“Scientists in the year 2066 may think us very naive in our denials”, and his emphasis on the limitations of science, “For me, the challenge was to find out the very limitations of science, the places where it broke down, the phenomena it didn’t explain”. – J. Allen Hynek
Betty Hill: “I rolled down the window, calling out to the craft, “Come on in! Who are you?” The craft moved closer, then stopped, hovering about fifty feet above the road.
When ET Communicates
John Horrigan: They spoke to you verbally. Verbally, as opposed to telepathically.
Betty Hill: Right. And we had a great time. You wanted, wait a minute, I’ll go get Junior so you can see what Junior looks like.
JH: Okay, sure, sure, absolutely.
BH: Another thing: I never call them aliens.
JH: What did you call them?
BH: Beings. Astronauts. I call them what they were.
Betty Hill, Source: Transcript of the October 1999 interview conducted by John Horrigan at Betty Hill’s home in Portsmouth, NH. Rediscovered in 2009, with a second-angle SVHS recording found in 2019.
The Lost Interview
Interviewed by Emmy Award–winning New England folklorist and historian John Horrigan in October 1999 at her home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the conversation is believed to be the last recorded interview Betty gave. Horrigan rediscovered the original tape in his attic in October 2009. A decade later, in February 2019, he found another tape, this one recorded on SVHS, capturing the interview from a different angle.
Transcript Overview
I have focused on transcript highlights, including more of the significant details in this post. If possible, do listen to Betty. Hearing the story in her words is vital in understanding her perspective, and the confidence she shows – knowing – it is her experience. No matter what others make of it, she alone determines the merit. I admire her.
The Last Word on a Lifelong Mystery
In October 1999, Emmy Award–winning folklorist John Horrigan sat in Betty Hill’s Portsmouth, New Hampshire home, turning on the recorder for what would be her final interview. Nearly four decades had passed since the night in 1961 when Betty and her husband, Barney, experienced the world’s first widely publicized “alien abduction.” By then, Barney had long since passed away, but Betty remained a public figure, equal parts reluctant celebrity, researcher, and custodian of a case that refused to fade.
This rediscovered interview offers a rare window into how Betty herself understood her experiences at the end of her life. What emerges is not the sensational caricature of tabloid headlines, but a pragmatic, inquisitive, sometimes wry, and deeply connected human trying to make sense of events that placed her, by the most extraordinary happenstance, in history’s spotlight.
Dreams, Memory, and Medical Hypnosis
Betty recalled that ten days after the incident, she began a series of vivid dreams that seemed to replay what had happened aboard the craft. She wrote them down, put them away, and later compared them to memories recalled under medical hypnosis. Barney, whose health deteriorated in the aftermath, eventually sought help from Dr. Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist who had pioneered hypnosis with traumatized WWII veterans. Under Simon’s careful sessions, the couple reconstructed their shared experience without suggestion or stagecraft.
The beings they described were not the “grays” of pop culture, nor “aliens” in Betty’s vocabulary. “I never call them aliens. I call them beings, astronauts. That’s what they are.”
Humanoid and communicative, they struck Betty less as monsters than as explorers. Over time, she went further, speculating that they might represent what humans will look like in 25,000 years: spindly, big-brained descendants traveling back to observe.
Government Attention and Public Scrutiny
Contrary to the notion of ridicule or suppression, Betty remembered that government scientists and officials, from NASA, the White House, even the National Security Council, showed genuine interest in her testimony. They cautioned her to stay away from UFO organizations so that her account remained untainted.
As the case drew publicity, first in newspapers and later in the 1975 TV movie The UFO Incident, Betty became a clearinghouse for others’ reports. Letters, phone calls, and interviews poured in. She tried to apply Dr. Simon’s framework: separating hallucination, fantasy, or influence from what might be genuine memory.
She never claimed to be a “contactee”. As she put it: “We were passengers. I didn’t like the idea of being abductees.” In her initial excitement seeing the UFO, Betty had called out to them. It was an invitation. Barney’s reaction changed the tone when he became frightened, and they tried to run.
Decades of Watching the Skies
In the years after Barney’s death, Betty leaned into investigation. She toured colleges, gave lectures, and eventually organized 15 years of nightly sky watches in southern New Hampshire. Local volunteers, scientists, and even military personnel joined her. Hundreds of photographs and dozens of films were captured.
