April 12, 2015 — Shop Talk 2015 with Burnt State

[DissectionStalker]

Dismissing it as a carnival show misses out on what else the story might tell us. For them to step forward with their story, given who they were and their position in the community, it must have been a very risky thing to do, that they both most have anguished about.

I'm suggesting the "carnival show" aspect is probably the MAJOR underlining [unspoken elephant in the room] motive WHY the media will promote such stories. It makes money! It increases sales. It is free publicity for all the media and people involved. So, yes, I don't dismiss this very obvious manipulative aspect to this story. There is the carnival atmosphere to see the odd couple.

I admit I only listened to the first hypnosis session with Barny, because anything after that in my mind should be highly suspect. I am being dismissive in that respect, because I think the story can be fabricated and fictionalized once that initial record was put on tape. Also, Betty was drilling him in the car that it was a UFO 'after' he thought it was a plane. We KNOW for a fact helicopters can be disguised at night to look like UFO's, and we KNOW helicopters can suspend a decoy far below it to show a UFO. In this case, obviously some government black op would be involved IF that was done. I have no problem believing that is possible too, but I think Betty was "over the top" pushing the UFO idea right from the beginning.

He only saw orange-red lights in the distance after he pulled over on the dirt road, so there is no way to be certain to know that he saw the craft even land. He NEVER said he saw the UFO land. He just saw lights in the distance with no sound. Now, he has a hysterical wife pushing the UFO idea, but the MEN were MEN he engaged with. At least one was Irish with red hair. The UFO craft was NOT 'there' with them. This is CRAZY trumped-up BS. IMO. That's why I suggest this is a carnival atmosphere of hype being created.

Big deal..... ???????????????????????

Btw, what standing did they have within their community? To most people, seriously, they would be "outcasts" in 1961. Get real people. It is 1961. These people can't go around in their community with ANY standing or respectability... this couple would be "outcast" and shunned at an absolute minimum. They would be seriously subject to all kinds of abuse including using extreme fear tactics directed at them. People, how naive can you be IF you seriously think ET did this. No way! This married couple would be subject to severe CRIMINAL and psychological abuse within their community. Too bad IF you don't understand this type of abuse would be directed at both of them.

 

[DissectionStalker]

As for abductees being sincerely terrified, it's important to realize that sincerity is no indication that the fear is caused by the source the person sincerely believes it to be caused by.

The cause could be an experience or feeling the person finds shameful, disgusting, or otherwise threatening to the sense of self, the ego. These experiences happen to everyone in lesser or greater degrees, and are routinely repressed, comings back to haunt us in nightmares, slips of the tongue, and other ways. A classic example is rage felt towards another person that emerges in a nightmare as something attacking us. Another is embarrassment over a sexual encounter one would rather not remember.

But repression sometimes fails, and rather than face the disowned feeling or experience the person may faint, have amnesia for that time period, or invent an alternate scenario for themselves.

In severe cases, one or more parts of the self are dissociated from the self-concept and result in multiple personalities or psychotic episodes.

A knowledge of how psychology works is essential in evaluating reports of alien abduction.

I sincerely hope you have some psychology background, because you certainly seem to have an excellent understanding about such matters. This forum seriously needs someone posting here with such knowledge. I hope you can post here for a long time to come. You also write your ideas in an excellent concise format that is very well written indeed. I'm very impressed with your posts. So, thanks.

 

[dmanister]

Sensory deprivation and lack of sleep can be the cause of very convincing hallucinations that appear fully present and solid. They are not static entities but may move in realistic ways.

As for my own background in psychology, I have only a few college psych courses and a personal 4-year psychoanalysis, plus a great deal of reading and discussion with people in the field.

One big eye-opener on the subject of distorted perceptions for me was Dr Oliver Sachs' book "Hallucinations." Anyone involved in evaluating claims of alien abduction should read it.

Many thanks for your kind words.

 

[Burnt State]

DS, you are missing some of their vital history as civil rights workers and leaders. In that era, who would want to step forward as a biracial couple and bring disgrace to the NAACP when you are a member and active participants in attempts to bring equity to society? This should not be taken lightly. So it's a big deal because of its place in the history of AP and because of that, knowing its truth better has consequences. You may be certain it's a MILAB event and there's some potential for that. And yes the media hypes these things and that distorts the general public's perception of such stories. But this does not take away from the original event as it has significance in history. The story has many tangents and subsequent evolutions. Knowing it better helps to understand AP which is the point. The media machine that surrounds it may also change it but my main interest is in knowing the original story as it actually happened.

