NARRATOR: As the 21st century unfolds, the numbers of alleged gray alien abductions, according to members of the UFO community, are rising. There is no way to verify these numbers, but one unofficial poll conducted by the Roper Organization puts the number of alien abductions at 4 million. I think the problem a lot of people have with the grays in general is that they don’t believe in UFOs to start with.
So therefore, they’re not going to believe in something like abductions. But if you were to acknowledge the reality of UFOs as something non-human, suddenly the reality of something like grays is not all that outrageous, it seems to me. NARRATOR: Eyewitnesses who swear they have encountered grays are the primary source for all the information about these extraterrestrials.
[dramatic music] They report some commonalities that may reveal the true nature of the aliens’ agenda. There’s always a light that comes from nowhere. It’s either like an amber or a blue. NARRATOR: Then the frightened abductees report being surrounded and paralyzed by the alien creatures. They’re not just making you immobile, they put you almost in, like, a comatose state.
I’ve had occasions where I’ve been able to communicate with them to an extent, which is a mixture of them speaking in a sense that seems to be telepathic. NARRATOR: Some even claim the grays will often whisk their human prize away into space. And you find yourself in, for lack of a better word, an alien environment where there’s lots of light.
Everything is very– poetic is almost the word to use to describe the environment because it feels very surreal. NARRATOR: Abductees say that once on-board, the grays perform medical examinations which some describe as being extremely painful. There were experiences, which to me, suggested that there was a biological reproductive element of my experiences.

And that’s commonly widespread. So I’m not I’m not ashamed in reporting that. [vocalizing] NARRATOR: If the grays are actually here, what’s their real agenda? A lot of people think that they’re coming to totally destroy us– some people think that, and some people think that there are others coming to help us not be destroyed.
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: Hypnotherapist and self-proclaimed Alien Hunter, Derrel Sims, has been studying the abduction phenomenon for more than 30 years, and believes he has uncovered the grays’ true mission. He specializes in recovering repressed traumatic memories from people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.
One of the things you would do in the beginning with these people is to relax them completely, and the tone of my voice changes totally. Just focus on the sound of my voice. You’ll find the sound of my voice causing your eyes to get heavier. The sound of my voice will comfort you, it’ll protect you, and it’s OK for you to relax completely.
NARRATOR: One of his clients, Donna Lee, is the President of the Houston UFO Network. She believes she has been abducted many times by the grays. In the course of hypnotherapy sessions with Derrel Sims, she has recalled numerous terrifying encounters. She even believes the grays took her unborn child. DONNA THOMAS LEE: I never had anything involved that would have been a miscarriage.
I was about eight weeks pregnant. Then it was just gone. I mean, I did not have the bleeding that’s involved. Nothing. NARRATOR: In a later regression session, Lee recalled being in a brightly lit sterile room. DONNA THOMAS LEE: They brought a young girl into the room and left her there with me. And she was a hybrid.
What we consider a hybrid. Although, she looked a lot like me. Her hair was– she had really bad hair, though. But she looked a lot like me, and she was about the age that my child would have been at that point. NARRATOR: Lee claims the hybrid child was about nine years old. DONNA THOMAS LEE: She sat there.
I had that realization in that moment when they left me there with her, and she looked at me, that I know you. I know you. And it was this very sad, almost overwhelming sadness. For a while, I would still recall that longing for that again. NARRATOR: To many experts, accounts of alien abductions are merely a product of an overactive mind.
They say under hypnosis subjects are open to suggestions. And what happens under hypnosis is that people will generate imagery that they will often mistake for memories of things that actually happened, rather than things that they’re just producing. Second point, is that when people recover these sorts of, quote unquote, “memories” under these regression hypnotic regression sessions, they tend to credit them as being true.
[music playing] NARRATOR: Do the grays exist? And if so, are they on a devious mission? In 2003, a team of psychologists from Harvard University believe they found the answer. Led by Dr. Richard J. McNally, they conducted a unique experiment to measure the physiological responses like heart rate and perspiration levels of various types of trauma victims.
We wanted to see whether people who’ve recovered memories of space alien abduction would show the same reactions, post-traumatic reactions, as do real trauma patients. Our research group has been studying people with recovered memories of traumatic events. And one of the big challenges that we’ve had is distinguishing between those individuals who’ve recovered memories of, for example, childhood sexual abuse, or actually genuine memories versus memories that were, perhaps, false memories.
NARRATOR: Dr. Scott Orr directed the lab tests. What this procedure involves is an individual coming in to the lab, sitting down with one of our counselors, and then describing a variety of experiences that they’ve had. We wire them up with recording electrodes so we can measure heart rate and skin conductance and facial EMG.
