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March 31, 2020 • 26 mins

Driving through northern New Hampshire on a clear fall night in 1961, Betty and Barney Hill spotted a light in the sky that seemed to be following them. As they navigated mountain roads, the light came increasingly closer until the Hills found themselves face to face with a craft unlike any they had seen. Thus began one of the most famous encounters in UFO lore.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart Radio and
Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. At dusk in early August,
I saw lights in the sky. My wife and I
were having dinner with another couple. We were at my

(00:24):
family's summer cottage on an island in Lake Winnipesauke. My
wife saw them first, four or five red lights hovering
above the horizon. It's impossible to say how far away
they were. It was dark, and it's hard to estimate
distances over water anyway, but they were at least a
few miles off, probably more. We walked down from the

(00:48):
porch and onto the dock. The lights moved slowly. They
would be in one shape and then shift to another.
At some point, two or three other lights material realized.
We watched for several minutes. Four years later, we all
have different memories about how it ended. I still don't

(01:10):
know what we saw that night in the New Hampshire sky.
One person agreed with me that it was probably something ordinary,
we just couldn't figure out what. But the other two
shared a different opinion. They thought it was probably a UFO,
something from outer space. We also can't agree on how

(01:31):
the night ended. Those of us looking for an earthly explanation,
remember the lights blinking out one by one, as though
they had lost power. Those who thought the lights were extraterrestrial,
remember them flying off at great speeds. Nobody is budging
on their memory. This incident was the colonel that began

(01:53):
this podcast. If we all witnessed the same event, why
would two of us think aliens and to think anything
but aliens? More crucially, how did this initial assumption change
the way we remembered what we saw. To try to
get an answer to these questions, I decided to take

(02:14):
a look at another sighting, one that took place almost
sixty years ago, at a spot about an hour's drive
from where we stood that night. I'm Toby Ball and
this is Strange Arrivals, Episode one, Falling Star. In September,

(02:54):
John F. Kennedy had been president for eight months, making
it only five months since the Bay of Pike's fiasco.
That same month, Russian cosmonaut Jurger Garan became the first
person in space, prompting President Kennedy to call for a
national initiative to put a man on the Moon by
the end of the decade. Of the world now look
into space to the moon end of the planets beyond.

(03:21):
During that same September, Betty and Barney Hill took a vacation.
The couple lived in Portsmouth, a small city on New
Hampshire's Atlantic coast. They drove west across Massachusetts at New
York State to see Niagara Falls. From there, they crossed
into Canada and visited Toronto. They were planning to drive
east and spend a final night in Montreal before returning home,

(03:44):
but that plan changed. Barney Hill was African American. He
worked a graveyard shift as a distribution clerk in the
South Boston Postal Annex. Every day he made a grueling
two hour commute from their home in Portsmith to the north.
His wife, Betty Hill, was white. She was a social

(04:05):
worker for the state of New Hampshire. Both were active
in the community, particularly on the issue of civil rights.
Barney was an officer in the Portsmouth n Double A
c P, a member of the New Hampshire State Advisory
Board of the U S Civil Rights Commission, and a
member of the board of directors of the Rockingham County
Poverty Program. Betty was involved in the N Double A

(04:27):
c P as well, and was the United Nations envoy
to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Their
civil rights work even earned them an invitation to Lyndon
Johnson's presidential inauguration. In short, they were professionals and respected
members of their community. On the night of September, instead

(04:48):
of spending the night in Montreal as initially planned, Betty
and Barney decided to drive home. Why did they change
their minds depends on who you ask. It could be
that they got lost in Montreal and were unsettled because
they couldn't understand directions given in French, or that they
wanted to get home before tropical Storm Esther arrived in
New England, or maybe they simply ran out of money. Regardless,

(05:14):
they cut their vacations short and headed home. Betty and
Barney re entered the United States at a remote border
crossing near the town of Colebrook, New Hampshire. It was
there they stopped to eat before making their way back
on the road. Two years later, Betty and Barney would
undergo hypnosis to try to recall the strange events of
this night. These sessions were recorded and transcripts made, so

(05:45):
we have a detailed account of Betty and Barney stop
in Colebrook. The recordings, with a couple of exceptions, continue
to be in private hands, but the transcripts are available.
In a couple of places, we will use actual audio
from Betty and Barney's separate hypnosis sessions. In other places,
actors will read from transcripts. And one of these sessions

(06:07):
that took place on February n Barney recalled this visit
to the restaurant performed here by an actor. There is
a dars skinned woman in there. I think dark by
Caucasian standards, and I wonder is she a light skinned

