Bittersweet Infamy - #72 - The Night the Hills Lost Time

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Josie tells Taylor about honeymooners Barney and Betty Hill, and their infamous extraterrestrial encounter. Plus: a nautical joyride gone wrong pits three Tokelauan teens against the merciless Pacific Ocean.

Music Welcome to BittersweetMedia. I'm Taylor Baso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on and in the... To strangen the familiar... The tragic and the comic... The bitter and the sweet. Josie, how you doing? I'm doing good, my poison ivy infection is healing up nicely. Oh, I have a fuck explain. Ha ha ha.

A mixture and I went to Austin to visit a sister and I think I, we went on like a little walk and I think I got it then. But then it wasn't until like 10 days later that it started like blistering and getting really gnarly. Did you find that you started to talk more like Uma Thurman as the Poison Ivy Rashed Develop? Yeah there's a lot of Soul Tree Paz's, luring stairs. No the thought did occur to me that that fantastic villain because that shit is extremely intense. Is it as bad as the comics say? It eats age and more. Watery blisters.

Just real gross. Shit, I'm a great asking. I had no idea what it was either because it came on so late. Yeah, you did, you told me. You said you had some rash, but you really undersold it. That was spitting you.

Stiff up her lip. Because I eventually went to the doctors and she was like, whoa. In the words of Shaneito Connor, I went to the doctor and guess was like whoa! In the words of Shnato Connor I went to the doctor and guess what she told me she said whoa that's poison ivy! So Josie you're a fuck-up you don't tell me about that. Yeah well in our last episode episode 71, Elizabeth shrugged, I mistakenly claimed that my good friend,

Erica Jo was from Staten Island. That is incorrect and I apologize profusely. Erica Jo is from Long Island. What? My East Coast geography is horrendous. I apologize Erica. Mea culpa, meh culpa. Same fucking place. Oh.

Come get me, Eric, Joe. Round two. Oh. I don't know, dude. The iced tea is very different in Long Island. You're right. They're longer. They're murkier.

All kinds of nice chemical compounds. Josie, what's on your summer reading list? I just read, I just downed a book called See Change by Gina Chung. It was really good. I really liked it. Taylor, what are you reading this summer? Well, I'm glad you asked, because Strange Attractor Press has a new summer reading option for all the bibliophiles out there. You can now get your hands on

a formerly published copy of the Pepsi Cola addict by Junels and Gibbons. Here we go. Here we go. So all the way back in episode 13, Flowers and How I covered the really captivating story of these two young Welsh twins of Barbadian extraction, Jun and Jennifer Gibbons and the, I don't know, the extraordinary life they had together and their folia do and how they became involved in crime and their lives and their loves and their art, they were writers and one of them, June Allison wrote this book, The Pepsi Co-Adict, and had itself published, but it was never formally published in a widespread way until now. And then Water Park Lady on Reddit who first heard the story through our podcast, got in touch and said, hey, so it so shout out to water park lady for this tip.

Yeah, thank you. Did you know June's book is getting published? So I thought, do a little bit of PR. You can check out Pepsi Colatic from Strange Attractor Press. And if you want to keep respectful tabs on June, you can follow at June.alison.gibbons on Instagram. She has an account that seems to be run by her two friends, one of whom designed the book cover for Pepsi-Cola. So us Northern Hemisphere types are just easing into summer, so nice. Honey, summer revives. Yeah, dream cycles all around. You, uh, you looking for an adventure this summer in any way.

You know, uh, sure, after an afternoon nap, I could do a little bout of adventure. Sure. You're a water person, maybe a little seafaring adventure. OK, I can handle that. Yeah. Well, you're no alone. That's what three teenage boys were up to early one October in 2010 on the Toko Lauin atoll of Atafu.

Why is that? Tokolau is an island nation of a little under 1500 people. It's in the South Pacific Ocean, nearest country, Simoa, but that's not actually as close as that description makes it sound. And it's spread out over three atolls called Atafu nukunonu and faka oful. Though officially a dependent territory of New Zealand took a lot of self-governing and the nation's capital rotates annually between these atolls

with a leader from the relevant community serving as Ulu for that year overseeing the country's government. I love that! Rotate a capital! Let's go! Why not? I should also say I've heard it pronounced towilo rather than tokolao, atahu rather than atafu, so you're getting the white boy special on pretty much everything with my apologies. Yeah, aye, I captain. Atafu comprises 42 small islands with a population of about 500 at the time of this story and a beautiful clam lagoon right in the middle that you can put put around your little tin dinghy, which are colloquially known as tinnies on the island.

Yeah! Tin tin around and your tinny! You can tin tin around the beautiful lagoon and your beautiful tinny. And here I'll show you an image here to give you an idea of what we're talking about Well, that's gorgeous A little diamond in the Pacific We're gaffing up like what I want to go there immediately, but I'm sure you're living out in this, you know This little spit out in the middle of the South Pacific. It's boring Mm-hmm. Yeah, this charms, but it must be tempting to look at that big horizon all around you,

right? Yeah. At least that's what Filo, Sammy, and Ed Weenie think. The cheer among a group of local boys shooting the shit late that October night, their clubhouse full of shitty furniture and graffiti, along the only road and the only village in Atafu. They're passing around a jug of vodka to share, smoking palmalls, and lamenting how bored they are, and how much they want something else to do.

I mean, that's kind of a lot of teenager, right? No matter where you are. If Popponkistatus anything. So eventually someone in the group reminisces that five years back around 2005, three Atafu and teenagers had stolen a boat and disappeared in the Pacific Ocean. Very uncool and taboo, not just for Thaf, but because peritokala and custom, you need a master fisherman called a tao tai with you in order to access the ocean, which is considerably more violent and unpredictable than the calm lagoon of Atafu. I just zoomed out on that map you sent me and like Atafu was like in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Mmm-hmm.

That is gnarly. That's really far out there. Yeah, like I said, Samoa is the closest, but close in this case means like 250 miles away. So not real close. The 2005 boys made their attempt to escape Atafu, didn't make it far, got picked up five days later by the Tocolown Ferry with no gas and plenty of food, and promptly received a near full from the village elders.

So back in 2010, three of the boys in the club host think it doesn't sound too bad. Little ocean vacay, little coming-age story, back home before you miss your bed, the elders will cheer you out, but you can just think of those sports. Sounds perfect to our cast of adventure seekers. Worth it, worth the subs. Absolutely. We've got 15 year old Filo Filo. I hope that's how that's pronounced. It's about F-I-L-O.

F-I-L-O. So it's a Mitchell-Mitchell situation. Okay. He's the unofficial leader of the Clubhouse Boys, a Red Bee fanatic and a big city transplant from Sydney, Australia. Oh, whoa. Sent to live with his fisherman father on Atafu for fresh prince reasons. He was falling in with the wrong element and his mom got scared.

Ah. Send him out into the middle of the Pacific. And so it was, and upon moving, Filo clicked quickly with local boy Samu Tonuiya. Also 15, his last name is also noted in articles as Pelleja Pelleja or Perez, many identities. Samu is an athlete and rugby fanatic just like Filo, the main difference between the two. Samu, who has been tasked by his family to take care of his elderly grandmother, has never left Atafu.

