Episode 9.5A: "INVASION: UFO" (part 5), feat. Strange Arrivals podcast host Toby Ball
- Michel Gagné
- Jul 25
- 33 min read
Updated: Sep 29
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Travis Walton’s Big UFO Adventure
(And the Lying Liars Who Lied About It!)
Around 6:15 p.m. on November 5, 1975, shortly after nightfall, a group of seven woodcutters were travelling in a pickup truck in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in central-eastern Arizona. They were returning from a day’s work clearing trees, serving out a contract for the U.S. Forest Service, in a secluded valley called Turkey Springs, located 10 miles (16 km) south of the town of Heber. These facts are universally accepted. Everything else has been the subject of intense debate.
What follows is the UFO abduction story put forth by two of these loggers—Travis Walton and Mike Rogers—who have been repeating it for nearly fifty years at UFO conventions and in podcast, TV, and radio interviews with the likes of Geraldo Rivera, Larry King, George Noory, and Joe Rogan. Their story is primarily told in a 1978 book titled The Walton Experience, which was later republished as Fire In The Sky, borrowing the title of a 1993 Hollywood thriller loosely based on Walton’s more introspective and far less dramatic account.
Many consider the Travis Walton abduction story to be one of the best proofs that alien beings are visiting Earth and abducting its people. But how reliable is the evidence? Is Walton’s story logically consistent? And are Walton, Rogers, and their colleagues reliable witnesses? Let’s take a closer look…
Part 1: Travis’ story
While rounding a turn on a dark and winding forest road on the way back from their work site, the group of seven loggers, aged 17 to 29, came upon a bright light in the sky that, according to Walton, appeared to hover above the tree line like “a crashed plane hanging in a tree”.[1] The driver and foreman Mike Rogers stopped the truck a few dozen yards from the “luminous vehicle” and turned off the engine while his long-time friend and future brother-in-law Travis Walton, riding beside him in the passenger seat, jumped out and “quickly stalked closer” to the bright golden craft while the frightened men in the back of the truck urged Travis to return.
As Walton described it in his book:
“I estimated the object to have an overall diameter of fifteen or twenty feet; it was eight or ten feet thick. The flattened disk had a shape like that of two gigantic pie-pans placed lip to lip, with a small round bowl turned upside down on top. […] We could see darker stripes of a dull silver sheen that divided the glowing areas into panel-like sections. The dim yellowish light given off by the surface had the luster of hot metal, fresh from a blast furnace.”[2]
Similar descriptions and drawings were made of the craft by the other six witnesses and published over the following months in several newspapers and magazines. All of the woodcutters agreed that the object was bright and composed of luminous angular panels that looked like windows, and that it was approximately the size of a standard backyard swimming pool.
But no sooner did Travis reach the halo of light produced by the “craft” that he was suddenly zapped by a “tremendously bright blue-green” energy beam that sent him hurtling backwards ten feet through the air and crashing on the forest floor, at which point he passed out. Urged on by the terrified men in the back seat of the truck, Rogers drove away at great speed along the unpaved logging road, fearing that Travis was dead and that the object was now targeting them.
After driving around for some time and arguing about what to do, the men agreed to return to the site. The bright craft was gone, but they failed to locate Travis’ body. They therefore decided to call the local sheriff’s deputy, who then contacted Sheriff Marlin Gillespie who drove down from Holbrook, Arizona, to meet with Mike Rogers and the other workmen in the nearby town of Heber where Travis’ mother was currently residing. Gillespie and his deputies interviewed the woodcutting crew and decided to accompany Rogers and two other workmen—Allan Dalis and Ken Peterson—back to the alleged abduction site in the dead of night, but found no trace of Travis. The other three workmen returned to the town of Snowflake, where they, Travis, and Rogers all resided. The next day, Sherriff Gillespie ordered a comprehensive search of the area, which also proved fruitless. It was called off at the request of Travis’ mother.[3]
Sheriff Gillespie quickly suspected foul play. On one hand, he suspected a possible murder and cover-up by the workmen, who were known to have quarreled with each other on several occasions. On the other hand, the lack of concern for Travis’ well-being displayed by Mike Rogers, by Travis’ mother (Mary Kellett), and by his older brother (Duane Walton)—all of whom assured the sheriff that Travis was probably safe onboard a spaceship and that he would return soon—and the fact that Duane had almost immediately contacted several UFO research organizations, stank of a poorly-disguised prank. Gillespie therefore had each of the workmen interrogated separately while hooked up to a polygraph (colloquially called a “lie detector”). All of the workmen, save for Allen Dalis, were considered to be truthful about having seen a UFO and not having caused harm to Travis. Dalis refused to complete the polygraph on account that he had recently argued with Travis and thought the test would unduly make him look guilty. (Dallis would later be arrested for armed robbery and drug possession; he may therefore have feared that the polygraph would make him reveal his use of illegal narcotics).
In any event, the six men were released and no new leads were discovered—until the fifth day of Travis’ disappearance, when he called his sister from a gas station phone booth located in Heber, about ten miles from the spot where he had allegedly been abducted. He was dehydrated and unshaven but no worse for the wear, with a strange tale of a voyage onboard a spaceship. Duane Walton contacted the authorities to let them know Travis was okay. But he had also contacted some leading UFO research organisations, including Ground Saucer Watch, APRO, and the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper, who were all quick to want to examine his body, investigate the abduction site, and hear his incredible story.[4]
Travis told them that the first thing he remembered after seeing the bright blue light was waking up weak and in pain inside a plain triangular room aboard a larger ship than the one that had zapped him. He was still wearing his work clothes and unsure as to how long he’d been unconscious. A flat curved scanning device hung over his chest and abdomen. He soon noticed that three five-foot-tall bulbous-headed aliens wearing baggy orange jumpsuits were standing around him. Their flesh was hairless, white, and “marshmallowy”, their eyes “huge [and] luminous brown”, “the size of quarters”. They had little feet and tiny ears. “Their overall look,” Walton writes, “was disturbingly like that of a human fetus”.[5] They made no attempt to communicate with Travis. Frightened, he grabbed a “glass-like wand”, fought them off “with the superhuman effort of a cornered animal”, chased them away with some karate moves, and escaped to another part of the ship, which he believes was its navigation control center.
