Aboard a Flying Saucer the Adventures of Two 'Kidnapped' Humans

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010003-8

## FLYING SAUCERS continued

nated her waking life during that week and continued to plague her with anxiety afterward. But the dreams themselves stopped abruptly after five days and never returned. Years later, under Dr. Simon's hypnosis, she recalled in detail:

She had dreamt she had encountered a strange roadblock on a lonely New Hampshire road. A group of men approached the car, and as soon as they reached it, she found herself slipping into unconsciousness. She awoke to find herself and Barney being taken aboard a wholly strange craft, where she was given a complete physical examination by intelligent, humanoid beings. Barney was taken off down a corridor, apparently for the same purpose. They were assured that no harm would come to them, and that they would be released without any conscious memory of the strange happening. At that point, the dreams ended.

A few weeks after the nightmares ended, another disturbing incident occurred. The Hills were driving through the countryside, on a road in a sparsely populated area. Up ahead, a car partially blocked the road. A group of people were standing outside the car, and Barney began to slow down. Betty felt a sudden, cold wave of fear. She could not explain it. "Barney," she begged, "Barney—keep going. Please don't slow down! Keep going, keep going!" She started to open the car door, feeling an almost uncontrollable impulse to jump out of the car and run.

Without questioning, Barney drove the car as fast as was practicable. Betty's panic subsided, and she recovered her composure. She could not explain her panic.

On October 19, 1961, Walter Webb, lecturer on the staff of the Hayden Planetarium in Boston, received a letter from Richard Hall, now assistant director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena in Washington. Webb, a scientific adviser to NICAP, occasionally investigated the more serious and puzzling UFO reports in the New England area. Hall's letter included a copy of a letter Betty Hill had written him. He suggested that Webb might want to investigate the Hill case.

Webb was not impressed because the case involved a report of the movement of beings on a craft. He was extremely skeptical of this type of sighting. There had been a rash of similar "sightings" in the past from highly irresponsible people, none of whom had provided any kind of rational documentation.

Webb drove to Portsmouth on October 21; 1961, with his skeptical attitude unchanged: He thought it was possible that the Hills might be seeking publicity, perpetrating a hoax or suffering from a mental aberration.

His interview with the Hills began shortly afternoon and continued with only occasional interruptions until after eight that evening. "I was so amazed, impressed by both the Hills and their accounts," Webb said later, "that we skipped lunch and went right through the afternoon and early evening. During that time, I cross-examined them together, separately, together, questioned them again and again. I tried to make them slip up somewhere, and I couldn't; I simply couldn't. Theirs was an iron-clad story."

At the close of the session, Webb suggested

to the Hills that they actually drive back over the trip step by step, to try to pin down the exact spots where the varied events happened. They agreed.

Five days later, Webb prepared his report for NICAP. He reviewed the incident in the minutest detail, including compass directions, position of the moon and planets, weather and detailed description of the object, including the sketches the Hills had given him. He concluded his lengthy report: "It is the opinion of this investigator, after questioning these people for over six hours and studying their reactions and personalities during that time, that they were telling the truth, and the incident occurred exactly as reported except for some minor uncertainties and technicalities that must be tolerated in any such observation where human judgment is involved (i.e., exact time and length of visibility, apparent sizes of object and occupants, distance and height of object, etc.). Although their occupations do not especially qualify the witnesses as trained scientific observers, I was impressed by their intelligence, apparent honesty and obvious desire to get at the facts and to underplay the more sensational aspects of the sighting."

the wheel. Always, there was the blank between Indian Head and Ashland.

It wasn't until after the holidays that the Hills thought about the suggestion of returning to the scene of the encounter. In February of 1962, a series of pilgrimages began that were to continue over many months, in all seasons. They would drive along Route 3 and along several back roads branching off the main road. They bickered about where they might have traveled or on which of the byways off Route 3 they might have made a turn. Nor could they account for the inordinate length of time it took them to reach Portsmouth the night of the incident.

The trips were fruitless. Always, the same curtain of darkness descended for Barney after the critical moment at Indian Head. Always, the same veil of darkness obscured Betty's memory after she heard the strange series of beeps as they drove frantically away from Indian Head, with Barney, apparently in great emotional distress, at

Barney's daily commuting drive from Portsmouth to his job in Boston, his night work schedule, the gnawing doubts about the Indian Head experience, the discomfort of an ulcer all began to take their toll. His condition was further complicated by the recurrence of elevated blood pressure. Then, another disturbing symptom appeared, contributing to his general distress. In January of 1962, a series of warts developed in an almost geometrically perfect circular ring in the area of his groin.

By the summer of 1962, Barney's exhaustion and general physical illness prompted him to seek medical aid for his overall condition, entirely aside from the traumatic experience in the White Mountains. The physician treated him for elevated blood pressure and ulcers and finally recommended the possible need for psychiatric assistance. Barney agreed, and a long process of therapy began during the summer of 1962, under Dr. Duncan Stephens, of Exeter, N.H.

At first, the incident at Indian Head was ignored altogether by Barney. Later, he discussed it with Dr. Stephens, but did not emphasize it. He felt it was at most only a minor cause of his anxiety. He concentrated on his personal emotional and social problems.

Dr. Stephens indicated to Barney that there were many unusual and interesting facets to his case, including the circumstances of Barney's interracial marriage. During the therapy, Barney became more and more aware of the subconscious conflicts and problems arising from his being a Negro, a member of a minority race.

(All through his family background there was a record of interracial relationships. His great-grandmother was the daughter of a white plantation owner. She was raised in the owner's house and cared for by his sisters, even though she was legally a slave. When she married, the plantation owner gave her and her husband 250 acres of land, to be handed down to their children.)

CHAPTER

# What happened that September night?

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FOR A FULL YEAR, Barney continued with Dr. Stephens. One day, during a discussion of hypnosis, Dr. Stephens indicated to Barney that simultaneous hallucination and simultaneous amnesia were highly unlikely, although there is a rare psychological phenomenon known as folie a deux, wherein two people develop a psychotic condition in which their beliefs and delusions are similar. This seemed unlikely in the case of Barney and Betty Hill's experience, since most of the conditions for this phenomenon did not seem to be present in the Hills' day-to-day relationships as husband and wife. But Dr. Stephens suggested that it would be advisable at this point to have the opinion of Dr. Benjamin Simon, the eminent Boston psychiatrist and neurologist.

Dr. Simon is a graduate of Stanford University and the Washington University School of Medicine. During his psychiatric and neurological training, he developed proficiency in techniques and procedures of hypnosis. In World War II, he found it a remarkably useful adjunct in the treatment of military psychiatric disorders, first as consultant psychiatrist to the General Dispensary in New York, later on a more extensive scale as Chief of Neuropsychiatry and Executive Officer at Mason General Hospital, the Army's chief psychiatric center in World War II. When John Huston directed his outstanding motion-picture documentary on psychiatric treatment, Let There Be Light, at Mason General Hospital, Colonel Simon served as adviser and personally did the scenes involving hypnosis and narcosynthesis.

After leaving military service in 1946, Dr. Simon maintained his interest in these special procedures, though their place in civilian psychiatric practice is much more restricted.

On December 14, 1963, Mr. Barney Hill, accompanied by his wife, arrived to keep his appointment for consultation. At Mr. Hill's request,

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