1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:20,000 UFOs. They arrive in a blaze of light then take control. Inhuman hands probe private places. 2 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:26,000 Half nightmare, half science fiction, these harrowing accounts first surfaced in 1961. 3 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:35,000 When a New England couple claimed they were taking aboard a UFO against their will, other stories began to surface. 4 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:44,000 Like the four friends who said they were medically examined by creatures not of this earth, such cases can be summed up with one terrifying word. 5 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,000 Abduction. Next. 6 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:58,000 In the 1950s, most UFO cases involved sightings of unusual aircraft or lights in the night sky. 7 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:09,000 In addition, there were the Contactee cases where individuals reported communication with UFO occupants, often depicted as friendly and wise. 8 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:22,000 But in the fall of 1961, a New England couple encountered a UFO that dramatically changed their lives and raised new questions about the intentions of UFOs. 9 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:35,000 Betty and Barney Hill might seem unlikely candidates to rewrite UFO history. Betty was a department supervisor in the state government. Barney worked for the Postal Service. 10 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:42,000 They were driving home to New Hampshire from a vacation in Canada when their encounter began. 11 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:52,000 As they motored down Route 3 in the isolated White Mountains, Betty noticed a curious star in the sky that seemed to be following their car. 12 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,000 The hills stopped the car as the light got closer to them. 13 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Peering through binoculars, Barney reported seeing red, amber and green flashing lights. 14 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:07,000 Panicked, Barney jumped back in the car and started speeding down the road. 15 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:16,000 When the hills arrived home to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, they realized that the trip had taken two hours longer than expected. 16 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:27,000 Within days of their sighting, Betty Hill began having nightmares in which she and Barney were taken aboard a flying saucer and then medically examined. 17 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:36,000 The hills filed a sighting report with NICAP, a newly formed UFO research group. 18 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:47,000 Then the emotional trauma from their experience prompted Barney and Betty Hill to seek the help of Dr. Benjamin Simon, a prominent Boston psychiatrist. 19 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Dr. Simon used hypnosis to treat the hills over the course of several months. 20 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:02,000 Betty and Barney Hill said the therapy helped them recover some memories of their missing two hours. 21 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:07,000 Listening to recordings of these sessions brought back even more recollections. 22 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:20,000 I try to maintain control so Betty cannot tell I am scared. God, I'm scared. 23 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:26,000 It's all right. You can go right on and experience it. It will not hurt you now. 24 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:30,000 I got to get my gun. 25 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,000 Get my gun! I got my gun! 26 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:41,000 All right. That's all right. Just keep raising the phone. 27 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:52,000 Then I put it in my coat and then I get off with the binoculars. 28 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Then it stays there. 29 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:58,000 I look. I look. 30 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,000 It shifts over. 31 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,000 I think I'm not afraid. 32 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:11,000 I don't shoot it down. I'm not afraid. 33 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:20,000 I walk out and I walk across the road. 34 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,000 There it is. Up there. 35 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:25,000 It's right out of my way. 36 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000 Calm down. Calm down. It's there. 37 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,000 But you can see it, but it's not going to hurt you. Go on. 38 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:41,000 Why doesn't it go away? Look at it. 39 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,000 It's really, really bad. 40 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000 Barney Hill would later make sketches to illustrate his story. 41 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:54,000 It's very big and it's not that far. 42 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:00,000 And I can see it tilted toward me. 43 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,000 What does it look like now? 44 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:17,000 Did you see what it looks like in big, big pancake with windows and rolls? 45 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:23,000 A roll of windows like a commercial plane. 46 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:36,000 Rows of windows. They're not like a commercial plane because they curve around to the size of this pancake. 47 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:46,000 And I look up and down the road. Can somebody come? Tell me this is not there. 48 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:56,000 During her hypnotic regression, Barney Hill described the deeply disturbing events that she said took place inside the landed spacecraft. 49 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:04,000 So then they rolled me over on my back and they examined her. 50 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:09,000 It says a roll of needle in his head. 51 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,000 And I see the needle. 