Travis Walton - September 21, 2014

[pong]

Just a small correction to something Chris said in the prologue to the Walton interview. John Alexander attained the rank of full colonel in the US Army before he retired. Chris mistakenly said lieutenant colonel. The interview that followed with Travis was outstanding and I learned all sorts of details I hadn't known before. Good job, guys.

 

[Fcseven]

Would it have been in bad taste to ask if he was soiled when he returned? I know it's not something you would admit to with thousands of listeners but the restroom question kind of opened up that possibility. This is not ment to be humorus by the way.

 

[Randall]

Well so much for, "separating the signal from the noise". This show was basically one long infomercial for Walton's Skyfire Summit event, plus the show's standard commercials thrown in for variety, and a handful of selected questions from the forum. One such question seemed to be a reworked version of one I had asked about the number of appearances Walton has made over the years, and the earnings he has made from the Fire In The Sky Franchise. What surprised me was how the neutral nature of those questions was twisted by Chris into leading questions designed specifically to deflect any suggestion that monetary gain has anything to do with Walton's motivations. Also notice how it was suggested that anyone who asks such questions were automatically branded "detractors".

- My forum questions here.
- Chris' version here: 02:33:21​

For the record. I've never claimed ( as Chris implies ), that Walton is, " just in it for the money". My own conclusions about the case can be found in the USI summary here. The questions I posted in the question bank were chosen mainly because Walton's abduction story, although interesting to some degree, is unverifiable, and we've heard it over and over again so many times already, that I wanted to focus on something objective that we don't already know, and what most of us don't know is just how much revenue Walton's movie deals, book deals, hundreds of appearances, and other paraphernalia has generated over the course of 40 years.

I think those are questions some people might be interested in knowing the answers to. Listeners could then judge for themselves what kind of life Travis has lived since his experience, and how much motivation there might be, given a high profile story, for anyone ( not just Walton ) to venture into the arena of public ufology. While it's true that detractors might use that information to suggest that it gave Walton and his crew a motivation to fabricate the story, that is only one way someone might want to spin the information, and I thought it was less than professional for Chris to be so sensitive to that possibility that he chose to deflect the questions or get any meaningful answers. But let's have a look at a couple of those answers anyway:

2:34:02 | Walton: "Overall I would say this thing has hurt me financially. Over years it's certainly cut off a lot of avenues that I might have had in my life."​

Because Walton doesn't give us any numbers, we don't have any way to verify that it's hurt him financially. What we do know however is that Walton has had literally thousands of opportunities over the years for him to be paid and/or gain notoriety, and that he has indeed achieved a level of notoriety, and has indeed been paid, including walking away with $25,000 for his short stint on Moment of Truth after failing the lie detector test on the show. As for "cutting off a lot of avenues" we don't hear Walton name any such avenues, but I might ask how many other Steel Workers Union members have had opportunities like a tabloid deal, book deals, movie deals, and hundreds of speaking engagements and public appearances, including television and radio over the course of 40years? Any guesses?

If we presume a modest $2,500 a year over 40 years, that's around $100,000. I'm sure most of us would find that handy right now, and just the fact that Walton retired with a pension from the Steel Workers Union suggests he was able to live a reasonably normal life for many years plus get all the perks from his UFO venture. So it seems readily apparent that even if there was some "closed avenue", it was probably immaterial, and that plenty more opportunities opened up. Plus he's still not done. He mentioned the possibility of a remake of the film Fire In The Sky, and is starting an Annual Skyfire Summit event.

Let's have a look at a couple of other quotes:

Q. 02:35:55 | Chris: "Has anyone else in your family had any sort of sighting experiences or up-close encounters?"
A. 02:36:05 | Walton: "I'm pretty protective of my family, so, you know, and even to that extent, you know even if it was to happen to me again, I've often said I doubt I would even make it public. You know I really had no choice in my case. People say, 'Oh he's a publicity seeker'. Well you know right after this happened I avoided the media."​

No publicity seeking below obviously . I don't see much emotional trauma in those faces either.

