CONWAY — Late one night in September of 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were allegedly abducted by aliens in the White Mountains during a journey from Canada to their Portsmouth home. The incident became widely publicized and their story is now recounted and lightly fictionalized in a new book by author Dave O. Dodge.

On Monday, Dodge spoke at White Birch Books and signed copies of “Betty: The Untold Story of Betty Hill’s Extraterrestrial Life” (Glue Pot Press, 2024) and “The Seasons of Grace,” (Glue Pot Press, 2021) a novelization of the life of Grace Metalious, 1924-64, author of the New Hampshire-based bestseller of 1956, “Peyton Place.”

About a dozen people attended.

Dodge, who grew up in Franklin but now lives in Mexico, is often asked why he writes about women.

“Women are more interesting, and they have a lot more stories to tell,” said Dodge. “I wrote about Betty and Grace because I grew up with aspects of their lives.”

For instance, he said as a kid his family would take Sunday drives around Gilmanton, Metalious’ home , on Montown, and look for the farm looking for the murder scene depicted in “Peyton Place.”

And one of the first books he checked out of a public library as a child was “The Interrupted Journey,” by John G. Fuller, which is about the Hills.

“Betty” is largely based on newspaper articles, movies, screenplays and podcasts about the Hills and is only about 10 percent fictionalized, Dodge said.

“I refer to them as biographical novels,” he said.

He said the Hills were solid people. Barney worked for the U.S. Postal Service and Betty was a social worker. They went to church.

They were an interracial couple — Barney was Black and Betty was white, something that was controversial at the time. Barney Hill died at 46, in 1969. Betty Hill died at age 85 in 2004.

Of the stories they told about being abducted by aliens, “they had nothing to gain by this, and nothing really came out for almost four years, because they didn’t want anybody to know and they didn’t know how to handle it,” said Dodge.

The couple, driving back from their honeymoon in Montreal, were hoping to make it back to Portsmouth before Hurricane Esther was forecast to slam the Seacoast.

During their journey, about 2½ hours “go missing.” But memories of their reported abduction were resurrected through forensic hypnosis by Dr. Benjamin Simon of Boston.

The story eventually broke in the Boston Traveler newspaper.

There was some physical evidence of the abduction to corroborate statements under hypnosis. For the honeymoon, the couple bought new clothes. Betty bought a blue dress and Barney, new black shoes.

Afterward, the dress had mysterious pink powder on it, tear marks and damage to the zipper because the aliens were having some difficulty getting her undressed, the couple said. Barney’s shoes had scuff marks on the top, suggesting he was dragged.

Those clothing items are now at the UNH Library, Dodge said.

He recounted that under hypnosis, Betty Hill recalled seeing her husband being dragged by the aliens and Barney kept his eyes shut during the ordeal, apparently wanting to know as little as possible about what was happening.

Betty also recalled yelling at the aliens not to touch her. One of the aliens stuck a 6-inch needle in her abdomen and it was painful despite assurances that the needle wouldn’t hurt.

A “leader” alien seemed to feel bad about this ordeal, said Dodge, reading from his book. The leader alien told Betty the aliens were from very far away and also gave her a tablet computer device with strange writing on it.

The leader alien showed her a map of the stars that showed trade and exploration routes.

“She draws the map under hypnosis, and it gets published in that book by John G. Fuller, “The Interrupted Journey,” said Dodge, adding the map is thought to be Zeta Reticuli, a binary star.

“That was like proof that the view that they were looking at in the map was not the view from Earth, but the view from their solar system looking this way. So there’s a lot of evidence, and there’s a lot of speculation,” Dodge said.

Dodge also spoke about Metalious, who was a young married mother in Belmont when she wrote “Peyton Place”, a book that became a sensation and ended up selling 12.5 million copies.

“It was America’s first dirty book,” said Dodge, adding that it was also “America’s first book for the woman who was in control of her life.

He added: “Peyton Place is a small village of fiction on the Connecticut River where many bad things happened, including a murder, a rape and all of that stuff.”

Metalious only lived to be 39, dying in February 1964 of sclerosis of the liver. She is buried in Gilmanton.

The next book Dodge is working on is titled “The Mist on the Merrimac,” which will be released in early 2025. It is the story of Hannah Duston, who was abducted by indigenous people in 1697 during King Philip’s War in Canada. However, Hannah fought back and won.

“She took control of the situation and sailed back down the Merrimack, back to have her where she came from, with 11 scalps,” said Dodge. “She was a fierce lady.”

To reserve a copy of Dodge’s books, call White Birch Books at (603) 356-3200 or go to whitebirchbooks.com.