Route map. Click here. The route map above shows the culmination of our efforts. This group of stars is a "natural" for exploration when we achieve interstellar flight. Even if, as most exobiologists contend, we are highly unlikely to find advanced forms of life in such a small sample, the physical exploration of planets of other stars by beings from Earth is inevitable, and the stars of this group should be among the first targets. Now we are ready to return to the map drawn by Betty Hill. Marjorie Fish reasoned that if the stars in the Hill map corresponded to a patter of real stars -- perhaps something like we just developed, only from an alien's viewpoint -- it might be possible to pinpoint the origin of the alleged space travelers. Assuming the two stars in the foreground of the Hill map were the "base" stars (the sun, a single star, was ruled out here), she decided to try to locate the entire pattern. She theorized that the Hill map contained only local stars since no concentration would be present if a more distant viewpoint was assumed and if both "us" and the alien visitors' home base were to be represented. Let's assume, just as an astronomical exercise, that the map does show the sun and the star that is "the sun" to the humanoids. We'll take the Hill encounter at face value, and see where it leads. Since the aliens were described as "humanoid" and seemed reasonably comfortable on this planet, their home planet should be basically like ours. Their atmosphere must be similar because the Hills breathed without trouble while inside the ship, and the aliens did not appear to wear any protective apparatus. And since we assume their biology is similar to ours, their planet should have the same temperature regime as Earth (Betty and Barney did say it was uncomfortably cold in the ship). In essence, then, we assume their home planet must be very Earthlike. Based on what we discussed earlier it follows that their sun would be on our list if it were within 55 light-years of us. The lines on the map, according to Betty Hill, were described by the alien as "trade routes" or "places visited occasionally" with the dotted lines as "expeditions". Any interpretation of the Betty Hill map must retain the logic of these routes (i.e. the lines would link stars that would be worth visiting). The Fish Model. Click here. This model, prepared by Marjorie Fish. shows all the stars located in a vast volume of space extending out about 55 light years in the direction of Zeta Reticuli. The viewing angle is from a point in space beyond that limit looking back toward the Sun. Each star is suspended on a separate thread at its appropriate distance and position from the Sun, and colored according to its spectral type (solar type stars are yellow). The star "behind" the two components of Zeta Reticuli is Zeta Tucanae. From a model such as this, using the same viewing angle seen here, Marjorie Fish noted 16 stars whose positions are remarkably closeto the stars in the drawing made by Betty Hill. The fact that all of the stars in the "Hill configuration" are solar type stars is one of several intriguing areas that enshroud the "Zeta Reticuli Incident". Keeping all this in mind, Marjorie Fish constructed several three-dimensional models of the solar neighborhood in hopes of detecting the pattern in the Hill map. Using beads dangling on threads, she painstakingly recreated our stellar environment. Between Aug. 1968 and Feb. 1973, she strung beads, checked data, searched and checked again. A suspicious alignment, detected in late 1968, turned out to be almost a perfect match once new data from the detailed 1969 edition of the Catalog of Nearby Stars became available. (This catalog is often called the "Gliese catalog" -- pronounced "glee-see" -- after its principal author, Wilhelm Gliese.) The 16 stars in the stellar configuration discovered by Marjorie Fish are compared with the map drawn by Betty Hill in the diagram on page 6. If some of the star names on the Fish map sound familiar, they should. Ten of the 16 stars are from the compact group that we selected earlier based on the most logical direction to pursue to conduct interstellar exploration from Earth Continuing to take the Hill map at face value, the radiating pattern of "trade routes" implies that Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli are the "hub" of exploration or, in the context of the incident, the aliens' home base. The sun is at the end of one of the supposedly regular trade routes. The pair of stars that make up Zeta Reticuli is practically in the midst of the cluster of solar type stars that attracted us while we were mapping out a logical interstellar voyage. Checking further we find that all but two of the stars in the Fish pattern are on the table of nearby solar type stars. These two stars are Tau 1 Eridani (an F6 star) and Gliese 86.1 (K2), and are, respectively, just above and below the parameters we arrived at earlier. One star that should be there (Zeta Tucanae) is missing probably