An analysis of the Betty Hill "star map"

originally posted by: ArMaP

Being on the Alien ship with Betty would have been the only way of seeing the Alien map, any other thing, like what you call a "progressed reconstruction" is just wishful thinking from your part.

Wow, I wasn't aware that Betty's Extraterrestrials were from a different Galaxy!!! I mean, how else could they have different stars than we see in our sky.

Seriously, man, just how are the stars that Betty saw any different than the ones we look at every night??!!!?

From a somewhat different perspective; stars plotted by Extraterrestrials who life within, oh say, 150ly or so, are going to be primarily the same stars that we (here on Earth) have also plotted, although, I would think that ET's star maps are more complete. But, ALL the stars within 33 parsec or so are going to be common AND, the astrometrics will also be identical!

That means that IF I build a 3D "map" of these stars, it will be the same map as built from ET's data...so, when I say I've seen the "map" that Betty saw; I did! Actually what I did see is a 30 or so year progression of those stars based on "proper motion". But, If it might make it easier for you, I can always use the Gliese tables; then MY star map will be identical to ET's for those mapped stars.

You need to understand; the stars in our Galaxy are, for the most part, fixed, and don't change...at least not in unknown, or unpredictable ways.

No, what you have is what you think is the same view progressed 30 years. As you do not have access to the original Alien map you cannot honestly say that you do have a progressed version of it.

Again, the stars are the same...if I build a view based on Astrometric data, it necessarily must be the same view ET has when based on the same stars. I can very honestly make that statement, because of what I've been trying to communicate; fundamentally, each star has its own set of Astrometric parameters, and it does not matter who measures those parameters.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8

originally posted by: NoCorruptionAllowed

I haven't seen him post anything in an "unscientific" manner. Quite the opposite.

He's not using all of the available data. How scientific is that? He's choosing to ignore the story calling it irrelevant and focusing just on the map. He does this because the Hill tale is full of inconsistencies and ridiculous claims. Claims that put into question the entire event. Once you question the event, the map too comes into question. He's not being honest to the story. As it's already been said, he's cherry picking.

I fail to understand just how you can be so confused! You have NO UNDERSTANDING of why I am calling the story "irrelevant", IF you did you might understand why the story doesn't affect anything in this analysis.

But, try to keep up here; Betty's state of mind, her education (or lack thereof), her psychological status, actually just about everything, ALL of Betty's attributes, have no affect, and indeed can not affect such things as Stellar Metrics. There is no affect on the class of a star, no affect on its position, or its proper motion. There is no affect on any of a star's planets.

And, just as importantly; the story doesn't affect the "map drawing", since it is as fixed as the stars. Betty's herself, has no affect on the analysis. only the map.

However, IF you can find something in Betty's psychology that might remotely affect this, please, point it out.

originally posted by: james1947
Wow, I wasn't aware that Betty's Extraterrestrials were from a different Galaxy!!! I mean, how else could they have different stars than we see in our sky.

Seriously, man, just how are the stars that Betty saw any different than the ones we look at every night??!!!?

Why are you talking about different stars? I said nothing about different stars, I was talking about the map.

What I was trying to say was that without knowing the original map we cannot know if what Betty Hill drew was correct or not, just that.

Is it that hard to understand?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

I explained numerous things in detail in James posts which are not scientific, like my latest objection that all the lines of evidence are not being considered by James, just a tunnel vision focus on some number from a computer algorithm he can't even defend because he claims the documentation for the algorithm is wrong when it says it's comparing pixels.

I'm sorry if you don't understand Computer Vision, or the task of Template Matching, however, you continued education is not my responsibility. And, the fact remains; you don't understand the process!

Im stating specific scientific objections, not what I believe.

Yet, your "scientific objections" are without foundation, and based, primarily on misunderstanding.