The control room was a small circular dome, with a high-backed chair at its center with armrests covered in buttons and levers. The concave ceiling was covered with stars like a small planetarium. But before he could figure out how to operate the controls, a blond and well-tanned six-foot-tall human being entered the craft. He wore a space suit with a transparent helmet and made no effort to communicate with Travis, except to lead him out of the ship and into a very large and well-lit hangar where other flying saucers were parked, and into another structure where he was met by three more human-looking travellers with “intense golden hazel eyes”.[6] They forced a breathing apparatus on Travis which caused him to lose consciousness. He then awoke on a roadside in Heber, watching the bright small saucer-shaped craft that left him there fly away.
It was a strange and rather brief story, one that offered no explanation for why Travis was taken (or returned), nor about the wider intentions of his alien abductors and their humanoid assistants, nor about how they had known to return him a mere ten-minute drive from his mom’s house. It was, on the other hand, a rather familiar story since it seemed to dovetail (at least partly) with the stories of previous experiencers, such as George Adamski, Antonio Vilas-Boas, and Betty and Barney Hill, which were featured in many popular magazines and books.
But unfortunately for Travis, the physical evidence of his story was as elusive as it was for these other abduction accounts. Apart from a small needle scar inside his elbow, little was found to suggest he suffered any physical trauma from being launched through the air by an energy beam: no burn marks, no bruise marks, no alien scoop marks, implants, scars, or probes.[7] His blood test even suggested he was remarkably well-nourished for a man with no memory of having eaten in almost a week. As for the abduction site, an investigator for Ground Saucer Watch found little there of value. While some abduction advocates would later refer to the discovery of “strange metal fragments”, of misshapen trees, and of traces of ozone and radiation (allegedly detected on hardhats located inside Mike Rogers’ truck, and not at the alleged abduction site), no clear proof of an alien craft or alien beings could be produced, leading Ground Saucer Watch to conclude, along with Sheriff Gillespie, that Travis Walton and his friends had just wasted their time with an elaborate hoax. It should be noted that leaders of both MUFON and NICAP, two organizations that promoted belief in alien visitations, would also come to believe that Walton’s abduction had been a hoax, though none seemed able to explain just how the caper had been pulled off.
But others would find enough in Travis’ story to be convinced, including Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO (see Paranoid Planet episode 9.2), who by this time had become firm believers that aliens were preparing a massive invasion of earth, and also the National Enquirer, who submitted Travis and Duane to a polygraph test—which they reportedly passed—and awarded Travis and his workmates a $5,000 cheque for the best UFO story of the year. (But, let’s face it, when has the National Enquirer ever been a paragon of skeptical inquiry?)
Fifty years later, the alleged abduction of Travis Walton continues to be touted as a top proof of alien visitations in many books, films, TV shows, podcasts, and YouTube videos, alongside the Kenneth Arnold sighting, the alleged Roswell UFO crash, and the alleged abductions of Betty and Barney Hill and Whitley Strieber, to name but a few. The evidence that is usually offered to support the Walton abduction are (as stated above) traces of radioactivity, ozone, and metallic fragments allegedly found during the manhunt, along with distorted tree rings and unverified reports of power outages in nearby towns (all of which are inconclusive at best, and gross fabrications at worse).
This leaves us with the accuracy of the polygraph tests, the reliability of the witnesses, and any possible counterevidence that might contradict what Travis, Mike, and the others told the authorities, the media, and UFO investigators about what they saw in early November 1975.
Part 2: The Rest of The Story
Now let’s consider what the Travis Walton story often leaves out, and whether Travis and Mike’s often-repeated story stands up to scrutiny.
Despite frequently claiming he had little interest in UFOs prior to his alleged abduction, Travis Walton did in fact have a longstanding fascination with aliens and with science fiction, for which he and his brother were often teased. Duane Walton even told the police and the Ground Saucer Watch researchers while Travis was still missing, that he and his brother had once made a pact to try to get abducted together some day. They also had a history of playing tricks and crank calls on others and of committing petty crimes.[8] Travis and Mike Rogers’ brother, for instance, had been arrested a few years earlier for breaking and entering into a business and stealing and forging some cheques. This does not necessarily make Walton a liar, but it doesn’t exactly make him Honest Abe either.
It is also worth noting that Travis’ story shares very few of the typical features of the alien abductions that would emerge in the following decades, popularized by authors such as Whitley Strieber, Budd Hopkins, and David Jacobs: slender grey aliens with almond-shaped eyes, nighttime bedroom visitations, screen memories, alien-human hybrids, anal probes, and so on. On the other hand, his story does share many similarities with the abduction and contactee stories of the Fifties and Sixties, suggesting that Travis’ “memories” are part of an evolving human belief system about alien visitors, shaped by the popular legends and myths, science-fiction literature, and Hollywood movies that were available to Travis prior to his experience.
