Fran Drescher (credit: Manfred Werner - Tsui/Wikimedia Commons)

The actress, best known for her role as the title character on the 90s sitcom The Nanny, recently told the Huffington Post that both she and her ex-husband were abducted by extraterrestrials before they met each other. And she claims the situations in which they were each abducted are similar. She explained that her abduction occurred when she in junior high, driving down the road with her father. Her ex-husband, also in junior high at the time, was abducted while driving down the road with his father.

Drescher stated, “A few years later, we met, and we realized that we had the same experience. I think that somehow we were programmed to meet.” She even theorizes that an alien implant could be how the extraterrestrials programmed her actions. And she claims her ex-husband has one too. She explained, “We both have this scar. It’s the exact same scar on the exact same spot . . . that’s where the chip is.”

The student filed an application with the school’s administration to be excused from his December 15 absence. According to the China Post, the student listed on his application the reason for his absence as “being snatched away by aliens.” He alleged that he was “held hostage and taken away by aliens from an unnamed planet.” Surprisingly, the university approved the application the following day.

Word spread quickly, drawing the attention of local media. Following media inquiries, the student reportedly filed an amended application, citing “discomfort” as the reason for his absence. This new application was approved by the school immediately “in order to put the whole event aside as early as possible.”

The student has since stated that his original claim of an alien abduction was done simply for fun.

What do you think? Did the student change his story to avoid media attention? Did someone force him to change his story? Or do you believe the student was simply goofing around, as he claims?

Share your thoughts on our Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/om.ufomagazine

Betty and Barney Hill holding a newspaper featuring a story about their abduction experience.

Many states might shy away from immortalizing its UFO history. But the State of New Hampshire is known for its fiercely independent people and its “live free or die” motto.  On July 20, 2011, it erected a historical marker to commemorate the September 19-20, 1961 close encounter and “lost” time of Portsmouth residents Betty and Barney Hill. The marker is located next to the highway in front of Cabin # 20 at the Indian Head Resort in North Lincoln and across the street from the granite stone face called Indian Head.

Several years ago, Mike Stevens, a Farmington, NH, man circulated a petition to request a marker to commemorate Betty and Barney Hills’ UFO experience. The State of NH Division of Historical Resources, Department of Cultural Resources advised him that a formal request would be required. I, as the Hills’ niece and trustee of Betty’s estate, then worked with the state over the next 3-4 years to complete the process. Employees at the Department of Cultural Resources called upon me to suggest appropriate text for the marker—a challenge in and of itself. Every statement had to be footnoted and supported by ample evidence that it was true and accurate.  In all, the wording for the 12 line plague had 20 footnotes and 28 sources listed in its bibliography.

The new Betty and Barney Hill marker. (image credit: Indian Head Resort's owner Peter Spanos)

The final wording approved by the state agency reads as follows:

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, Portsmouth, NH couple Betty and Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with an unidentified flying object and two hours of “lost” time while driving south on Rte 3 near Lincoln. They filed an official Air Force Project Blue Book report of a brightly-lit cigar-shaped craft the next day, but were not public with their story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler in 1965. This was the first widely-reported UFO abduction report in the United States.

They didn’t accept my first draft. I had stated that the Hills were prominent members of the community and supported it with evidence that Betty and Barney were active in community affairs. They helped organize the Rockingham County Community Action Program and Barney was chairman of the Board of Directors. In 1965, Barney was appointed to the NH State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Barney was legal redress officer for the local chapter of the NAACP and served on the regional board. They promoted literacy throughout the state and worked on Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign. I accompanied Betty and Barney to his inauguration in January 1965. We were invited guests.

I had also added that the Hills’ experience generated interest in the scientific community because   J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Carl Sagan, David Saunders, Leo Sprinkle, Stanton Friedman and others looked into the case. But that text didn’t make the final cut either. I am, however, very pleased with the text that the D.O.C.R. eventually approved. The marker is beautiful.

The decision to place the marker by Indian Head was a difficult one to make. Five locations were initially considered. The Mt. Cleveland picnic area, south of the Town of Twin Mountain was the Hills’ first stop. It gave Betty the opportunity to view through binoculars the star like object that had sparked her curiosity fifteen miles north. She watched as it traveled across the face of the moon flashing multi-colored lights. By the time she handed the binoculars to Barney, the object had changed course, and shortly thereafter, rapidly descended in their direction.

My next suggestion was the Old Man of the Mountain historical site in Franconia Notch, the Hills’ second stop. The Hills stated that as they motored past the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway just north of the Old Man, Betty noticed that the lights on a structure at the top of the mountain blinked out as the craft passed over it. It then rounded the mountain and hovered motionless in the sky, except for its rotation, beside the Old Man’s 48 foot profile. It was at least 1 ½ times the length of the natural granite formation from chin to forehead. It appeared cigar shaped because they were observing a lighted row of windows. Within moments, the silent craft rapidly changed direction and ascended and descended in a stair step pattern.

