Biographical data shown in the chart on page 234 was extracted from a tape-recorded interview with Betty Ann Andreasson on the afternoon of April 30, 1978, at the home of Raymond E. Fowler.
Nocturnal Light, Daylight Disc, Radar/Visual, and CE-I sightings all deal with witnesses who consciously see, remember, and report a UFO. Evidence for such reports is necessarily limited to a careful analysis of the witnesses’ background and of their accounts.
CE-II’s provide more than just anecdotal data to the investigator. In such cases, the visual sighting of a UFO is supported by supplementary evidences. This might include a recorded radar track that coincides with the location and maneuvers of a sighted UFO; a verifiable photographic image that corresponds with the eyewitness’ description; and measurable ground effects left behind in a UFO’s wake. Such supplementary evidence, when properly analyzed, aids in establishing the physical reality of a sighted UFO.
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind sometimes present a problem when there is no supporting physical evidence and when, for some inexplicable reason, the witness’s conscious memory has been blocked, as with the Andreasson Affair. Such circumstances prohibit investigators from scientifically establishing that a real physical event took place as described.
Does this mean that such cases are not worth investigating? Not necessarily. There is a standard investigative procedure applicable to CE-IV cases such as the Andreasson Affair. It includes establishing witness credibility, extracting the forgotten experience through hypnosis, and, finally, thoroughly analyzing all collected data pertaining to the case at hand.
When analyzing and evaluating any given UFO sighting case, knowledge of the witnesses’ character is essential. It is of special value when dealing with a single witness or with exceptionally bizarre reports. Alleged incidents involving UFO landings, the sighting of alien entities, communication with alien entities, abduction by alien entities, etc., are examples of cases exhibiting a high element of strangeness. In such cases, the background of the witnesses must be established.
Betty seems to have passed a relatively happy, secure, healthy childhood, as her tomboy ways would seem to suggest. She delighted in catching snakes, tadpoles, shiners, and trout: “I remember going through the tunnel beneath our road with a barrel hoop and burlap sack attached to it, swishing a stick, as my friend Eddie stood at the other end with another hooded sack. We got more trout and snakes that way.” For sports, she enjoyed swimming, hiking, sliding, skating, basketball, hitting baseballs, football, and hunting. (Later in life, she still enjoyed playing on a woman’s softball team.)
The Aho family lived variously in Fitchburg, Leominster, and Westminster, and Betty did fairly well at Westminster Elementary School. A check of the educational background of Betty Andreasson and her daughter Becky revealed that neither had fully completed high school, nor did they obtain special training of any kind. Becky married young, as had her mother, and had become equally engrossed in homemaking. Information was also sought concerning the witnesses’ community reputation, attitudes, and personality traits.
In establishing the community reputation of a witness, one is basically concerned about honesty and basic human relations. Such information is obtained by questioning present friends, neighbors, teachers, ministers, and business associates. The principal witnesses—Betty and Becky—scored high in this category. The general impression gained was that they were “good neighbors,” “very stable,” and “honest,” and that Betty was “hardworking,” “dependable,” “good mother,” and “good homemaker.” Each person questioned had no reason to doubt the witnesses’ integrity.
The witnesses’ attitudes—their philosophical beliefs and biases—were quite similar. Betty’s parents were exceptionally devout people. Betty and her brother and sisters were raised in a home life centered around a vibrant Christian faith. Waino loved fishing, but both he and Eva devoted a great deal of time to studying the Bible. (Though he spoke English with no accent, he retained a command of his native Finnish.) They were both very active in the Pentecostal Church.
Shortly before she turned 17, Betty started attending the Pentecostal and Baptist churches. She did not smoke or drink—“could not stand the taste of beer or liquor”—but while in her teens, she had begun attending the Friday night dances at the local Youth Center.
Discovering her talent for jitterbugs and waltzes, she was briefly torn between a career in art or dance. Not until she was married and pregnant with her second child, James, Jr., did Betty give her “heart willingly over to Jesus and was born again, praise God!” The family initially lived in Westminster, renting Betty’s father-in-law’s house, where she pored over her Bible continuously. Later, she took pains to instill the same faith in her own children. Thus, both Betty and Becky could be classed as fundamentalist Christians who accept a very literal interpretation of the Bible and believe it to be the Word of God.
Such biases provide both potential strengths and weaknesses to the witnesses’ credibility. On the one hand, experience has shown that such people are usually exceptionally honest. Interest in UFOs and paranormal phenomena are usually frowned upon by this wing of the Christian Church. On the other hand, a mystical person who interprets everything in terms of his or her preconceptions may not be an objective witness.
Nonetheless, Betty’s powers of visual recall seemed unusually acute. Her husband, trained as a welder and pipe fitter, and able to read blueprints, was employed via Union Local 92 for many companies, such as Borden Chemical and Industrial Pipe of Leominster. On December 9, 1966, Betty was sitting in the family Volkswagen bus, waiting to pick up her husband’s paycheck from the Catalytic Construction Company, when she witnessed a robbery of the union payroll.