Okay. That great wide summer is looking better and better by the vodka swig. Oh, yeah. And lastly, we've got Edwini Nassau. He's 14, he's the least likely of our trio. He's not drinking vodka like the other boys. He's a bit quieter,

slider, less macho, while Samu and Filo want to be rugby players and we need dreams of being a surgeon. Tight! But for whatever reason, tonight, he feels a little bolder than normal and as the others lose their liquid courage and the plans begin to dissipate, and we need the one to say no. Let's do this. Yeah baby. So as the clubhouse crowd leaves for the night, our three heroes use the cover of darkness to secure their supplies. They get a hold of Samu's uncle's boat. It's a 14 foot fruit, a tinny with a 15 horse power engine.

Stable little pontoon dinghy, but the free board, which is the distance between the water's surface and the top of the boat's side is about 16 inches. So let's hope the waves don't rise up a foot and a half, that could be pretty bad. Okay. Filos able to steal a tarp, a sack full of 20 coconuts, a ceramic teacup for drinking, two packs of smokes, milk, a meow jar full of water, and a jug full of vodka. Alright, you're ready. Semu climbs some trees to grab more coconuts, and we need supposed to get fishing gear, but he's afraid of waking someone up, so no

fishing gear besides the machete, and the mallet Samu's uncle keeps on the boat, and we forgot sunglasses and hats as well. Whoops! Oopsies! What I gathered from researching this story is that if you were to, hypothetically, be a drift on the ocean for a while. Okay. What really makes the difference is whether you have fishing gear. Ahhhhhhh, okay. You can kinda get along for a while without even really losing that much weight if you have a good set of fishing

gear. Then is basically just a funky cruise. A diet cruise, yeah. Yeah, but like doable because you were able to replenish nutrients and so on. Right, yeah, okay. And if the boys have a romantic memory of their teenage predecessors from 2005 who fought the Pacific to a draw, they've forgotten about a tragedy eight months earlier in February 2010, one of Barge capsized in a storm, killing three local men whose bodies washed ashore. Oh, what's that? Yeah, it was a real tragedy for the community, and obviously something that might resurface if something similar were to occur.

Mmm-hmm. Especially with three young boys. This is common enough in the region that there's a Tocolaoan word for being blown off course. Lela, a crucial concept on an island chain theorized to have been populated, because a Polynesian canoe drifted off course a millennium ago. Okay, yeah, yeah. But that's not the only piece of Tocolaoan jargon that applies to this situation, and Asian canoe drifted off course a millennium ago. Okay, yeah, yeah. But that's not the only piece of Tocolau and Jargon that applies to this situation, says Michael Finkle for GQ, from whom this observation and much of this information comes.

Quote, there is also another more complicated Tocolau and word, Takavaka. This applies to boats that have purposely sailed away, for love, adventure, or suicide. These days, Tocque-Lowen's commit suicide by driving into the open ocean until the gas runs out. So the boys load out onto their boat and set off for adventure and what adventure they're setting off for depends on the telling. Reporting for New Zealand Online publication Stuff, Michael Field claims that this was a romance story. Atafu had hosted a sporting competition, a beautiful

girl from the neighboring Atul of Fakao Fuho appeared, and the boys were off to track her down. Another report from Taga Tape Sifika says the boys were off to Nukunonu for more booze and provisions. Either way, the adrenaline has taken hold and the boys are gone into the darkness of Tamuana Nui Okia, screaming taunts of the people who stuff they stole. the darkness of Tamuana Nui Okawa, screaming taunts of the people who stuff they stole. Not a good way to start your journey. When you're 14 and wasted and have stolen your uncle's boat, how else do you start the journey? Is there any other way to start the journey?

That's true. Maybe a sting song or something? Yeah, I don't know how hot sting was in Toka Lava in the 2010s, but it could happen. The boys hang out drinking vodka for a while, even at Weenie, who's become the de facto bartender and ends up losing his shirt overboard in a drunken stupor. I'm sure you won't regret that. Oh God. Oh.

But eventually they all pass out. They wake up with awful hangovers. This happens when you're 14 and spend the whole night checking vodka and smoking damp sigs on a tinny and sub-Pacific ocean. Oh my God. The kids are durable and foolhardy, Josie. They spend the next day extracting juice from coconuts and checking the coconuts off the side of the boat without bothering to scrape the meat.

On day three, Idoini spots an aeroplane and tries to signal it, but the others call him a girl for wanting to be rescued already. So he stops waving and the plane disappears. Day three? Day three is...that's enough. That's enough. No, those dudes from 2005 are out there for like five days. If that's what we're still talking about, five years later, we gotta beat that to get

on the map, we gotta at least double it. Yeah, true. Okay, fair enough, I hear it. By now, despite the explanations that the boys are off to Faka Oofo or Nukunonu for a particular person or errand, the cheer are just kind of fucking around in the ocean, zipping here and there without any mind to the consequences, they're confident that they'll be rescued by the adults of Toka-Lau who, back on dry land, are predictably losing their shit. Yes! using their ship. Yes. The U that your happens to be a relative of all three boys from Atafu, a guy named Kreesen Asau, who puts all the men from all the atolls on the job to no avail.

Your quests help from the Royal New Zealand Air Force who send out a plane to Skyward's 6500 miles of ocean, but they're not able to get a visual on the teens. Shiny little boat just looks like a glimmer on the ocean's surface. Yeah, no totally. Meanwhile, things are starting to get a bit hairy on the tinny. Okay, hairy on the tinny. We're not feeling so chatty and excitable anymore. Says that we need, we got sickle looking at each other,

we got sickle looking at the ocean, we got SICKA looking at the boat. Probably all that bright light in your eyeballs, because you don't have any sunglasses. Yeah. Samu has a bad rash, he handles it stoically, apparently a desirable quality in Tocque-Lawn culture. But he's got skin flakes all over the boat, which I can't imagine is desirable in any culture. Mmm-mmm, just skim those right off the top. Yeah. Just pick them off. Like, all of them on the pizza. There you go. By the end of night three we're out of fuel and the mayo jar full of water is pooched. By night six we're out of coconuts. We're starting to drink

ocean water even though Filo, like yourself, knows that you're not supposed to do that because he saw it on a Discovery Channel program called I Shouldn't Be Alive. That salt is not good for your insides. You put more work into peeing it out, then you get hydration from taking it in fun fact. We're getting a bit dehydrated, a bit sunburn, and a bit worried because help was supposed to have come by now. Day 5 passed a day ago, and we were supposed to be gone. Luckily a week into the trip we see our first rain fall so the boys are able to have a small drink after they pick out the skin flakes. And they also find three coconuts that they'd missed under the tarp.