(06:29):
Negro or is she Indian? Or is she white? She
waits on us and she is not very friendly. And
I noticed this, and others are there and they're looking
at me and at Betty, and they seem to be
friendly or please, but the dark skinned woman doesn't. I

(06:52):
wanted them more so is she Negro? And I wonder
if I if if she is wondering, if I if
I know she is me growing and is passing for white.
I eat a Hamburg and I have come in patient
with Betty tonight to drink her coffee so we can
get started. And in the clock on my watch says

(07:12):
five minutes after ten, and I know I should be
in Port Smith. I think by two o'clock. They left
Colebrook heading south on a dark, remote highway. They were
about sixty miles south of the Canadian border when it happened. Well.
Barney was driving, Betty caught something out the window. When

(07:37):
they were about four miles south of Lancaster, New Hampshire,
Betty spotted a new light in the sky. Kathleen Martin
is the director of Experiencer Research for the Mutual UFO
Network or mouf ON. I am also the niece of
Betty and Barney Hill. I was thirteen years old when

(07:57):
they had their experience in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
At first, she thought of a falling star, but she
realized that falling stars don't fall upwards, and that's what
this one was doing. She thought, well, could it possibly
be a satellite? But that didn't make sense either. My
family was interested in the space program, and my grandfather,

(08:19):
brother and I used to go out and look for
satellites at night. They continued to drive south on Route
three through upstate New Hampshire, and she was watching this
light in the sky as it grew larger and larger.
It was a bright light night, so it was easy

(08:40):
to see outside. The moon was about three quarters full.
As she watched this, and it grew larger and larger.
She became very curious, so south of Twin Mountain, she
asked Barnie to stop by the side of the road.
This was at the Mount Cleveland picnic area, and got
out of the car with binoculars and looked up at

(09:03):
this thing in the sky. The perplexing thing is that
it did not make any sound whatsoever. Barney was arguing
that it must be a commercial plane and they simply
couldn't hear it and route to perhaps Montreal or Toronto.
And then this thing, this object bounced back and the

(09:25):
sky toward Barney. He realized it was highly unusual. He
was still attempting to identify it. Betty had already returned
to the car. He got in and said, oh, it's
it's really nothing, It's just a plane. They entered Franconian
Notch State Park, where steep mountains rise on each side

(09:46):
of the road and there are no houses to be seen.
This stretch is one of the most beautiful in New
Hampshire and isolated it can also be claustrophobic, especially at night.
So they proceeded self into Anconia Notch and as they
passed by Cannon Mountain, they got a view of this

(10:08):
object passing over the top of a building on top
of the mountain, and the light in the building blinked
out as it passed by. Strange arrivals will return in
a moment. As they entered Franconia Notch, Betty and Barney

(10:40):
watched as the light that they've been tracking flew over
Cannon Mountain. In a hypnosis transcript read here by an actress,
Betty described losing track of the object. I don't know
if it went down in the valley between the two
mountains or if it turned its light off. And this
puzzled me because I kept looking for it, and then

(11:03):
I thought, well, maybe they're going away. They are and
interested in us. But then we came out by Old
Man of the Mountains, and there it was. The Old
Man in the mountain was a rock formation in Franconian
Notch that looked like the profile of a craggy face.
From the time they lived Mount Cleveland Picnic area. They

(11:24):
perceived that the light was following them The couple made
several brief stops to get a look at it, but
it was there stopped by the old man in the mountain,
that caused a change in their experience. What had been
a point of light in the sky was now a
craft of some sort, a physical object with a shape
and a size, and colored lights, and it made no sound.

(11:46):
They stopped again at the base of the old man
of the mountain. They got out and they looked up
at this thing again through binoculars. The old man's profile,
I believe is forty eight feet from warhead to chimp.
And they then were able to measure the diameter of
this object. They said that it was about one and

(12:09):
a half times, maybe a little more the length of
the old man's profile. That's about seventy five or six
cars lined up back to back. As they're watching it,
it appeared to be lighted on only one side, and
it appeared to be rotating, which was very perplexing. And
then it started to move in a stair step pattern,

(12:33):
this very unusual pattern. Barney, of course, was in a hurry.
He wanted to get home. He was wide awake, he
had been well rested the night before. But they knew
that they could stop for some rest if they grew tired.
At this point about Barney being well arrested would become
a matter of dispute later on. So they got into

(12:56):
the car. They drove self, and as they exited Franconian
Notch and came into North Lincoln, that object swooped down
in the sky, and then they realized that it was
a highly unusual craft. Barney stopped the car in the

