Presenter: Kathleen Marden

Alec & Kathleen Marden

Kathleen is the niece of the infamous Betty & Barney Hill. The B&B case is the first case of alien abduction of a mixed-race couple who lived in Pennsylvania in the 50s. They went through intensive hypnotic regressions and re-counted the gruesome details of being taken. Betty had a needle inserted into her abdomen and a vaginal exam. Barney had a device attached to his penis and seminal fluid was removed. The event's memories were removed from their minds until they recalled them through the hypnosis.

Ms. Marden says that even though she knew what happened with them, she wasn't really that interested. However, there came a time when she realized that she needed to help them. She took all of their hypnotic regressions and did comparative analysis. This analysis involved looking at each line of what Barney said versus what Betty said. Kathleen is here today to make sure that we understand exactly what happened to B&B.

The event started when they decided to go on a vacation. On the way back home, near Lancaster. Betty said she saw something in the sky that was brighter than the sky. There were a couple of other times that they saw these lights in the sky on their trip back home from the vacation. In one case, in Fraconia Notch, they saw a huge light pass a mountain they were passing by. The more they traveled, the more they saw the light(s). Betty became more and more excited in seeing this travel companion. At this point, they started to get that it was a craft that was following them. They really got it when the craft pulled in front of them and hanged there in front of their path.

Barney got out of the car and followed the craft. There were windows in the craft and Barney could see them there. He recognized them as non-human and said they had the cold-precision of German soldiers as they moved slowly and efficiently. At this point, he and Betty got back in the car and took off. The craft followed them and then came up very close to the car. All of a sudden, outside became black and they heard these cold, electronic buzzing sounds coming from the trunk. They didn't speak for 30 minutes then the same sounds again. They don't remember much after this but they do remember being stopped by a "construction crew". By the time they got home it was daylight. This was strange because they should have gotten home while it was dark. It was a full two hours later than they anticipated.
A few facts:
-Barney felt a strange itchy feeling in his groin. Later he had 21 growths in his genital area. They were not STDs per a Dr.
-He and Betty felt clammy and strange upon arrival. Barney's shoes had scratches on them. Betty's dress had strange stains on it. They also found some strange spots on their vehicle. And finally, their watches stopped working(for both of them).

B&B drew sketches of what they observed. They also made a report to a local Air Force base. So logically they were curious about UFOs. She found a book and eventually made contact with the author. This letter to the author more or less stated the remembered experience they had. During this time, UFO stories were mainly about the mechanics, not about actual contact. This was written on September 25, 1961 , 5 days after close encounter. She also mentioned that she wanted to find a psychiatrist to use hypnotism. After this encounter, Betty started having dreams/nightmares about her experience. This dream included an abduction. She typed everything out in sequential order.

Eventually, they were referred to Dr. Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist renowned the world over, in who's who and even ran his own sanitarium. They visited him every Saturday for quite some time. Dr. Simon would hypnotize both of them separately. He wanted to protect them from the intensity of the emotion of the remembered experiences.

What they both need up saying was that they were indeed taken by these entities and had experimental and sexual experiences. Later on, through a violation of confidentially, their story was released to a newspaper in the area. It ran for 4 nights in a row. This was a bad experience for them but they decided to come out and tell the world. The first book about them, The Interrupted Journey, was written at this point.

Some false statements about them are:
-Barney was under undue stress during the abduction and he mistook an aircraft as a UFO.
-Barney & Betty took that trip took de-stress. not true. They went for fun and just to do something.
-Phillip Klass wrote a book saying that Betty's hypnotic regressions were calm as if she was on a Sunday Trip. Ms. Marden played an audio snippet that did not sound calm in the least. It sounded like she was scared out of her wits.
-Dr. Carl Sagan spoke out against them saying that B&B simply wanted children and their delusions of child-like entities was obviously an attempt at that life. This was not true. Betty DID have children in a previous marriage. Dr. Stanton Friedman wrote Sagan back about his inaccuracies pointing out the above facts.
-Dr. Susan Clancy said Betty was a long time believer of UFOs so it wouldn't take much to dream this up. Again, not true. She did not have an interest at all.
-Another false statement was about how Barney scuffed his shoes. Well, if you listen to the audio recording of his regression, you can hear how he talks about being levitated up and how his shoes scraped against rocks as he was floating across the ground to the ship.

This case is important because it was the start of something that has happened repeatedly ever since  to people all over the world. This case also shows how people, in particular, the Scientific Community, absolutely will not look at the evidence that exists and give it a discerning eye in the true sense of the word.