52 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:17,000 And it's the nail that any needle I've ever seen. 53 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:23,000 And I asked him what he's going to do with it. 54 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:27,000 And he said, just as simple as that, he won't hurt me. 55 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,000 And I asked him what. 56 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,000 And he said he just wants to put it in my nail. 57 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:36,000 It's just as simple as that. 58 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:40,000 I tell him no, it won't hurt. Don't do it. 59 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:44,000 Don't do it. It even though it won't hurt. 60 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:48,000 And he said for days, put it in my nail. 61 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:54,000 And I cry and I tell him it's hurting, it's hurting, it's hurting, it's hurting. 62 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,000 And as a leader, he goes over. 63 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:05,000 And he puts his hand, raises hand in front of my eyes. 64 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:09,000 And he says, I'll be all right. I won't feel it. 65 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:16,000 And all the pain goes away. 66 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:24,000 Five years later, the bizarre experience of Betty and Barney Hill became legendary as a cover story in Look Magazine 67 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000 and a book entitled The Interrupted Journey. 68 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:33,000 It was the first reported alien abduction in the United States. 69 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:38,000 The Hill psychiatrist, Dr. Simon, remains skeptical of their account. 70 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:44,000 However, once the case was made public, other witnesses came forward with similar stories. 71 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:50,000 Authors like Dr. David M Jacobs call them abductions. 72 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:57,000 The core abduction scenario involves basically a person who is taken out of his or her normal environment, 73 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:02,000 usually against their will, and taken on board an object, a UFO if you will, 74 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:08,000 and they're closed or removed, they're placed on a table, they're given a mental, physical, 75 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:16,000 and kind of reproductive series of examinations, procedures, and then they're released, brought back, 76 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:22,000 and they forget about what happened to them almost immediately, although they might know that something strange has happened. 77 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:28,000 They don't necessarily connect it to the abduction phenomenon. 78 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:34,000 Beginning with the Hills, most abductees have made sketches to illustrate their experience. 79 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:41,000 They often picture the strange beings they encounter, now known as greys. 80 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:50,000 The most predominant one are the small grey aliens and taller grey aliens as well. 81 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:55,000 The taller grey aliens seem to be more in charge in the abduction scenario. 82 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:01,000 The smaller grey aliens seem to be more assistants or helpers. 83 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:10,000 These are beings that are thin, have no hair, large heads, very large black eyes, 84 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:17,000 no pupils in them, just sort of opaque, no nose, to speak of, there might be a little bumper ridge there. 85 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:24,000 Many abduction cases include a face-to-face encounter with greys. 86 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:34,000 Among the most credible was the incident reported by four college friends after a harrowing trip in the summer of 1976. 87 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:49,000 Betty and Barney Hills abduction experience in September 1961 was the first such case reported in the United States. 88 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:56,000 But in the following decades, accounts of alien abduction became increasingly common. 89 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:06,000 Few stories were as sensational as the experience reported by four friends who took what was supposed to be an ordinary camping trip. 90 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:13,000 To those who catalog such reports, this UFO encounter is known as the Allagash Incident. 91 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:29,000 In the summer of 1976, art students Charlie Faltz, Chuck Rack and twins Jack and Jim Wiener travelled north from Boston into the wilderness of Maine. 92 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:37,000 For nearly a week, the trip was everything they hoped it would be, a carefree escape from city life. 93 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:44,000 On the fifth day, they camped near Smith Pond, an isolated stump-filled swamp. 94 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:53,000 It was a perfect spot for night fishing. It was also the place where their lives would change forever. 95 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:02,000 There was no moon that night, it was real dark, and we didn't want to get lost, so we said, well, 96 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:09,000 thing to do is make a big fire so we can see it and then we know which way to paddle when we want to get back to camp later. 97 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:16,000 And it was quite large, but we cleared around the fire, so there was no problem. 98 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:21,000 And these flames were leaping to good three or four feet up into the air. 99 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:28,000 With their makeshift lighthouse aglow, the four men left their campsite behind. 