All language subtitles for On.The.Trail.of.UFOs.S01E07.The.Taken.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

(Ominous ambient music)

(Computer bleeps)

(Metal scrapes)

(Alien grunts)

(Alien screams)

(Metal scrapes)

(Alien grunts)

(Air whooshes)

(Computer bleeps)

- Oh, we would cross over
the water into New Hampshire.

I think we started to
see this light, following.

Actually, in the very beginning,

I noticed a bright
light in the sky.

(Computer bleeps)

We thought it was a party,

so we thought, we
gotta get out to look at it.

And that's when it
changed direction,

and started coming
in, towards us.

I'm trying to attract the
attention of this craft.

I'm telling it,
"come on, here! Hi!"

I got the window
down. I'm yelling to him,

"hey! Hey! Over here!"

(Ominous cinematic music)

And at that point, it left
the top of the mountain,

came out, over the highway,

and stopped in midair,
directly in front of us.

Barney got out
with the binoculars,

in an attempt to
identify the craft.

And when he looked up,

he saw a circular window,

and he saw these...
(Alien grunts)

Standing behind the
window, looking down at him,

and he became frightened,

ran back to the cars,

and he thought they
were trying to capture him.

And we were speeding down
the highway to avoid capture.

And Barney turned
off, onto a side road.

And here, with a group of men

he had seen on the craft,

standing in the
middle of this road,

blocking our way.

And naturally, he
had to stop the car,

and they came up in two groups,

took us out of the car,

passing the woods, to where
the craft was on the ground.

- There's nothing
on earth quite like

the white mountains
of New Hampshire.

Beautiful and rugged.

Endless forest and rock.

Stark contrasts
everywhere you look.

On September 20th, 1961,

Betty and Barney hill claimed
they were abducted by a ufo.

And in the waning
years since the event,

they've become ufological icons.

We've come to
the white mountains

to experience a place with
a rich history of ufo sightings,

that stretches
back into the 1800s.

Amongst the crew
with us for this trip

are aleksandar petakov,

and skeptically-minded
investigator, Adam duggan.

I've avoided looking too deeply

into the abduction
side of the subject,

maybe because I
just didn't find the time,

or maybe because, deep down,
I'm aware there's something

so primal and
terrifying about it.

People around the world
have claimed for centuries

to have been taken aboard
craft of unknown origin,

and been mutilated, maimed,
and experimented upon.

If I'm going to
look into this topic,

then there's no
better place to start

than where it all began.

(Crickets chirp) (Owls hooting)

(Glitchy cinematic music)

(Heart beats) (Static crackles)

The white mountains

are a part of the
appalachian mountain range,

that covers almost a quarter
of the state, in New Hampshire,

and stretch into Maine.

It's home to mt. Washington:

The highest peak in the
northeastern United States.

By far, this region's most
infamous ufological event

was the Betty and
Barney hill abduction,

which occurred just down
the street from franconia,

where we're staying
while in the area.

- They had larger
eyes than ours,

smaller nose,

a smaller mouth.

No protruding part
of the ear, and no hair.

I was taken into
this first room,

and it was quite bare.

There was a small
table. There was a stool.

They put me on the stool,

checked my eyes,
ears, nose, throat.

My feet. My hands.

And then, he put me on a table,

and said they were gonna
check my nervous system.

And then, he tried to insert

a needle-like instrument in
my navel, which caused pain.

Then, the examiner left,

went into the room
where Barney was.

With Barney, most of the
exam was the same as mine,

except they were interested
in his bone structure,

and they were feeling
all up and down his spine,

his arms, basically.

- There's a whole subset
of people within ufology

who

support, believe
in, and write about

and research the large
number of cases of abductees.

And when I use that term,

what that means is that
it's someone who claims

that they have been
abducted by aliens,

sometimes on more
than one occasion,

and typically,
studied physically,

with medical
examinations, and so forth.

- In terms of abductions,

I think it's an area
of these phenomenon

that many people
aren't willing to go to,

or to face the fact
that it's happening,

again, now, recently.

Kind of scares me.

You know? I thought,
maybe, this was something

that happened at
one point in time,

and it was just a weird
phenomenon that was occurring,

and that we'd never
deal with it again.

