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Dr. Simon quickly determined that he should treat both Betty and Barney for an anxiety syndrome that could be traced back to the incident on the night of September 19-20, 1961. He began by hypnotizing Barney, then Betty. Over the next six months, the story of the two hours of missing time began to emerge. Betty and Barney Hill told of being stopped at a roadblock and being taken onto the UFO, where they were given medical examinations before being returned to their car. Betty reported being shown a “star map” that was later interpreted to mean that the aliens came from Zeta Reticuli. Their story was later written into a two-part article in Look magazine, a book titled The Interrupted Journey by John G. Fuller, and later a TV movie aclled The UFO Incident starring Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones as the Hills. The Hill’s story was the first “modern” abduction story. There was no Communion back in 1961, and no X-Files. Abduction stories had not become part of the popular culture yet. People had claimed to have contact with aliens, but they were “contactees” in the mold of George Adamski, who claimed to have been visited by friendly Venusians with long blond hair who gave him a warning for all mankind about nuclear war. Skeptics such as Martin S. Kottmeyer claim that the elements of the Hill abduction could be found in movies like 1953’s Invaders From Mars and in the pulp science fiction magazines. They also say that an alien with wrap-around eyes such as Barney Hill described was portrayed on an episode of Outer Limits just 12 days before the hypnotic session during which he described the aliens. These claims might be compelling if it had ever been proven that Betty and Barney had seen the movie or the Outer Limits episode or that they were science fiction fans. But investigators such as Karl Pflock say that there is no evidence that they had been exposed to any of those things. Skeptics also point out that Betty’s nightmares began after she read Keyhoe’s book. That’s true, but Barney had not read Kehoe’s book when he saw the UFO with double rows of windows with “people” behind them on the night of the sighting. Even if the dreams and the hypnotical- ly recalled “abduction” are excluded for whatever reason, the sighting itself still stands as one of the most reliable and inexplicable on record. Dr. Simon, the psychiatrist who worked through the post-traumatic stress of the incident with the Hills, did not believe that they were lying. He was unable to explain the sighting as anything other than an actual occurrence, and stated as much in a letter to the insurance company regarding the case. However, he did not believe that the abduction took place. His final diagnosis was that Betty’s mind had created dreams of an abduction to fill the amnesia period, and _ that Barney’s mind, when he heard the content of her dreams, had unconsciously SS De 2 who absorbed her dreams for the same purpose of filling the missing time period. None of this, of course, explains exactly what did happen and why it took the Hills two hours longer than normal to drive from Colebrook to Ashland. Loy Lawhon writes about paranormal phenomena for about.com, an Internet nnn Dees DE encyclopedia.