Obduction map
READ MORE: This Scoutmaster Had a Run-in with a UFO. “My God, what is this thing?” he recalled thinking. What he saw was as big as a jet but as round and flat as a pancake. He shoved a handgun he’d hidden beneath the seat into his pocket and rushed into a dark field, leaving Betty in the car. Barney abruptly stopped the car, keeping the engine running. What was this light and why was it toying with them?Ībout 70 miles past the diner, the object hovered just above the treetops, approximately 100 feet above them. He didn’t want to spook Betty, but he was becoming concerned. The night was too quiet for a helicopter, a commercial plane or even military jet with a hotshot pilot. Barney was also a pragmatic man who wouldn’t give flying saucers a second thought, remembered his niece Kathleen Marden in her work, Captured: The Betty and Barney Hill Experience. Barney had an IQ of 140, noted Fuller in his book. “Barney,” she told her husband, “if you think that’s a satellite or a star, you’re being completely ridiculous.” Through binoculars, Betty saw that the white light was really an object spinning in the air. The couple pulled over at road stops and picnic turnouts to get a closer look. Maybe the car’s movement made it seem like the light, too, was moving.Ĭuriosity overcame them. Sometimes it seemed to move toward them in a game of cat-and-mouse. The light zigged and zagged, ducking past the moon and behind trees and mountain ridges, only to reappear moments later. The light seemed to move with the car as Barney steered down the curving mountain road. Barney, an avid plane watcher and World War II vet, was sure they had nothing to worry about. At first it looked like a falling star, but grew larger and brighter with each mile. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters.'Īs they drove, strange light in the sky gave another reason to hurry.