because it is behind Zeta 1 Reticuli at the required viewing angle. To summarize, then: (1) the pattern discovered by Marjorie Fish has an uncanny resemblance to the map drawn by Betty Hill; (2) the stars are mostly the ones that we would visit if we were exploring from Zeta Reticuli, and (3) the travel patterns generally make sense. Walter Mitchell, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in Columbus, has looked at Marjorie Fish's interpretation of the Betty Hill map in detail and tells us, "The more I examine it, the more I am impressed by the astronomy involved in Marjorie Fish's work." During their examination of the map, Mitchell and some of his students inserted the positions of hundreds of nearby stars into a computer and had various space vistas brought up on a cathode ray tube readout. They requested the computer to put them in a position out beyond Zeta Reticuli looking toward the sun. From this viewpoint the map pattern obtained by Marjorie Fish was duplicated with virtually no variations. Mitchell noted an important and previously unknown fact first pointed out by Ms. Fish: The stars in the map are almost in a plane; that is, they fill a wheel shaped volume of space that makes star hopping from one to another easy and the logical way to go -- and that is what is implied by the map that Betty Hill allegedly saw. "I can find no major point of quibble with Marjorie Fish's interpretation of the Betty Hill map," says David R. Saunders, a statistics expert at the Industrial Relations Center of the University of Chicago. By various lines of statistical reasoning he concludes that the chances of finding a match among 16 stars of a specific spectral type among the thousand-odd stars nearest the sun is "at least 1,000 to 1 against". "The odds are about 10,000 to 1 against a random configuration matching perfectly with Betty Hill's map," Saunders reports. "But the star group identified by Marjorie Fish isn't quite a perfect match, and the odds consequently reduce to about 1,000 to 1. That is, there is one chance in 1,000 that the observed degree of congruence would occur in the volume of space we are discussing. "In most fields of investigation where similar statistical methods are used, that degree of congruence is rather persuasive," concludes Saunders. Saunders, who has developed a monumental computerized catalog of more than 60,000 UFO sightings, tells us that the Hill case is not unique in its general characteristics -- there are other known cases of alleged communication with extraterrestrials. But in no other case on record have maps ever been mentioned. Mark Steggert of the Space Research Coordination Center at the University of Pittsburgh developed a computer program that he calls PAR (for Perspective Alteration Routine) that can duplicate the appearance of star fields from various viewpoints in space. "I was intrigued by the proposal put forth by Marjorie Fish that she had interpreted a real star pattern for the alleged map of Betty Hill. I was incredulous that models could be used to do an astronometric problem," Steggert says. "To my surprise I found that the pattern that I derived from my program had a close correspondence to the data from Marjorie Fish." After several run-throughs, he confirmed the positions determined by Marjorie Fish. "I was able to locate potential areas of error, but no real errors," Steggert concludes. Steggert zeroed in on possibly the only real bone of contention that anyone has had with Marjorie Fish's interpretation: The data on some of the stars may not be accurate enough for us to make definitive conclusions. For example, he says the data from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Catalog, the Royal Astronomical Society Observatory Catalog, and the Yale Catalog of Bright Stars "have differences of up to two magnitudes and differences in distance amounting to 40 percent for the star Gliese 59". Other stars have less variations in the data from one catalog to another, but Steggert's point is valid. The data on some of the stars in the map is just not good enough to make a definitive statement. (The fact that measurements of most of the stars in question can only be made at the relatively poor equipped southern hemisphere observatories accounts for the less reliable data.) Using information on the same 15 stars from the Royal Observatory catalog (Annals #5), Steggert reports that the pattern does come out differently because of the different data, and Gliese 59 shows the largest variation. The Gliese catalog uses photometric, trigonometric and spectroscopic parallaxes and derives a mean from all three after giving various mathematical weights to each value. "The substantial variation in catalog material is something that must be overcome," says Steggert. "This must be the next step in attempting to evaluate the map." This point of view is shared by Jeffrey L. Kretsch, an undergraduate student who is working under the advisement of J. Allen Hynek at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Like