NOTE:
|
The names of the stars were not on the map that
Betty Hill remembered. In addition, if names were provided,
they would have been names given by the alien race, not names used on
Earth. Therefore, unless the aliens had pointed out where our Sun was
on the map, even the most trained astronomer would have had no idea
which stars were which on the map.
As you will see later, it took
Ms. Marjorie Fish much time and effort to finally come up with a
possible star map based upon the assumption that the origin of the map
would be the aliens’ home star (solar) system. That certainly is a
reasonable assumption. If we were the astronauts visiting another solar
system and we had a three-dimensional star map aboard our starship, our
own Sun would be the origin of our star map.
|
Betty and Barney are returned unharmed to their car.
They are told they will forget the abduction portion of the incident.
The ship rises, and then hurtles out of sight. The couple continue
their journey home oblivious of the abduction.
But the Hills are troubled by unexplained dreams and anxiety about two hours of their trip that they can’t account for.
Betty, a social worker, asks advice from a psychiatrist friend.
He suggests that the memory of that time will be gradually restored over
the next few months -- but it never is. Two years after the incident,
the couple are still bothered by the
missing two hours, and Barney’s ulcers are acting up. A Boston psychiatrist,
Benjamin Simon, is recommended, and after several months of
weekly hypnosis sessions the bizarre events of that night in 1961 are
revealed. A short time later a
UFO group leaks a distorted version of the story to the press and the whole thing blows up. The
Hills reluctantly disclose the entire story.
Can we take this dramatic scenario
seriously? Did this incredible contact with aliens actually occur or is
it some kind of hallucination that affected both
Barney and Betty Hill? The complete account of the psychiatric examination from which the details of the event emerged is related in
John G. Fuller’s “The Interrupted Journey” (Dial Press, 1966), where we read that after the extensive psychiatric examination,
Simon concluded that the Hills were not fabricating the story. The most likely possibilities seem to be:
(a) the experience actually happened, or
(b) some perceptive and illusory misinterpretations occurred in relationship to some real event
There are other cases of alleged abductions by extraterrestrial humanoids. The unique aspect of the
Hills’ abduction is that they remembered virtually nothing of the incident.
Intrigued by the Hills’ experience, J. Allen Hynek, chairman of the department of astronomy at Northwestern University, decided to investigate.
Hynek described how the Hills recalled the details of their encounter in his book, “The UFO Experience” (Henry Regnery Company, 1972):
“Under repeated hypnosis they independently
revealed what had supposedly happened. The two stories agreed in
considerable detail, although neither
Betty nor Barney was privy to what the other had said
under hypnosis until much later. Under hypnosis they stated that they
had been taken separately aboard the craft, treated well by the
occupants -- rather as humans might treat experimental animals -- and
then released after having been given the hypnotic suggestion that they
would remember nothing of that particular experience. The method of
their release supposedly accounted for the
amnesia, which was apparently broken only by counterhypnosis.”
A number of scientists, including Hynek, have discussed this incident at length with
Barney and Betty Hill and have questioned them under
hypnosis. They concur with Simon’s belief that there seems to be no
evidence of outright fabrication or lying. One would also wonder what
Betty, who has a master’s degree in social work and is a supervisor in the New Hampshire Welfare Department, and
Barney, who was on the governor of New Hampshire’s Civil Rights Commission, would have to gain by a hoax? Although
the Hills didn’t, several people have lost their jobs after being associated with similarly unusual publicity.
Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist and the nation’s only space scientist
devoting full time to researching the UFO phenomenon, has spent many hours in conversation with the Hills.
“By no stretch of the imagination could anyone who knows them conclude that they were nuts,” he emphasizes.
So
the experience remains a fascinating story despite the absence of proof
that it actually happened. Anyway -- that’s where things were in 1966
when
Ms. Marjorie Fish, an Ohio schoolteacher, amateur astronomer and member of Mensa, became involved. She wondered if the objects shown on
the map that Betty Hill allegedly observed inside the vehicle
might represent some actual pattern of celestial objects. To get more
information about the map she decided to visit
Betty Hill in the summer of 1969 (Barney Hill died in early 1969). Here is
Ms. Fish’s account of that meeting:
“On Aug.4, 1969, Betty Hill
discussed the star map with me. Betty explained that she drew the map
in 1964 under post-hypnotic suggestion. It was to be drawn only if she
could remember it accurately, and she was not to pay attention to what
she was drawing -- which puts it in the realm of
automatic drawing. This is a way of getting at repressed or
forgotten material and can result in unusual accuracy. She made two
erasures showing her conscious mind took control part of the time.
