How church-going couple shocked world with 1st-ever UFO abduction story – and why aliens struggled to undress wife

Scottish Sun

19-05-2025

It's not just US citizens like the Hills that little green men have visited - find out about UK close encounters, too
'TAKEN' How church-going couple shocked world with 1st-ever UFO abduction story – and why aliens struggled to undress wife
DRIVING through the night on a remote mountain road, Barney and Betty Hill got the fright of their lives as a bright light in the sky grew then hovered right above their car – in the shape of a giant saucer.
The American newlyweds — travelling home from a late honeymoon at Niagara Falls — were further alarmed by a sudden buzzing noise.
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Driving through the night on a remote mountain road, Barney and Betty Hill got the fright of their lives as a bright light in the sky grew then hovered right above their car
Credit: Getty
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Betty and Barney Hill, pictured before their honeymoon, believed they had been ambushed by aliens - in the first such abduction ever made public
Credit: © Kathleen Marden
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Betty claimed the aliens did not know how to use the zipper on her dress - pictured above - so they simply ripped it from her
Credit: © Kathleen Marden
Two hours after these strange goings-on in New Hampshire, they would find themselves safely back home, 35 miles down the road, but with only fuzzy recollections of that last stretch of the journey — and watches that had gone on the blink.
It all sounds like a typical tale of an extraterrestrial encounter — but back in 1961, when postal worker Barney, then 39, and his social worker wife Betty, 41, believed they had been ambushed by aliens, no one had gone public with anything of the sort.
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Now Hollywood movie Strange Arrivals is recreating the mystery and terror, with Demi Moore playing Betty and Colman Domingo — star of Lincoln and The Color Purple — as Barney.
The title comes from a hit podcast of the same name that recounts the Hills' tale over eight episodes, and filming begins soon.
Seven years after the alleged alien encounter, Betty claimed in an interview that she was given 'a fairly simple physical examination'.
She said: 'They were taking pictures of my skin, also interest in my hands and my feet.
'They also did a test which they called checking my nervous system.
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Shoved needle in navel
'Throughout the whole examination it would be like picking up some kind of a strange animal and looking it over, giving it a check-up and putting it back down again, without any intentions of harming it.'
Under hypnosis in 1964, she also claimed the aliens shoved a 'long needle' in her navel to perform a pregnancy test.
Betty said: ''They roll me over on my back. The examiner has a needle in his hand, and it's bigger than any needle I've ever seen.
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'The leader — he goes over and he puts his hand, runs his hand in front of my eyes and he says I'll be alright. I won't feel it.
'But I'm still sore from where they put that needle in.
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'I tried to tell them they shouldn't do it.'
Betty remembered how her dress was torn in several places. As they were about to take her on to that craft, she fought for her life.
Kathleen Marden, couple's niece
Betty's husband died of a brain haemorrhage aged 46, in 1969, and she became a celebrity within the UFO ­community before dying at 85, in 2004.
Now their 76-year-old niece Kathleen Marden, who was 13 at the time of her aunt and uncle's reported encounter and saw them two days later, insists the church-going couple never told anything but 'God's honest truth' about what happened.
Kathleen, who has spent much of her adult life investigating some 6,000 UFO reports, tells The Sun: 'They had been immobilised and taken to this craft.
'Barney stated that he felt as if he was floating and only the toes of his shoes were bumping along the ground.
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'When he arrived home, he discovered his shoes were so deeply scraped that he had to purchase a new pair.
'Betty remembered how her dress was torn in several places.
'As they were about to take her on to that craft, she fought for her life.
'She kicked one of them and that tore the lining of her dress and the hem down one side.
'And when they removed her dress in the examination room of the alien ship they did not know how to undo a zipper. So they went to a tear in the lining.'
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The Hills were an unlikely couple to be caught up in UFO speculation.
Theirs was a mixed race marriage — Barney was black, Betty white — and they were deeply passionate about civil rights and religion.
They railed against the racism they faced in 1960s America, and Barney helped teach people to read and write so they could pass a test to be allowed to vote.
Science fiction books and films were part of popular culture in 1961 but none of that interested the couple.
Kathleen said of their fame: 'Prior to this, they never talked about UFOs.
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'They were interested in civil rights and human rights.'
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Demi Moore and Colman Domingo will play Betty and Barney in Hollywood film Strange Arrivals - telling the story of the abduction
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The Hills' niece Kathleen Marden, now 76, says the couple always told the 'God's honest truth' about their terrifying encounter
