An Alien Abduction and a Town Under Suspicion

Hi everyone, before today's episode, we want to tell you about What the Fact. It's a new show from Conor Tomlinson, who you know from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, and Carter Roy from Murder, True Crime Stories. Every week they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Conor's infectious energy will make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on Earth. Follow What the Fact, wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact On. This is Crime House. Sabrina, are you ready for another game of What You Rather? Absolutely, especially because today's episode is taking us away from haunted houses and ghosts into space. Your favorite. I want to live this. Blaster off into space. Say bye-bye, Sabrina. She'll be the happiest person ever. That's right. This week we're talking all about my favorite aliens, and today we're covering the story of Travis Walton, who claimed that in 1975 he was abducted by a UFO. Before we get into the juicy deeds, we are going to pick two moments from the story and see which one you think is the lesser of two evils. Okay. Sabrina, here are your two choices and all of you two. Would you rather really be abducted by aliens, but you live in this world where no one will ever believe you, or would you rather fake an alien abduction, but you have to hide that secret for decades or the rest of your life? I would much rather be abducted, easy. This is the easiest one I've ever had to answer and have no one believe me, because I don't need everyone. I just need to have the moment with aliens. Yeah. That's all I want. It's the anxiety of trying to hold a secret for the rest of your life. True. To try to fake an abduction and then cover it up forever. That seems that would eat me alive. Right. Why lie? Doesn't sound fun. No. So long as you believe in yourself, it's all that matters. Also, I know that if I was abducted by an alien and I told you, you would believe me. Oh, I would want to find a reason to believe you. Yeah. And then if the aliens weren't nice to you, guess who's getting beamed up and is going to start some shit, me, with my boy Bigfoot. We're going. Okay. So either option can be pretty isolating, especially in the context of this case. As we get into the story of Travis Walton's alien abduction, you might grapple with these two narratives as well. Was it real? Or was it all a hoax? Those are the questions. According to Travis, the alien abduction was very, very real. We believe it, but not everyone does. Some people think that Travis is full of it. We have our own opinions, which we will get into. But we believe Travis. But to this day, it is not really clear which version of events is the truth. Was Travis Walton abducted by aliens? Welcome to Crimes of the Paranormal, a crime house original powered by paved studios. Wear your hosts, Sabrina Dianna-Roga, and Corinne Vienn. Every Tuesday, we are exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season, we're diving into cases where the evidence doesn't end at blood stains and fingerprints, but it drifts into the unexplainable, into the unknown. If you're loving Crimes of, please follow Ray and Reviews wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts for ad-free early access. And if you can't get enough to crime, go search and follow Crime House Daily. Our team's twice a day show bringing you breaking cases, updates, and unbelievable stories from the world of crime that are happening right now. Today, we're talking about Travis Walton, a man who vanished in 1975, and later claimed that he had been taken aboard a UFO, abducted by aliens. Was this a genuine alien abduction? Or one of the most elaborate hoaxes in UFO history? Well, let's talk about it. A warning before we begin. This episode contains descriptions of abduction. This story is a bit different than the other ones we've covered on the show, which I'm very excited about, because unlike a lot of the more grizzly stories we've talked about, the case of Travis Walton doesn't involve any death or murder. Yay! In a way, nobody was harmed, at least physically. This case does come with what I imagined was, and still is, a lot of psychological trauma, especially for those involved. Yeah. But depending on who you talk to, Travis Walton is either a pillar of a fringe community or its biggest crypto. Travis' story has become one of the most well-known and controversial alien abduction stories in history. It even inspired the 1993 film "Fire in the Sky." But whether or not his story is true is hard to verify, I will say, as we have said already, we personally do believe that this is true, and while we're here at the state, the facts, I'm not a journalist, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now, I'm not going to be unbiased. I am going to be biased this entire episode, and we'll believe Travis. Yeah. Because he's the victim in the story, and we should believe what happened to him. Yeah. I believe in aliens. I believe in Travis Walton, and I believe he was abducted. Put it on the shirt. I'll wear it. Very proudly. Bumper's cigarette. Okay. Tantrum ever. Why don't you set the stage for us, Chris? Okay. On November 5th, 1975, Travis Walton and some friends were driving through the Apache graves National Forest near Huber, Arizona, after a long day of work in a logging crew. On their way home, they were startled to see a bright light floating in the sky. It was a UFO projecting a beam of light onto the ground. And despite their friends' warnings, 22-year-old Travis approached this light. They watched as Travis was struck by the light and then thrown some distance away. And they're terrified, and the friends fled. They eventually told the police about the event claiming that a UFO had taken Travis in front of their very eyes, and police and officials searched for Travis for five days with nothing to show for it. But shortly after midnight, on the fifth day, Travis returned. And just like his friend said, Travis claimed that he had been abducted by aliens. There is so much to this case, it is one that I have wanted to cover for so long, one because I'm obsessed with aliens. But two, because it really is one of the most infamous cases. He's done interviews, like he's willingly speaking on this. Yeah. And so you also