The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  Artist’s conception of “Ausso” from Higdon’s description

  Higdon was unclear on the size of the cubicle. He said there was a mirror on the upper right, in which he could see the reflection of the live elk which seemed to be behind him in a “cage” or corral. They were still, not moving, just as they had been when he first spotted them before he encountered Ausso. He thought the cubicle was about seven feet square but couldn’t account for the elk being there also.

  When Ausso pointed his appendage at the largest lever it moved down and the cubicle felt as if it was moving. After they took off, Higdon said he saw a basketball-shaped object under the cubicle, which he took to be the Earth. There was another being in the cubicle who “just disappeared” when they landed. Ausso said they had traveled 163,000 “light miles.”

  Outside the cubicle, Higdon said, was a huge tower, perhaps ninety feet high with a brilliant, rotating light, and he heard a sound like that made by an electric razor. The light bothered his eyes considerably, and he put his hands over them.

  Standing outside the tower were five human-appearing people: a gray-haired man of forty or fifty years old, a brown-haired girl about ten or eleven, a blond girl of thirteen or fourteen, a young man of seventeen or eighteen with brown hair, and a blond seventeen-or eighteen-year- old girl. They were dressed in ordinary clothing and appeared to be talking among themselves.

  Ausso pointed his “hand” and they (Ausso and Higdon) moved into the tower and up an elevator to a room where he stood on a small platform and a “shield” moved out from the wall. Ausso was on the other side of it. The shield was “glassy” appearing, stayed in front of Higdon for what he estimated to be three or four minutes, then moved back in the wall.

  Ausso then told Higdon he was not what they needed and they would take him back. The two moved out of the room to the elevator and then down to the main door. It seemed that all Ausso needed to do was to point his hand and they moved effortlessly.

  Next, Higdon found himself back in the cubicle with Ausso, who was holding Higdon’s gun. He said the gun was primitive and he wanted to keep it, but wasn’t allowed to, and so he gave it back to Higdon. Then he pointed at the longest lever and Higdon found himself standing on a slope. His foot struck a loose rock and he fell, hurting his neck, head, and shoulder.

  At this point Higdon didn’t know who or where he was. He got up and walked past his pickup truck, which was sitting in a wooded area on a road with deep ruts. He walked along the track about a mile past the truck, then came back to the truck and heard a woman’s voice. As he regained a little of his senses, he used the citizen’s band radio to call for help. He told the woman he didn’t know who or where he was. Authorities were notified, and Higdon was eventually found about 11:30 that night. He was dazed and confused and had difficulty recognizing his wife. The search party had a considerable problem retrieving Higdon’s two-wheel drive vehicle (it had to be towed as it could not navigate the rough road).

  Higdon was brought to the Carbon County Memorial Hospital in Rawlins at 2:30 A.M. on the twenty-sixth. Besides the sore head, neck, and shoulder, his eyes were extremely bloodshot and they teared constantly. He had no appetite on Saturday, and his wife Margery had to force him to eat. On Sunday morning, however, he was ravenous and complained about the meager size of the hospital breakfast.

  This, essentially, is Carl Higdon’s account of his time from 4:15 P.M. on October 25, 1974, when he first spotted the five elk, until he called on the CB radio, at around 6:30 P.M., that evening.

  Some foundation for his story is found in the testimony of the search-party members, who said Higdon’s pickup truck could not have driven into or out of the area where it was found. Also, unidentified lights were seen near the area where Higdon was found before the searchers started driving out of the area, so the lights of the vehicles could not have accounted for the unidentified lights.

  According to psychologist Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle, who investigated the case, Higdon has agreed to other interviews, plus the use of hypnotic techniques for the purpose of obtaining further information about his experience. Sprinkle comments that: “Although the sighting of a single UFO witness often is difficult to evaluate, the indirect evidence supports the tentative conclusion that Carl Higdon is reporting sincerely the events which he experienced. Hopefully, further statements from other persons can be obtained to support the basic statement.”

