Of all the strange stories ever told on a New Hampshire back road, this is the one that went global. Betty and Barney Hill were a Portsmouth couple who said they were followed by a UFO through the White Mountains on the night of September 19 to 20, 1961, and lost a chunk of time they couldn't account for. Their story became the Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction, the first widely reported alien abduction case in the United States, and it helped give us the big-headed, big-eyed alien you see in every movie today.
So grab the binoculars and let's take a ride down Route 3. Quick note: nobody has ever proven what happened that night, and believers and skeptics have been arguing about it for more than 60 years. We'll give you the story and both sides. You decide.
Who Were Betty and Barney Hill?
Before they were famous, the Hills were regular, well-respected Seacoast folks. Barney Hill was a World War II veteran who worked for the post office. Betty Hill, born Eunice Barrett in Newton, New Hampshire, was a social worker. They were active in their Unitarian church and in the NAACP, and Barney sat on a local board of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. They were also an interracial couple at a time when that was rare, and still illegal in many states. These were not people looking for attention.
The Drive Home Through the White Mountains
In September 1961 the Hills were heading home to Portsmouth after a vacation to Niagara Falls and Montreal, with their dachshund, Delsey, in the back seat of their 1957 Chevy Bel Air. They were cutting down through the North Country on an empty U.S. Route 3. Somewhere south of Lancaster, around 10:30 at night by their account, Betty noticed a bright light near the moon. It looked like a falling star, except it was going up.
The light kept getting bigger and brighter. Barney pulled over at a picnic area near Twin Mountain so they could get a better look and walk the dog. Barney figured it was a plane headed for Montreal. Betty wasn't so sure.
Strange Lights Over Franconia Notch
They kept driving, slowly, down through Franconia Notch, watching the thing the whole way. According to the Hills, it passed near the signal tower on top of Cannon Mountain and drifted out by the Old Man of the Mountain, the famous granite face that was still hanging up there back then. Betty said the object looked bigger than the Old Man himself and seemed to be spinning. It was silent, lit up, and bouncing around the sky like no airplane they'd ever seen.
The Close Encounter Near Indian Head
Here's where it gets wild. About a mile south of the Indian Head rock formation in Lincoln, the Hills said, the craft dropped down right in front of them. Barney stopped the car in the middle of the highway. The thing was hovering maybe 80 to 100 feet up, and Barney described it as looking like a giant pancake. He walked toward it with the binoculars and said he saw figures in shiny dark uniforms looking back at him through a row of windows.
Barney panicked, ran back to the car and floored it. As they sped off, the Hills said they heard a strange beeping sound, and everything got foggy. Their next clear memories were much farther down the road.
The Missing Time
The Hills got home to Portsmouth around dawn, way later than they should have. The state historical marker puts it at about two hours of "lost" time. The Hills could barely remember a 35-mile stretch of Route 3 between Indian Head and Ashland.
And they came home with some odd souvenirs. According to their accounts:
- Their watches stopped working.
- The leather strap on Barney's binoculars was torn, and the toes of his good dress shoes were scuffed.
- Betty's dress was torn and had a strange pinkish powder on it.
- There were shiny circles on the trunk of the car that made a compass needle spin.
Calling the Air Force at Pease
Betty called her sister, and a police chief who happened to be visiting told her to report it to Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth. An Air Force major followed up and wrote a report dated September 21, 1961, which ended up in Project Blue Book, the Air Force's official UFO files. That paperwork covers the lights in the sky, not the abduction story, which hadn't come out yet. A month later, Boston astronomer Walter Webb of the UFO group NICAP interviewed the Hills for six hours and came away convinced they were being honest.
Betty's Dreams and the Boston Hypnosis Sessions
About ten days after the drive, Betty started having vivid nightmares five nights in a row. In them, a group of short men stopped the car, walked the couple into the woods, and brought them aboard a craft for what sounded like a medical checkup before letting them go.
