75: The Hill Abduction

Gina (00:10)

I do like how the way that your microphone is sitting. All I can see is the word fuck on your shirt.

Kathryn (00:16)

⁓ yeah, this. I lost

this for a long time. It was buried deep down in the dark depths of the wrong drawer. It says fuck the algorithm. Yeah. Yeah. I am wearing this for YouTube and I'm just gonna leave it at that. Fuck YouTube's algorithm. Stop showing us to the wrong people.

Gina (00:27)

Remember that? Damn, nice!

love that.

Kathryn (00:39)

us back to the girls gays and theys please that's all I'll But yes, hello welcome, this is I Scream You Scream where your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories mysteries

Gina (00:42)

you

Kathryn (00:50)

and paranormal perplexities and my name is Kathryn

Gina (00:54)

I'm Gina.

Kathryn (00:55)

And this month we are telling stories about aliens and our ice cream flavor is something green. episode is sponsored by Clo-Bear. So if you're ready to start investing but unsure how to get started, visit GetLazyNow.com and until then grab a spoon and let's dig in.

Gina (01:16)

Cheers.

Kathryn (01:17)

Cheers!

Gina (01:18)

I have an update for you on something. I can't remember if I talked about this on the podcast or off the podcast. It's all just one big blur. But I remember telling you SNL, Saturday Night Live, now has a UK version. And at the time of recording, I think there three episodes in and it is so good. It is crazy. I don't want to throw shade because I love...

Kathryn (01:20)

Yes, please tell me.

That's what I heard.

Gina (01:42)

SNL from home, but I am like belly laughing at SNL UK. Their cast is so talented.

Kathryn (01:49)

Okay.

Wait, so I love this, because I had an update too that was related to SNL and I was gonna ask you how the UK one was, because...

Gina (01:55)

Ooh, okay.

Kathryn (01:59)

Also no shade to SNL at home, but last SNL at home, US SNL, lovely referred to on this podcast apparently as SNL at home. It was, I have not laughed so hard in my entire life and I have been complaining. feel like I've come, I feel like I complained to you.

Gina (02:08)

Haha.

Mmm.

Kathryn (02:23)

Don't come for me, anybody, but like I was really disappointed with season 50. I thought the writing was not, I'm not gonna say not good. It was not their best. I feel like for the 50th anniversary, I don't know what was going on in the writers room, but it was like, I did a lot of pity laughing that season. Last night, I was scream laughing, Gina. I was laughing so freaking hard the whole episode. was, the host was, the host was Jack Black.

Gina (02:29)

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kathryn (02:53)

And then the musical guest was Jack White. So it was like Jack Black and White. ⁓ And they played into that a lot. And I have a lot to say about it, but the thing that I wanted to talk to you about was it was Jack Black's fifth time hosting. So they did the whole like five timers club thing at the beginning. So Tina was there and she was wearing, did you see this? Stop me if you saw this. Okay, I thought of you immediately. She was wearing like.

Gina (02:56)

Okay. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Hey!

No.

Kathryn (03:22)

what looks like a five timers club jacket, but it had fur on it. And Jack Black was like, is that your five timers club jacket? And she was like, no, it's my first timers club jacket from SNL UK. It's made out of Paddington. And she like turns around and there's this giant teddy bear, like Paddington bear, like it's like aligned in Paddington fur. It was very, very funny.

Gina (03:38)

⁓ no.

Kathryn (03:45)

Before I say the other thing I'm gonna say, I wanna bring it back to you was it structured the same way?

Gina (03:51)

yeah, I mean, pretty similar. I can't think of anything that's massively different except they are much edgier because I think they're allowed to be. They swear a lot in the UK version,

Kathryn (03:52)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (04:01)

And their update, their weekend update hosts are so good.

Kathryn (04:04)

I love Weekend Update. That was going to be one of my questions for you is how that was because that's such a staple. That's the best part. Yeah, But SNL has been they've been having a really hard time the last 10 years because they've, you know, they're supposed to write these outrageous jokes and then it happens in real life. So it's not funny, you know.

Gina (04:06)

Me too.

Really good.

Yeah.

Kathryn (04:25)

Yeah.

I don't want to steamroll. The other thing I have to say about SNL is nothing to do with SNL UK. OK, I just wanted to. This is such a decide, but I can't I can't believe more people aren't talking about this. But Jack White was on screen during during the opening monologue. He like brought him out and blah, blah, blah. Jack Black and White did their little thing. And as he was talking, I realized that man has Sigourney Weaver's face and we're not talking about this.

Gina (04:31)

That's okay, I still want to hear it. What?

Kathryn (04:55)

No one's talking about that. not related. I Googled it. asked Phil if his little fandom is talking about it. There's one post on Reddit, on the Jack White Reddit from 10 years ago mentioning it. I can't believe more people don't talk about this. It's like goth Sigourney Weaver as a man.

Gina (05:15)

That is insanely accurate. ⁓ my god.

Kathryn (05:17)

It's so accurate. Why aren't more people talking

about this? So this is my new conspiracy theory. This is my new favorite conspiracy theory. There's something going on with Sigourney Weaver and Jack White. Either they're the same person or they're secretly related. He's already done the whole like secret are we siblings or are we married situation. So it would like not be surprising if he was like, by the way, I'm Sigourney Weaver's son. Like, I don't know. don't.

Gina (05:28)

Secret grandparents.

you

Kathryn (05:46)

why more people aren't talking about this. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com Let us

Gina (05:48)

That would be the PR stunt of the century.

Kathryn (05:50)

know if you're secretly talking about this, because it's not on the internet. I Googled it, and I was expecting to see all those side-by-side photos of them. Like, Hollywood doppelgangers. Nothing. There's nothing, except one Reddit post from a decade ago. Yeah.

Gina (05:53)

Mm-hmm.

Well, if you're

secretly talking about this, say it with your chest and say it to us. We wanna know. Yeah.

Kathryn (06:08)

Yeah, let us know, please. I

don't wanna be alone in this. So that's what I had to say. I was just sitting there and I was watching him talk. I've seen this man live in concert, like up close and personal, and I didn't notice it, but like him standing there talking to the camera, I was like, holy shit, that's Sigourney Weaver's face. What are you doing with it?

Gina (06:14)

That is wild.

What are

you doing? Give it back! What you doing with it?

Kathryn (06:32)

Give it back!

Give it back to Sigourney!

Gina (06:37)

That is excellent and freaky.

Kathryn (06:39)

Yeah,

that's all I have to say about that. I have one more thing to say about Sigourney Weaver actually. So I think I've talked to you about this literally my favorite tweet of all time. I don't know who posted it, but someone posted it. It's just like, I don't know, just one of those things that it's so funny because it's true. All the tweets said was, there other people named Sigourney or is it just her? And it's like, you know who he's talking about because there is just the one. That's my other, yeah.

That's all I have to say about Sigourney Weaver.

Gina (07:13)

You want to hear a story? I do. I do. I do have a story for you today. I'm to be telling you about a good old fashioned alien abduction. So.

Kathryn (07:11)

All right. Do you have something for me today? I do. I always, always, always, always do.

Gina (07:24)

Yes, specifically I'm going to be telling you about the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, which is a very well-known story amongst believers and skeptics alike, mainly because it is ⁓ so very baffling. So I'm going to tell you the story and then we can decide what actually happened here. We can put an end to the debate once and for all. Fear not, science, because the I Scream You Scream girls, we know what's going on. No.

Kathryn (07:47)

Beautiful Nobody's ever done this before we will

Gina (07:54)

We shall be the first and the last because

Kathryn (07:54)

be the first

Gina (07:56)

none would dare tread in our footsteps. ⁓ Quick content warning before I get started. I will be telling a story that involves and invasive medical procedures. So be aware. But without further ado, it is time to meet the Hills.

Kathryn (07:58)

Never.

Gina (08:14)

In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were a married couple living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Not to be confused with Portsmouth, England, which is where when I first read Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I was like, England? No, no, New Hampshire, very American. Yeah, no, it made no sense. Betty was in her early 40s and she's often characterized as being a very optimistic person, very active within her community, and also as being someone with a very defined sense of civic duty.

Kathryn (08:28)

New Hampshire,

Gina (08:49)

She had been raised in a super liberal household because her mom was a union organizer. How badass is that? Yeah. Yeah, so her mom, actually, I do want to land on this for a sec, because that's cool as hell. Her mom was a union organizer.