Let's also consider Phil Klass' notes about Walton's family and their interest in UFOs:

In a tape recorded interview with Ufologist Fred Sylvanus on Nov. 8, 1975, Travis's older brother Duane said: "We've paid a lot of attention to it [UFOs]. We've lived with it for ten years ... we see them quite regularly." During the same interview Duane added: "Travis and I discussed this many, many times at great length and we both said that [if either ever saw a UFO up close] we would immediately get as directly underneath the object as physically possible. We discussed this time and time again! ...and whoever happened to be left on the ground -- if one of us didn't make the grade -- to try t convince whoever was in the craft to come back and get the other one. But he [Travis] performed just as we said we would, and he got directly under the object And he's received the benefits for it ... I don't feel any fear for his life ... I think he's in any danger at all. He'll turn up. All I can say is that I wish I with him ..." ( source )​

Certainly there are detractors of Klass as well, but all that matters to me is if the information is accurate, and so far, I see no reason to think otherwise, and then let's add to it that if he's not a publicity seeker, why go on to do so hundreds of public appearances over the next 40 years and start his own production company ( Skyfire Productions ). None of this proves Walton's claims are fabricated, but neither does it contribute to his credibility. And it doesn't end there:

35:21 | Walton: "The point where this bolt of light hits me, it was far more violent, than you know just a more dazzling sight than they portrayed in the movie ... The actual blast from that was so powerful that my body was flying through the air all like a rag doll ... "
​

Again, according to Klass' notes: The morning after the incident, law enforcement officers examined the dead brush pile near where Travis had been standing when he (allegedly) was zapped by the UFO beam. There was a thick carpet of dry pine needles. None of the pine needles showed any evidence of burning or blast effect dispersal, according to Deputy Sheriff Chuck Ellison ( source ).

Anyone who takes the time to do any digging can find a number of other problems, so I'm not going to write a whole book about it here. Suffice it to say that the level of credibility that the Paracast seemed to grant Walton was more than can be substantiated, and there was a noticeable absence of probing questions. IMO this was a new low for the Paracast. I wonder how much of the show's softballing may have been compromise just to get Walton to appear?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

He was asked to come on, period. No promises were made.

As to the matter of his income or lack thereof, he is under no obligation to tell you how much he earned. I can believe him that the movie rights weren't terribly profitable. Book authors will get a single low fee for an option, which is a reservation on the rights to a title, and perhaps a second payment if the project goes into production and a product is actually released. But only the very famous authors with tough agents manage to get a big up-front fee and/or perhaps some back-end cash.

Perhaps he made something decent on his book, but going out to a few conventions a year isn't that profitable, and there's no payment involved in appearing on yet another radio show or perhaps a TV documentary.

I've met up with Walton a couple of times at a conventions, and he comes across as just another person trying to sell a few books to cover expenses. I see no indication of an elaborate lifestyle.

I would not presume to know how much he's earned each year, but even if it came to $100,000 for 40 years, it's hardly worth the time and trouble. $2,500 cash per year would hardly keep a person going for much more than two weeks based on the average family income in the U.S.

Is that enough to put up with the abuse one receives in his position? I wouldn't know. But I hardly think it's the most important issue to be talked about. Yes, we did cover a lot of ground, and a number of listener questions were asked. At the end of the day, I don't know what happened to him, and the fact that his memory covers but a small part of his five-day disappearance leaves lots of open questions that will never be answered.

I just wonder whether it was all just a military disinformation/mind control experiment. In that case, lacking any evidence one way or the other after all these years, we just move on.

 

[Uvula]

Hm... Do we have a final count on how many times Travis used the phrase "you know", during the interview? That man likes his linguistic fillers...

 

[Gene Steinberg]

You mean aside from the ones I clipped during the post-production process?

 

[Randall]

He was asked to come on, period. No promises were made.

Were any requests made by Walton not to ask any specific types of questions? I ask mainly because at least then there would have been some excuse.

As to the matter of his income or lack thereof, he is under no obligation to tell you how much he earned. I can believe him that the movie rights weren't terribly profitable. Book authors will get a single low fee for an option, which is a reservation on the rights to a title, and perhaps a second payment if the project goes into production and a product is actually released. But only the very famous authors with tough agents manage to get a big up-front fee and/or perhaps some back-end cash.

Nobody suggested Walton was under any obligation to answer questions about the financial success of his franchise. My comment was primarily on how the questions were twisted and delivered. Walton could simply have said he has no idea, or that he didn't feel like answering the questions. Instead we hear Chris reformat them into leading questions designed to deflect a specific skeptical opinion.

