UFC
UFC Fight Night Headliner Angela Hill’s Grandparents Claimed To Be Abducted by Aliens
John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sportscasting in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.
Get to know John Moriello betterPublished12 Sep 2020
Everyone’s life features an interesting story or two. In the case of Angela Hill, who is headlining a UFC Fight Night card for the first time, her work history is about as varied as they come. She had been both a bartender and an animation studio illustrator before stepping into the octagon for the first time at 29 years old.
Still, the rest of her life will have to be an incredibly wild one to match the story that brought her grandparents international attention in 1961.
Angela Hill is one of the hardest workers in the UFC
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Angela Hill is not the sort of person who stands still for very long. The 25-year-old native of Prince George’s County, Maryland, enjoys a well-deserved reputation as one of the hardest-working competitors in mixed martial arts. The Sept. 12, 2020, UFC Fight Night card that she is headlining is her eighth bout in less than 18 months and fourth this calendar year.
She is only 4-3 since March 2019, dropping Hill’s record to 12-8 overall and just 6-8 in the UFC. In between two stints in the UFC, she won the Invicta FC strawweight championship in May 2016.
Her most recent fight should serve as motivation to get back on the winning track in the octagon against Michelle Waterson in a UFC Fight Night bout at the Apex facility in Las Vegas. Hill dropped a split decision to Claudia Gadelha in May. Observers who believed Hill had done enough to earn the decision panned the scoring.
Angela Hill’s grandparents claimed aliens abducted them
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As noted, UFC Fight Night headline attraction Angela Hill’s life would have to turn very wild to match the story that made her grandparents famous around the world in 1961. Barney and Betty Hill claimed to have been abducted by aliens after encountering a UFO while driving from Montreal to their home in New Hampshire.
The alleged incident took place Sept. 19, 1961, beginning south of Lancaster, New Hampshire, where Betty Hill claimed to have seen a bright light near the moon that the couple originally speculated could be a falling star or an airplane. They said they stopped the car on a highway as the UFO neared touchdown down ahead. Barney Hill claims to have seen between eight and 11 humanoid figures surveying the area from the craft.
Fearing capture, the Hills say they attempted to flee in their car. Shortly afterward, they believe they slipped into some form of altered consciousness that impaired their memories as they drove an estimated 35 miles. They said they arrived home around dawn, disoriented and feeling odd. Both noticed damage to their clothes and to the car.
Skeptics have dismissed the story
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The following day, UFC fighter Angela Hill’s grandparents telephoned an Air Force base to report what they experienced. An officer conducted an interview and reported to his superiors that the episode likely began with the Hills mistaking the planet Jupiter for a UFO.
A month later, the Hills contacted the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena, a non-profit research group founded in 1956. An investigator interviewed them extensively and said he found their story mostly credible.
Not surprisingly, the Hills’ account of the alien abduction met with skepticism with nearly everyone else, who dismissed their story as fantasy or hallucination. Nevertheless, the University of New Hampshire maintains a collection of Betty Hill’s notes on what she believes she saw that night and other items.