get the opportunity to see him recall the things that happened to him. And you kind of get to like sink saying it, but like you get to like judge based on his behavior and the way he's presenting, whether you believe him or not. But it's sometimes we don't get that, like people are either hidden away and won't ever talk about it, or the way that they're talking about it feels so outlandish that they just immediately get deemed a hoaxer. Well, then also with alien cases in general, like the stereotype or the belief is that a lot of people lose time, they lose memory. They know that they lost time and that something strange happened, but they don't have memory of what actually happened, whereas this is one of those instances where the men in black didn't get him, his mind wasn't wiped. Or if some of his mind is wipe, he does have some memory. And what he does remember is wild. Yeah. It's not like Kate McKinnon's experience, but more importantly, you have no. Aliens are no aliens, but definitely aliens. Travis Walton's story is fascinating to say the least, despite Travis Walton's insistence and never changing story, by the way, people are divided. And given that aliens in the existence of aliens or presence of aliens is a hot topic. It is Walton filled with lots of controversy, lots of political conspiracies and real hoaxes. It is difficult to verify what happened to Travis. We can't call up my BFF, Ali, and be like, "Hey, buddy, tell me you're side of this story." Yeah. Did you take Travis? What was he like? Yeah. And it's hard to know what actually happened to him during that week, got five days and six hours that he disappeared. Oh, please. Not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter, lighter music here? Are you a fan of True Crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jump started all of our love of True Crime? I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host, I think not, a True Crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite True Crime campaign TV shows all the way to Unsolved. Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry, you'll think about True Crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself, "Who gave these people mics?" New episodes of "I Think Not Are Released" every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday, you can listen to our True Crime rundown where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. It's a little past midnight on November 10th, 1975, somewhere in Heber, Arizona. Or is it? Travis Walton's eyes open to a blinding white light. For a moment he thinks he's still on the ship. That strange, sterile place where humanoid beings with two large eyes hovered over him in silence, where he felt paralyzed and weightless. But then he feels the air, sharp and cold. It stings his lungs. He takes inventory of his surroundings. Beneath him, there's something rough, hard, asphalt maybe? He can't tell. Above him, he sees that same light, but now it's shrinking, moving away, disappearing higher and higher into the dark sky. And that when his mind is flooded with memories, flashes. The walls of the craft, the dull, hum vibrating through his bones and those ominous beings. But as he tries to remember what they'd done to him, the UFO Koreans away into the night sky, leaving him in the dark, alone, under the stars. He realizes he's outside, lying in the middle of the road. He tries to prop himself up, but his body feels like it's been hit by a truck. How long was he gone? Minutes? Hours? Eventually, Travis regains his strength. He stands and he begins to hobble down the road. When he sees the yellow glow of a gas station sign, he picks up the pace, belining to a row of payphones. And shakeily, he punches in the phone number of his brother-in-law Grant. Travis prays that Grant is still awake. It rings. And rings. Travis's hands shake uncontrollably. Then finally, Grant answers. His voice groggy and confused. Crying into the receiver, he tells his brother-in-law, "They brought me back. Please, somebody, gum got me." When he's finally reunited with his family, Travis is disoriented, convinced he's only been gone for a few hours. But the truth is, Travis has been missing for five days. In the hours following that call, it was just a whirlwind. Both for Travis, but also for his family, trying to figure out what exactly happened to him. He had just been missing for five days. In those five days, his family had begun to be convinced that he had been murdered. Right. So there's this weird mix of relief. Travis says alive. But then they're like, "What the heck happened to you, though?" Yeah. And poor Travis, he's also super confused. He's disoriented. He's trying to grapple with the truth of what happened to him. Right. Because it feels impossible. I'm trying to picture myself just like laying there in a field, watching a spacecraft just take off about me and being like, "Wait, what? That is so confusing." So you start to question like, "Are you losing your mind? Did you hit your head and you have a traumatic brain injury? What's going on?" So as he's regaining his sense of surroundings, he starts talking to his family about what he'd seen when he was gone. He talked about the spaceship full of creatures. They had unsettling large eyes and abnormal gray skin. And in short, he basically was like, "I think I was abducted by aliens." Right. Which actually backed up the claims of Travis' friends who fled the night of his abduction, also saying that he was abducted by aliens. Right. And despite the numerous people who at the time and even today don't believe that Travis was abducted, his family actually did believe him. Which I love. And I think that's. Yes. If anything, taking away from the story, like I'm glad that Travis has a good support system around him. But then I guess on the side of the non-believers, it doesn't help that Travis' family. They were really big believers in UFOs and aliens. So it's also like, was that part of the groundwork and psyche of Travis? Is this hoax perpetuated by all of his friends and family? And so then when Travis told him about his experience, they were like, "Great. We're glad you're back. We understand you're abducted and we totally believe you." Yeah. I love that they believed him. And I mean, also, let's look at the landscape here. So