Betty described the map as
three-dimensional, like looking through a window. The stars were tinted
and glowed. The map material was flat and thin (not a model), and
there were no noticeable lenticular lines like one of our
three-dimensional processes (it sounds very much like a
reflective hologram). Betty did not shift her position
while viewing it, so we cannot tell if it would give the same
three-dimensional view from all positions or if it would be completely
three-dimensional. Betty estimated the map was approximately three feet
wide and two feet high with the pattern covering most of the map. She
was standing about three feet away from it.
She said there were many other stars on the
map but she only (apparently) was able to specifically recall the
prominent ones connected by lines and a small distinctive triangle off
to the left. There was no concentration of stars to indicate
the Milky Way (galactic plane) suggesting that if it represented reality, it probably only contained local stars. There were no grid lines.”
So much for the background material on the Hill incident (if you want more details on the encounter, see Fuller’s book). For the moment we will leave
Marjorie Fish back in 1969 trying to interpret Betty Hill’s
reproduction of the map. There is a second major area of background
information that we have to attend to before we can properly discuss the
map. Unlike the bizarre events just described, the rest is pure
astronomy.
According to the most recent star catalogs,
there are about 1,000 known stars within a radius of 55 light-years of
the Sun. What are those other stars like? A check of the catalogs
shows that most of them are faint stars of relatively low temperature --
a class of stars astronomers call main sequence stars. The Sun is a
main sequence star along with most of the other stars in this part of
the Milky Way galaxy, as the following table shows:
Main Sequence Stars
White Dwarfs
Giants and Supergiants
|
91%
8%
1%
|
Typical giant stars are Arcturus and
Capella. Antares and Betelgeuse are members of the ultra-rare
supergiant class. At the other end of the size and brightness
scale the white dwarfs are stellar cinders -- the remains of once
brilliant suns -- a perfect example is
Sirius B, the white dwarf companion to the brilliant Sirius A seen in the
constellation Canis Major. For reasons that will soon become
clear we can remove these classes of stars from our discussion and
concentrate on the main sequence stars whose characteristics are shown
in the table.
Characteristics of Main Sequence Stars
Star Spectral Class
|
Proportion of Stars
|
Surface Temperature
(°F)
|
Star Mass
(Sun = 1.0)
|
Star Luminosity
(Sun = 1.0)
|
Lifespan
(Billions of Years)
|
Example Star
|
A0
|
1% A0 - A9
|
20,000
|
2.8
|
60
|
0.5
|
Vega
|
A1
|
---
|
18,400
|
2.35
|
22
|
1.0
|
Sirius
|
A5
|
---
|
15,000
|
2.2
|
20
|
1.0
|
---
|
F0
|
3% F0 - F9
|
13,000
|
1.7
|
6
|
2.0
|
---
|
F5
|
---
|
12,000
|
1.25
|
3
|
4.0
|
Procyon A
|
G0
|
9% G0 - G9
|
11,000
|
1.06
|
1.3
|
10
|
---
|
G2
|
---
|
10,600
|
1.00
|
1.0
|
12
|
Sun
Alpha Centauri A
|
G5
|
---
|
10,000
|
0.92
|
0.8
|
15
|
---
|
K0
|
14% K0 - K9
|
9,000
|
0.80
|
0.4
|
20
|
Alpha Centauri B
|
K2
|
---
|
8,700
|
0.76
|
0.3
|
24
|
Epsilon Eridani
|
K5
|
---
|
8,000
|
0.69
|
0.1
|
30
|
61 Cygni A
|
M0
|
73% M0 - M9
|
7,000
|
0.48
|
0.02
|
75
|
---
|
M5
|
---
|
5,000
|
0.20
|
0.001
|
200
|
Proxima Centauri
(Alpha Centauri C)
|
The spectral class letters are part of a system of stellar
“fingerprinting” that identifies the main sequence star’s temperature
and gives clues to its mass and luminosity. The hottest, brightest and
most massive main sequence stars (with rare exceptions -- the
Type O and Type B classes -- which are even hotter, brighter, and more massive) are the
A stars. The faintest, coolest and least massive are the
M stars.