Eventually the Hills were referred to Dr. Benjamin Simon, a well-known Boston psychiatrist and hypnosis expert. Starting on January 4, 1964, they drove down to Boston about once a week, and he hypnotized them separately. Under hypnosis, both described being taken aboard the craft by small gray beings with large, wraparound eyes. Here's the twist that people forget: Dr. Simon himself didn't buy the abduction. He concluded the story most likely grew out of Betty's dreams, which Barney had heard her talk about over and over.
The Star Map and Zeta Reticuli
One of the most famous pieces of the case is Betty's "star map." She said the leader of the beings showed her a map of stars connected by lines, and she later sketched it from memory. Starting in 1968, an Ohio schoolteacher and amateur astronomer named Marjorie Fish built a 3D model of nearby stars out of beads and thread and decided the map matched the view from Zeta Reticuli, a double star about 39 light-years away. That's why some people still call it the "Zeta Reticuli Incident."
Astronomers weren't sold. Carl Sagan argued the match was basically connect-the-dots, and later, more accurate star measurements from the Hipparcos satellite showed some of the stars in Fish's model were much farther away than she'd thought. Fish herself eventually backed off her interpretation.
How the Story Got Out
The Hills didn't go running to the papers. They told friends, their church and UFO researchers, but asked reporters to leave them alone. Then on October 25, 1965, the Boston Traveler ran it on the front page with the headline "UFO Chiller: Did THEY Seize Couple?" The wire services picked it up the next day, and suddenly the whole world knew about two people from Portsmouth.
In 1966 author John G. Fuller wrote the best-selling book The Interrupted Journey with the Hills' cooperation, and in 1975 NBC aired a TV movie, The UFO Incident, with James Earl Jones as Barney and Estelle Parsons as Betty. Barney died in 1969 at just 46. Betty lived until 2004, and for decades she was a fixture in the UFO world.
What Do the Skeptics Say?
Plenty of people think there's a down-to-earth explanation. Jim Macdonald, who lives in the area, retraced the route and argued the "UFO" was really the aircraft warning beacon on top of Cannon Mountain, which pops in and out of view at the same spots the Hills described. Add a long drive, no sleep and a bright planet near the moon, and you've got a recipe for a scary night.
Others point to pop culture. Researcher Martin Kottmeyer noticed that Barney first described those wraparound alien eyes under hypnosis on February 22, 1964, just twelve days after an episode of The Outer Limits called "The Bellero Shield" aired featuring an alien with, you guessed it, big wraparound eyes. Betty said she'd never heard of the show. And many psychologists today warn that hypnosis can create memories that feel real but aren't. Believers counter that the Hills were respected people who stuck to their story, and that the Air Force report came years before any TV show.
Visiting the Betty and Barney Hill Marker in Lincoln
In July 2011, the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources put up an official state historical marker on Route 3 in Lincoln, near the Indian Head Resort, close to where the Hills said the craft came down on them. Yes, New Hampshire has a roadside history marker for an alien abduction. Only in the Granite State. Want to go deeper? The University of New Hampshire, Betty's alma mater, keeps the Betty and Barney Hill Papers in Durham, including the dress she wore that night. You can see the collection by appointment.
If you head up for a look, make a day of it in the Notch. And if you'd rather be up there right now, the I'd Rather Be At The White Mountains NH T-Shirt says it for you. For the true believahs who keep one eye on the sky on the drive home, there's the Don't Stop Believin' UFO T-Shirt.
More Strange New England Encounters
The Hills aren't the only New Englanders who saw something weird on a dark night. Check out our story on the Dover Demon, the big-eyed little creature spotted in Dover, Massachusetts, in 1977, or take a trip into the Bridgewater Triangle, where folks have reported everything from UFOs to Bigfoot for decades.
The Truth Is Out There (Probably Near Lincoln)
Whether you think Betty and Barney Hill met visitors from another star system, saw a mountaintop beacon on a long, sleepy drive, or something in between, their story changed pop culture forever. Every abduction tale since owes something to a postal worker, a social worker and a little dog named Delsey on Route 3. Next time you're driving through Franconia Notch after dark, keep your eyes on the road. Mostly.
Ever seen something strange in the New Hampshire sky? Tell us on our socials. We promise not to laugh. Much.
Stay wicked curious, New Hampshire,
Ryan & the Chowdaheadz Crew