WEBVTT 1 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:22.120 Welcome to Podcast UFO. I'm Martin Willis, your host. Before 2 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.239 we begin a quick look at what's coming up next week. 3 00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:29.160 On Tuesday at APM Eastern, my guest will be Yell 4 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:33.280 trained philosopher Christopher Noel, and he's going to be talking 5 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:37.960 about UFOs and consciousness, which I still don't understand. Then, 6 00:00:38.159 --> 00:00:41.399 on Thursday at APM Eastern, will be joined by the 7 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:47.079 legendary UFO researcher Shock Vala. Also be sure to visit 8 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:51.479 podcastufo dot com for this week's fascinating blog by Charles Lear, 9 00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:55.840 a nineteen eighty eight report of a UFO landing on 10 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:01.520 frozen Lake Erie. Charles always dives into these great historical cases, 11 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:06.359 so check that out over at podcastufo dot com. Tonight's 12 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:10.920 guest is Matthew Bowman, Professor of History and Religion at 13 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:15.519 Claremont Graduate University, where he also holds the Howard W. 14 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:19.239 Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies. He is the author of 15 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:23.159 several books, including the Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill 16 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:26.840 And that was published by Yale University Press in twenty 17 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.439 twenty three. Because of scheduling issues, I had to pre 18 00:01:30.519 --> 00:01:32.480 record this with Matthew Bowman. 19 00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:33.439 This afternoon. 20 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:38.000 Ronnie LeBlanc, our guest for this week, canceled at the 21 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:42.200 last minute yesterday, and this program was originally scheduled to 22 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:45.359 be airing on Thursday, but I will be live tonight 23 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.799 in the chat room and participating with all you that 24 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:49.840 are watching this live. 25 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:51.519 If you'd like. 26 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:54.959 An ad free experience on audio, all you have to 27 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:58.560 do is go to podcastufo dot com, go to our 28 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:01.040 Patreon page, and for two dollars or more a month, 29 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:05.640 you can get the audio ad free for any media player. 30 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.560 Thank you all, and I'm ready to bring in our guests. 31 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:11.159 Welcome to the show. 32 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:13.120 Matt, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. 33 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:17.280 Yes, so I have to ask you before we get started. 34 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:20.840 You have very interesting background, first of all, and there's 35 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:24.560 I don't know if you've looked into this topic how deeply, 36 00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:28.520 but that there's people out there like the professor Diana Posolka. 37 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:33.360 Are you familiar with Yeah, yes, yeah, So there's a 38 00:02:33.599 --> 00:02:35.639 you know, there's a connection. There seems to be a 39 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:41.479 connection between religion and the UFO topic. And sometimes I 40 00:02:41.560 --> 00:02:45.120 feel as though there's a need for someone. I like 41 00:02:45.199 --> 00:02:48.000 the idea of there being something else out there. Myself 42 00:02:48.439 --> 00:02:50.240 I know it's hard to get the proof of that, 43 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:51.199 but I think I. 44 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:52.560 Feel like we're heading in that direction. 45 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:54.520 But I have to ask you, what are your thoughts 46 00:02:54.520 --> 00:02:59.400 in general about, say, the UFO topic and the possibility 47 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:01.199 of other life if out there. 48 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:04.120 Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up Diana, and as 49 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:07.000 well Jeff Cripel, who is another friend of mine. I 50 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.639 think a lot of people in the academy who study 51 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.439 UFOs are people from religious studies, right. I think there 52 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:18.199 is a sort of affinity there because people who do 53 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:21.840 religious studies are really interested in the kinds of questions 54 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:26.000 that you bring up, Questions really about human experience, right, 55 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.360 and how we categorize the things that happened to us, 56 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.759 how we label and explain those sorts of things. And 57 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:37.400 one of the fundamental ideas I think of exploration of 58 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:39.919 the phenomenon, as some folks call it, goes all the 59 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:42.919 way back to Jacques Plais, right, who said that we 60 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.520 might see, say, a fiery ball in the sky, and 61 00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:47.800 if you lived a thousand years ago, you might say 62 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:50.400 that fiery ball in the sky is an angel. If 63 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:52.520 you lived two thousand years before that, you might say 64 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.759 it's a demon or a ghost, But today we're more 65 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:57.240 inclined to say it's technology because we live in a 66 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.159 technological world. We live in a world science is the 67 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.240 dominant paradigm by which we explain things. And that's the 68 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:06.120 