Betty Hill (1919-2004) was an American civil rights activist and UFO researcher who became known as the "first lady of UFOs" following her 1961 abduction claim. Born in 1919, she worked as a social worker after earning a degree from the University of New Hampshire, and she was an active member of the NAACP and her local Unitarian church. As part of an interracial couple during the civil rights era, Hill navigated the social challenges of that period while maintaining her professional and activist commitments. She died in 2004 from cancer.
On September 19, 1961, while returning from vacation in Montreal, Betty and her husband Barney encountered a UFO in New Hampshire's White Mountains. They reported observing the unidentified craft and subsequently losing two hours of memory. Under hypnosis, Betty later recalled encounters with gray, cat-eyed humanoids and described undergoing medical examinations aboard the craft. She also reported being shown a star map that was later linked to the Zeta Reticuli system.
Their case became the prototype for modern alien abduction narratives and shaped UFO research for decades. The incident was detailed in John G. Fuller's 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and featured in the 1975 television film The UFO Incident. Following Barney's death in 1969, Betty continued her UFO research and maintained observation vigils, documenting sightings in journals that she later donated to the University of New Hampshire. She filed reports with the U.S. Air Force and self-published A Common Sense Approach to UFOs in 1995, a work that critiqued the abuse of hypnosis in UFO investigations. Hill remained a key figure in UFO lore until her death.