Each class is subdivided into 10 subcategories. For example, an
A0 star is hotter, brighter and more massive than an A1, which is above an
A2, and so on through A9.
This table supplies much additional
information and shows how a slightly hotter and more massive star turns
out to be much more luminous than the Sun, a
G2 star. But the bright stars pay dearly for their splendor. It
takes a lot of stellar fuel to emit vast quantities of light and heat.
The penalty is a
short lifespan as a main sequence star. Conversely, the inconspicuous,
cool M stars may be around to see the end of the universe --
whatever that might be. With all these facts at hand we’re now ready to
tackle the first part of the detective story.
Let’s suppose we wanted to make our own map of a trip to the stars. We will limit ourselves to the
55 light-year radius covered by the detailed star catalogs. The
purpose of the trip will be to search for intelligent life on planets
that may be in orbit around these stars. We would want to include every
star that would seem likely to have a life-bearing planet orbiting
around it. How many of these thousand-odd stars would we include for
such a voyage and which direction would we go (for the moment, we’ll
forget about the problem of making a spacecraft that will take us to
these stars and we’ll assume that we’ve got some kind of vehicle that
will effortlessly transport us to wherever we want to go)? We don’t
want to waste our time and efforts -- we only want to go to stars that
we would think would have a high probability of having planets harboring
advanced life forms. This seems like a tall order. How do we even
begin to determine which stars might likely have such planets?
The first rule will be to restrict ourselves to life as we know it, the kind of life that we are familiar with here on Earth --
carbon based life. Science fiction writers are fond of
describing life forms based on chemical systems that we have been unable
to duplicate here on Earth -- such as
silicon based life or life based on the ammonium hydroxide molecule instead of on carbon. But right now these life forms are
simply fantasy -- we have no evidence that they are in
fact possible. Because we don’t even know what they might look like --
if they’re out there -- we necessarily have to limit our search to the
kind of life that we understand.
Our kind of life -- life as we know it --
seems most likely to evolve on a planet that has a stable temperature
regime. It must be at the appropriate distance from its sun so that
water is neither frozen nor boiled away. The planet has to be the
appropriate size so that its gravity doesn’t hold on to too much
atmosphere (like Jupiter) or too little (like Mars). But the main
ingredient in a life-bearing planet is its star. And its star is the
only thing we can study since planets of other stars are far too faint
to detect directly. The conclusion we can draw is this: The star has to be like the Sun.
COMMENT:
|
An Earthlike planet in
the ecosphere of a star similar to our Sun would be hidden in the glare
of the star because of its angular separation from the star as viewed
from Earth. If an Earthlike planet was orbiting
Alpha Centauri A (4.3 light-years from us) at a distance
of 1 Astronomical Unit (Earth-Sun distance), the angular separation
between the planet and Alpha Centauri A would be 0.0133 seconds of arc.
|
Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
Main sequence stars are basically
stable for long periods of time. As shown in the table, stars in
spectral class G have stable lifespans of 10 billion years (Our Sun,
actually a G2V star, has a somewhat longer stable life expectancy of 11
billion years). We are about five billion years into that period so we
can look forward to the Sun remaining much as it is (actually it will
brighten slightly) for another six billion years. Stars of class F4 or
higher have stable burning periods of less than 3.5 billion years. They
have to be ruled out immediately. Such stars cannot have life-bearing
planets because, at least based on our experience on our world, this is
not enough time to permit highly developed biological systems to evolve
on the land areas of a planet (Intelligent life may very well arise
earlier in water environments, but let’s forget that possibility since
we have not yet had meaningful communication with the dolphins -- highly
intelligent creatures on this planet!). But we may be wrong in our
estimate of life development time. There is another more compelling
reason for eliminating stars of class F4 and brighter.
So far, we have assumed all stars have
planets, just as our Sun does. Yet spectroscopic studies of stars of
class F4 and brighter reveal that most of them are in fact unlike our
Sun in a vital way -- they are rapidly rotating stars. The Sun rotates
once in just under a month, but 60 percent of the stars in the F0 to F4
range rotate much faster. And almost
all A stars are rapid rotators too. It seems, from recent
studies of stellar evolution that slowly rotating stars like the Sun
rotate slowly because they have planets. Apparently the formation of a
planetary system robs the star of much of its rotational momentum
(because angular momentum of the whole solar system that formed from
interstellar gas and debris must be conserved ... an analogy is an ice
skater that has arms extended as he/she spins, then he/she brings in
arms close to the body in order to spin much faster. For a star with
planets, the angular momentum is taken up by the star and its planets.
