The UFO Incident

The UFO Incident is a 1975 American made-for-television biographical film starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons based on the alleged 1961 alien abduction of Barney and Betty Hill.[1]

The UFO Incident
A newspaper clip about the film shortly upon its release.
GenreBiography
Drama
History
Romance
Written byHesper Anderson (teleplay) and Jake Justiz (teleplay)
John G. Fuller (book)
S. Lee Pogostin
Directed byRichard A. Colla
StarringJames Earl Jones
Estelle Parsons
Music byBilly Goldenberg
Production
Executive producerRichard A. Colla
ProducerJoe L. Cramer
CinematographyRexford L. Metz
EditorRichard Bracken
Running time92 min.
Production companyUniversal Television
DistributorNBC
Release
Original networkNBC
Original releaseOctober 20, 1975 (1975-10-20)

Plot

The movie introduces us to Barney and Betty Hill, two ordinary people who have had the most extraordinary experience. She is a social worker and he a postman. They are an interracial couple who are very happy with each other but they are perplexed by a traumatic experience of which they have no memory. Two years later, they are still tormented by what happened during a trip where they have a mysterious lapse of memory which takes place after sighting a strange object hovering over their car. They wake up some time later much farther down the road. Barney and Betty consult Doctor Benjamin Simon a psychiatrist who tries to help them find the answer. The doctor decides that the best treatment to unlock their case of double amnesia is hypnosis. Doctor Simon mentions that Barney has suffered from a childhood of racial strife and feels deep guilt about his divorce. Barney tells the doctor that he has had physical symptoms after the experience such as strange warts on his groin. They are both tormented by mysterious nightmares that Betty begins to document. They report the incident to the US Air Force (the US Air Force actually had a project relating to UFO sightings called Project Blue Book). Doctor Simon places Barney under hypnosis and he begins to relive the experience. Barney describes his and Betty's seeing a strange object in the sky that begins to follow and then to terrify them. Barney begins screaming in horror during the session as he describes his and Betty's being abducted by the aliens from the UFO. Betty also reacts with horror describing their captive experience. She and Barney are subjected to medical experiments by the aliens including Betty having a needle shoved into her navel. With Doctor Simon's assistance and their strong love for each other, Barney and Betty are able to come to terms with their experience and get on with their lives. At the end of the movie it is revealed that Barney died of a stroke in 1969 at the age of 46. Betty lived on until 2004.

Main cast

Possible remake

According to The Huffington Post in 2011, a more developed and detailed film depicting the events of the Hill couple's alleged encounter and abduction was pursued as a possible project that could give a better insight to the incident.[2]

Historic context

The film aired two weeks before the Travis Walton UFO incident on November 5, 1975, which led cognitive psychologist Susan Clancy to argue that this film influenced Travis Walton to present his own alleged abduction story.[3]

References
  1. Kathleen Marden; Stanton T. Friedman (2007). Captured!: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience : the True Story of the World's First Documented Alien Abduction. Career Press. pp. 195–. ISBN 978-1-56414-971-8.
  2. "Betty And Barney Hill's Alien Abduction: New Film To Detail First Widely Reported UFO Kidnapping". The Huffington Post.
  3. Susan A. Clancy (1 July 2009). Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. Harvard University Press. pp. 99–. ISBN 978-0-674-02957-6.
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