New Hampshire site of first reported UFO abduction

by Will Stewart

It happened, so the story goes, on Sept. 19, 1961. Betty and Barney Hill, a middle-aged bi-racial couple from Portsmouth, were returning from a short vacation in Canada. Around 10 p.m. the Hills were on Route 3 in the White Mountains, near Lancaster, when they noticed a light in the sky that seemed to be following them.

Around Indian Head, Barney stopped the car to get a better look at the object, now a mere 100 feet away, with his binoculars. He claimed to see a craft with multiple windows, behind which were a number of humanoid creatures. Terrified, he got back in the car and sped away.

Several miles down the road the two heard a beeping sound and became very drowsy. The next thing they knew, two hours had elapsed and they were 35 miles south of Indian Head. They proceeded back to Portsmouth without further incident.

Betty’s sister advised the couple to seek help and the Hills reported their experience to officials at Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth. To account for the missing two-hour gap in their memories, they underwent hypnotherapy with Dr. Benjamin Simon in Boston.

After they were separately hypnotized several times, a story of alien abduction began to emerge. The Hills said they had been taken aboard the object they had seen in the sky. While there they were subjected to medical examinations. Before they were returned to the car, Betty was reportedly shown a star map, on which the aliens pointed out their home planet, Zeta Reticuli, some billions of light years away.

The story was the subject of many newspaper and television accounts, including the made-for-TV movie The UFO Incident starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons as the Hills.

—Will Stewart