179 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
179 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: THE HILL ABDUCTION CASE FILE: UFO2713
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PART 12
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THE ZETA RETICULI INCIDENT
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By Terence Dickinson with related commentary by: Jeffrey L.
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Kretsch, Carl Sagan, Steven Soter, Robert Schaeffer, Marjorie Fish,
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David Saunders, and Michael Peck.
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(C) 1976 by AstroMedia, Corp., publisher of Astronomy Magazine.
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[...]
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the experience [Hill abduction] remains a fascinating story despite the
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absence of proof that it actually happened. Anyway -- that's where
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things were in 1966 when Marjorie Fish, an Ohio schoolteacher, amateur
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astronomer and member of Mensa, became involved. She wondered if the
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objects shown on the map that Betty Hill allegedly observed inside the
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vehicle might represent some actual pattern of celestial objects. To
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get more information about the map she decided to visit Betty Hill in
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the summer of 1969. (Barney Hill died in early 1969.) Here is Ms.
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Fish's account of that meeting:
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"On Aug.4, 1969, Betty Hill discussed the star map with me. Betty
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explained that she drew the map in 1964 under posthypnotic suggestion.
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It was to be drawn only if she could remember it accurately, and she
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was not to pay attention to what she was drawing -- which puts it in
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the realm of automatic drawing. This is a way of getting at repressed
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or forgotten material and can result in unusual accuracy. She made two
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erasures showing her conscious mind took control part of the time.
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"Betty described the map as three-dimensional, like looking through a
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window. The stars were tinted and glowed. The map material was flat and
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thin (not a model), and there were no noticeable lenticular lines like
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one of our three-dimensional processes. (It sounds very much like a
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reflective hologram.) Betty did not shift her position while viewing
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it, so we cannot tell if it would give the same three-dimensional view
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from all positions or if it would be completely three-dimensional.
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Betty estimated the map was approximately three feet wide and two feet
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high with the pattern covering most of the map. She was standing about
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three feet away from it. She said there were many other stars on the
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map but she only (apparently) was able to specifically recall the
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prominent ones connected by lines and a small distinctive triangle off
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to the left. There was no concentration of stars to indicate the Milky
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Way (galactic plane) suggesting that if it represented reality, it
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probably only contained local stars. There were no grid lines."
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[...]
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Now we are ready to return to the map drawn by Betty Hill. Marjorie
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Fish reasoned that if the stars in the Hill map corresponded to a
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patter of real stars -- perhaps something like we just developed, only
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from an alien's viewpoint -- it might be possible to pinpoint the
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origin of the alleged space travelers. Assuming the two stars in the
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foreground of the Hill map were the "base" stars (the sun, a single
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star, was ruled out here), she decided to try to locate the entire
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pattern. She theorized that the Hill map contained only local stars
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since no concentration would be present if a more distant viewpoint was
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assumed and if both "us" and the alien visitors' home base were to be
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represented.
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Let's assume, just as an astronomical exercise, that the map does
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show the sun and the star that is "the sun" to the humanoids. We'll
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take the Hill encounter at face value, and see where it leads.
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Since the aliens were described as "humanoid" and seemed reasonably
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comfortable on this planet, their home planet should be basically like
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ours. Their atmosphere must be similar because the Hills breathed
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without trouble while inside the ship, and the aliens did not appear to
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wear any protective apparatus. And since we assume their biology is
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similar to ours, their planet should have the same temperature regime
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as Earth (Betty and Barney did say it was uncomfortably cold in the
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ship). In essence, then, we assume their home planet must be very
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Earthlike. Based on what we discussed earlier it follows that their sun
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would be on our list if it were within 55 light-years of us.
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The lines on the map, according to Betty Hill, were described by the
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alien as "trade routes" or "places visited occasionally" with the
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dotted lines as "expeditions". Any interpretation of the Betty Hill map
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must retain the logic of these routes (i.e. the lines would link stars
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that would be worth visiting).
