Documents / FOIA release
This CIA-released copy, approved for release in 2001, reproduces a LOOK magazine condensation of John G. Fuller's book The Interrupted Journey. It recounts Betty and Barney Hill's September 19, 1961 sighting near Indian Head, New Hampshire, their two missing hours, Dr. Benjamin Simon's hypnosis sessions and Walter Webb's NICAP investigation. Simon found neither patient psychotic but said nothing was proved. The file also includes an Air Force UFO report form and a letter from J. Allen Hynek urging scientific study of UFOs.
“Fuller”2 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010003-8 and the hours had so many minutes. I tried to explain, but he did not understand. I said, all these things you ask me—I am a very limited person, when trying to talk to you. But there are other people in this country who would be most happy to talk with him, and they could answer all his questions. And maybe if he could come back, all his questions would have answers. But if he did, I wouldn't know where to meet him. And he laughed and said: Don't worry, if we decide to come back, we will be able to find you. We always find those we want to. And then Barney is coming. I hear the men out in the corridor. And I said: Barney's coming. And he said: Yes, you can go back to the car now. And I got the book, and Barney is coming . . . and his eyes are still shut! He missed an awful lot. . . And then we are out in the corridor. . . I am all ready to go down the ramp when some of the other men—not the leader, but some of the others—are talking. They are very excited. And then the leader comes over and takes my book. And I say—ohh—I'm furious. And I said: You promised that I could have the book! And he said: I know, but the others object. But, I said, this is my proof. And he said: That is the whole point. They don't want you to know what has happened. They want you to forget. . . ## Now, she speaks as if talking to the leader. She screams with intense emotion. I won't forget about it! You can take the book, but you can never, never make me forget! . . . I'll remember it if it is the last thing I do! And he laughs and says: Maybe you will remember. But I hope you won't. And it won't do you any good if you do, because Barney won't...It would be better if you forgot it anyway. I was standing there by the side of the ramp, and I'm not so mad now. They have taken Barney ahead. . . . I said: I do wish I could have some proof of this, because it is the most unbelievable thing that ever happened. We were walking and . . . he said: I am going to leave you here. . . . And he said he was sorry that I was badly frightened in the beginning. And I said, well, this has been a new experience, and I don't know what was happening. But I certainly wasn't afraid now. And then they all turned around and started to go back. And I get up to the car, and Barney is inside. Barney is still in a daze, but his eyes are open, and he is acting more normally now. . . . And the object starts glowing again—it is getting brighter and brighter. . . Now, it rises and goes down, and there is a dip, and then—zoom—it keeps going away farther and farther. . . . And Barney starts the car, and we start to ride. And I'm just so happy, and I said: Well, Barney, now try to tell me that you don't believe in flying saucers. And Barney said: Oh, don't be ridiculous! And I think he is joking. But then, all of a sudden, we got this beep-beep-beep-beep-beep on the trunk of the car again. DOCTOR: This is the second time you are getting the beep? BETTY: Yes. And I said: Well, I guess that is their farewell. They are off, wherever they are going. And I don't know, it is just so fantastic I suppose we should forget all about it. . . I kept looking all the way home. . . I think I wanted to forget about it. I might as well. What could I do about it? But I wonder if they ever will come back. I go around looking for them. . . DOCTOR: Why would you want to keep it a secret? BETTY: Because I wanted to please the leader, because he told me to forget about it. DOCTOR: Why did you want to please this leader so much? ## BETTY: I don't know. . . . ## At the conclusion of Betty's story, the doctor brought Barney in and put him under hypnosis to check his account against Betty's version. In trance, Barney is now aboard the craft. BARNEY: . . . I was afraid to open my eyes. I had been told not to open my eyes, and it would be over with quickly. But occasionally, I peeked. And I could feel them examining me with their hands. . . . They looked at my back, and I could feel them touching my skin right down my back. As if they were counting my spinal column. And I felt something touch right at the base of my