S1E5 What Happened to Betty and Barney Hill? with Rosie Tran

Jennifer Field: [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to the unofficial official story, I'm Jennifer, the fearless investigator,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:11] What's up? I'm Koji, the so-called chief of the Show,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:00:15] And hello listeners, I'm Dwayne the class clown.

Jennifer Field: [00:00:18] This is a podcast where we tell you the official story. We're going to take a look at the paranormal conspiracies, unexplained phenomena, cryptic and even true crime.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:28] In this episode, we're asking the question were Betty and Barney Hill abducted by aliens.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:00:32] And by the end, we'll tell you what really maybe happened.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:36] But first, we have a guest. Rosie Tran Rosie Tran is a stand up Comedian, writer, Podcast personality and actress who has toured internationally at comedy clubs, colleges and overseas for the USO in Europe and the Middle East.

Jennifer Field: [00:00:49] Welcome. Welcome. So glad you're here! Rosie, what have you been up to?

Rosie Tran: [00:00:54] So I'm really excited to get out of pandemic. I'm glad that comedy's opening up. I'm going to be headlining a show at the Comedy House in New Orleans in mid-July. But if you guys want to check me out, I have a couple awesome podcasts. I have a podcast called Out of the Box for our interview out of the box thinkers from political, religious, whatever entertainment, adult film stars, Nobel Peace Prize nominees like anyone that's not mainstream. And then I also have an awesome podcast called Rosie and BJ Save the World, where we talk about politics from different ends of the spectrum. And then finally, I have a podcast that is a sex education podcast with adult film star Tommy Pistol. We don't do any nudity, but we talk about all the taboo stuff with sex education, so it's actually an educational podcast, and all those are on YouTube, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you find your podcast.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:01:43] It's pretty dope. Tommy Pistol. I don't. I'm not familiar with his work

Rosie Tran: [00:01:47] Tommy Pistol as an adult film star. He actually hosted the Showtime Adult Film Awards, and he has a comedy background. Believe it or not, he's very entertaining, and so we decided to start a podcast talking about sex education because I grew up in a very conservative background. I didn't know anything. I was very innocent. So we take to opposite ends of the spectrum, a totally innocent person and then someone from the adult film industry. And he teaches me a lot

Dwayne Perkins: [00:02:12] Like learning how to drive from a NASCAR driver. You know what I mean?

Rosie Tran: [00:02:17] Exactly. But it's definitely very interesting. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know about.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:02:21] Like what tell? Tell us one lesson you've learned from your sex education podcast.

Rosie Tran: [00:02:25] I learned about just so Many things about the Fan mail that he gets people messaging him about advice. A lot of people apparently message him for relationship advice, and he's like, Hey, I'm not a couples counselor. So just some of the crazy stories and things that he has, I guess, encountered in the entertainment industry. We also have entertainment industry guests in the adult film world, some in the regular World, I guess Non adult film world. So definitely interviewing some interesting people as well. And we had to write up in Hustler magazine. So it's Pretty cool.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:02:56] I'm cool. I might get on DuckDuckGo, look him up.

Rosie Tran: [00:03:00] So, Dwayne, his actual specialty is adult film parodies, so he takes a real movie and he does the comedic adult parody version. I don't know if he did Game of Thrones, but like Game of Thrones or like whatever you could think of and then does a parody of it, I think he did one with puppets. That's like a Jim Henson. I don't know.

Jennifer Field: [00:03:20] Wait What's DuckDuckGo Dwayne

Rosie Tran: [00:03:22] private browser.

Jennifer Field: [00:03:23] Oh, like an underground black market. Type of...

Rosie Tran: [00:03:25] It's not black market. Yeah, it's private. Just so people can't trace what Dwayne is looking at, I guess.

Jennifer Field: [00:03:32] Oh, Rosie, so tell me how you got into comedy. Where did all begin? Where did you feel like it became professional for you?

Rosie Tran: [00:03:40] So I actually was really shy Growing up, I never thought I would go into comedy. I was dating a guy who wanted to be a comedian. He was an amateur standup, and I used to go to his open mics and stuff. Basically, my story is a story of the fabulous Mrs. Mosley. I haven't Seen the show, but every time I tell Everyone my stand up story, they're like, That's the fabulous Mrs. Paisley. I'm like, Well, that's actually my life. So but I was writing jokes for him. I would say, Well, why don't you say it like this? Or Why don't you say it like that? And I noticed that every time he did it, the way I said he would get a laugh. So he started giving me a hard time like, Oh, why don't you just write five minutes and do stand up? You might as well just do standup. I was also one of the girlfriends like, sometimes you go to a comedy show and there's like some like angry looking girl in the back who's there to support her comedian boyfriend. And she's like, When can I leave? That was me. I was like, What is this over? I hate comedy. And then he's like, Well, you're such a drag. Why don't you just like, write five minutes so you have something to talk about with the other comic because you're just sitting in the back with your arms crossed like a sourpuss. So I was too scared to do it because I was like, I'm not a comedian. And then about six months after We broke up, I kept thinking Of jokes like I had got bitten by the comedy bug and I didn't even know it. I kept writing material and thinking of material, and so I was like, Well, maybe I will try standup. And so I did it and I Never looked back. So that's my story.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:04:53] Does this guy still do comedy or is he did he quit?