Kathryn (08:57)

What?

That's cool. Yeah, let's.

Gina (09:05)

which I think, I don't know exactly when she had that role, I couldn't find it, but she was probably a union organizer in like the 30s and 40s, which is when the US saw like massive milestones in labor laws and workers' rights. So that's badass as hell, and she was a woman doing this, which is dope. So,

Kathryn (09:12)

Yeah.

Yeah. That's so cool.

Gina (09:23)

Yeah, so Betty's mom was incredible and Betty was also incredible. As an adult, she became a social worker who spent a lot of time specifically with child welfare. And she was just really generally passionate about making the world a more inclusive, loving place to be. And her husband Barney was similar. He was in his late 30s.

Kathryn (09:25)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (09:47)

He was a World War II Army vet who at the time was working as a postal worker. And in his spare time, I love this fact about him, he was a big aviation enthusiast. So if it flew in the sky, he was into it. I feel like everyone knows someone like this who's super into planes. And those people I feel are always very smart people. And so was Barney. He reportedly had an IQ of 140 and the average IQ was like 100. So he was a wicked smart dude.

Kathryn (10:04)

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Gina (10:17)

was very pragmatic. He was very facts and logic driven, which made him pretty skeptical as a person. So like within their relationship, Betty was the one who was more likely to jump to conclusions or get excited about something really fast. Whereas Barney was the more measured one, the more analytical one. So they kind of balanced each other out in that way.

But back to Barney. I think a lot of his...

his realisticness and his pragmatism came from his experience of being a black man in the 1960s and also a black man who was married to a white woman in a time where that was illegal across most of the country. In New Hampshire, where they lived, it was actually one of the only states that never banned interracial marriage. So their marriage was not illegal, but that is a very low bar. And that doesn't mean that their lives were easy.

Based on a Gallup study in the 1960s, around 75 to 80 % of Americans did not approve of interracial marriage, regardless of its legal status. And the area that they lived in in Portsmouth was overwhelmingly white. Black residents only made up around 2 % of the population. And this atmosphere had a very direct impact on Betty and Barney Hill. They got a lot of grief.

for being in an interracial marriage. And Barney in particular experienced a lot of racism. after the story of their supposed alien abduction came out, a lot of people used...

the stress of being in an interracial marriage to try and discredit them and their story, basically saying that being in an interracial marriage in the 1960s was so difficult and so scary that they both basically had mental breakdowns, leading them to think they were abducted by aliens. does not appear to be the case, as I will spend the next hour explaining to you. And one of the reasons is that, you know, because while the world

Kathryn (12:13)

Yeah.

Gina (12:18)

sucked in so many ways. And while the country they were living in sucked in so many ways, they had a really fantastic community around them. They had a really deep support system and they're often described themselves as being pillars within their community. They were both members of the NAACP and Barney served on a local board of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

And eventually both of them were actually invited to the 1965 inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, which is wild. Yeah. And they also had, you know, like community through their church. Like they were just a very respected and well-known couple within the area, also meant that they were very busy people. Between Barney working nights as a postal worker, Betty's social work, their involvement with their community, spending time with their families,

Kathryn (12:51)

⁓ yeah.

Gina (13:13)

They were both just busy. Which is why after they got married in 1960, they didn't have time for a honeymoon. So after 16 months of marriage, they spontaneously decided like, hey, we never got to do the whole honeymoon thing. Why don't we take the dog with us to the Niagara Falls area this weekend? Just like to make up for it. We'll just do like a quick three day trip. Just us and the pups.

because they had a little dachshund named Delsey who was very cute. And so that's what they did. And on September 19th, 1961, they were on their way back home.

It was around 1030 at night and they had a four hour drive ahead of them, which should have gotten them home around 230, three o'clock in the morning. They were driving through a very heavily wooded area. It was very dark, very quiet. They were the only ones on the road. And suddenly Betty, from the passenger seat, saw something strange.

It looked at first like a light in the sky and she thought like, okay, maybe it's a shooting star or a falling star, but then whatever it was changed its trajectory. Like it was going down at first, but then it started going up over the face of the moon. And she kept watching it, kept watching it. And then it started to move really erratically. It was like it was bouncing across the sky. And meanwhile, it was getting bigger and brighter. And so Betty,

was like, hey Barney, ⁓ can we stop the car? Because what the hell is that? And her mind went straight to UFOs because her sister had actually reportedly seen a flying saucer only a few years earlier. And so that was kind of where Betty's mind was at already. That's what she thought it was. And Barney was like, no, we are not stopping the car. It is not a UFO. It's probably something totally normal.

with a totally normal explanation. And Betty was just kind of like, all right, whatever, Barney, let's keep driving, see what happens. You can really feel the playfulness of their marriage within this story. I think it's really sweet. So shortly after that, they stopped at a picnic area to let their dog out. And while they were standing outside, Betty got a pair of binoculars from the car and was looking at this thing that was in the sky. And she described it as looking kind of like

Kathryn (15:18)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (15:37)

It pictured like a normal, like how you would picture a UFO, like a big circular saucer thing, but it was flashing a bunch of different colored lights and it was still bopping all over the face of the moon. So she mentioned this to Barney, like, hey, I really don't think this thing is normal. It's doing weird stuff. And Barney was like, my God, it is not a UFO, Betty, calm down. It's probably a satellite or like a commercial airplane or something. And so Betty handed him the binoculars.

and basically said to him, like, all right, look at that and tell me that's a fricking plane. So he takes a look and he was like, hmm, that's not a plane. And so whatever it was, they kept their eyes on it and it started to rapidly descend in their direction. So the Hills got back in the car and they kept on driving. Meanwhile, this thing was getting closer and closer and closer to their car.

And as it got closer, they started to be able to see it more clearly. It was around 80 feet or 24 meters wide and it was rotating. Barney would later say that it reminded a huge pancake, which I love as a description.

Kathryn (16:49)

I love that.

Gina (16:50)

Eventually it got so close to the car that Barney had to stop in the middle of the highway.

was like, screw this. He got out of the car with his pistol in his pocket because he carried a gun with him and he started slowly moving towards this thing to get a better look at it. He also brought the binoculars with him and using the binoculars to get an up close look, he saw a series of windows on this craft.

And through the windows, he could see between eight to 11 humanoid-looking figures staring back at him. He would later describe the figures as wearing glossy black uniforms and black hats. He also described them as looking kind of Nazi-ish, which is a very jarring comparison, but it paints a picture of both the clothing and...

kind of the way they were holding themselves. Like this was an operation. There was like a discipline and a structure to it. It wasn't just like a bunch of dudes on an aircraft.

Kathryn (17:41)

Yeah.

Yeah.

I also feel like based on the time frame, like that would be

Gina (17:51)

Yeah.

Nazis were top of mind, you know?

Kathryn (17:55)

was gonna say,

Like especially throughout their childhood or whatever, that would be like the world within which, you know, that would be a comparison that could be made or whatever.

Gina (18:05)

And one of these figures was sitting at a desk while the others kind of stood around him. And Barney said that the one at the desk smiled at him, but he described it as like a kind of the smile looked like how someone tries to smile after they've had a lot of Botox. Like it was very kind of tight. You know what I mean?

Kathryn (18:15)

Who?

Yeah,

I do know what you mean. It's so funny that you use that comparison because whenever I see that like a fresh backs like batch of the tox has been injected, it does it actually gives me alien vibes. It's like that uncanny like, yes. Yeah, that like

Gina (18:43)

Yeah, Uncanny Valley, 100%, yeah.

Kathryn (18:47)

Ugh,

yeah. No shade. But yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Gina (18:49)

No shade, no, my God, no shade at all, but it has a look to it, it has a specific look.

Yeah, so that's what he was looking at. And then all at once, the other figures moved away from the windows, leaving the desk guy alone there staring at Barney. And that's when Barney received a telepathic message telling him, quote, stay where you are and keep looking.

Kathryn (19:05)

Hmm.

Hey, the telepathic messages are back! Okay.

Gina (19:20)

They're back, they're back. Yes, they are back. So I don't know, maybe Valiant Thor did fucking exist. I'll never know.

Kathryn (19:25)

Baby!

