Decoder Ring: The First Alien Abductees

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When you think of an alien abduction, what do you picture? Humanoid creatures, medical experiments, lost memories retrieved through hypnosis? That narrative was largely unknown until Betty and Barney Hill went public about their own alien abduction in the 1960s. Betty Hill’s niece, Kathleen Marden, recounts how the story went viral and her aunt and uncle became unwitting celebrities. Then professors Susan Lepselter, Chris Bader, Joseph O. Baker and Stephanie Kelley-Romano explain how the Hills’ alien abduction changed science fiction forever. Thanks to Eric Molinsky for bringing us this story that originally aired on his terrific podcast Imaginary Worlds. Eric’s got a lot more stories like this one so subscribe wherever you listen. Decoder Ring is written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate’s journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just a few months ago, May of this year, Congress held the hearing about UFOs, or as they're
0:10.2	now called, UAPs.
0:12.7	Unidentified, aerial phenomena are a potential national security threat, and they need to
0:18.6	be treated that way.
0:19.9	In the years leading up to the hearing, the first held on the issue in 50 years, a number
0:24.1	of videos that appeared to show UFOs flying around had been verified for the first time.
0:30.0	In one of those videos, Navy pilots lock in on a 40-foot oblong object whizzing over
0:35.2	the open ocean.
0:36.4	It's one of a number of sightings made by military personnel.
0:43.2	No one knows exactly what these objects are or why they've been spotted so often, thus
0:47.7	the recent congressional hearing.
0:49.5	UAPs are unexplained, it's true, but they are real.
0:53.5	One thing we do know, though, is that whatever they are, they are really different from the
0:59.5	UFO sightings of the past.
1:01.6	Calvin Parker doesn't need the government to tell him UFOs are real.
1:06.1	He says he was levitated into one first hand.
1:09.5	A real bright beam appeared all over us, and it kind of blinded me for a second.
1:16.3	Calvin Parker relate his encounter to a local news station in Alabama on the occasion of
1:20.7	the hearing.
1:21.8	But it took place back in 1973.
1:24.2	And when I got my vision back, I've seen three bulky looking creatures coming toward us.
1:30.2	His recollection is of a piece with what has long been the dominant imagery of and story
	...

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