Alien Abduction and Racial Anxiety: Barney and Betty Hill Reexamined, Pt. 2

Peace from Venus / Cosmic Transmissions

Read Pt. 1 here.

As a reminder, the following is the second part of paper I wrote in 2019 for a college class—reflections on the constantly recurring topic of Barney and Betty Hill. While my opinion on the Hill abduction has veered heavily into the idea of it being a complex military operation, this more straightforward and academic cultural analysis of the Hills may still be of interest to Getting Spooked readers. For my more recent writing on this formative alien abduction narrative, read Forbidden Science Dispatches #1. Additionally, for an ongoing series tackling the more parapolitical elements at work in the story, check out the killer Substack page Nuts & Boltzmann. Part three coming next week.

II. Screen Memories / Peace from Venus: The Non-fiction Texts (cont.)

Human contact with supposed extraterrestrials prior to the Barney and Betty’s abduction was remarkably steeped in the white supremacist rhetoric carried over from other occult or esoteric interests. Religious scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal notes how this was a remnant from Theosophical writers such as H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott:

The notion of alien intervention in human evolution was in fact a staple of the theosophical imagination, and it worked on many levels (…) (The) notion of a Venusian-Earth hybrid civilization would come to play a major role in science fiction, pulp fiction, and the UFO contactee cults of the 1950s and ’60s […] For the Theosophists, when Lemuria sank, Atlantis survived as a kind of Lemurian remnant, and it was the Atlanteans that finally bestowed full humanity and full human civilization on the future, that is, the Fourth and Fifth Root-Races, the latter of which are most commonly represented by light-skinned peoples. Alas, although Theosophy worked to relativize the primacy of a colonizing West through its privileging of Asian wisdom traditions and became a major force for both the Indian independence movement and Buddhist reform and renaissance in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), it did not entirely escape the racial theories of the time.¹

The contactee cults Kripal mentions were the norm for extraterrestrial interaction before the Hill abduction changed the zeitgeist entirely. Prominent experiencers such as George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Howard Menger, and other eccentric personalities interacted with (and relayed the messages of) peaceful races of aliens that sought to bring about an Earthly utopian. These “space brothers” were long-haired, blonde Nordics with a tan complexion—often a combination of Aryan and Asian characteristics—a continuation of the representations from Theosophy. Roth writes that Adamski’s contact “was a true Aryan, a spiritually advanced, androgynous, and physiognomically Orient-tinged Nordic.”² The abduction of Barney and Betty Hill well-represents a shift away from the white supremacist rhetoric of the contactees and their Venusian space brothers. The racial implications of this paradigm shift in UFO literature are also noted by Roth: “While Adamski and (George Hunt) Williamson purveyed specific racial ideologies (…) and while each contactee had a political agenda, the Hills were passive victims of interstellar racial dynamics that they little understood.”³ However, while the Hills might not have understood interstellar racial dynamics, they certainly understood Earthbound racial dynamics. These are the interactions and subsequent anxieties that appear in Barney’s depiction of the beings: Whereas the white contactees saw a cosmic Aryan promoting a white utopia, Barney sees a German SS officer. The beings are the same, changed only by the human experiencing them. But this change would alter the course of ufololgy: Adamski’s Aryan Venusians fell quickly out of style while the humanoid grey aliens Barney depicted in his recollections became the norm of extraterrestrial contact. The beings no longer brought peace from the sky, instead bringing captivity, subjugation, and human experimentation.

Roth further highlights prominent paranormal researcher John Keel’s thoughts on the disrepute of contactees within ufology prior to the Hills: “Contactees remained in disgrace in the U.S. until 1966 when John Fuller published the story of Betty and Barney Hill.”⁴ While race continued to play a role in the narratives of human/extraterrestrial contact, the Hills, as Roth says, were “passive victims,” who did not seem to crave the eccentric notoriety that the contactees did. At a basic level, the Hills were trustworthy representatives of the “family next door”—seemingly despite their sensationalized interracial status—they did not have the greasy grifter sheen possessed by some of the contactees. In a book coauthored with Kripal, more recent abductee and author Whitley Strieber notes the importance of the Hill abduction to the overall conception of interaction with extraterrestrials:

Instead of the mysterious power of the gods to inspire belief, we now have the mysterious power of aliens. In the 1950s, they were “space brothers,” possessed of the wisdom of the gods. But from the moment the Betty and Barney Hill case was described in John Fuller’s Interrupted Journey in 1966, the narrative moved in a radically new direction. […] Maybe aliens were there and maybe not. But something unknown was provably present: our inner mythmaker had discovered a new way to sound from the dark within, its ancient dirge of mortality, that most poignant and true of human cries. […] It can be used by the mind as a tool for inner exploration, at once drawing hidden fears to the surface, rekindling the sense of wonder that the modern world has stolen from us, and giving individuals a much-needed feeling of value.⁵