Heber, Arizona, it's Arizona. We've got the desert landscapes. It's a UFO hotspot. It's Sedona's there, superstition mountains are there, not far from Area 51. And people in this area are not strangers to UFO sightings either. No. After gas stations have like a little hokey alien statue. Right. You take picture of it. Exactly. And even local police had experience or at least knowledge of alien and UFO sightings in this area. So the idea that someone could have been taken by aliens or by a UFO wasn't fully out of the realm of the possibility. And the more Travis spoke about his abduction, the more press it generated. Soon newspapers were breathlessly covering the tale of the Arizona man who claimed he had been beamed up by UFO. So since 1975, since Travis returned, this has turned into an extremely polarizing story. Yeah. Some other you believe Travis are not, well, that is up to you, but to understand his story and to understand the conspiracies behind it, we are going to go back to the very beginning to November 5th, 1975, when the abduction supposedly took place. The day passed by like any other for Travis. He was a forestry worker and for the last few months, he'd been thinning out trees in the Apache Sit Greaves National Forest. For hours, Travis worked away that day, saw enormous logs into planks that would later be burned in the wet season. There were seven men in total on this crew, including Travis' friend and future brother-in-law, a guy named Mike Rogers. The group often carpooled together, spending the long drives talking about their interests and their hobbies. And according to Mike, this is how things went on the evening of November 5th, 1975. So, so far, nothing at a place, just like a normal day, normal conversation, normal group gathering for these guys. So after a long day of work in the woods, the seven men loaded up into Mike's pickup truck to head home. The sun had already set and the truck's headlights were the only thing illuminating the road. For a while, the truck wove through the two-lane road in the dark as the group just chatted about their plans for the evening, but then suddenly, out of nowhere, a blinding light is shooting through the trees, and the men cannot figure out where this thing is coming from. No, and they're all really confused by it, and they're like, is that the moon? But then they can see the moon somewhere else in the night sky. Yeah. A new street lamp someone put in today. Right. They're very confused by it, but they're trying to think rationally. But they know. The mind wouldn't immediately go to UFO. No. Not immediately. Unless you're us. Oh, sure. Actually, they're all very curious, and they want to know what the thing is. So they keep driving closer to this light to get a better look at it. Which we would do, I think. Yeah. I would be like, let's go follow this light. Right here. What is that? Like, yeah, is the moon coming up? Right. Right. So bright and huge in the tree line. So up ahead, there's a small clearing amongst the trees. And for more, they could tell it seems like this clearing is where the light was coming from. So Mike Gunley engine picking up speed so that they could reach the clearing as quickly as possible before the slight disappears so they could figure out what it was. And finally, in the thicket of evergreens, as it parted, they saw something unbelievable. Hovering about 90 feet off the ground was a shining golden spacecraft. It was small, no more than 20 feet in diameter. And this ship admitted an eerie glow, casting the surrounding trees in a golden hue. So now they're looking at this and they're like, oh, that's where the bright light is coming from. Definitely not the moon. Definitely not a street light. Is that a UFO? An unidentified flying object. So Mike slams on the brakes, stops the car on the side of the road. And for a few minutes, this whole group of guys is just staring at this thing with nothing to say. They're like, is this real, but then moving to, it doesn't seem threatening, right? Like I would imagine myself parking and be like, what is going on? Right. Right. Parking and staring at it. Yeah. All of a sudden, Travis throws open the passenger door and jumps out of the truck. And Mike is recalling this and he's saying it almost like Travis was possessed. And so these men are watching Travis. Their friend approached this ominous UFO and they're like yelling at him because I can tell that he's going to walk up to it. Right. They're yelling at him. Like come back, come back. He is not listening. And as Travis would later tell it, he walked straight into the clearing toward the strange light. And he said that as he approached it, the floating spacecraft started to wear louder and louder as if it could sense him coming. And then a beam of light just shot out of the craft and on to Travis. I would be shrieking if I were in the car witnessing that. And I think they were. Yeah. It was so bright that the men in the truck had to shield their eyes. And the noise from the ship was now deafeningly loud. As their eyes adjusted to the light, Travis's friends saw him being lifted from the ground. His body was limp and motionless. So whatever this beam was, it like basically knocked him out. So he's just like a limp body there. Being brought up off the ground, he's floating 20 feet in the air. And then suddenly, he falls, the light drops him. And Travis's body is laying there, unmoving, unconscious. His friends are convinced and terrified that he probably like. died from this fall or from being struck by this beam. And so they're shitting themselves, and they high-tailed it out of there. They drag away. They leave them in the clearing. - Wait, I'm sure you're like, what the helly? Why did you do that? Why would, what the helly? Why would you abandon your friend? But also keep in mind, you're terrified. There's this UFO, which is not something you see in everyday life that just maybe killed your friend. I think they're all like, oh my God, are we next? - Right, they're, it's not going to protect them. - Exactly. - And then there's something so otherworldly that they can't explain, and it does look like, in an instant, it was able to kill our friend. - So they chose flight, they storm out of there. Mike slams on the gas, guns that pick up truck down the road, as quickly as it would go, leaving