NARRATOR: In the lab, test subjects then listen to a second audiotape of their own traumatic, or abduction, experience. SCOTT ORR: You are lying naked strapped to a metal table in a spaceship. There are alien beings hovering over the table. They are staring at you with their large, dead black eyes. You are absolutely terrified.
Then they open their eyes and they make self-reports of emotional experiences that they had while imagining the scene. So we ask them to rate how much arousal they felt, how vivid the scene was for them, how in control they felt, how pleasant or unpleasant they felt, how much fear, how much sadness. A variety of different emotional experiences.
NARRATOR: The Harvard psychologists found that the alien abductees exhibited a high tendency of a personality trait called absorption. Absorption is this ability to generate vivid imagery. And when you will go to the movie, you become moved by it emotionally. When you read a novel it comes alive before your eyes.
You become entranced by a sunset. You become lost in daydreaming and fantasy. They’re especially high on this, and this is related to the ability to generate rich and realistic imagery. NARRATOR: The study further concluded that in most cases, the abductees are not lying. They really genuinely believe that the alien narrative accounts for the experiences that they’ve had, that they’re sincere.
They’re not, quote unquote, “crazy.” Now, these particular events are sleep paralysis episodes. These things are really normal events. They don’t indicate pathology. But what happens during rapid eye movement sleep, REM sleep, the stage of sleep when we do most of our dreaming, we’re entirely paralyzed. When you combine all of these things together, you have yourself a space alien abductee.
NARRATOR: However, a former McNally test subject believes the Harvard study is fatally flawed. It might be that alien encounters do involve an altered state of consciousness. But to write them off as fantasy, I think, is a dire mistake. And that’s where he goes wrong. I myself have had sleep paralysis. I know that the sensations are superficially similar to that of alien contact.
But although there are similarities, it doesn’t go far enough to account for it. [music playing] NARRATOR: The case of Betty and Barney Hill remains the seminal alien abduction tale. It stands as the first-ever recorded encounter with the Greys, the most popularly noted alien species said to visit the Earth.
It allegedly occurred near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on September 19, 1961. To this day, skeptics cannot dispute every detail of the story. Believers see the Hills’ incident as the defining moment in Grey history, when the nation and the world awoke to the troubling phenomenon of alien abduction. In her last on-camera interview, the late Betty Hill shared her experience.
My husband Barney and I are returning from Montreal, Canada. We’re traveling down through the White Mountains of New Hampshire when we suddenly spot what we thought was a new star in the sky. And as we watched this, it changed direction and came in towards us. NARRATOR: Barney pulled over, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and stepped out of the car to get a closer look at the menacing flying object.
Betty Hill’s niece, Kathy Marden, was a teenager when this incident occurred. KATHY MARDEN: At that time, through the binoculars, he saw the leader– what he called the leader– and crew members. There were people looking down at him. And as he’s watching, it began to descend. And at this point, he became frightened and ran back to the car, yelling that they were trying to capture us.
She was screaming to him, Barney, you damn fool, come back here, get back here. NARRATOR: They sped off. A short while later, they heard a buzzing sound. They turned onto a logging road and stopped. KATHY MARDEN: There was a roadblock, and there were people in the road. The people approached the car, and they realized at that point that they were not human, that they were the people that Barney had seen in the UFO.
This is where their memory lapsed. The next thing they fully consciously remembered was, they were driving down the highway again, and they proceeded home. NARRATOR: When the Hills noticed the time, they realized that about two hours had elapsed that neither of them could account for. That was just the beginning of a mystery that would soon unravel.
For nearly two years after their experience, the Hills had troubling nightmares. They went to several medical specialists and eventually were referred to Dr. Benjamin Simon, a highly respected Boston psychiatrist and neurologist with an extensive background in hypnotic therapy. BETTY HILL: Dr.
Simon told us these UFO people had caused us to have amnesia. And Dr. Simon removed the amnesia so that we could remember clearly all that had happened. They took us on board the craft, their craft. And we were taken into separate rooms. They were very human-looking. They had two arms, two legs. The only difference, basically, were their facial features.
The noses were very, very small, almost no nose. Small lips, small nose. They examined my eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, hair, and all. And then I was put on a table, where they scraped my skin in an attempt to find out if our skin was alike or different. NARRATOR: Hill says an alien conducted sexual experiments on them.
They took semen from Barney. Betty may have had eggs extracted. BETTY HILL: He tried to insert a needle-like instrument in my navel, which caused pain. So he stopped doing it. And I was grateful for that. NARRATOR: Years later, Betty Hill produced the first alleged eyewitness depiction of the Greys since ancient drawings and carvings.
They portrayed the alien leader who showed her a tantalizing clue to indicate where they came from. I asked him where he was from, and he showed me a star map. NARRATOR: In a hypnotherapy session a few years after her encounter, Betty drew a map of an alien star system. At the time, experts could not identify it.