Strieber is a rather optimistic experiencer who does not touch upon the prominent racial component of these contact narratives. One is never under the impression that Barney felt that he was given feelings of value from the couple’s rather traumatic experience—although Strieber himself got this feeling eventually, some years after his initial abduction experience. Even within the Hill case, there is a marked difference between the white abduction experience and the Black abduction experience; Betty, while traumatized, arguably found more value in the encounter than Barney did, despite describing largely a identical chain of events. As stated, Barney was more traumatized by the abduction and even more wary of the initial UFO sighting than Betty was. The scenario suggests that white UFO/abduction experiences tend to be more positive than those of the Black population—although there are exceptions in both cases, especially in the variety of experiences that followed the Hill abduction.

Between the pair, if one testimony resembled the stories of the contactees, it was Betty’s. Describing an interaction with one being on the craft who she refers to as “the Examiner,” Betty notes how he was “pleasant” and “reassuring.” Their ensuing conversation has the peaceful mundanity of many contactee reports:

So then he asked me, (…) what did we eat? And I said, we ate meat, potatoes, vegetables, milk. And so he asked me, "What are vegetables?" And I said that this is a broad term and could cover a great variety of certain kinds of foods we eat. But I couldn't just explain what vegetables are, there were too many. And he said was there one kind I liked. I said that I ate a great many, but my favorite is squash. So he said, "Tell me about squash." So I said that it was yellow, usually, in color. And he said, "What is yellow?" So I said, "Well, I will show you." And I started looking around the room, and I couldn't find anything yellow at all.⁶

Betty even laughs during the regression when recalling this moment, highly dissimilar from Barney’s regressions which often resulted in terror and screaming—specifically when he thought of the beings’ eyes or when his thoughts were being intruded upon by the beings.⁷ Barney did not have any pleasant conversations and could only manage a nervous laughter when he was at his most uncomfortable in the regressions, typically avoiding the subject at hand. Although Betty had periods of emotional breakdown, they were never as visceral as Barney’s reactions. Even Betty’s description of the beings, noticeably different from Barney’s “red-headed Irishman” or “German Nazi,” aligned more closely with the contactees. To Betty, the beings were noticeably “less alien than Barney’s” description, and while they did not have the skin tone or hair of the space brothers, she notes how “they were very human in their appearance, not frightening” and “seemed to be very relaxed, friendly in a professional way.”⁸ While Betty’s experience does not have all the hallmarks of the contactee encounters, there are certainly curious alignments. Her conception of race as it related to the beings is highly dissimilar from Barney’s, even though their stories match up in a wide variety of other aspects.

These discrepancies in the Hills’ individual regressions reinforce the notion that the Black abduction experience is dissimilar from the White abduction experience, which in turn reveals that race is intimately tied into the whole of the encounter. As the Hill abduction gained public exposure and was adapted to television screens, the subject of race would continue to play an important part in representations of the event.

III. Cosmic Transmissions: ETs on TV

Barney made an appearance on the game show To Tell the Truth in 1966, the same year that Fuller’s book on their experience hit the shelves. It is uncertain whether this was a “press appearance” of sorts for the book or if the Hills’ story had gotten famous enough in the press to be recognizable to a sizeable viewership. Nevertheless, it is odd that Barney agreed to make such an appearance given his relative reluctance to talk about his encounter in most other circumstances, let alone on the national stage.⁹ The gameshow appearance also gives some indication of how ingrained racial concerns had become in the event itself. The concept of the show is relatively simple: In the case of this episode, three people claim to be Barney Hill and answer questions from the panelists who must decide which one is the real Barney. After all the panelists have made their decision, host Bud Collyer requests: “Will the real Barney Hill, please stand up.” Of the two Barney Hill imposters, producers decided that one of them should also be Black. This move suggests that anyone who was aware of the case was further aware of the fact that Barney and Betty were an interracial couple—a fact that has very little to do with the incident itself, but a fact that seems consistently obsessed over. This trend continues into the next decade as the event is further adapted for a television audience.

