Strange Arrivals

On a September night in 1961, in the mountains of New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill encountered something they could not explain. What really happened that autumn night? Welcome to Strange Arrivals, where host Toby Ball will unravel one of history's most famous cases of alien abduction. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Driving through northern New Hampshire on a clear fall night in 1961, Betty and Barney Hill spotted a light in the sky that seemed to be following them. As they navigated mountain roads, the light came increasingly closer until the Hills found themselves face to face with a craft unlike any they had seen. Thus began one of the most famous encounters in UFO lore. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than two years after their UFO encounter in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill underwent hypnosis therapy with renowned psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon. These sessions revealed that there was more to the Hill's story than they had previously remembered. This story was all the more remarkable because it was so different from the stories of the early years of America's fascination with UFOs - the 1950s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UFO culture of the 1950s revolved around two competing visions; one of contact with advanced beings from within our solar system and another focusing sightings of distant flying objects in the sky. Under hypnosis, the Hills told a story that differed from both of these narratives, one of capture and examination by truly alien beings. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While under hypnosis, Betty Hill told of being shown a star map by one of her alien captors. Years later, she sketched what she remembered of the map. This led a teacher named Marjorie Fish to create intricate models of the galaxy to determine the origin of the space craft, and set off a dispute about the accuracy of the map and the reality of their experience. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Betty and Barney Hill's memories of being abducted by aliens were recovered through hypnotic regression. But does this technique uncover actual memories, or something else? How does what we know now about memory formation and hypnosis change how we look at the Hills' story of capture aboard an alien craft? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Betty Hill had a series of intense dreams after her UFO encounter. How did these dreams inform the memories recovered during hypnosis sessions two years later? They way the Hills described the aliens they met changed over time, becoming less human. Why did the descriptions change and how did they finally arrive at a definitive answer to what these creatures looked like? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hills described their UFO encounter taking place over several miles, beginning with a bright light in the sky and ending with a craft hovering above a field. Nobody believes they were just making their story up. So what did they see that night as they drove through northern New Hampshire? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Betty and Barney Hill's experience established the framework for future tales of alien abduction. But the Hill story was just the jumping off point for abductee narratives that followed. Among the first abduction tales to follow the publication of An Interrupted Journey was Betty Andreasson's alleged kidnapping by friendly, spiritual aliens who took her on a journey to distant worlds; worlds that seemed a reflection of Betty's core beliefs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Three researchers, Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and John Mack, revolutionized the study of alien abductions in the 1980s and 90s. Their research, based on hypnotic regression of people they suspected were abductees, suggested that aliens could access anyone, anywhere, at any time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The search for ever-more-incredible stories led to strange theories about the purpose of alien abductions and eventually to the bizarre case of Linda Cortile. Budd Hopkins considered it to be the most compelling abduction case ever investigated. But was it real? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The abduction phenomenon has largely faded from public consciousness. What is the current state of abduction research? And looking back to the very beginning of this season, why is it that some people are prone to belief in the paranormal while others are prone to skepticism? Finally, how should we regard abduction stories and other extraordinary claims? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interview with Sarah Scoles, author of They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers, a first-person anthropolical look at the people who make up the UFO community. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interview with Stephanie Kelley-Romano, an associate professor at Bates College who has done academic work on alien abduction stories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interview with documentary filmmaker Carol Rainey, who was the research partner and wife of UFO researcher Budd Hopkins in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This season on Strange Arrivals, we explore the Rendlesham Forest Incident, one of the most famous UFO sightings in history, sometimes described as Britain's Roswell. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this extended trailer, we give you a sneak preview of the story at the heart of Strange Arrivals season two: The Rendlesham Forest Incident, sometimes known as Britain's Roswell. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Christmas night, 1980, a light is observed descending into a forest just outside RAF Bentwaters, a British military air base on the eastern coast of England. Three American servicemen leave the base and follow the light into Rendlesham Forest. What they see marks the beginning of a three-night incident known as Britain’s Roswell. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two nights after the first encounter, strange lights are once again seen above RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. The US Air Force dispatches a group into Rendlesham Forest to investigate. The leader of the group makes an audio recording of the hours-long incident that follows, involving multiple unidentified lights that seem to invade the airspace above facilities where nuclear weapons are stored. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The British tabloids get wind of the Rendlesham encounter and it becomes public in 1983. The news prompts a closer look at the Rendlesham narratives, and researchers put forward alternative explanations that don’t involve unknown craft entering the air space above RAF Bentwaters. Twenty years after the encounter, the UK Ministry of Defense releases its Rendlesham file. What’s inside is not what researchers were expecting. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.