April 29, 2020 • 56 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):
From UFOs to psychic 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 I Heart Radio, Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Michig control decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. Interestingly enough, many of our fellow listeners
have written into us on a regular basis over the years,
(00:47):
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 extra terrestrial or even extra dimensional entities. Uh.
And we've we've taken a swing at a lot of it,
but today we're bringing out the big guns. In fact,
(01:10):
you could say today's episode concerns the most important UFO
story in American history. It's a strange, twisting tale. It
begins all the way back in nine one, but it's
a story that has ramifications which continue to influence the
world of UFO research here in the modern day. That's right,
(01:32):
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 Aaron Makey. By the way, it's a new
show in our network that delves deep into the Betty
and Barney Hills story. Thanks for coming on the show, Toby.
(01:55):
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 of crime. Is that correct? That's right. For
about five and a half years, I've been one of
(02:15):
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 like that, and I would just say that, uh,
(02:36):
they're very honest in their reviews. They've They've done several
that I know, Nolan I have made, Hannah 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
(02:57):
both felt that before, felt the wrath. But I mean,
you know it's worth a listen. Did you did you
work on uh 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 you and I spoke a little bit, and I
know that you, uh, you stood up for it, and
(03:18):
I really appreciate them. Yeah, I did. I actually did
really like that one. Um awesome, But that's not what
we're talking about today, 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 a mystery kind of.
(03:40):
There's this wonderful atmosphere to it. Your narration is super solid,
the writing is 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 you have mentioned, Matt,
(04:01):
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
tail 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 look at the overall
(04:24):
lay of the land. UH. On this show, we always
like to start with the facts. So for the here
are the facts portion of our show. Could you give
us maybe just a broad outline of what the story is? UH.
It starts on September nine, one right, yes, So what
the basic the sort of bones of the story are.
(04:47):
Betty and Barney Hill were a mixed race couple from Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, professionals in their community, UH, 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 went up to Toronto, UM, and they
(05:11):
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 drive all the
way back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was probably about
(05:32):
a seven hour drive at that time. So they started
heading south across 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 head south and they started to notice they saw
(05:53):
a light in the sky that seemed a little brighter
than others and UH and Betty in particular sort of
fig stated 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. They got out, they looked
(06:13):
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. It got back in the car.
They started to head down through Franconia Notch, which is
this area that cuts between uh these two sort of
(06:36):
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. And they
(06:59):
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 they
(07:21):
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 stopped 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,
(07:42):
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
(08:03):
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,
(08:27):
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.
(08:49):
They Betty's dresses torn, barney shoes are scuffed, 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
(09:10):
suggests they go and they put a compass over UH
their car to see if there's any strange magnetism. 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 evidence
that something strange had happened during that time. And then
(09:33):
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 very
disturbed by this. She tells this story UH to a
(09:59):
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,
maybe you know, maybe they're not just nightmares. Maybe you're
actually remembering something that actually happened really really quickly. So
(10:22):
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
from two points of view right there, or were the
only two people that we are to believe right now
(10:44):
currently 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
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,
(11:06):
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,
and he writes up a report. But at the time,
it really is the extent of it is seeing this
(11:29):
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,
served consciously throughout the whole thing, and they you know,
they draw a picture of what they saw. Betty writes
(11:50):
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
nineteen fifties to the nineteen eighties. So this was a
real this was a real prime time heyday for the organization.
(12:11):
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
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.
(12:34):
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
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,
(12:56):
that is something they're like, huh, you know that is
kind of year 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
what you've just outlined, uh succinctly and and very well
is the is the order of events in which they
(13:18):
occur that we that we know for sure per Betty
and Barney. Uh. For many people this would probably remain
the most inexplicable, strangest experience of their adult lives. But
this is just sort of the beginning of the tale.