100 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:36,000 They paddled several hundred yards out into the pond, headed for a night of fishing they would never forget, 101 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,000 and one they would later illustrate in their artwork. 102 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:48,000 I remember being in the back of the canoe, paddling leisurely, the two twins were in the middle, Charlie was in the front. 103 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:56,000 And I remember they were having a conversation and I was focusing on the night and the lake and the water. 104 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,000 And I began to feel observed. 105 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:09,000 And then all of a sudden Chuck Rack, who was at the back of the canoe, said, holy mackerel, what the f*** is that? 106 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:22,000 And I turned around and looked and there was this huge, bright light that was hot coming out of the trees. 107 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:25,000 It seemed like it was rising out of the trees. 108 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:30,000 At first we thought it was going to be an airplane or something, right? 109 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:37,000 So we watched it for a few seconds and realized that it wasn't an airplane because it wasn't making any sound at all. 110 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000 It was strange, very strange. 111 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:48,000 It was a bright, luminous, yellow, white, and changing from that color in a very fluid, liquid kind of a way. 112 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,000 And we were very, very fascinated. 113 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:59,000 I was in a state of extreme euphoria, I remember just feeling, wow, this is fantastic. 114 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:01,000 It was just alive. 115 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:10,000 And when it was nearest about a hundred yards away, it paused. 116 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:16,000 And when it paused, I said to the fellas, I said, I'm going to shine the flashlight and see what it does. 117 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:22,000 The instant he flashed his flashlight, this thing sent this f***ing light out to us. 118 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:30,000 We were in a 16-foot aluminum grumman canoe, which in the pitch black of night lit up like a roaming candle. 119 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:37,000 We must have looked like this object just waiting to be approached on this lake. 120 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:45,000 And all I can tell you is what was going through my mind was just exhilarating expectation. 121 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:52,000 Just, this is fantastic. This is something we can communicate with. It's tempting to communicate with us. 122 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:58,000 I was completely shocked and especially shocked that it reacted as quickly as it did, 123 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:01,000 which told us there was some type of intelligence about it. 124 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:07,000 And as soon as this light came out, this thing started moving. 125 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:16,000 And so we thought, well, this is real. This is really happening. This is not a figment of our imagination. 126 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:24,000 I mean, we've got to deal with this situation now, because within a few seconds this thing is going to be right on us. 127 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:32,000 I wasn't even interested in this thing any more other than I didn't want to be as close to it as I was. 128 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:43,000 I remember paddling as fast as I could and Jack saying, it's getting closer, it's getting closer. 129 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,000 And then it was gone. The next thing they remembered, they were back on shore. 130 00:14:55,000 --> 00:15:00,000 And I thought, well, that's it. We've lost our chance. We've let it slip through our fingers. 131 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:06,000 And I observed it leaving and just gradually faded out. 132 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:18,000 Exhausted, the four men stumbled back to their campsite. There they found the remains of their makeshift lighthouse. 133 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:25,000 The fire that had been built to last for hours. The fire that was now just a pile of charred embers. 134 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:33,000 At the time, no one gave it much thought, though it would later play a large role in their sighting. 135 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:41,000 That night, nothing more was discussed, not the fire, not the unknown object that had chased them only moments before. 136 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,000 Sleep was the only thing on their minds. 137 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:49,000 For years, the friends rarely talked about that strange night. 138 00:15:50,000 --> 00:16:01,000 Then in 1978, memories of the sighting began to resurface. Jim Wiener had developed temporal epilepsy after a car accident and suffered periodic seizures. 139 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:09,000 These fits were often triggered by sleep deprivation and by 1980, Jim was definitely not sleepy well. 140 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:15,000 Vivid nightmares had become a perpetual torment. 141 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:24,000 All I remember is seeing vague figures anthropomorphic in shape, but they did not seem human to me. 142 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:39,000 They were around me and they were either doing things with my genitals or they were plotting me with some types of instruments. 143 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:47,000 There was an extreme feeling of malevolence. I mean, I was absolutely always terrified in this situation. 144 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:52,000 For a time, Jim kept his nightmares secret. Then he confided in his brother. 