Re Betty Hill 'Star Map' -- Was Marjorie Fish's retraction covered up?

I could have missed this discussion.

I note in the obituary of Marjorie Fish, whose 'star map' interpretation of the Betty hill circles/lines drawing was widely hailed as conformation of the abduction story, apparently recalculated based on newer star position data and retracted her original interpretation. Has that been reported by the UFO media?

Her obit:
www.legacy.com...

The power paragraph:

As one of her hobbies, Marjorie made an investigation into the Betty Hill map by constructing a 3-D star map in the late 1960's using several databases. She found a pattern that matched Mrs. Hill's drawing well, which generated international interest. Later, after newer data was compiled, she determined that the binary stars within the pattern were too close together to support life; so as a true skeptic, she issued a statement that she now felt that the correlation was unlikely.

Has anyone seen a copy of that statement she reportedly issued, or has it disappeared?

reply to post by JimOberg

I thought the big discovery was that Betty Hill's binary star (thought to be a single star at the time), was later verified when astronomy instruments became more advanced.

So how could Betty known it was a binary before it was catalogued?

Heres a bit on Fishe's interpretation of Betty Hill's interpretation,

in 2011, the Kepler telescope discovered that binary systems can produce planets.

---

Ms. Fish cannot be faulted for the mistakes in her interpretation. She was using the best available information at the time she developed the model. In the intervening years, science has proven her conclusions wrong. One can no longer argue that her interpretation is valid or holds any value in proving Mrs. Hill's claims.

Science vs. Fish

reply to post by JimOberg


Adding to Betty Hill's ideas, now we know some binary systems are real candidates, for Earth-like planets...Link to the article

reply to post by JimOberg


Question - if Fish's map has been redacted (as in her obit) has there been any other recent, notable attempts to interpret the Hill's starmap?

I'd be curious, given the wealth of new scientific data that has come to light over the past few decades if we couldn't narrow the possibilities down of the Hill Map. Especially given that many stars, once thought not to support life / planets, indeed can.

Good thread - thanks for bringing these subjects up for review

For me the whole thing was spurious. I mean, so a lady has a dream or whatever it's and she draws a map. IMHO, given the inaccuracies of it, it was all the result of random coincidence. I remember reading a debunking of the hill map where they determined the odds and it was not 1 in 100 million or whatever was claimed, but something much more likely. Thus, it's probably a random connection. It's like if I claim to be a psychic and I'm doing a session with a group of people and I say something sufficiently general, somebody will stand up and say "You can read my mind!"

If the aliens had given her a high tech souvenir, as she asked for, at least she'd have evidence. But as usual, it's an improvised story or a blurry photograph or a scratch mark on the arm.

I'm not saying people haven't been abducted, I'm just saying there's no proof. And if there's no proof, how is this any better than me claiming there's a spaghetti monster on the moon? Or what of the other gazillions of crazy things people claim with no strong supporting evidence to back it up?

It's a fun story, but only if you half believe it. Otherwise, just get a good fictional story from the bookstore. IMHO, a good work of fiction is always better than the ufo stories. Why? Because the ufo stories depend on the gullible people who half believe them, otherwise they'd not sell.

It's kind of like religion. If most people didn't believe in God and/or most people didn't believe that faith was good then religion wouldn't be popular. Similarly, if there were less gullible people to half believe ufo abduction stories then the stories could not exist on their own merit and would fade away. It's all a precarious balance of standards and likes and dislikes and contradictions.

Her only "retraction" is her own personal idea that a binary star system can't support life on planets. This idea has been debunked by science.

Her "retraction" was not about her matching of the constellation. (and the linked article ignores that Betty also identified the COLORS of the individual stars, so yeah, of course it ignores the red dwarfs mentioned in the article)...

Also, Betty's map, and Fish's interpretation, identify colors of stars that were only LATER proven by astronomers.

reply to post by Gazrok


Really?? Interesting!
Although, if were shown a map of stars, and then asked to recall the map some time later, its highly unlikely I'd recall it correctly. This would be especially true if the 'white space' between dots was used to denote proximity between stars. So I've found the effort of matching Betty Hill's map to real star maps a little dubious.
I understand that this map was produced after hypnosis, however.. Is it possible to have such clear recollection of an event after hypnosis, that even small details are remembered perfectly?

Originally posted by Irako
reply to post by Gazrok

 

....if were shown a map of stars, and then asked to recall the map some time later, its highly unlikely I'd recall it correctly. This would be especially true if the 'white space' between dots was used to denote proximity between stars. So I've found the effort of matching Betty Hill's map to real star maps a little dubious.