Oh, what idiots! Sorry. They are idiots. They're darling morons but we are rooting for them. Good work on finding the coconuts, boys, in that tiny dinghy. Good for you. One for each. But those three coconuts are not enough to sustain three parched starving teenage boys,

so Filo and Edwini try to convince local boys Samu, the best fisherman, among them, try to trap some of the small fish That gather in the shadow of the tinny. Oh, okay Samu makes a couple goes with his bare hands. No dice Conversation emerges that since the boat is not a gas anyway, Samu should just use a piece of wire from the engine for fishing line But Samu vetoes it. This is uncle's boat. It's bad enough that he stole it and he is not bringing that puppy back with a broken engine Wow Bout, it's bad enough that he stole it and he is not bringing that puppy back with a broken engine. Oh, wow. Quoting Michael Finkel for GQ, this greatly frustrated Filo and Edwini but Samu never budged. His opinion was clear, he would soon or die and have Filo and Edwini die as well,

before permitting anyone to rip apart a perfectly good engine. I found this position hard to believe and I shared in Filo and Edwini's frustrations, but when I spoke to other Toka Lowens about Samu's stubbornness, everyone said that he or she completely understood. Something Toka Lowens, something deeply ingrained. You can steal another man's boat, but don't mess with his engine. The replacement value was more than $2,500. Yeah, no, yeah. We're resource-low, and fucking up this engine is the step that would take this whole escapeeid from youthful hijinks to I probably shouldn't return home at all because I will be killed.

Yeah, I might as well just die out here because that's not going to go well for me. Yeah, okay. Thankfully, the boys are able to come upon fish another way while the low gunwales of the boat, so that's the top of the side of the boat is the gunwale. Yeah. The low gunwales of the boat mean that the trio are constantly damp

with seawater and forced to bail out with this meow jar. The break of the waves also occasionally delivers fish into the dinghy. Oh damn! The boys are able to eat three whole minnows and a baby swordfish this way, oh which are horrible, bitter and difficult to consume due to the boys lack of saliva. Yeah. As the days turn into weeks, the teen spend most of the days huddled together, conserving

their energy, passing time, trying to stay dry and hiding their increasingly painful rashes and blisters from the unforgiving sun. Sitted weeny when it was night, I wanted it to be sunny when it was day I wanted it to be night. They start to bickered, a cry, to pray to God that they'll never lie to their families, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes again if only their returned home safe. Oh man.

They spot a ship and try to fly it down. No good. This failure is too much for Edwin you kind of just checks out. He dissociates into a silent stupor and starts shirking his survival responsibilities much to the frustration of Samu. Quote, Edwin he didn't help us clean. Didn't help bail.

Didn't talk. I'd say how are you? And he wouldn't say anything. He'd just lay there. Bad roommate situation. So brief warning, we got some incoming suicidal ideations here. If that's not your jam, bail out now. Warning, warning. Adwini meanwhile is contemplating the best method to commit suicide without alerting his friends, whether he should drown himself or just stab himself with the Dalmashedi. No, no, no, no.

No and no. Back in Atafu, the population attempts to mourn the boys without giving up hope, but it's been six weeks. Six weeks? It has been six weeks. Ayayayay! T'new Filo, Filo's dad has dreams about Filo every night where he can see him but not talk to him. He feels right. A ship's captain from American Samoa tells Ulu Creason a sal that in all likelihood, the

boys are dead. Six weeks! No fishing gear! But the boys aren't dead, but they're getting close. If not by the ocean's waves, then by their own hands or each others. Yeah. Samu and Filo are getting increasingly pissy with Edwini for not helping, and Samu has taken to randomly slapping and beating him to bring him back to his senses.

Oh! Doesn't work. Edwini is still doing mental math on the least traumatic way to off himself. One day, Samu wants the machete to scratch his gross skin flake itch, but Edwini is lying on top of it. He's able to get the machete out from underneath Edwini and then Samu holds the machete to Edwini's throat. And Edwini decides in that moment that he wants to live so he pushes back against the machete, making it dig into his throat. There's a little bit of a scar there. Wow. Eventually, Samu Relents drops the machete to the bottom of the boat and turns around, and Adwini sees his moment.

He's like, I could kill this guy right now. And he describes it as the only time in his life. He's actually wanted to murder somebody, but he remembers a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. We must all learn to live together as brothers, or we will all perish together as fools, and this rings in his head, and so he refrains from murdering his friend. MLK, baby! MLK saves the day. Thankfully, Tensions E's's won a Seagal lands on the boat and they're able to capture it, rip it apart, and feast on its organs as you do.

Delicious. A rainfall comes and they get some good tarp water on their tummy, spirits are back high and we're not murdering each other with dull machetes anymore. Woohoo! The teenagers start swimming so they can pluck barnacles off the boat to eat, but that stops when Filo becomes too weak and drifts away from the boat. Ooh, scary. Samuel is able to drag the dinghy one-handed while swimming towards Filo and saves him. Oh my god, ooh drama.

So with that path to nourishment thwarted, they start eating the benches on the boat. They like the front one a little bit better because it's softer. I get that, yeah. They start eating their hair and fingernails anything they can The pain from Filo's rash becomes so agonizing that he begs salmon and we need to kill him quote I felt like I was burning. I'd rather die than endure the pain. I was screaming at them to stab me. I was serious the other boys refuse saying Filo needs to stay alive to see his parents.

Yeah, we're not going to text the engine. We're not going to stab you. Like, make sense to me. Well, we might be stabbing someone because Samu does some quick math and he realizes that if one of the boys were to die, the others could survive. Bye, Josie. Eating them. Yes. So every night when Edwini falls asleep, Samu starts whispering the philo. Hey, if I, um, if I kill an Edwini, you want in on that? You want some of that action?

And so fortunately, philo is like, no, I am not in on that. Good one, philo. Nice. And eventually, Semu relents mostly out of fear God, according to the man himself. So they all check out. They begin to realize that their demise is inevitable. Quoting Michael Finkel for GQ, Semu says he'd reached a point beyond fear. He gave up hoping they'd be found, and that strangely made him not as scared. He wasn't afraid to die anymore. He no longer cried. He just sat there and stunned silence with nothing to say.

He once demonstrated his sea stare for me, relaxing his face, letting his eyes go soft. It was haunting and fascinating, the human version of a computer in sleep mode, and I could picture him in the little boat in that state hour upon hour, waiting for nothing. So there they are, our transdoubt in sleep sleep mode waiting for some fucker to die so the other two can have a good meal. When Samu starts scanning the horizon to see if rain clouds are coming and he says, yes, boys, I see a boat. The other boys aren't having it.

Apparently early on in the survival situation, Samu used to be like, yo, I see a boat and then when everyone would turn around, he'd be like, ah, you know, oh, bohu cried boat. We're all in a much stab your mindset now. Remember that seagull? Remember how you just remembered that seagull? You're the seagull now, bud. But Samu convinces them to look and sure enough there in front of them is the San Nico now,

280 foot commercial tuna fishing boat, which is diverted from its usual horse toward American Samoa in order to take the fastest line to New Zealand. A piece of happenstance that has now saved three lives. Holy shit-a-out! The ship's navigator, Ty Fredrickson, asks the boys if they need help, to which they respond and is just me paraphrasing. Yeah bro, no fucking shit we need help, give me fucking protein! The truer brought aboard the San Niko now, starved, dehydrated and burnt, but otherwise in surprisingly good health given there over 7 weeks, and 750 miles or 1200 kilometers on the water. Oh my god!

Samu's uncle's dinghy and it's precious engine are also saved. Thank god. Right. The boys eat what little they can keep down and call back to the atulfer. What I'm sure was a very casual, hello, very breezy. Soap. When I was officially informed, says Uunasa. I sat down and cried.