Indian Head was my next suggestion. Located near Franconia Notch’s the south entrance, the resort offers ample parking space and was a prominent landmark along the Hills’ journey south.

Indian Head Resort (image credit: indianheadresort.com)

In regressive hypnosis with Dr. Benjamin Simon, Betty stated, “We went past the Flume, somewhere between the Flume and Indian Head or……..it was just beyond the Flume or just beyond Indian Head.  There was a motel and it was like cabins, these small neat looking cabins.  The sign itself wasn’t lighted, but there was one cabin on the end that had a light on, and there was a man standing in the door.  And I saw this and I thought, “If I want to I can get out of this whole situation right now.  All we’ve got to do is drive in here and this object will go away, and that will be the end of it.” But they didn’t stop.

Only a mile south of Indian Head and almost directly in their path, the couple encountered a huge flattened circular disc with a row of intense blue-white lighted windows along its forward edge. Barney rapidly brought the car to a halt in the middle of the road and grabbed his binoculars for a closer look, opening the car door for a less encumbered view. The silent hovering object descended to an estimated eighty to a hundred feet above their vehicle. It had ceased rotating. Rapidly, in an arc like movement, it shifted from its location directly ahead, and rested above the tree tops in an adjacent field. Barney pocketed his handgun and walked toward it. The silent enigmatic craft was huge; maybe sixty to eighty feet in diameter. As he approached it, two red lights at the end of fin-like structures parted from the sides of the craft, and it tilted toward Barney.

Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, he spied a group of “strangely not human” figures moving about with what he described as “the precision of German officers.” As the craft tilted downward and began to descend toward him, one of these strange creatures, who remained at the window, communicated a frightening message. Barney had the immediate impression that he was in danger of being plucked from the field. Overcome with fear and with all of the courage that he could muster, he tore the binoculars from his eyes and raced back to the car. Breathless, trembling, and in near hysterics, he told Betty that they needed to get out of there or they were going to be captured.

Kathllen Marden with her two books: Captured! and Science was Wrong. (image credit: Alejandro Rojas)

The close encounter field would have been my number one choice for the marker but Interstate Highway 93 now passes through it, with entrance and exit ramps to Route 3. At the height of the tourist season, it would have presented a traffic flow problem. The Notch Express, a convenience store and gas station near the ramp is a place of interest. Its walls are lined with UFO photos and memorabilia and UFO related video is constantly playing on a monitor by the checkout counter.

The fifth location that we considered was the abduction site on Mill Brook Road in Thornton. We almost immediately rejected that notion because it is located off the highway in a new housing development. In 1961, Betty and Barney found themselves on the then deserted logging road where they encountered a roadblock by non-human entities. They reported that they were forced aboard a landed disk and subjected to unearthly physical examinations before they were released. After years of searching, they located the landing site on Labor Day Weekend in 1965.

We made the final decision that Indian Head was the best overall location for the historical marker. Over the past 50 years, the Indian Head Resort has grown into a large modern facility with motel rooms, a function hall, business center, restaurant and lounge, and swimming pools.  This year it will host a 50^th anniversary celebration of the Hills’ UFO experience on September 23-25. There will be a memorial marker dedication and many additional activities. I will be on hand to give a guided tour along the close encounter route and a new presentation about the Hills’ close encounter and abduction.  For additional information, see my website at www.kathleen-marden.com and my 2007 book with Stanton Friedman, Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Encounter.

Note: the Hills’ archival collection is housed at the Milne Archival Collection Department at the University of New Hampshire Library, 18 Library Way, Durham, NH 03824.  The collection consists of 87 folders, arranged in 9 series. These contain correspondence, personal journals and essays, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, slides, and films and audio tapes of the Hills’ radio and television appearances. I compiled the collection in 2005 at Betty’s request.

Cover of the graphic novel The Nye Incidents (credit: Devil's Due Publishing)

Nick Nadel from AMC’s FilmCritic.com describes, “The Nye Incidents follows level-headed medical examiner Lynn Devlin’s investigations into the gruesome murder of an alien abductee. Of course, she’s haunted by dreams of creepy saucer-eyed people, despite her logical, Dana Scully-esque side.”

Director Todd Lincoln, producer Daniel Alter and RKO are the team tasked with adapting the comic for the big screen, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Cover of Communion (credit: Beech Tree Books)

A big screen version of Nye was originally announced in 2009, but the project was put on hold while Lincoln directed the supernatural thriller The Apparition. The movie news website ShockTillYouDrop.com interviewed Lincoln in 2009 about Nye. He described his vision for creating a terrifying alien movie:

Whitley doesn’t call aliens ‘aliens’ he calls them ‘visitors’ which I think sounds much scarier . . . With this subject, we want to get away from the go-to rural locations or outer space and really capture the terror of what a close encounter or abduction or mutilation would be like. The moment in Signs that everyone talks about is that home video footage of the birthday party and the alien quickly moves past the window. I want to do a whole movie that feels like that moment.

