Betty Hill, of the famous alleged Barney & Betty Hill UFO abduction case, replied to a letter I sent her in 1980. A few days before, she and a who's-who of well known UFO researchers participated in a classic solid week of UFO discussions hosted via an evening talk show on Rochester, New York's WHAM Radio. Many of the participants actually appeared personally in the studio. This is the program to which she refers.
Aside from the abduction experience claimed by Betty and her husband (both deceased), updated by her niece in a recent book which I have not seen, there has long been concern by researchers about Betty's belief that she subsequently experienced UFO sightings on a regular basis. I'm thinking back vaguely to instances where people in her presence would try to assure her that some lights in the sky were nothing unusual, but she was insistent that they were spacecraft from elsewhere. She obviously takes a stand on this issue in the letter shown here.
In any case, if you aren't familiar with the original Hill incident, know that the story itself, the couple's later hypnosis sessions with noted psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, and the eventual "Hill Star Map" constructed by teacher Marjorie Fish, which literally lifted the Barney and Betty Hill incident's credibility through the roof, are the essentials of this enigmatic situation.
As a member of NICAP and APRO when the Hill story first emerged decades ago, I remember my fascination with this incident, for this was the first "abduction" case to impress NICAP, and it certainly raised the stakes for APRO, which had followed similar international reports for years.
If you ever have an opportunity, be sure to see the seventies TV movie, "The UFO Incident," a dramatization of the Hill case based upon author John G. Fuller's book, The Interrupted Journey (which also must be read for an appreciation of the Hill's story). Actors James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons provide superb characterizations in this disturbing motion picture.