And one thing I like, without spoiling strange arrivals, one
(13:39):
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. Uh,
could you could you tell us a little bit just
(14:00):
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 uh
an experience and experiences is maybe putting it too strongly, Uh,
(14:24):
but uh, I was having so my family's got a
place up on an island in a lake in New
Hampshire called Lake Winnipesaki, 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 right around
dusk and we were having uh dinner and drinks with
(14:45):
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 on the porch 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
(15:06):
anything quite like that before. And it was enough that
we we walked down from the porch and 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, and
they were kind of moving around and it wasn't clear,
you know, there there was some distance away, there was
(15:27):
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
of the illusion that we had. And I just I
just I checked. My wife was checking. She wrote some
(15:49):
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 sing or ane.
Of the lights seemed to have uh you know, more
to them. So what's what's kind of interesting is, you know,
(16:09):
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
way we remember and ending is the lights just kind
(16:30):
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
just blinking out. So this has been a source of
(16:52):
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
be something extraterrestrial, and then half of us were like,
(17:13):
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
to believe these things when you're looking at exactly the
same thing. Right, the evidence that we had was identical,
(17:36):
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
when it was sort of split between the believers and
the nonbelievers as to how you actually visually, you know,
(17:57):
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
when you like, what do these debates sound like over
a few drinks like that? How do you make your case?
(18:17):
Was it just okay I can monke this podcast? Yeah, well,
you know it's 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
center from anybody. I mean, you just the memories, the
memory um and and that's kind of what made it
(18:40):
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.
It's not that long, UM, but our memories of it
are just are so different, and there's just no gift
(19:01):
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
was when I kind of latched onto the Betty and
Party hillcase. Uh, partly because I live UM in the
same town as the University of New Hampshire and they've
(19:23):
got the Betty and Party Hill papers and um a
lot of other kinds of documents, audio documents, video documents, uh, photographs,
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
(19:48):
do you approach how do you approach making sense of
things that that you experience that don't have an obvious explanation.
And we'll be back with our discussion with Toby Ball
for a word from our sponsor welcome back to the show. Now,
(20:10):
let's keep 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 our understandings
of the world, it's only the information that we've ever
taken in, right, You. We can't know things necessarily that
(20:31):
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 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
(20:52):
where we left off a little while ago there when
we're getting into the concept of digging into some one's brain,
putting someone back into a fugue like state, 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,
(21:16):
uh say, hypnotic regression might help solve this long standing
and disagreement about what you saw? I would 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
(21:40):
through hypnotic regression is it's it's making it's made with
the same sort of fallible things that you're 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, apologies
(22:01):
if I'm derailing the conversation here, guys, but I do
mean it as, let's say, um six joking 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,
(22:23):
but eventually, Uh. How inspired in part by Betty's dream journal,
inspired of course by these unusual events, they they also
uh turned to hypnosis. Right, is it hypnotic regression specifically
or just I'm not a hypnotist. I don't know the difference.
So Barney had already had um some anxiety issues and uh,
(22:49):
I believe it's already seeing a therapists. 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 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.
(23:11):
He uses hypnosis whose name is 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 does is
he says, you know, cast yourself back to this date,
(23:33):
tell me what happened. And so they start to go
through this story, and he starts them off 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,
(23:54):
they both tell sort of versions from their own viewpoints
of the 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
(24:15):
the road and they see 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 them through the woods and
(24:37):
onto a spacecraft. Yeah, they they get on a spacecraft
and don't they 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
(24:58):
this whole thing. Barney 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
(25:20):
with an English accent, she says, 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.
(25:42):
They bring them aboard, 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
(26:03):
there's the leader who speaks English, the physician who does
the medical exams, and 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
(26:25):
even in in listeners to the show, and even between
the three of us between 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 that's a
(26:48):
really interesting question. I feel as though I've 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,
(27:09):
you know, three or four, opening the door from our
kitchen to the outside and seeing him 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
(27:29):
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. 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,
(27:52):
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 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,
(28:19):
and then sort 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 on trial and having these witnesses with these
(28:42):
people's lives in 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. 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
(29:03):
we've 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, but you basically invented a narrative by
(29:28):
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 or real when they're
absolutely not. We'll be back with more from Toby Ball
(29:49):
after a word from our sponsor and we're back, so
would have follow up with a question here to me,
one thing that's fascinating about the raccoon story is, Toby,
have you ever heard of something called the Mandela effect?