Indeed, Travis’ aliens look a great deal like the ones depicted in The UFO Incident, an NBC TV movie based on the Betty and Barney Hill case, which both Travis and Mike Rodgers admitted at various times having seen, and which had first aired on October 20, 1975—only two weeks prior to Travis’ disappearance. His description of his time in the spaceship (which takes up only 24 pages of an over 400-page book, could not have taken more than one hour to experience, and for which there is of course no proof except for what Travis says), strangely resembles the hardware and characters in science-fiction TV shows like Star Trek, Space 1999, and UFO, as well as the novels of Robert A. Heinlein, such as Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (1958), and Orphans of the Sky (1964), all of which were readily available to a man with a well-known interest in spaceships and aliens. His description of the humanoid in the spacesuit, for example, struck me as an apparent appropriation of Alan Carter, the chief pilot of Moonbase Alpha in the Space: 1999 TV series (one of my favorite shows as a child).[9]
As literature professor Terry Matheson also noted, Walton’s allegedly autobiographical story contains numerous “imaginative recreations”, like detailed private conversations that were not recorded and he was not present to hear, and actions that occur with no clear motivation except to move the story forward and avoid logical explanations. Walton also devotes several chapters to defending himself against charges of fraud, and to proffer personal attacks against his chief critic Philip J. Klass, far more than any other abductee has.[10] Other UFO researchers, both skeptics and believers in alien visitations, have identified several elements of Walton’s story that have evolved over the years, such as the size and shape of the alien craft, the distance Walton was thrown back by the energy beam, the distance Mike Rogers drove to reach the location of the UFO and the details of what he did afterwards, the clothing and appearance of the aliens, and details about future sightings and alien encounters Walton allegedly had later in life.[11] Again, none of this makes Walton’s abduction story necessarily false, but it certainly does harm its credibility.
Travis’ story also glosses over some suspicious behaviours that transpired before and after the abduction took place. The youngest member of the crew, Steve Pierce, for instance remembers that Mike Rogers was away from the worksite for several hours that day while Travis was also unseen for several hours claiming he had been lying down in the truck feeling sick from a night of intense partying (for which there doesn’t seem to be any witness or evidence). It would later come out that Steve had recently had a sexual tryst with Mike’s sister Dana Rogers, whom Travis liked and would later marry, and that Travis was sorely angry about it. Whatever the reason, Mike and Travis both took time away from the rest of the crew, which could have allowed them to iron out the final details of a hoax[12]—which is what UFO researchers William Spaulding and Fred Sylvanus of Ground Saucer Watch believed had happened after interviewing Mike Rogers, Travis’ brother Duane, and Travis’ mother and finding nothing disturbed at the alleged abduction site.[13]
Steve Pierce also remembers driving far more than just 300 yards before they crossed paths with the bright UFO, that Mike Rogers actually drove away from the abduction site without any prompting from the other woodcutters, and that in all the excitement, Rogers then drove them to the wrong site after they decided to go back for Travis. It was also the first (and only) day on which Mike Rogers had asked his crew to keep working until nightfall. All of these observations, again, offer no smoking gun for the hoax theory, but all serve as circumstantial evidence that Mike and Travis have not been forthright in their accounts of what happened that day. As Pierce later explained to UFO skeptic and blogger Charlie Wiser, his two uncles, who had previously worked for Mike Rogers and quit because he kept failing to pay them, believed that Mike and Travis had duped the rest of the crew with a fake UFO, which Pierce disbelieved at the time and later thought was a part of a secret government experiment.[14]
A major breach in Travis’ abduction story appeared when Philip Klass, the anti-ufologist science writer and senior editor of Aviation Weekly, began looking into the polygraph test that had been administered to Travis and his brother Duane in February 1976. Klass discovered that polygraph examiner George J. Pfeiffer had agreed in advance with the Waltons, the Enquirer, and the leaders of APRO to only ask questions pre-selected by them prior to the exam—a breach of professional ethics—and that Pfeiffer was subsequently let go by his employer, Tom Ezell, who believed Pfeiffer’s test was thereby invalid.
Klass also discovered that Travis had actually undergone another polygraph test several weeks earlier, and that its results were being kept secret by the Enquirer and APRO, who compelled the first examiner to sign a confidentiality agreement. Fortunately for Klass, the agreement was incorrectly filled out which rendered it void. That first examiner was Jack McCarthy, one of the most respected polygraph experts in the state of Arizona. McCarthy would inform Klass that Travis had not only miserably failed the exam, he had also engaged in “gross deception” by trying repeatedly to hold his breath between his answers.[15] When Klass reached out to Jim Lorenzen of APRO to ask him if Travis had ever had another polygraph test than the one conducted by Pfeiffer (which Klass now knew to be true, and that Lorenzen had been present for it), Lorenzen blatantly lied and told him there wasn’t, which McCarthy was only happy to disprove in a 1982 TV interview.[16]
Travis would later claim that the reason he failed that first polygraph test was due to nervousness and the fear of not being believed. McCarthy responded that Travis was quite calm throughout the examination and that his recorded physiological responses showed no indication of being overly nervous.
Although Philip Klass would conclude that the six other woodcutters had somehow also lied and cheated on their polygraph tests, ufologist Karl Pflock and UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer both came to a simpler explanation, which is that the five other loggers (minus Mike Rogers) genuinely believed they had witnessed a real flying saucer because they were duped into seeing one by Mike and Travis working together, with the help of one or more other accomplices, which probably included Travis’ brother Duane.