Credit: Getty
The retired teacher, who lived near the Hills in the New Hampshire coastal town of Portsmouth, and with them for two years when she was a student, also reveals Barney did not want anyone — even family — to know what had apparently happened on that mountain road at about 10.30pm.
Betty, for her part, was so scared she at first refused to bring her holiday luggage back into her home in case it had been contaminated by the humanoids.
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After she began having terrifying dreams about the incident, she and Barney turned to hypnosis to try to piece together what had happened to them — and recalled being briefly abducted and examined by grey men.
An official investigation was then leaked to the media — and overnight the unassuming Hills became famous.
Their story was adapted in 1966 into best-selling book The Interrupted Journey, and then in 1975 US TV movie The UFO Incident — featuring Star Wars actor James Earl Jones.
When the pair first noticed that strange light high in the sky, Barney dismissed it as maybe a satellite gone astray — but as it got closer and larger, he pulled over his Chevrolet and got out to take a look.
He did not like what he saw — and Kathleen says: 'He was running back to the car when something started to drop out of the bottom of this craft.
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When they arrived home, both their watches were broken. They reset the watches, rewound them — but they never ran again.
Kathleen Marden, couple's niece
'He went screaming back to Betty that they had to get out of there or they were going to be captured.
'And that was just before he and Betty heard a series of buzzing sounds striking their vehicle that caused it to vibrate and a tingling to pass through their bodies.'
Beyond that point, the couple could not recall much else about the incident — believing the aliens plunged them into a trance-like state.
A few days later Kathleen visited the Hills' home and, while there, overheard a conversation. She recalls: 'Barney had said to Betty, 'Don't ever tell anybody about this'. He didn't even want her to call my mother.
'Betty was concerned the craft had come so close to them that they were contaminated. They had not taken their suitcases into the house. And they took long showers afterwards.'
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'Took lots of samples'
Kathleen also remembers Barney being in a state of shock. She adds: 'When they arrived home, both their watches were broken.
'They reset the watches, rewound them — but they never ran again.'
Afterwards, Betty had dreams of meeting aliens — and believed they were flashbacks to what had really happened.
But the Hills' full account emerged only two years later, as Barney's failing mental health and debilitating ulcers led him to seek medical help.
During sessions with hypnotherapist Dr Benjamin Simon, who treated World War Two veterans, the couple recalled being examined by the aliens. They spoke about going up a ramp into a circular craft, while Betty talked about the aliens taking samples from her body and Barney recalled them putting a cap over his private parts.
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Kathleen adds: 'They took lots of samples.'
Barney reported his story to officials at the Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire, and he and Betty contacted the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena — a US group that believes credible sightings are often covered up.
But somehow, their account was leaked to a journalist on a now-defunct newspaper called the Boston Traveller in 1965.
Kathleen says the couple feared losing their jobs as a result of their story going public, yet they did later speak to the Press about it — and their niece insists she has 'proof' their tale was genuine.
She says: 'It's not possible they imagined this. There were at least 16 individuals who saw that craft in that location on the same night, in the same time frame.'
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Years later she also sent Betty's dress for scientific analysis — which revealed rare earth elements.
But Dr Simon had a different opinion. He believed everything beyond seeing an unidentified object had been just dreamt ­— and that being chased by a strange craft was Barney manifesting his fears as a black man in the prejudiced America of the time.
The makers of the new movie have not spoken to Kathleen.
She says: 'Even though I'm trustee of the estate — and the leading investigator on this case — no one has contacted me.'
Indecent Proposal star Demi, 62, was up for Best Actress at the Oscars earlier this year for cult horror movie The Substance.
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After getting home, both their watches were broken
Credit: © Kathleen Marden
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The couple's story was adapted in 1966 into best-selling book The Interrupted Journey, and then in 1975 US TV movie The UFO Incident — featuring Star Wars actor James Earl Jones
Credit: Alamy
But Kathleen fears the star may portray her aunt wrongly. The new film is reported to be a romantic one and Toby Ball's Strange Arrivals podcast, that the film is based on, is sceptical about alien abductions.
Kathleen says of Betty and Barney: 'They experienced anxiety as a result of this experience, but they had no major mental illness.
'I'm fearful Betty might be portrayed as a delusional individual and that her husband loves her so much that he comes to believe her delusion.
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'I'm going to be very upset if that is the case.'