(30:13):
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 it's it's
this fascinating concept that's very close to what what we're
talking about today. Um where in people can become convinced
in a group that something has happened and it didn't occur.
(30:36):
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 their current timeline, that instead of just saying, well,
(30:57):
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'Neill played a genie
named Shazam in a movie, but it was actually Kazam
I think was the name of the movie that I'm
(31:17):
mistaken and it wasn't Shaquila no Sinbad, but it was
actually Shaquille O'Neil And correct me on that one, Ben,
But that's my favorite example of this. There's another one
with the Barren Steain Bears versus the Baron 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 Steain Bears, but
(31:37):
it's actually 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 Ben, I think maybe we got right right, Matt,
(31:59):
sleep paralysis is 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
(32:22):
case of Barney and Betty Hill. More skeptical people in
the audience, for instance, might say that, uh, 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 there are a whole other world.
What did Betty just have like a short run of
(32:46):
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 that's been repressed. And so
(33:07):
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 they kind of stitched together,
but they don't follow one after the other. They kind
(33:29):
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 so it's this, you know,
(33:51):
it's this I imagine quite distressing a series of dreams
again about being aboard of spacecraft and and being under
the control of alien visitors and having them, you know,
examine you and and really you know, you're you're sort
of powerless in the face of their technology, and they
(34:16):
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
was ever reported was you happen to know anything about
the history of this scenario of being you know, probed
or examined, like it didn't just come out of nowhere,
(34:37):
you know, like whether even if it's made up, is
somebody made it up first. I'm 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 like it beforehand, and
this sort of sets the narrative going forward, you know,
(34:59):
And and so post 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 de materialized through walls and
you know, uh, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands
(35:20):
of people being abducted. But before Betty and Barney Hill,
there's really only one case that was not well known
at the time, and it took place in Brazil, and
it was this guy named Antonio Villis Bois who was
abducted and brought on a UFO and and sort of
a little twist on this has a a sort of sexual,
(35:45):
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 he takes it to mean she's gonna
take their baby back to her home planet, I guess,
(36:06):
to raise him or whatever. This hadn't really made it
to uh, the US unless you were like a real
UFO aficionado, So so not Betty and Barney. Um. And
I think there is a question that that hasn't been
answered about why this sort of medical exam. In particular,
(36:26):
she talks about having a needle plunged into her 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 she would
be sort of fixated on that in particular. But I
(36:48):
don't know. I don't, 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 on board a space ship.
So that's just a really good question, and I'm not
sure what the answer is. There's something deeper. I want
to get into that and try and tie it back
(37:08):
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
(37:29):
extra supposed extraterrestrials that did the abducting there, the descriptions
of them changed quite a bit right over the course
of the all the stories from Betty and Barney. Yeah, yeah, um.
So when it first happened, immediately following their sighting on
(37:50):
on septembe they describe seeing, you know, basically humans looking
back at them, humans who are wearing uniforms, um who
are in 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 of it
(38:11):
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, it
(38:32):
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 actually
(38:53):
talks in radio interviews about how he didn't feel that
they were sinister, but that the situation in 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
(39:16):
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,
(39:38):
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 duranti and people kind
of say, well, she heard what Barney's description was and
kind of changes her story a little bit too at
(40:00):
his 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 look 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
(40:21):
the way 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,
(40:42):
see sketches, 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,
at the UNH Library, University of New Hampshire Library, they've
got the copies of these is um those sketches, and
(41:02):
they're they're 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
(41:25):
their memories of this is this strange little bust called Junior,
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
(41:50):
version of a gray. 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
(42:13):
experience and that classic kind 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,
(42:34):
like I saw an alien and that's what it looked like.
There's been uh people have tried 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 Balerro Shield, and it's got this alien
(42:56):
in it that kind of looks like a gray y. 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
(43:17):
so close. And then I've actually heard Brian Dunning from
Skeptoid had 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. Uh,
that has another similar kind of I mean, this is
all this is stuff from like, you know, the early sixties.
