Barney’s and Betty’s accounts were extremely consistent with each other. Both described the men as about five feet tall, with gray skin, oddly shaped heads with broad foreheads. They had large eyes and spoke to each other with a humming sound. The descriptions differed in certain details, mostly related to the appearance of the crews. (Betty said they all wore caps, Barney only recalled the leader wearing one—although his conscious recollection to Webb was that all the crew wore caps.)
Simon discounted the possibility of alien abduction. He simply did not believe in UFOs, and, according to Webb, declined to read any relevant literature on the subject. Thus, he tried to persuade the Hills that Betty’s initial dreams had inspired Barney’s account, which was simply a fantasy. The Hills were unconvinced. Barney pointed out the many unique aspects of his account; indeed, he said, he wished the whole thing had been a hallucination.
The Hill story became public in 1965, after their taped conversation from several years earlier was released. In 1966, journalist John Fuller wrote
The main problem in accepting the Hill case was its novelty: stories of alien abduction were unknown in 1961. Even among UFO researchers, accustomed to dealing with the unconventional, this seemed just a little too far-out. But the Hills were obviously not hoaxing, nor did they seem crazy. During the 1970s, as the abduction phenomenon became more widely claimed, discussed, and acknowledged, the case of Betty and Barney Hill seemed increasingly plausible. Indeed, if one concedes the existence of UFOs as the product of a nonhuman intelligence, and the possibility of occupants in at least some of the craft, then it is hard to accept anything other than the obvious: that Barney and Betty Hill were abducted by aliens.
Following the experience of Barney and Betty Hill, people continued to see UFOs at close range. One of the most compelling sightings occurred on October 2. This was a classic sighting of a daylight disc that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Waldo J. Harris, a private pilot and real estate broker. Harris was about to take off from the runway at Utah Central Airport when he saw a bright spot in the sky. He continued to see the spot after he was airborne, assuming it was some aircraft reflecting the sun. He became curious when he realized the spot was not moving, and he moved toward it. As he did so, he could see that the object had no wings or tail and “seemed to be hovering with a little rocking motion.” He could now see it was a disc-shaped object, between thirty-five and fifty feet in diameter and perhaps five or ten feet thick. It looked like “sandblasted aluminum,” showed no windows, openings, or landing gear. At about two miles distant from the object, it rose suddenly about one thousand feet above him, affording a clear view of the underside, which seemed exactly like the top side. He continued to approach the object, when it departed abruptly and was gone in about two or three seconds. Harris said, “I can keep our fastest jets in sight for several minutes, so you can see that this object was moving rather rapidly.” He later described the speed as in the thousands of miles per hour. Others at the airport also saw the disc, including airport controller Jay Galbraith, who saw it for fifteen continuous minutes; at least six others in Salt Lake City also saw it. One airport witness, Virgil S. Redmond, had just landed when he saw the object; he watched it with others, sharing field glasses. “Whatever it was seemed to be rocking while hovering almost stationary just south of the field. At times, as it turned, it looked like a zeppelin,” he said. The air force investigated this case; a check with the U.S. Weather Bureau confirmed there was no cloud cover, with visibility at forty miles. No balloons were in the area. No air traffic was in the area that could account for the sighting.