It's a really dark path.

- There are thousands, if notー

and I think, most likely,
hundreds of thousands of people,

acrossーwell, right here
in the United States, itself,

who believe that they've
had experiences with aliens.

It's kind of where the
contactee movement went,

where, as opposed
to just messages,

these people feel that they
are being taken into a craft,

that medical experiments
are being done on them,

and then, they're
being dropped off, again.

- I was probablyーi was
one of the first in the country

to investigate alleged
abduction cases.

We have numerous reports
around western Pennsylvania.

We could have spent, full-time,

working on just
abduction reports,

'cause you can spend weeks
and months and years on one case,

and we have multitudes of
reports coming in, all the time.

So, we did the best we could.

- To my, you know,

my way of looking at things,

it's Betty and Barney hill,

and their case that
really introduces the idea

of an involuntary
period of time,

where you're experimented upon,

shown various things, and then,

taken back to your normal life,

with some sort of missing time.

- Betty and Barney hill's
experience opened the door

for a flood of similar
reports to begin coming in.

Where previously,
encounters with aliens

had been relegated
to the accounts

of those in the
contactee movement,

there was now another way

for those who claimed
experiences with extraterrestrials

to quantify it for
the general public.

The hills reported physical
and emotional ramifications

that flew in the face

of the typically
benevolent space brothers

encountered by contactees,

and seemed to
point toward a force

that approached humanity
with detached clinical precision.

Despite the popularity
of the hill story,

it would be decades before
the abductee phase of ufology

really kicked off.

In the meantime,
investigators and researchers

began to look at
some historical reports,

in the context of a
post-abduction world.

- There was a very important,
I think, and famous case,

which is the James everall case.

1638,

down, along the Charles riverー

the muddy river in
Cambridge, Boston area.

And it was a case,
where James everall,

he and two others went out,

one night, and
they went downriver.

They're gonna go
out, and inspect hides

that'd come in, on their boat,

in a lighter, which is a small,

probably like a rowboat-type
device, to get out.

And what was curious is,

is the light was seen over
charlestown, that night,

that was in the shape ofー

they called it the shape of
a swine, which is interesting.

There's a green light
that ran to and forth,

back from charlestown,
over Boston,

down, towards watertown,

and the only thing I can
think of of that shape,

it's obviously a cigar shape.

The most interesting
part of it was

is that this took place for
over two hours, apparently,

because James everall mentioned

that he and his two
companions, two hours later,

after seeing the green
light, found themselves up,

back where they had begun
their journey, against the tide.

And so, the tide was,
say, like, outgoing,

and now, two hours
later, after seeing this,

they're back where they started,

against that.

- It almost seems
like a very early...

- I think it's a classic thing,

of two hours of missing time,

what we would call today,
like with Betty and Barney hill,

an alien abduction.

- The thing that I find the
most compelling about it,

really,

is that we can, again, tie
this into historical accounts,

delve back into folklore,

and look at the concept
that, you know, in early days,

people in Europe
talked about the fae,

and they described
abduction stories.

"Oh, I met these little people,

"and I had a visit with
them, in their banquet hall,

"and then, when I came back,

"I thought I had
been gone two hours,

"but it was three days."

- So, oftentimes, people
will point towards ufo stories,

or abduction stories
being incredibly similar

to fae or fairy stories that
we have from the British isles.

One of the ways
that this comes out

is through what they
called changeling stories,

which is fairies
come in the night,

to replace the baby of a woman
who has recently given birth,

and the woman knows
that it's not her child.

Either it's crying all the time,

or the baby was
crying all the time,

and now, it's completely silent.

Like, behaviorally,
the child is different,

and without an
explanation for that,

she offers up the idea
that it's a changeling.

More often than not, this is
a very poor end for the child,

where it's then abandoned
in the woods, for example,

because the mother knows,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,

it is not her
child, but instead,

it's a child of the fae.

- There are some
old abduction cases,

but they're very rare.

And what you get, far
more often, in the cases of,

even like, the airship run,

and the airship flaps.

There was a sense, in
which people could interact

with the occupants
of those vehicles,

that these strange
ships, whatever they were,

would occasionally land,
and people would be invited

to come onboard, and even
tour the facilities, as it were.