(43:40):
So the alien is basically a guy in a mask.
And I think in Hocus Focus on 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
(44:00):
for what it's worth, another fascinating detail that ends up
coming out 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
(44:23):
that she saw some kind of dotted lights or lines
of light, 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
(44:45):
calls the leader and she asked them, you know where
did where did you come from? And his response is
to sort of pull out this what they call a
star map UM and apparently isn't some ways a three
D type thing UM. Regardless, he pulls it out and
(45:06):
she says, well, which one is yours? And he says, well,
can you point out where your son is on on
this map? 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,
(45:28):
the hypnotist. It's just intrigued by it and says, you know,
sometime when you're not hypnotized, if you if you want to,
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,
(45:51):
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
to be a rep 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
(46:12):
the alien. She looks at it and thinks, maybe I
can use 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
(46:33):
is she gets uh the latest information on stars and
their distance from 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,
(46:57):
and then from the ceiling she hangs beads from thread
and it's all 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
(47:18):
over a course of years, and I think she does
twenty or twenty one different models. And then she takes
a camera and 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
(47:42):
find a match. And then um, this new uh astronomy
catalog sort of 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
(48:04):
so you know what, what's her proponents of the Hills
story say, is you 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
(48:25):
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, which is a a binary star system,
which she thought could sustain a planet that could have life.
So it's a really you know, uh, completely sort of
(48:48):
obsessive quest to uh find a match in something that
would be really daunting today with computers, but back then
when you're just like literally, hey, beads from a ceiling. Uh,
it's unbelievable. And the pictures there's no pictures on the internet, um,
but there are, or at least that I could find.
(49:09):
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.
It's interesting because it reminds me of the old, uh
the older story of the Dogon tribe that um, I
think this was actually after the Betting Barney hillcase. You
(49:31):
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, 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,
(49:56):
we're seeing tropes there. And now that we know this
story for the dogon and may have happened or come
to attention after the Betty and Barney Hill story, we
have to we have to ask ourselves just how profoundly
the experience of these folks has has informed UFO of
(50:16):
folklore UFO um I. 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
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
(50:38):
people researching this story, or if you had anybody, um,
anybody contact you with some kind of exclusive or some
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?
(50:58):
Not yet. 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 the Betty
and Barney Hill archives are as you imagine, the most
sort of viewed things that they have at the University
(51:20):
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 lot of
people come in and if only to see like the
Junior bus store Betty's torn dress which is also there.
Um is sort of a pilgrimage. Um. But yeah, I haven't.
(51:43):
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 going to
tell people where to find you, 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
(52:06):
the University of New Hampshire, if you cannot physically go there,
you can go to Library dot 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
(52:29):
you can find them if you're physically there. But it's
a great list of things as well as just some
overall information about the the the case. I actually I
believe they're going to be digitizing make you 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
(52:51):
page of that Special Collection of Betty Barney Hill, 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
(53:11):
get in that show. Um, we really think it's worth
your time. It feels like you're there. There's like some
recreations that have been done correct Toby where it makes
you feel like you're with Betty and Barney, Um, and
you're aren't there, actual isn't there actual hypnosis tape in
the show too. Yeah, there's a couple in a couple
(53:32):
of instances, we do have the actual hypnosis tape um
that we play. Uh, there's 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
(53:54):
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 podcast app you use. Uh,
if you want to, uh, get in touch with me,
I'm on Twitter at Toby Ball and h and my
website is Toby ball dot com. Awesome. Well, hey, thank
(54:15):
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 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
even can see my background, but I changed it to
(54:36):
the h 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 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,
(54:58):
you check it out online. Uh you can, if you
put into Google that they've got pictures of edits. You
know it's getting there. It's 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
(55:19):
yourself wherever podcasts are available. We also like to hear
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You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We
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(55:42):
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(56:02):
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(56:33):
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listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic 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 I Heart Radio, Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Michig control decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. Interestingly enough, many of our fellow listeners
have written into us on a regular basis over the years,
(00:47):
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 extra terrestrial or even extra dimensional entities. Uh.