145 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,000 Jack Wiener's reaction was totally unexpected. 146 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:06,000 So he starts telling me this, my nightmare. On the phone and I go, oh, he's mackerel. I've been having the same nightmares. What is going on here? 147 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:16,000 There was no apparent explanation, but Jim was getting worse, his doctors growing more concerned. 148 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:22,000 Repeatedly, they asked Jim what was wrong and he finally revealed the nightmares. 149 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,000 A psychiatrist working on the case said it sounded like an abduction experience. 150 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,000 The doctor suggested that Jim speak to Ray Fowler, a UFO researcher. 151 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:43,000 Jim repeated his story. Fowler took it seriously. Later, the other three also underwent hypnosis. 152 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:50,000 Finally, four years after the incident, the details of that terrifying August night would emerge. 153 00:17:54,000 --> 00:18:04,000 When four college friends set off for a camping trip in August of 1976, they never dreamed they would end up at the epicenter of one of the most famous cases in UFO history. 154 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:17,000 They all remembered paddling onto a pond and seeing a spectacular light in the sky. Then it came closer, far too close for comfort. 155 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:26,000 The next thing the men recalled was standing on shore. Only later would they suspect that something more sinister had taken place. 156 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:36,000 Regression hypnosis revealed that the four friends had apparently endured a horrific episode known as an alien abduction. 157 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:42,000 It began with a menacing approach of a UFO. 158 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:52,000 One of the things I remembered very clearly was Jack saying that it's gaining on us. 159 00:18:53,000 --> 00:19:00,000 I remember suddenly being enveloped in this tube of light. 160 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:08,000 I remembered looking up and I thought, I was thinking about what the heck is that up there? 161 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:15,000 What's up there? That took a few seconds and then I looked back again and Chuck Rack's gone. 162 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:26,000 The last thing I remembered was having both hands on the side of the canoe looking out at the water to see if Chuck was in the water. 163 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:32,000 Then not seeing him thinking, oh my god, what happened to Chuck? 164 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:44,000 I remember looking up and then the next thing I remembered was this intense feeling of coming apart. 165 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,000 That's the only way I can describe it. 166 00:19:49,000 --> 00:20:01,000 Then the next thing I remembered was being on my back in this hazy environment which was just like this nightmare that I'd been having. 167 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:07,000 All four friends seemed to recall a similar dramatic experience. 168 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:17,000 I'm lying on my back and I'm disoriented. I'm not sure where I am. 169 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:28,000 As I'm forcing and struggling to get up, a face appears and looks straight down at me. 170 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:34,000 It reminded me of insects. I remember thinking, my god, these things look like bugs. 171 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:42,000 They had large eyes almost like ants have. They could have been goggles for all I know. 172 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,000 They had some kind of clothing on, like spandex. 173 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:53,000 I became focused on this thing's hand and realizing that it was not a hand like ours at all. 174 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:59,000 This one had me by the wrist and he was holding my arm up and he had something else in his hand. 175 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,000 But I didn't like the looks of it and I remember thinking, oh boy, here we go. This is it. 176 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:10,000 I got five seconds to live. They're going to cut me open. They're going to dissect me, whatever. 177 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:13,000 I just want to get out of here, get me out of here. 178 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:20,000 It would take hours under hypnosis before the four men fully detailed the alien examinations. 179 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:26,000 Later, they recalled the peculiar events that brought them back down to Earth. 180 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:34,000 They moved us again into this other space, this room. 181 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:43,000 Then this area in front of me started changing somehow. It was doing something, some type of machine or something. 182 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:48,000 It was very strange. And the last thing I remembered thinking was, here we go. 183 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000 I don't know what's going to happen next, but something is happening. 184 00:21:52,000 --> 00:22:00,000 Under regressive hypnosis, I remember the aliens trying to put me in the canoe. 185 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:08,000 There was one of them standing in the canoe over me trying to adjust my position in the back of the canoe. 186 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,000 Another one was sort of waist deep in the water right next to me. 187 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:19,000 And then they tried to position Jim Wiener in front of me, but he's heavier. 188 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,000 And they were having a hard time with him. 189 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000 And then the other two were being right on land. 190 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:30,000 And then Jim got out to join them. 191 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:40,000 As their recollections took shape, the four men learned why their roaring campfire had seemed to burn out so quickly. 