But then, in 1966, Marjorie Fish, an enterprising ufologist and amateur astronomer, became fascinated by Betty Hill’s star map. Fish spent the next seven years examining the map and constructing models, trying to match it to a known star system. It was only later when a new star was discovered that they found exactly what Betty had drawn on the star map.
NARRATOR: In 1973, after reviewing 23 star models, Marjorie Fish claimed to have found a fit. She declared that Betty Hill had drawn a star system some 40 light years from Earth– Zeta Reticuli. At the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Charles Beichmann, one of the world’s foremost astronomers, examines Zeta Reticuli.
We have no way to possibly travel that far. We don’t know of any way for any solid vehicle to go that sort of a distance. But relatively speaking, within the scale of the galaxy, it’s a very nearby star. NARRATOR: In a conventional Earth-based space shuttle, it would take nearly a million and 1/2 years to reach Zeta Reticuli.
In addition to his duties with the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Lab, Dr. Beichmann is a leading member of NASA’s Origins Program. Their mission is to probe space for signs of life. He concedes that life is possible in the universe, maybe even on Zeta Reticuli. CHARLES BEICHMANN: Here, we’re looking at the two stars in the Zeta Reticulum system about 40 light years away.
The binary stars could well have planets around stars like this. The system is old enough that, in fact, you could have stable life having evolved on any habitable planets in those systems. Again, the prospect’s good. What do we know today? Nothing. NARRATOR: With just tantalizing evidence but no definitive proof that the Greys actually come from Zeta Reticuli, Betty Hill’s case continues to be hotly debated.
However, skeptics and believers can agree that since that night in September 1961, hundreds of alien abductions have been reported. Just as a disease is contagious, so can an idea be contagious and spread from person to person. NARRATOR: Did Betty Hill really meet aliens from Zeta Reticuli? Did they conduct reproductive experiments as part of an evil agenda? Are the people claiming to have been abducted reporting the truth? They’re dreaming with their eyes open.
So they have these hypnopompic, or upon awakening, hallucinations. That’s the tactile sensations– the lights, the buzzing, and especially the sense of presence. So many times, the debunkers try to explain abductions as people simply mimicking and repeating stories that have been passed around over the years.
Well, here’s some people who had nothing to go by. Nobody had ever reported this. And yet, their abduction experience is remarkably similar to what we hear from people even to this very day. [music playing] [narrator]<i> Dozens say that over the past few weeks,</i> <i> they’ve been chased,</i> <i>as if they’re being hunted down and attacked by the lights.
</i> <i> Twenty-five-year-old dentist, Lucia Helena Marques</i> <i> says she too had a strange encounter on a nearby beach.</i> [speaking Portuguese] We were at the market, and there was a commotion. [speaking Portuguese] <i> This object appeared</i> <i> and everyone ran to the seashore.</i> <i> We saw two lights hovering in the air.
</i> <i> One light would be on, and the other would be off.</i> <i> They kept doing it, like a signal.</i> [Lucia speaking Portuguese] <i> The colors that we saw</i> <i> most were red, red was the brightest color.</i> <i> Then green, red, green, and yellow in the back.</i> <i> Then it just disappeared.</i> [ominous music playing] [narrator]<i> As residents of Colares</i> <i> struggled to make sense of these strange occurrences,</i> <i> two hours away, in Belem,</i> <i> 25-year-old reporter, Carlos Mendes,</i>
<i> gets a call in his office.</i> [phone ringing] [speaking Portuguese] I first heard pieces of information through telephone calls, from people linked to the town. <i> They were saying the newspaper should go there,</i> <i> because these lights were appearing</i> <i> and the people were becoming very afraid.
</i> [narrator]<i> Mendes, who works for the newspaper</i> O Estado Do Para, <i> calls his photographer.</i> <i> The two men leave for Colares that night.</i> <i> When they arrived,</i> <i> the men are swarmed by residents,</i> <i> wanting to tell their stories about being attacked</i> <i> by strange beams of light.
</i> [camera shutter clicking] <i> Some even say</i> <i> they have been wounded by the lights.</i> [Carlos speaking Portuguese] [Carlos]<i> One woman, she was in her house at night,</i> when suddenly, she saw the brightness. [Carlos speaking Portuguese] <i> And she noticed</i> <i> that the light was shining in her house,</i> <i> it pierced the roof and lit up the bedroom.
</i> [Carlos speaking Portuguese] [narrator]<i> The woman says her legs and arms were paralyzed.</i> <i> And the next day, she noticed</i> <i> something strange on her chest.</i> On her breast, there were marks. <i> As if someone had perforated her breast</i> <i> a number of times, in the same place with a pin.