Rosie Tran: [00:04:56] I don't think he does. Yeah, I think he has quit some like famous guy that I'm like, Oh, and I was like, with this like famous. He didn't know he was just some like random.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:05:04] And did this happen in LA, or did it happen in Louisiana, in New Orleans,

Rosie Tran: [00:05:09] A Little bit of both. We were together, mostly in New Orleans, and then we moved to L.A. I was originally thinking of getting into screenwriting or something, writing related, not stand up, not performance. And then I think that's why I kept thinking of jokes because I'm a writer and I believe he has moved back and he's not doing standup anymore. But this is a very long time ago, like another lifetime,

Jennifer Field: [00:05:30] Rosie, I have to ask. Being Asian-American and being a woman, how has the scene changed for you? Like since five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago whenever you started What have you noticed?

Rosie Tran: [00:05:41] So I basically can retire as a comedian because I already reached my life goal, my life goal. When I first started doing standup, one of the reasons I wanted to be in the entertainment industry because I actually I was in college, I was writing like a letter or a paper for the scholarship Asian American scholarship. And I started doing research about Asian women, and this was the saddest statistic I ever saw that there was a statistic that Asian women actually had the highest rate of suicide in America, not in Asia. And one of the reasons because there was little to no role models in entertainment for Asian women and the role models that did exist were very negative stereotypes, and I have just seen the industry completely evolve and change. You know, when I started, there was me, Margaret Cho, Amy Anderson, who Dwayne knows and maybe like two other Asian female comics, there was a woman named Kate Rigg, Suzanne Wang, who has now passed away. And that was it. There was no Asian women in comedy at all. Ali Wong hadn't started standup. There was so many successful and famous female Asian stand up comedians that didn't even exist back then. So I was like, really like out there by myself. And so now I've done shows with all Asian women. I work with a group called Crazy Woke Asian that has all like Asian-American comics and a lot of Asian female stand up comics. And so I never in a thousand years imagined that this would happen, and I just wanted to be a positive role model for Asian women. Just so that statistic could be null and void because it was so depressing to read that. And now it's just crazy. You know, we're having an Asian renaissance in the entertainment industry from Netflix, casting Asian women as leading characters to you can just Google Asian female stand up comic and there's like hundreds of them. So I feel like I've reached my goal in life.

Jennifer Field: [00:07:24] All right, what do you guys think? Should we get into it?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:07:26] Yep, let's do it.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:07:27] Word.

Jennifer Field: [00:07:27] One of the things we all watch to give us some deep background on the subject was the actual audio of Betty and Barney Hill's hypnosis sessions. We highly recommend you watch it and we're going to put a link in the show notes. All right, here are the facts. Barney Hill, who was African-American, worked the night shift at the post office, and Betty, who is Caucasian, was a social worker who handled child welfare cases. Barney and Betty, they were a biracial couple before it was cool to be biracial. So in their free time, they went to church and they did civil rights work, and both of them are actually members of the NAACP.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:08:06] And in September nineteen sixty one, Betty and Barney decided to go on an impromptu honeymoon to Niagara Falls through Montreal on their way home close to midnight, September 19th 20th through New Hampshire's White Mountains. They realized that a strange light was following them.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:08:19] They were going through the White Mountains.

Rosie Tran: [00:08:21] I know I was thinking that too.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:08:24] What were you thinking about?

Rosie Tran: [00:08:26] I was just thinking what was following them in the White Mountains? I don't know. I'm traumatized by that name.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:08:31] Did they only travel at midnight just to like, avoid looks and avoid people. Giving them crap? You know what I mean?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:08:37] Or were they traveling at night because he's African-American and it's dark at night?

Rosie Tran: [00:08:42] Is this a metaphor? It's like, like Middle Earth, right?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:08:47] So this light was following him. At first, Barney wasn't concerned. He was a World War Two vet and then plane enthusiasts. So he assumed because of the late hour, it couldn't be a plane on helicopter. He figured it was a satellite that had gone off course, which is really crazy to think it was a satellite. But anyway, then they pulled over and looked through a pair of binoculars.

