FT262
“These eyes – that I saw – these eyes – that I saw – these eyes – that I saw – in the sky – that I saw – these eyes – that I saw – in the sky – that I saw – I just saw these eyes in the sky.”
What happened to Betty and Barney Hill one September night in 1961 is the basis for one of the earliest and best-known UFO abduction stories (see FT110:28–31; 195:24; 225:39).
The Hills were driving home from a vacation in southern Canada to their home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They were heading south on Interstate Route 3, through the White Mountain National Forest, when they saw a strange light in the sky. It was near a rock formation called Indian Head at the small town of Lincoln, and the light seemed to be very close to them, so Barney stopped the car and got out to see what it was. Through his binoculars, he saw what appeared to be a craft, with humanoid figures behind a window. Frightened, he got back in the car and drove away. The next thing they knew, they were 56km to the south, in the town of Ashland.
Later, after they had arrived home and slept till the afternoon, they realised their journey had taken two hours longer than it would normally have done.
Feeling uneasy about their experience, they phoned the nearby Air Force base, and also contacted a UFO organisation. A few days later, Betty started having nightmares, which she wrote down. These included what are now “classic” abduction features, such as aliens with large wraparound eyes and intimate sexual examinations.
Eventually, more than two years later, they sought hypnotic regression. Between January and June 1964, Dr Benjamin Simon conducted a number of sessions with each of them separately. Barney’s sessions contained emotional outbursts and many references to eyes. Betty’s recollection was broadly similar to her accounts of her dreams, though she drew a map she said she had seen on the alien craft of 12 stars connected by lines, which a primary school teacher, Marjorie Fish, later claimed showed that the aliens were from Zeta Reticuli (see FT242:50–52).
The Hills’ story was written up by John G Fuller in 1966 and became a 1975 TV film, The UFO Incident, with James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons playing Barney and Betty.
And now, clips from the hypnosis tapes are being used as the vocals on a new album by Beloved Aunt entitled From Indian Head To Ashland – the start and end points of this strange journey.
HYPNOTIC SOUNDS
Beloved Aunt is a project created by British singer/songwriter – and long-time FT subscriber – Suzanne Barbieri. So, where did she get the idea to use the Hills’ voices on the album, I asked her, and how long ago?
“I began thinking about doing this project when I read the book The Interrupted Journey by John G Fuller, which includes transcripts of the hypnosis sessions. The language Betty and Barney used while under hypnosis was quite different from their normal speech: very poetic, almost archaic in places, and originally I was going to try to get permission to use some of the lines as lyrics.
“While I was researching that, I came across an episode of a radio show which had played the hypnosis tapes. I had never heard them before. A bit more research led me to Wendy Connors, who runs the now defunct Faded Discs UFO-related audio archive. Wendy owns the copyright to the recordings that originally belonged to Dr Benjamin Simon, and she very kindly gave me permission to use them.”
The music, with the Hills’ repeated words, is almost hypnotic itself: eerie, haunting, compelling – and unexpectedly beautiful. The first track loops Betty saying over and over again “This has been quite an experience” with the added phrase “No one would ever, ever believe me”. Does Barbieri believe her?
“After hearing the hypnosis sessions, I have no doubt that they were completely truthful in their accounts, which is to say, in what they believe to have happened. Whether they were actually abducted, or had some other experience that they interpreted as abduction, I can’t say. I’d certainly like to believe that this was a genuine case of alien abduction.
“I find their accounts pretty convincing, especially the part where the aliens put a needle into Betty’s navel to perform a pregnancy test. Betty remarks that it’s no kind of pregnancy test she’s familiar with. Of course, nowadays we recognise the procedure as amniocentesis.”
How valid are memories “recovered” through hypnosis? Her response is candid.
“I’m not really qualified to answer this, as I have never been hypnotised myself, and am not sure I would ever agree to it, however interesting the results might be. I do think that most people have a propensity to be suggestible under certain circumstances, and personally, I’m not willing to take the risk of either unwittingly inventing false memories, or uncovering a forgotten trauma that the mind has blanked out for good reason. But that’s not to say that recovered memories couldn’t be accurate and valid.”
Whether or not people believe the Hills’ account, or whether or not their account is true, Barbieri says, has no bearing on the album, as it is primarily a piece of music, or art. “But yes, I intended the album partly as a tribute to the bravery of the Hills in coming forward to talk about their experience, as it had a somewhat detrimental effect on their lives, opening them up to ridicule.”
There are hours of hypnosis tapes. “It actually took about three months to go through everything, make the initial cuts, then fine cuts around smaller phrases, or even words, and organise them all.
“The phrases I used were mainly chosen either because of their own melody or rhythm, or because it was a great line that conjured up interesting imagery. It was amazing to hear. The voice of a hypnotised subject is quite different from their normal waking voice. For a start, it’s slower and considerably more melodic. I’ve since done some tracks using the voices of non-hypnotised people, and it’s far more limiting in what you can do musically. Also, I wanted to highlight the more ‘magical’ side of the experience, and capture the sense of wonder.”
What about the creative process? Did the music come first, or the phrases, or the track concepts or titles?
“Everything was based around the melody and timing of the phrases. Nothing is tuned, slowed down or speeded up, all the pieces are written around the existing melodies in their voices; with the exception of the track ‘Will You Come Back’, which I wrote years ago but never managed to come up with a vocal of my own for. Serendipitously, Betty’s voice was in exactly the right key and tempo.”
There is some narrative progression through the album, says Suzanne, but the tracks also tell their own, sometimes separate, stories. Many of the phrases are not used in context, and were taken from different parts of the hypnosis sessions, so that other stories emerge in addition to that of the abduction.