This is an excellent point. Over the years at UFO conventions and debates, whenever the 'star map' [and Betty never claimed she was even told it WAS a map] came up, I'd always ask for volunteers to verify it was even possible to remember it and recall it accurately. I asked people to step forward THEMSELVES to reproduce the star map under regression -- not a soul volunteered. I asked to conduct a control experiment when a volunteer test subject was shown a similar-structured shape, and then test them under regression a year later to see if they could accurately recall it. nobody dared to even discuss the idea. Maybe in their heart of hearts, THEY didn't believe it either, but they couldn't let on in public.

For reference during the discussion, here are off site images of the Betty Hill Star Map - the original, an extrapolated diagram based on Marjorie Fish's model...

Betty Hill Star Map:


Star Map Diagram w/Planets:


Okay - my thoughts...

On the skeptical side:
I don't particularly trust hypnotic regressions as they are, imo, having personally experienced hypnosis, unreliable and dream-fugue like. Also, the hypnotist can lead the person, even without realizing it, to find more information, not because there really IS more information, but because the person being hypnotized wants to please the hypnotist. So that alone makes me skeptical of abduction scenarios based on hypnotic regression. While some real facts may be brought up during regressions, many odd and nonsensical things come up too that can be shown to be so...

On the "exploration of possibilities" side:
The above being said, it is possible that the "abduction" (real or imagined or induced) itself taps into that hypnotic state of mind so that a hypnotic regression might help to discover what was experienced. ALSO if there is Physical evidence noted at the time of the alleged abduction along with "missing time" or other such phenomena, that must be included.

Thoughts regarding this incident:
I appreciate very much both Gazrok's and JimOberg's sentiments and arguments.
My conclusion, with my admittedly limited study of the subject, is that SOMETHING happened to Betty and Barney Hill that night. (Brilliant, right? lol!)

As to the Star Map itself - it is 1) intriguing, and I appreciate the information regarding the color of the stars, etc. as mentioned by Gazrok, 2) I think it would be extremely difficult to fully remember an experience like this, should it be real, and that the possible correlation between the drawing and real stars is not evidence in and of itself, but must be lumped in with all the other facts - it is a factor of interest, but not a deciding bit of "proof."
3) it is possible that, either due to the the hypnosis or the nature of the experience itself, that certain dream-like details (i.e. the "commander" or "captain" wearing a Nazi uniform) have imposed themselves into the mix.

Always good to exercise the brain, so thank you Jim, for the stimulating topic!

peace,
AB

So they both lied and came up with a star map randomly that happened to correlate to a real system, before it was even discovered? Wow dude you need to try the lottery then your idea of co-incidence is completely out of whack. I think you need to stop visiting this forum, obviously UFOs are a topic you fail to handle well.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
For me the whole thing was spurious. I mean, so a lady has a dream or whatever it's and she draws a map. IMHO, given the inaccuracies of it, it was all the result of random coincidence. I remember reading a debunking of the hill map where they determined the odds and it was not 1 in 100 million or whatever was claimed, but something much more likely. Thus, it's probably a random connection. It's like if I claim to be a psychic and I'm doing a session with a group of people and I say something sufficiently general, somebody will stand up and say "You can read my mind!"

If the aliens had given her a high tech souvenir, as she asked for, at least she'd have evidence. But as usual, it's an improvised story or a blurry photograph or a scratch mark on the arm.

I'm not saying people haven't been abducted, I'm just saying there's no proof. And if there's no proof, how is this any better than me claiming there's a spaghetti monster on the moon? Or what of the other gazillions of crazy things people claim with no strong supporting evidence to back it up?

It's a fun story, but only if you half believe it. Otherwise, just get a good fictional story from the bookstore. IMHO, a good work of fiction is always better than the ufo stories. Why? Because the ufo stories depend on the gullible people who half believe them, otherwise they'd not sell.

It's kind of like religion. If most people didn't believe in God and/or most people didn't believe that faith was good then religion wouldn't be popular. Similarly, if there were less gullible people to half believe ufo abduction stories then the stories could not exist on their own merit and would fade away. It's all a precarious balance of standards and likes and dislikes and contradictions.

edit on 8-7-2013 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

Originally posted by JimOberg
This is an excellent point. Over the years at UFO conventions and debates, whenever the 'star map' [and Betty never claimed she was even told it WAS a map] came up, I'd always ask for volunteers to verify it was even possible to remember it and recall it accurately. I asked people to step forward THEMSELVES to reproduce the star map under regression -- not a soul volunteered. I asked to conduct a control experiment when a volunteer test subject was shown a similar-structured shape, and then test them under regression a year later to see if they could accurately recall it. nobody dared to even discuss the idea. Maybe in their heart of hearts, THEY didn't believe it either, but they couldn't let on in public.

