Page 6 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Late January 2019

6 Once Upon A Time - Betty & Barney Hill

Once upon a time, Betty

and Barney Hill told a

story that was out of this

world

By RAY DUCKLER

Leon Noel moved carefully toward the row of
twisted, sagging apple trees near the Interstate
93 overpass in Lincoln, each step swallowed by
two feet of snow.
He pointed with a sweeping motion
across the horizon. “There,” he said. “That’s
them.”
The trees had been zapped by radiation
emitted from an alien craft in 1961. At least
that’s what Noel had always told his children
and then his grandchildren. “They thought it
was gospel,” Noel said.
That was a family joke. The part about
Barney Hill squinting through binoculars and
seeing humanoids above this same field,
peering from windows like passengers on a
plane, was not. Lincoln region. As Noel says, “It was a big obsessed. She’s a written a book, compiled a 78-
Neither was the part about Hill making a thing. My aunt lived here and she was right page PDF as part of a presentation and told me
mad dash back to his car on Route 3, screaming
here, so it was a big thing to talk about. But by phone from Florida, “My opinion is they did
in terror to his wife, Betty Hill, that the couple
nothing ever came of it because ...” have an encounter with non-human entities. It
had to leave, fast, or risk capture.
Noel’s voice trailed off, then he laughed, created an emotional disturbance because it was
Or the piece about the Hills being taken
as though his mind had hit that universal stop so close and they had missing time. There were
aboard the craft somewhere near Thornton, then
sign we all approach. Look one way, and your scientists and military people who were
losing all memory for two hours, then arriving mind tells you it’s not true. interested.”
at home in Portsmouth as the sun rose and their Look the other way, however, and your Take everything Marden says, of course,
thoughts were unchained, allowing them to mind asks, “Why not?” with a grain of cosmic dust. But she no doubt
focus, at least partially, on what had happened. “There is something out there,” Noel knows more about this topic than anyone in the
It occurred during a six-hour stretch,
says. “For the billions of stars that you look out solar system.
beginning near midnight on Sept. 19, 1961, if
at with the naked eye at night, we can’t be the She was 13 when it happened, and says
you believe in that sort of thing.
only flea on the dog.” Betty called her sister – Marden’s mother – at
And don’t take my word for it.
If what Betty and Barney – the most their home in Kingston the afternoon after the
Look it up.
famous couple with those names since the abduction.
“Who knows?” Noel said. “I don’t. All I Flintstones – claimed was true, the 1969 moon “I came home from school during that
know is something happened.” landing would be transformed into a walk in the time frame and heard the end of it,” Marden
Noel drives the steam locomotive at park. But no matter what you believe, the story said. “Then we were at the Hill’s home a few
Clark’s Trading Post. He’s lived in Lincoln for was out of this world once the media got a hold days later and saw the spots on the car and the
nearly 50 years. His hands and smile are
of it four years after the incident. watches that had stopped.”
gigantic, and his silver hair rises from his head
A zany-sounding episode, sure, but Spots on the car? Legend has it that no
and shoots in different directions, sort of like
whiffs of legitimacy – including government one could explain what made them on the trunk,
that craft that Barney and Betty Hill insisted
scrutiny and hypnosis by a respected Boston or what they were made from. Stopped watches?
they saw that night 57 years ago.
physician – followed this like a comet’s tail. In Yep. Betty and Barney claimed that happened,
The yarn is part of the town’s landscape, fact, even the state added some credibility, too.
much like those funny-looking apple trees. planting one of those green historical markers Early reports said that after the Hills
As Noel worked his way through the near Indian Head Resort, right there on Route 3, bolted from the field in Lincoln, their car began
high snow, a 12-year veteran of the Lincoln to celebrate the 50th anniversary in 2011. to vibrate and a tingling sensation passed
Police Department pulled over to see what was
It reads: “On the night of September 19- through their bodies.
happening. He declined to give his name.
20, 1961, Portsmouth, NH couple Betty and That incident also happened in Lincoln,
“I have more than a passing familiarity
Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with which was the last moment the couple recalled.
with what happened,” the officer said. “But that
an unidentified flying object and two hours of Their memories returned two hours later in
doesn’t mean I’m a believer.”
‘lost time’ while driving south on Route 3 near Ashland, about 30 miles away, and it wasn’t
What about you? Lincoln. They filed an official Air Force Project until four years later that the couple identified
Blue Book report of a brightly-lit cigar-shaped the abduction site as Thornton, where an
An alien concept craft the next day, but were not public with their apartment complex now sits.
story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler They quickly reported their experience
The Hills lived in Portsmouth and were just in 1965.” to the National Investigations Committee on
passing through on their way home from Then come the words that push you to Aerial Phenomena, or NICAP.
Canada. A mixed marriage before those unions Google: “This was the first widely-reported
were fully accepted, Barney, an African UFO abduction report in the United States.” (Continued on Page 8)
American, died in 1969 from a brain aneurysm
at age 46, and Betty, who was white, passed in ‘Somehow not human’ Listen To Rob McConnell
2004 from lung cancer at 85. on
And yet, like Noel and that steam
In the ensuing years, retired schoolteacher The ‘X’ Zone Radio/TV Show
locomotive, they’re forever connected to the
Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill’s niece, became www.xzbn.net