Articles by Other Researchers

Traveling in Space with The Zetas:
Further Investigation Into the Hill-Wilson Star Map

By Steve Pearse

Everyone loves a good mystery now and then, and one of the most intriguing ufological mysteries is how Marjorie Fish plotted out her Zeta Reticuli theory. There seems to be a definitive answer in how she positioned and oriented her pattern stars in order to make them appear that her interpretation was exactly the same thing shown to Betty Hill while she was on board an alien spacecraft in September of 1961.

The explanation is that over a course of 6 years, Marjorie Fish built at least 26 three dimensional models of our local galactic neighborhood using coded beads on nylon line so as to hang in their actual three dimensional locations. In mathematics and physics, the dimensions of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it. The inside of a cube, a cylinder or a sphere is three dimensional because three coordinates are needed to locate a point within these spaces. With this we end up with three spatial dimensions of width (X), length (Y) and thickness (Z), which we can then further define as horizontal, vertical and depth of a cube. To further define her methodology, they used more familiar terms of going west and northeast to better explain how she plotted out the Zeta Reticuli itinerary. We now know what is supposed to be up, down, and left and right of our start point.

In The Zeta Reticuli Incident, written by Terrence Dickinson and published in Astronomy Magazine in 1974, we are given the following information:

"Now we are ready to plan the trip. It's pretty obvious that Tau Ceti is our first target. After that, the choice is more difficult. We can't take each star in order or we would be darting all over the sky. It's something like planning a vacation trip. Let's say we start from St. Louis and want to hit all the major cities within a 1,000 mile radius. If we go west, all we can visit is Kansas City and Denver. But northeast is a bonanza: Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and more. The same principle applies to the planning of our interstellar exploration. The plot of all 46 candidate stars reveals a clumping in the direction of the constellations Cetus and Eridanus. Although this section amounts to only 13 percent of the entire sky, it contains 15 of the 46 stars, or 33 percent of the total. Luckily Tau Ceti is in this group, so that's the direction we should go (comparable to heading northeast from St. Louis). If we plan to visit some of these solar type stars and then return to Earth, we should try to have the shortest distance between stops. It would be a waste of exploration time if we zipped randomly from one star to another."

"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 pattern 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." (1)

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 range 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." (2)

Stanton Friedman in the October/November 2009 issue of the MUFON Journal claims that Marjorie Fish "matched angle for angle, line length for line length, 9 of the 6 trade and 6 exploration pattern stars." (3) The plot twist starts here:

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 pattern 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.

The dimensions of the star map are said to be 3 feet by 2 feet and in inches, this translates out to be 36" by 24." Using this, we can now see that the true given spatial separation of the two large nickel sized stars as properly depicted, shows us that the true separation is approximately six inches. In order to claim that the start point was Zeta Reticuli, Fish altered the spatial distance between them by 85%. This is the equivalent of cutting off 10 inches from a 12 inch ruler, and then claiming it matched line length for line length. The 6 inch spatial distance was cut down to a mere 1 inch in order to proclaim that she had amazingly found their home world using this trick.

This now gave her free license to now claim that the two large nickel sized stars were the binary star system Zeta Reticuli and the start point of the alien star map that was shown to Betty Hill. This allowed her to jump to the conclusion that the two nickel sized stars were to be properly placed in the foreground of the Hill 3D star map, as she now identified them as being the so called "base-stars" and home of an advanced alien society capable of traversing interstellar space to Sol/Earth. Per Fish, the sun, a single star, was ruled out here. With this mistaken assumption firmly in place, she decided to try to duplicate the entire pattern using Zeta Reticuli as her start point.

However, the one voice that she did not listen enough to was Jeffrey Kretsch. He commented that "...the resemblance between the Fish map and the Hill map is a striking one", then he also said "...the only area of significant incongruity is the wide separation of Zeta Reticuli in the Hill version."(4)What he is saying is that this alteration is inappropriate and not harmonious in character thus making it an unsuitable change to Betty’s star map. The second main issue that Fish elected to ignore was the poor metal readings of Zeta Reticuli, which is of critical importance for planetary formation. Kretsch made the following comments:

"The evidence that the Zeta Reticuli system is metal deficient is definite. From this knowledge of metal deficiency and the velocities and eccentricities, we can safely conclude that the Zeta Reticuli system is older than the Sun. The question of terrestrial planets being able to form remains open. A final point concerning the metal deficiencies is rather disturbing. Even though terrestrial planets might form about either star in the Zeta Reticuli system, there is a specific deficiency in carbon to well within the error range. This is disturbing because carbon is the building block of organic molecule chains. There is no way of knowing whether life on Earth would have emerged and evolved as far as it has if carbon were not as common here." (5)

There is still an outside chance that a habitable planet could have developed around one star of this binary star system, but the likelihood that they both developed habitable planets around them simultaneously is a pipedream. This misguided train of thought allows her to further expound on her version of the star map and saying that it can only be seen from an alien's viewpoint uses an even more baffling vantage point that is best described as that nebulous "slice of space." Marjorie Fish, a member of Mensa, had found a convenient short cut, and she soon found other people willing to buy into her Zeta Reticuli theory while still playing fast and loose with her claim that what she was showing everyone "matched angle for angle, line length for line length, 9 of the 6 trade and 6 exploration pattern stars." Her display model "Psyche" only shows one Zeta Reticuli star (Zeta 1).

