Good evening. I'm calling from New Hampshire, and I've spent the better part of fifteen years researching one case that, I'll be honest, changed everything I thought I understood about this subject. I'd actually just gotten back from a conference up in Burlington when my daughter told me I should call your show. She listens every night, apparently. So here I am. The case I want to talk about happened right here in New Hampshire, back in September of 1961. A couple named Barry and Betsy Mills, out of Portsmouth. Now, I've read every document, every report, listened to recordings, gone through the archived papers. I've driven that stretch of highway more times than I can count. And what happened to them on that road, I believe every word of it. I need your listeners to hear this story, because it's the one that started it all. The first widely reported abduction case in this country. And it happened about two hours north of where I'm sitting right now.
So let me tell you about Barry and Betsy. They lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barry was a World War II veteran, worked for the postal service. Big guy, deep voice, IQ of about 140. He knew aircraft, knew the sky, he was a practical man. Not the type to make things up. Betsy was a social worker, handled child welfare cases for the state. Both of them were active in their community, members of the NAACP, involved with their local Unitarian church. Barry sat on a board for the civil rights commission. These were serious, credible people. Now, they were also an interracial couple, which in 1961, that took courage. Barry was Black, Betsy was white. They dealt with enough scrutiny in their daily lives. The last thing either of them would want is to draw more attention to themselves with some wild story. That's important to understand. In September of '61, they took a belated honeymoon. Drove up to Niagara Falls and Montreal. Spontaneous trip, didn't even stop by the bank for extra money. They had their little dachshund with them, Daisy. On the night of September 19th, they left a diner in Vermont around ten o'clock, heading south on Route 3, back to Portsmouth. Should have been about a four-hour drive.
So they're driving through the White Mountains, middle of the night, and Betsy notices a bright light in the sky outside her window. Moving strangely, too bright to be a star. She points it out to Barry, and he figures it's a satellite that went off course. He was like that, always had a rational explanation ready. But Betsy wasn't buying it. She made him pull over at a scenic picnic area near Twin Mountain so they could get a better look. Walk the dog while they're at it. Barry had a pair of binoculars with him, birdwatching binoculars. can look strange at night - Dave' They took turns looking through them, and whatever this thing was, it was moving in ways no satellite moves. Erratic patterns, changing direction, getting closer. Betsy's sister had seen something similar years earlier, so Betsy had that in the back of her mind. But Barry, he kept insisting it was nothing. An airliner headed to Montreal, he said. That's what he wanted to believe. They got back in the car and kept driving, but the light followed them. Betsy watched it the whole time, calling out whenever it changed direction. It stayed with them through the winding mountain roads, sometimes disappearing behind the trees, then reappearing. Getting bigger. Getting closer.
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