Rosie Tran: [00:09:05] Why did he have binoculars with them? It's kind of weird

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:08] Thought that too that is really

Rosie Tran: [00:09:10] Like, Why would you have binoculars with you?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:12] Maybe it was a thing people had back in the day. They were going through scenic places and they probably went to it, went to the waterfall. I don't know. I can only imagine to see things fall away, but it's almost like they knew something was going to go down, right?

Rosie Tran: [00:09:25] I don't Know. Binoculars was like a red flag for me.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:27] What were you thinking he was doing with the binoculars Rosie?

Rosie Tran: [00:09:30] I have no idea. It just was a red flag. Like, I don't carry binoculars around.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:34] And he looked through the binoculars and saw there was this spinning object, and maybe the aliens thought that he would not have binoculars either.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:41] Well, you know, what's weird about this whole thing is if I saw something following me in the night sky, the first thought I would have is alien. What would you Guys think would be following you guys if something was in the air and you're driving late at night?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:52] I would think cop

Rosie Tran: [00:09:54] I know me too like biracial couple in nineteen sixty one. All right, let's pull over, baby.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:10:00] Jennifer, what would you Think was behind you?

Jennifer Field: [00:10:01] I thought I would think, Yes, I'm in trouble. Someone is following me some kind of military.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:06] You got to pull over and let her get in the backseat? I wonder if she was in the back seat. That'd be a way to make that work, right? Like driving Miss Daisy. But I'm also bonning Miss Daisy.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:10:18] You know, what's really weird about this whole spinning object to me is that the perception of UFO crafts changes based on our own technology. So like in the sixties and before it was these circular objects sometime in the eighties and nineties, it becomes like these triangles that look more like the stealth fighter kind of thing, even like aliens itself. Like before this book, called Communion by Whitley Striber came out, everyone saw different kinds of aliens, and really, at once communion came out with this grey alien on the cover. Everyone saw them as grey alien. So I wonder how much popular fiction and played a factor in how people perceive these objects.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:54] Right? It's like if you watch law and order, they bring someone in to look at a lineup, but they see that person in a hallway. It's tainted because he saw them in the hallway first, so it might be in a subconscious

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:04] 70 miles later. With the lights still following that, Barney gets out of the car with a gun and attempted to confront the object. That's a very southern thing to do, by the way.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:12] And I don't know way. I don't know if he's from New Hampshire, but the fact that he got out with a gun. That part, I was like, All right, he was. He's in New Hampshire. So he's basically saying, I'm about to shoot a white dude, you know what I mean? That's pretty bold in nineteen sixty one. It really is.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:26] But then he saw a uniform gray beings behind the window, so he attempted to shoot them, but a voice in his head didn't allow him to. I wonder if he's heard that voice before

Rosie Tran: [00:11:34] It was called Don't shoot the cop's

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:38] Voice to a systemic racism.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:39] Or maybe critical race theory. He's hearing critical race theory,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:45] Right? Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:45] So instead, he ran back to his car and they tried to get away. They woke up two hours later in thirty five miles away from where they last remembered and drove home. Have you guys ever had missing time?

Rosie Tran: [00:11:54] Only with my Blood sugar is low and I take a nap.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:57] Then you're taking a nap. So, you know,

Rosie Tran: [00:11:59] And then I wake up. I'm like, Where am I? Can I get a Snickers?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:12:01] A little when I lived in Boston, a little, but only when I would drive at night. Sleepy. You know, I used to do that. I don't do it anymore. But like, thank god, I'm alive in a parallel universe. I may not be alive. You know, I used to drive sleepy. I work full time. I was doing comedy.

Rosie Tran: [00:12:15] Crazy, Dwyane.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:12:16] Yeah, sometimes I would get in My driveway and I would just be like, I don't, I don't know how I got here.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:12:21] Jennifer, do you have missing Time?

Jennifer Field: [00:12:22] Every day? Why did that take so long, wait, it's already six pm like.

Rosie Tran: [00:12:30] Actually Dwayne, I think you're right, missing time happens a lot when people drive like a lot of times, people get missing time. If they drive to the same place to work every day, they'll space out and they'll be like, Oh my God, I'm at work.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:12:38] Space out. That's right.

Rosie Tran: [00:12:42] Pun intended.

Jennifer Field: [00:12:43] Ok, so another little fact is supposedly the front of Barney's shoes were scuffed, his back and his neck were sore and Betty's dress was ripped and there was even like pink powder on it at one point. And also both of their watches supposedly never worked again. It just really coincidental. Or yes, caused by aliens.

Rosie Tran: [00:13:03] The battery died.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:13:04] The battery died at the same time.