Listen, I don't even want to talk about Valentine Thor because I was, listen, I was in the shower a few days ago and I was thinking of that story and I was like, I actually have some new theories that are making me believe it more than when I left that episode. We'll talk about that later though.

Gina (19:30)

Me too.

Okay.

We'll talk about it another time. Yeah, if you haven't listened to the Valiant Thor episode and you want to hear me have a mental breakdown, just go on and check that out, because it destroyed my brain.

Kathryn (19:49)

Yeah.

Gina (20:51)

Anyway, okay, so Barney receives this telepathic message and then the craft, like the spacecraft, it's almost like it starts to unfold a little bit. There are these two things they're called, or they're referred to as fins.

that come out from the side of the ship and they both have a red light at the end of them. And then a long structure, quote, descended from the bottom of the

So it kind of looked like this thing might be parking. And this filled Barney with terror. He later said that he felt, quote, captured like a bug in a net.

So he ran back to the car and the hills started driving away in total silence, both of them not really understanding what they had just seen. And then an odd beeping buzzing sound started coming from the trunk and the hills fell into a daze. When they woke up, they were still driving and they were 35 miles south of where they last remembered being with two to three hours of missing time.

Kathryn (21:57)

Dude, I love a time jump story. It freaks me out so much because what is it? Aliens? Alternate universe? Just blacked out for a second? Like, time jumps are so scary.

Gina (22:01)

Ooh, aren't they compelling? Me too!

Right?

And the fact that when they came to, they were still driving? That's wild.

Kathryn (22:19)

huh. But they like remember all of this.

They have this memory of like, well, whatever.

Gina (22:25)

They remember kind of, I don't want to say passing out, because it wasn't like they passed out, but they remember their memories kind of stopping with the buzzing and the beeping sound. And then it was like they blinked and they were suddenly 35 miles south and it was way later in the night than it should have been.

Kathryn (22:29)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

I own.

Gina (22:43)

Yeah, neither of them could say what had happened. And they both had kind of like, they had fragmented memories, like little snippets or images from the night before. So they remembered a fiery orb. They remembered a sharp turn that they hadn't planned on taking. And there was something about a roadblock that they remembered. The way they were describing it, it seems like, you know, if you've had too much to drink and you don't remember.

everything from the night before, but you might have like a glimpse of something happening. That's what it was like. I don't know if that says something about me, that that's the closest example I have to this, but it is what it reminded me of.

Kathryn (23:18)

You know what?

Yes. We all have those. And if you don't, great.

Gina (23:26)

But yes, so they didn't have any details or any chronological narrative to these snippets or fragments they were remembering, but they both kind of had the same ones, if that makes sense. So the Hills got home eventually and they reached

Kathryn (23:39)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (23:44)

their home just after dawn. It was around five, 530 in the morning. And when they got in the house, just like the immediate getting home part, they both described it as just things were just weird, like weird things were happening. For one thing, the toes on Barney's shoes were all scuffed up and these were his best dress shoes that he was wearing. like he took very good care of them. But the weirdest part was they were scuffed on the top of the shoe.

like they would be if he was held up and like dragged somewhere and his toes were trailing on the ground. also noticed that the leather strap on their binoculars was broken, but neither of them could remember how that had happened. And also, both of their watches were broken and they never worked again no matter what they tried.

Kathryn (24:33)

so that like smashed just the actual physical mechanism of the watch. Hmm, interesting.

Gina (24:38)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and

they tried to, and it was like a manual one, because digital wasn't really a thing back then, so they tried to rewind it and just never worked. Neither of them did. When they got inside, Betty insisted that their luggage be kept by the back door because there was something in her that made her feel worried about the luggage being contaminated or radioactive in some way. She couldn't really explain why. It was just like this nagging feeling that like something is on the luggage. We shouldn't bring it into the rest of the house.

Kathryn (24:43)

Hmm. Hmm.

Gina (25:08)

She also noticed multiple tears in her dress and some weird pink powder on it that she couldn't explain. eventually five different labs would run chemical and forensic analyses on the dress and none of them could say what that powder was. It's never been identified.

Kathryn (25:27)

me up. Yeah. That's like...

Gina (25:28)

Isn't that wild?

Kathryn (25:34)

This is the type of detail where I have to kind of refrain from being like, what proof do you need? Science doesn't know what this powder is. Yeah.

Gina (25:47)

Yeah. I find that... That's one thing I find really interesting about ⁓ the Hill Abduction is that there is quite a lot of like material evidence that something weird happened. Like it's hard to point to material evidence that aliens exist because if we had that we wouldn't be doing a month on are aliens real? But for an abduction case there is like a lot of physical...

Kathryn (25:58)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (26:09)

things that happen here, like the tears in the dresses that she can't explain, the watches stop working. Also, like there were mental things as well, I will say that. So Barney, for example, when he got home, felt like irresistibly compelled to go to the bathroom and examine his genitals. He couldn't explain why. It was similar to like Betty with the luggage. He didn't know why he was doing this. He just felt like he had to check.

Kathryn (26:11)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (26:32)

And he didn't find anything unusual. It was still the same equipment that was there before. It's just he felt the need to make sure everything was okay. And they both just generally felt like gross. That feeling that you get when you really need to take a shower, maybe after a long workout or something like that. They both felt like there was something on them that needed to be scrubbed away. So they each took a long restorative shower.

And then they decided to draw separate pictures of what they remembered seeing and show them to each other in like a, we dreaming this? Did we see the same thing kind of way? And they both drew the same spacecraft with the same lights on the side and the same structure. They also noticed that something weird had happened to their car. There appeared to be a, like a series of shiny concentric circles on top of the trunk.

Kathryn (27:09)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (27:28)

And they noticed that when they held a compass close to those circles, the needle would go crazy. It would just spin like around and around and around. But then as soon as they would move the compass just a few inches away, it would completely go back to normal with no clear explanation as to what these circles were, how they had gotten there, and why they were causing like magnetic confusion in that way. So the vibes are just like weird. Betty and Barney don't really understand what's happening. They're both confused. They were both pretty scared.

Kathryn (27:42)

⁓

Gina (27:58)

And so they both agreed to play this one close to the chest. And a big part of that was not wanting to draw attention to themselves as an interracial couple, because claiming to have had the experience that they had and maybe seeing a UFO or even aliens, there would have been some really shitty reactions to it. And Betty and Barney knew that, and that probably would have put them in physical danger.

Kathryn (28:03)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (28:23)

Not even to mention that claiming to have had an alien encounter could also hurt their credibility and cause them to lose all of the standing in their community that we had talked about earlier. So they had next to nothing to gain by shouting about the story. So they decided not to. Which was really hard because they were terrified. They didn't know what had happened to them. They didn't know why. And even if they did want to tell people about it,

It was like, what would they even say happened? Because one of the whole things was that they didn't remember what had happened during those few hours. So it was like, they could talk to someone, but they still couldn't tell the full story because they didn't even know what it was. So instead, Betty channeled all of that energy into researching UFOs and just trying to figure out if anyone had gone through something similar. And eventually she came across NICAP.

Kathryn (29:04)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (29:19)

We've talked a little bit about NICAP this month already, but basically it was a UFO research organization and Betty wrote them a letter describing what her and Barney had seen.

and they took her very seriously right away. They invited her and Barney to an interview with a NICAP member and astronomer named Walter Webb, which sounds like a superhero name. And their interview with him took place about a month after the incident, as it were. They recounted what they had seen, shape of the craft, the figures that were in it, all that stuff. And at the end, Webb, their interviewer, stated that, quote,

Kathryn (29:39)

You

Gina (29:56)

They were telling the truth and the incident probably occurred exactly as reported except for some minor uncertainties and technicalities that must be tolerated in any such observations where human judgment is involved, e.g. exact time and length of visibility, apparent sizes of object and occupants, distance and height of object, et cetera. So basically, at the very least, they believe what they are saying is true. And this is a scientist saying this.

Kathryn (30:22)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (30:26)

So about a month later, Barney and Betty were brought back for another interview with more NICAP members. There were two of them this time. One of them was Robert E. Homan and the other was C.D. Yes, and this time their interviewers really narrowed in on like the missing time piece of it. It seemed like until that interview, Betty and Barney were dealing with so much uncertainty and stress

Kathryn (30:39)

Sweet. I love that.