As Pflock would argue, Mike Rogers was the only one in the truck apart from Travis who needed to be in on the hoax. He was, after all, the one driving the truck and could thereby determine from what location, and for how long, the five other men—who were all stuck in the rear seat and could not exit the vehicle—would be able to observe the alleged spacecraft. He could also have tricked the men into believing that the location of Travis’ abduction was not where Travis had actually gotten out, but another location near their work site at Turkey Springs, because they were all largely unfamiliar with the winding trails and logging roads Rogers had driven over after Travis was hit by the light. Rogers, a more experienced logger, was far more familiar with that National Forest’s roads and landscape.[17]
Robert Sheaffer also produced a letter by the Arizona Department of Public Safety to Sheriff Gillespie, dated 13 November 1975, that summarizes the polygraph examinations administered to the six woodcutters while Travis was still missing, including the four questions used by the examiner. Three of these asked them whether they had been involved in harming Travis or hiding his body. The fourth question asked them if they had in fact seen an unidentified flying object shortly before Travis’ disappearance. Each of these questions, Sheaffer points out, could have been answered truthfully by the victims of a hoax and also by a hoaxter without any need for deception.[18]
So if at least five of the other woodcutters were telling the truth when they said they thought a bright UFO had zapped and taken Travis away, what else could they have seen other than an alien spaceship? Various theories have been suggested, from a group hallucination to a small hot air balloon, but none have been highly convincing, until a new and very compelling theory emerged only very recently…
In 2021, independent filmmaker Ryan Gordon set out to produce a documentary on the Travis Walton story. He was not a debunker and he managed to strike up a friendly relationship with Travis. In the process of researching his film, however, Gordon ran into Mike Rogers at the “official” abduction site, located some 300 yards from the Turkey Springs valley where the logging crew had been working that day. Gordon casually informed Rogers during this time that he was working with Travis on a new film. But Rogers had not been informed of any of this by Travis, and the man seemed visibly annoyed for being cut out of the project.
Gordon later received a phone call from a frustrated Mike Rogers, whom it turns out had had a falling out with Travis over unpaid book royalties and Travis’ recent divorce from Mike’s sister Dana, and for having found out that Travis had cheated on Dana while they were still married. In this phone conversation—which Gordon recorded legally and is available on YouTube[19]—Rogers made the admission that the whole abduction story had been a hoax perpetrated by Travis, his brother Duane, and Mike himself.
This and subsequent conversations with Rogers—who later retracted his confession for some undisclosed reason—led filmmaker Gordon to reinvestigate the story and to identify many inconsistencies and falsehoods in Walton’s book and televised interviews, and to conclude that Travis and Mike, with the help of Duane Walton and maybe one or more employees of the U.S. Forest Service, had in fact organized an elaborate deception to scare the other five men in their crew into believing that a UFO had taken Travis. Gordon laid out his evidence and his conclusions in detail, with the help of many photographs and drone videos, on the ufologist podcast UFO Classified with Erika Lukes, in 2022.[20] [links to this hours-long, three-part interview with Gordon, Mike Rogers, Robert Sheaffer, Charlie Wiser, and other guests are available in our episode blog page].
Here is a summary of Gordon’s major findings in nine bullet points, with the supporting evidence, supplemented by some of the findings of skeptical blogger Charlie Wiser, who collaborated with Gordon’s review of Travis’ story[21]:
1. The tree-ring and radiation evidence promoted by Travis and his supporters were essentially made up by Duane, Travis, and Mike. There is no evidence of alien activity (or any other unusual phenomenon) taking place at the “official” abduction site near Turkey Springs.
2. Travis’ urine sample and weight loss readings were given to UFO investigators by Duane Walton, and were not assessed directly by impartial medical experts. There is no way to know when they were taken, nor if they were tampered with.
3. The original descriptions of the UFO given by Rogers and the five woodcutters days after the original sighting were uncannily similar to the shape, size, brightness, and angular features of Gentry Tower, a fire-lookout tower located approximately 4.5 miles (or 7.2 km) from the Turkey Springs worksite, and about 4 miles from the “official” abduction site. When lit up after dark, the Tower’s cabin does in fact look like a bright, flat, angular saucer hovering above the tree line, and not just from a long distance away, but even at close range.
4. All of the people in the truck, as well as Travis’ book, state that Mike Rogers drove off from the UFO site at great speed—about 35 mph—which would have been impossible had they still been driving over the bumpy and windy logging road where their worksite and the “official” abduction site were located. However, this would have been totally possible had they been driving along Rim Road, on which Gentry Tower is located.
5. None of the men in the truck—with the exception of Rogers and possibly Travis—had ever seen Gentry Tower before, nor driven past it along Rim Road, because it was located westward of their usual commute between Snowflake (north of Heber) and Turkey Springs.
6. As an unpaved but well-maintained public road, Rim Road was marked by a series of artificial water bars which allowed rainwater to drain from the road to prevent soil erosion. Driving over water bars at 35 miles per hour (56km/h) is NOT something that goes unnoticed by people sitting in the back of a truck. Members of the crew remembered driving over the water bars in their escape from the UFO. Even Travis had to include this detail in his book, even though the rougher private logging road that led from their worksite to the “official” abduction site had no such structures. This is a “smoking gun” proof that the abduction site was located much farther than the one Rogers showed the police, far enough for the official manhunt not to include Gentry Tower in its perimeter.
7. Gentry Tower was usually occupied by U.S. Forest Service employees working on 5-day rotations, but was generally unoccupied after nightfall. In fact, when Sheriff Gillespie contacted the U.S. Forest Service to ask if any of their staff had seen a UFO that night, he was informed that the nearest tower, Gentry, was unstaffed after dark. Hence, a rogue employee, or someone who merely knew how to access the tower and turn on its generator and lights, could easily have created the illusion of a UFO hovering over the trees. Duane Walton did in fact have friends who worked in the Forest Service and would have known about Gentry’s occasionally peculiar night-time appearance.
8. Gentry Tower, like all towers of its type, was equipped with a powerful light beam with different coloured filters (including a blue one), useful to communicate with other forestry workers over long distances—or to “zap” a wandering woodcutter while his frightened workmates watched from a distance.
