Document · 20 September 1961
Project Blue Book case file: Lincoln, New Hampshire, September 1961 (the Hill case)
The U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book file on Betty and Barney Hill's September 1961 sighting, filed under Lincoln, New Hampshire. It covers only the sighting reported at the time, not the abduction account that emerged under hypnosis in 1964. The Air Force carried the case as insufficient data, attributed the radar return and the light to a temperature inversion, and later called the object "in all probability Jupiter".
Released by the National Archives on Blue Book microfilm (T1206). Our copy was assembled from NARA's page images and OCR'd; the handwritten analysis sheet was transcribed by hand.
Sources: National Archives, Project Blue Book (T1206)
Facts and claims
- documented The Project Blue Book record card files the sighting under Lincoln, New Hampshire, 20 September 1961, 0001–0100 local time, as a ground-visual observation, with the conclusion "Insufficient Data for Evaluation". Source: doc-bluebook-lincoln-nh-1961.pdf
- documented The handwritten UFO analysis sheet rates the source reliability "probably good" and concludes that both the radar and the visual sighting were probably due to the strong temperature inversion over the Lincoln area that morning: the light seen by the witnesses "is not known but it has all of the characteristics of an advertising search light", the radar was probably picking up a ground target, and there was no evidence that the sightings were due to "other than natural causes". Source: doc-bluebook-lincoln-nh-1961.pdf
- documented A 27 September 1963 letter from the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson to the Air Force information office says "The Barney Hill sighting was investigated by officials from Pease AFB", that the case is carried as insufficient data, that no direction was reported and "there are inconsistencies in the report", and that the object, seen for at least an hour around midnight, "was in all probability Jupiter", which was low in the southwest and set at about the time the object disappeared. Source: doc-bluebook-lincoln-nh-1961.pdf
- documented Most of the file is weather data (constant-pressure charts and upper-air soundings) gathered for the inversion analysis. It ends with a clipping of the 1966 magazine serialisation of Betty Hill's hypnosis sessions. Source: doc-bluebook-lincoln-nh-1961.pdf
Connected files
Places
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (mentions) — A 1963 letter from the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson on the Barney Hill sighting
Programs
- Project Blue Book (case file of)
Incidents
- Betty and Barney Hill abduction (documents)
Videos
- Betty Hill: the “lost” 1999 interview (Portsmouth, NH) (discussed in)
Mentioned in this file
- Barney & Betty Hill (Person)
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
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