Sep
13Anyone who saw the class UFO film “ Close Encounters of the Third Kind” will always remember the classic moment when the character played by Richard Dreifus was “invited” to enter the huge mother shop and was led by the hand by alien children for a journey into space and time. While this made for spectacular and fascinating cinema, for many film critics of the time, the subject may have even been a cause for scorn and derision.
The fact is that most of these critics would probably be unaware that a very similar incident actually did occur some tow years previous to “Close Encounters” hitting the big screen. The incident, which took place on November 5, 1975, is known as the “Travis Walton abduction”. Till today it remains one of the most controversial as well the most compelling in the history of UFO discussion.
Travis Walton, at the time a young man of just eighteen, was working as part of a team of seven clearing trees in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in the state of Arizona on a government contract. After finishing a typical day’s work, the crew set off for home in the company pick-up truck. As they drove through the huge forest, their attention was captured by large disc shaped luminous object, lying by the side of the road. As the crew jumped out of the truck to investigate this strange apparition, young Mr. Walton, not known for the caution of his behavior stepped forward wand apparently was hit by a strong blue beam that shot out from the object that was powerful enough to lift Travis from his feet and throw him to the ground. The remainder of the crew went into a momentary panic and dove back into the truck and drove off at speed, giving scant though to the well being of the foolhardy Travis. A few minutes later, stuck by guilt, the crew decided to return to the scene of the incident to see what had become of their colleague. Their shock and horror was compiled by the fact that both Travis Walton and the disc like object were gone.
Seeing no other alternative, the crew returned to the nearest town that goes by the name of Snowflake, to report the incident and the disappearance of Travis Walton to the local police. Officers who received this first report recalled how upset the men were about Travis’s apparent abduction, as well as how they had left him to fend for himself against creatures from another planet.
UFO - The Travis Walton Story - Part I
UFO - The Travis Walton Story - Part II
To verify the reports, police officers were dispatched to the scene to take a close look around in the hope that Travis had possibly strayed off into the forest. But no trace could be found.
The next day at dawn the police returned in force and later was aided by volunteers. However as the search continued and deepened, there was no trace of Travis or his alien abductors to be found News of the case began to spread, fanned by tremendous media interest. Yet despite the search reaching manhunt proportions, Travis and the mystery beam had vanished into thin air. Eventually the Police began to suspect that the story of the beam was a fabrication, and the theory arose that one of the crew had either murdered Travis or he had been involved in some kind of accident, that the crew had decided to cover up. The crew all were invited to take lie detector tests, and there was some suspicion that one member of the crew had something that he wanted to cover up.
Then something totally remarkable happened. Five days after he mysteriously vanished, Travis Walton turned up alive and apparently unhurt. Researchers have been trying to unravel the circumstances how this occurred more than thirty years later.
Travis recalls coming back to consciousness lying on a cold pavement near to the town of Heber, Arizona, a considerable distance from where he had been abducted. He made his way to a nearby gas station, and asked to call home to his family, who rushed to the scene to pick him up accompanied by members of the police force, and the press. Travis had no idea that he had been missing for five days or how he ended up so far from the scene of the incident. What he did recall was being investigated by a series of alien creatures, some of them closely fitting the description of the aliens spotted in Brazil almost a quarter of a century later. Small, dark with large heads and thin bodies, and giving of a very strong odor. He recalls that there were others who looked more human and were considerably taller. What he recalls as being particularly strange was that during the whole time that he was under observation, none of the aliens laid a hand on him.
Travis Walton has found it difficult since then to return to a normal life. Know in his fifties, he still gives lectures on his experience, which remains a mystery to this day. Walton recalls today that although it was many years ago that he chose to get out of the crew truck first and run toward the large glowing UFO hovering in the darkening Arizona sky. But when he made that he was unaware that he was leaving behind forever all semblance of a normal life.