There's a big difference between being put into an extremely exigent situation where each thing takes on significance because the person's survival instinct kicks in versus being told to remember something for a memory test. That's not really an apple's to apple's experiment.

reply to post by Xtraeme

There's a big difference between being put into an extremely exigent situation where each thing takes on significance because the person's survival instinct kicks in versus being told to remember something for a memory test. That's not really an apple's to apple's experiment.

What parameters would you consider fair? I mean, considering the aliens used some kind of alien memory block, how can a fair test be conducted? The Hills were not supposed remember anything. How well do you recall information in dreams? How well do you think we can remember something that never happened?

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


For the part of your question that can be answered. Take two healthy people who have been through a life threatening situation and separately ask them to try to recall a specific shared aspect of the experience. Next compare the results. If the details don't mesh then it shows at least one of the two is misremembering the details (being careful of course to make sure they were in a similar viewing angle). Assuming the gap between experience to questioning is one year then the data should be comparable to Betty Hill's star-map scenario. After that it's just a matter of running a bunch of additional trials to get a sense of error margin.

Originally posted by ATSZOMBIE
So they both lied and came up with a star map randomly that happened to correlate to a real system, before it was even discovered? Wow dude you need to try the lottery then your idea of co-incidence is completely out of whack. I think you need to stop visiting this forum, obviously UFOs are a topic you fail to handle well.

While it may not seem so to the mathematically ignorant, it is a virtual certainty that the "map" correlates to literally hundreds of star patterns as seen from Earth.

Statistically speaking, a FAR more astounding result would be if someone were to draw a star map that didn't correlate with some star pattern in the sky.

Harte

reply to post by Harte


That was pulled from Sagan, right? (www.youtube.com...) There's real world data nowadays that can assess the certitude of such comments. You might enjoy reading: Making the Sky Searchable: Fast Geometric Hashing for Automated Astrometry (cosmo.nyu.edu...)

reply to post by JimOberg


Set it up, Jim.
I will gladly take that challenge.
From everything I have heard and understood the mind has an excellent capacity for accurate recollection under hypnosis.

And if I am wrong, I will have helped close the door on this issue.

I would be glad to help.

ETA: but a quick question. Given the info Gazrok posted above, if I WERE to reproduce the drawing, where would that leave your position on this issue?

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


For the part of your question that can be answered. Take two healthy people who have been through a life threatening situation and separately ask them to try to recall a specific shared aspect of the experience. Next compare the results.

Been done. The results usually differ.
link1

link2

link3

link4

link5


Eyewitness testimony is far less reliable than people believe it is.

Harte

reply to post by Harte


Hrm. I just did a search through the papers (fourth link isn't loading [fixed] looks like you left your session id), but none of them discuss the effects of how a life threatening situation affects memory when isolating and separately questioning the subjects. The third link, "Memory for thematically arousing events," sounds intriguing. However that deals with the opposite side of the spectrum. Do you have a particular recommendation as far as what I should look at more closely? I am well aware of the faultiness of memory (read more papers/books than I care to admit). I am more curious how extreme circumstances affect recall. Anywho. Thanks for the input.

reply to post by Harte


Add hypnosis to the test and results may change quite a bit.
AB brought up two excellent points about hypnosis. It may be possible for a hypnotist to lead a person during a session, but in the case of Jim's challenge, I propose setting up as such: "Dr. I saw an object on such and such date and such and such specific time. I need help reproducing it in a simple sketch." And leave it at that.
Also, in regards to other stuff being lumped in, well that won't apply to the specifics of the challenge (reproducing the map).

I think Jim's test would be sufficient, honestly.
Plus, I may even have an advantage over the Hill's; I have seen the map several times.

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by Harte

 

Add hypnosis to the test and results may change quite a bit.

Hypnosis - it ain't what you think:

HYPNOSIS, even self-hypnosis, can sometimes result in the creation of false memories -- the belief that something happened even though it never did. A psychologist at Ohio State University in Lima and fellow researchers found that even when people were warned about the possibility of acquiring pseudo-memories under hypnosis, more than a quarter of them did anyway.

Dr. Joseph Green, a professor of psychology at Ohio State and co-author of the study, said, ''There's a cultural expectation that hypnosis will lead to more accurate and earlier memories, but that's not true.''

Source: NY TImes - Hypnosis May Cause False Memories
My emphasis.

Harte