They came back from the dead. Yeah. Says to new fellow no longer plagued by nightmares of his son. The whole village, they were so excited and cried and they sang songs and hugging each other on the road. Everybody was yelling and shouting the good news. Yay! They spend a few days in hospital in Suva Fiji, then recuperate their strength in Samoa

until they're able to return to Toka-Law after Christmas. They ravenously end once again quoting Michael Finkel. They also broke several promises they'd made to God. They drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, and lied to their caretakers about both. I should do. Are you really living if you're not you know drinking smoking and lying about it. They're welcome back to atafu with a celebratory party and many r.i.p messages on their Facebook walls. Awkward.

According to Edwini, Samu never apologizes for trying to murder him but Edwini forgives him. Perhaps because he had that same murderous him pulsing his heart briefly. He was very hungry and very itchy, as where they all. What happens week six on the on the tinny in the middle of the ocean stays on the tinny in the middle of the ocean. That's tinny business. This is not the tinny. The survivors are the talk about tofu for weeks after the return, but not forever within two months of their rescue, all three boys leave the atoll to live with other family with no plans to return.

Oh. Filo and Samu go to Australia, Edwini goes to Hawaii. According to Michael Finkel for one last time, the boys couldn't articulate it to me, but they had changed. They could feel it. Atafu was too small for them. It was almost a boat unto itself. There was too much water everywhere they looked. All that suffering had just brought them back to the place they nearly killed themselves trying to escape.

Oh, wow. And so Idwini, Filo and Samu came of age amid scorching sun, salt water, and the persistent specter of death, and with the coming of age arrives wisdom. What lessons did we learn from this fable? We learn just that as the grass isn't always greener, the ocean isn't always bluer, and sometimes it's better just to stick to the lagoon that you're used to. I hear it. We learned that there is nothing bad asked about neglecting your provisions, and a well-stocked inventory with plenty of food, drink, and the appropriate seafaring equipment, is the difference between a fun-boys trip and a narrowly-averted starvation-induced murder suicide.

And we learned that come hell or high water, no matter what, you never, ever touch a Tocque-Low-ins engine. Because even in our most desperate times, some things are still sacred. Boom. Where's sunscreen? Screen up y'all, the sun isn't playing. Taylor. Yeah. You're abducted by aliens. What happens to you?

Depends on the aliens I would think. Who? Who? What are their Christian names? Who are their people? Etc. names, who are their people, etc. Aliens in some type of craft. A spacecraft. A spacecraft.

Come to you. It's the middle of the night. You're in the middle of the woods. You see a light far off coming towards you. I'm on one of my semen retention receipts. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay, I thought so.

That was the subtext you were putting down. I didn't want to say it. I thought you should say it. I wanted to say it very much. The whole chest. That was yours to tell. Thank you for giving me that agency. This spaceship comes lights ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping,

it's moving in strange ways, could not be explained by earthly physics. A beam of light shoots down on you. You fall unconscious. You wake up. What do you see? What's there? Oh god, all sorts of stuff. It's mainly stainless steel. It sort of vibes like a test kitchen. Industrial test kitchen. I'm specifically thinking of like an ice-spyre addition of another planet, so lots of callenders and dry eyes, you know?

Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. And I'm nervous. Do I get to choose what these aliens look like or do you have something in mind already? No baby, what's in that beautiful brain years? What do you see? What do you see? Alright, let me freestyle. I have to say, as extraterrestrials go, I'm very partial to sort of the classic

What I think of as a 90s representation of the alien with big ol' eyes and gray skin That was actually my Halloween costume one year. The same year my brother went out as the scream killer actually So without knowing it, we were committing very 90s Costumes that year. Yes, well, yeah a moment in time a real moment in time on that one. I Feel like South Park season one traffic in this kind of alien sort of big head Big eyes little mouth if it even has a mouth Etc. Right. Why does it need it doesn't need a mouth? No, because it doesn't absorb nutrients the same way that we do It has a it has a docked or gills or whatever the fuck it has. Event. It has a nutrient event. So that's

the kind of aliens that I see in my head, the kind of classic tall spindly gray boys. The gray man. Well, I'm Gray gentlemen. Green too. I'll accept green. What's happening to you? Great Gentlemen. Green to, I'll accept green. What's happening to you? They come over to me and they start touching my chest and at first I'm taking it back but then I start to like it. And then one of them is like, you into foot shit man and I'm like, oh you want to suck on my toes you can. I don't want to think this the next. That's what I'm seeing. It's all consenting. Yeah. Yeah, why not? I mean, in my head, the vibe is good. Why not? Everything's real clean in there.

A lot of stainless steel. This doesn't have to be a probing. This can be a close encounter, an emotionally close encounter, an emotionally safe encounter. I like that safe space. Thank you. You asked me if I'm into foot shit before you start doing the foot shit.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, and then you wake up in your bed and it's hours past what time you thought it should be. My toes are damp and I don't know why. Yeah. Well, I ask you because it should be. My toes are damp and I don't know why. Well, I ask you because, and I figured, and I figured, correctly, that we would have maybe kind of some similar touch points to a very common abductee or experiencey narrative, which I supply to you a little bit there with the spacecraft and being kind of at night in a

natural setting, but did you know Taylor that all of that? The Grayman, the stainless steel like lab test kitchen vibes, a Collender the Collender yes, the lights, the craft, the consent is I think that's a beautiful addition that you've made. I wanted to modernize the tale. Akudos. The missing time, kind of all these elements, they come from an urtext of alien abduction, and that urtext is these experience,

is this experience, lived experience, reported by Barney and Betty Hill. Really? Of New Hampshire. It is considered the first modern abduction story that was heavily reported. That was shared and then kind of went widespread. And it's become this precedent for a lot of media that we see. But all of these are taking notes from this reporting

from Betty and Barney Hill. Betty and Barney Hill from New Hampshire, interesting. Before we get any deeper into this episode, I do want to put a little warning here that we do get into some sensitive language as in racial terms and medical terms that are now deemed pretty offensive. It was deemed appropriate at that time and has fallen out of use for obvious reasons, but I just want to make everybody aware that some of that language will be coming up. We flag it when it does come up, but just so you know ahead of the game,

you can prepare yourself accordingly. Awesome, thank you for the heads up. We'll start with Betty. Betty was born in 1919 in Kingston, New Hampshire. So she's a New Hampshire native. Her first name was actually Eunice, but she goes by Betty. She was a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. She worked as a... She worked as a social worker and a child advocate. Barney Hill was born in Newport, Newse, Virginia in 1923. And he was a son of a shipyard worker. He himself was an army veteran of World War II. And after he came back from war,

he started working as a postal worker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to meeting Betty, he was married to another woman and had two children with her. He separated from his first wife and right after that he met Betty while visiting New Hampshire. And he decided that he wanted to start a life with Betty and so he transferred his post office to the New Hampshire Seacost. So Betty and Barney shared liberal causes, religious beliefs, and together they became deeply involved in New

