The UFO Incident
The movie introduces us to Barney and Betty Hill, two ordinary people who have had the most extraordinary experience. She is a social worker and he a postman. They are an inter-racial couple who are very happy with each other but they are perflexed by a traumatic experience of which they have no memory. Two years later, they are still tormented by what happened during a trip where they have a mysterious lapse of memory which takes place after sighting a strange object hovering over their car. They wake up some time later much further down the road. Barney and Betty consult Doctor Benjamin Simon a psychiatrist who tries to help them find the answer. The doctor decides that the best treatment to unlock their case of double amnesia is hypnosis. Doctor Simon mentions that Barney has suffered from a childhood of racial strife and feels deep guilt about his divorce. Barney tells the doctor that he has had physical symptoms after the experience such as strange warts on his groin. They are both tormented by mysterious nightmares that Betty begins to document. They report the incident to the US Air Force (the US Air Force actually had a project relating to UFO sightings called Blue Book). Doctor Simon places Barney under hypnosis and he begins to relive the experience. Barney describes he and Betty seeing a strange object in the sky that begins to follow and then to terrify them. Barney begins screaming in horror during the session as he describes he and Betty being abducted by the aliens from the UFO. Betty also reacts with horror describing their captive experience. She and Barney are subjected to medical experiments by the aliens including Betty having a needle shoved into her navel. With Doctor Simon's assistance and their strong love for each other, Barney and Betty are able to come to terms with their experience and get on with their lives. At the end of the movie it is revealed that Barney died of a stroke in 1969 at the age of 46. Betty lived on until 2004.
romantic, flashback