(13:17):
center of the highway because the object was overhead, and
the object at first appeared to be about two hundred
feet high, and then it appeared to descend to about
a hundred feet above their vehicle. We saw the object
off in a great distance. It appeared to be winking,
but now that it was closed, it looked as if

(13:38):
there was just one solid band of light and this
was moving back with it. This is Barney interviewed by
Harv Morgan for the Cleveland based radio show Contact on
October three years after the fact. And I had closed
the car down to appoximately five Well, this was very

(13:59):
up Addy, So I came to a complete stop in
the center of the highway. I got out of the
car and I took the binoculis. I rested my left
arm on the door that was opened at the car
door and my right elbow on the roof of the car,
and I tried to look, but the car was motor
was running, so I had to step away. As I
stepped away from the car, the object swung from the

(14:20):
passenger side over to the left, which would have been
the side that I was driving, making a large art
like turn, placing it over a field. Barney was transfixed
by the ship. He walked away from the car and
into the field to a point where he was just
below the craft. There was absolutely no sound associated with

(14:42):
this object. It must have at the time been approximately
a hundred feet up above my head. This would be
about ten stories up. The size of it was about
to approximately if you were looking at a large military
plane or at any commercial airliner. From tail to head.

(15:03):
This is the size of it. As the series of
windows were around it, this is how huge it was.
He trained his binoculars on those windows and saw about
ten figures looking back at him. There was nothing unusual
about them. They did have on what I thought was
a black type shiny uniform similar to the black leather

(15:25):
type jacket you find motorcyclist wearing the one that I
will now for identifying purposes, called a leader, while he
had on a military type cap with surdvisor, while the
others did not. They moved back away from the window.
All this one with the black leather type uniform. I

(15:45):
will say, uniforms continue to look down at me. Well,
thank You want to get earlier that they were pretty
human looking with and you have to consider that looking
at anyone in a window ten stories up with the
binocular the only thing you can discern is that they
looked human and nothing would test about them. Now listen
the last pitch. Did you feel there was anything sinister

(16:07):
about these people? Did you get that impression? Yes, they did,
only that it was a strange situation. And therefore I
have thought of this many times. That is to say,
was there anything sinister about them? Or was it because
of the unusual situation that I was in magnifying my feelings?

(16:27):
I did feel that there was something sinister, strange, unusual
about the whole thing. One of the beings remained at
the window looking at Barney, who looked back through his binoculars.
The others turned away, and from what Barney could see,
she began to pull levers that were attached to a
panel in the wall. This lever pulling seemed to deploy

(16:51):
what Barney described as fan type wings tipped by red lights. Well,
this was too much for me, and I made it
used to be treating to the card, seeming to the
wife that they had seen me, they had seen us,
and we had to get away. Barney sounds very calm

(17:12):
in this interview, but Barney said no secession on February
gives a sense of the trauma of this moment. A warning.
This clip is very emotionally intense. This creature, this leader
is telling me something you're telling yourself. How how is

(17:35):
he getting it to you? I can see it in
his face. See, yes, M telling you And he's looking
at me. What did I tell you? M Stay there

(18:03):
and keep looking, Just keep looking and stay there and
just keep looking. Yes, keep looking? Could you Harry tell
oh I got a pullice binoculis away from my eyes?
Because if I don't, I'll just keep staying there. Look
at Harry tell you lest oh, No, he didn't say it,

(18:25):
you felt you sell? I know you know he's n't there. Yeah,
just stay there, He's saying to be all. I'll think
in my head, all right, pull over, docles away, God
give his all right, God is my God? Give me

(18:51):
his fans backing away? Oh oh oh Again. Barney fled
back to the car in a panic. He was convinced
that the figures on the craft had seen him and

(19:12):
we're going to capture him and Betty. They started driving
south again, trying to get away, and then they heard
a series of beeps coming, it seemed from the rear
of their car. These beeps were very peculiar because it
was much like a pony for being struck in place
to give you a very subtle, typed vibration, and that's

(19:33):
the way the car vibrated. And it was b b
b b b b b beep. And I said to
my wife, my god, what is that? I said, look
out the window. They're right overhead. And she looked out
of the window, but you couldn't see anything. And later
we find out that you couldn't see the sky as well,
so apparently the glasses moved overhead over us. This beeping

(19:56):
noise was followed by a hazy period for both Betty
and Barney, almost as if they dozed off for thirty
miles of driving. They didn't speak with each other. They
had only vague memories of this period, including the impression
that they'd seen something glowing, maybe the moon. And then
thirty five miles further south, we will beat the game.