Jennifer Field: [00:13:06] So the other thing is in the following weeks and months Betty had nightmares and Barney was suffering from anxiety.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:13:12] What if Betty's nightmares was that she realized what it was like to be African-American in America in the 1960s

Dwayne Perkins: [00:13:17] right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:13:17] Yeah, she's like, Oh fuck, I didn't realize this is terrible, You know,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:13:22] Especially in New Hampshire, even though New Hampshire is like a liberal place, but still, you know,

Rosie Tran: [00:13:27] In, well, they're in the White Mountains doing.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:13:29] Right, right? Exactly.

Jennifer Field: [00:13:30] Oh yes. Yes. Oh, and also they underwent hypnosis, which is like a really important part of this case, and they discovered the rest that it happened, particularly in those missing two hours.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:13:40] That whole thing is crazy Because I've listened to the Tapes, some of them, and it's very much like, Get out. It's like, is this guy has their minds under control? And I didn't know that was a thing in sixty one. It's really interesting, and I think the watch is not working to me. It's like a detail that makes it sound more true because like our wimpy technology, which is just sort of fry under under there in the presence of whatever they brought to the table, and they probably could bend time a bit.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:08] This is the most shady part of the whole story. I mean, if they don't have to go through hypnosis and they said that they were abducted, I think more people would believe them. But I think this is the point in the story. Everyone's like, Wow, yeah, like, maybe, maybe somebody implanted this. Maybe they're making up. Maybe something's going on. Because if you've heard the hypnosis session, I mean, I think Barney believes it. I mean, just the way he freaks out and in those videos or in the tape.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:14:31] Well, that's the thing. The panic in his voice, the way I read it, it becomes from either. This is a very traumatic memory that he wants to get away from, or it could come from dissonance that his brain is being sort of invaded and he can't do anything about it. So it's either one of those two things like either he just doesn't like the fact that this guy has them under his control, but it does seem like a super traumatic thing. He's not acting for sure. Hyperventilating. He's like, I need you to wake me up. And which is crazy because I've never Been hypnotized, really. But the thing When you're like sleeping and you kind of wake up, but you can't move yet.

Rosie Tran: [00:15:06] Yeah. Sleep paralysis.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:07] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've had that. It's so scary. I've had it where, like I thought I heard someone in the room and I was by myself and I literally it's like, What's the movie kill bill like? I just try to move a finger first because I couldn't get up, and I don't know if it was fear or just that middle sleep range. So it felt like that too. Like it wasn't like he was under and he was like luxuriating it in or relishing the moment he was. He was like, I need to get out of it. It's like, Wake me up, give me back, give me back. So that gave it some authenticity for me.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:15:34] Have you guys ever been hypnotized?

Rosie Tran: [00:15:36] I have.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:15:37] What was it like?

Rosie Tran: [00:15:38] I actually don't have the story. I actually get hypnotized every week.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:43] Oh, nice.

Rosie Tran: [00:15:44] Yeah, I go do a hypnotherapist.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:15:46] Have you been abducted by aliens?

Rosie Tran: [00:15:47] I haven't. No. So I went to a hypnotherapist when I was in my early twenties, and unfortunately, she was horrible and didn't really do anything. It was just like a nice, relaxing situation where she would put me under and then like, give me positive suggestions. I felt like she didn't really do anything, but I have an amazing hypnotherapist now and he does like subconscious work with me. So I basically it's like half an hour of therapy and then half an hour of hypnosis. I don't know how to describe it. It's just like being in a sleep, But you're awake. It's actually like what you describe Dwayne the sleep paralysis, but not horrifying because I've been at sleep paralysis too.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:16:21] Can you capture memories that you probably wouldn't be able to capture when you were not in that state?

Rosie Tran: [00:16:25] It's actually a really crazy. He does go into my subconscious mind and he does do stuff. Yeah, memories and other work. The best way I would describe it as, yes, it's like that sleep paralysis, but not scary and memories come up. There's been times that I've been totally normal, like not stressed or depressed or anything, and he puts me under and pulls out like these crazy, like deep memories. And I like wake up crying and I'm like, Whoa, I didn't think that was going to happen. So I mean, there has been some crazy sessions that we had, but it's very, very helpful more than I've had normal therapy, and I didn't feel it was that helpful.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:16:56] The ship landed on the car. And put the hills to sleep. They were then brought on board the ship where they were examined, and hair and nail and skin samples were taken. One thing that stood out was that they were surprised when they found out that Bonnie's teeth were fake, so I guess the aliens didn't know about fake teeth. Their experience allegedly kicked off the ultra secret Project Blue Book, which was the government's attempt to look into UFO phenomena. And now, Like the NSA has like a little fact sheet about. Project Blue Book, you know, I looked it up, I'm probably on some lists now for looking it up, but it's a really interesting fact sheet and it's like of this many cases, only this many, this many. And if you want information, call here. If you have a UFO to report, call here. It's very matter of fact, which is crazy.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:17:37] Which part of the human body you guys think The aliens would think is the weirdest part of our bodies?