9. Gentry Tower was also equipped with a gas generator, which emitted a low humming buzz that could, after dark, be mistaken for the whirr of a craft hovering above the tree line, which is what the woodcutters thought they had heard.
All this has led Ryan Gordon to conclude, with Charlie Wiser, Robert Sheaffer and several others, that Mike and Travis had deceptively led the other woodcutters to an unfamiliar location to watch a fake UFO abduction, with Travis acting as the victim, Rogers as the getaway driver, and a third accomplice—most probably Duane—operating the floodlight that looked like an energy beam. Travis then took refuge for five days either inside Gentry Tower, with the complicity of a Forest Service worker, or in his mother’s cabin in Heber, which the authorities never inspected, nor were they invited in by Mrs. Kellet. Mike, Duane, and Mrs. Kellet then each took part in misleading the police until Travis’ return. Travis then enjoyed the sponsorship of two ufologist organizations that used him as much as he used them, perpetuating a hoax that has endured to this day, except for Mike Rogers’ brief moment of truth in 2021 when he decided to stick it to Travis by letting the cat out of the bag.
Part 3: Why?
There are two leading theories for why Travis, Mike, and Duane (and possibly others) decided to pull off this hoax. There are also a couple good reasons for them not to have come clean about it during the almost fifty years since this event took place (not including the fact that Duane passed away in 2011). All of these come down to the desire to make (or to not lose) a lot of money, and to avoid getting fined, arrested, or rejected by family and friends. …and maybe a little revenge.
The most likely reason Travis, Duane, and Mike had for coming up with this hoax was to try to win the $100,000 dollar prize that the National Enquirer had been offering in 1975 for whoever produced a clear proof that aliens were visiting our planet. This would explain why Duane contacted the Enquirer, along with other ufologist organizations, before Travis had even returned with his tale of a voyage in space. It also explains why Duane, his mother, and Mike were all rather nonchalant about whether or not Travis’ life was in danger, or whether he might never return, during the five days of his absence. Most importantly, it explains why Duane flew into a rage when polygraph examiner Jack McCarthy concluded that Travis was being deceptive.
Nonetheless, they did obtain a $5,000 prize with the complicity (and silence) of APRO and the National Enquirer, and later made money off book, movie, and interview deals that over time probably earned them far more than $100,000. And so, they had even more reason to keep the story going as long as the gullible media was willing to pay them for their story. The threat of being exposed by each other likely assured that the default position was to never reveal their deception. That is until Travis began working on a new film with Ryan Gordon without cutting his ex-brother in law into the deal, and that is when a jilted Mike Rogers turned on Travis Walton and told filmmaker Gordon that it had been a hoax after all. He perhaps changed his mind when he realized he had just shot at the goose that could lay him some more golden eggs. Likewise, When Ryan Gordon informed Travis that he was going to release all the counterevidence he discovered against his story, Travis merely exhorted Gordon not to ruin the more than 45 years of work he had put into this story. It wasn’t Travis’ day job, but it certainly was his bread and butter.
There was another important reason for perpetuating this hoax, one that according to both Philip Klass and Ryan Gordon particularly appealed to Mike Rogers. And that is that Mike was in serious financial difficulty during the fall months of 1975. Having grossly underbid to obtain a government forestry contract, Mike found himself chronically unable to pay his employees, some of whom had quit to be replaced by younger and less experienced crewmen—including Allen Dalis, Steve Pierce, John Goulette, and Dwayne Smith—whom Rogers felt were not pulling their weight. He complained of their smoking pot on the job, of their unwillingness to abide by safety protocols, and of their getting into arguments with him and Travis. Indeed, Travis and Allen Dalis once even came to blows. There was also the matter of young Steve Pierce having bragged of having “scored a touchdown” with an older young lady on the local football field, a girl who turned out to be Mike’s sister Dana.[22]
Add to all this the fact that Mike had already defaulted on his woodcutting contract’s deadline and was about to have to do so again, which would incur another financial penalty and the deferment of 10% of the total sum of the contract until the whole job was complete. It is clear in Mike’s correspondences with the U.S. Forest Service that he was not expecting to meet this second deadline, that is unless some accidental “act of God” could allow him to break the contract and cut his losses. The fact that Mike spent more time working for other, more highly-paying contractors during the fall of 1975 rather than trying to meet his own commitment, suggests that he had given up hope of coming out of this deal in the black.[23]
Finally, the three men had taken a large gamble in perpetrating this hoax. Not only did they risk losing the attention, respect, revenue, and notoriety that this story brought them over the years; Travis, Mike, and Duane likely also never anticipated the hardship their five woodcutter victims would suffer in the form of murder allegations, psychological strain, substance abuse, and public ridicule for believing that they’d been attacked by an alien spaceship. Confessing to the hoax would likely seriously harm the hoaxters’ reputations in their local communities, and their relationships with the people who supported them over the years, including woodcutters John Goulette and Ken Peterson who faithfully promoted Travis’ story.