And we've we've taken a swing at a lot of it,
but today we're bringing out the big guns. In fact,
(01:10):
you could say today's episode concerns the most important UFO
story in American history. It's a strange, twisting tale. It
begins all the way back in nine one, but it's
a story that has ramifications which continue to influence the
world of UFO research here in the modern day. That's right,
(01:32):
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 Aaron Makey. By the way, it's a new
show in our network that delves deep into the Betty
and Barney Hills story. Thanks for coming on the show, Toby.
(01:55):
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 of crime. Is that correct? That's right. For
about five and a half years, I've been one of
(02:15):
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 like that, and I would just say that, uh,
(02:36):
they're very honest in their reviews. They've They've done several
that I know, Nolan I have made, Hannah 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
(02:57):
both felt that before, felt the wrath. But I mean,
you know it's worth a listen. Did you did you
work on uh 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 you and I spoke a little bit, and I
know that you, uh, you stood up for it, and
(03:18):
I really appreciate them. Yeah, I did. I actually did
really like that one. Um awesome, But that's not what
we're talking about today, 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 a mystery kind of.
(03:40):
There's this wonderful atmosphere to it. Your narration is super solid,
the writing is 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 you have mentioned, Matt,
(04:01):
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
tail 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 look at the overall
(04:24):
lay of the land. UH. On this show, we always
like to start with the facts. So for the here
are the facts portion of our show. Could you give
us maybe just a broad outline of what the story is? UH.
It starts on September nine, one right, yes, So what
the basic the sort of bones of the story are.
(04:47):
Betty and Barney Hill were a mixed race couple from Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, professionals in their community, UH, 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 went up to Toronto, UM, and they
(05:11):
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 drive all the
way back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was probably about
(05:32):
a seven hour drive at that time. So they started
heading south across 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 head south and they started to notice they saw
(05:53):
a light in the sky that seemed a little brighter
than others and UH and Betty in particular sort of
fig stated 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. They got out, they looked
(06:13):
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. It got back in the car.
They started to head down through Franconia Notch, which is
this area that cuts between uh these two sort of
(06:36):
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. And they
(06:59):
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 they
(07:21):
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 stopped 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,
(07:42):
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
(08:03):
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,
(08:27):
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.
(08:49):
They Betty's dresses torn, barney shoes are scuffed, 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
(09:10):
suggests they go and they put a compass over UH
their car to see if there's any strange magnetism. 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 evidence
that something strange had happened during that time. And then
(09:33):
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 very
disturbed by this. She tells this story UH to a
(09:59):
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,
maybe you know, maybe they're not just nightmares. Maybe you're
actually remembering something that actually happened really really quickly. So
(10:22):
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
from two points of view right there, or were the
only two people that we are to believe right now
(10:44):
currently 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
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,
(11:06):
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,
and he writes up a report. But at the time,
it really is the extent of it is seeing this
(11:29):
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,
served consciously throughout the whole thing, and they you know,
they draw a picture of what they saw. Betty writes
(11:50):
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
nineteen fifties to the nineteen eighties. So this was a
real this was a real prime time heyday for the organization.
(12:11):
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
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.
(12:34):
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
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,
(12:56):
that is something they're like, huh, you know that is
kind of year 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
what you've just outlined, uh succinctly and and very well
is the is the order of events in which they
(13:18):
occur that we that we know for sure per Betty
and Barney. Uh. For many people this would probably remain
the most inexplicable, strangest experience of their adult lives. But
this is just sort of the beginning of the tale.
And one thing I like, without spoiling strange arrivals, one
(13:39):
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. Uh,
could you could you tell us a little bit just
(14:00):
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 uh
an experience and experiences is maybe putting it too strongly, Uh,
(14:24):
but uh, I was having so my family's got a
place up on an island in a lake in New
Hampshire called Lake Winnipesaki, 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 right around
dusk and we were having uh dinner and drinks with
(14:45):
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 on the porch 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
(15:06):
anything quite like that before. And it was enough that
we we walked down from the porch and 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, and
they were kind of moving around and it wasn't clear,
you know, there there was some distance away, there was
(15:27):
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
of the illusion that we had. And I just I
just I checked. My wife was checking. She wrote some
(15:49):
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 sing or ane.
