The Betty and Barney Hill case is truly the mother of all alien abduction stories; not only was it the first complete account of alien abduction, it remains one of the most well-documented cases on record.

The Hills were not publicity seekers (as an interracial couple in 1964, the last thing they needed was more attention), and the medical psychiatrist who eventually hypnotized them had no interest in ufology whatsoever -- in fact, Dr. Benjamin Simon maintained strict editorial control over the contents of this book, particularly pertaining to his medical observations and the regression session transcripts, and he also penned the forward in an effort to further separate himself from a literal interpretation of the Hills' story. Back then, alien abduction was too wild to even consider a possibility. As active participants in their community, Barney and Betty had nothing to gain -- and everything to lose -- by going public (and they did so only after their story was leaked to a reporter), making The Interrupted Journey a tribute to their courage as well as a record of the extraordinary event that haunted them for the rest of their lives.

On the night of September 19, 1961, while driving home from vacation through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Hills spotted a strange object in the sky, a light that seemed to follow them on the desolate road. They stopped several times to view the object through binoculars but could not identify it. Whereas Betty's curiosity was greatly aroused by the mystery object, Barney repeatedly attempted to explain it away as nothing out of the ordinary. After getting out of the car and making his way into a field to get a better view of the object, Barney suddenly ran back to the car, exclaiming that they had to leave before they were captured. A short time later, they heard a series of beeps; the next thing they remembered were a second series of beeps, at which time they found themselves some 35 miles down the road. Everything in between the series of beeps was a complete haze in their minds. Shaking off the experience, they arrived home some two hours later than expected.

In the weeks and months following this sighting, both of the Hills began experiencing psychological and physiological problems. Betty began having vivid nightmares of the night of the sighting, while Barney's anxiety increased and an ulcer flared up. Tracing the source of their rising anxiety back to the night of September 19, 1961, they were eventually referred to psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, who set out to unlock their amnesiac period of that night via hypnosis. What emerged from those sessions was an extraordinary account of being abducted by aliens, subjected to a series of medical tests aboard their craft, and having their memories tampered with so they would not consciously remember what happened.

Dr. Simon had no interest whatsoever in UFOs and sought to explain the source of their mutually corroborating accounts of alien abduction as some type of dream transference -- but he certainly believed that the Hills' regression testimonies were sincere. His main concern, naturally, was in helping the couple relieve their anxiety, and he was successful in doing so. Over the next couple of years, the Hills went on to discuss their story with family and friends -- and the story would probably end there if a Boston journalist hadn't found out about it and published an article about it -- against the Hills' strong wishes. That opened the floodgates, of course, leading to the Hills' decision to go public in the form of this book by John G. Fuller.

Aside from its historical importance, The Interrupted Journey is a pretty darn interesting read. Whatever happened to them, the Hills were an extraordinary couple, and the story they tell differs in a number of ways from the standard abduction account as we've come to know it today -- and since there were really no other cases to compare it with at the time, the author had no real agenda apart from letting the Hills tell their story in their own words, much of it straight from the regression session transcripts.