But today the Fish Map is no longer viable whatsoever. In her research beginning in 1966, Fish made the wise choice to use the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars, which was then the most accurate available. But that was over forty years ago, and science never stands still. Astronomical researcher Brett Holman recently checked out what the Fish Map would look like if it were built using the most accurate astronomical data available today. His answer is in his article in the British publication Fortean Times (#242, November 2008): "Goodbye, Zeta Reticuli" (the supposed home solar system of the UFOnauts). Holman writes, “In the early 1990s the Hipparcos satellite measured the positions of nearly 120,000 stars 10 times more accurately than ever before – including all of those that appear in the Fish interpretation. The results of this work, and much else besides, is available online now, and can be easily queried using websites such as SIMBAD at the Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory.”
Fish excluded all variable stars and close binaries to include only supposedly habitable solar systems – but the new data reveals two of her stars as suspected variables, and two more as close binaries. So there go four of her 15 stars. And two more are much further away than earlier believed, removing them completely from the volume of space in question. Six stars of that supposedly exact-matching pattern, definitely gone, excluded by the very criteria that once included them using the forty-year-old data. Goodbye, Zeta Reticuli.

While this is a bit cumbersome to respond to; I'll try to show you just how absurdly wrong Mr. Brett Holman is.

Here is a better version of what is above:

Alas, it is probably more complicated than that. Based on obsolete data, Marjorie Fish’s interpretation of Betty Hill’s map has been shown to be wrong. In the early 1990s the European Hipparcos (“High precision parallax collecting satellite) mission measured the distances to more than a hundred thousand stars around the Sun more accurately than ever before. Some turned out to be much further away than previously thought. Other research has looked at stars included in Fish’s research. Two, 54 and 107 Piscium, have been revealed to be variable stars, while Gliese 67 and Tau 1 Eridani are in fact close binaries. Then some stars discounted by Fish have turned out to be potential abodes for life after all, for example Epsilon Eridani is not after all a binary star. Using Fish’s own assumptions and more up to date data, six of the fifteen stars chosen by her must be excluded.

REALITY:

54 Piscium is not, nor is it believed to be variable. I do not know where your Astronomer got that, but, it 54 Piscis is not listed as a variable in ANY Astronomical datatables.

107 Piscium is not a variable star, nor it is believed to be, and just like 54 Piscis, there is no Astronomical data that indicates it is variable in any way.

Gliese 67, while this is a binary star, and one that is described as a "moderate binary". It is also contained in a table known as "Habcat" which his a table of the most likely stars to support life as we know it. Though, I don't think life near Gliese 67 would be much fun...weather every few years could be rather nasty.

Tau(1) Eridani, Yes this too is a binary star, but, it is much like Gliese67, in that it's companion does not orbit too near the star (this looks like the orbit is about as far as our Asteroids), and is probably a very small Brown(?) dwarf, so some bigger than Jupiter. There is not a lot of data available on some of these stars, but, more modern thinking is beginning to make places like Gliese 67, and Tau(1) Eridani far more habitable than was thought 20 - 30 years ago.

So, of those 6 stars, of which only 4 were ever specified, the 4 that were actually named have been shown to be valid elements to the map.

Just a quick note on Gliese 67; When looking at a map of those stars from Zeta(2) Reticuli, One can not see Gliese 67, because Upsilon Andromeda is in front of the. Gliese 67 is only visible in that position in the view from HIP-26737. Upsilon Andromeda is known to have several planets.

Also I find this interesting, that the two huge connected globes in the lower right may not even be stars. Why are they so out of proportion with the other stars? Maybe they are what Betty remembers as a planetarium projector:

It is also common in Graphical User Interfaces. As One drills down typically the designer will provide ways to indicate what stage of the process One is currently in...in addition to the display of additional data.

This looks to be like the first level of a binary star system...If One were to select one of the "stars", data about that star would be displayed...including any planets, and then of course, drill down on planets.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: james1947
Wow, I wasn't aware that Betty's Extraterrestrials were from a different Galaxy!!! I mean, how else could they have different stars than we see in our sky.

Seriously, man, just how are the stars that Betty saw any different than the ones we look at every night??!!!?

Why are you talking about different stars? I said nothing about different stars, I was talking about the map.

What I was trying to say was that without knowing the original map we cannot know if what Betty Hill drew was correct or not, just that.

Is it that hard to understand?

And, how hard is it to understand that IF I plot 2800 given stars, and ET plots those same 2800 stars, that the plots or maps will be identical?

Seriously, man...Tau Ceti looks the same to us as it does to ET...and, the "different stars"? Dude, You're the one who opened that door.

ETA: ArMap...we DO know what the original map looked like!!!

originally posted by: james1947
ETA: ArMap...we DO know what the original map looked like!!!

I think what ArMap means is that we know the appearance of the map that Betty originally saw under regression, but she may have been mistaken in her recollection.