Of the lights seemed to have uh you know, more
to them. So what's what's kind of interesting is, you know,
(16:09):
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
way we remember and ending is the lights just kind
(16:30):
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
just blinking out. So this has been a source of
(16:52):
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
be something extraterrestrial, and then half of us were like,
(17:13):
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
to believe these things when you're looking at exactly the
same thing. Right, the evidence that we had was identical,
(17:36):
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
when it was sort of split between the believers and
the nonbelievers as to how you actually visually, you know,
(17:57):
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
when you like, what do these debates sound like over
a few drinks like that? How do you make your case?
(18:17):
Was it just okay I can monke this podcast? Yeah, well,
you know it's 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
center from anybody. I mean, you just the memories, the
memory um and and that's kind of what made it
(18:40):
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.
It's not that long, UM, but our memories of it
are just are so different, and there's just no gift
(19:01):
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
was when I kind of latched onto the Betty and
Party hillcase. Uh, partly because I live UM in the
same town as the University of New Hampshire and they've
(19:23):
got the Betty and Party Hill papers and um a
lot of other kinds of documents, audio documents, video documents, uh, photographs,
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
(19:48):
do you approach how do you approach making sense of
things that that you experience that don't have an obvious explanation.
And we'll be back with our discussion with Toby Ball
for a word from our sponsor welcome back to the show. Now,
(20:10):
let's keep 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 our understandings
of the world, it's only the information that we've ever
taken in, right, You. We can't know things necessarily that
(20:31):
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 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
(20:52):
where we left off a little while ago there when
we're getting into the concept of digging into some one's brain,
putting someone back into a fugue like state, 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,
(21:16):
uh say, hypnotic regression might help solve this long standing
and disagreement about what you saw? I would 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
(21:40):
through hypnotic regression is it's it's making it's made with
the same sort of fallible things that you're 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, apologies
(22:01):
if I'm derailing the conversation here, guys, but I do
mean it as, let's say, um six joking 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,
(22:23):
but eventually, Uh. How inspired in part by Betty's dream journal,
inspired of course by these unusual events, they they also
uh turned to hypnosis. Right, is it hypnotic regression specifically
or just I'm not a hypnotist. I don't know the difference.
So Barney had already had um some anxiety issues and uh,
(22:49):
I believe it's already seeing a therapists. 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 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.
(23:11):
He uses hypnosis whose name is 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 does is
he says, you know, cast yourself back to this date,
(23:33):
tell me what happened. And so they start to go
through this story, and he starts them off 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,
(23:54):
they both tell sort of versions from their own viewpoints
of the 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
(24:15):
the road and they see 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 them through the woods and
(24:37):
onto a spacecraft. Yeah, they they get on a spacecraft
and don't they 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
(24:58):
this whole thing. Barney 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
(25:20):
with an English accent, she says, 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.
(25:42):
They bring them aboard, 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
(26:03):
there's the leader who speaks English, the physician who does
the medical exams, and 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
(26:25):
even in in listeners to the show, and even between
the three of us between 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 that's a
(26:48):
really interesting question. I feel as though I've 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,
(27:09):
you know, three or four, opening the door from our
kitchen to the outside and seeing him 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
(27:29):
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. 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,
(27:52):
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 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,
(28:19):
and then sort 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 on trial and having these witnesses with these
(28:42):
people's lives in 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. 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
(29:03):
we've 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, but you basically invented a narrative by
(29:28):
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 or real when they're
absolutely not. We'll be back with more from Toby Ball
(29:49):
after a word from our sponsor and we're back, so
would have follow up with a question here to me,
one thing that's fascinating about the raccoon story is, Toby,
have you ever heard of something called the Mandela effect?