Hampshire civil rights movements. It is worth noting that Barney was black and Betty was white. They're ahead of their time. Very much so. They got together in the late 50s, early 60s. They were deeply involved activists, and that looked like Barney sitting on the local board of the US Commission of Civil Rights. And eventually, later in their lives, the couple will be invited to attend

LBJ's presidential inauguration. Ooh. So they were movers and shakers in New Hampshire civil rights movement. All right. And probably most importantly, they had a doxin named Delcy. That is very important. I'm glad you added that context. They have a really cute family church portrait. You know, the one where like she's sitting and like his hand is on her shoulder. Like their Supreme Court justices. Yeah. But she's holding Delcy. to see it it's really lovely

family really great couple as they say in fast family very true speaking of fast they they had a car they drove it and they fastened the fear is drip drip drip just skin around corners with fucking delceying out the window. So September 19th 1961, they were driving back from a belated honey moon in Montreal, Canada. Super fun. And they were in their 1957 Chevrolet Belair and their headed south on Route 3. They had cleared customs at the US Canadian border and right after that they stopped to have a quick meal at a diner and they kind of looked at the map and realized you know what we have like about a hundred, hundred and fifty miles left. Let's go ahead and just drive it straight and we'll get home late, we'll get home like 3am, but that way we don't have to set up at a hotel,

we don't have to worry about stopping any place. And as you can imagine, as an interracial couple in 1961, they did have to concern themselves about where they stopped. They don't want to be hassled. They just don't want to be hassled. Yeah. Barney was a very active member of the Civil Rights Movement and willing to fight, but he wasn't willing to get asked. It's Barney. He was a very active member of the Civil Rights Movement and willing to fight,

but he wasn't willing to get in these small tetatets. That was not his style. He was just gonna turn around and walk away. You can lose a lot of time, energy brain cells on those little tetatets in the name of a greater cause. So I get it. Exactly. He wanted to save his energy for the movement. Exactly. And you

don't know when an encounter like that will suddenly turn unsafe. Exactly. It starts off as somebody just, you know, playing devil's advocate or whatever. And then suddenly it gets belligerent or violent or what have you. Especially when you're coming back from your honeymoon and just like just chill. Let's just go home. Let's sleep in our own beds tonight yeah so what I'm about to tell you it's important to note most of this recollection has come to the record under hypnosis okay well laid that grain of salt on the table It's just right there. You got that right up in there? Yeah, yeah, it's a deep, okay, good. All right. Oh, it's burning.

They left this diner and Colbrooke New Hampshire. And as they were driving down, again, it's night, so it's all dark. And Route 3 is a pretty quiet road. They weren't encountering a lot of other cars and it's wooded and Betty begins to see a light that is moving across the sky and at first she thinks it could be a falling star but it does seem to be moving upwards and it's getting brighter and brighter. They decide Betty's request to stop at a picnic area near Twin Mountain. And they decide, you know what, we'll just get out and take a peek at whatever this star, you know, this sounds kind of fun.

They have to walk Delcy and, you know, get the poop out. I'll get what he said. Barney is walking the dog and Betty is using his binoculars to kind of follow the object and see what's happening. And she says, later in reporting, it changed direction and passed in front of the moon. I was puzzled for this satellite was flashing multi-colored lights that cast several beams

like a police cruiser. So it's already taking on a shape and movement that is unaccousted to the mechanical engineering of 1961. And Barney is kind of like, okay, whatever. He's walking Delcy, he doesn't have the binoculars. He's like, okay Betty, sure, sure, sure. Until he sees that whatever this object is stops

and it rapidly descends in their direction. So it's coming at them. Okay. They get back in the car and they're slowly driving, still observing it, Betty is kind of enthralled. And they get to a geological landmark along this road called Indian Head.

And they see that this object is following them and coming closer to the vehicle that they're in. Barney stops the car in the middle of the highway. And he's freaked out enough. He has his binoculars that he goes around to the trunk of the car and he gets his handgun. Shoot it. He is concerned. No baby, welcome to America. Shoot it. What is it? I don't know. Shoot it.

Later, both Barney and Betty are hypnotized in separate sessions by Dr. Benjamin Simon. Barney describes one individual that he sees as quote, like a military pilot. He says quote, I looked at him and he looked at me. I continued to look at this one man that just stood there and kept looking at me and looking at me. So he's seeing kind of these figures in the craft and he's fixated on kind of what he sees as the leader and he just keeps looking at him. He describes them as more-less humanoids and they have what he thinks seem to be like black uniforms and hats and then this big spindly structure starts to come out of the craft and at that point Barney just high tails ass. Oh, yeah, no fuck that shit Finley I'm out of your body

He tells Betty like I don't know what this is but I have a feeling that they're trying to get at us So let's get the fuck going He puts the car in gear and drives away at high speed. At that point, they start hearing this rhythmic series of like beep, beep, boop, boop, loud buzzing vibration. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, oh baby. Had that come out in 61?

I don't know. Funky tone? Yeah. The aliens have technology from the future. That's true. Totally makes sense. Both Betty and Barney recall losing consciousness at this point. The narrative kind of stops.

They don't really know what happens consciously. When they come to, they are still driving, Barney is at the wheel, and they are 35 miles beyond their last known stop that Indian head. That's not safe. Freaked the fuck out, they just keep driving home. Like we've got to get home, got to get home. And when they arrive, it's done. So it's about two to three hours past the time that they were meant to arrive if they had driven straight. So there's this gap of missing time. The gap in our schedule, they see.

They go to bed, the sun is starting to break and they're just like, well, I'm exhausted. They wake up a few hours later and they find that on Betty's new dress that she's only worn twice. She got it for their honeymoon. There is a fine pink powdery dust all over the front. The zipper is broken and the hem is torn. The strap of Barney's binoculars has been broken and the tops of his new dress shoes have been deeply scratched almost as if they've been gouged. So the aliens gouged his shoes? Maybe they asked for consent, you know? They asked him if he was in a foot shit and he was like,

oh, are you got? Yeah. Maybe I'm into that. I don't know. Practice on the shoes first. And a foot shit and he was like, oh, are you got? Yeah. Maybe I'm into that. I don't know. Practice on the shoes first. And then he saw and he was like, I don't want that. Turns out, don't like foot stuff. Okay.

That's not my thing. Other strange things, both of their walk shoes, had stopped. And there were silver dollar sized circular marks on the trunk of their Chevrolet Belair that attracted a magnet. They were magnetized in some way. Uh, uh, okay. How are you feeling? Confused candidly. I got a few things.

So when I encounter things like this, the way my mind works, I guess you could call me a skeptic. And I don't mean that to say that I'm a non-believer necessarily, just to say that I try to look for non-supernatural explanations first. Yeah. And I do think it's very likely that there exists other life out there, whether or not it's contacted Earth or has the capabilities to contact Earth, I can't say, but like, oh, we're so good that we're the only game in the universe like, come on. Yeah, yeah. It's a big old space out

there. But with that said, I'm still like, okay, is there a non-extraterrestrial explanation for the Hill situation? And so I start to think oh maybe it's something geological they stop pull over the car they're next to some sort of gas vent or carbon monoxide something natural gas you know what I mean yeah and then I start looking at things like these coin-sized magnetized circles in the trunk of the car. And I'm like, okay, maybe that is completely unrelated to anything else. Maybe, you know, do all makes and models of this car simply have that? Have we checked the trunks of other cars?