You say this is essentially irrelevant because of the odds AGAINST it being a coincidence.

In that case, is an ET angle even needed if Betty's mental image is all that matters, faulty or not, abducted or not?

This could go round in circles forever.

originally posted by: james1947
And, how hard is it to understand that IF I plot 2800 given stars, and ET plots those same 2800 stars, that the plots or maps will be identical?

We are not talking about an ET map, we are talking about Betty's map, and we don't know if what she drew corresponds to what she (supposedly) saw or not. That's why I have been talking about her map's accuracy.

ETA: ArMap...we DO know what the original map looked like!!!

I ask you again: were you aboard the Alien ship? That would be the only way to know what the map looked like.

originally posted by: ConfusedBrit
I think what ArMap means is that we know the appearance of the map that Betty originally saw under regression, but she may have been mistaken in her recollection.

Exactly.

Is my English that hard to understand?

originally posted by: ArMaP

Is my English that hard to understand?

Not at all. Only if someone finds it inconvenient.

Betty's map is reminiscent of Sergeant Jim Penniston's 1994 recollection under regression of mentally receiving binary codes in Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980. Three years AFTER the hypnosis (which solely mentioned "binary codes" rather than any actual numbers), he revealed a previously unseen notebook in which he'd allegedly written down multiple Ones and Zeros shortly after the 1980 incident, which seemed to provide coordinates for certain landmarks on Earth - no, not Devil's Tower, but sceptics can see the potential inspiration from a certain 'Special Edition' of a 1977 movie doing the rounds in late 1980.

In Betty's case, we need to question her recollection DURING regression; in Jim's case, at the very least, we need to prove that the notebook's codes existed BEFORE the regression, rather than being inspired BY the regression.

It's the same ballpark, really.

We need more context before we even look at that map.
I was trying to locate the original abduction site with Google Earth for clues.
According to one account it was on Mill Brook Road in Thornton.
According to another account the abduction occurred on Tuttle Brook Road near the Twin mountain airport.
This was 1961, and the Hills were said to have been friends with Major Paul Henderson from Pease Air Force Base.
Lots of alien ship sightings by air force personnel during the cold war.
We might get lucky and be able to identify the exact constellation with a little more information.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: james1947
And, how hard is it to understand that IF I plot 2800 given stars, and ET plots those same 2800 stars, that the plots or maps will be identical?

We are not talking about an ET map, we are talking about Betty's map, and we don't know if what she drew corresponds to what she (supposedly) saw or not. That's why I have been talking about her map's accuracy.

ETA: ArMap...we DO know what the original map looked like!!!

I ask you again: were you aboard the Alien ship? That would be the only way to know what the map looked like.

Actually we are talking about ET's map. When Betty drew her "map" she had outrageous odds of drawing something that even vaguely resembled actual stars in local space. If Betty had seen the map on the ET craft, then, the probability of her drawing something that resembled actual stars is increased dramatically (we are talking 10's of orders of magnitude). Thus it becomes logical to presume that what Betty saw was an ET map of local space, with some stars highlighted.

Combine that with the fact that the stars identified by M. Fish, and myself form a logical progression of suitable stars for either exploration or perhaps trade.

The real "kicker" however, are the four (4) stars that are identified in Betty's map that were not known to exist by Terrestrial science in 1961, and in face were not known until 1991, and the Hipparcos mission.

The analysis of Betty's map has allow for an instance where an abductee has gained knowledge (even IF unknowingly) that has later been proven by science.

originally posted by: james1947
I fail to understand just how you can be so confused! You have NO UNDERSTANDING of why I am calling the story "irrelevant", IF you did you might understand why the story doesn't affect anything in this analysis.

Yeah, please explain your belief 30 more times, maybe I'll pick up on it then :/

originally posted by: james1947
However, IF you can find something in Betty's psychology that might remotely affect this, please, point it out.

Betty's character before and after the abduction:
- Barney Hill says Betty had a previous history of UFO sightings. She told a story of seeing a cigar shaped UFO with her sister. She described smaller UFOs would fly up to and away from the craft, similar to the story below. Zero evidence
- Claimed to witness "thousands" of UFOs throughout her life. Zero evidence
- Claimed a UFO crashed near her home. She visited the site and a crowd had gathered around and she told the group to go home and let the "aliens" take care of it and they left. Zero evidence exhibiting delusions of self importance with her story being an obvious lie.
- Claimed to pick up objects from UFOs and had them scientifically analyzed. Zero evidence of this occurring
- Claimed to witness a "headquarter" UFO where smaller UFOs would fly up to it and "get orders for the night" and fly off. Zero evidence
- Accompanied by John Oswald, UFO proponent and NICAP investigator, on one of Betty's UFO outings he later said: "She is not really seeing UFOs but she is calling them that". also "She was unable to distinguish a landed UFO and a streetlight".

