Interesting commentary in Slate about the alleged alien abduction of Betty and Barney Hill on Sept. 19, 1961.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/09/ufo-uap-encounters-betty-barney-hill.html

The piece discusses a book on the subject by Matthew Bowman, noting that the author believed “context is everything” with regards to the times in which the Hills were living; that what’s really important are the social and cultural mores, conventions and racial biases of the postwar era.

But isn’t this just like saying the actual alien abduction never really happened at all? Because, logically, if it did really happen, who cares about social context? I mean, you’re either alien-abducted, or you aren’t alien-abducted, right? Why would context, or anything else, matter at all?

And I must take issue with the opinion writer’s claim that the Hills’ account constitutes “the first truly credible story of an alien encounter …”

To this, I say, rubbish … Where’s the credibility? Where’s the actual concrete evidence?

Actually, I have often wondered whether the Hills, arguably the most important figures in the whole strange saga of alien abduction in this country, might have borrowed elements from the plot of the 1954 movie Killers from Space.

In the film, a very young Peter Graves plays a scientist involved in top-secret nuclear-weapons research. He is abducted by bug-eyed aliens who perform advanced surgery on him to repair his heart, which is damaged when the aliens induce his jet fighter to crash. 

Some details in the Hills’ story mirrored the plight of Graves’ character. Most notably, he had no memory of the abduction afterward, and only upon receiving an injection of truth serum did he recall the whole episode.

Interestingly, the Hills also had no memory of their abduction and only were able to recall the ordeal under hypnosis, perhaps a softer form of truth serum.

In both stories, Earthlings were exploited by strange-looking space aliens standing over them as they lay prostrate on an operating or exam table.

I also wonder whether the Pentagon’s UFO-disinformation machine might have later harnessed alien abduction as a vehicle to hide its work on advanced propulsion systems that have nothing to do with space aliens and everything to do with the burgeoning “black budget,” which shrouds such weapons development from Congress, the executive branch and the taxpaying public.

The purpose of this mendacity: to keep journalists from asking whether the Pentagon has achieved a quantum leap in propulsion technology, an advance so profound that, if commercialized, promises to alter the trajectory of the human race by ushering in a radical new means of transportation. And it has worked brilliantly. After all, instead of inquiring about what exactly the Pentagon is up to, we are all consumed with whimsical reveries about space aliens, time travel, interdimensional beings, and various ‘are we alone?’ scenarios.

You know my hypothesis, that the UFOs were never extraterrestrial, that they have always been advanced U.S. military weapons, going all the way back to Kenneth Arnold’s seminal sighting in 1947.

But, hey, I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already considered. It’s all in Flying Saucers!