Perhaps he made something decent on his book, but going out to a few conventions a year isn't that profitable, and there's no payment involved in appearing on yet another radio show or perhaps a TV documentary. I've met up with Walton a couple of times at a conventions, and he comes across as just another person trying to sell a few books to cover expenses. I see no indication of an elaborate lifestyle.

Again, that wasn't the whole point of the questions.

I would not presume to know how much he's earned each year, but even if it came to $100,000 for 40 years, it's hardly worth the time and trouble. $2,500 cash per year would hardly keep a person going for much more than two weeks based on the average family income in the U.S.

Sure, but Walton's claim was that it hurt him financially. We have no evidence of that. What we do have is evidence it helped him financially to some degree.

Is that enough to put up with the abuse one receives in his position? I wouldn't know.

What abuse?

But I hardly think it's the most important issue to be talked about. Yes, we did cover a lot of ground, and a number of listener questions were asked. At the end of the day, I don't know what happened to him, and the fact that his memory covers but a small part of his five-day disappearance leaves lots of open questions that will never be answered.

Not knowing what really happened means we can't presume he actually has any lapse of memory.

I just wonder whether it was all just a military disinformation/mind control experiment. In that case, lacking any evidence one way or the other after all these years, we just move on.

I don't know either. Like I've stated elsewhere, even people with bad credibility can have strange experiences. So maybe something strange did happen. Or perhaps Walton's story is true to the extent that he actually believes he experienced things the way he says he did. But there are far too many issues for me to make the leap of faith required to believe it, let alone enshrine it in a yearly commemorative event where devotees make their pilgrimage to the "summit" to hear what ufology's high priests have to say ( God I sound just like the skeptics now ) LOL.

 

[Constance]

Why is there no 'dislike' button available on this forum?

 

[AlienEsq]

I thought the interview was fair and disagree with the description that it was a "new low for The Paracast." Specifically, the show allowed Travis to present his ideas and a description of what he believed happened. That's really all you can ask for. Everything else should be left to the listeners to decide, particularly with regard to the validity of the facts and understanding of the time line of events presented by the guest.

Travis' story has some flaws and I'm not convinced that he hasn't made at least a small nest egg from his books and television appearances. Also, he completely bypassed his failed lie detector test from Moment of Truth. However, his story is credible in other regards, particularly the corroborating evidence presented by his colleagues.

Regardless, it is my opinion is that The Paracast is meant to be a forum of ideas, and this was a fair presentation of those ideas. It's our job as listeners and forum members to do the rest of the work towards forming our own opinions.

"Separating signal from noise" is our job.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Yes, I do think Walton gave short shrift to the lie detector tests, but understand it's not a foolproof technology regardless. As to money, I haven't a clue. Very few people getting involved in this field make large amounts of money. When he got paid for what he did in public appearances and in writing a book and selling movie rights, that's fine. If he altered his story or used it to somehow exploit people to get money, not so fine.

Consider, though, that among the most respected UFO researchers, the Walton case is taken seriously.

 

[marduk]

I take his case very seriously and find him very credible. Unlike lie detector tests.

I found his supposition very interesting that he was hit by accident because a charge from the craft may have hit him seeking ground, given Paul Hill's work.

Thank you very much guys for asking my question. One of the reasons I love this show is that we get to be part of the conversation!

My reason for asking about the star chamber and the user interface is that from a nuts & bolts perspective, it's kind of what we would build given the technology. I mean, we could probably build that kind of thing in 10-20 years, and it's exactly the kind of thing we'd build as a navigation tool (instead of star charts on the wall as an example) or even an educational or entertainment device -- like a holographic PS99+.

Anyway, thanks for throwing it out there, and I can certainly understand his position that he was just looking for a way out.

 

[Constance]

Sceptics and debunkers will jump on any detail with which to undermine confidence in an impressive ufo case or abduction case. Amidst a shower of sceptical and debunking responses, the confidence of many people interested in a particular case is shaken. This experience repeated over years does shake general public confidence in the existence of a core reality expressed in ufo phenomena, except for those steeped in a broad range of the ufo research history. In Walton's case, the failure of lie detector tests is taken by some ufo research followers to constitute a fatal flaw; it shouldn't be given that we know lie detector tests are considered so unreliable that they are not yet accepted in courts of law.