  —CORAL & JIM LORENZEN

  Higher Self This term is a translated from the Sanskrit word Atman, used by Hindus and in Western mysticism, to denote the essential, monadic core of the human body/mind/spirit. Metaphysical science holds that each of us is connected to an individualized, yet universal Higher Self, which possesses a full and complete knowledge of all our past events and future development. Many meditation practices and New Age teachers are concerned with the means by which we may contact Higher Self for guidance and to support personal healing and spiritual evolution. —SCOTT MANDELKER

  Hill abduction Barney and Betty Hill’s “interrupted journey” was the first publicized time-lapse (or “missing time”) UFOabduction episode, and the first such case in which hypnosis was used to elicit hidden details of the experience.

  THE ENCOUNTER

  The Portsmouth, New Hampshire, couple was returning home from a vacation at Niagara Falls on the night of September 1920, 1961. Barney, 39 (who died in 1969), worked as a postal clerk in Boston; while Betty, 41, was employed by the state as a child welfare worker.

  Betty and Barney Hill

  As they drove south on U.S. 3 in northern New Hampshire, the Hills noticed a bright moving starlike object in the southwestern sky. The time was approximately 11 P.M.

  The object turned toward the car and then seemed to accompany it, at a distance, for the next 35 miles. The couple stopped now and then to observe the UFO through binoculars. As it drew closer, the light source appeared to be a spinning circular object describing an erratic, step-like path above the White Mountains.

  In the vicinity of North Woodstock, the “object” came to a halt over an open area. When Barney stopped the car and got out, the UFO crossed the road ahead, from right to left, and hovered above a field next to the highway. Barney then proceeded into the field, halting periodically to view the unknown object through his binoculars. He could see a large, flat, disk-shaped craft with two rows of bluish-white glowing windows and a red light on each side.

  According to Mr. Hill, eight or more humanoid figures were looking back at him. The “leader” of the group, in particular, both fascinated and terrified him. As the disk descended toward Barney, all of the occupants except the leader started scurrying around, at which time the two red lights moved outward at opposite ends of the “craft.” After the craft approached to within 100 feet or less, Barney panicked. He dashed to the car and took off down the highway.

  The couple recalled hearing “beeping” sounds that vibrated the car twice—once after they left the UFO, and again in the Ashland area some 30 miles farther south. Oddly, the Hills had no memory of the interval between the two sets of “beeps” nor why they arrived home at least two hours later than expected. Other peculiarities were noted as well.

  BETTY’S DREAMS

  About ten days after this experience, Betty said she had a series of dreams in which she and Barney were captured by the entities and examined onboard their craft. To Mrs. Hill, the dreams indicated her recall of a real abduction that must have occurred following their initial encounter along Highway 3.

  Betty reported the sighting to nearby Pease Air Force Base and to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. As a New England advisor to NICAP, I was asked to interview the New Hampshire couple. Just one month after the encounter, I questioned the two witnesses for six hours and came away impressed with them and their incredible story. (Had I known at the time the historic significance of this prototypical UFO abduction, I would have handled many aspects of my investigation quite differently.)

 
Drawing of the UFO by Walter Webb, based on Barney Hill’s original sketch

  THE ABDUCTION

  Over the next two years, Barney Hill experienced anxieties and physical ailments—possibly connected with his UFO encounter—and Betty became even more concerned about her capture dreams. Eventually the couple was referred to Boston psychiatrist Benjamin Simon for treatment. In 1964 Dr. Simon hypnotized the Hills separately, and found that both husband and wife related similar stories of being kidnapped and examined by the UFO beings. (I have heard all eleven hours of the taped testimony.)

  Barney recalled that after hearing the first “beeps,” he was directed telepathically to drive to a wooded area where his car stalled. A group of alien figures approached the vehicle and then led the couple into the landed UFO. The beings were described as about five feet tall with large gray heads, enormous slanted eyes, small nose, and narrow mouth.