So, it really isn't
until much later

that these start to
become a situation

where the abductee is
taken, against their will.

- I remember one case,

and this would've
been north of Pittsburgh,

and I did have an opportunity
to go interview this person,

'cause this always
stuck with me,

and this is probably late 1960s.

This fellow would get
up early during the nightー

early morning
hoursーand would go out

in the middle of the woods,

and allegedly, was
going to board this object

that was landed on the ground,

and had various type
of physical experiments,

and whatever going on.

The one thing I remembered
he kept mentioning,

what these little creatures
looked like, and he said,

"they look like
pillsbury doughboys."

And I always thought it
was such a great description,

because that was long before
you were really hearing much

about the grays, and these
small, humanoid creatures.

The general public didn't
know a lot about it, back then.

- In the late 80s and early 90s,

the abduction phenomenon
was pushed into the spotlight,

thanks to books,
like "communion,"

movies, like "fire in the sky,"

and television shows,
like "the x-files."

Travis walton's
purported abduction

while in the forests
of eastern Arizona

was in the limelight for years,

and may have helped to
push pop culture even further

into embracing a subject
that had been overlooked,

since the hills.

Mostly, pop culture
portrayed abductions

in the ways the hills or walton

relayed their own experiences:

With strange lights coming
to take victims into the air,

where they were
inevitably experimented on,

in an increasingly
grizzly fashion.

Despite what
Hollywood was saying,

this wasn't the encounter

that all experiencers
claimed to have,

and very often, the contact

seemed to defy
rational explanation.

In many instances, the
events were so bizarre,

they left the victim believing
that it was little more

than a surrealist nightmare.

Donovan Smith believes
he experienced something

that defies explanation,
when he was just a kid,

and that the event points
to an abduction experience.

Despite taking
place decades ago,

the event still affects
him deeply, today,

but has left him wondering

if, maybe, he didn't simply
dream the whole thing up.

- Well, it was
around '91 to '92.

It was late night.
I was sleeping.

I woke up. I had
to use the restroom.

We had three bedrooms,
and we had three kids,

so, two of us had
to share a bedroom,

so, we had bunk beds
in one of the rooms.

And I happened to be
sleeping on the bottom bunk,

and one night, I woke up,

and I swung my feet
over the side of the bed,

and I was just sitting there.

I looked down, and
there was nothing,

and I looked back up,
and I went to go stand up,

and I couldn't stand
up for some reason.

So, I looked back down,
and when I looked down,

I saw what appeared
to be, like, green mist.

Some kind of greenish mist.

Pretty solid, and it was
swirling around my feet.

And so, I tried to
stand up, and I couldn't,

and, you know, I figured it's
probably because of the mist,

or whatever.

And I didn't know what it was,

and it looked like it was
coming from underneath my bed.

When it was around my ankles,

it looked almost like
shackles, almost, kinda,

'cause it was more
solid in the middle,

like it was all connected
as one big thing.

And then, the next
thing I know, I just,

I looked up again,
looked back down,

the stuff was gone,
and I could stand up.

And after that, I
got really nervous.

So, I went and
used the restroom,

and when I came
back, I was so scared

that I jumped onto my bed,

because I didn't
want to get my feet

anywhere near the
bottom of the bed,

because I didn't know
if something, you know,

was underneath the bed,
or what it might've been.

About a day or two later,

there was a kid in my
neighborhood, who told me

that he saw a big black
triangle-looking spaceship

in the sky.

And he said that it had lights
that looked like a v-shape.

I'm not sure if it
wasーwhen he saw it,

but it was around
that exact time

that that stuff happened to me.

You know, it's one of
those things, where it's like,

you always look back,
and you're like, you know,

did it really
happen? Was it real?

But, you know, it's
so vivid in my memory.

I see the picture, you know,

I could see it, clear as
day, every time. You know?

Every time I think about it.

- So, this is where folklorists
will take a step back,

and they'll apply
two different theories.

The first is called the cultural
source hypothesis theory,

which is a theoretical
perspective,

where people who have had
experiences of the supernatural

are formulating their
stories or their experiences,

solely based on a
cultural understanding

of what that should look like.