In addition, I think it's understandable that people such as Walton who have come through a chaotic, terrifying, and only partially remembered experience and then repeatedly been doubted, challenged, put on the defensive, and called liars (in the media as well as in the streets, coffee shops, and pubs) would likely become so apprehensive about a lie detector test that something like a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' takes place. We're all social animals; what the people around us think of us and project onto us decenters us psychically, disables our confidence in what we know deeply to be true, and our insecurity is what shows up in the failed test..

 

[marduk]

For real Ufology? All this can simply be explained by taking a relatively poor logger, having a high strange incident occurring, and him choosing to make a buck off of it.

This neither adds nor subtracts to his credibility, it makes him profoundly human.

And the fact that he hasn't changed his story one iota to cash in on it further speaks to his honesty, not his dishonesty. Unlike this dude: Notebook

The Klass pine needle stuff is just goofy. There are plenty of low-temperature plasmas that could knock you on your ass and not leave a burn mark. Hell, my buddy was mountain climbing and was struck in the chest by lighting. It passed through his chest and into his buddy.

Neither had burn marks on their skin or clothing, and the snow on the ground where it went in wasn't even melted.

 

[Chris Talbert]

The lie detector is bunk. It's a magicians/illusionist trick. I have this box that can detect if your nervous! But, instead I convince you that that machine can detect a lie. Let's begin with a polygraph investigators greatest trick. They do "test questions", where you will be invariably told that you are a "good responder." Implanting further, in your mind, that you can't get a lie past the magic box. What makes the whole game more ridicules, is that you will often be given a chance to "fess up" before confronting the box.

Come on can any rational human believe that we have a one size fits all box that can detect lies.

However Mr. Walton's strange lost weight, bathroom scale, doctor scale explanation seems a stretch. I have always noticed deceptive people often do too much explaining.

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

Really good interview. Some thoughts on how you both have done interviews, mostly spot on! Travis Walton doesn't need to be interrogated. His statements have been made, books written, etc. Basically he's an essential for the archives and you both treated him respectfully. He does not have a reputation as a schemer. Those kind of folks usually get got in their gig before long.
Interestingly, when googling Phil Klass and Travis Walton I came up with this gem http://www.ghosttheory.com/2010/07/30/sheriffs-nephew-travis-walton-lied-about-alien-abduction:
Travis Walton:

Someone saying they were a former Snowflake resident who
went to school with my son and his cousins has gone on internet forums like
IMDb claiming to be a nephew of the 1975 Navajo County Sheriff and having the
“inside story” that it was all a hallucination.

I will prove here that this person claiming that the Navajo
County Sheriff was his uncle is a complete fraud. He isn’t the first to try to
gain status by claiming a connection to someone near the center of this
incident. Even persons taking a supportive position do it by claiming to be a
coworker, an

ex-girlfriend, a close school chum, or even a relative.

One pro-Travis guy claimed to have attended a homecoming
party after my return — problem is, that party was a story device for the movie
and never really happened.

One staunch supporter claims that my first call for help
from that phone booth went to him and then the desperate call to my family came
after that. Problem is, the operator listened in on the call to my family and
reported it to the Sheriff and there was only one call made that night.

Another man bragged to the other sawyers in the chainsaw
shop about how well he knew Travis and Mike, unfortunately Mike was standing
right there, not even recognized.

The first imposters came out from under the rocks before I
was ever returned, one claiming to be my wife, two years before I married. One
pretended to be me and called a radio talk show.

The bias of skeptics is that they are never skeptical of
THESE claims. One non-relative with the same last name is making a career of
claiming to be my cousin and, absurdly, that these entities were really after
him and grabbed me by mistake!

There are so many statements in “County Sheriff’s nephew’s”
post that can easily be proved false that that’s almost all there is. Public
documents, simple facts and verifiable records contradict his ridiculous
claims.