192 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:47,000 To those who investigate abduction cases, it's known as missing time. 193 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:58,000 Perhaps as much as three hours had passed during the abduction, from the time the men first saw the UFO, until the time they found themselves standing on the beach. 194 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,000 Meanwhile, their fire had burned down to embers. 195 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:09,000 Hypnosis had restored their recollections of the missing time with unsparing intensity. 196 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:17,000 But now there was no hiding from the memories, no hiding from the trauma of what had apparently happened at Smith Pond. 197 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:31,000 I mean, every time I had one of these experiences, you know, I would rationalize it as a dream. 198 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:37,000 So I could cope with it and say, well, what the heck is really going on here? 199 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,000 Is it related to my seizure disorder? 200 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:48,000 Is it, you know, something I'm eating? Do I have a brain tumor? 201 00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:58,000 Am I working too hard? Or am I under a lot of stress? What the heck could possibly cause this kind of repetitive experience? 202 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:12,000 The Allagash Four are not alone. Their story is remarkably similar to the accounts of thousands of other ordinary people who face the nightmarish certainty that they have been in the hands of aliens. 203 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:22,000 Still, despite all the convincing testimony, the subject of alien abductions is the source of bitter controversy. 204 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:39,000 As sensational as the Allagash incident may seem, it is simply one of the thousands of abduction cases that have been reported. 205 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:48,000 Among UFO researchers, it is regarded as a reliable report with solid eyewitness testimony. 206 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:57,000 Indeed, for those who have examined the case closely, it confirms that at least some people have come face to face with alien creatures. 207 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:13,000 If you had the amount of evidence for the reality of the Allagash abductions for any other subject, any mundane subject in a court of law, you could hang a person probably. 208 00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:22,000 But because of the bizarre nature of the case, that's not going to happen. People aren't going to accept that evidence, although the evidence is there. 209 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:33,000 The evidence includes four men who were psychologically examined and given polygraph tests before undergoing hypnosis. 210 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,000 Four men who reported remarkably similar accounts of the same event. 211 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:47,000 Four men who have spent the past several years trying to come to grips with the fact that they were part of something out of their realm of understanding. 212 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:59,000 I've heard it all, everything. Oh, they must have been on LSD and people have said, I don't believe a word you say, you're nuts, you're crazy, you belong in a straight jacket. 213 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:10,000 And I say, well, it's part of my life, I can't deny it. And one of the things that's really weird is that you find yourself getting used to the idea that you've been abducted, and that's weird in itself. 214 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,000 I mean, how do you get used to something like that? 215 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:26,000 It has been over 20 years since the alleged encounter. The Allagash incident has been added to the body of reports that argue the abduction phenomenon is real. 216 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:36,000 But this case is not without its own controversy. While three of the men are confident the event took place, the fourth is now not so sure. 217 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:46,000 I'm not denying this happened. I'm just skeptical about the abduction part of the story. 218 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:57,000 To that extent, it wasn't like a visceral reality experience, it wasn't like a true memory. And that's what I had trouble with for years and years and years. 219 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:08,000 Certainly, I shared the experience with the rest of the guys and they might take that as remembering a real experience, but it's not. 220 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:17,000 The encounter is real. I know that. But regressive hypnosis several years later, I don't know. 221 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:25,000 The fact that Chuck racked back off his abduction story, to me it doesn't have too much significance. 222 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:31,000 Maybe he has since thought about this thing and doesn't want to think it actually happened to him. 223 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:40,000 But nonetheless, his recollections of what occurred back then are consistent with what the others have remembered either consciously or through hypnosis. 224 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:50,000 However, researchers like Kevin Randall, who is convinced that UFOs are real, continue to question the Allagash abduction. 225 00:27:51,000 --> 00:28:01,000 They clearly had a UFO sighting. Clearly that event took place. But we've now blurred the boundary between reality and fantasy. 226 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:10,000 We worked for thousands of years so that we understood that dreams were dreams. They were fantasy. They were not necessarily a reflection of reality. 227 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:15,000 And yet in abduction research, if you dream about being abductive, well that's all accurate information. 