
what I'm asking Toby is have you had other people
who feel they've experienced an abduction reach out to you? Uh?
Not yet, although I I feel so that may come
at some point in the future as we as strange
arrivals kind of continues on. Um, yeah, I haven't. It's
(53:42):
the Betty and Barney Hill archives are as you imagine
the most sort of viewed things that they have at
the University of New Hampshire. There's a big UFO conference
in Exeter, New Hampshire, which is about twenty minutes away.
Uh So during that sort of week slash weekend, a
(54:02):
lot of people come in and if only to see
like the Junior Boss star Betty's torn dress, which is
also there. Um, it's sort of a pilgrimage. Um. But yeah,
I haven't. I haven't anybody reach out to me yet,
but I'll keep you in the loop if I do.
Please do because towards the end of this episode, we're
(54:23):
going to tell people where to find you, ha ha,
which is actually guys, what we're about to do now. Um,
really quickly, if you do want to check out the
special collections at the University of New Hampshire, if you
cannot physically go there, you can go to Library dot
(54:43):
U n H dot e D. You just do a
little search within there for Betty and Barney Hill and
you'll see the special collections that they have. Um, they've
really it's it's really just kind of a list of
the materials that are available there and like which box
they're in and where you can find them if you're
physically there. But it's a great list of things as
(55:04):
well as just some overall information about the the case.
I actually I believe they're going to be digitizing making
some of it available digitally over the next few months.
So depending on how quickly people are listening to this,
there may be more stuff there. At the very bottom
of the page of that special Collection of Betty Barney Hill,
(55:26):
there is a picture of the alien bust if you
want to go and see what that looks like. So
if you want to do that, you know, if you
want to learn more about this story, then just listen
to Strange Arrivals. That would be my recommendation. Uh. We
kind of talked about the experience, the sonic experience you're
gonna get in that show. Um, we really think it's
worth your time. It feels like you're there. There's like
(55:49):
some recreations that have been done correct where it makes
you feel like you're with Betty and Barney, um, and
you're aren't there actual isn't their actual hypnosis tape in
the show too? Yeah, there's a in a couple of instances,
we do have the actual hypnosis tape um that we play. Uh,
(56:10):
there's a part where Betty's talking about being taken from
the car and being brought aboard the ship, um Barney
experiencing uh the UFO in the in the in the field. Wow. Yeah,
So if you want to do that? What should what
should people do to find you? And Strange arrivals? Toby, So,
strange arrivals, uh, you know, should be available on whatever
(56:34):
podcast app you use. Uh, if you want to, uh
get in touch with me, I'm on Twitter at Toby
Ball n H and my website is Toby ball dot com. Awesome. Well, hey,
thank you so much for joining us and talking about
this really really interesting case. I'm glad that you're making
the show you're making because I want to know more
(56:56):
and I'm sure a lot of us do. Agreed. Agreed,
And also thanks for the solid Outer Limits and Twilight
Zone Rex in this episode. And if you can, I
don't know if you can see my background, but I
changed it to the uh hocus Pocus and Frisbee alien
kind of scheme mask looking dude, but he really does
have the two kind of almond shaped eyes and the
(57:16):
two little nostrils. Actually, now I'm noticing which I think
is a pretty key part of the gray face facial structure.
So I'm actually kind of on board with this having
been an influence for for those descriptions now that I'm
looking at it. Yeah, you check it out online. Uh,
you can if you put into Google that they've got
pictures of it. It's you know, it's getting there. It's
(57:41):
getting there, and we are getting to the end of
today's episode. Please check out Strange Arrivals. Don't take our
word for it, experience it yourself wherever podcasts are available.
We also like to hear your stories about allegations of
extraterrestrial activity at UFO Sightings. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. We are conspiracy stuff on most of those
(58:04):
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what happens with the social media. We joke about it
all the time, and our n s a intern definitely
you know, appreciates these jokes, I'm sure every week. But
if you want to give us a call, we are
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(58:28):
You can leave a message, talk to us about this episode,
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