Experiential source hypothesis

is almost the exact
opposite of that,

where it says that
people might have

a minor cultural awareness

of supernatural or
paranormal phenomena,

but instead, when they're
sharing their stories,

it's based on something that
actually happened to them

that's unexplainable.
We don't know what it is.

So, it's not necessarily saying
a ufo is an alien spaceship,

but instead, what it's
saying is that the ufo

is something unidentified,

it's something they
don't know what it is,

and when they talk about
their story of seeing that,

or being abducted, or having
any type of contact with that,

their story is formulated
based on their experience.

- I think we should
have scientists,

and especially
psychologists looking at this

to figure out, is
this just mental?

Is there a physical side to it?

What's going on, here?

Even if it is just, kind of, a

emotional manifestation
that happens,

you know, why is that?

Do these people
need to be treated?

What's going on, here?

- Traveling the seemingly
serene landscapes

of some sections of
the white mountains

gives me a greater appreciation
for how alone and isolated

the hills must've
felt, back in 1961.

Here, you are never very close

to any real signs
of civilization,

and even during
the daylight hours,

you get a sense of isolation.

It's chilling to think about
traveling these same roads,

late at night,
almost 60 years ago,

before there were
even the modest houses,

gas stations, and
villages that have grown up

around the area, since.

The hills' abduction
set the stage

for many experiencers
to come forward

with their own encounters.

But, it also helped
establish tropes

that have been
reported, ever since.

From physical aftereffects,

like scars and
markings on abductees,

to supposed alien implants,
recovered from those taken,

the phenomenon has
continued to grow only stranger

in the waning years.

This includes the theories

as to why people are
being abducted to begin with.

- People who are experiencers

talk very frequently
about the idea

of hybrid alien-human children,

especially male and
female experiencers

will say that their biological
anatomy has been utilized

for the production
of a hybrid child.

- There are some
that even feel that

they have beenーfor
women, impregnated,

or for men, that semen
samples have been taken.

And then, a step beyond
that, is there's a group of people

who believe they've had children

that they believe
are hybrid children

that they're shown
on these spacecraft,

and things like this.

- So, when we talk
about conspiracy theories,

there is one other one that
we should probably touch on.

That is a conspiracy
involved with alien abduction,

and the idea that

aliens

are running some kind
of a breeding program,

or a hybridization program.

And it's this concept that

there's either something wrong

with the genetics
of this alien race,

or they want to
possibly invade our world

in a more insidious way, by
creating alien-human hybrids.

- Locations where a high
volume of ufo sightings come in

are frequently associated
with abductions,

and nowhere is this more
prevalent than the Hudson valley.

During the 1980s and '90s,

a string of
triangular ufo reports

flooded in from around the area.

The Hudson valley
flaps connection,

with famed abductee,
whitley strieber,

is often overlooked,

but strieber was living
in the pine bush area

of the valley in 1985,

when the events
that went on to inform

his bestselling abductee
recounting communion was written.

Strieber wasn't the only witness

having contact with
the pilots of the craft

seen around the
area at the time.

- When I first
started my research,

I really expected that
99% of the stories would be,

"oh, I saw a distant
light in the sky."

The largest chapter in my
book turned out to be abductions.

More often than not, I don't
have a percentage for you,

but I think the majority
of these close sightings

ended up in some
sort of missing time,

in some sort of
contactee experience,

or just out-and-out abductions.

It was rampant,
particularly in the 1980s.

- I remember,

I saw this object.

We lived by a quarry,

so, there was, on,
like, a mountaintop,

at the end of my road,

and I saw a craft, there,

in the daytime, when
I was a little boy.

You know, my whole
childhood growing up,

I had these experiences,

and

I saw this craft
over the trap rock,

andー

I told my father at one point,

and we walked up there.

He took me by the hand
and walked up the road,

and he sent me back home,

'cause I couldn't
climb up the mountain.

And I don't know what he
was going up there for, really.

I guess he saw it, too.

You know, I went back home,

I'm not really sure if I
went back home by myself,

or I waited for
him to come down,

or what, but,

different things happened to me

through my life,
at different periods,

and we moved from the house,

I think, when I was
about 10 years old,

and we moved from where
we were to another town,

and I don't remember
any experiences happening

until

I got married, and
I moved up here.

