The UFO Incident

I saw this on TV when it came out- It was one of those stories that really affected me because somehow, I could feel the truth of it. This was probably the very first abduction story that I felt had any validity. Compared to other UFO stories I have read or seen movies of. I highly enjoyed "fire in the sky", but that movie was more Hollywood than actual. And, it has been partially remade in the recent movie "The Recall", which has a scene inside of the UFO craft which mirrors what was done for fire in the sky. there were other movies, "communion", but that story did not affect me as much as this one.

20 years after I watched that TV movie in 1975, I was in a halfway house. With nothing much to do, I rummaged through a library of old books and I came across something that was called "the interrupted journey". And when I touched that book- before I even opened it, I knew that this must be the book that told that original story. I had never heard of it before even though I had seen a film based upon it.

I think "the interrupted journey" is a much better name than "the UFO incident"

The film is your basic made-for-television fare, kind of the same quality as those NBC (was it NBC?) "movies of the week", or anything else that fits into the approximate One hour and 32 minutes allotted for a "two hour" television movie.

And even though it had been 20 years since I had seen this movie, I had remembered all of the details of the movie and I was very surprised that the book had been honored and that they kept to the basic story.

The book had documents and images so I was able to get a real face for the Hills. And there were things that Betty Hill had drawn and I was able to look at those.

I have not seen this movie since 1975, I hope that I am able to find it somewhere.

I saw this movie in the 70's and it blew me away! I've seen many documentaries about UFO's that include dazzling photographs, but this dramatic recreation of the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire is even more convincing. It takes supreme conceit and a touch of ignorance to believe that we are the only life forms in the universe. I have a friend named Fred who claims he was abducted by UFO's a few years ago in Vermont. His story was authentic enough that he was featured at length on a major UFO documentary produced by the Turner network. He has told me the story in detail so I have to take the subject seriously! James Earl Jones gives a great performance. Remember, these were the days before he became an obnoxious mouthpiece for Verizon. Estelle Parsons is 47 at the time she made this and I was very attracted to her in this role when I saw it in my 20's. She has a pleasant inner beauty although she isn't really pretty. She also has the New England accent down pat and calls him 'Baaaaney.' I watched it again recently and it was just as gripping the second time. I think this is a very spiritual movie and it definitely had an influence on my life and my thinking. If you see it in the tv guide, grab a tape that has several episodes of CHEERS on it and wipe them out with this tremendous film. I consider it the best made for tv movie ever. Don't look for violence or great special effects.

I first vievved this movie several years ago on a Cable television channel. I vvas so pleased vvith the acting abilities of James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons vvho play Betty and Barney Hill that I sought the movie to tape record it. I am still trying to catch it. The impression it made on me vvas a strong one. It vvas full of highly emotional drama. And it made me respect James Earl Jones all the more. Estelle Parson did a vvonderful job playing the vvife. Both characters vvere stretched and there vvas a lot of dialogue. Not too much action. But there really vvasn't need for action vvhen your glued to the screen vvaiting to hear vvhat the characters vvill say next of their tramatic experience. The dialogue and outpouring emotions vvas the action. This is a vvonderful movie. I'd really like to see it again.

James Earl Jones gives a memorable, highly sympathetic performance as Barney Hill, and Estelle Parsons as his wife Betty matches him, moment for moment.

This is a harrowing tale, based on a true story (one which heralds the modern era of alien abduction accounts). Barnard Hughes is entirely believable as the psychiatrist who tries to help the couple. The "special effects" are refreshingly not-so-special, the absolutely outrageous events depicted un-hysterically in flashbacks. I loved the entities' eyes: human-seeming, with pupils and whites but magnified, as if covered with big lenses--highlighting one distinction between the Hills' descriptions and all those more recent "grays" with their huge, oval, entirely black eyes. The treatment is intelligently grounded in the reality of the couple's seeking help for their anxieties and sleeplessness ( their initial focus) rather than the "sci-fi" elements of the story.

And not since Edna Mae Oliver bawled the name of her dead husband Barney in "Drums Along The Mohawk" (1939) has there been heard anywhere a more New Englandy pronunciation of that name than Ms. Parsons delivers here!!

First of all, even though I'm a "UFO buff" (depending on how you use that term), I'm tired of many sides of the whole subject, because it's been such a huge, huge pop culture subject for such a long while, and between the believers and the disbelievers (especially the latter, really), you can't get away from it. But, you don't have to like the subject A BIT (either as a believer or a disbeliever) to like this movie. You can watch it as a "docu-drama" (one that came along before the whole docu-drama craze), about how this couple dealt with the whole situation (regardless of what you believe that was). Or you can watch it as a regular "scary story" (it works entirely well as that). And of course, you CAN watch it for the UFO subject itself, especially since it's one of the most famous stories. One of the great things about the Betty and Barney story is that it sticks a pin in the whole "abducted hillbilly" idea (which, even if it weren't such a huge generalization, is such really, really overworked joke). Here's a "mixed marriage," in New England, both people intellectuals. And of course it has three very great actors (one a little less well-known by name than the other two). Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones draw you completely into the whole thing, especially during the "regressions." And Barnard Hughes as the doctor (he'd played a few doctors already by then), was just right also.