In the first place, Sanford “Sank” Flake was NEVER the
county sheriff. The basis of all his claims begin with this lie. The Navajo
County Sheriff during all of those years was Marlin Gillespie. Sank was town
marshal only, with no principle role in the investigation. The night of the
incident the crew met with Sheriff Gillespie and his deputies at a service
station closed for the night, and never went to any

diner. There was no “Red Robin diner” in Heber in 1975. The
first Red Robin opened 18 years later — in Pennsylvania! The bogus “nephew”
changed his claim to the “Red Onion Lounge”, but even that

never opened in Heber until 1995, 20 years after the UFO
incident.

Therefore, all those things supposedly said by the crew to
the diners and by the diners are pure fiction. The incident did not occur at
Young, AZ, which is many miles to the west of the Turkey Springs contract. The
crew did not drink alcohol at all that day or any other work day. Alcohol was
not allowed

on the job. The Sheriff was asked about intoxication and
told newsmen, “I sat in their truck a short time after it happened and talked
to each one for a long time. I sure didn’t spot anything — and I was looking.”

The bogus “nephew” claims his tale is common knowledge here.
The debunkers spent huge amounts of time interviewing Gillespie, Flake, Forest
Service officials and townspeople. The debunkers were even willing to lie to
discredit this case — yet they never alleged the main points this fraud claims.

When attacking UFO reports the chief “debunker” attacking
this case always first digs into every possible aviation and astronomical
alternative explanation. He absurdly tried using the planet Jupiter, but never
suggested Air Force helicopter maneuvers. In all our years working in the woods
we never saw any Air Force helicopters. No one could possibly mistake a
helicopter for a glowing metallic disc hovering less than a hundred feet away.
Chopper blades would have hit the trees, to say nothing of the huge down blast
of air and the unmistakable, familiar sound; ridiculous.

The blue beam of energy was a powerful, momentary blast one
crewman described as “the brightest thing I’ve ever seen in my life” and in no
way looked like a helicopter’s spotlight.

My books about this were published in 1977, 1996 and 2010,
and the debunkers have never contested my basic facts; like who was sheriff,
where the crew lived, where they met Gillespie, etc… Allen Dalis did NOT live
in Concho. He lived in Snowflake, like every other man on that crew. Concho is
not 5 miles

from Snowflake, it is 30 miles east of town. And the job was
45 miles west. It would not be practical to travel 150 miles per day to work at
Turkey Springs. I would bet that every crewman’s home was visited by lawmen
during the time I was missing. It would be dumb to think that would be
overlooked

while a massive manhunt was underway, ridiculous.

I did not socialize with Allen off the job and don’t recall
ever going inside his residence at all. It is not true that Dalis did not help
in the search. He also went back again that night with the Sheriff.

I, Mike and my sister never rode together in any police car
at any time in those years. Mike went back to the site that night with the
Sheriff, but neither my sister nor I ever rode in a police car at all in
connection with the UFO incident. I would be surprised if my sister has ever
been in one in

her life. That whole tale about a ride to Concho was pure
fiction.

It is NOT true that Mike went back alone that night. That
was movie fiction. You can’t drink and do that dangerous work. The incident
happened minutes after work ended, and the crew went back minutes after the
incident. There wasn’t time to get passing out drunk. This was covered in lie
detector

tests.

In real life I did not spend a single night in the hospital
after the incident, that was the movie. As written in his report, the doctor
who examined me did NOT discover “dirty needle marks” on my stomach and eye.
The physician said the “2 mm red spot” on my arm was “not over any major blood
vessel”, which rules out the drug injection theory, even without the clean
report the doctor got back after putting my blood and urine samples through the
Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s drug screen which showed no trace of any
drug in my body. However, even more conclusively on that tired old drug theory
is the fact that at least 2 of the 5 or 6 polygraph tests I passed asked about
any drug involvement. And of course no one thought to ask, how could 7 men have
the same hallucination?

It is not true that the fake nephew’s scenario is common
knowledge in Snowflake. I’ve never heard it anywhere but from the non-nephew.
It is not true that I have never done any interviews in this town, and plenty
of interviewers went down town to ask questions of townspeople. There’s plenty
of skepticism but never has any local citizen ever alleged the scenario claimed
by the “not really the county sheriff’s nephew’”. Not one debunker or lawman
has ever disputed the fact that all 6 crewmen went back that night.