I think the few examples above show Betty's overall character and credibility before and after the abduction is questionable. Combine that with the fact this map was not part of the original story, but instead a series of dreams Betty had 2 weeks later. Then those dreams were revealed under hypnosis nearly 3 years later.

Dreams:

Dreams are notoriously difficult to recall. In fact, if a dream ends before we wake up, we will not remember it. The processes that allow us to create long-term memories largely lie dormant while we sleep, which is why most dreams are forgotten shortly after waking. For instance, an important neurotransmitter for remembering, norepinephrine, exists at very low levels during dreaming, as does electrical activity in areas key to long-term memory, such as the prefrontal cortex.

Source: Scientific American article

Hypnosis:

Hypnosis appears incapable of expanding awareness, so as to enable subjects to remember things that would otherwise remain forgotten. However, the social context of hypnosis, including widely shared (though false) beliefs about its capacity for memory enhancement (with or withoutage regression), and the suggestive context in which hypnosis occurs in the first place, renders the hypnotized subject vulnerable to various kinds of distortions in memory. Because the risks of distortion vastly outweigh the chances of obtaining any useful information, forensic investigators and clinical practitioners should avoid hypnosis as a technique for enhancing recollection.

Source: Hypnosis and Memory(direct pdf download)

See how just the process of retrieving the map goes against it's believability? It's highly unlikely that she remembered it accurately. It also seems Betty carried herself as a UFO nut before, during, and after. Many, if not most, question your theory. You've wasted so much effort on this map and you're obviously not seeking to be challenged. You're stuck on the "impossible odds".


You should be encouraging people to make up their own mind while reading all of the Hill case. Stop trying to convince the ill-informed on only one part and trying to appear scientific in your approach.

Two pdf downloads:
The Hill Report
The Interrupted Journey
or The Interrupted Journey (2)

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

So tell me...just HOW does that affect the probability of Betty's drawing being a 99.1% match to local stars?

Ya know, Attila the Hun, Betty Grable, Richard Nixon, Carl Sagan, literally any random person could bring you this same evidence and the outcome would be the same. This analysis is not dependent on Betty's psychological makeup, nor indeed anyone!

But, IF it makes ya feel better about refusing to apply yourself to this, I have had a long series of abductions starting in late summer 1951, and ending mid year 1994.

I do see what your "point" is, and have determined that it is not an issue to the current analysis. So, unless you can show how Betty's psychology affects the physics, astronomy, mathematics, and of course software, then I really don't see how your "point" is relevant.

See how just the process of retrieving the map goes against it's believability? It's highly unlikely that she remembered it accurately. It also seems Betty carried herself as a UFO nut before, during, and after. Many, if not most, question your theory. You've wasted so much effort on this map and you're obviously not seeking to be challenged. You're stuck on the "impossible odds".

You should be encouraging people to make up their own mind while reading all of the Hill case. Stop trying to convince the ill-informed on only one part and trying to appear scientific in your approach.

I have addressed the "accuracy" issue many times, and perhaps it is difficult for y'all to wrap your head around, but, in as much as Betty DID have a match to local stars, then I guess the accuracy thing in virtually moot. Just to reiterate; the probability of Betty producing a drawing that had just about any quality match is so small that IF you used an ordinary calculator it would report 0.00 (that's zero probability). Of course a zero probability is one of the true "impossibles", but 1.024e-94...dude it would take up far too much screen real estate to actually display that number...I mean a 1024 with 93 zeros in front of it...

I haven't wasted any time at all sir! I have analyzed Betty's map, and learn some about Astronomy, Astrophysics, and planetary science. I've learned some about Habitable zones, how to calculate them, oh, how to compute and plot planetary orbits. I've had the opportunity to learn more about Artificial Intelligence (I am a software type after all), and of course Computer Vision; all of it fascinating! All in all I've had a wonderful time even if a bit frustrating (Internet issues mostly). And through all of this I've been retired, so the time was there to be used, I think it was a good use of the time I spent...Have you learned anything new from this?