A confession could also get them all in legal trouble if it ever came out that they had broken into Gentry Tower, used its equipment for illicit gain, lied to the police, wasted tax-payer money in a frivolous manhunt, and tried to defraud the U.S. Forest service. Gentry Tower is after all a federal government property, and using the tower and its surrounding campground to perpetuate a fraud amounts to a federal crime, for which there is no statute of limitations. limitations.[27]
Conclusion
On July 31, 2008, Travis Walton appeared on the Fox reality TV show The Moment of Truth—take that for what it’s worth—during which he took part in a polygraph test and then had his answers read out and assessed, very dramatically, in front of his family members, supporter Ken Peterson, and a studio audience.[24] The final question, “Were you abducted by a UFO?”, would earn him $100,000 if it were answered truthfully. Travis answered that he had. The program’s polygraph examiner, however, assessed that his answer was not only false, but “conclusively deceptive”. Travis had, once again, lost his chance to win 100 big ones by failing to pass a polygraph test. “Polygraph tests are only 97% accurate”, he replied to explain the discrepancy. Travis did not, however try to explain why his answer had not merely been recorded as false, but as “conclusively deceptive”. We can also wonder why he didn’t choose to confess to a hoax, in which case—if Fox TV was worth their word—he might have walked home with a cool $100,000 (albeit with a scoundrel’s reputation) or else be caught in a lie and have his abduction claims vindicated on a major TV show. Instead, he later told Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer, he went home and took two more rigorous polygraph tests and passed them, then threatened to sue Fox, but finally chose not to do so to avoid devastating the program’s producers.[25] A very kind gesture, I guess, but it got Travis no closer to disproving the claims of his accusers.
But whether or not polygraph tests are reliable, Travis’ facial expression at the end of the program was interesting. It was not one of shock, anger, or frustration for once again not being believed, but rather a look of bemused disagreement, a visual equivalent of the phrase “Aw shucks, you got me!” The look on his wife Dana’s and his children’s faces, however, seemed to be one of genuine shock and disappointment, or possibly of above-average daytime soap opera acting. But despite having failed to take home the $100,000 prize, the Waltons went home $25,000 richer. Not bad for defending a story that contains more holes than the corpse of Julius Caesar.
At the end of the day, the Travis Walton story doesn’t teach us anything useful about alien beings or their movements or their motives, but it does tell us a lot about human nature. It teaches us about greed, jealousy, and revenge, about self-preservation, the fickleness of the media, the will to deceive the public to prevent one’s beliefs from being dismissed, and about the power of the ego to prefer a self-affirming lie over the duty to speak the truth.
A veteran liar habitually needs to keep lying to prevent the entire false edifice of their deception from collapsing. There is just so much to be lost—financially, socially, and psychologically—by suddenly starting to tell the truth. He might even begin to believe in a [quote-unquote] “higher truth”, an attractive delusion that his lies are actually making the world a better place, such as when Travis explained in a 2015 documentary that he now believed that the aliens took him away so that they could heal him and return him to Earth to be an agent of good—a resurrected messiah of sorts, bringing enlightenment to all those who welcomed him.[26]
Travis Walton, with the complicity of his brother Duane and childhood friend Mike Rogers, spent the last fifty years of his life reaping the benefits of selling himself as the victim of an extraordinary interstellar event and a herald of an alien civilization greater than ours by making a fool of his family, friends, and co-workers. “There’s a degree of responsibility to try and make something good come of it,” he said in that 2015 interview, “If I can direct what’s happened in a way that I can make something good happen in the world, I’m looking for it.”
Travis’ self-proclaimed mission appears very noble. But unfortunately, it is a mission that doesn’t include NOT selling bullshit to the people of Earth.
M.J. Gagné, 2025.
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Charlie Wiser, Robert Sheaffer, and Michael Shermer for helping me locate various documents discussed in this essay.
[1] Travis Walton: Fire in the Sky, Marlowe & Company, 1996, Internet Archive. p.35
[2] Walton: Fire in the Sky, p.37
[3] Although Walton’s book suggests this was a major endeavour, filmmaker Ryan Gordon concluded after investigating the story that the search party was in fact quite small (less than 12 law enforcement officers and Forest Service workers, along with Duane, Mike, and a few other volunteers. No helicopters or dogs were brought in. “UFO Classified | Part 2: Ryan Gordon Explains Gentry Lookout and the Travis Walton Case,” Jul 23, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NrQUu8x5U.
[4] At the request of APRO, Travis underwent a session of hypnotic regression. But unlike most other abductees who were subjected to hypnosis, Travis already remembered the details of his abduction and did not “unlock” any new details than the hour (or so) that he describes in his book. He has since shown little interest in further hypnosis despite “not remembering” most of the 5 days during which he was missing.
[5] Walton: Fire in the Sky, p.91-93
[6] Walton: Fire in the Sky, p.103
[7] See for example Philip Klass’ comments on “Larry King Live – Walton UFO abduction case” (3/12/1993), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1LTErasps, approx.7:00-9:00, whom Walton and Rogers call “a disinformation agent sent by Washington D.C.” (!)
[8] Philip Klass: UFOs: The Public Deceived, Prometheus Book, 1983. Internet Archive. p.194-195. One of Travis’ high school classmates also told Michael Shermer: “Travis and I were in Jr. High together back in the early 60’s and he was constantly dreaming up schemes to deceive folks that a UFO was visiting our little town in northern Arizona. Not having seen him for decades, I actually reminded him of that in 2006 via email and he simply changed the subject, not wanting to crack his golden egg I suppose. I did find his on-line bio rather telling as well: we were in the same grade in school and presumably the same age. I noticed that his bio lists him as having been born five years after me. That would have put him in first grade while I was in sixth. My guess is this little chronological slippage is telling.” Michael Shermer: Truth: What it is, How to Find it, Why it Still Matters. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026. p.204. (Provided by the author).
[9] Space: 1999 was a British science-fiction TV show produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson that ran from 1975 to 1977. It began airing on American TV in September 1975, two months before Travis’ “abduction”.