spine. . . . And my mouth was opened, and I could feel two fingers pulling it back. And then . . . something scratched very lightly, like a stick, against my left arm. Only one man seemed to be moving around my body all the time. Then my shoes were put back on, and I stepped down. And I think I felt very good because I knew it was over. And again, I was led to the door where my feet kicked against this thing at the very bottom of the door, like a high doorjamb. And I stepped over it, and . . . I went down and opened my eyes and kept walking. And I saw my car, and the lights were out. . . . And I couldn't understand. I had not turned off the lights. I got in and felt for Delsey, the dog. . . . And Betty was coming down the road. . . ## DOCTOR: Was she alone? BARNEY: She was alone. And she was grinning. . . And she got into the car and said: Well, no one will believe this. . . And I was thinking what had happened, and that we were sitting there, looking down the road, and I could see this glow get brighter and brighter. And we said: Oh, my God, not again. And away it went. And then I put on the lights and started the car up, and drove silently down the road. DOCTOR: What did you say to Betty? BARNEY: Betty said to me: Well, do you believe in flying saucers? And I said: Oh, Betty, don't be ridiculous. DOCTOR: Did you tell her about your experience in this vehicle? BARNEY: I had forgotten the experience. Both Betty and Barney maintained under the doctor's questioning, that their memories of the "abduction" were completely obscured after they left the vehicle. The doctor continued probing. DOCTOR: Did she tell you about her experience? BARNEY: No. She did not. DOCTOR: Then neither of you spoke about your experience in the vehicle? BARNEY: No. DOCTOR: Why not? BARNEY: I didn't remember it: DOCTOR: I see. This memory had just been wiped out? Do you think that she had seen the vehicle? BARNEY: I didn't know. DOCTOR: And you don't know it today? BARNEY: NO. DOCTOR: All right, then. We'll stop there. Dr. Simon had already decided that the Hills were not lying, and he felt it highly improbable that both were suffering so markedly similar hallucinations. He still wished to explore in detail the possibility that the experience they both described was an illusion-an elaboration of some far more limited actual experience. After the first session with Barney, the doctor had assumed that Barney had all the illusions and fantasies and that Betty had absorbed them from him. But at the end of Betty's second trance, it appeared that the reverse of the doctor's initial assumption might be true. Dr. Simon reasoned that most of the things Barney told of experiencing in the "abduction" portion of the incident were also included in Betty's story. On the other hand, very little of Betty's "abduction" sequence was included in Barney's story. His recall of being taken through the woods was vaguer than hers. Betty's story of the examination aboard the craft was much more detailed than his. If Dr. Simon's assumptions were correct, then the question of how Betty's dreams were absorbed by Barney would have to be carefully examined. AT THE NEXT SESSION, March 21, 1964, the doctor talked with Barney on a conscious level before putting him into a trance. Barney told the doctor that for the first time in his life he had dreamed about uFos, on three different nights during the past week. In the dreams, Barney was standing on the ground, looking at uFos in the sky, and Betty was screaming about them. DOCTOR: Betty had been troubled with dreams and nightmares? ## Now, in trance. . . . BARNEY: Yes. . . . She said that she had a dream, and that she had been taken aboard a UFO. And that I was also in her dream and was taken aboard. ## DOCTOR: How did she tell you this? BARNEY: Usually, when someone was visiting. . . She would tell that she had gone into the UFO and talked to the people on board. And she was told that she would forget. And she told these people in the UFO that she would not forget. And I told her they were only dreams, and that I can't believe that, whatever these things are. But she says no. That somehow she feels there is a connection between these dreams and what happened. Because she has never dreamed of UFOS before. And she would tell that they stuck something in her navel. And she was not telling this to me, but I would be listening as she told this to Walter Webb, scientific adviser to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, as she told about the UFO sighting that we had had. . . DOCTOR: But she did tell you something about them? continued
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 29 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.