Autographed copies of the 60th Anniversary Edition of Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience by Kathleen Marden & Stanton Friedman, M.Sc. are available at Kathleen's Bookstore.
Kathleen Marden's Website (articles, transcripts, photos, and sketches) are ©Copyrighted by Kathleen Marden 2023
Betty and Barney Hill in 1961: A Niece's Memories
Of The Event
©Kathleen Marden
I was a typical adolescent in rural southeastern New Hampshire, in 1961. My grandparents ran a small farm across the street from my childhood home, where during the warm summer months, my mother, brothers and I helped out preparing the land for planting, sowing seeds, and weeding the garden. We picked the bounty of fresh, succulent beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and peas when they had matured, and delighted in the fruits of our labor. There was an abundance of love in my family and the work we accomplished together.
My mother was a farmer, craftswoman, and stay at home mom. My father ran a small business and was scoutmaster to my two younger brothers and many of the boys in our local area. I belonged to 4-H where I crafted covered cigar boxes and sewed pretty outfits that won ribbons at the Deerfield Fair. Life was secure and happy.
In September 1961, I was enjoying the first month of the seventh grade at Daniel J. Bakie School, on Kingston Plains. The school bus arrived at my house each morning and drove us home in the afternoon. My school awarded me a position of responsibility as a crossing guard and bus monitor, to ensure the safety of my fellow elementary school students. This instilled a sense of pride in me because I knew that I was respected by my school's elders. I supervised first grade students when the teacher took her lunch break and assisted in the cafeteria. On Sunday mornings, I volunteered as an aide to the Sunday school teacher at the Newton Junction Baptist Church. In the afternoon, my extended family gathered to socialize with one another and catch up on the week’s news.
Pease Air Force Base, home of the 509th nuclear bomb wing, was one of three nearby military bases that caused a sense of uneasiness in my community. Periodically, the school’s bell would sound, and we were instructed to assume a fetal position under our desks or to line up in tiny balls, arms protecting our heads, along the hallway. Nuclear war loomed as a concern, and people from the city were building bomb shelters at their summer homes. The Kingston Barrel Factory (now a Superfund site), located a mile or so from my family’s home, spewed toxic fumes into the air necessitating home confinement from time to time. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard built nuclear submarines across the river from nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
I had arrived home from school on the afternoon of September 20th, anticipating a social visit with my mother before I did my afternoon chores. But this day she was preoccupied with a phone call from her sister Betty Hill. It was not the typical conversation that I was accustomed to hearing. There was concern over possible contamination from the “flying saucer” that had hovered over their 1957 Chevy Bel Air the previous night, when they were traveling through the New Hampshire’s White Mountain region. I was startled because I was completely unaware of the UFO presence. On this day, my life changed forever.
Within two days my parents, brothers, and I traveled to Betty's and Barney's home in Portsmouth, NH. We had anticipated a customary greeting from our uncle, but Barney was unusually pensive. He sat quietly awaiting a phone call from Pease Air Force Base. My father joined him in a corner of the living room. My mother, brothers, and I joined Betty in the kitchen where she described her memories of their close encounter with a silent, hovering, unconventional craft. She spoke of the new shiny spots on the trunk of her 1957 Chevy Bel Air and how her compass needle whirled when she placed it over the spots, but not elsewhere on her vehicle. We were excited to see the spots with our own eyes. My bother and I took turns lifting our younger brother high enough so he could see them as well. We attempted unsuccessfully to rub the spots away until my mother raised her voice and warned us not to touch them. She said that the mysterious spots might present a health danger. No one thought to take a picture of them. Our photography was limited in those days.
The rest of the story, including who the Hills were as people, their UFO sighting, the scientific investigation of their UFO sighting, the scientific evaluation of the evidence, their hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon, the military’s interest in what occurred, and much more is detailed in my book with nuclear physicistStanton T. Friedman, MSc, Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The 60th anniversary edition with new scientific discoveries and supporting evidence is available for purchase at online bookstores and on this website at Bookstore.