228 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:22,000 And we've got to get back and take a solid psychological look at this. 229 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:38,000 Yet not all abductions can be written off as dreams. In fact, neither Betty and Barney Hill nor the Allagash Four were even asleep when their abduction was set to have taken place. 230 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:49,000 Among the many controversies surrounding abductions is the use of hypnosis to recall the experience. 231 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:57,000 The technique was first used in 1961 by Dr. Benjamin Simon in the case of Betty and Barney Hill. 232 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:07,000 Advocates of hypnosis claim it can help to unlock suppressed memories and provide investigators with details of unearthly and often frightening events. 233 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:20,000 I use hypnosis to help people relax and in a relaxed trance state they seem to have access to these memories which have been as it were systematically blocked by the UFO occupants. 234 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:29,000 New York City artist and best-selling author, Bud Hopkins, is one of the leading pioneers in UFO abduction research. 235 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:37,000 Hopkins claims that since 1975 he has unearthed an enormous number of similar incidents. 236 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:46,000 His two books, Intruders and Missing Time, have set the standards for investigating this mysterious phenomenon. 237 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:55,000 A typical hypnosis session starts with a very sharp, clear focus on a particular event. 238 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:01,000 Let's say two people in a car and the car stopping and they see a UFO. 239 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,000 Everyone is paralyzed. They cannot move. 240 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:14,000 Often the ship will land on the highway or hover and little figures, small grey figures with huge black eyes, will approach the car. 241 00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:22,000 Usually what happens next, if the craft is on the highway they walk up into it, but more often if it's hovering they go up a beam of light. 242 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:36,000 Perhaps surprisingly many of Hopkins alien abduction reports come not from isolated backwards locales, but from high-rise buildings and automobiles in New York City. 243 00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:45,000 His subjects report smooth grey beings, missing time, human experiments and paralysis. 244 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:54,000 It all sounds like science fiction gone wild, yet hundreds of seemingly ordinary people report these experiences. 245 00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:08,000 I'm 46 years old. I have two grown kids. My daughter is 23, my son is 20. I've been married for 26 years and I've earned a good living as a musician and a graphic artist. 246 00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:15,000 And for all intents and purposes I've lived a very dull, normal, mundane kind of a life. 247 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:21,000 But John says he's been abducted at night from his home in New York City. 248 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:35,000 They usually start at home in the middle of the night. I'll be in a dead sleep and I'll either jump up with a start and they'll be in the room and then the paralysis comes on where I just can't move. 249 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:41,000 Rosemary says she was lured by aliens to the roof of her apartment in Midtown Manhattan. 250 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:53,000 I've been coming up the apartment stairs in my fifth floor apartment and I saw this strange light coming through the skylight. 251 00:31:54,000 --> 00:32:00,000 In the minute I got up to the roof there was this dark circle in the sky. 252 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:15,000 And I noticed that for a few seconds and then suddenly a beam of light came and hit me and paralyzed me and started to lift me up into the bottom of this round disc shaped thing. 253 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:25,000 I'll be taken out of the house and on board a craft and the medical procedures are performed. I remember a circular, it's a round room. 254 00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:34,000 There's a pedestal table in the middle of this thing. There are instruments and things that come right out of the walls and from the ceiling. 255 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:40,000 I'll be placed on the table. I'm immobilized. I can't move. 256 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:50,000 Basically they just put me on a table and then some kind of a device came down and hit me in the chest because I wasn't breathing very well. 257 00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:57,000 And there were these beings around me. 258 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:04,000 This taller being will come over and there's usually a few of them around me at that point. 259 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:19,000 One is acting kind of as an anesthetist where he's keeping me calmed and reassured while the other guy is performing all of these really painful intrusive physical procedures. 260 00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:26,000 Ultimately abduction cases rest on the credibility of the witnesses themselves. 261 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:37,000 If you trace the history of this before this subject was even known, before it was all over television, before people were aware of it, the patterns were already established. 262 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:48,000 So it seems to me there's only two apparent possible explanations for this. Either they really are being abducted or there is some totally unprecedented, unknown, 263 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:54,000 mass hallucination or delusion going on. And that should be a great interest to science too. 264 00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:05,000 Clearly no one would believe or even take seriously the abduction phenomenon if there was only one person who was telling these tales. 265 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:17,000 Regardless of the social pedigree of that person or the prominence of the investigator who investigated that person, we would just say, well that person is hallucinating, deluded, crazy. 