One night, I went to the
store to get some beer.

It was a Friday night.

I kept getting this
feeling to go out.

To go out to the store.

I didn't really want to go out.

It was, like, one of the
coldest nights of the winter.

I remember seeing these lights,

moving through the
woods, that night.

I went down this back road,

and the store is about
10 minutes away.

And as I made a right
to follow this Ridge,

this craft was, kind of,
appeared over the Ridge,

and it kept pace with my car.

As I drove along, and
I kept looking up at it,

and it was just moving
with me, over the trees.

And at one point, I
came around a turn,

and it was down on the ground.

This big light.

And it looked like a big egg,

shape, you know.

But, it was house-sized,

and there was mist
swirling all around it,

I distinctly remember.

And then, I remember
just having this feeling

come all over my body.

It started tingling, and all
my hair was, like, standing up.

And the next thing I knew,

I started my vehicle,
and drove off.

And iーso, I went
down to the store,

and when I got
there, it was midnight.

And I'd left the house
about 10 o'clock.

And anyway, I got some
beer and I went home.

I didn't drink it, 'cause
it was too late already,

but, yeah. I went home,
and my wife was hysterical.

- Were there physical
effects from any of this

that you can talk about, or...

- well, after that event,

I don't know if it
was the same night,

'cause a lot of things
started happening

after I had that encounter
there, on the road.

But, one morning, I woke up,

and there was dried blood
coming out of my nose.

It was all dried,
all over my face.

Scoops in the back
of my neck, here,

that you can put
your finger in, actually.

Shaped in a triangle.

- Any idea what was
going on with, you know,

your nose, or anything?

- No.

But, years later,

I had triplets,

and one morning, when I
went in to say goodbye to them,

they all had blood
coming out of their nose.

You know, they were sleeping,

but all of them had
blood dried on their face,

coming out of their nose.

Why could it happen
to me, as an adult, but.

- On many cases, all
kinds of physical effects:

Ill feeling, the classic
nosebleeds, scoop marks.

There was a whole variety of it.

I have not gotten a lot of,

"I was on a table, in aー

"in a craft-type thing."

Mostly, "I don't know
what just happened

"to the last two hours.

"And then, it
happened to my brother.

"And I found out that my
child is now experiencing it."

So, a lot of abduction
experiences,

many, many multi-generational
experiences, as well.

- I remember speaking
to the first abductee,

face-to-face, I ever did,

and her husband
sitting next to her,

and

he was holding
her hand so tight,

as she was recalling her
abduction experience to me,

and she was just
bawling her eyes out.

- With hers being so traumatic,

was it an ongoing situation,
or just a one-time event?

- It started as a
one-time event,

until

she started having
reoccurring dreams

that other things had happened.

Whether or not those dreams

or those memories are
real or not, I can't say,

but she

believes it was ongoing.

- What do youーdo you
think there's any tie-in

with genetic backgrounds,
in certainーit runs in families?

- The idea that the
abduction phenomenon

has some sort of relation
to lineage, or ancestry,

or even bloodlines
is very fascinating.

When you do look at it,

a lot of these people who are
claiming to have been abducted

do have similar blood types,

or it runs in the family.

You hear the grandpa
had an experience,

the dad, the daughter.

There could be
something to that.

- While I'd begun
investigating this topic

from the perspective
that people need to return

to the optimism that led the way

in the earliest
days of research,

I can't help but see why
some approach the subject

with such hesitance.

The abduction phenomenon has
thrown a wrench into the works.

That makes me
question if I even want

to look into a phenomenon

that can so quickly
turn on innocent people.

One interesting side-note is
that some purported abductees

don't have the same type
of negative experience

that many of those
taken claim to have.

In fact, some believe
the experience

to be overwhelmingly positive.

Whatever the case might be,

an experiencer seems to
undergo a traumatic event

that never fades
from their memory,

and can have lingering effects

that negatively or
positively impact

the rest of their lives.

- There are a lot of people
that are making these claims,

and these people
are not just all weirdos.

Some of these people
are very credible.

