And often, at those Friday night movies, or Saturday matinees, a chapter of a serial was shown. These films featured everything from Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to Superman and tales of the Lost Continent of Atlantis. Robots, spaceships and evil aliens were the norm. Trips through the Solar System and to planets far away were taken. Many times the main film program was what people attended to see, but the "boring" shorts were shown first, including a serial.
In today's environment, the influence is even more obvious. NBC broadcast the story of Barney and Betty Hill to a national audience in October, 1975. If nothing else, it focused the alien abduction in the minds of so many of the viewers. After that, millions knew that the aliens were smaller than humans and they had big eyes.
Bullard opens his massive study of the abduction phenomenon by reporting on the Hill case. Prior to the release in 1966 of The Interrupted Journey, John Fuller's book about the Hills, there had been no discussion, in this country, of alien abduction. The Antonio Villas-Boas case, known to few even inside the UFO community, would not be known to Betty Hill. Yet, without that prompting, Betty Hill tells a tale of alien abduction that is similar to that related by Villas-Boas. The question that plagues the researchers, including Bullard, is, where did she get the idea?
Bullard believes that the Hills didn't possess the knowledge to construct the nightmare of alien abduction. And, he might be right. We have, however, just been provided with a clue about how the idea originated. The question is, are there other facts that add to this? Barney Hill's hysterical reaction certainly isn't enough to add the details of small alien creatures. The answer to this can be found in Keyhoe's The Flying Saucer Conspiracy.
At the time of the Hill abduction, there were few public reports of alien creatures. It was not a topic discussed much in UFO circles. Keyhoe cites a dozen of so of these cases, ignoring the majority of them. He does, however, treat the case of pilot in Hawaii who claimed, "I actually saw him," meaning the creature from the craft, with respect. Keyhoe seems to be suggesting that the story, while wildly extreme, at that time, has an undercurrent of authenticity.
More importantly, however, Keyhoe writes of UFO reports from Venezuela that seem to have contributed to Betty Hill's nightmare. In his book, Keyhoe reports on two men who sight a bright light on a nearby road. Hovering over the ground is a round craft with a brilliant glow on the underside. According to Keyhoe, four little men came from it and tried to drag Jesus Gomez to it. An apparent abduction that failed.
Betty wrote to Keyhoe, "At this time we are searching for any clue that might be helpful to my husband, in recalling whatever it was he saw that caused him to panic. His mind has completely blacked out at this point. Every attempt to recall, leaves him very frightened."
All of this, from Keyhoe's writings about nasty, hairy dwarfs who are attempting to kidnap humans, to the idea that the aliens are conducting some kind of experimentation, were introduced prior to 1961. The elements for the abduction scenario as outlined by the Hills were abundant throughout the media. If Bullard wonders where Betty Hill got the idea, a study of the case will provide an answer for it. There is no denying that pop culture could have supplied the various elements. Betty Hill may have pulled them together into a single, neat package. Please note here that I said, “May have…”
Martin S. Kottmeyer, writing in Magonia, presents a good argument for the introduction of elements from pop culture. For example, Barney Hill talked of "wraparound eyes" when he described the aliens to his psychiatrist, an element of extreme rarity in science fiction films. But Kottmeyer found the exception. He wrote, "They appeared on the alien episode of an old TV series, 'The Outer Limits' entitled the 'The Bellero Shield.' A person familiar with Barney's sketch in The Interrupted Journey(top two drawings are Barney’s sketches, bottom photo from The Twilight Zone) and the sketch done in collaboration with the artist David Bakerwill find a 'frisson' of 'dejavu' creeping up his spine when seeing this episode. The resemblance is much abetted by an absence of ears, hair, and nose on both aliens. Could it be by chance? Consider this: Barney first described and drew the wraparound eyes during the hypnosis session dated 22 February 1964. 'The Bellero Shield' was first broadcast 10 February 1964. Only twelve days separated the two instances. If the identification is admitted, the commonness of wrap around eyes in the abduction literature falls to cultural forces."
Betty Hill was eventually asked about this by UFO researchers. She claimed that neither she nor Barney ever watched the Outer Limits. It seems ridiculous to believe that she would be able to recall if her husband watched a television show some thirty years earlier. It could simply have been the only time that he ever watched it. The coincidence between the airing of The Bellero Shieldand Barney's description some twelve days later is interesting. (See also my discussion of the Twilight Zone episode about an alien abduction called “Hocus Pocus and Frisby” that is included in this package of blog columns.)
The situation of April 1961 is slightly different than we have been lead to believe. The Hill abduction didn't spring into existence in a cultural vacuum, but in a society where information was shared nationally on television and by the movies, not to mention magazines and books. Betty's interest in UFOs predated her experience because of her sister's UFO sighting, and Barney's fear of capture while driving on a lonely stretch of highway in New Hampshire, created the scenario. As the days passed, Betty Hill dreamed of the incident, writing about them in her diary. When interviewed by interested UFO researchers, she always told about her dreams, with Barney sitting in the room with her. The rest of it came together almost naturally.
It is important to note that the Hills' psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon, never believed the story told under hypnosis. He didn't accept the abduction as real. He believed it to be a confabulation, a fact often forgotten by UFO researchers.
What we have then, is a well ingrained theory, that is, that aliens are abducting humans, fueled by speculation from science fiction movies and the popular press. All the ideas have been discussed, in the movies, on the radio, on television and in dozens of science fiction books. All elements of the abduction phenomenon have been well publicized long before the first of the abductions was reported. Contrary to what the UFO researchers might want to believe, we can find all the elements of abduction in pop culture. We may have to search several sources, but there is no denying that the elements were all present before Betty Hill made her astonishing report. If alien abductions are real, and even if we find precedents in pop culture and in folklore traditions, the abduction experience itself should be unique. We should find nothing similar to it in our society. It turns out that such is not the case. Alien abduction is not unique. There is another phenomenon that has grown out of pop culture, whose traditions and traits mimic UFO abduction almost step for step. It is a phenomenon reported, essentially by the same kinds of people, investigated by the same kinds of people, and it provides us with clues about the reality of claims of alien abduction.
The Abduction Engima and UFO Research