Gina (30:54)

just over the entire situation, that it was almost like they didn't clock how much time was actually missing. I did not mean to make a pun there, but I am proud of that one. Ooh, yeah, I meant to do that, yeah. But you know what I mean? It was like, they were like trying to figure out, well, like, what's this pink powder? What's up with the trunk of the car? Why did those aliens look like Nazis? Like, there were so many questions that it was like they didn't realize how much weight the missing time question in particular had to it.

Kathryn (31:02)

⁓ just pretend you did. That's great. Yeah, pun intended.

Gina (31:22)

because it just got lumped in with the rest of what they were stressed out about. So as a group, them and these two interviewers, they discussed the possibility of using hypnosis to recover those memories. Betty was pretty much an immediate yes, because she thought it might help her understand those dreams that we're going to talk about in a second. Whereas Barney was an immediate no, or at least like probably not.

Kathryn (31:25)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (31:48)

for a few reasons. One of the big ones was that he just didn't know that much about hypnosis, so he was naturally really skeptical of it. He wasn't just gonna trust someone to put him in a trance and potentially put him in danger without knowing what he was getting into. he also just really wanted to move on from the whole thing. I think that if Betty was not in the equation, Barney would have just tried to muscle through what had happened to them and ignore...

the outcomes of it and not try to like fully process it. Ultimately though, he did agree to look into hypnosis with Betty because mainly because he thought that Betty was overreacting about her dreams and he thought that the hypnosis might get her to stop like worrying about them so much. So let's talk about Betty's dreams. started 10 days after the incident and she had them every night for five nights in a row.

And she described them as being those dreams that are like extremely vivid and detailed, where you feel like it's real life. And so what I'm about to tell you is it's like a combination of what was in her dream journals and also what she later said under hypnosis. in her dreams, they were in the car when they encountered a roadblock of some sort. And at this point, Betty passed out.

And so we think this is like when they saw it on the road right before they started driving away, they hear the buzzing and the beeping, Betty passes out. And when she came to, she realized that she was being forced to walk through a forest at night by two small men. She saw Barney walking behind her, but when she called out to him, he didn't respond. So it was like he was sleepwalking or in a trance or something like that. And he had to be kind of like shuffled forward. The two men escorting them,

were between five foot to five foot four with black hair, dark eyes, and kind of bluish lips and also like gray looking skin. And they led her and Barney up a ramp into their giant spaceship. Once they were inside, and Barney were taken into separate rooms for physical exams. Betty was told that no harm would come to them and that they would be released without any memory of what happened to them here.

And actually, Betty's reaction to being told this, I didn't include this in my notes, but it made me smile because basically like someone says, you won't remember what we're about to do to you. Like, we'll take it away. We'll take the memory away. And Betty's response was like, you can try. Like, I'm definitely going to remember this. you kidding me? Which is relatable. Yeah. Yeah. So they were taken into separate rooms and Betty described being on an examination table while someone...

Kathryn (34:16)

Yeah, for sure.

Gina (34:27)

Ostensibly an alien doctor took samples of her hair, clipped her fingernails and kept some fingernail clippings, examined her eyes, her ears, mouth, teeth, throat, hands, legs, feet, head, shoulders, knees, toes, all that stuff.

They then took a pretty large needle and they stuck it into her navel. Betty was told this was a pregnancy test. I know, my God. She was told it was a pregnancy test. And it hurt like hell, like not comfortable. And she was in pain during this part. And as soon as the examiner noticed that she was exhibiting signs of pain, he like passed his hand in front of her face and all of the pain went away.

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (35:07)

I wish that's how it happened here on Earth. That'd be so cool.

Gina (35:11)

I know, I couldn't agree more.

I got ⁓ a blood test on this last week, not for any reason, just like a checkup to make sure all systems are a go and I'm fine. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, but I got one this week and I was...

Kathryn (35:20)

I was gonna say you do have to explain that because the majority of our listeners are Americans. No one's paying for a blood test unless they like absolutely have to.

Gina was just getting

standard medical care, guys. Don't worry.

Gina (35:40)

god, that's so depressing.

Kathryn (35:42)

Sorry, continue. We're doing so great over here.

Gina (35:44)

sorry. I was gonna

say I got a blood test and I was really proud of how brave I was.

Kathryn (35:50)

As you should be, I had a blood test one time and then I never paid for it ever again, but I was like, ugh, yeah, it's nerve-racking.

Gina (35:55)

Yeah.

let alone in my belly button. Screw that.

Kathryn (36:01)

Yeah, like what kind of blood do you need

for my belly button? I guess it's not blood specifically. They were looking for babies, but even still that's not where they are.

Gina (36:05)

I know.

Still yeah, no, but I think that was kind of the point like they didn't really quite seem to understand how human bodies worked because after a while Once the examination was done a different alien came in and Betty referred to this one as the leader and The leader had a lot of questions for Betty

Kathryn (36:14)

Yeah. Yeah.

Gina (36:26)

So he asked her what dentures were, because Barney had dentures that they saw in his exam. so they actually, the aliens originally came into Betty's room and were like, can you take your teeth out? And she was like, no. And they were like, but he can. Like they didn't understand what they were. And so she tried to explain it to them of like, oh, you know, when humans approach old age, we lose our teeth sometimes. the aliens were like, what's old age?

Kathryn (36:41)

Yeah, interesting.

Gina (36:52)

to which Betty responded something like, it's when humans have lived many years. And the leader was like, what's a year? And so there was just no concept of what the human experience really was, or at least the words that we use to refer to it. Betty, in turn, had questions for the leader as well. She asked where he was from, and so he pulled out

It's described as like a three-dimensional map of the stars. I picture like a Star Wars hologram kind of thing where he like flicks his... Yes, yeah, yeah, something like that. And he asked Betty, like, okay, look at this map of stars and point to where you are from. And Betty was like, I don't freaking know where I am in this map. To which the leader was like, okay, so there's no point in me pointing out where I'm from because it won't mean anything to you. Like, this is all, know, gobbledygook. It makes no sense to you.

Kathryn (37:21)

I was imagining a hologram, yeah. Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

Gina (37:43)

And eventually, Barney came out of his exam, the figures walked them back to their car, and the hills drove off. Those are Betty's dreams. So to us, or at least like to me, when I read the accounts of her dreams, I was like, well, obviously this is what happened to you on the ship. Like you are remembering your abduction, or at least like a flavor of it through a dream lens.

Kathryn (37:44)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (38:09)

And that's pretty much what Betty thought too. But Barney was not convinced by this. To him, they were just dreams. And therein lies the argument, Kathryn, that makes Betty Hill's dreams so contested and so fascinating as part of this story. Because Betty had these dreams about two years before the Hills would eventually undergo hypnosis. And those dreams end up being incredibly important to everything that follows after that.

which raises the question, and we'll get there eventually, but it raises the question, were Betty's dreams genuinely suppressed memories of something real that happened to them? Or were they just dreams that were so vivid and so convincing that they became indistinguishable from the truth? And Betty essentially convinced herself that yes, because these dreams felt so real, that has to have been what happened to me. Who am I to say? Because I have not told you that part of the story yet. We'll get there. But no matter what,

Barney could tell that she was very distressed by the dreams. So together, they decided to start seeking the right person to administer hypnotism. Their first recorded attempt at this came in November 1962, so over a year after the incident, when they were at a church meeting. And that day, the church group had a guest speaker there from the Air Force named Captain Swett.

Kathryn (39:34)

No. Are you serious? It's not sweet?

Gina (39:36)

S-W-E-T-T.

I think it's sweat. I've heard sweat.

Kathryn (39:41)

I mean, it's spelled

like sweat.

That's just...

Gina (39:43)

Captain

Ben Swett, Benjamin Swett

Kathryn (39:48)

I'm sorry, this is such an aside, we can edit this out, but that reminds me, when I was in third grade, we were doing like a little like, what is it called? What's the political thing where you vote? Election, we were doing like a class election. But we were assigned spots, so I was, I don't remember who, I think it was some kid named Matt.

I was assigned to be his campaign manager and I was making signs and one part of his platform was that he was sweet because I wanted to like give out candy as like his, you know, vote for Matt. He's so sweet. But on all the signs I wrote, he's sweat.

Gina (40:28)

That's smart. Yeah.