Some of them are professors,
law enforcement, scientists,

I mean, it runs the gamut

of people making
these sort of claims.

For that reason, I think it's
a very important situation

that we need to
pay attention to.

- And most of the
high-profile ufo cases

deal with people who
have been abducted.

There's also a move
towards changing

the term, abducted,
into experiencer,

in order to move away
from some of the stigma

that we find, when we look
at abductions, generally.

Oftentimes, that stigma
is presented in a way

that conflicts
with a lot of beliefs

we see in today's society
about appropriate behavior.

So, moving towards the
term, experiencer, instead,

allows us to navigate away
from some of that stigma,

and instead, look at the
validity of those experiences.

- I can just tell you, there
were some interesting reports.

Again, some of these
were very credible people.

I can't say they were
being abducted by aliens,

but something happened to
them that affected their lives.

Some of them, as I
recall, had some interesting

physical signs on them,

of something that had occurred.

- It was just a surreal
moment for me,

'cause I had always
heard of abductions,

they were always,
you know, kind of,

cool and sensational,

but until I sat
down with a woman

whose husband was there,

believes her, supports her,

and she is just so
overcome with emotion,

and clearly, some
sort of trauma,

I had no choice but to believe

something firmly
happened to her.

(Bold cinematic music)

- As with Phoenix, the Chestnut
Ridge, or the Hudson valley,

visiting a place like franconia

pushes the people at
the heart of the subject

to the front of my mind.

Betty hill, later in life,
believed that her own taking

was an innocent
and benevolent one.

Betty passed away in 2004,

but her story remains
as much a mystery

as it did when she was alive.

While dreams,
government manipulation,

and even simple
misidentification and outright lying

have been offered up by skeptics

as the cause for
the hills' abduction,

we still don't know
what happened in 1961.

Despite this fact, I
can't help but think

something really did happen
here, all those years ago.

And regardless of how
she might have felt about it

in her waning years,

the event had to have been
as baffling as it was terrifying.

- So, they put the sign up
in 2011, to commemorate it,

but I think it's kind of
interesting, just in general,

talking about abductions.

A lot of these people,

as we've found out,
talking to people,

it seems like they
actually have trauma:

Some sort of, almost like, PTSD,

that they, kind of, deal with,

that having a story like this

probably wouldn't
do them any favors.

- That's what I
was about to say.

It's not gonna do them
any good, whatsoever.

I mean, it's going
to make, probably,

a relatively,

I don't want to say hard life,

but it's gonna
make things harder.

It's not going to make
anything easier for them.

I don't know. I don't think itー

it does seem,

it does seem credible
on the surface, at least.

- I mean, what about
the other side of it,

to where you're
trying to figure out,

maybe a more logical,
terrestrial explanation

for an abduction, like Betty
and Barney went through.

- In my opinion, I
think a lot of them

have, perhaps, trauma,
that they have dealt with,

at younger ages, or
whatever the case may be,

and a way of rationalizing it.

It's perhaps saying
it's extraterrestrial,

as opposed to saying it's
somebody, maybe, close to you

that may have hurt you.

- I mean, what do you
guys think the chances are

that it was all the government,

and it was just a big
experiment to see how, maybe,

they would react,

and if they came out
and talked about it,

then how the public
would react to their story.

- It's...
- Or just imaginative people.

- Or imaginative people.

I mean, it really could
be. It really could be.

- Yeah, I think that's
the thing about all of this,

is that there is an infinite
amount of possibility, here.

I mean, you can literally
throw something up,

and it could
potentially be correct.

It could be the government
working with aliens,

the aliens working
with the government,

no aliens, no government,

or any combination
of all of those.

- There's probably
people who have

a lot more information
about this than we do,

and that's what
kind of is, I think,

frustrates a lot of people,

and I think, in some ways,

that may happen
to Betty hill, as well.

Obviously, I didn't know her,

but people who did
claim that, you know,

she was very straight-edge,

and all about, kind
of, the experience,

and trying to find out
what was happening.

So, maybe that's
the case, as well.

I don't know, but, like I said,

we're just, sort of, taking
shots in the dark, here. So.

- When every thread is so long.

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Coming up on the final
episode of on the trail of ufos.

(Dramatic cinematic music)