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.
“Indian Air Force”2 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010003-8 FLYING SAUCERS continued the doctor saw the couple together and soon realized that both needed help. They had brought with them a copy of the NICAP report written by Walter Webb. Dr. Simon's attitude toward the subject of uFOS was neutral. He was willing to accept whatever authoritative sources said about it. Atthecloseofthesession,Dr.Simondecided that one of his objectives was to open up the amnesia, if this was what the condition turned out to be. This symptom usually responds particularly well to hypnosis. He planned to begin the therapy with an attempt to penetrate the amnesia, through hypnosis, and to proceed from there as indicated by developments. Dr. Simon also decided to tape-record the therapeutic sessions, to preserve an accurate record and to have the tape available for probable later use in bringing the material into the consciousnessoftheHillsundercontrolledconditions. Barney's and Betty's knowledge of hypnosis was fragmentary. Dr. Simon explained that the Hills would be brought into a condition somewhat akin to sleep, although not identical to it. In a lecture some years before to The New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Simon discussed hypnosis and its function in medical and psychiatric practice: "Who can hypnotize? Who can be hypnotized?" Dr. Simon asked in the lecture. "Any intelligent adult with appropriate knowledge of technique can hypnotize...Psychotic individuals and the mentally retarded are very resistant to hypnosis. Most of these cannot be hypnotized... "Will plays no part whatever in hypnosis, and the belief that hypnotizability is a manifestation of a weak will is false. . . . "Hypnosis has gone through many periods of enthusiastic acceptance and then ensuing rejection, as have some of our 'modern trends' in psychiatry. There is no doubt that these symptoms (those removed by hypnosis) tend to recur or to be replaced by more distressing symptoms, unless the underlying emotional conflict (of which the symptoms are manifestations) is resolved. Unless the physician can be sure that he will be able to continue treatment of the patient after the removal of the symptoms, the symptoms should not be removed by hypnosis. . . "Many question whether a forcible breakthrough of resistance (such as that which is provided by hypnosis) is a desirable approach. In a variety of conditions, hysterical, psychosomatic and others, hypnosis may help to shorten the time of therapy by facilitating the approach to unconscious conflicts... Hypnosis has dangers, and yet it is not dangerous. The essential dangers lie in its use by those not bound by a professional code of ethics and who are not adequately trained." As the Hills were to discover, they were in cautious, medically conservative hands. They were to run into a stiff test of whatever beliefs they now had as a result of their experience at Indian Head. At eight in the morning, on Saturday, January 4, 1964, the Hills arrived at the doctor's office for the first of three sessions in which the doctor would repeatedly induce hypnosis as a conditioning process. and the patients would be going up a blind alley, and the reinforcement of the hypnosis would make it possible to maintain firm control in the face of possible emotional disturbances. They responded well. The doctor was satisfied that they could attain the depth of trance desired. In exploring the amnesia, both the doctor Barney's nervousness increased somewhat as he prepared to undergo hypnosis for the first time. Dr. Simon placed him by the large desk in the office, his hands at his sides, and stood near him, in front of the desk and just in front of a comfortable chair. "Dr. Simon began talking to me," Barney recalls, "telling me that I was relaxing, and he had me clasp my hands together, and that they would be tight, tight, very tight, that I couldn't open them no matter how hard I tried. And I was standing there, feeling very, very foolish, because I thought if this is hypnosis, there is nothing to it. I'm just humoring the man. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I think he stopped and placed his hands over my eyes so that they would close. I said to myself that I wasn't really hypnotized, and when he told me that I couldn't pull my hands apart, I knew that all I had to do was open my fingers and I could do it. But I just didn't feel like opening my fingers. I didn't even feel I was asleep, but then I was aware that he was waking me up, and asked me how I felt. And I felt very, very good, very calm and comfortable. And I no longer had any fear of hypnosis." in bringing to light unconscious memories and feelings. These may be intolerable to the patient and can lead to serious after-reactions. The opening up of amnesia requires the use of time regression, wherein the patient's memory becomes vivid and exact, where details long forgotten to the conscious mind emerge sharply. It is not unusual for a person in hypnosis to recall the names and color of the eyes of everyone at his fifth birthday party if so requested. There is also the tendency to relive, re-create, reenact the time segment being recalled, so that the subject actually experiences emotions involved in the original experience, a process referred to as abreaction. The physician must always recognize the danger "After the first test," Barney Hill recalls, "a curious thing happened. As I got ready for the induction into hypnosis, I looked at my watch. It must have been five minutes after eight. And he gave me the key word, and I was hypnotized. And as far as time was concerned, I thought he was waking me immediately. But I looked at my watch, and it was after nine. Yet it seemed no time at all. I recalled also, just at the beginning of what must have been the trance, that he had poked my hand with something that felt like the bristle of a brush. I asked him if I could see this done. So the doctor put me in a trance again, and told me to open my eyes, and that I would remember this part of it. Then he took a needlelike instrument and pushed it against my hand, and there was no pain, except perhaps like a bristle of a brush. He put considerable pressure on it, and I could feel no pain. The needle had penetrated my skin, and there wasn't any blood. So I began to realize that there were two things that could happen here: One, I could be hypnotized and made to forget that I had been hypnotized at all; two, I could be hypnotized, and if I was told I could remember, I would retain a knowledge of all that had taken place under hypnosis." Dr. Simon decided to take Barney first, hoping to regress him to the night of September 19, 1961, and have him reveal every detail of the trip from Canada to Portsmouth. Since the trance would provide details of marked clarity, and since there was a reasonable expectation that Barney would bridge the amnesic gap under hypnosis, the blocking off of his memory after each session would permit Betty to give her own story in later sessions without being influenced by Barney. On February 22, 1964, Barney was ready to make his excursion into the unknown. CHAPTER ## "I am scared. God, I'm scared!" BARNEY TOOK HIS SEAT in front of the doctor's desk. He started to reach for a cigarette, but upon hearing the key words from Dr. Simon, his eyes closed, and his head nodded. His hands were folded across his lap, and he gave the appearance of having dozed in an easy chair. The deep trance was induced. The doctor began the session: DOCTOR: You are deeper and deeper asleep. Deep asleep. You will remember everything now, and you will tell me everything. And I want you to tell me in full detail all your experiences, all of your thoughts and all of your feelings, beginning with the time you left your hotel. . . BARNEY: I look up through the windshield of the car, and I see a star. That's funny, but I said: Betty, that's a satellite. And then I pulled over to the side of the road, and Betty jumped out her After retracing in precise detail the visit to Montreal, the trip into Canada and the upper part of Vermont and the drive down U.S. 3, Barney then mentioned the object in the sky. side with the binoculars. . . And I look towards the sky. . . And I'm saying, hurry up, Betty, so I can get a look. And Betty passes the binoculars to me. And I see that it's not a satellite. It is a plane. And I tell Betty this and give the binoculars back to her. And I am satisfied. DOCTOR: What kind of a plane was it? BARNEY: I look—and it is to the right. And it does not go where I thought it would go. It does not go past me to the right, my right shoulder. I think it will pass my right shoulder, off in the distance, going to the north. I am facing west, and my right is to the north. And it does not go to the north. A faint trace of amazement comes into his voice. From his tone, it is apparent that he is reliving, not retelling, the story. DOCTOR: Does it have propellers? BARNEY: I cannot tell. And I think this is strange I cannot hear a motor, to know if it has propellers:
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.