Note: I am not making fun or or celebrating the death of an elderly woman! Just thought some people might find this obit interesting—I, for one, had no idea she was still alive.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Betty Hill, whose tale of being abducted by aliens launched her to fame and became the subject of a bestselling book and television movie, has died. She was 85. Hill claimed that she and her husband, Barney, were abducted by extraterrestrials in New Hampshire’s White Mountains on a trip home from Canada in 1961. The Hills were puzzled when they arrived home and noticed Betty’s torn and stained dress, Barney’s scuffed shoes, shiny spots on their car, stopped watches and no memory of two hours of the drive. Under hypnosis three years later, they recounted being kidnapped and examined by aliens.
Hill retired from UFO lecturing in her 70s and complained that the quest for knowledge about extraterrestrials had become tainted with commercialism. Too many people with “flaky ideas, fantasies and imaginations” were making UFO and abduction reports, she said in a 1991 interview. “If you were to believe the numbers of people who are claiming this, it would figure out to 3,000 to 5,000 abductions in the United States alone every night,” she said. “There wouldn’t be room for planes to fly.”
She wasn’t Really beame dup, I’m sure she is in her casket now.
Those interested may look up in the northwest sky tonight to see said coffin rising to …wherever
The short-lived NBC show “Dark Skies,” which was set in the '60s and dealt with aliens and such, once featured an interracial couple which had seen aliens. I had no idea that the show was invoking a real-life couple.
Oddly, Anne Strieber, Whitley’s wife, had a major stroke Saturday night & needed surgury for bleeding on the brain. She is in stable condition now.
Whitley Strieber is the novelist who wrote THE HUNGER and WOLFEN, then later the COMMUNION series on his own alien abductions, played by Christopher Walken in the movie. He also hosts a Netcast called Dreamland at unknowncountry.com and co-wrote THE COMING GLOBAL SUPERSTORM, the basis for The Day After Tomorrow, with Art Bell.
Then my eyes adjusted, and suddenly I had the bizarre image stuck in my head of a pepperpot being chased on speeded-up film around a field by big-eyed gray aliens while the “Hooked On” version of the Close Encounters theme played on the soundtrack.
Now both the Hills are dead, but the first well-known abductee, Howard Menger is apparently still alive and kickin’, although I don’t know how often he’s able to take the saucer out for a spin nowadays.
I met her when I lived in New Hampshire briefly in the late '80s. She reminded me a lot more of Aunt Clara from Bewitched than of Estelle Parsons (who played her in the made-for-TV movie). (Here’s a pic of Hill and here’s one of Aunt Clara).
I have no idea what happened to her 40+ years ago, but I will say that I am convinced that
1- she was not insane
2- she firmly believed she had been taken inside a UFO
She was also very sweet.
I’ve also driven down that stretch of NH road… it is one eerie and deserted stretch. If I were an alien jonesing for some probin’, it’d definitely seem like a single’s bar to me.
85 is a good run. RIP Betty.