 

[Wade]

As far as my background in psychology, I have only a few college psych courses and a personal 4-year psychoanalysis, plus a great deal of reading and discussion with people in the field.

Your honesty and straightforwardness are refreshing. I sort of put myself in the same realm except I never got as far as 4 year high school. However I have a job where for the past 20+ years have come into contact with a large cross section of humanity from almost every social and occupational strata each with their own psychological component plus a number of psychologists and psychiatrists and people with a sociological background. Being not unlike a bar tender I am privy to a lot of thought and i am always picking their brains. While I have nothing to put on a wall I have acquired a fair amount of insight, and in the end that's all I really need. I get to have access to the inner workings of people thought without having to carry the baggage that comes with it.

 

[DissectionStalker]

You may be certain it's a MILAB event and there's some potential for that.

No. After listening to Barny's first hypnosis I think Betty is the instigator. Also, whatever happened with the men present Barny said he was not afraid at that moment. He said he was afraid when he initially first saw the red headed Irishman, because they were hostile to blacks according to Barny. But, he saw the Irishman with the binoculars at a great distance before the men came-up to the car.

What is AP?

Also, once the media gets hold of this story the Hill's lost control of any of it. They may have enjoyed the attention it brought them at that point. Maybe that public face gave them some added protection if something bad really did happen to them. Like I said, just blame ET to get their message out, so no one will come back at them for what really did happen.

I did not hear ANY evidence in his first hypnosis that MILAB was involved. This is just massive embellishment AFTER the first hypnosis and media attention, imo, unless a helicopter really was involved. Betty was onto the UFO deal right from the beginning, and, so, WHY should Betty know jack about UFO's to begin with??? Get real. This is typical UFO hysteria. Imo.

 

[Burnt State]

No. After listening to Barny's first hypnosis I think Betty is the instigator. Also, whatever happened with the men present Barny said he was not afraid at that moment. He said he was afraid when he initially first saw the red headed Irishman, because they were hostile to blacks according to Barny. But, he saw the Irishman with the binoculars at a great distance before the men came-up to the car.

What is AP?

Also, once the media gets hold of this story the Hill's lost control of any of it. They may have enjoyed the attention it brought them at that point. Maybe that public face gave them some added protection if something bad really did happen to them. Like I said, just blame ET to get their message out, so no one will come back at them for what really did happen.

I did not hear ANY evidence in his first hypnosis that MILAB was involved. This is just massive embellishment AFTER the first hypnosis and media attention, imo, unless a helicopter really was involved. Betty was onto the UFO deal right from the beginning, and, so, WHY should Betty know jack about UFO's to begin with??? Get real. This is typical UFO hysteria. Imo.

ok, so you are saying the entire story is a confabulation born out of Betty's penchant for ufo intrigue and she embellished the story with them and all that missing time stuff and other details that they revealed later on following the incident are a collaged creation of whimsy and watching the Outer Limits the week before?

Abduction Phenomenon (AP) and Alien Abduction Syndrome (AAS) are ways of thinking about this particular event in history. Some people believe sincerely in their abduction narratives which then often extend and extrapolate over time - well except for Walton, who has held to a pretty straight and focussed story with no binary code embellishment or anything of that nature. The Hills story did extend and evolve rather dramatically and now has turned into a generational tale.

I'm not sure that your quick description of Betty's narrative writing fits the bill in terms of all the various features of the whole narrative. The issue of scale of the object and distance from it, along with how time drifts in this story are classic examples of discontinuous events trying to be placed on a timeline for a clear order of events. But when you are dealing with memory and mania it's very hard to pin down these aspects. The descriptions that shift and change in terms of the faces of the men, what they were wearing, what they did to each of them aboard the ship - all of these have a bit of shift and oddity to them that is reminiscent of dream recall.