  THE EXAMINATIONS

  Betty said she was left with the leader and an examiner who proceeded to inspect her arm under a big lens and to take samples from her skin, ear, hair, and nails. Instruments used in the examination included a skin-scraper, handheld light, a cluster of needles (that touched the skin all over her body), and a long needle inserted into her navel.

  Explaining that the needle was a “pregnancy test,” the examiner seemed surprised at the pain this caused. Betty said the pain disappeared when the leader passed his hands over her eyes. When Mrs. Hill asked the leader where he was from, he exhibited a three-dimensional (holographic) “star map.” According to Betty, it was explained to her that the curved lines connecting twelve of the glowing dots were routes from the leader’s home star system to other stars. Under Simon’s posthypnotic suggestion, Mrs. Hill later drew the star map as she remembered it.

  Artist’s depiction of the alien humanoids, as described by Betty and Barney Hill (Drawings by Diane Prentice)

  Barney Hill, who was led to another room, recalled lying on a table with his eyes closed. He said his exam included the withdrawal of sperm and rectal samples, as well as the removal of skin cells.

  After their exams, the Hills were led to their car where they watched the alien ship depart. Memories of the abduction began to fade as they drove back to the main highway. Near Ashland the couple said they heard the second set of “beeps,” and conscious memory returned.

  REALITY OR FANTASY

  It was Dr. Simon’s belief that the initial encounter probably involved an unidentified military aircraft, while the abduction scenario happened only in Betty’s dreams—a fantasy she shared with her husband. Simon, however, had no interest at all in the UFO subject, refusing even to read my own case material submitted to him. While I do agree that contaminated testimony between Barney and Betty probably played some role in the retelling, I remain convinced to this day of the reality of both stages of the UFO encounter.

  BETTY’S STAR MAP AND THE FISH MODEL

  In 1972 Marjorie Fish, an Ohio schoolteacher, finished a six-year search to find matching stars for the ones in Betty Hill’s star map. After constructing more than 20 three-dimensional models of the Sun’s neighborhood out to 65 light years, and spending hundreds of hours photographing and inspecting models from all angles, Fish found what she believed were of the 12 linked stars in Betty’s drawing, including the home base of the Hill aliens (Zeta Reticuli) and our sun.

  Oblique view of the Fish model, drawn from a photo by Marjorie Fish

  Front view of the Fish model. Compare with Betty’s drawing shown below.

  At the outset, Marjorie Fish herself had expected to discover many random patterns among the stars that would resemble the Hill map. Much to her surprise, only one unique set of stars emerged that combined: (1) a reasonable match with Betty’s star map; (2) all lines in the map connecting solely to stars that were good candidates for life-bearing planets; (3) all of the life-supporting candidate stars found in the volume of space encompassing the Hill network stars were included in Betty Hill’s map; and (4) all stars in the Hill pattern were connected to each other in a logical travel sequence from star-to-star—the base star being linked only with the nearest stars having spectral classes that favor life.

  I spent six hours with Marjorie in 1974, discussing her work and reviewing her data. From my own personal inspection of the model, I can attest that the star pattern she selected in her model did indeed match amazingly well the one in Betty Hill’s map.

  Alien star map, as drawn by Betty Hill under posthypnotic suggestion

  Returning home with copies of her voluminous notes and photographs, I checked her data in six star catalogs and found no errors. The significance of Fish’s prodigious research has so far gone unrecognized by the scientific community. Though but an amateur astronomer, Marjorie’s work certainly deserves to be acknowledged by professionals, because someday the Fish model could be a vital key in unlocking the UFO rnystery.

  Despite the recent discovery that several of the Fish/Hill stars are double (damaging Fish’s single-star criterion), Fish’s selected stellar candidates still hold up rather well. Double stars do not necessarily prohibit planetary life. Marjorie’s model should now be reexamined in light of the Hipparcos satellite and its more accurate distance measurements to thousands of stars—including those in the Fish/Hill network.