Travis behind. And as they're speeding away, the men in the truck are in a full panic, trying to understand what the hell just happened, and if their friend Travis really was dead. - And what was that object floating in the sky? - Right. - And then, truly just seeing a UFO, all these questions felt impossible to answer, but the further away they drove, the more the men started to calm down, and whatever had happened back there, they could just agree, it was very, very bad. Whatever it was was bad. And the more they were able to calm down, the more they realized that they should not have fled. - Oh yeah. - Or maybe they should have, but now they need to go back and find Travis, their friend. - So Mike swings the truck back around, and they head back toward the clearing. - It's really only 15 minutes, as they said, had passed since they first fled. But when they get back to the clearing, there's no sign of a UFO, and there is no sign of Travis. They are both gone. The forest is completely still as the men stare in disbelief. The only sound is that of their ragged breathing. They're staring at the spot where their friend Travis had just been standing, where mere minutes ago, a light hit him and threw him backward. Where is he? Where is Travis? Where is the UFO? They call for him, yelling his name, searching tirelessly for him. But there is no sign of Travis. How could he just vanish? So panic settles in as the clock starts to tick. What do they do next? Some of the men want to keep searching. Others are convinced that they are still in danger. Finally, they agree they need to call for help. But there's no 9-1-1 system out here in rural Arizona, so they have to drive 10 miles to pay phone in the town of Heber, Arizona. Ken Peterson volunteers to make the call. But as the line begins to ring, a bubble forms in this throat. What is he supposed to even say? Then another voice picks up on the other end. Deputy Ellison of the Navajo County Sheriff's Office and Ken doesn't have any more time to think. He stammer's out that one of the crew, Travis Walton, is missing. He might be hurt or dead. A short while later, around 7.40 pm, nearly an hour after Travis was struck and went missing, Deputy Ellison arrives. Immediately, Ellison gets the feeling that this group is holding out on him. They know something. And for some reason, they aren't telling him. Some of the men look away, fidgeting, kicking at the dirt, but seeing the hesitation in his friends and decides to speak up. He tells the deputy everything about the UFO, how Travis was taken away, and then the other men back up his story, insisting that, yes, all of that is true. The deputy stands patiently, listening to all of it. He doesn't betray a single expression, which only makes the group of men more uneasy. They start talking over each other, trying to think of some detail that might convince Ellison that their story is the real deal. Because they know what they're saying sounds totally ridiculous. Finally, Ken looks nervously at Deputy Ellison and says, quote, you don't believe us, do you? There's a long, terrible pause while Ellison thinks it over. But then Deputy Ellison says, he does believe them. In fact, he believes them so much that he needs to call for backup. And this was so much more support than this group of men had hoped for. Right. How terrifying. Oh my gosh. Because I also have no idea-- I can't even imagine going through that. Right. Like, you and I were together, and I was abducted by aliens. You would be like, I need to help her. Yes, I can talk about wanting that all day. But in reality, if that happens-- If you were really taken-- If you were really taken, yeah. Oh, soundly alarms. This is international news. Right. But then what do you do? I don't know. We can barely get to space ourselves. Exactly. What's a human to do? So even they knew that an alien abduction was sound very bizarre to anyone who hadn't been there to see it. But sure enough, Deputy Ellison said that he believed them. He was willing to make some calls. And shortly after the six forestry workers found themselves talking to the county sheriff himself. He had them recount the events of that night in great detail, leaving nothing unsaid. And incredibly, the county sheriff also believed this group. The sheriff could tell that the group of men had been so seriously spooked by whatever had just happened out there in the field. But this was definitely not a prank. This was the real deal. Yeah, and it wasn't just that. Because the sheriff himself had personal and professional experience with UFO sightings. So he told the group that this was not the first time someone had called 911 about seeing a strange unidentified aircraft in this region. In fact, he himself had even seen a UFO once. And it looked very similar to what this group of six men had described seeing. Yeah. So that made him believe them even more. Right. And that's so incredibly reassuring to the group of friends, of Travis's friends. But when the sheriff said that they needed to drive back up to the site of the disappearance, all six men are suddenly frozen. Because none of them want to go back up. They're super scared, not after everything that they've just seen. The threat is still there. Yeah. What if it comes back, the ship that could kill them? But the cops were insistent that at least one of the witnesses needed to join them to help them begin their search. So after some convincing Travis's brother and law, Mike Rogers agreed to join them. I imagine them playing rock paper scissors shoot to decide which one of them has to go. Oh, gosh. OK, so as the police cruiser pulls onto the gravel near the forest clearing, Mike feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. And walking through the grass, he couldn't help but continue to steal glances upward at the night sky, fearing that this aircraft spacecraft you will though is going to come back for him. I just had a thought that if that happens today, now that we have drones, like, are there microphones? I've never used a drone. Like, could there be like a little microphone or like-- So they can stay back. I'll FaceTime. Stick me on the drone on FaceTime. And then I'll drive you there. Well, also just my understanding and belief of aliens is that they are much more advanced beings than we are. So like, are