A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

Benjamin Simon, a Boston psychiatrist and neurologist who had developed his hypnotic skills
treating World War II veterans. Stephens felt that Simon might be able to shed some light on
Barney’s professed period of amnesia and his fears that something highly strange might have
occurred during that forgotten passage of time. Initially, the events of the night of September 19,
1961 were not viewed by either Stephens or Barney as central to the latter’s current general
malaise. The two spent their time together exploring Barney’s childhood, questions of race and
the vagaries of his entry into a mixed-race marriage in a small New Hampshire town. While
maintaining the UFO incident was ancillary to Barney’s emotional distress, Dr. Stephens
conceded that it was best to be thorough.
The three preliminary sessions with Dr. Simon began in December of 1963. It was in the
fifth session, on the twenty-ninth of February, 1964, that the veil obscuring what had occurred at
Indian Head began to lift. This sense of “removing the veil” indicates the notion of authentic
truth underlying surface manifestations implicit in the model of hypnotic regression. In its
subscription to this idea—that of some singular, accessible truth—and in its estimation of
psychoanalysis as science, the study of abduction has continued to express a desire for the union
of rational modes of inquiry and irrational objects. It was through the application of this
ostensibly rational mode of inquiry that the abduction narrative emerged, a story that was far
from rational. 260
The first of the Hills (they were treated separately and alternately, one in the
examination room while the other waited outside) to begin recalling the forgotten or repressed
events was Barney. His recall was less enlightening than that of Betty because he had kept his
eyes closed for almost the entirety of the events that occurred during the period of lost time.
Prior to the moment at which the Hills’ shared memory lapse began, Barney had pulled over the
260 Of course there is a long and stormy tale that could be told about the fortunes of psychoanalysis vis-à-vis its
acceptance among a broader scientific community as science. It seems fitting that such a border dwelling discipline
would serve as the rational bridge to the twilit world of abduction.
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