For a star without planets, the angular momentum must be with the star,
alone, resulting in much faster star rotation).
For two reasons, then, we eliminate stars of class F4 and above:
-
Most of them rotate rapidly and thus seem to be planetless, and
-
Their stable lifespans are too brief for advanced life to develop.
Another problem environment for higher forms
of life is the multiple star system. About half of all stars are born
in pairs, or small groups of three or more. Our Sun could have been
part of a double star system. If Jupiter was 80 times more massive it
would be an M6 red dwarf star. If the stars of a double system are far
enough apart there is no real problem for planets sustaining life (see
“Planet of the Double Sun,” September 1974). But stars in fairly close
or highly elliptical orbits would alternately fry or freeze their
planets. Such planets would also likely have unstable orbits. Because
this is a potentially troublesome area for our objective, we will
eliminate all close and moderately close pairs of systems of multiple
stars.
Further elimination is necessary according
to the catalogs. Some otherwise perfect stars are labeled “variable.”
This means astronomers have observed variations of at least a few
percent in the star’s light output. A one percent fluctuation in the
Sun would be annoying for us here on Earth. Anything greater would
cause climatic disaster. Could intelligent life evolve under such
conditions, given an otherwise habitable planet? It seems unlikely. We
are forced to “scratch” all stars suspected or proven to be variable.
This still leaves a few F stars, quite a few
G stars, and hoards of K and M dwarfs. Unfortunately most of the
Ks and all of the Ms are out. Let’s find out why.
These stars quite likely have planets. Indeed, one
M star -- known as Barnard’s star -- is believed to almost certainly have at least one, and probably two or three, Jupiter sized planets.
Peter Van de Kamp of the Sproul Observatory at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, has watched
Barnard’s star for over three decades and is convinced that a
“wobbling” motion of that star is due to perturbations (gravitational
“pulling and pushing”) caused by its
unseen planets (Earth sized planets cannot be detected in this manner).
But the planets of M stars and the K stars
below K4 have two serious handicaps that virtually eliminate them from
being abodes for life. First, these stars fry their planets with
occasional lethal bursts of radiation emitted from erupting solar
flares. The flares have the same intensity as those of our Sun, but
when you put that type of flare on a little star it spells disaster for a
planet that is within, say, 30 million miles. The problem is that
planets have to be that close to get enough heat from these feeble
suns. If they are farther out, they have frozen oceans and no life.
The close-in orbits of potential Earthlike planets of M and faint K stars produce the second dilemma --
rotational lock. An example of rotational lock is right next
door to us. The moon, because of its nearness to Earth, is strongly
affected by our planet’s tidal forces. Long ago our satellite stopped
rotating and now has one side permanently turned toward Earth. The same
principles apply to planets of small stars that would otherwise be at
the right distance for moderate temperatures. If rotational lock has
not yet set in, at least rotational retardation would make impossibly
long days and nights (as evidenced by Mercury in our solar system).
What stars are left after all this pruning? All of the
G stars remain along with F5 through F9 and K0 through K4.
Stephen Dole of the Rand Corporation has made a detailed study of
stars in this range and suggests we should also eliminate F5, F6 and F7
stars because they balloon to red giants before they reach an age of
five billion years.
Dole feels this is cutting it too fine for intelligent species to
fully evolve. Admittedly this is based on our one example of
intelligent life -- us. But limited though this parameter is, it is the
only one we have.
Dole believes the K2, K3 and K4 stars are also poor prospects
because of their feeble energy output and consequently limited zone for
suitable Earthlike planets.
Accepting Dole’s further trimming we are left with single, nonvariable stars from F8 through all the G-type stars to K1. What does that leave us with?
Forty-six stars.
Now we are ready to plan the trip. It’s pretty obvious that
Tau Ceti is our first target. After that, the choice is more
difficult. We can’t take each star in order or we would be darting all
over the sky. It’s something like planning a vacation trip. Let’s say
we start from St. Louis and want to hit all the major cities within a
1,000 mile radius. If we go west, all we can visit is Kansas City and
Denver. But northeast is a bonanza: Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and more. The same principle applies
to the planning of our interstellar exploration. The plot of all 46
candidate stars reveals a clumping in the direction of the
constellations Cetus and Eridanus. Although this section amounts
to only 13 percent of the entire sky, it contains 15 of the 46 stars,
or 33 percent of the total. Luckily
Tau Ceti is in this group, so that’s the direction we should go
(comparable to heading northeast from St. Louis). If we plan to visit
some of these solar type stars and then return to Earth, we should try
to have the shortest distance between stops. It would be a waste of
exploration time if we zipped randomly from one star to another.
