Woman Who Claimed Alien Abduction Dies

[jamotto]

Link

quote:

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PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Betty Hill, whose tale of being abducted by aliens launched her to fame and became the subject of a best-selling book and television movie, has died. She was 85.

Hill died at her home Sunday after a battle with lung cancer.

Hill claimed that she and her husband, Barney, were abducted by extraterrestrials in New Hampshire's White Mountains on a trip home from Canada in 1961.

The Hills were puzzled when they arrived home and noticed Betty's torn and stained dress, Barney's scuffed shoes, shiny spots on their car, stopped watches and no memory of two hours of the drive.

Under hypnosis three years later, they recounted being kidnapped and examined by aliens.

The couple gained international notoriety after going public with their story, traveling across the country to give speeches and making numerous television and radio appearances.

Their story also became the focus of John G. Fuller's 1966 best-selling book, "Interrupted Journey," and a television movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons.

Hill retired from UFO lecturing in her 70s and complained that the quest for knowledge about extraterrestrials had become tainted with commercialism. Too many people with "flaky ideas, fantasies and imaginations" were making UFO and abduction reports, she told The Associated Press in a 1991 interview.

"If you were to believe the numbers of people who are claiming this, it would figure out to 3,000 to 5,000 abductions in the United States alone every night," she said. "There wouldn't be room for planes to fly."

She also said media had fueled UFO fiction.

"The media presented them as huge craft, all brightly lighted and flashing, but they are not," she said in a 1997 AP interview. "They are small, with dim lights, and many times they fly with no lights."

Hill had gone a bit commercial herself, trying to fight UFO fantasies with a 1995 self-published book, "A Common Sense Approach to UFOs."

Before devoting her life to UFOs, Hill had been a state social worker specializing in adoptions and training foster parents. Her husband died in 1969.

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[Cc]

Yes, I remember reading the original article in 'LOOK' magazine in junior high.

Plus the Fuller book and the TV movie.

Dunno what really happened, but when you start hypnotizing people I figure all bets are off.

I also liked the Fuller book "The Ghost of Flight 401". Now that was really creepy.

Also a TV movie if I recall.

[Scrivener]

Whenever you hear the Betty and Barney Hill case on TV (and any time you watch something on UFOs they bring up this case) - it's always dramatized so as to seem unbelievably hokey - with tons of major innaccuracies. This was something that the couple spent most of their lives trying to debunk. There is just so much BS out there that it's tough to distinguish the real cases from the false ones. The passing of Mrs. Hill is truely a sad loss for the Ufology community.