WEBVTT - Motion Parallax 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.560 When the Pilgrim Fathers came to America in search of 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.520 religious and political freedom, they settled in the northeastern sector 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.720 of our country known as New England, a part of 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.279 New England after the English county of Hampshire came to 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:32.520 be known as New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a land 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:39.120 of history, a contentment, and charm. For those of you 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.680 who are looking for a thrill, here you have it. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:48.400 In the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway. It's a fascinating, breath 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.120 taking ride, and as your car nears the summit, there 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.800 is an unforgettable view of the White Mountain National Part. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.680 One of nature's most awe inspiring worked is this giant 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.960 profile of the Old Man of the Mountains, sculptured out 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:15.680 of the granite cliffs at Franconia Knock. In the previous 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.720 two episodes, we've looked at how what we know about 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.600 memory and regression. Hypnosis raised serious doubts about Betty and 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.880 Barney Hill's story of alien abduction, but these doubts don't 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.639 apply to the parts of the September trip that Betty 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:37.680 and Barney remembered before hypnosis. Dr Benjamin Simon, who conducted 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.960 the hypnosis sessions with the Hills said that while he 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.479 believed the memories from hypnosis were from Betty's dreams, something 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:51.040 had actually happened that night. The question is what I'm 0:01:51.080 --> 0:02:10.800 Toby Ball and this is strange. Arrivals Episode seven, motion parallax. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.800 The Hills planned to spend the night of September in Montreal. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.960 They'd driven about two hours that morning from a motel 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.919 west of Montreal and became lost in the city before 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.000 deciding to drive eight hours through the night to their 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:34.560 home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. UFO researcher Robert Shaefer one 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.359 thing that people don't often note is that they had 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.919 been driving for a very long time. I think they 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.120 had been on the road, like twelve hours or more, 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.720 and if you talk about distracted drivers, that concern certainly 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.400 applies here. Betty at first saw a light that seemed 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.000 to be following them, and she was convinced that it 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:03.400 was a UFO. Her excitedness gradually got Barney to be 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.840 excited as well. The first stop they made to get 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.560 a better look at this light was just north of 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:17.960 Franconian Notch State Park. From episode one, Kathleen Martin, as 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.880 she watched this, and it grew larger and larger. She 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.880 became very curious, so south of Twin Mountain, she asked 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.000 Barney to stop by the side of the road. This 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.959 was at the Mount Cleveland picnic area, and they got 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.640 out of the car with binoculars and looked up at 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.840 this thing in the sky. There's this period of time 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.000 when they are south of Lancaster, New Hampshire, until they 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.800 get close to Cannon Mountain, when the light is a 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.480 long way off but seems to be getting closer and 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.600 is moving around in the sky. There are two possible 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.840 explanations for this that I want to talk about. The 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.000 most common among skeptics is that at this point in 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.000 the journey, Eddie is seeing the planet Jupiter. But why 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.480 would she think it was moving and getting closer. Robert Schaeffer, 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:13.000 followed by skeptoid host Brian dunning Well, the road curves 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.840 and the mountains are there hiding and revealing the Moon 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.320 and Jupiter and anything else that they might be looking at. 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:22.960 Is very common in the in the history of the 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.839 UFO sightings and even at the present time. But people 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.440 say this object was following us. It was moving from 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.320 one side of the road to the other. But again, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.479 you know, many roads, especially in mountainous areas, do not 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.960 go on a straight line. They curved back and forth. 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.200 It's very easy to get confused about, you know, what 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.599 direction you're looking at something that isn't really in question. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.839 That's a very common thing, amount you know, UFO sightings. 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.640 I am persuaded that that is a very good explanation 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.120 for the white light that they saw in the sky. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.720 I have had similar experiences myself. I've done a lot 0:04:57.760 --> 0:04:59.359 of sailing, and when you see a light in the 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.440 distance and your on a boat and the boat's moving, 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.520 the illusion that it's the light that's moving and not 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:09.040 you can be extremely persuasive. I do think that that 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.839 is a sufficient explanation for the white light that they reported. 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.560 I've heard that people do get confused by planets at night, 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.720 but I still have a hard time believing that this 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.760 misidentification of Jupiter is the beginning of the Hill encounter. 