Now we are ready to return to the map drawn by Betty Hill.
Marjorie Fish reasoned that if the stars in the Hill map
corresponded to a patter of real stars -- perhaps something like we just
developed, only from an alien’s viewpoint -- it might be possible to
pinpoint the origin of the alleged space travelers. Assuming the two
stars in the foreground of the Hill map were the
“base” stars (the Sun, a single star, was ruled out here), she
decided to try to locate the entire pattern. She theorized that the
Hill map contained only local stars since no concentration would be
present if a more distant viewpoint was assumed and if both “us” and the
alien visitors’ home base were to be represented.
Let’s assume, just as an astronomical exercise, that the map does show the Sun and the star that is “the sun” to the
humanoids. We’ll take the Hill encounter at face value, and see where it leads.
Since the aliens were described as
“humanoid” and seemed reasonably comfortable on this planet, their home
planet should be basically like ours. Their atmosphere must be similar
because
the Hills breathed without trouble while inside the ship, and the
aliens did not appear to wear any protective apparatus. And since we
assume their biology is similar to ours, their planet should have the
same temperature regime as Earth (Betty and
Barney did say it was uncomfortably cold in the ship). In essence, then, we assume their home planet must be very
Earthlike. Based on what we discussed earlier it follows that their sun would be on our list if it were within 55 light-years from us.
The lines on the map, according to Betty Hill, were described by the alien as “trade routes” or “places visited occasionally” with the dotted lines as “expeditions.” Any interpretation of the
Betty Hill map must retain the logic of these routes (i.e. the lines would link stars that would be worth visiting).
Keeping all this in mind, Marjorie Fish
constructed several three-dimensional models of the solar neighborhood
in hopes of detecting the pattern in the Hill map. Using beads dangling
on threads, she painstakingly recreated our stellar environment.
Between August 1968 and February 1973, she strung beads, checked data,
searched and checked again. A suspicious alignment, detected in
late 1968, turned out to be almost a perfect match once new data from the detailed 1969 edition of the
Catalog of Nearby Stars became available (this catalog is often called the “Gliese catalog” -- pronounced “glee-see” -- after its principal author,
Wilhelm Gliese).
The following table lists all known stars
within a radius of 54 light-years that are single or part of a wide
multiple star system. They have no known irregularities or
variabilities and are between 0.4 and 2.0 times the luminosity of the
Sun. Thus, a planet
basically identical to Earth could be orbiting around any one of them (Data from the Catalog of Nearby Stars, 1969 edition, by Wilhelm Gliese).
The 46 Nearest Stars Similar to the Sun
Name of Star
|
Distance
(Light-Years)
|
Apparent
Magnitude
|
Luminosity
Sun = 1.0
|
Spectral
Class
|
Tau Ceti
|
11.8
|
3.5
|
0.4
|
G8
|
82 Eridani
|
20.2
|
4.3
|
0.9
|
G2
|
Zeta Tucanae
|
23.3
|
4.2
|
0.9
|
G2
|
107 Piscium
|
24.3
|
5.2
|
0.4
|
K1
|
Beta Coma Berenices
|
27.2
|
4.3
|
1.2
|
G0
|
61 Virginis
|
27.4
|
4.7
|
0.8
|
G6
|
Alpha Mensae
|
28.3
|
5.1
|
0.6
|
G5
|
Gliese 75
|
28.6
|
5.6
