Captured! by Stanton T. Friedman and Kathleen Marden

I want to believe. I want to believe aliens have visited us and that UFOs appear in the night sky.  I want to believe Betty and Barney Hill (yes, there is a street in West Haven named Barney Hill Road, a very strange coincidence indeed) saw a UFO in September of 1961 in the place I've spent a week or more of nearly every summer for 36 years.

But after reading this, and I wish I hadn't, I think maybe yes, they saw something that night, but the rest of their tale is nothing more than fantasy.

I have never read The Interrupted Journey, the first full length book regarding the Hill's experience.  For the first few chapters of this book I had every intention of requesting it, but now, not so much.

Let's go back a bit.  Most of those following this blog know my love of the strange, and Ancient Aliens is my favorite show.  Just about every summer, first as a child and now as a parent, I've spent in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, specifically the Lincoln-Woodstock area.  For years I've seen the marker at the start of Franconia Notch at the end of Indian Head Resort, where we stayed once in a cabin, marking the site of a supposed alien abduction in 1961.  A local gas station has a mural dedicated to the visitors.  This summer I vowed to finally read more about this couple and their story.

A quick Google search tells of a normal (albeit interracial, which wasn't so normal in New Hampshire in the 1960s) couple heading back from Montreal to their home in Plymouth.  This would take them through the Notch, adjacent to Cannon Mountain, on Route 3, now Interstate 93.  They, and their dog, encountered a UFO in the early morning hours.

I have no doubt the Hills, a couple with much at stake--Betty a social worker with the state, Barney a civil right activist and postal worker--would not come up with such a tale out of the blue.  I truly believe they did in fact see a UFO that night.  I have ridden the tram at Cannon, jogged on 3 at sunrise, been driven through the Notch at night.  Nothing in those experiences would create an illusion of UFOs--the Cannon observatory or restaurant, search lights, etc.  That part of the story cannot be explained.

I wish that was all I knew.  I could accept that.  The Hills were initially ok with keeping the story to just friends and family.  But then they underwent hypnotic regression and their story of abduction spread.  Soon they were famous.  Would Barney have been invited to a presidential inauguration as just a local civil right leader, or did his notoriety help get the Hills that ticket?  

The tales Betty spun are fantasy at best.  What is even worse is how this book, coauthored by her niece, is written.  Alternating between a familial type narrative and a lot of science I just don't understand (I last studied physics in 1997) from her coauthor, I was disheartened by the tone of the authors when presenting the opposing viewpoint.  I'm not a skeptic; I believe in aliens.  The condescending tone was unnecessary and off-putting.

I would like to lose time, like Betty claims the Hills did, and forget I read this.  Instead of smiling at the marker I'll pass heading north on 3 to I-93, I'm probably going to scowl.

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All opinions appearing on this blog are solely those of Mrs. W.