Could Betty have impregnated the tired mind of Barney who was driving at night - was he sleep deprived and did her narrative help to stimulate visions that were not there like the British cyclist who saw goblins during her sleep deprived cross country treks? She constructed some very interesting narratives involving her own crew even that were almost sinister sounding. Could this be at the heart of what happened - was Barney's hallucination, and driving at night, Betty's interest in UFO's and other variables part of the soup that created this AP event? Possibly. Would Betty have embellished and elaborated such a damning story that just brought a lot of chaos to their lives? Possibly. Listen to the other hypnosis sessions and tell me what you think. With regards to UFO hysteria - while that's a feature of the times and could be what helped to supply different narrative elements i would also separate the core of their story from media reports as these are two different ways of knowing this story.

 

[DissectionStalker]

Burnt, as always, you make excellent points to consider.

Do you know how they got the story into the press? How soon after it happened? Before or after the hypnosis? If after, then how many sessions after? I can almost guarantee you that at least one of these two had some UFO knowledge before this happened. Unless that is revealed somehow [or denied], then we'll never get to the bottom of this.

Driving late at night is well known to open oneself to hypnotic states, especially, since Barny was the driver. Missing time is easily explained with that in mind, and it's really freaky Betty is onto the UFO idea early on. It's just weird they have binoculars with them too unless they were on a bird watching trip. Were they already into the night sky and looking for UFO's?????????? Why did they have binoculars with them?

 

[Burnt State]

just some preliminaries but along with the dog and binoculars, Barney also had a gun in the trunk which he took out during one of their highway stops to get a better look at the light. he took out the gun in case of bears. they are returning from a visit to Niagara Falls and Montreal and had these "travel items" with them as tourists will when heading to Canada - a gun and binocs sound like standard fare. much of what is happening in this story is at 10:30 pm with not a lot of cars on the road. Barney feels he is seeing a ship in the sky that is not a not a plane when they stop and actually sees humanoids inside this object. its sudden appearance near their car sends the narrative spinning from there on out. there is a gap in time.

the order of events is that following their sudden gap in time and distance - where they are suddenly farther along the road with no light in sight and then they continue on home. in the morning Betty calls a friend and ultimately calls a major at this nearby air force base - he confirms the UFO sighting as one tracked the night before on radar. it is Betty's dreams of abduction that get everything rolling and these disturb her so much she wants to get it all down in writing. now what happens next i'm not clear on without going back to some better research but, there are writers and media people involved first prior to hypnosis. so yes, the media hype starts next. this is then followed by hypnosis sessions and things go boom from there. Barney dies a few years later after the incident and following this Betty descends into full blown UFO mania where her personal obsession with UFO's just grows and grows.

now, the big issue is how did all of the narrative get into Barney's head if Betty is having the dreams? she is most likely pouring this information into her husband's head every morning after a dream recall. couples share much and we don't know all there is to know about them, only the bits we have recorded and really the most important bits are those first initial reports, stories, and sessions that they bring forward. skeptics will critique the entire piece from start to finish to demonstrate how it is possible for a random visual sighting in the evening of perhaps a space re-entry could combine with many other variables that night including personality and personal history to create the model of the alien abduction. this also has a lot of plausibility.

regardless, the story has stuck. stories that stick are very interesting are they not?

 

[Burnt State]

So, while reading about their romance and how they came together as a couple i stumbled into this paragraph which adds something to the story - take it as you will. All writers embellish do they not? Everything is someone else's summary.
"Married only 16 months, working separate shifts, the Hills had seen little of each other when they took a belated weekend "honeymoon" with their dog Delsey in the fall of 1961. That quick trip to Niagra Falls and Montreal has become the stuff of legend. Barney was nervous, fearful that a Canadian motel might not accept an interracial couple with a dog late at night. The couple decided to drive all the way home to Portsmouth. They were carrying Betty’s handgun for protection and were afraid it might be discovered at the border as they crossed back into the United States. They were tense and arguing when Betty spotted weird lights in the New Hampshire sky."
The UFO Romance of Betty and Barney Hill

 

[DissectionStalker]

Thanks Burnt.

There is certainly a known date when they returned from the trip, and there is a date the first article was published too.

Btw, did you ever post anymore after reading that English translation book about the "security guard" Italian AP with the big footprint and green Alien he encountered [and later multiple times]? Can you comment about it please.

Thanks.