(30:13):
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 it's it's
this fascinating concept that's very close to what what we're
talking about today. Um where in people can become convinced
in a group that something has happened and it didn't occur.
(30:36):
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 their current timeline, that instead of just saying, well,
(30:57):
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'Neill played a genie
named Shazam in a movie, but it was actually Kazam
I think was the name of the movie that I'm
(31:17):
mistaken and it wasn't Shaquila no Sinbad, but it was
actually Shaquille O'Neil And correct me on that one, Ben,
But that's my favorite example of this. There's another one
with the Barren Steain Bears versus the Baron 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 Steain Bears, but
(31:37):
it's actually 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 Ben, I think maybe we got right right, Matt,
(31:59):
sleep paralysis is 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
(32:22):
case of Barney and Betty Hill. More skeptical people in
the audience, for instance, might say that, uh, 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 there are a whole other world.
What did Betty just have like a short run of
(32:46):
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 that's been repressed. And so
(33:07):
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 they kind of stitched together,
but they don't follow one after the other. They kind
(33:29):
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 so it's this, you know,
(33:51):
it's this I imagine quite distressing a series of dreams
again about being aboard of spacecraft and and being under
the control of alien visitors and having them, you know,
examine you and and really you know, you're you're sort
of powerless in the face of their technology, and they
(34:16):
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
was ever reported was you happen to know anything about
the history of this scenario of being you know, probed
or examined, like it didn't just come out of nowhere,
(34:37):
you know, like whether even if it's made up, is
somebody made it up first. I'm 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 like it beforehand, and
this sort of sets the narrative going forward, you know,
(34:59):
And and so post 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 de materialized through walls and
you know, uh, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands
(35:20):
of people being abducted. But before Betty and Barney Hill,
there's really only one case that was not well known
at the time, and it took place in Brazil, and
it was this guy named Antonio Villis Bois who was
abducted and brought on a UFO and and sort of
a little twist on this has a a sort of sexual,
(35:45):
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 he takes it to mean she's gonna
take their baby back to her home planet, I guess,
(36:06):
to raise him or whatever. This hadn't really made it
to uh, the US unless you were like a real
UFO aficionado, So so not Betty and Barney. Um. And
I think there is a question that that hasn't been
answered about why this sort of medical exam. In particular,
(36:26):
she talks about having a needle plunged into her 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 she would
be sort of fixated on that in particular. But I
(36:48):
don't know. I don't, 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 on board a space ship.
So that's just a really good question, and I'm not
sure what the answer is. There's something deeper. I want
to get into that and try and tie it back
(37:08):
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
(37:29):
extra supposed extraterrestrials that did the abducting there, the descriptions
of them changed quite a bit right over the course
of the all the stories from Betty and Barney. Yeah, yeah, um.
So when it first happened, immediately following their sighting on
(37:50):
on septembe they describe seeing, you know, basically humans looking
back at them, humans who are wearing uniforms, um who
are in 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 of it
(38:11):
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, it
(38:32):
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 actually
(38:53):
talks in radio interviews about how he didn't feel that
they were sinister, but that the situation in 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
(39:16):
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,
(39:38):
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 duranti and people kind
of say, well, she heard what Barney's description was and
kind of changes her story a little bit too at
(40:00):
his 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 look 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
(40:21):
the way 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,
(40:42):
see sketches, 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,
at the UNH Library, University of New Hampshire Library, they've
got the copies of these is um those sketches, and
(41:02):
they're they're 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
(41:25):
their memories of this is this strange little bust called Junior,
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
(41:50):
version of a gray. 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
(42:13):
experience and that classic kind 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,
(42:34):
like I saw an alien and that's what it looked like.
There's been uh people have tried 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 Balerro Shield, and it's got this alien
(42:56):
in it that kind of looks like a gray y. 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
(43:17):
so close. And then I've actually heard Brian Dunning from
Skeptoid had 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. Uh,
that has another similar kind of I mean, this is
all this is stuff from like, you know, the early sixties.
(43:40):
So the alien is basically a guy in a mask.