[10] Terry Matheson: Alien Abductions: Creating a Modern Phenomenon, Prometheus Books, 1998. p.107-114
[11] See for instance Philip Klass: “Walton Claims He Is Afraid To Recall What Occurred Aboard UFO,” Skeptics UFO Newsletter, March 1998, https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN50.pdf; Karl Pflock: “Travis Walton’s Universe,” Fortean Times, January 2001; Robert Sheaffer: “Skeptical Information on the Travis Walton ‘UFO Abduction’ Story,” Aug. 5, 2016, https://debunker.com/texts/walton.html; Robert Sheaffer: “Travis Walton vs. Philip J. Klass,” Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, February 13, 2012, https://badufos.blogspot.com/2012/02/travis-walton-vs-philip-j-klass.html; Robert Sheaffer: “The Case of the Missing Fetus, Starring Travis Walton,” Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, August 15, 2021, https://badufos.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-case-of-missing-fetus-starring.html; Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case: Tall Tales and Taller Tales,” Three Dollar Kit, 2021, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/tw-tall-tales.html.
[12] Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case: Steve Pierce's Story,” Three Dollar Kit, 2022, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/tw-steve-pierce.html, and “’It was a hoax’ - Steve Pierce knows the truth,”
How Many Dollars: A blog for Three-Dollar Kit, 9/18/2022, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/blog/it-was-a-hoax-steve-pierce-knows-the-truth.
[13] Philip Klass: UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game, Prometheus Books, 1988. p.27
[14] Charlie Wiser: “‘It was a hoax’ - Steve Pierce knows the truth,” How Many Dollars - A blog for Three-Dollar Kit, 9/18/2022, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/blog/it-was-a-hoax-steve-pierce-knows-the-truth; Steve Pierce interview with Erica Lukes: UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-enge5rVDM
[15] McCarthy also reported that Duane Walton was very angry at him for concluding that Travis had lied, which, as explained below, would force the Waltons to miss out on a huge payoff. PBS Nova: “The Case of the UFOs”, Time-Life Video, 1982, Internet Archive (33:25-36:20); Philip Klass: UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. p.26-31. See Also Klass: UFOs : The Public Deceived, Prometheus Book, 1983. Internet Archive. p.179-201
[16] PBS Nova: “The Case of the UFOs”, Time-Life Video, 1982, Internet Archive (33:25-36:20).
[17] Saucer Smear, Vol. 47 Nr. 1, Jan. 15, 2000, qtd. In Sheaffer: “Travis Walton vs. Philip J. Klass,” Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, February 13, 2012, https://badufos.blogspot.com/.
[18] Letter of C.E. Gilson, Polygraph Examiner, Arizona Department of Public Safety, to Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, 13 November 1975, https://www.debunker.com/historical/APS_Files_Walton.PDF (p.10-11). Sheaffer also demonstrates that Travis’ repeated claims that Philip Klass tried to bribe fellow woodcutter Steve Pierce is a fabrication based on hearsay, and that the documented record of the exchanges between Klass and Pierce show that this never happened. See Robert Sheaffer: “Archive Documents Show Klass Did NOT Try to Bribe Travis Walton Witness,” Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, April 17, 2012, https://badufos.blogspot.com/2012/04/archive-documents-show-klass-did-not.html.
[19] “It was all a HOAX! Travis Walton Crew Boss Confesses (Mike Heston Rogers)” (Mike H. Rogers to Ryan Gordon, April 30, 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlTirK9mgiY; Robert Sheaffer: “The Travis Walton 'UFO Abduction' Story - Meltdown!” Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, July 17, 2021, https://badufos.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-travis-walton-ufo-abduction-story.html.
[20] “UFO Classified | Part 1: Mike Rogers and Ryan Gordon open up about Travis Walton,” (UFO Classified with Erica Lukes), Jul 16, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtWgwN2hzOA; “UFO Classified | Part 2: Ryan Gordon Explains Gentry Lookout and the Travis Walton Case,” Jul 23, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NrQUu8x5U&; “UFO Classified | Part 3: Ryan Gordon explains the Gentry lookout and the Travis Walton case,” Jul 30, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NrQUu8x5U&;
[21] See Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case,” Three Dollar Kit, 2021, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/travis-walton.html.
[22] Steve Pierce interview with Erica Lukes: “UFO Classified,” Jun 24, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-enge5rVDM, qtd in Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case: Not a Normal Day...” Three Dollar Kit, 2021, https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/tw-not-a-normal-day.html.
[23] Rogers had obtained the job by lowballing competitors by 27%. He was penalized 1$ per uncut acre after failing to meet the deadline and would also have had 10% of his payment withheld until the contract was completed. The new extension deadline had been set for November 10, 1975 (the day Travis returned from his “abduction”). By November 5, Rogers was already 80% into his first contract extension but had only finished 30% of the job, having only managed to clear 115 of 238 acres. Letters he sent to the U.S. Forest Service contracting officer in 1977 reveal that he only worked on the contract approximately 10 days in October. Rogers never went back to work on the contract after the November 5 UFO incident. See Anson Kennedy: “‘Fire in the Sky’: The Walton Travesty,” The Georgia Skeptic, March/April 1993, https://debunker.com/texts/walton.html; Philip Klass’ Travis Walton papers, https://debunker.com/historical/KlassContraWalton.pdf; “UFO Classified | Part 3: Ryan Gordon explains the Gentry lookout and the Travis Walton case,” Jul 30, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NrQUu8x5U&.
[25] Michael Shermer: “Travis Walton’s Alien Abduction Lie Detection Test,” August 14, 2012. https://michaelshermer.com/articles/travis-waltons-alien-abduction-lie-detection-test/. However, excerpts of the episode and information about Travis’ appearance are not available on Fox’s website and have been removed from YouTube, suggesting that Travis and Fox came to some sort of settlement. The program was cancelled in August 2008.
[26] Travis: The True Story of Travis Walton (Studi Film Hub, 2015). Dir. Jennifer Stein. quoted in Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case: Consequences and Justification,” Three Dollar Kit, 2022. https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/tw-consequences.html.
