Guest: Kathleen Marden

Kathleen was trained as a social worker and educator and holds a B.A. degree from the University of New Hampshire. She participated in graduate studies in education at The University of Cincinnati and U.N.H.   During her fifteen years as an educator, she innovated, designed and implemented model educational programs.  She also held a supervisory position, coordinating, training and evaluating education staff. Additionally, she taught adult education classes on UFO and abduction history.   She is also a certified hypnotherapist.

She was thirteen in on September 20, 1961, when Betty Hill phoned her nearby home to report that, the previous evening, she and Barney had encountered a flying saucer in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.  A primary witness to the evidence of the UFO encounter and the aftermath, Kathleen has intimate knowledge of the Hill’s biographical histories, personalities, and the never before published historical data pertaining to their sensational story.

After Betty’s death in 2004, Kathy compiled two permanent archival collections for the Milne Special Collection and Archives Department at the UNH Library.  The Hills’ civil rights collection is comprised of documents, letters, photographs and newspaper articles pertaining to Betty’s and Barney’s social and political activities.  The UFO collection contains all of all the correspondence, articles, and other material from Betty’s extensive files, including new material, Betty’s dress, and the forensic paintings of her captors by NH artist, David Baker. The archive is open to qualified researchers.

Because Kathy was so close to Betty Hill, especially over the last two decades of her life, she was able to review her extensive UFO files and have many long discussions with Betty to clear up puzzling questions pertaining to her UFO encounter.  She recorded hours of taped interviews with Betty and the two made several research trips through New Hampshire’s White Mountains.  Additionally, in 1996, Betty released to Kathy the audio tapes of the hypnosis sessions she and Barney participated in with renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon.  With Betty’s approval, she transcribed the tapes and conducted a comparative analysis of the Hills’ individual testimony versus Betty’s infamous dream account of alien abduction.  This startling new information, along with the Hills’ historical records, became the foundation for a Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, co-authored with Stanton T. Friedman. (August, 2007)

For ten years Kathy served on the MUFON Board of Directors as the Director of Field Investigator Training. In 2003, MUFON publicly recognized Kathy for her outstanding contribution of advancing the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon and demonstrating positive leadership. She has written articles for The MUFON Journal and the book Best UFO Cases. Additionally, she has appeared on news programs, dozens of radio shows, The History Channel and The Discovery Channel.  Most recently, her tenth television appearance aired on the History Channel’s “UFO Hunters” series.  Kathleen has lectured at numerous locations throughout the U.S., including the 2007 MUFON International Symposium in Denver, CO, the East Coast UFO Conference at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, and the CERO Conference aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. She appeared at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, NM in July.