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The Travis Walton Abduction

Part 2

Walton Awakes in UFO: The last thing that Walton remembered about the incident in the woods was the feeling of going backwards, and then nothing. Nothing that is, until he awoke in pain, frozen in pain, with an overwhelming thirst. Slowly making out the image of some kind of light, he comes to the realization that he is lying on a table of some kind. Still very weak, Walton realizes "Oh, My God, the hospital, they brought me to the hospital."

Three Horrible Creatures: His vision clearing, he suddenly sees who is there; to his shock he is staring into the face of a horrible creature! There were three of them, gazing right back at him with luminous brown pupils the size of quarters. Travis attempts to push one of them away with what little strength he has at the time. Strangely the creature shoots backward with ease. "It felt spongy and soft," he would later relate. Bringing himself to his feet, he was ready to fight.

The next several days were marked by unsuccessful searches for the missing Walton, including some use of helicopters and dogs. Temperatures dropped below zero the first two nights of the search, dimming hope that he was alive. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials were looking for alternate explanations of the event, including the possibility that Walton had been murdered.

The investigation of the disappearance of Travis Walton was nothing short of mass confusion. The town of Snowflake had been swamped by newspaper and television reporters from all over the world. It seemed at the time that opinions were equally split. One side thought; "This whole mess will be over as soon as they find his body." The other side thought; "Where in the world is Travis hiding, and when will he come back?" Neither side had long to wait.

In their initial reports, the six crewmen had indicated a willingness to undergo any kind of lie detection test to establish their truthfulness. After the second day of searching, law enforcement officials brought in Cy Gilson, a polygraph examiner from the Department of Public Safety (associated with the state police,) to test all six. Five of the witnesses passed this polygraph examination, while for the sixth, Allen Dalis, the test was ruled inconclusive (unable to assign a reading).

While the successful tests fueled media interest in the case, the inconclusive result for Dalis put some heat on him personally. While some of the crew members, such as Rogers and Walton, had been friends long before the forest service brush-clearing contract, others were only acquaintances, and in the case of Allen Dalis, he and Walton were said to have had some personal animosities.

However, some questions were answered -- and others raised -- when Walton suddenly returned, apparently confused and distressed, phoning his sister from an Exxon station near the small town of Heber just after midnight the night of November 10th.

All speculation would be put to rest, when 5 days after allegedly being hit with a beam from some sort of unusual flying craft, Travis suddenly reappeared. Travis stated; "Consciousness returned to me on the night I awoke to find myself on the cold pavement west of Heber, Arizona. I was lying on my stomach, my head on my right forearm. Cold air brought me instantly awake."

I looked up in time to see a light turn off on the bottom of a curved, gleaming hull... Then I saw the mirrored outline of a silvery disc hovering four feet above the paved surface of the road. It must have been about forty feet in diameter because it extended several feet off the left side of the road... For an instant it floated silently above the road, a dozen yards away. I could see the night sky, the surrounding trees, and the highway center line reflected in the curving mirror of its hull. I noticed a faint warmth radiating onto my face. Then, abruptly, it shot vertically into the sky, creating a strong breeze that stirred the nearby pine boughs and rustled the dry oak leaves that lay in the dry grass beside the road. It gave off no light, and it was almost instantly lost from sight. The most striking thing about its departure was its quietness..."

Besieged by media, Walton's brother Duane reportedly tried to discreetly provide Travis with medical and scientific attention. The Walton brothers would eventually permit the case to be handled by the UFO investigative organization APRO, led by Jim Lorenzon. This resulted in an exclusive relationship with the National Enquirer, which was seeking the "scoop" on the Walton abduction and helping to bankroll APRO's investigation. The Enquirer, advised by Dr. James Harder of the University of California at Berkeley, arranged for psychological examinations and a polygraph test for Travis. The Enquirer would eventually run a large feature, and APRO touted the case as one of the most important events in UFO history.

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