any of them really safe anywhere? No. Right. So I imagine that they spend a lot of time paranoid. But so Mike goes up with them. And this is when things in the case do start to turn a little bit. Because when they survey the area, the supposed encounter abduction site, things stop adding up. Yeah. Because there was no evidence of any living creature being in this entire area at all. There were no footprints, animal, human, or otherwise, which is so weird, just like a completely untouched right section, which, again, going back to aliens being more advanced than us, I would believe that they would wipe the evidence. Because they don't want people finding it. Yeah. Or they have men in black that come and sweep dirt. But this time a couple days have-- Yeah, you would still think that there would be some sort of evidence. Because I was like, well, maybe it left some sort of like-- A lesser of my words. Or like some sort of thing where like all the animals were staring clear. But that doesn't mean that prints and feces and things left behind from hours before shouldn't still be there. Well, and also this group of six men had just been there an hour before calling out for the front Travis looking for him. So their footprints should be there. Right. Their car prints should be there. That's exactly-- like, they're a big, heavy work truck. Right, that definitely leaves a mark. So I do understand from the police side of things why they would start to question it. Because they're like, OK, they brought us back to the site. But there's literally no evidence of anything that they said here. Yeah. So they're like, hmm, maybe there's something else happening here. But they're like, OK, let's continue to search. Maybe we'll find something. But they do come back empty handed. To eventually, the police had to call off the search by the end-- like, it's getting late. They can't find anything. And they couldn't find any clues to lead them to this missing man. So now, by the end of the night, on November 5, 1975, police are starting to worry that maybe there's a bigger crime here, one committed by man, not by alien. That perhaps something happened between these seven men, a fight, an accident that Travis had been killed, and now these six living men were trying to cover it up. Which is a good theory to have, right? Like, you want to cover all the bases. But there was also no evidence to back that area up either. So the investigation continued. and the following morning, the police returned to the site with around 50 people to begin scouring the surrounding woods, looking for Travis or any evidence of Travis. Yep. And while the police resumed their search, there was another order of business to take care of. Telling Travis's family about his disappearance. So according to the sheriff's report and multiple interviews, Mary Walton, whose Travis's mother, took the news really well. And this is a big factor that people who are pro hoax really lean on because they're like, Mary was just told her son is missing and she's super calm. Ellison even stated that Mary didn't seem upset. She just asked if they were sure he wasn't dead, which let's unpack that, because it could be seen as a weird reaction. Yeah. But I know in my mind, I was just going through like, did she ever have dreams as a young kid of like being abducted or something? And so she's like, oh, is it the same people who took me once? I love that. That's what you don't. Conspiracy, tinfoil hat is on. I'm more like, what is a normal, what is a good reaction to being told your son is missing? Like, it sounds like asking, are you sure he wasn't murdered? Is this like, please tell me he's not murdered? Like, I'd rather him be missing because then there's hope to find him. Right. And it's also like, okay, you're about, you're spinning this, what could feel like an outlandish tale to me? Like, what are you covering up? Like, is this a cover up from the police themselves too? Like, I would also be really suspicious. Right. So, according to people, she acted very weird, irregular and calm when told her son was missing, which maybe, I mean, I feel like I kind of have those same reactions when things happen where I immediately go to like, what's the action or like, how can I plot to uncover something or to like, solve something right? Like, I can't panic right now. No, no, no. Yeah. There are some other reports that Travis's older brother, Dwayne Walton also reacted a bit strangely. And as the case in investigation unfolded, both Dwayne and Mary Walton were very adamant in their belief that Travis had been abducted by aliens. So much so that they didn't participate in any search efforts, which definitely is weird. Mm-hmm. Claiming earthly searches were pointless. To play devil's advocate, maybe this is a form of denial. But also, it's really freaking weird. Even if you think he's abducted by aliens, wouldn't you want to go search for him? Right. Or look at any evidence of like, how to get in contact with aliens. Which aliens took them? I don't know. So by November 6, 1975, the police are shifting from confusion to suspicion. They interview the Walton family as well as the six men who were supposed witnesses, or now maybe potential suspects. Mm-hmm. And they start to build some theories. So first and foremost, Travis was murdered. And this theory is basically saying like, the UFO and abduction story is starting to sound like a really big cover-up, right? And these men had murdered Travis. Maybe he was an accident. Travis was their friend, but the UFO story is made up. This is their cover-up to explain why he's missing. Right. The men start to double down on their accounts. And Mike Rogers even tells officials that Travis loved aliens and spoke of them on occasion. Even once saying, I wouldn't mind being abducted. Which sounds like someone I know. Sabrina. So basically someone could murder me and then basically like, no, she got abducted by and she finally could fill her wet. There's years and years of evidence of me saying I want to get abducted. Yeah. So a statement like this only made police believe that there was a cover-up and that they were really now trying to sell the story of like, it was aliens. It was a UFO. So now they start operating under this belief that this is a cover-up of Travis's murder. But soon a new theory starts