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:30.440 Even fatigued driving dark, lonely roads at night, I just 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.880 can't picture it. I attended a meeting of the Granite 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.640 State Skeptics, a group in New Hampshire that gets together 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.240 once a month to discuss paranormal phenomena. I brought up 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.680 that I didn't quite buy the Jupiter explanation. One of 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.080 the people there, a retired Air Force officer named Steve Lundquist, 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:58.200 had a story. So this is really about being an 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.279 expert witness and people knowing or should know better, and 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.279 they can still make mistakes. So just talking about myself personally, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.800 air Force pilot over three thousand hours and jets flying 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.479 all over the world, amateur astronomer, and you know, in 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.039 the Air Force you even get courses on you know, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.080 aviation weather and all those sort of things. So with 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.920 that sort of a background, you know, you'd think I'd 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.279 know better. But one time we were in the Middle 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.200 East and we were flying along mission and it was 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:34.360 you know, the typical old dark thirty and we're flying 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.720 towards Saudi Arabia and we see an aircraft in front 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:41.000 of us, and you know, it's hard to tell exactly 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.000 what kind of aircraft it is. You know, if it's 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.839 by its brightness and it's really far away, it's probably 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.080 a big one. But if it's closer, it's probably a 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.640 small one. And we didn't think much of it until 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.320 we noticed that it was climbing and after a while 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.560 it climbed pretty high, and since we couldn't paint it 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:01.479 on ray are, we figured it was far away, so 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.400 it must have been a large aircraft and far away. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.640 We're looking at the altitude that it's getting to and 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.960 we're figuring to ourselves, no US aircraft can reach these altitudes. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.560 It just can't. Trigonometry actually came into the whole equation, 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.320 you know. We put its existent to see what the 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:20.960 angle was, and we're like, wow, this thing is like 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.240 up there like a hundred and twenty thousand feet. Nothing 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.160 can do that. And of course as we're flying along, 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.800 we're like, going, jee's a wax is awfully quiet tonight too? Yeah, one, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.040 what's up? Why is that? What's going on? Now? If 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.640 I've gone back and reported to people we saw this airplane, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.840 it was doing things no aircraft we know of can do, 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.960 you know, And then we said it was a UFO. 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.240 You'd probably believe me because you know, I'm an Air 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.440 Force pilot, I fly, I no astronomy, I'm an engineer, 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.000 I have top secret clearance all that stuff. You believe me, right. 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.480 We thought about it a little bit more and we 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:04.440 came to realize it actually was Venus. But because we've 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.960 been looking for traffic. You know, when you're flying, you're 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.239 always looking for what you might run into. Open the sky, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.240 we fixated on it's an aircraft. This bright light in 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.960 the sky is another airplane. We don't want to hit it. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:20.920 And even though it was starting to do things no 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.400 other aircraft can do, in our minds, still stayed as 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.160 an aircraft as opposed to Venus. Classic mistake of Venus 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.600 as an aircraft. And it's like I should have known better, 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:41.520 and I still made that mistake. There's another explanation that 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.880 I find still more convincing, brought to us by Jim McDonald. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.360 I write science fiction novels. I'm a magician, I'm an E. M. T. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.560 And I live here in the north country of Namshure. 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.319 Jim's explanation relies on some of the same principles as 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.320 the Jupiter explanation, but comes to a different conclusion about 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.840 the source of the light. One day on the September, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.880 to make it exactly the right date, my wife and 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.280 my daughter and I all drove down Route three, following 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.160 Betty and Barney's route, with a copy of Interrupted Journey, 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.120 which my wife was reading aloud while I took time 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:26.960 kicks and mileage measurements and discovered some interesting things. Remember, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.720 The Interrupted Journey is the book written by John Fuller 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.120 that first told the story of the Hill's journey and 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.840 their sessions with Dr Benjamin Simon. Just south of Lancaster, 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.719 when you cross up on the shoulder of Mount Prospect 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.800 Corrigan Hill, that's the first spot that Betty and Barney 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.199 saw their UFO. They're flying saucer. And when you cross 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.080 the crest of Mount Prospect, same exact spot, that's the 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.000 first place that you can see the warning light on 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.200 the top of Camon Mountain. Immediately after seeing the UFO, 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.000 it began to move rapidly straight up. It was like 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.719 a shooting star, only it fell up, I think is 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.520 the quote. Immediately after you cross the shoulder of Mountain Prospect, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.600 US three goes down a nine grade for the next 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:21.120 half mile, pointed directly at Cannon Mountain, and that aircraft 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.560 warning light apparently moves straight up. Well, that flying saucer, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.480 Betting and Barney's disappeared on one side of the road, 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.680 reappeared on the other. It was sometimes high, sometimes low, 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:36.640 just like that aircraft warning light. They're flying saucer got larger, 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.000 brighter and closer the farther south they went, and so 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.840 does the aircraft warning line gets larger, brighter and closer. 