Steggert, he too checked Marjorie Fish's pattern and found no error in the work. But Kretsch reports that when he reconstructed the pattern using trigonometric distance measurements instead of the composite measures in the Gliese catalog, he found enough variations to move Gliese 95 above the line between Gliese 86 and Tau 1 Eridani. "The data for some of the stars seems to be very reliable, but a few of the pattern stars are not well observed and data on them is somewhat conflicting," says Kretsch. The fact that the pattern is less of a "good fit" using data from other sources leads Kretsch and others to wonder what new observations would do. Would they give a closer fit? Or would the pattern become distorted? Marjorie Fish was aware of the catalog variations, but has assumed the Gliese catalog is the most reliable source material to utilize. Is the Gliese catalog the best available data source. According to several astronomers who specialize in stellar positions, it probably is. Peter Van de Kamp says, "It's first rate. There is none better." He says the catalog was compiled with extensive research and care over many years. A lot of the published trigonometric parallaxes on the stars beyond 30 light-years are not as accurate as they could be, according to Kyle Cudworth of Yerkes Observatory. "Gliese added other criteria to compensate and lessen the possible errors," he says. The scientific director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, K.A. Strand, is among the world's foremost authorities on stellar distances for nearby stars. He believes the Gliese catalog "is the most complete and comprehensive source available." Frank B. Salisbury of the University of Utah has also examined the Hill and Fish maps. "The pattern of stars discovered by Marjorie Fish fits the map drawn by Betty Hill remarkably well. It's a striking coincidence and forces one to take the Hill story more seriously," he says. Salisbury is one of the few scientists who has spent some time on the UFO problem and has written a book and several articles on the subject. A professor of plant physiology, his biology expertise has been turned to astronomy on several occasions while studying the possibility of biological organisms existing on Mars. Salisbury insists that while psychological factors do play an important role in UFO phenomena, the Hill story does represent one of the most credible reports of incredible events. The fact that the story and the map came to light under hypnosis is good evidence that it actually took place. "But it is not unequivocal evidence," he cautions. Elaborating on this aspect of the incident, Mark Steggert offers this: "I am inclined to question the ability of Betty, under posthypnotic suggestion, to duplicate the pattern two years after she saw it. She noted no grid lines on the pattern for reference. Someone should (or perhaps has already) conduct a test to see how well a similar patter could be recalled after a substantial period of time. The stress she was under at the time is another unknown factor." "The derivation of the base data by hypnotic techniques is perhaps not as 'far out' as it may seem," says Stanton Friedman. "Several police departments around the country use hypnosis on rape victims in order to get descriptions of the assailants -- descriptions that would otherwise remain repressed. The trauma of such circumstances must be comparable in some ways to the Hill incident." Is it at all possible we are faced with a hoax? "Highly unlikely," says Salisbury -- and the other investigators agree. One significant fact against a charade is that the data from the Gliese catalog was not published until 1969, five years after the star map was drawn by Betty Hill. Prior to 1969, the data could only have been obtained from the observatories conducting research on the specific stars in question. It is not uncommon for astronomers not to divulge their research data -- even to their colleagues -- before it appears in print. In general, the entire sequence of events just does not smell of falsification. Coincidence, possibly; hoax, improbable. Where does all this leave us? Are there creatures inhabiting a planet of Zeta 2 Reticuli? Did they visit Earth in 1961? The map indicates that the sun has been "visited occasionally". What does that mean? Will further study and measurement of the stars in the map change their relative positions and thus distort the configuration beyond the limits of coincidence? The fact that the entire incident hinges on a map drawn under less than normal circumstances certainly keeps us from drawing a firm conclusion. Exobiologists are united in their opinion that the chance of us having neighbors so similar to us, apparently located so close, is vanishingly small. But then, we don't even know for certain if there is anybody at all out there -- anywhere -- despite the Hill map and pronouncements of the most respected scientists. The only answer is to continue the search. Someday, perhaps soon, we will know.