Whitley Strieber

Growing up, I watched Communion and Fire in the Sky and I think the whole reason I’m so excited about this project is that I feel that we have the go to iconic horror movies for vampires, werewolves, slashers and zombies. I just feel like we don’t have the go-to horror movie for these visitors. We’re not treating this like sci-fi. We’re taking this seriously. We’re treating this like it’s really happening and could happen to you.

The Nye Incident is currently in development, and is tentatively scheduled for a 2012 release.

The Barge Inn (image credit: www.the-barge-inn.com)

In the nexus of the crop circle phenomenon, Wiltshire, England, there is a pub by the name of The Barge Inn, home to some creative brew meisters providing ales for the Croppies (crop circle enthusiasts). This year they claim their new Alien Abduction Ale will help keep their campers from being stolen away by extraterrestrials.

The Barge Inn Manager, Alan Bowery. (image credit: www.the-barge-inn.com)

The Barge Inn actually enjoys a bit of fame. I recognized a picture of the pub, not being fortunate enough to have visited it in person, and realized it was in an episode of Inspector Morse, an English police series that ran on BBC. I watched the series on PBS, my favorite channel incidentally. The Barge Inn is also referred to by some as crop circle headquarters.

Wiltshire has been a hot spot for crop circles for many years. People from around the world flock to the area every summer to experience the phenomenon in person. While the abundance of circles per year has diminished from its peak in 1990, which saw over 500 circles in one season, there are still dozens of them appearing every year.

The Barge Inn’s new beer has been rumored to glow in the dark, although that cannot be confirmed by their website. However, the website does have an abundance of bombastic claims of its own. They claim that, “drinking up to 3 pints of the beer a day (two pints for ladies) gave a 93% protection rate from alien abduction.” The pub’s webmaster certainly has a great imagination and sense of humor.

In fact the site claims that a local farmer told them, “I’m going to buy a barrel and put some in the cows feed. They’re always being beamed up and it affects the yields. Thank goodness someone is taking the problem seriously at last.”

Alien Abduction Ale bottl label. (image credit: www.the-barge-inn.com)

While the beer’s ability to glow-in-the-dark is in question, it is green, and it isn’t the only paranormal ale they brew. Croppie is one of their signature brews.

Their Croppie marketing goes like this:

Croppie Ale poster. (image credit: www.the-barge-inn.com)

Area 51 Real Cider

They also have an area 51 Cider:

The legend that is Area 51 has been the subject of intense curiosity. What goes in to it? Are the stories about aliens and UFO’s true? Who really developed this potent liquid? They call it real dry cider, it has a light aftertaste, a mysterious golden colour and a 6% ABV. Why do they deny any alien involvement in its production? They say, it is made only from real apples and contains no secret ingredients; we say, try it for yourself, but proceed with caution. The truth is out there…

The pub’s paranormal appeal has not eluded the local media. The Daily Telegraph has written, “The easiest way to get to the Barge Inn is by UFO. Exit intergalactic space at the Milky Way, follow the signs to the solar system, hang a right at Mars, and over Wiltshire zero in on the cluster of crop circles.”

Visit The Barge Inn’s website for more humorous musings about their beer and history. Hopefully one day we can all meet there for a pint. Visiting their site definitely makes me long for a Crop Circle research outing, with a night of enjoying freshly dispensed ale. That is, of course, before we go and spend the rest of the evening staking out the hills to try and catch a glimpse of a circle being formed first hand.

As he has previously stated, Hagar told the show’s host, Dr. Drew Pinsky, “Call me crazy all you want. Anyone who says there’s no one in this whole universe, we’re the only ones? That’s crazy.”

Hagar described to Pinsky the details of his alien encounter, which occurred when he was in a dream-like state. In this dream, extraterrestrial entities communicated telepathically with Hagar. And as he has described before, Hagar explained to Pinsky, “I think it was a download/upload situation, like an experimental thing . . . like I was the guinea pig.”

Watch the part of the interview where Hagar discusses his encounter below:

Report from March 4th (credit: Fraser Coast Chronicle)

The overwhelming response from readers in response to the initial reports about the mysterious lights prompted the paper to place a poll on its website, which posed the question, “Are aliens visiting Earth?” An incredible 60 percent of the poll’s nearly 2,000 participants thinks that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth. Perhaps more surprising is that 20 percent claim to have met an extraterrestrial.

While the Chronicle‘s poll is non-scientific, the results are still surprising.