Kathryn (40:36)

bad speller. All the signs said Matt is sweat.

Gina (40:41)

Hahaha!

Kathryn (40:43)

And this frickin' teacher didn't correct me. She was just like, good job, Katie, you're doing great. Yeah, anyway, sorry. Matt's so sweaty, vote for Matt.

Gina (40:54)

Do you remember if you won?

Kathryn (40:56)

I can't.

Gina (40:58)

Well that means we get to retcon history, which means he won. So congratulations for an excellent marketing campaign. The first of many.

Kathryn (41:03)

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. It was a creative.

It was a creative campaign. I will stand by that that plan. But yeah, yes. Sorry, just the moment you said that, I was like, ⁓ poor Matt. I hope that's why if he lost, I hope that's not why. Sorry, Matt.

Gina (41:10)

Multi-channel. Omni-channel marketing campaign.

So

Matt's great-great-grandfather Benjamin was speaking at this church group. ⁓ And he wasn't there to talk about hypnotism. I think he had just released a book of poetry, and so he was doing a few readings for the group. And at one point, he just happened to make a passing comment about how he was interested in hypnotism. And Betty and Barney heard this, and Betty was like, my gosh, how serendipitous. We're actively looking for hypnotists.

Kathryn (41:24)

I can't.

Gina (41:49)

So later on, Betty and Barney approached him privately, like away from the group, because again, they were playing this very close to the chest, and they gave him a super quick rundown on what was going on with them. And they asked if he could hypnotize them to help recover their memories. And Captain Swett told them no.

Kathryn (42:11)

⁓

Gina (42:11)

Well, his reasoning was, he actually gets so many points for this, his reasoning was that their situation sounded really serious and he was only an amateur hypnotist. And so his thing was like, I don't wanna fuck things up and make things work worse for you. I think you need to go to someone with serious experience doing this. So points for Captain Swett.

Kathryn (42:20)

time.

feel like he was very politely being like, you guys need therapy. Which, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is fair. That's a fair reaction.

Gina (42:36)

Yes, you need more assistance than I can provide. Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. 100. Yeah. Like I'm also passingly interested in hypnotism, but if a couple came up to me at a party and was like, think I might've been abducted by aliens, can you hypnotize me? Immediate no.

Kathryn (42:51)

for sure. Wait.

Do you hypnotize people?

Gina (42:57)

No! I have...

Kathryn (42:58)

I don't know, you said you were passively interested and that's very much a Gina way of saying

I got a side hustle. You have to admit that that was a valid question for me to ask. You will miss me so much when I come back. You cannot live without me.

Gina (43:04)

hypnotize people.

Yeah. Okay, that's fair. That is fair. Yeah, what do think Tom's doing while we record? I knock him out and then...

and your British accent will get thicker. I love it so much. But yes, so Captain Swett says no. So the Hills went back home and they kept like casually looking for a hypnotist and they didn't find one right away. It sounded very similar to like the journey everyone goes on when they try and find a therapist. Like it is hard to find the right person, especially when it's something scary that you haven't done before. And in fact, it would be over a year.

Kathryn (43:29)

Yeah.

Gina (43:53)

before the Hills finally found one. And in that time, things got a lot worse, especially for Barney. His anxiety got really, really bad. He had a very nasty ulcer that he was dealing with and the stress didn't make that any better. And he wound up actually taking a few months leave of absence from his job, which was not something he took lightly. He was really, really struggling.

So they wound up going to a few doctors, including a psychiatrist, and there was just no improvement, no improvement. And so eventually they requested a referral to a psychiatrist who specialized in hypnotherapy. And that is how they met Dr. Benjamin Simon. And this guy knew his shit, man. So during World War II, he was the chief of neuropsychiatry at the Army's Chief Psychiatric Center.

And he quote, had extensive experience and remarkable success with hypnosis and the treatment of many psychiatric disorders among military personnel. So this guy was the real deal. And more importantly, yeah, like he was extremely skilled at helping people who had seen some serious shit.

Kathryn (44:56)

Whoa.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I kind of latched on to. Like the psychiatric blah blah blah. I don't know, I used a lot of words in there, but like specifically for military personnel who like, that's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot.

Gina (45:14)

Hahaha!

During World War II, like, my God.

Yeah. It's also worth noting that he had next to no knowledge of UFOs or aliens or anything like that. ⁓ Roswell was a thing by then, and so he would have had like a passing familiarity with it, because he would have seen the same news that everyone else saw, but that was exactly it. Like he knew the same amount about UFOs and aliens that everyone knew, which is just like they might exist, but it was not.

part of his day-to-day, it was not a special interest of his, nothing like that. But when he met the Hills, his first step in treating them was to separate them.

And actually, neither of the Hills learned what the other had been saying during sessions until much, much later on. Like throughout this entire process, they were not.

Kathryn (46:06)

Hmm.

Gina (46:07)

like communicating with each other what they were saying. And after the first few sessions, Dr. Simon was like, okay, this is probably just an anxiety disorder of some kind. And so he decided to treat the anxiety through regressive hypnosis. Kathryn talked about this technique in episode 29.5, Satanic Panic Part 2, which I definitely recommend if you have not listened to already, but.

Basically, regressive hypnosis caused us someone to relive an experience that they've already had. I do have to put a disclaimer that it's extremely dangerous, so don't go messing around with it. Look into it.

Simon was going to use it to understand the root of Barney and Betty's anxieties within a few parameters. One of them being that at the end of each session, Dr. Simon would induce amnesia in the so they didn't remember what they had relived. And he did this partially so that Betty and Barney couldn't collude on their stories together outside of the sessions. But also part of it was

Kathryn (47:02)

Hmm.

Gina (47:09)

to avoid bringing too much trauma into their waking memories, because he didn't know what he was gonna hear once they went under.

Kathryn (47:14)

Yeah,

that's really interesting and something that did not happen in the satanic panic discussion, which led to all of the chaos. Interesting. Okay, so they're not remembering, they don't remember what they're telling this guy, but they still remember, do they still remember the things that they're being hypnotized to remember? Or no. Okay.

Gina (47:23)

Mm-hmm.

No, they don't remember.

No, but there are tape

recordings of the sessions, which is how they eventually learn everything that they said. And it is slowly a world that has opened up to them, but it's not like they're reliving these memories every time they go to Dr. Simon and those memories are staying with them, if that makes sense. And he also, Dr. Simon, he took them through this process very, very slowly. It took six months in total and Barney and Betty both spent...

Kathryn (47:44)

Gotcha.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gina (48:09)

hours with Dr. Simon under hypnosis. Barney, for his part, he was very skeptical of this whole thing at first, as was his way. And the way he described the sessions, he would enter them being kind of like, you can't hypnotize me, I'm unhypnotizable. And then he would wake up two hours later, no matter what they talked about. But while he was under hypnosis, he shared quite a few interesting things.

Kathryn (48:27)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (48:36)

He reported that the strap on their binoculars had actually broken when he was rushing back to the car after he initially got out to take a look at it at the spacecraft. And he also reported that he remembered driving away from it, but that he found himself irresistibly compelled to drive into the woods. So that's the sharp unexpected turn that they both had like a fragmented memory of when they got home. he also said that once they went into the woods,

they saw six men standing there in front of the car causing them to stop. And so that could be like the roadblock that they had a snippet memory of. Barney described the men slash alien people as being bald, gray colored with weird purpley mouths. And he was particularly disturbed by their eyes. It was like he couldn't look away from them. Like they had him in a trance or something with their eyes. And I have a quote from one of his sessions here where Barney said, quote,

I felt like the eyes had pushed into my eyes, which is a very disturbing imagery. And this is something he repeated multiple times over multiple sessions. Those eyes just like boring into him and the eyes were all he could see. I know.

Kathryn (49:39)

Eww. Eww.

Yeah.

I'm imagining

like the woo-ga eyes, like going, yeah, but like going into your eyeball sockets. Ugh, that's gross.

Gina (49:56)

Like the cartoon eyes.

That's so gross, gross.

He also described being taken aboard the ship for a medical exam and he said that they had put a cup over his genitals to take a semen sample, which could explain why when he got home, he wanted to examine himself as soon as he was alone. And as a side note, around this time, a perfect circle of warts grew around the area that he said the cup had gone.