sort of thing that people who study religious studies are 69 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:10.400 really interested in. Right, how do we account for the 70 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:14.199 things that seem strange or anomalist? Because and this goes 71 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.240 to the question that you just asked me, I think 72 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:20.279 things that seem strange or anomalists are all around us. 73 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:24.560 Everyone experiences them all the time. It's extraordinarily common to 74 00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:28.000 have things that you cannot otherwise explain happen to you. 75 00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:31.040 And the question is what sort of language do you 76 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.000 use to try to make sense of that thing? Do 77 00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:36.680 you use the language of science? Do you use the 78 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:40.519 language of religion? And that's the thing that really interests me, Right, 79 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.680 how do we decide what language we use is to 80 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:47.199 explain the stranger the anomalists. That's the kind of thing 81 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:49.199 that I am interested in studying. And I think that 82 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:52.600 certainly in Diana's book American Cosmic is very much about 83 00:04:52.639 --> 00:04:53.639 this sort of thing as well. 84 00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:57.360 I have developed this thought over the more I've looked 85 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:00.399 at this topic, and other things, but mostly the and 86 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:02.560 I try to look at it in a real balanced way, 87 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:06.839 but I have the feeling that we really do not 88 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.879 really know a lot about what's going on around us. 89 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.959 I think that there's some weird things. We have this 90 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.879 certain spectrum we can see in and our senses and 91 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:18.199 things like that, but I feel like there's weird things 92 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.040 going on that we have no clue we're. 93 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:23.720 Among these things that happened. 94 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:27.120 I've had some unusual things happen in my life that 95 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:29.600 I have no explanation for. One of them was my 96 00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:32.560 UFO sighting that got me involved in this, but there's 97 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:35.279 been other a few other things that have happened that, wow, 98 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:38.600 no explanation that can figure out no matter how I try, 99 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:40.720 even if it could be scientific, I don't know how 100 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:43.839 one thing happened that could have happened in any type 101 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:47.519 of possible way. So I know that through the ages 102 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:52.680 we always turn to, you know, like religions. It would 103 00:05:52.720 --> 00:05:55.120 explain a lot of the things that happened and the 104 00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:57.480 miracles and these type of things because we had no 105 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:00.680 other explanation for it. Good exact sample as that I 106 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:03.920 think it was in the sixteenth century, there was what 107 00:06:03.959 --> 00:06:08.439 they think was a super nova occurrence that was all 108 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:11.000 of a sudden the bright light in the sky, and 109 00:06:11.079 --> 00:06:14.879 of course they thought it was religion had explanations for 110 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:15.920 that that type of thing. 111 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:18.360 This is something I'll tell my students a lot right 112 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:21.879 when I'm teaching religious studies classes in the history of religion, 113 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:25.439 and I'll give them, for instance, the experiences of someone 114 00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:29.720 like Joan of arc Right, who heard voices, who saw angels, 115 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:32.319 And I'll put out to my students this thing is 116 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:37.160 actually quite common in almost all societies other than the 117 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:41.480 modern West, even today in Latin America and in Africa 118 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:44.079 and the global South. People take it simply as a 119 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:47.040 matter of course that there are in fact supernatural creatures 120 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:50.959 in the world. The possessions are possible, the visions are 121 00:06:51.079 --> 00:06:54.800 come right, and so these kinds of experiences that we 122 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:58.000 today would judge as a nominalists are strange, are actually 123 00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:01.040 quite common throughout the course of human And the only 124 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:03.399 question is, then, how do we, as I said before, 125 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:06.279 how do we explain them? What language do we use 126 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:09.279 to try to bring them into the world that we 127 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.600 already live in, the world that we can make sense. 128 00:07:12.439 --> 00:07:14.720 And for some people that is the language of religion. 129 00:07:14.759 --> 00:07:18.920 You see that today. I think with UFO. JD. Van's, 130 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:21.319 the vice president, a few months ago, told an interviewer 131 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:24.000 that he believed that these strange things in the sky 132 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.040 are demons, which I think makes sense coming from the 133 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:29.839 Catholic tradition that he has embraced. There's a long kind 134 00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:32.639 of tradition of that sort of thing. But other people 135 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:36.160 will say, no, they are not demons. They are simply spacecraft. 