Right. But in terms of having a fleshed-out answer for you as to what I think it might be if it's not aliens, I really barely even have the hints of theories. Well, they definitely remember seeing some type of flying object. And an identified one. An identified, exactly. And the next few days, they contact the US Air Force at a nearby Air Force base, P's Air Force Base, and they also alert the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, kneecap. Very cute.

They should send out knee pads as their company holiday gift. About a week, a week and a few days after their return. Betty starts to experience these really, really vivid and detailed dreams. She has them five nights in a row where she's perhaps getting details of their abduction. So she's dreaming about bright lights, industrial, kitchen, lab, the calendar, like... She had the calendar dream. Barney does not experience these dreams. It is only Betty who has them. Yeah, dreams have this reputation as, as portance to the soul, but sometimes they're just

dreams. You're not a Freudian, is that what you were telling me? Um, I'm gay actually. It's different, yeah. So members of a kneecap, they get in touch with them, they hear out their story and they pay particular attention to this idea of missing time. And they suggest that you know what, you might have some lost memories in there and a good way to retrieve those can has been might be hypnosis.

Right, and I'm given to understand that we now know in a modern context that hypnosis is just as successful at recovering old memories as it is at implanting new ones. Yes, exactly. According to the Mayo Clinic, so you know it's right, hypnosis is a changed state of awareness and increased relaxation that allows for improved focus and concentration. It's usually done with the guidance of a healthcare provider using verbal repetition and mental images. During hypnosis, most people can feel calm and relaxed. Hypnosis typically makes people more open to suggestions about behavior changes. Although you're more open to suggestion, you don't lose control over your behavior during a hypnosis session. End of quote, which means you're not acting out at somebody's request. You can't make someone commit a murder that they don't want to commit through hypnosis. Exactly. But you certainly are open to suggestion. So the idea of perhaps remembering something,

and oh, that becomes the actual memory, that is what's actually happened, that can still be suggested to you. The hills meet an Air Force captain, then H. Sweat, when he came to their church and gave a talk. His talk touched a little bit on hypnosis. And kind of hearing from kneecap about this, they approached this Air Force captain and they said, we might be interested in this. Can you recommend? Can you do it? Dada-da. Then H. Sweat says, you know what, I'm just an amicure, you should really get a health care provider to do this, as the Mayo Clinic suggests as well. And so they get referred to a Boston-based psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon. It's not until December of 1963, so almost two years after the event,

that they start their sessions with Dr. Simon. Originally, Simon is skeptical of their story, and he remains skeptical. I should say that. He thinks that it's probably some anxiety that they're working through. Sure. It sounds simplified when we put it that way, but we know anxiety can manifest physically, anxiety can create very real symptoms, anxiety can give you false memories, anxiety is very powerful. So like I mentioned before, they have separate sessions.

Uh, okay, was there any chance for cross contamination of each other's stories? See, and that's one of the things that Dr. Simon believes is that even though Betty did not describe her dreams to Barney, he thinks that at least Barney is being suggested to recall his memories of this abduction through Betty's dreams, that he's like over her, like she's been on the phone with a girlfriend talking about them or like she's talking in her sleep and he's hearing her. Or she spoke to it in allusions and he was able to piece it together through context clues. There's all kinds of conscious and subconscious ways

that we absorb information and context from each other. Right. And Betty following the event, she became a voracious reader on anything that had to do with UFOs and unidentified flying objects. Okay, which is another way to get those ideas implanted externally. Exactly. Separate sessions and yet their stories do align in a lot of different spots. After one of these sessions Betty draws freehand a star map. So apparently she asked one of the aliens where he, she refers to her as he, where he was from, and she's able to kind of like draw what she saw. Which side note on the map,

it gets published later in a book. We'll get to that. Maps the stars? Yes, that's it. Yeah. A woman in Ocarbor, Ohio by the name of Marjorie Fish finds it and she's a elementary school teacher in an amateur astronomer. She, through a process of elimination, determines what star system it is and she concludes by way of constructing a 3D model like a good elementary teacher should using thread and beads that it is the double star system of Zeta Ritikula. About 39 light years from her. I mean I could have just told you that if you asked me, but... Carl Sagan argues that it's all bullshit. It's just a random alignment of chance points. So... Has Carl Sagan been to Zeta Reticula?

Nope. See, know what I gotta say to him? That's ridiculous. When you're good, you're good. Thank you. I'm frequently good. Betty recalls quite a bit. She's been having these dreams.

Barney's recollection and his hypnosis sessions are pretty stressed out and a little alarming. Would you like to listen to a short recording of Barney's sessions? Oh, see I'm torn here. This is a struggle that I frequently have on the podcast where I don't want to betray people's privacy or exploit their vulnerability, but I'm also conscious that this is a primary source and it's compelling podcast content, and I'm nozy. So it's tough. If it makes you feel better, they do publish transcripts of their own hypnosis sessions. And we'll get into this, but Betty does donate all of her materials to an archive, and they are accessible per her will and her wish to the general public.

Cool, okay, I'm less worried now. Lay it on me. Okay, it is freaky dee-ge. Okay, now you're speaking my language. Okay, I'm trying to be with a good time. Alright, let's go baby. I try to maintain the full somebody cannot tell I am scared. God, I'm scared. It's alright. If you a flight always. It's a pretty sick. It will not hurt you now. I got to get my gun.

Oh, my God. All right. That's all. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh Oh man, he is stressed out. Pretty stressed huh? I wasn't expecting that, but to play devil's advocate for a minute, to elicit those emotions

from somebody under hypnosis doesn't mean that they had an encounter with aliens. No, especially an army veteran? A black army veteran with a white wife in the 1960s. I'd be stressed out too. They do report that the hypnosis sessions did start to allow Betty and Barney to kind of free up from their anxiety a little bit. That's good. There was a sense of release from those sessions.

And I think they, you know, they were a little skeptical about it to begin with. And I think Betty was a little bit more eager than Barney and all this stuff. But I think in the end, it seemed to them that it was a good decision that they did it. Is the source of the anxiety in this proposition just like being a young mixed-raced couple in an unforgiving world, and he's maybe, he was an army vet and all of these things that we've kind of been talking about. Just like generalized the way that life bears down on us all that we're kind of able

to better recognize and diagnose trauma responses now, but we weren't as good at it then. There are psychiatrists who have studied this case and said that's most likely it. It's a trauma response, but in terms of what became the inciting incident for that trauma those missing hours that time gap and the dress and the shoes and There's also the fact that you know after these sessions that started in 63 things kind of quieted down for almost about two years, right? They reported out to the local Air Force Base, and they had talked to kneecap, but that was kind of it. Then, you know, they did their hypnosis as really a therapy,

and then things quieted down. So they weren't really out there kind of like raddling the newspaper stands saying, like, listen to us, listen to us. They weren't selling interviews to magazines or anything like that. No, they were very interested in maintaining their quiet life and any notoriety that they wanted was through their civil rights work. Fair enough.