|
0.4
|
K0
|
Beta Canum Venaticorum
|
29.9
|
4.3
|
1.4
|
G0
|
Chi Orionis
|
32
|
4.4
|
1.5
|
G0
|
54 Piscium
|
34
|
5.9
|
0.4
|
K0
|
Zeta 1 Reticuli
|
37
|
5.5
|
0.7
|
G2
|
Zeta 2 Reticuli
|
37
|
5.2
|
0.9
|
G2
|
Gliese 86
|
37
|
6.1
|
0.4
|
K0
|
Mu Arae
|
37
|
5.1
|
0.9
|
G5
|
Gliese 67
|
38
|
5.0
|
1.2
|
G2
|
Gliese 668.1
|
40
|
6.3
|
0.4
|
G9
|
Gliese 302
|
41
|
6.0
|
0.6
|
G8
|
Gliese 309
|
41
|
6.4
|
0.4
|
G9
|
Kappa Fornacis
|
42
|
5.2
|
1.3
|
G1
|
58 Eridani
|
42
|
5.5
|
0.9
|
G1
|
Zeta Doradus
|
44
|
4.7
|
2.0
|
F8
|
55 Cancri
|
44
|
6.0
|
0.7
|
G8
|
47 Ursae Majoris
|
44
|
5.1
|
1.5
|
G0
|
Gliese 364
|
45
|
4.9
|
1.8
|
G0
|
Gliese 599A
|
45
|
6.0
|
0.6
|
G6
|
Nu Phoenicis
|
45
|
5.0
|
1.8
|
F8
|
Gliese 95
|
45
|
6.3
|
0.5
|
G5
|
Gliese 796
|
47
|
5.6
|
0.5
|
G8
|
20 Leo Minoris
|
47
|
5.4
|
1.2
|
G4
|
39 Tauri
|
47
|
5.9
|
0.8
|
G1
|
Gliese 290
|
47
|
6.6
|
0.4
|
G8
|
Gliese 59.2
|
48
|
5.7
|
1.0
|
G2
|
Psi Aurigae
|
49
|
5.2
|
1.5
|
G0
|
Gliese 722
|
49
|
5.9
|
0.9
|
G4
|
Gliese 788
|
49
|
5.9
|
0.8
|
G5
|
Nu 2 Lupi
|
50
|
5.6
|
1.1
|
G2
|
14 Herculis
|
50
|
6.6
|
0.5
|
K1
|
Pi Ursae Majoris
|
51
|
5.6
|
1.2
|
G0
|
Phi 2 Ceti
|
51
|
5.2
|
1.8
|
F8
|
Gliese 641
|
52
|
6.6
|
0.5
|
G8
|
Gliese 97.2
|
52
|
6.9
|
0.4
|
K0
|
Gliese 541.1
|
53
|
6.5
|
0.6
|
G8
|
109 Piscium
|
53
|
6.3
|
0.8
|
G4
|
Gliese 651
|
53
|
6.8
|
0.4
|
G8
|
Gliese 59
|
53
|
6.7
|
0.4
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The 16 stars in the stellar configuration discovered by Marjorie Fish are compared with the map drawn by
Betty Hill in the diagram on page 6. If some of the star names on
the Fish map sound familiar, they should. Ten of the 16 stars
are from the compact group that we selected earlier based on the most
logical direction to pursue to conduct interstellar exploration from
Earth. Continuing to take
the Hill map at face value, the radiating pattern of “trade routes” implies that
Zeta 1 Reticuli and Zeta 2 Reticuli are the “hub” of exploration or, in the context of the incident,
the aliens’ home base. The Sun is at the end of one of the supposedly regular trade routes.
COMMENT:
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Trade route?
What kind of trade was going on between the Zeta Reticulans and
Earthlings? That raised questions in my mind at the time I read the
article back in 1975. At that time, I was completely unaware of any
strange or suspicious activity going on at
Nellis Air Force Base Area 51 or S4. I suspect that such a statement would raise questions in your mind as you read the text. Remember!
The evaluation to determine the stars on the map was performed by
Ms. Marjorie Fish in 1969 and was presented by Terence Dickinson in the December 1974 issue of
ASTRONOMY Magazine. Other documents and the release of Top
Secret information much later, that is, in the late 1980s, will reveal
that a certain elite sect of
the United States Government was dealing with the “Greys” or Zeta Reticulans and knew that they were from the fourth planet orbiting Zeta 2 Reticuli.
These dealings with the Zeta Reticulans may have been taking place since the late 1940s after the saucer crash near
Roswell, New Mexico, on July 4, 1947. Recall that the Army
originally announced that a flying saucer had crashed in the desert near
Roswell Army Air Field, then recanted the story, stating a military
weather balloon had crashed.