266 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:30,000 So the reason that the abduction phenomenon is a phenomenon is that many people report abductions with conviction and that they report similar details of the experience. 267 00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:46,000 So the question is where does this consistency of storyline arise from? Even if people were hallucinating, why are the hallucinations the same? 268 00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:57,000 While abduction scenarios are similar from case to case, most have unique details often overlooked in media coverage of the incident. 269 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:11,000 For example, in the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, it was not generally reported that Barney had dentures. According to Betty Hill's account, dentures were apparently a novelty to the alien abductors. 270 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:20,000 They come in and they start pulling on Betty's teeth. They were in separate rooms on board the craft. And she's trying to find out what's going on. 271 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:28,000 Well they don't understand how Barney's teeth come out and hers don't. Who would make up a story like that? 272 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:40,000 The human brain is the most complex object known of in the universe. We know nothing more complex and it produces a vast range of conscious states and mind states. 273 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:54,000 So somebody's driving along and they've been driving at night for hours upon hours upon hours. They go into trance and the next thing they know, they're being miraculously floated off up into a spaceship. 274 00:35:54,000 --> 00:36:03,000 If you look at the idea of floating off to a spaceship, you are looking at a perfect description of an out-of-body experience, a lucid dream experience. 275 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:12,000 There's a whole gamut, a whole range of sleep disorders that fit in absolute detail everything that an abductor describes. 276 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,000 What we have is a total ignorance of these states of consciousness. 277 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:26,000 These states of consciousness include not only lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences, but sleep paralysis and near-death experiences as well. 278 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:32,000 All are currently being researched. None are yet fully understood. 279 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:42,000 Perhaps such alternate states of consciousness will prove to be the underlying cause of purported alien encounters. 280 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:56,000 However, in the events such research can't explain away abductions, most people still won't find it any easier to accept that these bizarre events truly occur. 281 00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:07,000 We've been conditioned to believe certain things regarding what society, what sciences, what theologians tell us exists and what doesn't exist. 282 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:20,000 And when something intrudes into this reality and doesn't fit, it's taboo because people don't want to accept this because it affects their worldview. 283 00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,000 So this goes across science, theology, you name it. 284 00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:32,000 It's very hard to accept things that just don't fit our preconceived notions of what should be and what shouldn't be. 285 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:37,000 What is the truth about alien abductions? 286 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:51,000 While some believe that the explanation lies in some distant galaxy, at least one scientist is finding answers within the confines of an earthbound laboratory. 287 00:37:52,000 --> 00:38:05,000 Alien abductions have been reported now for well over 30 years. Many are described in chilling detail by extremely credible eyewitnesses. 288 00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:14,000 Yet one fundamental question persists. Are these truly real experiences or are they somehow imagined? 289 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:24,000 At Laurentian University in Ontario, Canada, neuroscientist Michael Persinger is testing a new theory. 290 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:33,000 Persinger believes that false memories of abductions may actually be created by electrical disturbances within the brain itself. 291 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:43,000 This is a human brain that's been fixed. As you see, there are two halves, the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere. 292 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,000 And the temporal lobes are along the sides here that wrap around under. 293 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:53,000 And these areas are very electrically unstable and very sensitive. 294 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:58,000 And indeed this is the area of the brain that involve, well, the gateway to memory. 295 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:07,000 Dreams, intense fantasies that are so real you swear they are true, as well as the part of the brain that's involved with meaningfulness. 296 00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:13,000 Meaningfulness of a cosmic and sometimes even religious level. Deep within the temporal lobe. 297 00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:22,000 Persinger suggests that if the temporal lobe is electrically stimulated, it will conjure up mental images resembling alien abductions. 298 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:32,000 To test his theory, Dr. Persinger designed a special laboratory where volunteers can be subjected to controlled electrical brain stimulation. 299 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:34,000 Secure, get the ball off. 300 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:36,000 Okay. 301 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,000 Thank you. It's too tight. 302 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:46,000 Undergraduate student Mike Zegel was chosen for this experiment after a screening ruled out signs of epilepsy or seizure disorder. 