to unfold. Because naturally, man abducted by aliens in Arizona becomes quite the sensational story. And as the days passed, local newspapers start to pick up this story. And quickly it's getting a lot of attention, a lot of other interested parties as well. And the family and these six witnesses are starting to get a lot of attention. Enough that it's planting little seeds of suspicion that these people are doing this for attention. And so investigators and journalists and people in the public are starting to worry that this was planned. Right. And I feel like that's actually something that comes up with like almost every public UFO story where it's like the idea that this was for attention. That's the classic hoax. It's like, why are you doing this for attention? There's other ways to get attention. Yeah, starting only fans. On November 8th, three days after Travis's disappearance, a local UFO interest group called ground saucer watch interviewed Mike Rogers. But we're going to call them GSW for this case. Yeah, GSW. They interviewed Mike Rogers doing and Mary Walton about this abduction. And none of them seemed concerned. They all believed that Travis was abducted by aliens and they're all sticking to the story. We both have brothers. Yeah. What would your reaction be of Graham? Well, I'd be terrified for him because if he was abducted by aliens, he would not want that. And I would go look like I would go looking for him. Yeah, I would do everything I could to try to bring him back because my brother is an earthbound being he wants to be grounded. What would you do? I would definitely go looking for Christian. Yeah, I'm not going to say that. I do think Christian would end up like assimilating very quickly and will. I feel like Christian would have the Christian wig or not the Christian wig. That sketch from SNL, you would have the really pleasant experience. He'd come back and be like, those are my best friends. He also, Christian can't talk without smiling and laughing. So if that's something that aliens like, then he might be very quick instant friends. He's the gesture. With the entertainment. Christian's the show. Yeah, no, I would definitely immediately be like, we got to do everything. You'd like to get my walkie talkie or like the anything. All the radio frequencies try to like beam some messages out, but do something. Yeah. So yeah, we'd be worried if our brothers were on the planet anymore. But his family thought that he wasn't and maybe they weren't overly concerned. So Travis at this point could have been a million light years away on some alien planet, having maybe some terrible experiences. Right. Experiments done to him. Or maybe something, especially. Maybe I hope you don't get trapped off of the cat planet. But people close to Travis didn't really seem concerned at all. They all started to tell police that they knew Travis would come back with no harm done to him. Really putting a lot of trust into this extra terrestrial group that they don't even know which type of alien took him. And we're speaking on this so much as alien experts. Yeah, as experts. But no, it's also so after the fact that we weren't there, we didn't get to sit with the family and really understand what they were experiencing. But they're talking about it as far as the narrative has been told as if Travis just went down the street to grab a gallon of milk. You'll be right back. That's a weekend away with this girlfriend. He'll be back. It's actually having a good time. Right. So how this is suspicious to the police is also suspicious to GSW. GSW is the first group to outwardly question if Travis's abduction was a hoax. So this is literally group dedicated to aliens and the belief in aliens. Yeah. And they're like, ooh, we really don't know about these folks. But I do appreciate because I feel like alien enthusiasts or anyone who likes the paranormal and the cryptids get this bad rap where it's like, oh, they just believe everything. But this is a meme from the history channel of that one guy with spike here going, right. But this group is like, we're going to investigate all angles and come at this from a rational mindset and rule out all rational reason before saying yes, this is an alien abduction. Right. Yeah. They're looking for proof and evidence of it. So the cops were also at this point growing pretty weary of the alien abduction theory for the same reasons because something definitely felt off people acting strangely. Just yeah, things were weird. I seemed like the only person who could shed a light on the situation was Travis himself. But he was nowhere to be found. He could be anywhere. He could be lost in the woods. He could be an alien spacecraft. He could be in another galaxy. So until Travis came back unharmed, the cops were basically at a dead end. No one knew what happened or what to believe. So now just after midnight on November 10th, 1975, five days and some six hours or so after Travis was abducted, Travis Walton returns. It's wild. It is. That's such a long time missing and come back. Yeah. And Travis frantically calls his brother-in-law grant and then news quickly spreads to the rest of the family. They're like, Travis is back. Travis is back. Everyone's calling each other. I imagine the phone lines are going crazy. And in the early hours of the morning, Dwayne Walton, Travis's older brother got the call. Dwayne was no time. He drives over to Grant's place and he meets with Travis to see how his little brother is doing after being gone for five days and six hours. Right. Like thinking about if he wasn't taking care of being without food, being without water, whatever sort of harm could have happened to him, being in the elements, whatever that might be, whether it be space or earthly woods. Well, because keep in mind when the six men had driven away, could Travis have gotten up and wandered away into the desert and he had a head injury or something from his ball. Right. He got confused. Exactly. Was he felt 20 feet? Yeah. Travis could have been really bad shape and he was, he was a mess. He was completely disoriented. He's talking about aliens and spaceships and a Dwayne takes Travis home. He tells him to rest. They didn't need to get into it tonight because Travis was in a bad state. Meanwhile, Travis's friends were doing their best to convince