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The pair of stars that make up Zeta Reticuli is practically
in the midst of the cluster of solar type stars that attracted us while
we were mapping out a logical interstellar voyage. Checking further we
find that all but two of the stars in
the Fish pattern are on the table of nearby solar type stars. These two stars are
Tau 1 Eridani (an F6 star) and Gliese 86.1 (K2), and are, respectively, just above and below the parameters we arrived at earlier. One star that should be there (Zeta Tucanae) is missing probably because it is
behind Zeta 1 Reticuli at the required viewing angle.
To summarize, then:
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The pattern discovered by Marjorie Fish has an uncanny resemblance to the map drawn by
Betty Hill
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The stars are mostly the ones that we would visit if we were exploring from
Zeta Reticuli
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The travel patterns
generally make sense
Walter Mitchell, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in Columbus, has looked at Marjorie Fish’s interpretation of the
Betty Hill map in detail and tells us,
“The more I examine it, the more I am impressed by the astronomy involved in Marjorie Fish’s work”
During their examination of the map, Mitchell
and some of his students inserted the positions of hundreds of nearby
stars into a computer and had various space vistas brought up on a
cathode ray tube readout. They requested the computer to put them in a
position out
beyond Zeta Reticuli looking toward the Sun. From this viewpoint the map pattern obtained by
Marjorie Fish was duplicated with virtually no variations. Mitchell noted an important and previously unknown fact first pointed out by
Ms. Fish: The stars in the map are almost in a plane; that is,
they fill a wheel shaped volume of space that makes star hopping from
one to another easy and the logical way to go -- and that is what is
implied by
the map that Betty Hill allegedly saw.
“I can find no major point of quibble with Marjorie Fish’s interpretation of the Betty Hill map,” says
David R. Saunders, a statistics expert at the Industrial Relations Center of the University of Chicago.
By various lines of statistical reasoning he
concludes that the chances of finding a match among 16 stars of a
specific spectral type among the thousand-odd stars nearest the Sun is
“at least 1,000 to 1 against.”
“The odds are about 10,000 to 1 against a random configuration matching perfectly with Betty Hill’s map,” Saunders reports.
“But the star group identified by Marjorie Fish
isn’t quite a perfect match, and the odds consequently reduce to about
1,000 to 1. That is, there is one chance in 1,000 that the observed
degree of congruence would occur in the volume of space we are
discussing.”
“In most fields of investigation where
similar statistical methods are used, that degree of congruence is
rather persuasive,” concludes
Saunders.
Saunders, who has developed a monumental computerized catalog of
more than 60,000 UFO sightings, tells us that the Hill case is
not unique in its general characteristics -- there are other known cases
of alleged communication with
extraterrestrials. But in no other case on record have maps ever been mentioned.
Mark Steggert of the Space Research Coordination Center at the University of Pittsburgh developed a computer program that he calls
PAR (for Perspective Alteration Routine) that can duplicate the appearance of star fields from various viewpoints in space.
“I was intrigued by the proposal put forth by Marjorie Fish
that she had interpreted a real star pattern for the alleged map of
Betty Hill. I was incredulous that models could be used to do an
astronometric problem,”
Steggert says.
“To my surprise I found that the pattern that I derived from my program had a close correspondence to the data from
Marjorie Fish.”
After several run-throughs, he confirmed
the positions determined by Marjorie Fish. “I was able to locate
potential areas of error, but no real errors,”
Steggert concludes.
Steggert zeroed in on possibly the
only real bone of contention that anyone has had with Marjorie Fish’s
interpretation: The data on some of the stars may not be accurate
enough for us to make definitive conclusions. For example, he says the
data from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Catalog, the Royal
Astronomical Society Observatory Catalog, and the Yale Catalog of Bright
Stars,
“have differences of up to two magnitudes and differences in distance amounting to 40 percent for the
star Gliese 59.”
Other stars have less variations in the data from one catalog to another, but
Steggert’s point is valid. The data on some of the stars in the
map is just not good enough to make a definitive statement (the fact
that measurements of most of the stars in question can only be made at
the relatively poor equipped southern hemisphere observatories accounts
for the less reliable data).
Using information on the same 15 stars from the Royal Observatory catalog (Annals #5),
Steggert reports that the pattern does come out differently because of the different data, and
Gliese 59 shows the largest variation. The Gliese catalog
uses photometric, trigonometric and spectroscopic parallaxes and
derives a mean from all three after giving various mathematical weights
to each value.
“The substantial variation in catalog material is something that must be overcome,” says
Steggert. “This must be the next step in attempting to evaluate the map.”