Rosie Tran: [00:17:42] Ears, our ears are pretty weird. If you like, look at an ear.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:45] I would say maybe elbow skin.

Rosie Tran: [00:17:46] Oh yeah. Elbow skin is really weird.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:48] It would look at it like As some sort of defect. Like, clearly you have a little bit more skin than you need. And why is it OK? And why is it all collected at the elbow

Rosie Tran: [00:17:56] And bumpy, right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:17:58] I was thinking just the hair on our bodies, you know, like pubic hair or just kind of random hair and how some people are more hairy than other people.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:06] They would be like, Walk, walk, look at this. What is This walk?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:18:11] The case was not the first time a human being has seen a UFO and or been abducted, but it was the first widely publicized case and became the standar Way we look at abductions before Betty and Barney. Alien abductions were often much more friendly experiences. In fact, they were often called space brothers and space sisters. So yeah, that's one of the things I think is really important is that in the 1950s, what would happen is that they take these people and put them into space and often say things like This is your world, this is Earth. This is the only planet you have, and you guys Are going to fuck it up by blowing Each other up. And that was really the most common UFO experience and abductions were these really friendly things, and they're often done by Nordics. We had an episode earlier with these six foot seven white, angelic looking UFO aliens, but then the Betty and Barney Hill case really changed everything in the ufology world. This became the standard of basically every abduction. After that, if you guys were abducted, you guys want a pleasant experience or Something totally unpleasant,

Rosie Tran: [00:19:08] Pleasant,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:19:10] Pleasant. Because the other way I may not, I may not live like I may just have a cardiac arrest right there. You know,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:15] For me, I kind of want the unpleasant. It's just a better topic of conversation. I mean, imagine the Betty Barney Hill conversation. I mean, you're just like, Oh yeah, then they took me this spaceship and we had great dinner with the white people and I saw Earth and more awesome is like I got an anal probe and I might have an alien half hybrid baby. And they, like, tortured me and I somehow escaped, you know, I somehow escaped. It's more awesome. It's all about stories at the dinner table with other people to me.

Rosie Tran: [00:19:43] No, I want. I want a Nordic God to have dinner with like Alexander Skarsgard or something to love me.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:19:50] But see Koji. If you got abducted by aliens and it was friendly, that's still a great story. The only time it's not as great is if you're at a party with someone who was anal probe, then everyone. But if he's not at the party, then your story is so killer still tops.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:04] Sometimes it gets boring, though, and then then what happened? And you're just like, then we. Then he brought me back to Earth and then what happened?

Rosie Tran: [00:20:10] But you're you're discounting all the emotional and mental trauma that you would have.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:15] That's a great point.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:16] I don't know. I mean, I just think it'd be a great conversation, especially on a date, on a first day, first date.

Rosie Tran: [00:20:21] By the way, I've been proved.

Jennifer Field: [00:20:23] Skeptics in particular local to the area believes that Betty and Barney had just misinterpreted an airplane beacon. And according to Wikipedia, because isn't that always the best source? And we use a lot of Wikipedia here on the unofficial official story. Psychiatrist later suggested that the supposed abduction was a hallucination brought on by the stress of being an interracial couple in the early sixties in the United States. So, you know, these are professionals. They know how the brain works and that's what they're thinking. All right. So Betty discounted this suggestion, noting that her relationship with Barney was totally good and happy and that their interracial marriage caused no notable problems with their friends or family.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:21:06] Isn't that what someone who who was suffering from something like That would say?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:21:09] Well, maybe. But here's the thing. It's not a dream If you have the same dream. Like if I woke up today and I was like, Oh, what a crazy dream. I dreamt everyone had to stay home for a year and just like virus. You know what I mean? And then you all said, Oh, I had that same dream then. Oh, clearly it wasn't a dream, right? So what I mean is, how could the stress bring on the same exact story? Because that story is line up pretty unless again, she told him or he told her and he. But it seems like if it was a stress related thing, they would have experienced a totally Different thing, each of Them anyway. Others believe it was sleep deprivation, which OK, we talked about earlier, and false memories implanted either intentionally or unintentionally during hypnosis, which I think that would be more likely if anything. So the question is what really happened to Betty and Barney Hill?