Kathryn (50:21)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (50:30)

also reported that after he and Betty were reunited, he heard Betty and the leader speaking, but it was in a language that he couldn't understand. He described it as like a mumbled language. And notably, whenever an alien communicated directly with Barney, he described it as telepathic, not verbal, like Betty described. Speaking of Betty, her sessions largely centered around what we already talked about, the contents of her dreams.

the medical exam by the aliens, her conversation with the leader, and her story under hypnosis basically matched her dreams beat for beat. But there were a few differences. When Betty was under hypnosis, the alien people, humanoid figures, whoever, she described them as looking different than how they looked in her dreams. And they looked a lot more like how Barney described them, like purple mouths, bald heads, whereas before they had had like short dark hair.

And she also focused more on like the creepy eyes while she was under hypnosis. Also the technology that she described on the ship was a little bit different to how she saw it in her dreams. And a lot of people point to this as a way to say like, ha ha, Betty Hill was lying because she couldn't keep her story straight. Like she dreams one thing, she says another thing under hypnosis. But both of these accounts when she was dreaming and hypnotized.

happened when she had no conscious control of the story she was telling. So I think that argument's a bit lame. And also, I would actually argue that the differences in those stories, the dream versus hypnosis story, I think it makes the whole thing more credible. Because one of the main arguments against the Hills being abducted is people say that Barney, when he was under hypnosis, was just repeating the descriptions that he had heard from Betty's dreams.

Kathryn (51:54)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (52:17)

Like he had heard her talk about them so much that he was just like regurgitating what she said. But if Barney was just repeating Betty's descriptions of her dreams, his statements under hypnosis would have matched exactly what she dreamed, but that's not what happened. So yes, they both like matched on details that they had not discussed previously multiple times across multiple sessions where they were separated. So that's very compelling.

Kathryn (52:17)

Mmm, yum.

Yeah.

interesting.

Yeah, for sure. I didn't realize that.

Gina (52:44)

they also agreed in separate sessions that the aliens had no concept of time or colors. They both said that when the aliens talked, their mouths didn't move.

Even though Betty heard the words like audibly in her ears, she didn't see any movement in the lips. And they both described their treatment as similar to like animals that scientists experiment on. There wasn't like overt cruelty happening, but it was like very clinical. There wasn't a whole lot of emotion happening. And honestly, I think any minor differences in their stories could also be chalked up to the fact that they were different people who had different experiences.

Kathryn (53:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Gina (53:24)

So like for example, one thing that people point to that differs in their accounts is that Betty said her eyes were open the whole time, whereas Barney said his eyes were closed for most of it. Or that Betty reported verbal communication in English and Barney reported either telepathy or a language that he couldn't understand. But I think all of these things can be true at once, especially when you take into account the mental states that they report being in at the time, because Betty was really scared at first.

but she calmed down relatively quickly to the point where she was able to have a conversation with the leader. She was cracking jokes with him, actually quite a few jokes. Whereas Barney reported nothing but primal terror throughout the entire thing. And when you are overcome with that kind of fear, you're more likely to close your eyes and you're more likely to not understand words that are being said to you. And when you're in that state of mind, I can see how hearing words, but not seeing a mouth move,

Kathryn (54:05)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (54:20)

might make you go, that's telepathy. That's how I'm hearing what's being said right now. But still, there remain skeptics for reasons that evade me. Actually, I'll tell you the reasons. some people think that the Hills were both just overcome with exhaustion because they were driving late into the night. They were pulling an all-nighter to get home. So it could just be they were so sleep deprived, they mutually hallucinated this thing.

Kathryn (54:30)

Yeah.

Gina (54:50)

Some people also point to highway hypnosis for the lost time, like the thing where you're driving and then suddenly you're like, I don't remember the last three turns that I made and I can't tell you what I did in the last 10 minutes, you know? And still others point to an episode of the TV show, The Outer Limits as a potential factor that might've influenced the hills, specifically Barney. And basically The Outer Limits, it was kind of like a scarier version of The Twilight Zone.

And an episode about aliens aired right before Barney's first hypnosis session. And the alien in the episode looked a lot like the ones that Barney and Betty described, like bald, gray, super big eyes.

And so people will point to this and say like, Barney must have watched that episode of The Outer Limits before hypnotherapy and like that's he was just spitting out what he saw on TV. But like that doesn't explain the material evidence that we've been talking about the scuffed shoes, the dress, the pink powder, the 5,000 other weird things about this story. Like I think that that's just too lazy of an argument to fully discredit the whole thing.

Kathryn (55:53)

Yeah.

Gina (55:54)

So ultimately, Dr. Simon would call the case a, quote, singular psychological aberration. So basically, he concluded that the hills were not lying here, which meant that either A, everything they said happened really happened, or B, their brains misinterpreted what was actually happening and formed it into the narrative that they then talked about under hypnosis. Either way, they believed this story to be true.

Dr. Simon personally didn't believe they were abducted by aliens though. He just thought this was like a really weird brain thing, I think is the technical term. So the hypnosis did wind up genuinely helping the Hills though with their anxiety about their situation, especially when they heard they had corroborated each other's stories because it allowed, especially Barney to accept what had happened to them and share the burden.

of those memories with each other rather than just trying to ignore it and press on. with that, the Hills just tried to go back to their regular lives. They continued to play the whole thing close to the chest. They were willing to discuss it if a friend or a family member brought it up, but they had no desire to draw more attention to themselves by going public with the story. Unfortunately, that choice was taken away from them.

because in October 1965, the Boston Traveler released a front page article titled UFO Chiller. Did they seize the couple? Apparently a reporter named John H. Luttrell had gotten his hands on tape recordings and notes from their interviews with UFO investigators right when all of this first happened. And what followed was a five day spread that was effectively a smear campaign.

Kathryn (57:42)

My god.

Gina (57:42)

They went after,

yeah, it was awful. They went after the fact that Betty and Barney were an interracial couple. They zeroed in on Barney's warts because they basically said like, has STDs, so we can't trust him. Like just really awful, horrendous shit. And pretty soon, the Hills started receiving international attention for their story, which was literally the last thing in the world that they wanted.

Kathryn (57:48)

Of course.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Gina (58:09)

But their reaction to it was basically like, all right, fine. Like if it's out there, it's out there and we're going to tell our side of the story too. And they wound up working with Dr. Simon and an author named John G. Fuller to write a book about their story called The Interrupted Journey. And eventually they also released the recordings of their hypnotherapy sessions along with public statements about the situation. So they did try to recapture the narrative here and they were successful to a certain extent.

But the stress of the whole thing was absolutely immense, especially for Barney. And a lot of people think that this indirectly led to his death from a brain hemorrhage in 1969, less than a decade after the abduction. Betty herself passed away in 2004, having never remarried. But there is one more very interesting piece of the Hills of story that I want to tell you about because I think it's really, really cool and it involves a very badass lady.

Kathryn (59:07)

Sweet.

Gina (59:07)

So in

one of Betty's hypnosis sessions, she and Dr. Simon revisited that star map that the leader had shown her. And Betty was able to draw on a piece of paper what she had seen, which was basically just like a series of dots representing stars with lines connecting them, either signifying like alien trade routes or expeditions that these aliens would go on. And this was referenced in their book with Dr. Simon, The Interrupted Journey. And in 1968,

Kathryn (59:14)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (59:35)

So a year before Barney died, an elementary school teacher and amateur astronomer named Marjorie Fish read that book and she decided to use her astronomy knowledge to figure out which star system that star map came from. Because a bunch of astronomers had looked at it already and they couldn't figure it out. All of them were like, this doesn't match anything we've seen before. And Marjorie, this badass was like, I'll fucking figure it out. Don't worry guys.

Kathryn (59:53)

Hmm.

Gina (1:00:00)

And so she did this by building a 3D model of all of the nearby sun-like stars that we know of. So basically like any stars with characteristics that could support alien life. And she did this using threads and beads. How cool is that? Just wild. And over the next several years, she arranged and rearranged these stars.

Kathryn (1:00:16)

Perfect. That's so cool.