  —WALTER N. WEBB

  Hollow Earth, The (University Press, 1969). Raymond Bernard thinks a worldwide conspiracy exists to suppress knowledge that the Earth is hollow and the place where UFOs, driven by survivors of Atlantis, originate. Bernard heads a European branch of the Rosicrucians and claims he was told by extraterrestrial visitors to write this book to prepare humans for their coming.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  Home of the Gods, The (Editions Robert Laffont, 1972). Andrew Tomas opines that the residents of Atlantis were descendants of extraterrestrials and their civilization was destroyed by the Biblical flood. Some Atlanteans escaped the flood in spacecraft, others fled to a network of underground tunnels, chambers and hidden valleys, from where they occasionally still emerge in UFOs to share “their wisdom with those who are ready for it.”

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  Hopkins, Budd (b. 1931). Budd Hopkins is probably the world’s best known UFOabduction researcher and an important pioneer in the field. Originally from Wheeling, West Virginia, he attended Oberlin College, where he studied Art and Art History, graduating in 1953. That year he moved to New York City, where he has lived ever since, with summers spent at his home on Cape Cod.

  As a painter and sculptor, Hopkins has had over fifty one-person shows in the United States and Europe. His work is in the permanent collections of many prestigious museums and art galleries in New York, Washington, San Francisco, and elsewhere. These include the Solomon R. Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the British Museum, and many other distinguished institutions.

  Hopkins has received a fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and other distinguished awards, and his work has been widely and favorably reviewed. As a writer on the subject of modern art, Hopkins has contributed articles on art to magazines such as Art Forum, Arts, and Art in America.

  Budd Hopkins

  Hopkins had his first UFO experience in 1964. On a sunny afternoon on Cape Cod, he and two others had a daylight UFO sighting, which sparked his interest in this subject.

  In 1975, a neighborhood friend described a UFO landing and sample-gathering occupants he had witnessed in a New Jersey Park, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. This was Hopkins’ first extensive investigation, and in 1976 he published an account of this case in a New York newspaper, The Village Voice. The case was widely publicized, and among the many ensuing reports Hopkins received were several that included tantalizing accounts of “missing time.”

  With the help of veteran UFO researcher Ted Bloecher and several
mental health professionals, Hopkins began to investigate these accounts in which previously hidden UFO abduction experiences came to light. This research led to his first book, Missing Time published in 1981. In it, Hopkins presented several patterns heretofore unreported in the abduction literature. Among them were:

  1. The potentially widespread nature of the (covert) abduction phenomenon, in which the abductees may have virtually no conscious recollection of sighting a UFO, observing occupants, and so on.

  2. Physical sequelae, such as wounds, bruises and other lesions often resulting from these abductions.

  3. Repeated abductions, whereby an individual may be abducted again and again, as if he/she were the object of an ongoing systematic study.

  4. Screen memories, apparently imposed by the aliens, in which a more palatable image (such as an owl or a deer) was substituted for images of the aliens themselves.

  5. Evidence that abductions were carried out in families, seemingly across the same genetic stock.

  Hopkins second book, Intruders was published in 1987, and presented the then radical notion that the central goal of the UFO occupants was to create a hybrid mix of alien and human DNA. The accounts in Intruders detailed processes of artificial insemination, ova and sperm sampling, and the systematic removal of hybrid fetuses. Intruders was widely read, translated into many languages, and was the subject of a CBS miniseries. It remains one of the most influential books on the subject of UFO abductions ever written.

  In 1996, Hopkins published his third book, Witnessed, about an abduction that took place in New York City in 1989, and was witnessed by a number of people including government officials and an important international leader. The incident was apparently a deliberate demonstration by the aliens of their power, and it remains the clearest account of their involvement in human political affairs.