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.000 I said to myself, my golly, I think I'm seeing 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.880 their UFO right now. Actually I had already said that 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.440 because I've made the connection. I've made the connection years before, 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.080 but now I was testing out for sure. And we 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.080 get to the sighting that really clinches everything. Bet and 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.920 Barney are the foot of Cannon Mountain. They're looking up 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.880 the top of Cannon Mountain and they're seeing the lights 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.960 at the tramway station. There is a aerial tramway, the 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.800 first one in America started, goes up the side of 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.520 the mountain. At the upper tramway house, there is a 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.240 snack bar and there's lights you can see from the road. 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.080 Betty and Barney reported seeing those lights of the snack bar, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.000 and they reported seeing the their UFO. They're flying saucer 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.880 at the same time. As you stand at the foot 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:31.600 of Cannon Mountain on the side of the Root three, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.280 looking up at the top of the mountain, you see 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.440 the lights at the top of the tramway and you 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.680 see the aircraft warning light so Betty and Barney they're 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.080 looking at the aircraft warning light, their point at the 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.400 aircraft warning light, and they're saying, that's it. That's the 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:51.479 flying saucer. I mean case closed right there. Strange arrivals 0:11:51.679 --> 0:12:08.959 will return in a moment. This illusion of the lights 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.200 on top of Cannon Mountain moving when in fact it 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.000 is the car that is moving, is made further convincing 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:21.360 by an effect called motion parallax Mark Ken from the 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:26.520 University of New Hampshire. Other things that night include seeing 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.920 the light which other people have said that is simply 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.360 a the beacon from a ski resort, and the fact 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.240 that it seemed to follow them is absolutely perfectly in 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.679 line with a depth cue called motion parallax, where you 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.920 see things closer they are, the faster they moved, the 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.680 further away they are, the slower they move. This was 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:48.880 at a distance away, so it appeared to kind of 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.440 follow their car, but it was at not the distance 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.000 away that the stars were, so it was moving differently 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.200 from the stars, so it could look really weird if 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:02.800 you don't know what you're looking at. Route three runs 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.000 about two and eighty miles from the Canadian border in 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.120 New Hampshire, south to Boston. The main events of the 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.000 hill siding took place over a distance of about a 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.400 dozen miles from the Mount Cleveland Scenic Area to somewhere 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.800 around the Indian Head Resort. This stretch takes you from 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:26.040 just north of Franconia Notch through the notch itself, with 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.240 mountains on either side, including Cannon Mountain and The Old 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.280 Man in the Mountain on the right, and Mount Lafayette 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.640 on the left. After about seven miles in the notch, 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:42.080 Route three exits into the lower hills, including the area 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:47.719 around Indian Head. On a November afternoon, I drove this 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.640 route that Betty and Barney took. It struck me that 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:57.240 so much has changed since. Once you enter Franconia Notch, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.280 it's hard to feel like you are really recreate aiding 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:04.640 their journey with any sort of precision. The path Route 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.240 three takes follows the same course north of the notch 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.320 at the Mount Cleveland picnic area and south of the 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.640 Notch around Indian Head, but the section that goes through 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.200 the notch itself has been merged with the newer Root 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:24.160 ninety three and takes a slightly different course. The Old 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.920 Man in the Mountain has also changed. It was a 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.240 naturally formed rock outcropping that, when viewed at the right angle, 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.960 as it was by thousands and thousands of tourists every year, 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:40.000 looked like the craggy profile of an old man. It's 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:44.200 gone now collapsing on May third, two thousand and three, 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:49.160 but it was there in and the Hills reportedly used 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:54.440 that profile to estimate the size of the UFO. So 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.720 they entered Franconian Notch, driving south, with Cannon Mountain on 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:03.280 their right. Most skeptics agree that at this point, even 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.920 if she had previously been seeing Jupiter, Betty is looking 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.000 at the lights on the summit of Cannon Mountain. Barney 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.360 is driving. Once they are in the notch, they stop 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.920 at some point near the Old Man in the mountain. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:20.920 They get out of the car to look at the UFO. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.200 It is now close enough to be recognizable as a 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:30.440 craft of some sort, not just a light. They stopped 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.760 again at the base of the Old Man of the mountain. 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.320 They got out and they looked up at this thing 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.880 again through binoculars. As they're watching it, it appeared to 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.480 be lighted on only one side, and it appeared to 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:48.200 be rotating. It's here that the story becomes more incredible. 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.920 A planet or a summit light are no longer adequate explanations. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.240 My name is Travis Roy. I run Grand State Skeptics. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.360 I spent about a year researching the Betting and Barney 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.560 Hill abduction and going to the archives at U n 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.000 H to look through all the original documentation, and in 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.600 my day job, i am a I T guy. Travis 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.480 realized that the moment at which the Hills UFO became 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.960 more than a light is the same time that they 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.320 were near the Cannon Mountain Tramway. The Old Man in 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.640 the Mountain Historic site is right where Cannon Mountain Aerial 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.120 Tramway is. Then you have Cannon Mountain to the southwest 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.600 of that, and then it's about six and a half 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.480 miles to get to Indian Head Resort. So if you're 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.680 talking three miles up from Indian Head, you can see 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.160 the top of Cannon Mountain. It's not until you get 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.600 within like a mile or two of Indian Head that 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.920 you can't see it. So if they saw something at 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.720 the Old Man of the Mountain site, and then on 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.720 the way towards Indian Head, they pulled over and looked 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.760 through binoculars and saw something. It seems totally plausible to 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.720 me that they would have saw the Cannon Mountain Tramway 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.520 and then they the next thing they saw driving down 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.520 the road would have been Indian Head Resort, which makes sense. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.600 That's how I would explain it too, if it happened 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:24.080 to me and the Hills description of the UFO seems 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.720 similar to the appearance of the tram car that was 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.880 used in the early nineteen sixties. If you look at 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:35.120 the picture of the craft, it looks kind of like 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.400 the old tramway, not the current one, but the one 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.080 that existed at the time. It's much more boxy than 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.159 your typical UFO that you think of as a flying saucer, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:52.560 and it had things protruding from the sides. But I 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.560 mean that could be the way the lights are, or 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.840 it could have been reflections on something. It could have 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.320 been anything, but the actual craft piece of it, where 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.200 it has the body of the craft and the windows 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.520 and the figures inside, looks very similar to what the 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.760 Cannon Tramway looked like at the time. The Cannon Mountain 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:17.160 Tramway was built in It was the first aerial passenger 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:22.520 tramway in North America. The base station for the tramway 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.520 is just a few hundred yards from the Old Man 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.119 in the Mountain parking lot. There's now a gift store 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:34.720 where the viewing area once was. One skeptical theory is 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.359 that Betty and Barney expected to see a UFO, saw 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:43.240 the tram car and were confused. On the face of it, 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.560 it's not such a far fetched idea. One of the 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.919 hard things about trying to recreate what happened during that 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.240 brief time is that it is not clear where they 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.439 stopped after the Mount Cleveland Scenic Area. They could have 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.840 pulled over at any point around the Old Man in 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:04.000 the mountain. If they were north of the tramway, It's 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.159 entirely possible that the tram car passed in front of 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.760 their view of the Old Man. There aren't many visual 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.040 cues there to determine distance. In the darkness, especially when 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.320 looking through binoculars, the tram car would have seemed bigger 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.800 compared to the Old Man because it would have been 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:29.000 much closer to where Betty and Barney had stopped. The 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.439 problem is that there's no evidence that the tram was 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.879 running at that late hour. It was well after the 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.080 last scheduled tourist run. The restaurant at the top of 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.920 Cannon Mountain was closing around that time, so maybe it 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.119 was being used to bring down staff or something like that, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.760 but there's no record of it from the old man 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.040 in the mountain. They continued south for a few miles, 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.760 briefly stopping at times, and eventually encountering the craft in 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.720 the field near Indian Head. This is where Barney saw 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.440 the figures in the craft looking back at him. He 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.760 took his binoculars, helped him up to his eyes and 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.080 looked up at this object. He could see a lighted 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.160 row of windows that seemed to be around the front 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:23.040 part of this craft. Gazing back at him were between 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:28.400 eight and eleven figures inside the craft. The skeptical explanation 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.960 begins with Betty and Barney's fatigue and stress. They've been 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:37.359 on the road for hours. Betty in particular, thinks they 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.640 are being followed by a UFO. Her nervousness is affecting 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:47.400 Barney because they are not thinking clearly, they misconstrue whatever 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:52.080 they see near Indian Head. With this in mind, Travis 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.080 Roy speculates about what they might have seen. I've done 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:01.280 that drive and you can't see Cannon Mountain from the 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.720 Indian Head Resort. You can see it from a small 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.280 drive north. The distance isn't that much, And that goes 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.280 back to what I said about how it's really hard 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.640 to tell exactly where you are. The other thing, too, 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.520 is is that and they're retelling of it. They pulled 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.560 over at one point at Indian Head and Barney went 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.480 across the street and looked at the craft through binoculars. Now, 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.439 if they were doing that, I mean Indian Head Resort 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.000 was there during that time, there would have been other 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.840 people around there. I mean, even in the middle of 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.880 the night, there's still like the hotel staff and stuff, 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.840 and there would have been lights on and everything else. 