Jennifer Field: [00:21:54] Now that we have the facts, we'll take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll tell you what we think may have actually really happened. If you have an idea about what really happened or want us to discuss the topic, please visit us at unofficial official story dot com and let us know if we like it. Who knows? We might just ask you to come on the show with us now that we've discussed the facts. Let's workshop our Ideas.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:22:19] I kind of had two. I'll go with the more wacky one, which is the government or some agency, either at the government's behest or maybe not. They're working on mind control just sort of as another form of a weapon. It was easy to test on these two people because they were interracial, and it wouldn't be a thing that would have a lot of blowback on them. And I think they needed it to be a UFO thing, like if you bring someone in to test them immediately, they know there's a test. So they had to stage It a bit and they wanted to see if They could one control them through a series of lights and just overwhelming them and then later also take control of their mind like hypnosis was a thing. It was a popular thing at that time, and I think the whole thing was, can we hypnotize someone from far away? Can we take their minds? Can we insert things in their minds? Can we know what I mean? I don't think it was a success, and I think like what they wanted to do didn't happen whatever experience they wanted to implant in their head. It didn't quite work, but it is sort of the basis to like taking over someone's mind. And I think get out is probably some sort of like half true account of that, I think in Jordan Peele wrote it and he probably did his research came across this thing and fictionalized it, but I think this was like the early stages of like taking over someone's mind and it was basically a war weapon that they used on these people, and they were more than happy to blame it on UFOs. So people wouldn't know like the government was trying to like implant things in people's heads, create these false things if you listen to their accounts, he says. I saw someone far away. He looked like an Irishman and he was like, Why? He's like he was friendly and Irish people usually not friendly to me. So like they were using his own sort of preconceived experiences and preconceived notions and experiences just to try to bend his mind and test his mind as well.

Rosie Tran: [00:24:07] He also mentioned that they were wearing uniforms.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:10] Yeah, they both mentioned they were wearing uniforms as well. Yes,

Rosie Tran: [00:24:12] Government uniforms.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:13] I mean, my other theory was that they were aliens, but I'm going to go with this.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:18] It's funny that Jennifer is reading about the Wikipedia because that was actually my original theory was that it was the stress of being an interracial couple, and I didn't realize it was actually something that people had said. That's why I wanted to include it in the In the facts. My thing was That Betty married Barney because she wanted to get a rise out of people. She's one of those people that just loves having stories like me. She just wants to talk to people. And she thought, everyone's going to freak out if I marry this African-American dude and everyone's going to think that, like, I'm either the coolest person or the craziest person, or stop talking to me because they're racist.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:50] Right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:50] But that whole experience did not get the rise out of people that she had hoped.

Rosie Tran: [00:24:54] They're like, Barney is cool. We like him.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:59] Yeah, we like Barney. He's like a normal dude. So then he's she's like, Well, what can we do that will get people to talk about us, talk about what we do, you know? And so when they're going through the White Mountains, they kind of had a conversation. They started talking to each other. You know what, if we told people aliens abducted us and they started making through the whole trip? They started telling each other all the details and started getting into it. You know, when you're on a long road trip, you have a lot of time. So they started working out all the different stories and facts and and all the different things like the watch is not working. They broke their watches at the same time, so they stop working and they said that there's no they're missing time and all of that good stuff. So this was there were no alien. I believe in aliens, but there were no aliens. In this case. This was Benny really just wanting people to to talk about her. And one of my facts that I'll give to really slam this one home is that, you know, she talked later about how many times she's seen aliens in some of the reasons she said she'd seen aliens like a hundred times or something, and that just screams that she wanted people to talk about her.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:25:58] You know what's's interesting, too. What I like about that is, Koji and I first thing we ever did hasn't been made yet, but we wrote a movie called Love Bait based on a joke I had, and it's like it's a movie where this African-American guy can hire him to scare your parents so that accept the guy you're dating. And it was based on a joke I had. I was like, If you're a Korean woman and you fall in love with a Japanese man and your parents won't accept them, bring home a black guy, and then two weeks later, bring the Japanese guy back home. As a joke progresses, I go, What if you fall in love with a black guy? Then bring home Flavor Flav, right? And I go, What if you fall in love with Flavor Flav? Then bring home an alien, you know what I mean? And no disrespect to Flavor Flav. You know, I don't know him, but that's my man. 40 grand if I thought he would be my man for the grant. So anyway, there's also a component of like, maybe they just wanted to get the heat off of them, like people are looking at them. People thought they were weird. She was like, What if we concocted an alien story? Then people can shift their focus to the aliens being weird and not not us, you know? Oh, it could. The attention angle to it, she just wanted attention, but there is a little bit of that there too, like that's what you should be fearful of, not us, you know?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:06] And can I just say I really wanted her to be abducted or abducted by aliens? I mean, I thought long and hard about trying to come up with a theory to explain it, but I kept coming back to this one. Jennifer, what's your theory?