136 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:40.120 They are not, unlike the Apollo eleven mission, just another 137 00:07:40.759 --> 00:07:43.319 civilization built them in another putet and flew them here. 138 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:47.079 That's simply another way of bringing these things into language 139 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:50.079 that makes sense to us, that we can understand. But 140 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:51.680 as you say, I think, and this is the thing 141 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:55.199 that really fascinates me about the UFO as kind of 142 00:07:55.240 --> 00:08:00.360 an object of study, UFOs cross all these boundaries. Cannot 143 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:04.160 contain them in science, you cannot contain them in religion, 144 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:08.839 and that shows how we humans build these categories. We 145 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:11.399 create the language of science and use it to explain 146 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.199 the world. But the language of science always bumps up 147 00:08:14.199 --> 00:08:17.800 against walls, and it cannot explain it's on the other 148 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:19.519 side of that wall. The same is true, I think 149 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:22.360 for many religious traditions as well. And I think you 150 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:25.000 are breaking down these boundaries all the time, and they 151 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.519 force us to see how artificial those boundaries are in 152 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:28.199 the first place. 153 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:32.919 Well, you think about our history, our human history, but 154 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:35.440 it only goes back to what we know. What is it, 155 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:40.039 six thousand years of written history, So you think about 156 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:43.240 it in that way, makes you wonder how things were 157 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:47.519 one hundred thousand years ago, or through human development and 158 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:50.960 whatever types of societies that were being built back then. 159 00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:53.960 It's too bad that we can't understand any of those 160 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:57.840 past thoughts and any type of documentation or any type 161 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:01.200 of way, but it makes you wonder throughout the development 162 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:05.639 of humankind what happened along those lines, because I do 163 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:09.240 believe that I think what people are seeing may have 164 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.320 been seen for a long time. There are accounts that 165 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:13.879 go you mentioned Jock Vla. He did a really great 166 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.039 Oh he's coming up next week, by the way, but 167 00:09:16.360 --> 00:09:18.039 he did a great. 168 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:20.399 Book on going as far back as. 169 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:25.039 They can and documentation of people reporting anomalous things in 170 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.919 the sky. And I found an account from seventeen ninety 171 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.679 six I believe it is, and a written account on 172 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:34.919 a ship that's really amazing. It's called the Perkins Document. 173 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:38.240 I believe it is. But so let's shift gears a 174 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:40.879 little bit. What made you decide to write about the 175 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.240 Betty and the name of the book. First of all 176 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.200 is the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, Alien Encounter, 177 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:49.480 civil Rights, and the New Age in America by you, 178 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:52.559 of course, Matthew Wowman. So what made you decide to 179 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:54.000 take that on and write that book. 180 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:57.960 Yeah, that's a great question. Some of the things you've 181 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:01.559 already been talking about. I am as a scholar of religion. 182 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:05.600 I specialize in religion and modern America post Civil War 183 00:10:06.440 --> 00:10:10.519 or so. I've written about Mormonism, I've written about evangelicalism 184 00:10:10.519 --> 00:10:15.679 and fundamentalism. But I was really interested in those boundaries, 185 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:17.799 and I mentioned earlier that is, what do we consider 186 00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:22.480 legitimately religious in America? What do we consider legitimately scientific 187 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:27.039 in America? What's some way I could explore where those 188 00:10:27.080 --> 00:10:30.320 boundaries are, how they got set up? And there's no 189 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:34.200 better way to explore these boundaries than to find something 190 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:37.519 that violates them. The throw is that makes people worry 191 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:40.200 that something is not scientific, that makes people worried that 192 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:42.879 something that purports to be religious is not actually religious, 193 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:45.360 And so I begin to looking at UFOs for that reason, 194 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:48.519 because they cross all of these boundaries. They make people. 