“For example: on the last track, ‘Will You Come Back’, Betty is actually recalling her conversation with the leader, asking him to make a return trip; and the line ‘people, as they get older’ was part of her explanation of why Barney’s teeth – he wore dentures – were removable but hers weren’t; however, my meaning for the track is that she is singing about her beloved Barney who died so young: ‘I want him to come back, I want him to; his questions will all have answers’ – i.e. now he’s on the ‘other side’ he’ll know all about what happens after death, did he find God in other planets? and so on…
“In the track ‘Travelling Along’ there is a sound, which is based around a sample of Tibetan monks chanting. In the transcripts from the book The Interrupted Journey, Betty makes reference to the aliens’ speech to each other sounding something like ‘oh oh oh oh’. That part is not on the recordings I have, so the chanting sound is my interpretation of how the aliens’ voices may have sounded, and the indecipherable nature of it adding to her obvious feelings of panic and confusion.”
One track, “God in Other Planets”, includes the voices of the Apollo 8 astronauts. How does this fit in with the rest of the album?
“I came across the Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast completely by chance – serendipity at work again – and felt it a perfect fit to include the voices of astronauts orbiting another planet talking about God, while Barney contemplates the existence of God and His involvement in and possible existence in connection with people on other planets. Incidentally, the bleeping sounds are some of Barney’s lines in Morse code, so in effect, sending the message out to whoever or whatever is ‘out there’.”
IN THEIR OWN WORDS...
In 1998, Suzanne Barbieri co-wrote and recorded an album Indigo Falls with her husband Richard, keyboard player with Porcupine Tree and formerly with Japan. As a singer, she’s recorded with a number of musicians including Steve Harley, Jakko Jakszyk, and Porcupine Tree; her voice can also be heard on some well-known radio and TV commercials. Didn’t it feel odd, as a singer, not to be singing on her first solo album?
“I’ve done a lot of vocal sessions, ads, and so on, in the last few years, most of which I recorded and edited myself, and to be honest, I was sick of the sound of my own voice – so it was just great to have all this wonderfully different vocal material to work with. I’ve always enjoyed the composing/editing aspect of music, which I find more creative than straight performance.
“It is strange, because voice is my main ‘instrument’ – I was classically trained as a child – and I completely know where I am with singing, and can turn my hand (or voice) to most styles and genres – a lot of my session work is soundalike stuff. I’m not a great musician, but now technology has advanced so much, I am able to translate what I hear in my head into a finished piece of music, which for me is simply wonderful, as I used to be reliant on other musicians to understand what I wanted without my having the musical vocabulary to explain it properly, so my original idea would either end up diluted, or would be someone else’s interpretation, and invariably have their stamp on it rather than mine. That said, I love collaboration, and will continue to work in that area too.”
But why is she not releasing this album under her own name?
“Initially, this was intended as a project aside from the singer/songwriter thing, so I chose to use a project name as there is a bit of a preconception of what sort of thing I am expected to release under my own name,” she said. “So I wanted the freedom to do something completely different and unexpected. And for me it was completely the right decision to start with a clean slate.
“Also, I’m not totally comfortable with being the focus of a high level of personal attention, so as curator of the Beloved Aunt project – even though it’s only me involved – I feel I am able to promote it in a way I couldn’t if it was my name on the banner. I’m very much a ‘behind the scenes’ person, I love beavering away
in the studio, and can imagine ending up doing more production/remixing work.”
Why “Beloved Aunt”?
“The Beloved Aunt name totally came from Curb Your Enthusiasm [the US TV comedy series written by and starring Seinfeld writer Larry David as himself]. For those who don’t know the story, I’ll paraphrase: Cheryl’s aunt died and Larry was in charge of organising the obituary. However, he didn’t proofread it, and a misprint led to the ‘A’ of Aunt being replaced with a ‘C’. While my husband Richard and I were watching that episode, I said I thought that Beloved Aunt would make a great band name, and he sort of dared me to use it. So I did. Most people instantly get the reference, and those who don’t, and might be offended, are none the wiser.”
Suzanne Barbieri has strong links with the science fiction world. One track on the Indigo Falls album, “Only Forward”, was co-written with science fiction author Michael Marshall Smith, whose first novel had the same title. She wrote the critical study Clive Barker: Mythmaker for the Millennium for the British Fantasy Society, and one of her short stories was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award. She is currently working on a novel involving alien-human hybrids and false memories.
Telling Betty and Barney Hill’s story not just through their own words but through their own voices, she says, has been an amazing experience.
“Working on this project was hugely satisfying. It was unlike anything I’ve done before, and because of that I had a sense of freedom, in that there were no constraints, the pieces didn’t have to follow a set structure of verse, bridge, chorus, they could be as short or as long – and the arrangements as full or as empty – as they wanted to be.
“As it turned out, because of the melodic and rhythmic elements to Betty’s and Barney’s voices, many of the pieces are almost songs anyway. In fact, I’d love to hear them covered. I can imagine Robbie Williams singing ‘Will You Come Back’.”
It’s a very strange album, one that grows on you the more you hear it. I could imagine it being used as the soundtrack to a piece of installation art or a light show at a UFO-related event – or perhaps an UnConvention! “I did think of that, especially as it can’t really be performed live,” she says.
I asked Suzanne how she suggested people should listen to the album.
“I love the fact that it can be loosely classed as background music. It’s something you can just have on and not have to concentrate on it, but then perhaps a line will resonate, and set off a whole different reaction or train of thought.”
From Indian Head To Ashland by Beloved Aunt is available as a download from www.burningshed.com
MORE FEATURES
Dr David V Barrett is a frequent FT contributor and writer on the fringes of religion, including his books The New Believers and A Brief History of Secret Societies. He plays fretless bass in the rock-jazz-blues band Midnight.
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