Jennifer Field: [00:27:15] It's basically this was the ultimate PR stunt for Betty and Barney. And they originally were going to use this as a stunt to support their civil rights beliefs and sort of do a nineteen sixties BLM. And they were on and they decided to do this while they were on their belated honeymoon vacation here. And then it just got carried away and they ended up having so much fun and getting so much attention for this alien abduction story that they created, which was supposed to be a PR stunt help the civil rights movement at the time, and they just they never got back to their original plan was like basically they were going to use their platform for their something of good. And so instead, they just kind of were on this runaway train of like, OK, well, we're just going to be the ultimate alien abductees.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:28:10] So they were originally it wasn't supposed to be alien abductions or was supposed to be like a government abduction because they're an interracial couple? Or was it something

Jennifer Field: [00:28:17] That was going to add that they were going to come up with this alien abduction story and talk about it? And so what I'm saying is the hypnosis they like, totally faked it that they were acting.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:28:28] Well, what I love about all three of us is that we all went with This is a fake story. So Dwayne, since so Dwyane, since you mentioned that you have an alien one, let's hear. Let's hear your alien theory because I really want to hear an alien theory and really want to believe it.

Rosie Tran: [00:28:40] I think alien theory was just that they're abducted, right?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:43] But it's also they were targeted because they were an interracial couple. So the aliens, they looked at them as sort of like a bit progressive. And so they were like, Let's study the progressive society.

Jennifer Field: [00:28:55] I love it. Yeah.

Rosie Tran: [00:28:57] Or it could have been because they were driving in the middle of the White Mountains, and that's where the aliens were. And they were like, Oh, these are the only people we have to abduct. There's no one else around.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:08] So why would the aliens want to progressive people?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:10] Well, they probably had a Message that was progressive,

Rosie Tran: [00:29:13] So let's put something up there butt

Rosie Tran: [00:29:13] They're going to be down.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:18] Right, right? They're going to be okay with butt stuff. Yeah,

Rosie Tran: [00:29:22] I was totally mixed. I felt like it wasn't real. But then the hypnosis made me convinced it was real. But then the fact that, like you said Koji, she kept seeing other aliens, you're like, OK, you're crazy lady. So I felt like I was totally Mick. I'm surprised you guys have such a passionate stance. I'm totally completely torn down the middle. Like, what happened?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:41] I am, too. Actually, I am, too. What's kind of like with her seeing other aliens is kind of like if like if I bought a Mazda tomorrow, I would suddenly see all these Mazdas on the road that I didn't notice before.

Rosie Tran: [00:29:53] I totally felt like, yeah, it was just they got pulled over by the cops and they got traumatized. They were stressed from their jobs and everything that happened, maybe something sinister happened with the cops. But then when they had those dreams and they were matching and the hypnosis and it was matching and they were interviewed separately, that's when I started to question. Like, maybe they did give up that Thing,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:30:11] Maybe. And he died in nineteen sixty nine. So he died kind of young. He was a little bit younger than her, too. Maybe like three years. Maybe.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:18] WE're at that point in the show where we have to decide which of the stories becomes the official story forever. Rosie, since you're our guest, we would love to get your take on what is the official story going to be?

Rosie Tran: [00:30:30] Oh, I'm still so torn on this. I don't know. All three of your stories have melded together in my mind right now. I'm I'm having a hard time. The mind control is happening on me. I think it was a publicity stunt. I don't necessarily know if it was for their interracial NAACP work, but I think that would be the most logical. However, I don't know if it was a lie that got away or if they were just under a lot of stress because they did have stressful jobs. They were an interracial couple in nineteen sixty one and they also were driving in the middle of the night. They also, there are so many factors that affected it, so I do think it was a publicity stunt gone wrong. The only thing that is a shred of evidence that completely takes me off guard is the fact that they had a special unit of the government that went to investigate. That is a UFO. That was the one thing that I don't think anyone has talked about, actually that section of the military that was assigned that had interviewed them. This was in the material reading material that interviewed them and said it was a credible UFO sighting from what they said. So that kind of makes me question mark.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:31:32] Absolutely. And some guy from the Air Force went to theor church, which is how how they got to that agency was through this guy at the church, which makes it seem like they would targeted to either by aliens or by the government. Like how many people have Air Force captains in their church? I don't. Maybe it's very common, but it seems like a very neat kind of situation, you know?

Rosie Tran: [00:31:52] Exactly. So that was making me kind of nervous. Like, why was there an Air Force guy? Why was there like a special department in the government and the military that was sent to investigate? And said it was credible, so I'm unofficially officially torn.