195 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:52.519 UFOs make people intensely uncomfortable because they are not so 196 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:55.440 easily explained right, and they force us to grapple with 197 00:10:55.519 --> 00:10:58.720 the limits of our own knowledge. So I begin looking 198 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:02.840 at initial I wanted to look at UFO religions, right, 199 00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:07.200 these people who have developed out of UFO experiences something 200 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:11.159 that kind of mirrors other religious groups in America, people 201 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:15.039 who have developed things that look like religions based on UFOs, 202 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:18.000 like Unaris, for instance, or really Scientology, which is the 203 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.080 most famous of these. But there have been a number 204 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:22.799 of really good books on scientology recently, so I didn't 205 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:24.879 know one else there might be for me to contribute 206 00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:28.559 to that. And as I was poking around, I discovered 207 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:33.159 that the family of Betty Hill, particularly her niece Kathleen Martin, 208 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:36.440 had donated the Hill papers to the University of New 209 00:11:36.440 --> 00:11:40.360 Hampshire library. Had been no book using the Hill papers 210 00:11:40.519 --> 00:11:44.080 other than Kathleen's own book, and I thought, well, there's 211 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:47.399 nothing that a historian likes better than an archive that 212 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:50.799 virtually no historian has looked at. So I thought I 213 00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:53.759 would just go up there see what's in these papers, 214 00:11:53.799 --> 00:11:55.919 and then decide if there would be a book at it. 215 00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:59.360 And the papers are wonderful. There's boxes upon boxes of 216 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:03.399 correspond of letters. As I'm begin looking around, I found 217 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:07.039 there were other caches of letters that the Hills had written. 218 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:11.360 There's some in Roswell the International UFO Museum. There there's 219 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:15.080 a wonderful collection of letters there. There's also some at 220 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:18.600 the Center for Ufolk Studies, which Mark Rodeger runs now 221 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:22.360 in Chicago. So I thought, wow, there's really a wonderful 222 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:24.559 story here. And it's not as though the Hills have 223 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:26.639 not been written about. Of course, they've been written about, right. 224 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:29.960 It's one of the most significant DUFO cases in American history. 225 00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:33.799 But nearly everybody who's written about it has relied on 226 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:37.879 John Fuller's book from nineteen sixtyty six, which is largely 227 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:40.879 based on interviews that John Fuller did with the Hills 228 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:44.320 and with Benjamin Simon. They're a psychiatrists as well. And 229 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.399 as I went actually to Benjamin or I'm sorry, to 230 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:50.840 John Fuller's own archive which is in Boston, and I 231 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:53.159 found the transcripts of those interviews, and it turns out 232 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:57.399 that John Fuller actually messed with him. He misquoted the Hills. 233 00:12:57.799 --> 00:13:00.799 Sometimes he edited their interview he was in the book, 234 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:03.399 he changed it. So sometimes in the book it says 235 00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:05.440 the Barney said something, when in fact the interview truns 236 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:07.559 from showed that it was Betty who said it. So 237 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:10.559 the Boo book, I think, is rather unreliable, and people 238 00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:12.960 who rely only on it are going to miss the 239 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.440 boat to some extent. So all of this, I think 240 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.120 showed to me that there really was a lot more 241 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:21.039 that could be said about the Hills, and that their 242 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:24.519 story could be used, I think, to illustrate some of 243 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:27.559 what was going on in America generally in the nineteen sixties, 244 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.519 the ways in which the UFOs and I think belief 245 00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:35.840 in the UFOs, began breaking down the American cultural consensus 246 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:39.559 in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, how UFOs became 247 00:13:39.639 --> 00:13:42.919 a kind of vector for this new cultural movement that 248 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:45.159 I in the book called the New Age movement. But 249 00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:47.639 that Betty and Barney's own story then was in some 250 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:50.159 ways a microcosm of what was happening in the United 251 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:51.279 States more generally. 252 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.200 Now I know that I know a lot of people 253 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:59.320 that knew both Betty and Barney, and it's funny I 254 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:02.000 was talking too. I guess you would call my cousin 255 00:14:02.039 --> 00:14:06.120 in law, my cousin's husband, and she broke the news 256 00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:09.399 to him that I do a show on UFOs, and 257 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.279 which they thought. Both my cousin thought I was nuts 258 00:14:12.279 --> 00:14:14.960 for doing that. But anyway, so he goes, Oh, I knew, 259 00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:18.840 he goes. I knew Barney, Barney Hill. He was my mailman. 260 00:14:18.919 --> 00:14:20.960 He used to sit in our parlor for an hour 261 00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:23.559 during his mail route and talk with his mother. I 262 00:14:23.559 --> 00:14:25.759 guess he was good friends with his weather and he 263 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:29.799 didn't often talk about the incident itself. But it's I'm 264 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:32.320 right here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire myself, and I grew 265 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:35.159 up in the area, grew up in Elliott, and I 266 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:38.360 only heard about it later in high school when they 267 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.440 made a movie out of it, a four TV movie. 