She spoke matter-of-factly about seeing squadrons of 150–200 craft, sometimes smaller discs moving in and out of larger “carrier” ships. One recurring visitor, she said, returned night after night to the same spot, a “headquarters ship.”
Betty didn’t claim to summon UFOs at will. She did describe being guided. Driving home at night, she said, objects would pace her car and lead her to viewing sites.
Roswell, Crashes, and Mystery Metals
On the question of Roswell, Betty believed a crash occurred, noting that no junior officer would announce such a thing without clearance. But she also thought disclosure was politically impossible. Admitting UFOs violated U.S. airspace, she said, would unravel military budgets and leave the government powerless.
She also spoke about physical debris. Some pieces that surfaced, she believed, were hoaxes. But she had personally collected unusual samples.
“Oh, I’ve had stuff analyzed that I’ve picked up from UFOs. Most of the stuff, no matter what it looks like or feels like, the puzzling thing is it dissolves in water. That’s what they can’t figure out. It’s almost gelatin-like, no, it just falls apart.”
Skeptics, Bigfoot, and the Wider Mystery
Betty had little patience for skeptics like Philip Klass, whom she accused of exploiting her name for profit. Yet she acknowledged hoaxes and exaggerations in the UFO field. She also entertained crossovers with other mysteries, noting reports of Bigfoot footprints near UFOs, and suggesting that if one wanted to clear an area quickly, “drop Bigfoot down for a few minutes and people will scatter.”
UFOs: Not What They Seem
[In the video at 1:32:32] In one of her last reflections, Betty recounted snapping a Polaroid of a plane and helicopter flying together, only to discover, on development, that the photo contained not just the aircraft but a “disc and a flying barrel” as well. She spoke of footage showing carriers releasing small craft shaped like World War I airplanes, and of a “crazy plane” that dove straight down, halted twenty feet above the ground, and shot away at impossible speed.
Asked whether it was alien, she was unequivocal: “I know it is.”
For Betty, these weren’t static mysteries. They were phenomena that adapted, sometimes disguising themselves as the familiar, planes, helicopters, even vintage aircraft, to come closer without detection.
Unknown – Unexplained – Unresolved
Betty Hill’s last reflections echo the insights of computer scientist and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, who has long argued the phenomenon is not what it seems, that its power lies in its ability to shift, adapt, and reflect our expectations. Her account of craft disguising themselves as planes or even vintage aircraft illustrates that elusive quality.
Remember, this is from the interview in 1999. As Betty observed, they’re beginning to look like things are familiar to us, so they can get in closer.
Like Vallée, Betty left us with the challenge of living in a universe where the unexplained resists our categories, insisting instead that we expand them.
Secrets
This 2022 article in New Hampshire Magazine: Link features a captivating portrait of Betty Hill. Also features a simulation based on Betty’s humanoid description by Peter Geremiah, former NH MUFON director.
Recently, I contacted the Photographer after seeing the portrait and reading about his experience with Betty.
Summary of the article: When David Mendelsohn moved to New Hampshire in 1974 he quickly found that local sightings were more than rumor, he and his wife witnessed a craft circle Nottingham Lake in 1976, then accelerate away so fast that two fighters from Pease AFB arrived ten minutes later.
Mendelsohn later met Betty at a small ET conference and photographed her in the early 1990s; he recalls the session vividly, and remembers how she recounted her story that evening. After the shoot she shared a private detail with him and asked that he never reveal it. He is holding to that promise. You can see Mendelsohn’s work at davidm.com.
They’re Here
Even in the late 1990s, Betty continued to witness fleeting activity. She described a sighting from her window just days before the interview: “I looked out the window the other night, and two of them were flying… a poor sighting, but I knew it was a UFO because of the altitude and speed.”
Despite ongoing speculation linking her encounter to beings from Zeta Reticuli, Betty never claimed to know their origin. “All I know is these crafts are flying together in squadrons… I don’t know where they’re all coming from.”
When asked about theories of cloaking or “vibrational frequencies” that might render UFOs invisible to some observers, Betty dismissed the speculation with her trademark practicality: “If you can’t see them, I’d suggest you have your eyes checked… When they make themselves appear, they appear to everyone, not just to certain people.”
Maybe, put the phone down, and start looking up…
Anything is possible.
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