On September 20th, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were returning home to New Hampshire after vacationing at Niagara Falls when they saw a strange sight in the sky. After pulling over to take a look with their binoculars, the couple got nervous and decided it would be best to be on their way. Both claimed to have heard an unusual beeping and then to have found that they had traveled an additional 35 miles with no recollection of the trip. It was only later, after the couple had arrived home that all of the events of that fateful night came to light.

After arriving home, Betty and Barney both began having nightmares and experiencing general anxiety. This went on for several years before the Hills decided that it was time to get some help and find out exactly what had happened to them during their road trip. In 1964, the Hills visited Dr. Benjamin Simon and began to participate in hypnosis sessions in an attempt to uncover what had happened to them.

Both of the Hills recalled a strange craft following them while they were on the road. Eventually, they were taken from their car by apparent alien beings. They were then taken aboard the craft and given medical examinations. According to the Hills, the aliens weren’t cruel to them. Instead they seemed to be quite taken with all of the little details involving the Hills, examining their clothing and even Barney’s dentures. Mental experiments were also performed and skin, hair and nail samples were taken.

During the course of the hypnosis sessions, Betty was even able to produce a star map, stating that the aliens had told her where they had come from. Initially the map baffled astronomers, who didn’t recognize the star pattern, but in 1969, the Zeta Reticuli System was discovered and it was found that Betty’s chart matched the Zeta chart exactly.

The case of Betty and Barney hill is considered to be the “original” abduction case. It is still referred to and studied today. Many of the physical attributes that we associate with aliens – large heads, large eyes, long fingers and grey skin – originate with the descriptions given by the Hills. This case has its fair share of skeptics as well as its firm believers. Some people firmly believe that the Hills were abducted on that long ago night, while others believe that they made up the entire story for their own gain. Still others think that the Hills were simply mistaken, that they were confused by random events and created the story of the abduction to explain those random events.