Gina (1:00:23)

and looked at thousands and thousands of different vantage points before deciding that the only system that matched Betty's map was Zeta Reticuli, a double star system about 39 light years away from Earth. So she sent her findings to Walter Webb, who was the first NICAP member that the Hills talked to. And he was like, my God, like, I think you're right. I think you might've cracked it. And so long story short, her hypothesis wound up all over the place and some really

big names in science started weighing in on this. It was like a massive debate within the astronomy community for I think like five years or something like that. And eventually a bunch of science-y stuff that I don't understand came out, leading Marjorie to basically say like, okay, I think I was wrong about this. Like I don't think it was zeta reticuli because of, I don't know, insert science factors that I really could not wrap my head around. Something about like her methodology wasn't airtight. I don't know, it was stupid. It's a bummer. However,

No one has since updated her analysis with modern astronomical data to find a new explanation. So I kind of feel like if a hobbyist astronomer in the 60s could get that close, surely we with our 2026 technology could get even closer. So if you're an astronomer, iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com I will send you threads, beads, whatever you need. You just say the word.

Kathryn (1:01:45)

I hope an astronomer listens to us. I've had so many questions.

Gina (1:01:49)

Me too, how does space work?

Kathryn (1:01:51)

Yeah, what's up there?

Gina (1:01:52)

Why does everything float? Bring it down! Put that back where it came from, or it'll help me! yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. That's the story of Betty and Barney Hill and the Hill Abduction. Have any thoughts?

Kathryn (1:01:54)

Is it floating? I'll put that up there.

I'm hungry.

so many thoughts. This is one. So I would love to hear the recordings of their hypnosis. That's my biggest thought because I've never listened to them and that's the one piece that will make or break this for me. With the information that I have, totally believe their experience 100%. But I fought so hard against this regressive hypnosis in the satanic panic episode that

Gina (1:02:18)

Mm.

Kathryn (1:02:40)

I didn't realize that's what they were doing. I knew they were interviewed. I don't think I knew they were under hypnosis. So depending on the interviews, that could change my opinion, which is I 100 % believe them. I do not think this is a hoax at all. think that, yeah, I think that they believe they saw aliens as far as I'm concerned. I believe they saw aliens too, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Gina (1:02:45)

Mmm.

Me neither.

Kathryn (1:03:09)

but I am, you know, there's a difference between them not lying versus it actually happening because of all like the mental things that could be happening. But I do believe, I don't know, it's hard because I'm like, at my core, I still don't know what type of aliens I believe in. I just think we as humans are too stupid to understand real aliens. So anytime someone's like, they got this from the TV show or they got this from that, blah, blah.

Gina (1:03:37)

Mm.

Kathryn (1:03:37)

How do

we know that's not kind of what you were talking about with the language and stuff? How do we know that's not the aliens creating themselves in a form that we can digest? Because their true form is something that our idiot, stupid human brains cannot comprehend. Like, do I think that there are little gray guys flying around outer space? I don't think so.

Gina (1:03:48)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (1:04:01)

But I do think that there is something beyond comprehension that needs to dumb itself down to that for us to be able to understand them. So therefore, I believe Betty and Barney Hill

Gina (1:04:10)

Yes. Yeah.

on the same page as you and I will say you can listen to the recordings from their sessions. Some of them are quite disturbing, particularly I found Barney's sessions to be disturbing because he's under a lot of distress. You can also, you can find the transcripts if you don't want to like listen to the whole thing. You can find transcripts too.

Kathryn (1:04:25)

That one I'm nervous about, yeah. That one, I just... Go ahead.

⁓ I love a transcrip- I love a transcript so much. my god, I love transcripts.

Where do you find these?

Gina (1:04:38)

So in a few different places, I found a PDF. some in the interrupted journey, but then also just like if you look on YouTube, like a lot of it is on there as well.

Kathryn (1:04:47)

Okay, I'm gonna find the transcript and just read through it.

Gina (1:04:51)

It is good. I mean, it's interesting. Maybe good is too loose of a word because it's scary, but it's fascinating for sure. But yes, yes, that is it. That is all I have. Do you perhaps have a scary on top for me?

Kathryn (1:04:52)

Okay.

I do. Okay, so I'm very excited about this one because, tee, for a lot of reasons, I'll just do it. so this week I have a real life possible ghost story and the reason I'm so excited about it, well, the reason I'm excited to tell you about it, I don't know if I'm excited about it, ⁓ it's because it's a real ghost story happening to me.

in my home, present time that I have not told you about. Yes, it's happening as we speak. Not like in this moment, not right this second, but like, yeah. Surprise, come on up here. ⁓ Okay, so part of the reason I wanna talk about this and the reason I wanted to make this the scary on top is I genuinely cannot explain it and I'm

Gina (1:05:35)

Ugh, my God. my God, okay.

Okay, I was like, right now?

Kathryn (1:06:04)

Want people's opinions like I want thoughts and ideas as to what it could be The reason I'm outsourcing it and the reason I'm being so weird right from the top I'm a little nervous to say I'm not totally positive. It is a ghost. Do think it's something weird I just it doesn't feel like super classic ghosty to me

Regardless, I will finally get around to the story and I just wanted to preface everything by saying I am open to thoughts and opinions and any answers anyone might have. Did it just get really dark? Does that freak you out? That freaks me out a little bit.

Gina (1:06:39)

did, yeah.

I that has not happened for this entire recording until you start talking about your new ghost friend. my God. Okay, okay, it's happening. It's real, it's happening.

Kathryn (1:06:44)

No.

Right? Thank you. So this is kind

of what I'm talking about. It's like little things like that have me like wondering. Okay, so this is like a three part situation. So bear with the time of this recording, about two-ish weeks ago from today, right this moment, I was standing in the kitchen making dinner while Phil and Spooky were in the living room and

my house is not open concept. So, you know, it's an old home. I'm like nowhere near them. Spooky is not quiet. So I would know if he was like coming up on me. He's like a very noisy. Spooky is my dog, by the way. I don't know if people know that. Just some guy named Spooky. Yeah, Spooky is my dog. Yeah. He is, he doesn't come upstairs, which is why you never see him. And then Cinnamon's the cat.

Gina (1:07:30)

I guess we don't talk about spooky. Yeah, we don't talk about spooky much on

Kathryn (1:07:42)

for anyone who's new. She's the one that you see. And one that we will be talking about extensively today. ⁓ Yes. So anyway, I'm nowhere near them. And we also have a little baby gate.

Gina (1:07:49)

⁓ okay.

Kathryn (1:07:56)

in the door frame into the kitchen. That's why I mentioned the floor plan.

We have that baby gate because spooky cannot be trusted around food. So I'm in the kitchen and the doorway gate is closed. And from where I'm standing in the kitchen, the doorway slash gate is like diagonally to my right, kind of in front of me. And all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, see Cinnamon come into the kitchen and I don't really think about it.

At first, I was just like, oh, what are you doing down here? Because she hates the dog so much.

she never comes down the stairs when he is there. But we have another baby gate on the stairs with a little kitty door so she can come in and out as she pleases. But we do not have one in the gate in the kitchen. So I like real quick realize, wait, how could she be coming into the kitchen with the gate closed?

And so I look down, all confused, and nobody is there. And it was like a classic. This all happened out of the corner of my eye. And it happened very quickly, but it wasn't like just a flash and she was gone. Like I saw her, I saw someone come into the kitchen. You know what I mean? Like it was a solid few seconds of like thinking she was in the kitchen before I was like, wait, this doesn't make sense. Then I realized she wasn't there.

Regardless, at that point, didn't really think much of it. Like, been a long day. I was focused on dinner, hoping to go to bed soon, whatever, not the end of the world. Just figured I was just going crazy, whatever. Then, last week, so about a week or two after this first story, this one freaked me out. So I was sitting on the couch, putting the final touches on my Bennington Triangle episode.

Gina (1:09:43)

You

Kathryn (1:09:57)

and Spooky and I were on the couch and I was just writing and he kind of perked up a little bit and I saw him like notice something from across the room and at the exact same time that that happened, again, out of the corner of my eye, like maybe I have vision issues or something like that, but out of the corner of my eye to my right side, I swear on my soul, I saw Cinnamon crawl underneath that blue chair in front of the fireplace.

at the exact same time that he perked up and was like looking in that direction. And so I looked over there, same thing. I was going to be like, Sinemet, like, what is she doing down here? like, she never comes down. It was like mid morning. She never comes down that time of day. She's always snoozing in this chair right here where she is right now. And I look up, nobody is there. She is not underneath the chair. That one freaked me out for two reasons. One, don't love something hiding underneath my living room chair. That freaked me out.