</i> [narrator]<i> Other alleged victims</i> <i> tell similar stories.</i> <i> They also say that while they were immobilized</i> <i> by the light,</i> <i> they felt as if it were somehow</i> <i> sucking their blood.</i> <i> Reporter Carlos Mendes,</i> <i> never sees the lights for himself.</i> <i> He doesn’t know what to make of the bizarre stories</i> <i> but he can see that the terror is real.
</i> I noticed a lot of fear in those humble people. It was a sign that something very bad was happening. [narrator]<i> Over the next two months,</i> <i> the sightings increase,</i> <i> and the island erupts in panic.</i> <i> Over 80 people report being targeted</i> <i> by intense beams of light.</i> [speaking Portuguese] Stories were always the same.
The lights came down from space, sucked on those people, paralyzed these people and affected these people. <i> They couldn’t understand why they were being attacked,</i> <i> but they said they were attacked violently.</i> <i> So I was trying to understand why it was happening</i> <i> and if the lights were really appearing to these people.
</i> [narrator]<i> The locals become so alarmed,</i> <i> that many of the women and children leave town.</i> <i> Some men light bonfires along the beach…</i> <i> and stand guard at night.</i> <i> Others stay locked in their homes</i> <i> for fear of being targeted.</i> [Carlos speaking Portuguese] I saw the people’s fear.
I saw the feeling of terror that these people had. And I saw the plea for help that the people were making. [narrator]<i> It seems as if someone or something</i> <i> is attacking the people of Colares.</i> <i> No one knows why.</i> <i> At that time, Dr. Wellaide Carvalho</i> <i> is the 24-year-old director of the local healthcare unit.
</i> <i> She has been on the island for only six months.</i> <i> Over the last few days,</i> <i> the young doctor has seen an increase</i> <i> in her patient load.</i> <i> Many of whom claim they have been injured</i> <i> by these unexplained lights.</i> [Wellaide speaking Portuguese] People kept showing up. And I was getting irritated because I thought it was getting to be too much.
<i> It was mass hallucination, it was mass delirium.</i> <i> I had more and more cases.</i> <i> I remain skeptical</i> <i> thinking they had all gone crazy for some reason.</i> [narrator]<i> The symptoms the doctor sees</i> <i> are all the same.</i> <i> The patients display</i> <i> what appear to be radiation burns.
</i> <i> As well as unusual puncture marks.</i> <i> Physician Daniel Rebisso</i> <i> studied the events on Colares.</i> [speaking Portuguese] The marks were generally at the thorax level, shoulders, chests, cases on the thigh, the leg, and generally, the burn was small. <i> It wasn’t very extensive,</i> <i> a maximum of 15 centimeters in diameter.
</i> <i> Dr. Wellaide observed small papules</i> <i> as if they were two small injections</i> <i> in the location of the wound.</i> [foreboding music playing] [narrator]<i> Victims report that these burns were caused</i> <i> when the light made contact with their skin.</i> <i> But the wounds are unlike any burns</i> <i> the young doctor has treated before.
</i> [Wellaide speaking Portuguese] <i> Marks caused by the burns</i> <i> turned black suddenly,</i> <i> as if they were burns that had been around</i> <i> for ten days or so.</i> [speaking Portuguese] However, many times, it had only been ten minutes since they were made. [narrator]<i> And the doctor’s most disturbing cases</i> <i> are yet to come.
</i> <i> In September, she examines a woman</i> <i> whom relatives claim has been attacked</i> <i> inside her home by a bright light.</i> [Wellaide]<i> She arrived,</i> <i> being carried by family members.</i> <i> She was already in a state of spasms</i> <i> as if she was having cardiac arrest.</i> Her mouth was shut tight, her eyes were closed.
She had no reflexes at all. [narrator]<i> Carvalho tries to stabilize</i> <i> the woman’s condition.</i> <i> But there’s no sign of improvement.</i> There was nothing more we could do. The only thing left was to put her in a car, <i> since we didn’t have an ambulance,</i> <i> and drive her to Belem</i> [narrator]<i> Carvalho waits for an update</i> <i> on the woman’s condition.
</i> <i> Five days later,</i> <i> another serious case is brought to her clinic.</i> <i> A woman whom witnesses say</i> <i> was hit by a strong beam of light</i> <i> while standing in her yard.</i> She arrived in a squad car, in such a profound state of rigidity that they couldn’t fold her into the car. And she came lying on the backseat with her legs sticking out because they couldn’t bend them in.
[narrator]<i> Carvalho sends this patient</i> <i> to the city as well.</i> <i> Soon, the doctor receives word</i> <i> from the regional hospital in Belem</i> <i> about her patients.</i> [ominous music playing] [narrator]<i> They are both dead.</i> [speaking Portuguese] I had requested <i> that the cause of death be determined,</i> <i> because it was of interest to the population.
</i> And the cause of death was listed as “unknown.”