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Keeping all this in mind, Marjorie Fish constructed several three-
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dimensional models of the solar neighborhood in hopes of detecting the
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pattern in the Hill map. Using beads dangling on threads, she
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painstakingly recreated our stellar environment. Between Aug. 1968 and
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Feb. 1973, she strung beads, checked data, searched and checked again.
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A suspicious alignment, detected in late 1968, turned out to be almost
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a perfect match once new data from the detailed 1969 edition of the
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Catalog of Nearby Stars became available. (This catalog is often called
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the "Gliese catalog" -- pronounced "glee-see" -- after its principal
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author, Wilhelm Gliese.)
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The 16 stars in the stellar configuration discovered by Marjorie Fish
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are compared with the map drawn by Betty Hill in the diagram on page 6.
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If some of the star names on the Fish map sound familiar, they should.
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Ten of the 16 stars are from the compact group that we selected earlier
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based on the most logical direction to pursue to conduct interstellar
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exploration from Earth.
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Continuing to take the Hill map at face value, the radiating pattern
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of "trade routes" implies that Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli are the "hub"
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of exploration or, in the context of the incident, the aliens' home
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base. The sun is at the end of one of the supposedly regular trade
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routes.
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The pair of stars that make up Zeta Reticuli is practically in the
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midst of the cluster of solar type stars that attracted us while we
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were mapping out a logical interstellar voyage. Checking further we
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find that all but two of the stars in the Fish pattern are on the table
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of nearby solar type stars. These two stars are Tau 1 Eridani (an F6
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star) and Gliese 86.1 (K2), and are, respectively, just above and below
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the parameters we arrived at earlier. One star that should be there
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(Zeta Tucanae) is missing probably because it is behind Zeta 1 Reticuli
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at the required viewing angle.
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To summarize, then: (1) the pattern discovered by Marjorie Fish has
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an uncanny resemblance to the map drawn by Betty Hill; (2) the stars
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are mostly the ones that we would visit if we were exploring from Zeta
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Reticuli, and (3) the travel patterns generally make sense.
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Walter Mitchell, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in
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Columbus, has looked at Marjorie Fish's interpretation of the Betty
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Hill map in detail and tells us, "The more I examine it, the more I am
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impressed by the astronomy involved in Marjorie Fish's work."
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During their examination of the map, Mitchell and some of his
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students inserted the positions of hundreds of nearby stars into a
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computer and had various space vistas brought up on a cathode ray tube
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readout. They requested the computer to put them in a position out
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beyond Zeta Reticuli looking toward the sun. From this viewpoint the
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map pattern obtained by Marjorie Fish was duplicated with virtually no
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variations. Mitchell noted an important and previously unknown fact
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first pointed out by Ms. Fish: The stars in the map are almost in a
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plane; that is, they fill a wheel shaped volume of space that makes
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star hopping from one to another easy and the logical way to go -- and
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that is what is implied by the map that Betty Hill allegedly saw.
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"I can find no major point of quibble with Marjorie Fish's
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interpretation of the Betty Hill map," says David R. Saunders, a
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statistics expert at the Industrial Relations Center of the University
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of Chicago. By various lines of statistical reasoning he concludes that
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the chances of finding a match among 16 stars of a specific spectral
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type among the thousand-odd stars nearest the sun is "at least 1,000 to
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1 against".
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"The odds are about 10,000 to 1 against a random configuration
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matching perfectly with Betty Hill's map," Saunders reports. "But the
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star group identified by Marjorie Fish isn't quite a perfect match, and
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the odds consequently reduce to about 1,000 to 1. That is, there is one
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chance in 1,000 that the observed degree of congruence would occur in
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the volume of space we are discussing.
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"In most fields of investigation where similar statistical methods
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are used, that degree of congruence is rather persuasive," concludes
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Saunders.
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Saunders, who has developed a monumental computerized catalog of more
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than 60,000 UFO sightings, tells us that the Hill case is not unique in
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its general characteristics -- there are other known cases of alleged
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communication with extraterrestrials. But in no other case on record
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have maps ever been mentioned.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |