They were an interracial couple at a time when it was particularly unusual in the United States Barney was black and Betty was white. Active in a Unitarian congregation, the Hills were also members of the NAACP and community leaders, and Barney sat on a local board of the U.S. Postal Service, while Betty (1919–2004) was a social worker. Barney (1922–1969) was employed by the U.S. As of July 2011, the site of the alleged craft’s first close approach is marked by a state historical marker.īackgroundThe Hills lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Many of Betty Hill’s notes, tapes, and other items have been placed in a permanent collection at the University of New Hampshire, her alma mater. Theirs was the first widely publicized claim of alien abduction, adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television movie The UFO Incident. The couple’s story, called the Hill Abduction, and occasionally the Zeta Reticuli Incident, was that they had been kidnapped for a short time by a UFO. Elizabeth Slomba, University Archivist at inquiries about licensing pieces from the Betty and Barney Hill Collection, please contact Katie Vogel, Licensing Manager for Creative and Digital Works, at or 60.Betty and Barney Hill were an American couple who claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of New Hampshire on September 19–20, 1961. If you have any questions about the Betty and Barney Hill collection, you can visit Dr. Both were members of the NAACP and Barney sat on a local board of the U.S. Their descriptions of what they experienced and saw that night have shaped the way alien encounters are discussed in the media even today. The Hills, though best known for their association with UFOs and their abduction, were also active civil servants in their seacoast New Hampshire community. Because of her experience, Betty became one of the most well-known voices in UFO research and the publicity she received made her internationally famous as the couple’s story captured the world’s imagination. Betty’s dress was stained and torn, and Barney’s shoes were badly scuffed, but neither had any recollection of how these and other physical changes happened to their car and belongings.Īfter seeking hypnosis therapy, the couple were able to recall similar details of an alien abduction. Two hours of their drive were wiped from their memories. The next thing they can recall is being 35 miles farther in their journey home. Through binoculars, Barney claims to have spotted non-human figures in a cigar-shaped craft that hovered over their car. 19, 1961, the couple was returning from a trip to Montreal and driving through New Hampshire’s White Mountains when they said they saw lights approaching them in the sky. The collection also includes the dress Betty was wearing on the night of the abduction and a ceramic bust of an alien, dubbed “Junior,” which was sculpted to resemble Betty’s description of the alien leader.īetty and Barney Hill were New Hampshire residents and lived near the seacoast in Portsmouth. Now housed at the Dimond Library, it contains artifacts related to their abduction and subsequent research, such as correspondence, personal journals and essays, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, slides, films and audio tapes relating to UFOs. UNH received the collection after Betty’s death in 2004 (Barney passed away suddenly in 1969). However, there are probably none quite as unexpected as the university’s collection of authentic UFO-related artifacts from Betty and Barney Hill, the now famous couple who made the first well-documented and widely reported UFO abduction report in the United States. The University of New Hampshire is home to many unique and surprising things that the institution has collected over its 150-year history.
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