Gina (1:10:54)

You

Kathryn (1:10:55)

But two, at that point I was like, something really did definitely happen because the dog noticed it too. It was not just me. And then, okay, final part of the story. Last night, Phil's gonna kill me when I tell you this, but he saw something last night and he never admits to seeing something. So it was at that moment that I was like, okay, this is gonna be my scary on top because like.

Gina (1:11:11)

you

Kathryn (1:11:23)

If he's willing to admit that he saw something, then that means it's real. So we were sitting at the dining room table and from where I sit, ⁓ the doorway into the kitchen is directly to my left, maybe a little bit behind me. then, and that's the same doorway that I saw sent him in the first time. But then for Phil, where he sits, the doorway is like diagonally to his right.

which like literally I'm just realizing every time someone has seen this, it's been out of the corner of their eye, diagonally to the right. I don't know if that's a clue, but I'm just like, yes. anyway, we're chatting, having dinner, whatever. And he real quick kind of looks like this, like suddenly to his right and gets this really confused look on his face.

Gina (1:11:58)

Hmm.

Kathryn (1:12:13)

So I knew right away that he saw something. So I asked him what was wrong. He kind of like shook it off like, oh nothing, nevermind, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, no, sir. I just saw you see something. You have to tell me because I will not let this go. What did you see? And he just kind of shakes his head. Like it literally was like a cartoon. He was like shaking it away. He was like, I don't know. That was weird. I could have sworn that I just saw cinnamon coming out of the kitchen. Yes, I know. Yes.

Gina (1:12:39)

Okay, alright, multiple

accounts, seeing the same thing.

Kathryn (1:12:44)

Yes,

in the exact same spot. and he was just saying, you know, like it was clear he was just confused when she wasn't there. And it was he was the same thing as me. He kind of chalked it up like, you know, we were really tired. We had been in a concert in Chicago the night before. So and we didn't get home till late. So he was very tired. But I was like. No, dude, we saw the exact same thing in the exact same spot

like in the exact same way. And the thing, I don't know, the thing that I need feedback on and want help with is, like I said at the beginning, it doesn't feel like a ghost. Like it genuinely.

feels like cinnamon. Like this cat right here, Cinnamon, coming into the room, like her specifically, not even just generally like a cat or a ghost cat. It's like, am seeing Cinnamon. that's why I want feedback on. I don't know. I'm like, she's been really grumpy lately. So maybe her energy is just like permeating throughout the entire household. And like, she just got big feelings and she's like,

Gina (1:13:51)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (1:13:53)

astral projecting throughout the house or something. And you know what else I realized? Do you remember when we were recording Lorena Bobbitt and there was that moment where I like looked down and we had to stop recording because I thought Cinnamon was like plying at me and she wasn't even in the room.

Gina (1:13:57)

I mean, hmm.

And yeah.

And she was, yeah, she wasn't, yeah.

Kathryn (1:14:13)

was also diagonally to the right. That was on my right side. I don't know why I'm like latching on to this right side situation, but that was also like within the vicinity of this time frame when that happened.

Gina (1:14:26)

So

what is it that makes you think it's cinnamon and not a ghost? Like is it like the energy? it like what makes it cinnamon and not potentially like a cinnamon looking ghost cat?

Kathryn (1:14:40)

It is like, is the energy, but also visually out of the corner of my eye. It is, she's a tortie. She's got a very specific, she's not just like, you know, a black cat or a brown cat. Like she has a very specific coat and that's like what I'm seeing. Granted, it's out of the corner of my eye, so it could be like anything, but it's also.

The energy, it's just, that's the part I can't explain. It's just my cat. Like I know it's my cat. Yeah, like and that's what is making me feel a little crazy because it's not, it just feels like her, you know? I can't explain it beyond that.

Gina (1:15:08)

You just know.

Okay, okay, okay.

No, I get that. I do get that. It's like...

Kathryn (1:15:22)

But it also could be

like, I'm a little nervous that it's like some weird creepy crawly demon trying to make me think it's Cinnamon, you know? There's also like that aspect of it, which like...

Gina (1:15:30)

⁓ my mind didn't

even go to that.

Kathryn (1:15:35)

My mind went to that just because I'm like freaked out and confused. It doesn't have bad energy necessarily. I just can't because it feels different than if I am like encountering what I would believe to be a spirit or a ghost. It feels different from that, which I'm not used to. So I'm like, this could be literally anything. I could also just be crazy, which is fine, but I don't think it.

Gina (1:15:55)

You are not crazy.

You're not crazy. This is a paranormal podcast, Kathryn. So have you encountered many spirits or ghosts of animals in the past?

Kathryn (1:15:59)

Hahaha

we had a ghost cat in our last apartment, which that's what I thought it was at first, but then I was like, it just felt different. It felt different than that too. That's kind of what I'm describing. Like that felt like a ghost because it's also not interacting with anything. It's not like in the last apartment, like the same things that Cinnamon would like.

Gina (1:16:21)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (1:16:31)

bat and knock off a counter, I would like hear that happen, but she'd be nowhere near it. So it was very cat-like. This is just like, doesn't really have much of a feeling toward it at all. It's just cinnamon coming into the room, you know?

Gina (1:16:33)

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'll tell you where my mind went straight to is like ShadowCat.

Kathryn (1:16:51)

Yeah.

Gina (1:16:52)

do love the theory that it's simply Cinnamon's energy expanding. Because she has seen some things. She's a wise cat.

Kathryn (1:16:56)

Yeah.

She has seen some things and she's got big energy.

Yeah. It's just my only rebuttal to the shadow cat thing is like, it's not a shadow. Like I can see her pattern and like eyeballs and like, it's not just a, it's not like there is detail in it.

Gina (1:17:11)

Okay.

Hmm.

Kathryn (1:17:19)

Like it, it... Yeah.

Gina (1:17:19)

I'm not getting demon energy from it. doesn't feel like,

it doesn't feel demot, because nothing, I don't think, there doesn't seem to be any kind of nefariousness to this. Like it just sounds like a cat being a cat.

Kathryn (1:17:31)

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it is. I'm leaning toward that it is just simply cinnamon, like, astral projecting.

Because every time it's happened, it's also been ⁓ like that she would be there. But if she was going to be there in that instance, she would be very grumpy. know, like she would have when I was making dinner, she would have been very upset that I was downstairs instead of upstairs with her when she was in the living room. She was real mad when she sees me snuggling with Spooky instead of her. You know what I mean? So they were all moments where it was like.

Gina (1:17:55)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (1:18:11)

You know?

she when she does show up in those instances she's always very mad at me for something for like not being with her so maybe she's just learned how to astral project

Gina (1:18:17)

Hmm.

So maybe is her hatred for these things manifesting as some kind of something? I don't know.

Kathryn (1:18:27)

Yeah.

Gina (1:18:29)

as long as you're not getting negative energy from it, I think you might just have a second cinnamon.

Kathryn (1:18:32)

think

I am. Because now I'm starting to be like, okay, what bad things have happened lately and do they coincide? You know what I mean? Because I'm just like, I don't know what it is. I don't know.

Gina (1:18:42)

But I feel like you have strong enough intuition where if this thing had bad vibes, you would know already and you wouldn't have to ask the question, what else bad has been happening recently?

Kathryn (1:18:53)

True. I'm just checking and saying, I don't know, Cinnamon could also just be evil. We've been had. Well, I've been had. I've been had. That'd be so cool. No, that'd be a lot. Two Cinnamons. I love her so much, but I don't know if I have that in me. Anyway. Yeah, so if anyone out there has any ideas, I'm leaning toward just her energy permeating every room of the house.

Gina (1:18:58)

You just see two of her sitting right now. It turns out you've had twins this whole time. Wait, banana. ⁓ no.

That would be a whole lot. ⁓

Kathryn (1:19:22)

But if you have other ideas, if you want to let me know, please let me know. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com Also, hit up that email if you yourself have any ghosts or weird or astral projecting animals in your home that you want to tell us about. That'd be great. ⁓ Friendly reminder that we are on Patreon, so go and join us over there for bonus content every month. ⁓ And yeah, until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.

Gina (1:19:23)

Mm-hmm.

Keep it creepy.