This point of view is shared by Jeffrey L. Kretsch, an undergraduate student who is working under the advisement of
J. Allen Hynek at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Like Steggert, he too checked Marjorie Fish’s pattern and found no error in the work. But
Kretsch reports that when he reconstructed the pattern using
trigonometric distance measurements instead of the composite measures in
the Gliese catalog, he found enough variations to move
Gliese 95 above the line between Gliese 86 and Tau 1 Eridani.
“The data for some of the stars seems to be
very reliable, but a few of the pattern stars are not well observed and
data on them is somewhat conflicting,” says
Kretsch.
The fact that the pattern is less of a “good fit” using data from other sources leads
Kretsch and others to wonder what new observations would do. Would they give a closer fit? Or would the pattern become distorted?
Marjorie Fish was aware of the catalog variations, but has assumed the Gliese catalog is the most reliable source material to utilize.
Is the Gliese catalog the best available data source. According to several astronomers who specialize in stellar positions, it probably is.
Peter Van de Kamp says, “It’s first rate. There is none
better.” He says the catalog was compiled with extensive research and
care over many years.
A lot of the published trigonometric
parallaxes on the stars beyond 30 light-years are not as accurate as
they could be, according to
Kyle Cudworth of Yerkes Observatory.
“Gliese added other criteria to compensate and lessen the possible errors,” he says.
The scientific director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, K.A. Strand,
is among the world’s foremost authorities on stellar distances for
nearby stars. He believes the Gliese catalog “is the most complete and
comprehensive source available.”
Frank B. Salisbury of the University of Utah has also examined the Hill and Fish maps.
“The pattern of stars discovered by Marjorie Fish
fits the map drawn by Betty Hill remarkably well. It’s a striking coincidence and forces one to take the Hill story more seriously,” he says.
Salisbury is one of the few
scientists who has spent some time on the UFO problem and has written a
book and several articles on the subject. A professor of plant
physiology, his biology expertise has been turned to astronomy on
several occasions while studying the
possibility of biological organisms existing on Mars.
Salisbury insists that while
psychological factors do play an important role in UFO phenomena, the
Hill story does represent one of the most credible reports of incredible
events. The fact that the story and the map came to light under
hypnosis is good evidence that it actually took place. “But it is not
unequivocal evidence,” he cautions.
Elaborating on this aspect of the incident, Mark Steggert offers this:
“I am inclined to question the ability of
Betty, under posthypnotic suggestion, to duplicate the pattern two years
after she saw it. She noted no grid lines on the pattern for
reference. Someone should (or perhaps has already) conduct a test to
see how well a similar patter could be recalled after a substantial
period of time. The stress she was under at the time is another unknown
factor.”
“The derivation of the base data by hypnotic techniques is perhaps not as “far out” as it may seem,” says
Stanton Friedman. “Several police departments around the
country use hypnosis on rape victims in order to get descriptions of the
assailants -- descriptions that would otherwise remain repressed. The
trauma of such circumstances must be comparable in some ways to the Hill
incident.”
Is it at all possible we are faced with a hoax?
“Highly unlikely,” says Salisbury --
and the other investigators agree. One significant fact against a
charade is that the data from the Gliese catalog was not published until
1969,
five years after the star map was drawn by Betty Hill. Prior to
1969, the data could only have been obtained from the observatories
conducting research on the specific stars in question. It is not
uncommon for astronomers not to divulge their research data -- even to
their colleagues -- before it appears in print. In general, the entire
sequence of events just does not smell of falsification. Coincidence,
possibly; hoax, improbable.
Where does all this leave us? Are there creatures inhabiting a planet of Zeta 2 Reticuli?
Did they visit Earth in 1961? The map indicates that the Sun has been
“visited occasionally.” What does that mean? Will further study and
measurement of the stars in the map change their relative positions and
thus distort the configuration beyond the limits of coincidence?
The fact that the entire incident hinges on a
map drawn under less than normal circumstances certainly keeps us from
drawing a firm conclusion.
Exobiologists are united in their opinion that the chance of us
having neighbors so similar to us, apparently located so close, is
vanishingly small. But then, we don’t even know for certain if there is
anybody at all out there -- anywhere -- despite
the Hill map and pronouncements of the most respected scientists.
The only answer is to continue the search. Someday, perhaps soon, we will know.
Hypothetical Voyage To Nearby Solar Type Stars