And I think in Hocus Focus on 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
(44:00):
for what it's worth, another fascinating detail that ends up
coming out 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
(44:23):
that she saw some kind of dotted lights or lines
of light, 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
(44:45):
calls the leader and she asked them, you know where
did where did you come from? And his response is
to sort of pull out this what they call a
star map UM and apparently isn't some ways a three
D type thing UM. Regardless, he pulls it out and
(45:06):
she says, well, which one is yours? And he says, well,
can you point out where your son is on on
this map? 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,
(45:28):
the hypnotist. It's just intrigued by it and says, you know,
sometime when you're not hypnotized, if you if you want to,
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,
(45:51):
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
to be a rep 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
(46:12):
the alien. She looks at it and thinks, maybe I
can use 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
(46:33):
is she gets uh the latest information on stars and
their distance from 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,
(46:57):
and then from the ceiling she hangs beads from thread
and it's all 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
(47:18):
over a course of years, and I think she does
twenty or twenty one different models. And then she takes
a camera and 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
(47:42):
find a match. And then um, this new uh astronomy
catalog sort of 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
(48:04):
so you know what, what's her proponents of the Hills
story say, is you 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
(48:25):
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, which is a a binary star system,
which she thought could sustain a planet that could have life.
So it's a really you know, uh, completely sort of
(48:48):
obsessive quest to uh find a match in something that
would be really daunting today with computers, but back then
when you're just like literally, hey, beads from a ceiling. Uh,
it's unbelievable. And the pictures there's no pictures on the internet, um,
but there are, or at least that I could find.
(49:09):
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.
It's interesting because it reminds me of the old, uh
the older story of the Dogon tribe that um, I
think this was actually after the Betting Barney hillcase. You
(49:31):
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, 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,
(49:56):
we're seeing tropes there. And now that we know this
story for the dogon and may have happened or come
to attention after the Betty and Barney Hill story, we
have to we have to ask ourselves just how profoundly
the experience of these folks has has informed UFO of
(50:16):
folklore UFO um I. 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
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
(50:38):
people researching this story, or if you had anybody, um,
anybody contact you with some kind of exclusive or some
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?
(50:58):
Not yet. 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 the Betty
and Barney Hill archives are as you imagine, the most
sort of viewed things that they have at the University
(51:20):
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 lot of
people come in and if only to see like the
Junior bus store Betty's torn dress which is also there.
Um is sort of a pilgrimage. Um. But yeah, I haven't.
(51:43):
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 going to
tell people where to find you, 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
(52:06):
the University of New Hampshire, if you cannot physically go there,
you can go to Library dot 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
(52:29):
you can find them if you're physically there. But it's
a great list of things as well as just some
overall information about the the the case. I actually I
believe they're going to be digitizing make you 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
(52:51):
page of that Special Collection of Betty Barney Hill, 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
(53:11):
get in that show. Um, we really think it's worth
your time. It feels like you're there. There's like some
recreations that have been done correct Toby where it makes
you feel like you're with Betty and Barney, Um, and
you're aren't there, actual isn't there actual hypnosis tape in
the show too. Yeah, there's a couple in a couple
(53:32):
of instances, we do have the actual hypnosis tape um
that we play. Uh, there's 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
(53:54):
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 podcast app you use. Uh,
if you want to, uh, get in touch with me,
I'm on Twitter at Toby Ball and h and my
website is Toby ball dot com. Awesome. Well, hey, thank
(54:15):
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 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
even can see my background, but I changed it to
(54:36):
the h 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 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,
(54:58):
you check it out online. Uh you can, if you
put into Google that they've got pictures of edits. You
know it's getting there. It's 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
(55:19):
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 conspiracy stuff show
on Instagram. If you don't want to use the social media,
because come on, we all know what happens with the
(55:42):
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 one eight three three st
d w y t K. You can leave a message,
talk to us about this episode, about an idea you've
(56:02):
got for an upcoming episode, anything you want to do,
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if you don't want to do any of that, you
can always send us a good old fashioned email. We
are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(56:33):
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