Until August 1965, when a Boston reporter, John H. LaTrell, started interviewing friends and acquaintances of the Hills and eventually published in the Boston Traveler a newspaper. They published a front page article about the Hills entitled UFO Chiller. Did they seize a couple? This guy, Lutrelle, was really fascinated by their story. He did a five installment story. And at first, the hills were like, Jesus Christ, when invasion of our privacy and some of the facts weren't correct.

The daily invasion of our privacy. Exactly. Nice. Well done. And they were pretty pissed off. So in response, they contacted a writer by the name of John G. Fuller, who was going to help them write their own narrative. So they were going to come out with their own text. In 1966, a book by the name of the interrupted journey came out, and it gave them control of their story, but it also thrust them into the limelight. Now they are like the alien abduction couple. The face. Right. And they kind of had different responses to this fame. Betty, who was really digging into all the library books

that she could get on UFOs, she was kind of digging it. She was like, all right, let's go. Barney was never very comfortable with the situation. He's like, I have a full time job. And I'm working. Yeah, I'm working with the NAACP. Like, please just let me. Oh, yeah. So I need to be insanely credible all the time. He was worried that it would kind of de legitimize him in the civil rights movement. and in a way it did. He was passed over for a promotion.

Oh, that's gotta be hard. Because this guy really believes this story, right? He does. I think he does. Yeah, that's gotta be really hard. I guess like trying to get taken seriously in all of these really serious professions in this really serious social movement and really swearing by this really important experience that you insist happened to you and nobody believes you or takes you seriously. And if you're getting passed up for promotions, that speaks to how unseriously they're taking you. That must be really frustrating. It was with the NAACP that he was passed up with and you know it's also

understandable that they're like listen if we have any public facing personnel you're gonna get a lot of scrutiny and we need to be really really on point with what we're doing here. In the early days of any movement its representatives are expected to be perfect., morally, mentally, ethically, physically, socially, totally beyond reproach. It's not fair. Yeah, exactly. And an alien abduction on your record doesn't look too great. It's a little distracting. Sadly enough, in 1969, Barney suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away at the age of 40, how old was he? He was 46. Oh no, that's way too young. Oh RIP, hey to hear it sincerely, that sucks.

I know. For the next 20 years though, Betty continued her investigatory work of UFOs. Right. Now that that white blanket's out of the picture, let me go a little more. I'm gonna miss her off. She kind of went on the UFO circuit. She was speaking at conventions. That makes sense. She's the OGO, the OEC like Vicki.

Everyone else is just a copy. Right. No, exactly. Along with her niece, Kathleen Martin, who I mentioned a little earlier, she co-authored a memoir called A Common Sense Approach to UFOs that it was published in 1995. For people who believe in UFOs,

but are also fiscal conservatives, like, you know what's the approach? I can't, I think that title actually reveals how her personal narratives started to take on this. This is the story of alien abduction. I'm the first one, so I have a lot of answers if you're looking for some answers. And everybody who's studying UFOs and investigating UFOs. They're looking for answers. The truth is out there.

And in a way she does start to discredit herself. She is like... Get out of town. She does kind of start to discredit herself. She is like, even within the UFO community, they're kind of like, okay, Betty. All right, yes, another story, great. Another story, experience. True life, factual, 100% true. Yes, yes, ma'am. Is she just elaborating on your story too much or what? She's also claiming

other encounters, other experiences. Oh, so now she's just like, oh I ran into him at the store. Yeah. Got it. It's gotten a bit much. I saw them behind the garage. October 2004, Betty did die from lung cancer and following her death as per her wishes, as per signified in her estate, you know, seen out by her executor, her niece, Kathleen Martin, Betty's papers, all the articles written about her, all the drafts of her book, all the ephemera, her dress that was ripped. The pink powder? All of that gets donated to Betty's Alma Mater, the University of New Hampshire. And it's in their archives.

It's not all digitized. There's some photos that are digitized, but they're working on getting everything accessible via the internet. Cool. They should keep up behind glass and like the student union building. I have like an animatronic that reads the whole thing off. I do it. Oh and there's also a marker on Route 3 at Indian Head, so along the road that marks Barney and Betty Hill's abduction site. This is where Barney and Betty fused out for three hours and when they came to it was real dusty.

So Betty and Barney, an interracial couple in 1961. Now, get your bittersweet logger out and right on the back here so that you remember. Yeah, blow off that pink dust. Backed your dust from that three hour gap in my memory. Yeah, yeah. So it's 61 with their alien abduction story. It's an until 67 that we get loving versus Virginia, which is the Supreme Court decision that makes lawful interracial marriage on the federal level. Right. But prior to that, individual states will have had their own laws as to whether this was legal. Yes, exactly. And it's great name for the lawsuit loving versus Virginia.

I mean, no pun intended. I do love it. Yeah, Richard and Mildred loving were the couple and who brought the case. According to codes within the Virginia legislative, the union of a white person and a non-white person was illegal. Interestingly enough, Mildred loving she did not identify as a black American, as an African-American woman. The term she used was Indian. Both of her parents had native lineage and so that's how she identified. Still, the code, the Virginia code would not allow her to marry her white husband. It still falls in there, but it's also kind of another tangle of identity, right? And to give you kind of a sense of the escalation of this, Mildred and Richard Loving were married

in Washington State in 1958, where it was legal to marry across racial lines. They moved to Virginia where their union was deemed unlawful. So in the middle of the night local authorities busted into their home and arrested them both. Oh my god. They were given the choice of 25 years of imprisonment or banishment from the state. Get the fuck out. Virginia is not for lovers, it turns out. No, not for loving, not for loving lovers. So as you can imagine, they chose to just go ahead and leave Virginia. They moved back to Washington, had three kiddos. Now, the case gets catapulted to the Supreme Court.

When the levings returned to Virginia for a short visit, and on their short visit visit they are again arrested. Just, it's not, listen, there's another Virginia. I'm not trying to be you. Yeah, I don't know the law in West Virginia is. Well, on principle, yes, these people have done nothing wrong. They should be able to travel wherever the fuck they please. Yeah. As someone who is used to, you know, doing a little bit of research before I vacation someplace just to make sure that they're friendly to my kind. If you told me Virginia was off the list, I'd be like, I'd plan and go to Virginia.

So it's okay. No disrespect. They turned to the ACLU for help and that's when it gets thrown up to the Supreme Court, where it's decided on June 12, 1967. So if you're listening on the day that this episode comes out, you are one day away from what is now deemed loving day, which is to honor the constitutional right to marry whom the fuck ever you want to marry. Yeah, absolutely.

It's pretty intense and sad though that it took until the year 2000 for the final state to overturn its anti-missigination law. It was Alabama and the law was on the books, it was not enforced, but they had a hard time removing it until 2000. Okay, that's absurd. Extremely absurd. Keeping in mind that Betty and Barney, they're not in Virginia, they're in New Hampshire, but this is the political climate of their marriage, and especially as civil rights activists. This is the intensity of their day-to-day lived experience.

They claimed through their book, through interrupted journey, through Betty's own memoir. They claimed that that did not affect them, that they were, you know, a scoogeum couple, and that they just focused on that. But you can't deny that that must have been a pressure. They even admitted that like, when they stopped that night at a diner, they were mindful of where they stopped.

