NH Couple's Alien Abduction Story Has Racial Undertones, Book Says

PORTSMOUTH, NH — Perhaps one of the most famous alien abduction stories of all time comes from Portsmouth's own Betty and Barney Hill, the late interracial couple and civil rights activism duo who said they were briefly taken by extraterrestrials who descended upon New Hampshire in Sept. 1961. Now, discussion about the case has been reignited by author Matthew Bowman thanks to his book highlighting the story's apparent undercurrent of racism.

The Hills spent years telling and retelling the story of the time they were on the highway in the rural part of the state late at night when they were taken by aliens with grey skin and large eyes. It's a description that has "become the template for nearly every encounter with aliens in American popular culture since," according to the synopsis of Bowman's book, "The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America."

But what the media has glossed over when discussing the Hills, Bowman says, is that their story isn't just a piece of alien folklore; it's a "microcosm of 1960s America."

Noting that prior to their abduction, the Hills were politically active, Bowman claims that "when [the Hills'] story of abduction was repeatedly ignored or discounted by authorities, they lost faith in the scientific establishment, the American government, and the success of the civil rights movement."

In a recent interview with CNN, Bowman said that Barney Hill’s struggles with racism as a Black man in the mid-20th century were a "deep part of this encounter."

As the story goes, when Barney Hill was hypnotized in a psychiatrist's office a few years after the abduction, he suddenly remembered details of that night that he said had previously been blocked.

"When he is hypnotized and recovers all these memories, the language he uses is really, really colored by fear of racial persecution," Bowman told CNN.

In that way, perhaps the Hills' experience going head-to-head with aliens is not unlike their experience going head-to-head with systemic racism.

The Hills' alleged alien encounter took place right in the middle of the United States' 1960s Civil Rights Movement—a time of widespread sit-ins, boycotts, protests, and lobbying for equal rights for African Americans and for an end the racial segregation and exclusion that was taking place during that era.

Before the Hills shared their story, the media typically portrayed alien encounters as more civil than scary. The archetype for extraterrestrial experiences has since shifted to include descriptions that resemble horror stories, including human experimentation, abduction, and lapses in time.

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