303 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,000 He has reported no UFO related experiences. 304 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,000 What we do is we use a motorcycle helmet, put it over the head. 305 00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:00,000 On both sides of the motorcycle helmet there are solenoids embedded in it. 306 00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,000 A solenoid is a device that allows you to deliver weak magnetic fields. 307 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,000 The magnetic fields are then passed through the brain, very weak fields. 308 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,000 Less than that, a hair blow dryer. 309 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,000 A hair blow dryer. 310 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:24,000 But the computers which run the patterns are programmed to simulate or imitate the firing pattern of the deep structures of the temporal lobe. 311 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:36,000 As a program sequence is initiated, waveforms from the computer are sent to the brain of the subject. 312 00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:44,000 If we stimulate the temporal lobe towards the caudal or back part, it would be visual experiences. 313 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:46,000 Towards the front, smell experiences. 314 00:40:47,000 --> 00:41:02,000 But the fundamental experience is that of movement, feeling out of your body, feeling displaced, feeling the sense of a presence as if someone else is in the room with you, feeling intrusive thoughts as if thoughts are coming from outside you, ego-alien thoughts. 315 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:12,000 This pattern, Persinger believes, will produce an experience with many of the components of an alien abduction. 316 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:21,000 I remember feeling very light for a while, just drifting. 317 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:29,000 Then I remember everything just sort of went black and a feeling of complete weightlessness. 318 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:44,000 I started seeing patterns of light and then all of a sudden in an instant I feel as though there's another presence there, someone there, I can feel it. 319 00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,000 I'm almost sure that if I turn my head, I know I'm going to see something there. 320 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,000 The hairs on the back of your neck seem to stand. 321 00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,000 It's as if someone's breathing in your ear. 322 00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:02,000 I saw sort of distorted images of people that I knew, at least I thought I knew. 323 00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:12,000 Then I just felt this tremendous sort of rush of fear, tremendous anxiety. 324 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:19,000 I wanted to get out if I could have ripped off the electrodes and gotten out of the room, I would have. 325 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,000 My legs felt like they weighed two tons. 326 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:28,000 I couldn't have moved them if I wanted to and I just felt cold. I started to shiver. 327 00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:37,000 It was here that the experience took on the startling characteristics of an encounter with the aliens known as grays. 328 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:45,000 The lights were most definitely white, pure white and then I saw the people. 329 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:54,000 Then I felt this rush of fear and as far as the people they were grayish. 330 00:42:55,000 --> 00:43:05,000 It was a grayish color. They seemed to not really shine, just like wax. 331 00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,000 That's pretty much the only way I could describe it, like wax. 332 00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:14,000 Grayish elongated wax people. 333 00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,000 Pursinger's tests raise an obvious question. 334 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:27,000 What natural force could duplicate the electrical stimulation so carefully orchestrated in the lab? 335 00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:34,000 It has long been known that movements of the Earth's crust can produce bursts of light in the atmosphere. 336 00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:43,000 According to Dr. Pursinger, these luminous displays release electromagnetic charges that can trigger abduction like thoughts, 337 00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,000 just as in his tests. 338 00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:51,000 Did Betty and Barney Hill witness such a luminous display? 339 00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:56,000 Are abductees like the Allagash 4 victims of a similar flash of energy? 340 00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:02,000 The duration of the events, they're not just brief bursts of things. 341 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:09,000 They're very elaborate, detailed stories, the Hill case, the Allagash case and hundreds of other cases. 342 00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,000 They often involve other people. 343 00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:23,000 The notion that you've got somehow natural electromagnetic waves affecting two people identically so that their stories match and jive makes no sense at all. 344 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:29,000 In the end, abduction cases remain the most troubling of the UFO accounts. 345 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:37,000 They offer little or no physical evidence as proof and rely almost exclusively on personal testimony. 346 00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,000 I don't know. 347 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:47,000 Yet if even one of the thousands of stories is true, it suggests the most unappetizing possibility. 348 00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:54,000 That humanity is at the mercy of superior beings that can do with us as they please. 349 00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:17,000 Technology. It all had to start someplace. Where did it come from? Thursdays at 8, only on the History Channel.