Marjorie Fish’s Zeta Reticuli hypothesis began its formal introduction in 1974 when she went public at the UFO Symposium by presenting her work titled "Journey into the Hill Star Map" Akron, Ohio, June 2, 1974.

In December 1974 Terence Dickinson, editor of the popular magazine Astronomy entered the picture. While Dickinson did not endorse Fish and Walter Webb's conclusions, he was nevertheless intrigued. For the first time in the journal's history, Astronomy invited comments and debate on a UFO report, starting with an opening article in the December 1974 issue. Publication of her hypothesis brought an immediate heated response, both "pro and con" to the publication of her theory. It was a great story that became a heated controversy overnight.  

It was said that Fish was the first to note that all the stars on the map connected by lines (which Betty Hill said she was told were trade or frequently-traveled routes) fell in a plane, with Zeta Reticuli acting as a hub. Thus the displayed routes would be the most logical and efficient way of exploring the nearby stellar neighborhood for a civilization located in Zeta Reticuli. These points played critical roles in the subsequent debates over the validity of the Fish match to the Hill map.

While I admire her efforts to attempt to figure out what was being shown to Betty Hill, it is my conclusion that Marjorie Fish, the experimentalist, ended up playing fast and loose with the rules. It’s not so difficult to understand her situation, as she constructed model after model without success; which is very frustrating. There is no doubt that she fell in love with the binary star system of Zeta Reticuli because they were both on Stephen Dole's closest 46 nearby stars. They were G2 stars and had enough qualities to be labeled Sun-Like. It was too strong of a lure to let go, and the road to success had a shortcut. To achieve her goal meant that the end justifies the means.

This phrase, "the end justifies the means," can be interpreted as doing anything whatsoever that is required to get the result you want, regardless of the methods used. It does not matter whether these methods are legal or illegal, fair or foul, kind or cruel, truth or lies, democratic or dictatorial, good or evil. In the end the phrase simply refers to the deliberate use of wrong methods.

Another fact we need to consider is that the star map was shown to Betty in a medical examination room and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate navigational star chart. It was shown to Betty as a teaching tool, and shown to her in a manner that she could hopefully recognize; which simply means that it was Earth based. The exchange between the leader Being and Betty is the direct result of an impromptu question from Betty asking about where they come from; so the star map she was shown is nothing more than a teaching tool that was shown to Betty in a fashion that she might hopefully recognize. This is why the Being said to her... "If you don't know where you are, there wouldn't be any point in my telling you where I am." (6)

Marjorie Fish’s Zeta Reticuli interpretation claiming that she deciphered the star map was a noble effort, but in the end, we are forced to pay attention to the information that was divulged in the conversation that Erik Wilson had with a Grey Being about the true location of their home star. We now know that Fish is in the wrong constellation, and none of the pattern stars are in the Southern Hemisphere.

Erik’s conversation with the Grey is as follows:

I'm on the back porch talking to a [Grey] Being. I'm showing him two drawings I've done of other aliens....We go on the deck. I ask him,

"Are you from the Pleiades?"

The Being adamantly replies, "NO."

I ask him where he is from. We look in the sky to see the Big Dipper. He says,

"See the Ursa Major?"

I reply "Yes."

The Being then tells me,

"The star cluster to the right and below. The one with the triangle to the left and the little stars in between. Well, we're from that one. The fourth planet from our sun."

I ask him what his planet is like. He said sadly,

"I don't know. I've never been there. I was born on our ship." (7)

The triangle has been found allowing us to properly identify the location of this key feature of the star map. It’s my opinion that the two nickel sized stars on the star map that Betty Hill drew do not represent "base stars" nor do they depict Zeta Reticuli. The bottom line is, we must now move forward by paying particular attention to what they are telling us. They have given us directions to find their home star, so in the end, we must ask: Who do you want to believe? 

Notes

(1) Dickinson, Terrence. "The Zeta Reticuli Incident." Astronomy Magazine, 1976. See also http://www.nicap.org/articles/hillzeta.htm

(2) Ibid.

(3) Friedman, Stanton. MUFON UFO Journal. October/November. Issue 498 / 499. 2009.

(4) Kretsch, Jeffery L. "The Zeta Reticuli Incident: The Age of Nearby Stars." http://www.astrosurf.com/lunascan/hillzeta2.htm

(5) Ibid.

(6) Friedman, Stanton and Kathleen Marden. Captured! The Barney and Betty Hill UFO Experience, pg. 131. New Page Books, Franklin Lakes, NJ. 2007.

(7) Wilson, K. The Alien Jigsaw Researcher's Supplement. Puzzle Publishing, 1994. See also  Steve Pearse, Erik Wilson, and The Hill-Wilson Star Map

To read Steve Pearse's first installment of his new theory regarding The Hill-Wilson Star Map, click here: www.alienjigsaw.com/Articles/introductionPearseHillWilsonStarMap.htm

For serious inquiries, contact Steve Pearse at: SP5X5(at)aol.com