The actual polygraph questions are a matter of record and do
not remotely resemble what the non-nephew states. Skeptic though Sank is, he
doesn’t back any of this crap and, when I asked him, could not identify who the
claimed nephew was. If he had possessed any knowledge of me being “stoned out
of my mind at Dalis’s house”, there’s not the slightest doubt he would have
acted on it. In 1975 he had offered theories to try to explain it away, but
nothing like this nonsense.

Neither my son nor either of his cousins could figure out
who this “dearest friend” and classmate is, even after searching the school
year book.

Ken Peterson verifies that his family never owned any “dome
shaped house” in Concho.

I really should start suing these phonies for libel, slander
and defamation of character. In my book I take each and every charge leveled by
the debunkers and, by citing independently verifiable documents and statements
by experts, prove their case to be just the sort of sham the “not really the
County Sheriff’s nephew” has posted all over the internet.

Six persons testifying in an American court of law (even
without polygraph tests) that they witnessed a murder would have justified a
death penalty conviction without a backward glance. Yet when a UFO is involved,
doubt seems never to be put to rest. Granted, there is a small % of error to
polygraph in general, but Edward Gelb, the president of the American Polygraph
Association stated about this incident, “The odds against six people successfully
deceiving a trained examiner on a single issue are over a million to one.” But
now the number of properly conducted tests on this single issue total 16 passed
tests. And, 35 years later, all seven crewmen stand by their earlier
testimonies to this day.

Just showing how many people have messed with his original story.

 

[Constance]

Just showing how many people have messed with his original story.

And with him. It's unconscionable. Thank you for that enlightening post, Heidi.

This quotation from Walton caught my eye:

I really should start suing these phonies for libel, slander
and defamation of character.

I wish he would. I think he's made it easy for any attorney who takes the case to win it, even if much or most of the lies and slander have been posted to the internet:

In my book I take each and every charge leveled by the debunkers and, by citing independently verifiable documents and statements by experts, prove their case to be just the sort of sham the “not really the County Sheriff’s nephew” has posted all over the internet.

Prosecuting this case would lead to extensive media coverage and winning it would constrain such concentrated abuse of individuals and distortion of well-supported ufo and abduction cases on the internet. That anything goes on the internet is its great flaw. The net can't/shouldn't be policed, but well-publicized consequences for those who abuse it to this extent would be salutary at this point.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

When you are a public figure, proving defamation can be difficult, unless you can show substantial harm, financially or otherwise, as the result. I have a few people I'd love to go after, of course.

 

[Chris Talbert]

Gene is absolutely correct. If you put your self out in the public eye, whether politically or in the realm of celebrity, the same legal protections that protect private individuals are over with. That threshold becomes lower and lower as the internet allows so many to access the public realm.

 

[manxman]

Sceptics and debunkers will jump on any detail with which to undermine confidence in an impressive ufo case or abduction case. Amidst a shower of sceptical and debunking responses, the confidence of many people interested in a particular case is shaken. This experience repeated over years does shake general public confidence in the existence of a core reality expressed in ufo phenomena, except for those steeped in a broad range of the ufo research history. In Walton's case, the failure of lie detector tests is taken by some ufo research followers to constitute a fatal flaw; it shouldn't be given that we know lie detector tests are considered so unreliable that they are not yet accepted in courts of law.

In addition, I think it's understandable that people such as Walton who have come through a chaotic, terrifying, and only partially remembered experience and then repeatedly been doubted, challenged, put on the defensive, and called liars (in the media as well as in the streets, coffee shops, and pubs) would likely become so apprehensive about a lie detector test that something like a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' takes place. We're all social animals; what the people around us think of us and project onto us decenters us psychically, disables our confidence in what we know deeply to be true, and our insecurity is what shows up in the failed test..

Yeah it is win win win for debunkers.

Pass lie detector test, well you know these test's arnt reliable and are easily fooled.

fail lie detector test, see we told yall, guys a fantasist.

refuse lie detector test, got something to hide, dodgy man, cant believe a word he is saying.

 

[Constance]

Gene is absolutely correct. If you put your self out in the public eye, whether politically or in the realm of celebrity, the same legal protections that protect private individuals are over with. That threshold becomes lower and lower as the internet allows so many to access the public realm.

There's something inherently wrong about that in my opinion. It might be 'the way things are now' but I don't see fair or reasonable grounds for it and I don't think there should be legal support for it.