268 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:44.200 I saw that movie and then realized, wow, right here 269 00:14:44.279 --> 00:14:47.200 in town. But I've met a lot of people over 270 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:51.000 the years that knew both Betty and Barney and biracial couple. 271 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:54.000 They had a lot of stress and because of that, 272 00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:56.360 and so I imagine that's part of what you wrote 273 00:14:56.399 --> 00:15:00.440 about as well, right that play as place part of. 274 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:04.840 It yeah, yeah, I think could not play a part 275 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:06.960 of it. And it actually doesn't surprise me that Barney 276 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.480 was somewhat reticent. He always was. He was less enthusi 277 00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:13.480 asked about talking about the experience in public than Betty was. 278 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:15.799 Betty is the one I think who felt a real 279 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:19.679 drive to try to understand it, to figure out what 280 00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:22.799 was going on, to reach out to people. Bartie was 281 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:26.480 often reluctant. In fact, in what we know about the 282 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:29.000 very first phone call that they made about it to 283 00:15:29.399 --> 00:15:31.399 He's Air Force base, they talked to a man named 284 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:36.159 Captain Henderson there, Paul Henderson, and Bartie didn't want to 285 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.559 talk to him initially. Betty was the one who made 286 00:15:38.559 --> 00:15:42.559 the call, and both of them recalled later that Barney 287 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:46.360 came to the phone reluctantly and he told Captain Henderson 288 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.879 that he was worried that if this got out it 289 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:51.080 would do damage to his reputation. And I think that's 290 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:53.200 where you see the question of race. Right this is 291 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:55.960 the mid nineteen sixties. Barney is a black man. He's 292 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:57.480 in the North, and he's a black man. He's in 293 00:15:57.480 --> 00:15:59.360 New Hampshire where there are just we're not a lot 294 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:02.120 of black people in the early nineteen sixties, and a 295 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:05.960 real dynamic that was going on in the Civil Rights 296 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:08.759 MOO when the Martin Luther King was leading, was this 297 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:12.039 notion of respectability, right, and Martin Luther King knew this. 298 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:15.519 That's why Martin Luk wore suits all the time. It 299 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.840 is why he told the protesters who he was working 300 00:16:18.840 --> 00:16:22.159 with in this other Christian leadership conference, that when you 301 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:25.360 are marching, people will attack you, they will yell at you, 302 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:27.120 they will throw things at you, and you do not 303 00:16:29.080 --> 00:16:32.240 be aggressive back, because we want to show that we 304 00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:36.480 are respectable. And Barney really internalized that, right. So he 305 00:16:36.600 --> 00:16:40.279 was always worried that he might be judged for his race, 306 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:43.159 and it was very important to him to appear respectable. 307 00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:45.799 This came naturally to him in many ways, because, as 308 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:48.080 you say in this anecdote, he was a kind of 309 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:50.879 gregarious person. They both were. They loved talking to people, 310 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:54.320 They were very extroverted. But Barney always had that in 311 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:56.639 the back of his head. I think this worry about 312 00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:01.759 being judged disreputable, disrespect well, and he was worried that 313 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:04.599 the story of this incident would do damage to his reputation. 314 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:09.079 As I mentioned to you off air, my producer read 315 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:10.920 a book and had a couple of questions that she 316 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:11.680 wanted me to ask. 317 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:13.440 And you just mentioned PA's. 318 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:15.640 Air Force base, which is I used to actually live 319 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.759 in Elliot, Maine, and I lived on a hill up 320 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:20.759 on a hill on the other side of the River 321 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:23.559 of Peas Air Force. I could look directly at it, 322 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:26.319 and I used to watch planes land there. I watched 323 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:30.039 weather balloons. I watched actually our whole house shook one 324 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:32.880 time and there was a crash in the runway. 325 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.640 I saw the big fireball and everything. But here's the 326 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:36.200 question here. 327 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:38.920 Although the Air Force did not openly investigate the Hills 328 00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:44.160 case beyond the initial report, the Pentagon officials reportedly requested 329 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:48.319 the files from Wright Patterson after John Hutrell's articles appeared 330 00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:52.079 in The Boston Traveler and John Fuller's book was published. 331 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:54.519 Does this suggest that there may have been a greater 332 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:58.480 official interest in the case that was publicly acknowledged. 