police that he really had been abducted. So also on November 10th, the same day Travis returned, the six men go to the police station to take lie detector tests. And if you follow true crime, you probably know that lie detector tests are not an exact science. And a lot of people say it's like just basically those unreliable things. Right, because they're testing for stress rather than like truth and lies. And if you're on the spot, I would be sure you can beat. Yes. And my heart rate would be like, whoa, through the roof. There's evidence of like, if my name is Sabrina and I'd be like, I don't know. And keeping there, I think there's like literally tests where like they have thumbtacks and people's shoes. And if they like press down on it and create this other stimulus, how it can change their answer. Well, yeah, it doesn't work. Well, I learned in the Americans show that if you clunch your butthole really tight, that it is a way to pass the test. Oh really? So do you just clunch the whole time? Yeah. Or only ask you. Yeah, just clunch. If you're trying to pass a polygraph test, there's your answer. But hopefully they don't really use that much anymore. Yeah. Okay, so this is happening because they're trying to figure out if these guys are lying. It's not the best way to test if this group of witnesses was lying, but this is what happened. And one by one, each of the men was asked about that fateful night. And they all told the same story about the UFO, the bright light, and how Travis vanished into thin air. The person giving the test watched closely as each man spoke, waiting for the needle to jump across the paper, indicating a lie, but as the minutes passed, that never happened. The needle never budged, not once, because as it turned out, they were telling the truth. But by the next day, a lot more people were suspicious of the story. Was it a hoax? Had all six witnesses and Travis's whole family been in on it? Is this why the family was so eerily unbothered by their loved ones just going missing and being taken by aliens? And the question was like, did they fabricate this alien story? Was it for attention? Was it for fame? What was the right? What was the point? It's almost like Travis coming back, made it feel like more of a hoax that everyone was in on because no one was looking for him. And he came back five days later and he's fine and has a tale to tell about aliens. Right. Yeah. And we've seen this in other, obviously not alien related cases, but like there's some trick crime cases that basically are the same for all elaborate hoaxes, yeah. Did you know penicillin, the drug that has saved more lives than any other in history, was discovered because a scientist forgot to clean a petri dish before going on vacation? I'm Connor Tomlinson and history is my thing has been my whole life. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is what the fact the history lesson you actually wished you had in high school with everything they caught for being too interesting put back in. Every week we take the wildest true things that ever happened and tell you the whole story behind them. I bring the history, I bring the facts, the tangents, and the occasional British accent. The wildest stuff is real and the real stuff is wilder than you think. New episodes every Wednesday follow what the fact on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or subscribe on YouTube at what the fact pod. Travis can't sleep. He's home again, but it doesn't feel like home. His body is weak. His thoughts are foggy and scattered. He doesn't remember where he's been. There's pieces, a ceiling that glows, faces without expression, the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears. And the phones won't stop ringing, reporters, deputies, UFO people. Everyone wants something from Travis, answers, proof, a story. His mother and brother try to protect him, but the house is surrounded by cars and cameras. When he looks in the mirror, Travis barely recognizes himself. He's lost weight, his beard's grown uneven, and there's a small mark on the inside of his elbow like a needle puncture, but he doesn't know where it came from. He's told everyone what he remembers. And in the dark when he's alone, it keeps coming back in flashes. Steril, white walls, a blinding light, shapes moving around him. Panic. A hand reaching for his face. Then silent. He tells himself it couldn't have been real. That it must have been a dream or a shock or something his mind made up to fill in the blanks. But the fear feels real. The ache in his chest is real. He closes his eyes, begging for sleep to take him. But the phone rings again. He presses his palms to his temples, trying to study his thoughts. He needs answers, not from the reporters, not from police, from himself. Because somewhere out there, something happened to him and he wants to know what. Naturally, when Travis returned, everyone wanted answers, including Travis. He's also looking for answers. So Dwayne wanted to protect his brother and wanted to make sure that he was physically okay because he lost 10 pounds in five days when he was missing, even though he looked physically unharmed. Yeah. Travis was very much mentally struggling as well. So Dwayne had the sort of like protective role. And when Travis got up to pee for the first time since returning, Dwayne instructed him to save his urine for testing. Yeah. Smart. Very smart. Which is what Travis did. And the morning after his return, William H. Spalding, a UFO researcher affiliated with Ground Saucer Watch, visited the house and keep in mind at this point Dwayne was working with them while Travis was missing. So he thought he could trust this guy and trust his group. So with Spalding, they came up with a plan. One that Dwayne insisted put Travis' medical health first, he wanted Travis to get a full medical examination. So Spalding suggested that they actually need to refer out his friend Dr. Lester Stewart. So here's where things get weird and where accounts really do start to vary because now there are multiple POVs being shared. But according to Travis and Dwayne, they believe they're going to a medical doctor. Right? That's what Spalding told them. But when they arrived to Dr. Stewart's office, his plaque on the door states that he's a hypnotherapist. So they're confused. And