The UFO Incident was a made-for-TV movie that aired on NBC in 1975 and was a direct adaptation of Fuller’s The Interrupted Journey.¹⁰ Starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons as Barney and Betty, the film deviates little from its source material but constructs race as tied more prominently to the event than Fuller implies at times. Much of the script is derived from the hypnosis transcripts, but in moments disconnected from the Hills’ interactions with the psychologist, race is dealt with more fully. Speaking about his paranoia after the abduction, Barney states: “I was brought up to be careful, remember? It’s like an old scratched broken record playing inside of me: Be careful kid or they’ll kill you.” To which Betty replies: “Marrying me wasn’t very careful, was it?” This conversation is tied intimately to the abduction through editing—Barney’s responses to Betty’s questions are seamlessly transitioned to Barney answering the psychologist’s questions. Barney driving the Hill’s car with Betty as a passenger and being seat in the psychologist’s office are environmentally merged. The psychologist, Dr. Benjamin Simon as portrayed by Barnard Hughes, makes note of Barney’s consistently referenced possible stressors: Missing his kids, racial strife in his childhood, being active in the NAACP in a predominantly white community, etc. Simon does not note, as the book does very precisely, Betty’s progressive nature and consistent desire to push for social change. Instead, this notion is presented through other facets of Betty’s dialogue, such as when she expresses the difficulty of Barney moving from Philadelphia to the overwhelmingly white New Hampshire society.

Racial dynamics are given almost equal importance to the UFO encounter in the context of the television movie’s dramatic turns. In a flashback sequence, Betty responds with anger when Barney starts a sentence with “the problem with you white people,” chastising him, “you can say the problem with those white people but don’t include me!” Barney tells Dr. Simon, while smiling, that he never said that again. Instead of addressing the tension from this argument, (or the ensuing Cuban Missile Crisis, for that matter,) Betty insists that they discuss their UFO encounter—as if their experience is a proxy through which they can deal with all their anxieties. This trend continues after an emotional breakdown by Betty who expresses her worry that Barney only loves her because she is white. This emotional outburst is how Betty finally convinces Barney to visit the psychologist about their abduction experience—seemingly unrelated to the topic at hand—as he does not like seeing her cry. In a conversation with Betty between hypnosis sessions, Barney recalls a memory from when he was just six months old living in a mostly white neighborhood in Philadelphia. His mother left him sitting out on the porch briefly and an older neighbor approached him with a pot of boiling water, intending to scald or kill him before his mother came back. Barney expresses that he is unsure if this event actually occurred or if his mother convinced him that it happened—an obvious parallel to the abduction experience, alternating between reality and suggestions from Betty’s dreams.

Racial anxieties and abduction anxieties remain close to one another throughout The UFO Incident, although by the end, the racial anxieties are largely forgotten as their abduction is accepted as truth once their stories correspond. Though the TV movie is heavily doused in melodrama and adapts most of its script directly from Fuller’s book, it remains one of the few fictional depictions of the Barney and Betty Hill story to explicitly explore the racial implications of the case—as clumsily as it may do so.

Thank you for reading Getting Spooked. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, consider supporting the continuation of this newsletter through a paid subscription. Doing so will give you access to over a dozen archived articles and a warm feeling inside. I also started a referral program that rewards archive access to those who share the newsletter with others. Email me at gettingspooked@protonmail.com with any questions, comments, recommendations, leads, or paranormal stories. You can find me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1, on Bluesky at @tannerfboyle.bsky.social, or on Instagram at @gettingspooked. Special thanks to Erica Lukes and Jack Brewer at Expanding Frontiers Research for having me on for a conversation on Erica’s livestream show this past week. Their organization is doing incredibly important research and archival work in the notoriously messy UFO sphere and I am truly honored to have been a guest. Check out their recent post examining records obtained from FOIA about Avi Loeb and Harvard’s Galileo Project. Special thanks to The Anomalist for covering the previous installment of this series. Until next time, stay spooked.

1. Kripal, Jeffrey J. Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Page 52.

2. Roth, Christopher F. “Ufology as Anthropology: Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult.” E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces. Ed. Debbora Battaglia. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Page 53.

3. Ibid., page 61.

4. Ibid.

5. Strieber, Whitley and Jeffrey J. Kripal. The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained is Real. New York: TarcherPerigree, 2016. Page 287-288.

6. Fuller, John G. The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours “Aboard a Flying Saucer”. New York: The Dial Press, 1966. Page 175-176. Available here.

7. Ibid., page 93-96.

8. Ibid., page 299.

9. Available here. Of note: While prominent figures in ufology for the time were not uncommon as guest subjects on To Tell the Truth—Project Blue Book investigator J. Allen Hynek and the author of The Flying Saucers are Real!, Major Donald Keyhoe, both made appearances—Barney Hill is the only abductee or even contactee to make an appearance.

10. Available here. Just as a recently aired episode of The Outer Limits was blamed for Barney’s depiction of the extraterrestrials, the airing of The UFO Incident was tied to the abduction of Travis Walton, an Arizona logger who disappeared for five days and reported similar details to the Hill abduction. The UFO Incident premiered almost exactly two weeks before Walton’s abduction and incited “a rash of abduction reports.” (Clancy, Susan A. Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Page 99.)