Actually sir; I am seeking challenge on this, unfortunately you avoid the real issues, and remain focused on the irrelevant. And, as far as the "impossible odds" go; just how did Betty manage to be those odds? And, she did beat them!

And while encouraging people to make up their own minds on issues; this is not such an issue. This isn't something where a "mind" can be "made up" as it were. This is a scientific report on the nature of Betty Hill's "star map".

It's kind of like this: Dude over there says 2 + 2 = 4, he tells us that a mathematics professor told him that, but mathematics professors are figments of the imagination and only appear to people experiencing hallucinations, or at least that is what most think. So... is "Dude's" knowledge of math, that belief that 2 + 2 = 4 wrong? Is it wrong because he must have hallucinated, and thus what he sees is invalid. Or is it correct, valid, and possibly valuable knowledge??

ETA: Oh, and Ecto...I really do understand where you are coming from, and without that match Betty would be a very large nothing (having no supporting evidence and all). But, you see she has that damn match, and that changed everything. Get rid of the match and I'll agree with you 100%!

James thank you for all your work, I’m not a technical person per say but it seems to me that you have done your homework and to me it was very clear and well documented. I see that most people leave out the 4 stars that were discovered after the fact and that fit perfectly with what she put on paper. Betty’s mental state and other arguments don’t take from the fact that someone with no knowledge of any of this made a map on paper and described what the map was, and someone with knowledge of star formations placed the map at a place in space that look similar but some of the stars were missing and then 30 years latter we found out that this stars are there and it matches the hand drawn map. Im a very skeptical and objective person and this seems too coincidental to just brush off as, she made the whole thing up and she’s crazy. Thank you

originally posted by: james1947
Actually we are talking about ET's map.

And you say this is a scientific approach?

Things are what they are, not what we want them to be, and in this case we do not have access to the ET's map, so we can only use Betty's map.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: james1947
Actually we are talking about ET's map.

And you say this is a scientific approach?

Things are what they are, not what we want them to be, and in this case we do not have access to the ET's map, so we can only use Betty's map.

I used the Hipparcos data, it has data on over 118,000 stars and goes out to some 8100 light years. These stars are the same stars known to ET, I presume. So...tell me, just how is it that ET's star maps are different?

Do they measure different Astrometrics? Perhaps when ET measures a stars position it is somewhere else than where it is when Humans measure it! I'd like to know how these things are possible.

a reply to: james1947

originally posted by: james1947
These stars are the same stars known to ET, I presume. So...tell me, just how is it that ET's star maps are different?

Nobody knows, including you, that is the point, and to pretend you know is not scientific.

Even though we are "primitive' in the sense we don't have interstellar travel which some aliens may have, even our primitive navigation does not use "maps" in space, so the whole idea of the star map is more likely to be a product of Betty hill's hypnosis session than something aliens would really have.

You can ignore the other lines of evidence if you want, but you can stop claiming your approach is scientific because it's not. No good scientist would pursue only one line of evidence and ignore all the other lines of evidence like you're doing.

Just one of the inconsistencies in the accompanying story is very relevant to your question, exactly what kind of map did the aliens have?

The Truth about Betty Hill’s UFO Star Map
"in the hypnosis session the map was in a bound book but...Betty told Marden it was pulled down from the ceiling and was “almost like looking out a window about three feet wide and two feet high”. So which was it, a map in a bound book or almost like looking out a window? The two descriptions are not similar at all.

Lastly you ignore the biggest inconsistency of all, that Betty Hill labeled the stars on her map, and your labels don't match hers! Who better than the person who actually saw the alien map to know when she's seen a good match?

So you're extremely unscientific discarding all these other lines of evidence; a scientist would not do that, but would look at all lines of evidence, so please stop saying you're being scientific when you are clearly not being the least bit scientific.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Has the experimenter produced any control data?
Single blind, even?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: james1947
originally posted by: james1947

"These stars are the same stars known to ET, I presume. So...tell me, just how is it that ET's star maps are different?"

Nobody knows, including you, that is the point, and to pretend you know is not scientific.

Even though we are "primitive' in the sense we don't have interstellar travel which some aliens may have, even our primitive navigation does not use "maps" in space, so the whole idea of the star map is more likely to be a product of Betty hill's hypnosis session than something aliens would really have.