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.720 So I really don't think that that's where they stopped 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.760 to look at the craft, because if they saw that, 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.240 wouldn't you have gone into the hotel for help or like, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.840 I'm seeing this crazy thing. I think that it happened 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.320 north of Indian Head before they got there, and they 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.679 just say at it's Indian Head because that was the 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:07.320 next landmark that they hit. There is a problem with 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:12.360 this explanation. Betty actually describes passing the Indian Head Resort 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.679 before they have the encounter in the field because they 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.960 are traveling from north to south. If you are sure 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.240 that Betty is right about the sequence of events, this 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:29.840 doesn't fit Travis's timeline. Jim McDonald has an alternate explanation 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.159 for this part of the story, which is consistent with 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.560 Betty's sequence of events. He believes that the encounter in 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.439 the field happened in Woodstock, about eight miles south of 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:46.359 the Indian Head Resort. They continue on south and here 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.760 comes the really horrible part of this. They get down 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:55.320 to Woodstock where you find the jack O lanterns, which 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.080 back in the early sixties had a large inflatable, glowing 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.000 red or orange spherical jack lantern up on the roof 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.280 of the motel, and this got inflated in their minds 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.480 with the glowing red orange moon with the white aircraft 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.560 warning light on the top of Cannon Mountain, and it 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:15.479 is my belief that this is the point where they 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:18.399 leaped out of their cars were running around the field, 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:24.040 and that later under hypnotic regression, became the abduction site. 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:27.359 Later on, months later, when they were trying to find 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:29.760 the place where they were abducted, they didn't find it, 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.800 and they decided it must have been near Indian Heads somewhere, 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.880 because it had to have been south of Franconian Notch. 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:41.040 But it's notoriously difficult to find again during daylight someplace 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:44.480 that you've only seen at night and memory is weird. 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.280 Could this be the place? Yes, this was the place. 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:53.840 It is the place, and it became fixed. Robert Shaffer 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:58.919 doesn't even point to any particular physical object for him, 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:04.440 their exhaustion and excitement are explanation enough. Once they finally 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.679 reached the state where they were both very excited and 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.280 frightened when they got to this area called the Indian Head, 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.000 which is like a profile on them, a mountain like 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.520 the Old Man of the Mountain used to be. I'm 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:17.840 not sure what they were seeing at certain times there, 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.240 but yeah, they neither one of them was any longer 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:25.000 in a rational state of mind at that point. Fatigue 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.360 and fear do a lot of heavy lifting in these explanations. 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:33.800 Without these two factors, they aren't very convincing. If you 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:37.439 are predisposed to think that the Hills were abducted, you 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:40.679 probably don't buy them. But it's important to keep in 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.720 mind that even if you don't accept any of these explanations. 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.119 The default is not an alien spaceship. In fact, the 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:53.520 burden of proof is with the proponents of the Hills story. 0:24:54.760 --> 0:25:01.040 Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What we 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.120 have is a great story, but little in the way 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:08.959 of convincing proof that had happened. This applies to the 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:11.879 physical evidence that Betty and Barney had at the end 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:17.359 of their trip. Remember how Kathleen Martin described Betty's torn 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:22.560 dress and Barney's scuff shoes. According to the abduction story, 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:25.560 these happened when the Hills were being brought through the 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:31.160 woods to the spacecraft. Is there another explanation? So what 0:25:31.200 --> 0:25:34.399 else do we have. We've got Betty's dress, which was torn. 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:37.080 I have no idea how she tore her dress. There's 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:39.639 lots of ways to tear a dress, particularly leaping in 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:42.520 and out of a car in Fields and New Hampshire 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:45.119 in the middle of the night. The dress developed a 0:25:45.160 --> 0:25:50.080 white powder on it some years later, which exactly resembles mold, 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:54.600 and barney shoes were scuffed, easy enough to do with 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:59.480 a stick shift car, gas pedal, brake, pedal and clutch, 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:02.359 and while leaping in and out of a car in 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:04.840 open Fields, New Hampshire, in the middle of the night. 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:10.760 Jim McDonald did not mention the broken binocular strap, but 0:26:10.840 --> 0:26:15.479 presumably the same explanation would apply. The strap gets snagged 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:18.679 on the door, perhaps as Barney jumps out of the car, 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:23.239 which leaves the most compelling and most frustrating piece of 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:27.440 physical evidence, the shiny spots on the trunk of their car. 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:32.679