333 00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:02.960 Yeah, I think quite possibly, And certainly we do know 334 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:07.519 that the Air Force did request to read our readings 335 00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:11.000 so which ultimately were inconclusive. There were some hits that 336 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.359 false hits are quite common, and ultimately they judged it 337 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:17.000 not worth pursuing. But as the case got more and 338 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:19.440 more attention, this was happening at the same time, of course, 339 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:21.720 the Project Bluebook was getting more and more attention than it, 340 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:24.759 which eventually covidates in the content reports from the late 341 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:27.720 nineteen sixties. So I think he had that. It's entirely 342 00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:29.960 plausible to me that they took a second look at 343 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:31.160 Betty and Barney Hill's story. 344 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:35.160 And I know my good friend who's unfortunately no longer 345 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:38.839 with us, Leasepiegel, I think he found a document to 346 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:42.160 put it out there that was directly related to Project 347 00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:45.480 Bluebook and P's Air Force base. I don't know if 348 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:47.799 you ever saw any part of that, but that there 349 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:50.440 was some little form or something he found he put 350 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:50.720 it out. 351 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:54.279 Yeah. Yeah, this is the report that Paul Henderson filed 352 00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:57.119 that he filled out after this conversation with the Hills. 353 00:18:57.119 --> 00:18:59.839 It's a couple of pages long. He does a little 354 00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:04.400 audit of what Barney described and Betty described to them, 355 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.160 and yeah, he did file it away. So that's actually 356 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:09.720 widely available. I think it's been uploaded onto the internet 357 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:12.559 a few times, and it is it is the first 358 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:17.400 written document we have about the Hills' case. Betty wrote 359 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.400 a letter a bit later to Donald Keiho a few 360 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:23.240 days after that because she was disappointed that Henderson and 361 00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:25.720 he's nobody ever following up with her, but that even 362 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:28.359 that letter is a few days after this report, so 363 00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:30.880 it is I believe it stated September twenty first, so 364 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:33.400 just two days after the siding. If you think the 365 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:36.200 setting happened before midnight on the nineteenth or in the 366 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:37.200 morning of the twentieth. 367 00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:40.279 Yeah, I think this is great that you went through. 368 00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:44.839 It sounds like you went through the papers themselves. 369 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:46.160 And I know what that's like. 370 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:47.839 I've done a lot of research I'm in I'm a 371 00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:51.400 fine art and a researcher and also I do a 372 00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:52.599 lot of historical. 373 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:53.279 Documents things like that. 374 00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:56.359 So I have spent a whole month on a sign 375 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:59.759 of the Declaration I was involved in auction years ago, 376 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:03.079 been an entire month in the archives of New Hampshire. 377 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:06.039 I know what that's like and how daunting that can be. 378 00:20:06.200 --> 00:20:08.759 I mean, what type of papers are we talking about? 379 00:20:09.079 --> 00:20:10.559 How many are we talking about? 380 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:15.079 Yeah, so there are six boxes in the Hill Collection 381 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.839 at the University of New Hampshire. And just so people 382 00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:19.920 have a visual of this, when I say boxes, the 383 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:23.319 standard archival boxes, a banker's box, so we're talking to 384 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:24.880 you a couple of feet by a couple of feet. 385 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:30.039 Those boxes are full. There are oversized boxes as well. 386 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.759 The oversized boxers actually have some of David Baker's art 387 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:35.319 in them. David Baker, of course, being the Hill family 388 00:20:35.359 --> 00:20:39.160 friend who illustrated some of what they described to him. 389 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:42.039 The images of the creatures that Betty and Bardie Hill 390 00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:44.599 described to him are he painted, and that's how we 391 00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:46.680 have a sense for the visuals of what they look like. 392 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.680 There are some of those paintings reproduced in the book, 393 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:55.119 but most of the boxes are letters. There are extensive 394 00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:58.160 letters between the Hills and all sorts of people, just 395 00:20:58.279 --> 00:21:02.119 local family friends. There are letters between them and producers 396 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:05.160 in Hollywood, various people who wanted them to come and 397 00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:08.839 speak after the Fuller book was published. A lot of 398 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:12.039 letters between them and people like Walter Webb. Walter Webb 399 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:16.599 was the kind of primary representative of Donald Kehoe's organization 400 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:19.359 who came and investigated them and interviewed them and then 401 00:21:19.400 --> 00:21:22.119