Wow! I almost don't believe you actually said that!!! Seriously man, I used to have much respect for your words, but, that wee bit of bull#e, had destroyed some of it.

You know, I used to look up at the stars at night, and thought they were the same stars as everybody else saw. But, you are telling me that they aren't, that, somehow, the stars of the Milky Way, change, dependent on the viewer(?)

Science, my entire education (and that is considerable), logic, personal (empirical) observation, and everyone (except you) have either told me directly, or very strongly indicated that the stars in the sky are sort of "fixed", in that they don't change. If I were to look at Tau Ceti, I will see the very same Tau Ceti as you.

By extension this applies to ET as well. The stars we see are the same stars ET sees. That is a fixed "constant" and you cant change it to suit your personal need.

So...to reiterate: These stars are the same stars known to ET, I presume. So...tell me, just how is it that ET's star maps are different?

You can ignore the other lines of evidence if you want, but you can stop claiming your approach is scientific because it's not. No good scientist would pursue only one line of evidence and ignore all the other lines of evidence like you're doing.

Ahh yes, If we can't damage the message, let us kill the messenger.

Every scientist will remove as much noise from the equation/project as possible. That is just good data management. Those other "lines" you speak of; do not affect the "map", nor do they affect Astrometrics.

"in the hypnosis session the map was in a bound book but...Betty told Marden it was pulled down from the ceiling and was “almost like looking out a window about three feet wide and two feet high”. So which was it, a map in a bound book or almost like looking out a window? The two descriptions are not similar at all.

Sounds like Betty's map (display) was about the size of my 42 inch monitor.

Do you ever apply simple logic to questions? Much of what Betty says, the language she uses to describe an environment she can not possible understand, is the language of a person who is completely be-fuddled by what she sees...kind of understandable.

And then again; "What is the one piece of all this that hasn't changed? I mean Betty changed her descriptions, of things, but one component of all that didn't change, not in 58 years.

Lastly you ignore the biggest inconsistency of all, that Betty Hill labeled the stars on her map, and your labels don't match hers! Who better than the person who actually saw the alien map to know when she's seen a good match?

Betty's interpretation of the map...lol!!!

Betty did not identify enough stars to provide a reasonable match. Plus, Betty's version of the map isn't a match at all, The stars she started to select will not match her drawing. So, Betty's version is disqualified.

In a television interview [4] she retells the scene in this way: "I don't know if there was an opening in the wall or just what made out of sight and hide the map. He didn't pull down anything like that" - here Betty made a movement with her hand as if she would pull down a rolled up map - "and it was probably about two by three feet. And it was almost - it was all realistic - like looking at the sky and even some of the objects seemed to be slowly moving. He asked me if I knew where we are on the map and I told him 'no'. And he said, well, if I didn't know any basic information then it will be impossible for him to show me where they were from. And with that he put the star map he pushed something - and the map was gone." In the dreams some weeks after the incident [5] she saw: "He went over to the wall and pulled down a map, strange to me. Now I would believe this to be a sky map. It was a map of heavens, with numerous sized stars and planets, some large some only pinpoints. Between many of these, lines were drawn, some broken lines, some light solid lines, some heavy black lines. They were not straight, not curved." "Some went from one planet to another, to another, in a series of lines. Others had no lines, and he said the lines were expeditions. He asked me where the Earth was on this map, and I admitted that I had no idea. He became slightly sarcastic and said that if I did not know where the Earth was, it was impossible to show me where he was from; he snapped the map back into place."

www.kochkyborg.de...

So, according to Betty Hill's regressed memory, Earth should be easily identified on her map, that is, if she correctly remembered it. The aliens said 'basic understanding' - would that be the third planet from 'The Sun' on the drawing? Or perhaps a small dot between 'The Sun' and a large planet (Jupiter)?

All the planets that are visible to the naked eye are depicted. Betty had two of them, Saturn and Jupiter, in her view during their trip Southwards that night. This was exactly the direction from which the UFO approached! In the "star map" the two are placed very conspicuously in the foreground and they had both have these half-circle "bands" in their pictures. It seems that these were shoved under Betty's nose with the hope that she would recognize the two bodies and then identify the Earth much easier to give the right answer to the question: "Where are you on the map?" If she understood the principle of the map, she would likely have come to the rest of the exercise.

www.express.co.uk...