Before jumping into the getaway car, one of the bandits ripped off his face mask, revealing a distinctive scar on his face. The robbers were shocked to realize that Betty had witnessed everything, but they drove off in a hurry without harming her. When police arrived, Betty was able to recall such details as the robbers’ clothing, the interior of their car, and the license number, and her description led to the criminals’ arrest in a matter of minutes.
Neither she nor Becky exhibited personality traits that would downgrade their credibility. Both were well dressed, orderly, courteous, and modest. Betty Andreasson voluntarily submitted to a psychiatric interview by a professional doctor, whose examination made no attempt to explore the reported UFO experience. Instead, he concentrated on Betty herself in order to establish an informal psychological profile. The doctor found no symptoms of active thought disorders or obvious psychiatric problems. He concluded that she believed in the reality of her experience. (It was his opinion, however, that her strong involvement in religion may have compromised her objectivity as a witness.)
Another investigative tool employed in establishing the credibility of the principal witnesses was the Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE), an instrument developed by the Dektor Company1 to detect, measure, and display certain stress-related components of the human voice.
When a person speaks, the human voice exhibits two types of modulation. The first type is that which we hear, and over which a person has conscious control. The second type, which cannot be heard, results from stress-related micro-muscle tremors that are beyond the control of the person who is speaking. In times of stress—especially when a person is deliberately lying—this second type of modulation disappears from the human voice. The greater the stress, the greater the suppressive effect on the micro-muscle tremors. The PSE graphically displays when this second modulation is missing or is being suppressed.
A PSE test consists of preparing a list of simple, selected questions, keyed to the person being tested. As in other sensor tests, like the polygraph or “lie detector,” questions are selected to differentiate between normal, truthful answers and those that are blatantly false. In doing so, the test subject’s voice pattern is firmly established. When compared to the norm, evasive or false answers reveal obvious stress patterns. It is important to note that the PSE has the ability to accept both narrative and yes/no answers from the test subject. The instrument is being used by law-enforcement officials, doctors, and lawyers, as well as by commercial organizations for pre-employment screening. In recent years, UFO investigators have enlisted the services of the professional PSE analyst as part of an overall inquiry into the credibility of certain UFO witnesses.
The PSE analysis was performed by Ernest C. Reid, a certified stress analyst. He has conducted (among others) a major security check of facilities at Atlanta International Airport in 1972, under the auspices of the Boston-based Interstate Detective Bureau.2 PSE tests were administered to both Betty and Becky, during which many pertinent questions were asked about their alleged UFO experience. The analyst concluded that “they were telling the truth with regards to the 1967 incident.” In his report (which included the results of the PSE test, inserted into the 528-page report sent to MUFON), Mr. Reid stated: “It is extremely unusual…that we would render an opinion as definitive as we would in this particular instance.… The seriousness of the situation…led us to analyze these charts with full respect for the rights of the subjects, the examiners and the validity of the instrumentation being used. In the opinion of this analyst, the results are conclusive.”
Among the investigators, no one doubted that a UFO experience of some kind had occurred. Everyone felt that the witnesses were telling the truth as they knew it to be. Most believed that the witnesses’ motives for reporting the event were pure (though a minority believed that the witnesses’ motivation was financial gain—but following a real experience). A graphical representation of his PSE tests, with a listing of the questions and answers, is reproduced on the following pages.
The date is July 7, 1977. The time is 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The recording was made at the home of Jules Vaillancourt, 37 Williams Road, Ashburnham, Massachusetts. The equipment is a “Magnacord” with full-track heads run at 7 1/2 inches per second. The microphone is an “Electret” miniature. The questions are directed to Betty Ann Andreasson by Jules Vaillancourt, MUFON investigator. The recording tape used is virgin tape (600 feet on a five-inch reel) mylar base, Radio Shack part # 44-735.
Selected from 97 questions asked Betty and Becky Andreasson. Certain questions designed to establish a stress pattern are not included in this sample.
Question |
Answer |
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Regarding your UFO experience in 1967 |
|
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Will you tell me the truth about this? |
Yes |
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Are you attempting to perpetrate a hoax about seeing a UFO and its occupants? |
No |
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Did you see small, alien beings pass right through your closed kitchen door? |
Yes |
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Did you see a pulsating light shine through your kitchen window prior to the small alien beings entering your house? |
Yes |
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Did your house lights go out during your sighting of the pulsating light through the kitchen window? |
Yes |
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Do you know of anyone who is not telling the truth about this 1967 UFO encounter? |
No |
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Were you taken aboard a spacecraft and given an examination by alien beings? |
Yes |
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Do your drawings represent things or pictures that you actually saw during the 1967 UFO encounter? |
Yes |
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Do you have any objections to my recording and analyzing this conversation? |
No |
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Had you read about UFO abduction cases prior to your experience in 1967? |
No |
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Had you heard about Betty and Barney Hill prior to your experience in 1967? |
No |
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Has someone hypnotized you to make you believe the 1967 UFO experience really happened? |
No |
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Did you make up a story about an experience with a UFO in 1967 from other stories that you have read about? |
No |
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