[27] This information was obtained from the Ryan Gordon interview, though I am unable to check whether it is accurate.
Documents related to this episode: *
Episode 9.5A
Image of Betty Hill and "Junior" (minus the spaceship) courtesy of Robert Sheaffer
Matthew Alan Newland: Imagination and Time Travel (film and literature review blog), 2024-2025.
Robert E. Bartholomew: "New Information Surfaces on ‘World’s Best Lake Monster Photo,’ Raising Questions," Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 37, No. 3, May / June 2013.
Joe Nickell: "Famous Alien Abduction in Pascagoula: Reinvestigating a Cold Case," Volume 36, No. 3, May / June 2012.
Taken (Miniseries), DreamWorks Television, 2002. Written by Leslie Bohem. Produced by Steven Spielberg.
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space," The X-Files, Season 3, Episode 20,1996. Directed by Rob Bowman. Written by Darin Morgan.
"Something Can Be Done About It: Mike Rinder's Blog," (2009-2025). www.mikerindersblog.org
Toby Ball: Strange Arrivals Podcast (2020-2023). Grim & Mild/iHeart.
Toby Ball: Rip Current (2020-2023). iHeart Podcasts, 2024.
Betty and Barney Hill Papers, 1961-2006. University of New Hampshire Library Special Collections.
The UFO Incident (TV movie, 1975). NBC/Universal Studios. Directed by Richard A. Colla. Starring James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons, and Bernard Hughes.
John G. Fuller: The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours Aboard a Flying Saucer--The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Dial Press, 1967.
Terry Matheson: Alien Abductions: Creating a Modern Phenomenon. Prometheus, 1998.
Robert Sheaffer: Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016.
Robert Sheaffer: Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe Blog. 2010-2025. (click here to view Betty Hill-related entries only).
Philip J. Klass: UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. Prometheus Books, 1988.
Greg Eghigian: After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon. Oxford University Press, 2024.
Stanton T. Friedman and Kathleen Marden: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, Weiser, 2007.
Brian Dunning: "Betty and Barney Hill: The Original UFO Abduction," Skeptoid podcast #124, October 21, 2008.
"'Lost' 108-minute interview with alien abductee Betty Hill, Portsmouth, 1999," Interview by Folklorist John Horrigan. Youtube, uploaded 2023).
"Betty and Barney Hill - The Raw Alien Abduction Hypnosis Session Audio: Betty's Session," conducted by Dr. Benjamin Simon, 1964. (excerpts)
"Betty and Barney Hill - The Raw Alien Abduction Hypnosis Session Audio: Barney's Session," conducted by Dr. Benjamin Simon, 1964. (excerpts)
Episode 9.5B
Travis Walton: Fire in the Sky, Marlowe & Company, 1996.
Philip J. Klass: UFOs: The Public Deceived, Prometheus Book, 1983.
Philip J. Klass: UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. Prometheus Books, 1988.
Robert Sheaffer: Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016.
Robert Sheaffer: Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe Blog. 2010-2025.
Charlie Wiser: “Travis Walton Case,” Three Dollar Kit, 2021-22.
Toby Ball: Strange Arrivals Podcast (2020-2023). Grim & Mild/iHeart.
Greg Eghigian: After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon. Oxford University Press, 2024.
Budd Hopkins: Intruders : the incredible visitations at Copley Woods. Random House, 1987.
Carol Rainey: "The Priests of High Strangeness," Paratopia, Vol. Issue 1 (Jan 2011).
The Manhattan Alien Abduction. (Netflix, 2024). Dir. by Vivienne Perry and Daniel Vernon. Feat. Linda Napolitano, Carol Rainey, and Budd Hopkins.
They Live (Universal Pictures, 1988). Dir. by John Carptenter. Feat. Roddy Piper and Keith David.
Ralph Blumenthal: The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack. High Road Books, 2022.
Charlie Wiser: “Ariel School: Something glinting in the trees,” Three Dollar Kit, 2022.
Brian Dunning: "The 1994 Ruwa Zimbabwe Alien Encounter," Skeptoid podcast, Ep. 760, December 29, 2020. (Updated 2022).
Gideon Reid: "The mysterious events at Ariel school: the puppet hypothesis," Scepticisme scientifique (ISSN : 2953-2043), December 2024.
Gideon Reid: "The Mysterious Events at Ariel School, Zimbabwe – 16 Sept 1994," https://gideonreid.co.uk, 14 July 2022.
Episode 9.5C
Communion (New Line Cinema, 1989. Dir. by Philippe Mora. Written by Whitley Strieber. Feat. Christopher Walken, Lindsay Crouse, and Frances Sternhagen.
Whitley Strieber: Communion: A True Story. Beech Tree Books, 1985.
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Daniel Lillo de la Cuadra: La Secta del Kraken. Kindle, 2021.
"Whitley Strieber on abduction experience, extreme medical testing," Reality Check with Ross Coulthard, NewsNation. Jul 15, 2025. YouTube.
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"Whitley Strieber - World Renowned Alien Abductee Shares His Experiences - 2016," (presentation at 2016 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas), Ozark Mountain Publishing. Jul 5, 2018. YouTube.
Philip J. Klass: UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. Prometheus Books, 1988.
Maureen Cassady and Gaston Baslet: "Dissociation in patients with epilepsy and functional seizures: A narrative review of the literature," Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy, 110 (2023), 220-230.
Richard K. Baer: Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities. Broadway Books, 2008.
Terry Matheson: Alien Abductions: Creating a Modern Phenomenon. Prometheus, 1998.
Yann Martel: Life of Pi. Mariner Books Classics, 2002.
Robert Sheaffer: Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016.
* All copyrighted video and audio clips are used for educational purposes only under "fair use" regulations.
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