Jennifer Field: [00:32:08] And that is the official story. We'll take another break and when we return, we'll be doing some improv.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:16] We're a few shows into our podcast, and we could really use your help if everyone listening can tell just one friend About this podcast and Beg forc them to subscribe. It would really help us continue to grow.

Jennifer Field: [00:32:28] Ok. This month, we're going to be doing a little improv. We're each going to take a roll and flesh out the story.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:35] We've decided that we're going to do the moment right as they're being stopped and we've cast it already. So Rosie is going to be Barney Hill. Of course,

Rosie Tran: [00:32:44] I can't take my teeth out, though.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:47] And Dwyane is going to be Betty Hill, of course, and Jennifer is the person from the government who is in the currently stopping them. So let's go ahead and get started guys scene.

Rosie Tran: [00:32:56] Oh my god, I think that's a light behind me, babe.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:58] Oh, Bonnie. Bonnie, why are these people being Bonnie? Be careful.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:03] Should we switch seats? Do you want to drive.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:05] Bonnie? Pull over Bonnie, I'll get In the back.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:07] Ok, good idea.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:09] Oh Bonnie, they're here. What are we oh Bonnie?

Rosie Tran: [00:33:14] Yes, yes, officer,

Jennifer Field: [00:33:16] Step out of the vehicle.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:18] Oh my God, this has got to be an alien. Why am I being pulled over? I didn't do anything wrong.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:22] Put your hands behind your head.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:24] Typical typical.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:25] Oh, Bonnie. If you get out, I'm going to get out, too. I don't want anything to happen to your Bonnie. I'm going to get out.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:30] Ma'am, ma'am, do you have any identification?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:33] Yeah, yes. My purse, my purse. This is my driver. He's not my husband.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:39] I'm totally her driver.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:41] Ma'am,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:41] I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:43] Are you sure you're OK? Are you sure you're OK?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:46] Oh yeah. Yeah, he wouldn't hurt a fly.

Rosie Tran: [00:33:48] I'm her driver.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:50] Listen, I Fly over cooked the steak. But other than That,

Jennifer Field: [00:33:52] May I ask why both of you are driving at 2:00 in the morning? Where are you coming from?

Rosie Tran: [00:33:59] Answer Come on, babe,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:01] I'm I just I had my driver Here. Take me to Montreal.

Jennifer Field: [00:34:07] All right. All right. You guys are free to go. Have a good night, ma'am, sir.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:12] Bonnie that was that was crazy.

Rosie Tran: [00:34:13] I know, I know this is great because we can go back and tell everyone what happened and how corrupt the cops are. This is what I've been trying to say.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we can just say there were aliens.

Rosie Tran: [00:34:27] Why would we say they're aliens. Babe that doesn't make any sense? They were obviously racist cops that were just pulling me over for no reason. I'm just driving my beautiful wife

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:36] Because They're going to be racist cops Even after.

Rosie Tran: [00:34:39] That's that's a good point,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:41] At least with aliens to get us to get a story out of it.

Rosie Tran: [00:34:44] Ok, well, we got to make it a elaborate story. We can't just say aliens pulled us over. That doesn't make any sense. We got to come up with like they probed me. They poked me.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:51] I gotcha. I'm writing, I'm doing a joint right now.

Rosie Tran: [00:34:54] We came from a twelve star. Your dress got torn. We need drama,drama, babe.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:35:01] Oh, this is great. This is great. This is great.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:35:04] And scene. Great job, guys. One of the podcasts we're listening to and think you should be listening to as well is Ghost Gays, a hauntingly gay podcast. They are two best friends who love the paranormal. They research locations, visit haunted houses and talk with some very lovely people about their experiences. Find them wherever you get your podcasts from.

Jennifer Field: [00:35:28] Rosie, thank you for coming on the show. All right, so how can people follow you? What are you working on?What do you have coming up?

Rosie Tran: [00:35:34] Thank you, Jennifer. So much for having me, and you guys have been awesome. It was so fun. You guys can find me on Twitter at funny Rosie. I'm on Facebook at Funny Rosie, Instagram out of the box, Rosie. And of course, my podcast is out of the box podcast with Rosie Tran. If you guys want to check me out, I am on all the platforms and I have all my podcast and everything, and I'm really easy. I'm the only Rosie Tran comedian

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:35:56] And thank you all so much for listening. There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, and we're honored you've chosen ours to listen to.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:36:03] Please check out our website unofficial official story dot com for our show notes or to hear our past episodes.

Jennifer Field: [00:36:10] All right, guys. Be sure to come back next month where we will be answering the question What happened to D.B. Cooper?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:36:16] He jumped out of a plane.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:36:17] Yeah, got away.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:36:20] All right, guys. Bye.

Jennifer Field: [00:36:21] Bye.