In fact, during one of the hypnosis sessions, Barney goes into detail about the diner where they stop. Yeah. And about the woman who is there serving them. And I'll read a quote from, this is from Fuller's book, Interrupted Journey, where they transcribe some of the hypnosis sessions. Barney says, I decide to stop and check my map. And I turn around and go back to a restaurant

I've passed and I park and we go in. There's a dark-skinned woman in there. I think dark by Caucasian standards and I wonder is she a light-skinned? He uses the term Negro because it's 1961. And then he also uses the term Indian. Is she a light-skinned Negro or is she Indian or is she white? And she waits on us and she is not very friendly and I notice this and there are others there and they're looking at me and Betty and they seem to be friendly or pleased but the

stark-skinned woman doesn't. I wonder then more so is she negro and wonder if I, if she, is wondering if I know she is Negro and is passing for white. I eat a hamburger and I become impatient with Betty. I want her to drink her coffee so we can get started. So he just has to be hyper vigilant and monitor everyone's reception to him and try angulated to the color of their skin and figure out oh if this person likes me or not, do they not like me because of the color of my skin? Or is it something else that I've done? Is it that I'm with a white woman?

Just always needing to run that information in your head is exhausting. Trying to read race and other people as well. Yeah, well this person be sympathetic to me. Do we have shared experiences in common? Our skin is the same color, but maybe yes, maybe no, maybe they won't understand me at all. Really hard. Yeah, and even in their descriptions of the humanoid beings, both Betty and Barney have a lot of details that are based on their racial understanding of the world. So at first Barney's impression of one of the alien faces that he sees is of a red-headed

Irishman quote unquote. He sees an evil face that's evocative of a German Nazi. Remember he's a World War II vet, Army vet? Right. And Betty is very insistent that the extraterrestrials to her look like quote unquote, mongoloids. I was comparing them with a case I had been working with a specific mongoloid child. Remember she's a child welfare officer. This sort of round face and broad forehead along with a certain type of coarseness. Right. And so in this context mongoloid refers to an outdated medical terminology around people with Down syndrome that is itself founded in racial subcategorizations, e.g. people with this disease resemble people from this racial group. She describes them as oriental, ageatic, some very old school,

racially motivated anthropological stances. Right, right. Even within their hypnotic session, it's deep in there. Holy fuck, yeah, it sounds like they had both internalized race as a shorthand for interpreting other people, as I'm sure a lot of people that at that time and still do. Which, you know, they would, from a survival standpoint, they would have to do that. Like, especially Barney's recounting of like, is this woman how is she reading me, how is she reading me, reading her? Like all of these things, right?

The the mental math of it the constant constant calculation would be stressful enough itself. Absolutely. I mean was this theory put to the Hills themselves and if so what did they say? The Hills repeatedly claimed that Race was not a pressure on their relationship. I think they understood fully as, you know, civilly-minded and civil rights-minded couple. Yeah. The implications of them being an interracial couple in the early 60s, I think they understood the magnitude of that.

Yeah, there would be a lot of pressure to just be like, yep, we are completely fine because why would there be a problem? Everybody's created equal. I got that. So this theory that this is a sublimation of anxiety and racial trauma, let's say, is this your theory or is this other people's theories that you agree with? That's been propagated by a few people, including psychiatrists, including kind of scholars looking at the materials. It's not the main story, but it's definitely analysis that's been applied. It's not mine alone. I'd agree with it.

This certainly happened after Barney passed away. He passed away very young and 69. This was following him for sure. And because Betty went on kind of the UFO circuit. Right, went on the press toward a whip up a bunch of publicity around it, which naturally attracts the attention of people who want to debunk the story, or at least understand it better. Right, yeah. But I think she was not as interested in the way that society

treated race relations at that time. I don't think she was in tune or listening as carefully to that particular subtext as much. She was much more engaged with UFO communities and kind of, you know, the truth is out there. Right. Because to her, this wasn't a sublimation of American race relations. This was an alien encounter. And I think certainly the, because the 1990s became this kind of boom of alien fascination. X-Files was really popular. Roswell, New Mexico kind of had a little like Rorina Sons blossoming, right?

There was a lot of 1990s fascination with little green men, little gray men. I think it wasn't until we got through some of that fever that people started to see how the Hills story had been kind of propagated into more and more because you needed to see the pattern, you have to have more substance. Yeah. And then I think one of the interesting things about the Hill's story in particular when you're taking into account that they were an interracial couple at this very tumultuous time is that when they are abducted by aliens, they no longer become a black man and a white woman,

they become humans. It which strangely has this reverse logic to it, right? Where that anxiety may have come out of this racial struggle in America, and what it eventually proves is like humans are humans aliens are aliens. Maybe we're not that different from the aliens either. Maybe the aliens are already here, baby. Could be right here? Or right there? Or right anywhere? I'm getting the vibe that we're both aliens, but haven't told the other.

I'm not going to fucking come out first, you. You go first! No, you go first! Thanks for listening. If you want more info, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinthemy.com. Or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account. And KO-FIN-FI-dot-com-forward slash bittersweetinthemy.

But no pressure. Bittersweetinthemy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing. Bitter Sweet and Threese. The No Pressure. Bitter Sweet and Threese Free. Baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at Bitter Sweet and Threese. Or just pass the podcast long to a friend who you think would dig in. Stay sweet. The sources that I use for this episode's minifamous were New Zealand Boys Survive 51 Days

Adrift in El Jazeera November 26, 2010. Boosie Teens Midnight Trip goes 1300 km to Stray and stuffed by Michael Field November 27, 2010. Half three Token Out Teenagers Survived being lost in the ocean for 51 days by Michael Finkel for GQ May 9th, 2011. And I watched a video on YouTube posted on the channel Tocque-Lau and Teenagers survive 50 days lost in sea. The sources that I used for this episode included a Dakota Ring podcast episode entitled The First Alien

Abductees, posted August 9, 2022. The story is told by Eric Molinsky from his podcast, Imaginary Worlds. I read an article he's making me feel things in my body that I don't feel the body as battleground in accounts of alien abduction. Written by Patricia Felisa Barbiteo, I read an article called Extra Trust Reels in the Stacks, An Archivist Journey

with Alien Abduction, Stained Blue Dress, and the Betty and Barney Hill Collection, written by William Ross, published in the Journal of Popular Culture, January 6, 2021. I read an article from CNN.com on this day in 1967, Loving vs Virginia and Interracial Marriage by Brenna Williams,

published June 12, 2022. The recordings of Berryhill's Hypnosis were posted by UFO history on YouTube under the title Barry Hill Hypnosis 01, and that was posted October 2, 2018. And lastly, I read an article entitled Alienated Histories, Alienating Futures, Racialogy, and Missing Time in the Interrupted Journey by David Drysdale, published in the English Studies in Canada Volume 34 issue 1. Lastly, I use some excerpts from Interrupted Journey by John Fuller, as well as excerpts from Betty's self-published memoir, A Common Sense of Prox to UFOs published in 1995.

A shout out to our subscriber, Stay in Strong, there are Jonathan Mountain, thank you for all you do. This podcast is on the 604 podcast network. The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins and the song you are listening to now is Teast Street by Brian Steele. you