Travis Walton – 39 Years Later | Alyson Dunlop's Blog

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alien abduction, Fire in the Sky, Travis Walton, UFO

Exactly thirty nine years ago today, on the 5^th November 1975, Travis Walton experienced something truly extraordinary. It was an event that caused trauma to him, his friends, and his community, as they all tried to explain what happened. Because that evening, at some point between 6.10pm and 7pm, Travis and the other men he was with were subject to an encounter that they would never forget. Through the re-telling of what happened, neither will the rest of the world.

After a hard day of tree-felling, Mike Smith, Travis Walton, Ken Peterson, John Goulette, Steve Pierce, Allen Dallis and Dwayne Smith all made their way home together. Mike Smith, their boss, drove them in his pickup truck. As the others joked in the back, Travis, sitting in the passenger seat, was distracted by a light coming through the trees. At first he assumed it was the sun, but then reasoned the sun would have already set. He thought maybe it was a fire. By now the others had caught sight of it too, and the joking had stopped. As they passed it, the light was almost blinding. One of the men, Dwayne, commented that he thought it might be a crashed plane in the trees.

As the truck moved to where the men could see better what was causing the brightness, they were dumb-struck. Before them was what they could only interpret as a gold, disc-shaped, flying saucer. It was hovering just below the tree tops.

In his excitement, Travis leapt from the truck. The others, beginning to panic, shouted for him to come back. The men later said that Travis was below the UFO when it began to make a loud noise. Travis started to walk away when the disc wobbled from side to side.

Just at that moment, the men watched in horror as Travis was struck by what they described as a blue-green light which shot out from the disc. Clark (1988) stated that Travis “rose a foot into the air, his arms and legs outstretched, and shot back stiffly some 10 feet (3.0m), all the while caught in the glow of the light. His right shoulder hit the earth, and his body sprawled limply over the ground.”

By 7.30pm the men were reporting the disappearance of their friend and co-worker Travis Walton to Deputy Sheriff Chuck Ellison. Ellison recalled that two of the men were in tears and, though he was sceptical of their bizarre story, he conceded that they seemed genuine. Ellison’s superior, Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, along with Officer Ken Coplan, Mike Rogers, Ken Peterson and Allen Dallis, went back to the clearing to search for Travis. Goulette, Pierce and Smith were all too upset and decided to return home to Snowflake and break the news of Travis’s disappearance to family and friends.

No physical evidence of the events could be found. Mike Rogers and Sheriff Coplan went to tell Travis’s mother, Mary Walton Kellett. On hearing the news she was calm – something that debunkers have cited as a reason to suspect the story was false. However, in the days that followed Kellet did break down on several occasions. At 3am on the 6^th, she telephoned Travis’s brother, Duane Walton, who travelled from his home in Glendale, Arizona and drove to Snowflake.

Police had scoured the area, and were suspicious that the UFO sighting was a story concocted to cover up an accident or homicide. However, when Duane and Mike Rogers returned to the clearing on the morning of the 6^th to find no police presence, they immediately went to Sheriff Gillespie’s office to demand a reason why no further searches were being carried out. Their angry outburst was effective. By the afternoon, police were out searching for Travis with helicopters, horses, and jeeps.

The disappearance of Walton became international news, with reporters, ufologists, and intrigued others, all heading for Snowflake. Of course, the media highlighted controversial statements made by Mike Rogers and Duane Walton, which on reflection they had said without thinking of the possible consequences. Nevertheless, apart from Dallis, the other five men all passed a polygraph test where they denied harming Travis, having knowledge of anyone who had caused him harm, or knowing where his body was. They also maintained that they had seen a UFO. The polygraph result said that, without doubt, they were telling the truth. Even Sheriff Gillespie now accepted their UFO story.

Meanwhile, somewhere else, Travis Walton was beginning to wake up. In his own words:

“I looked at the vague but reassuring forms of the doctors around me. Abruptly my vision cleared. The sudden horror of what I saw rocked me as I realized I was definitely not in a hospital. I was looking square into the face of a horrible creature … with huge, luminous brown eyes the size of quarters! I looked frantically around me. There were three of them! Hysteria overcame me instantly.” —Travis Walton

He went on to describe them as typical Greys, which have been reported in other abduction scenarios. They were shorter than five feet, with large, bald, dome-shaped heads. After jumping off the table he was on, and threatening these creatures, they left the room (or ran away). Walton described walking through the corridors of the place he had found himself and meeting humanoids. One covered his face with an oxygen mask, he passed out, and the next thing he was waking up outside a gas station. He looked up and saw the object above the highway before it shot off. Walton then got himself to a telephone and called his cousin, Grant Neff. He thought he had only been gone a few hours. In fact, he had been missing for five days…

Read some chapters from Fire in the Sky by Travis Walton for free & buy the book (much cheaper than on Amazon!) via this link!

The SKYFIRE Conference 2014 is on from 7th-9th November in Arizona! See the teaser trailer via this link!

Travis Walton’s new theory about his abduction!

Travis Walton speaks more about his abduction and his theory on Coast to Coast. Listen to the full interview (Hour 3 & 4 on the mp3 downloads) via this link!

Steve Pierce speaks out:

The Witnesses – John Goulette and Steve Pierce.

Travis Walton didn’t have much say in the making of the movie, and his book is different. However, it still helps to visualise a few things so here are a couple of trailers.

Fan-made Trailer “Fire in the Sky”