(20:18):
And this is the only time. My wife and I
then began to communicate with one another by saying, well,
what was it we saw? This is surprising because that
about my mile period we did not discuss anything. They
were unsettled, but they continued towards home. They took a
detour in the conquered the state capital, trying to find

(20:39):
a cup of coffee and a police officer to tell
their story to at that time of the morning. They
found neither. They just drove on to their home in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, expecting to arrive about two o'clock in the morning.
But when they arrived it was already dawn, sun was
streaking the sky. It was start at five o'clock. There's

(21:03):
a two or three hour gap between when Betty and
Barney expected to arrive in Portsmouth and when they actually did.
This quote unquote missing time becomes a key piece of
evidence in support of the Hills story. Betty and Barney
Hill arrived at their home at about five in the

(21:24):
morning on September. They had driven through the night from Montreal.
They had memories of a harrowing experience with the UFO
and were exhausted and distressed. Betty was afraid that the
things that they had in their car might be contaminated.
She wouldn't let Barney bring the bags inside the house.
They threw away the food they had in their cooler,

(21:46):
and then they began to notice strange things, things that
seemed like evidence. Barney went into the house and checked
the time. His watch had stopped running at that point,
so he just reset it and rewounded. The same thing
happened to Betty. Her watch was not running either, even

(22:08):
though she had said it at ten o'clock that evening.
Both watches broke on the same night, within a certain
time frame. Those watches never ran again. Looking for advice,
particularly about possible contamination, Betty called her sister, who had
a neighbor that was a physicist. The neighbor, for some reason,

(22:33):
told Betty that if she had a compass, she should
take it to the car to see how the needle
on the compass would react. Folklore's John Horrigan interviewed Betty
Hill in her home. It was one of the last
interviews she gave. What happens when you look at the car,

(22:54):
Kylie Polish spots are the chuck of the car, really,
and that day it was Louis getting um tropical rains
from a hurricane that was going through, and it was
heavy downfall and didn't affect spots at all. They stayed
there for months. Your sister, who claimed to have seen

(23:15):
a U phone, suggested that you do what went around
the She talked to the physicists who said, go out
with the compass and check out the spots, which we did.
What happened, and the compass was very, very erratic, almost
spinning or just you know, And we tried it other
parts of the cab and it didn't react, but just

(23:35):
near where the spots were, hence the inference being a
magnetic anomaly. Something was was really distorting the magnetic drawal
of the compass. She remembered the strange buzzing noises coming
from the rear of the car from the night before.
She wondered if these spots might be connected to that sound,
and there were more strange clues. Betty's best dress us

(24:00):
that she had been wearing that day was torn in
several places. It was torn at the top of the zipper,
a one inch tear on one side and two inch
tear on the other. It was torn from waste to
ham line. The ham was torn down on one side.
She couldn't understand how this happened as she was sitting
as a passenger in the seat of this vehicle. The

(24:22):
binocular strap on the binoculars that Barney had around his
neck was severed. He couldn't understand why there was vegetative
matter on his clothing. Also, Barney's best dress shoes were
so deeply scraped that he had to buy new shoes.
He was a meticulous dresser, so he used them for

(24:43):
yard work after that. He couldn't understand that either. But
there was no conscious recall for a couple of hours
of their time. Even when they considered the moments that
they stopped to look at this craft, it was very,
very perplexing. The stopped watches, barney scuffed shoes, the spots

(25:09):
on the trunk, and then Betty's torn dress, the broken
binocular strap, the missing time. All these bits of evidence
confirmed to the Hills that what they had experienced that
night was abnormal, but it also seemed that there was
something missing, something forgotten. Two years later, when they would
undergo hypnosis and new memories would emerge, they would find

(25:32):
that there was more to the story next time on
Strange Arrivals. Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart
Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. This episode
was written and hosted by Toby Bowl and produced by

(25:54):
Miranda Hawkins and Josh Thane, with executive producers Alex Williams,
Matt Frederick and and Manky. Betty Hill was portrayed by
Gina Rickike. Barney Hill was portrayed by Jason Williams. Special
thanks to the Milne's Special Collections and Archives at the
University of New Hampshire, John Horrigan, w y A M

(26:16):
in Norwich, Connecticut, John White, and David O'Leary, the executive
producer of the History Channel's dramatic series Project Blue Book.
Learn more about the show over at Grimm and Mile
dot com. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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