Dr. Stewart, when he opens the door, was like, who are you? And Spalding hadn't told him they were coming. But he- Which is so sketchy. So sketchy. But Dr. Stewart is like also excited because he's like, I've heard your story. I actually, I would love to hypnotize you. Come sit in my chair. How was that a full-body examination? It's not. So Dwayne immediately goes protective. He's like, there's something fishy about this. I don't like it. I also, we wanted to do a medical examination. Travis is mentally struggling right now. He doesn't want to be hypnotized for it. So even a full-body examination is probably going to be really rough for him to go through. Exactly. So Dwayne says no. He tells Dr. Stewart, no, no, no, no, we're not doing hypnosis. We're going to get medically examined first. It's very sweet. In his book, Travis recalls how his older brother was basically his body guard and was so protective of him when he returned. That's right. So they leave Dr. Stewart's office without Travis undergoing any hypnosis. But this pisses Dr. Stewart off. And so Dr. Stewart starts to claim that Travis was shifty. And he starts spreading the story that Travis and Dwayne were hiding things and denied wanting to do hypnosis. And in his mind, it's because they're hiding something. Which is ridiculous. Because they didn't even know what the first place that they were going into hypnotherapy's office. I wouldn't do it either. They were being taken advantage of. And Spalding from GSW is like, ooh, this is my, this is my chance. Anyway. Oh, frustrating. Yes. But the word of this strange experience quickly got back to William Spalding and ground saucer watch. So GSW, they already had their suspicions about the story. Remember they were the first people to bring up the idea or the theory that this was actually just a hoax and everyone was lying. And this basically was just an extra piece that they took as confirmation of their uneasiness. So members of the group started talking to press telling anyone who would listen that this case was a hoax. So now reporters who are already hounding Dwayne and Travis are berating them even more, demanding to speak to Travis. They are barking horrible insults at everyone, calling them liars. Finally, on November 12, 1975, this is not two days after Travis has returned. Sheriff Gillespie visits the home to take an official statement from Travis and close the missing person's case because Travis is back. Gillespie promises that he will not share Travis' location with the media. So kind of behind the scenes, Dwayne is telling the press and people that Travis is getting medical attention elsewhere. And then he called the sheriff to say, "Hey, he's actually here, but I don't want people to know." Right. He's being protected. Being protected. And the sheriff agrees he won't tell people. Travis answers all of the sheriff's questions. He insists that he was abducted and before leaving. The sheriff turns to Travis and says one final thing. He warns him of the consequences that would happen to him if he were lying. Travis promises he isn't. Travis even promises he would take a polygraph test to prove that he's telling the truth. But Dwayne being the protected brother stepson and is like, no, no, he'll do it if the media is not alerted that he's doing it until after he's completed the polygraph test and after Travis is away from the sheriff's office. So basically again, protecting him right. So there's not like a mob of people outside. Exactly. The next day on November 13th, after sleepless night rattled with nightmarish, Travis is finally medically examined. And this examination lasts hours, but his test came back completely normal. Yep. The nurses saw the small mark on Travis's inner arm, that sort of like needle mark looking thing and noted that it likely was from a needle. They estimated that the mark had been made no more than 48 hours earlier. So right around the time that Travis came back, they took Travis's blood, but again, nothing out of the normal scope of blood work. His blood work came back totally normal. The mark on Travis's arm was the only physical evidence of something having happened to him and they said it looks like a needle. Right. And without any proof of what had been injected, that was pretty much it. It was a dead end. Right. So again, this could either back up that he was abducted, but they didn't harm him or that aliens, whatever they do is undetectable by us as humans. Or it could also be evidence that maybe nothing happened to him and he was tucked away hiding somewhere for five days and then poked himself, yeah, to feed into the hoax. That same day, November 13th, Paul Jenkins of the National Inquirer approached Travis and Twain and makes a proposal. The Inquirer was in association with the APRO, the Ariel Phenomena Research Organization, which I will call the APRO, one of the APRO, APRO. APRO, confusing. And Paul Jenkins says it together with the Inquirer with APRO and with Travis, they could do multiple things. One, they could provide scientific testing that would prove Travis's story of abduction. And two, this would serve as research for APRO. And then the Inquirer could write a story. Everyone wins, win, win, win. And they, which is just like it's annoying that everyone wants something. It's all about like giving everyone what they want. But at least this is a group that's finally being like, we want to help you tell your story properly and give you the medical testing and research that could help do so. Travis truly believed and hoped that an exclusive with the Inquirer would put the chaos to bed. Because he's sick and tired of being called a liar, he's sick and tired of reporters screaming at him outside his window. So he's hoping that he does this big report with the Inquirer, with APRO and that he can get out of doing all the other hundreds of other interviews. Right. So they moved to a nearby hotel in Scottsdale. It's a room that was paid for in full by the National Inquirer, which is a fact that makes people who believe it to hoax, like they harp on it because they're like, oh, he just wanted money and look. Now he gets to say this fancy hotel, but it also makes sense because Travis is about to undergo a bunch of medical testing and he wants to be out of his house like where he's being harassed. Right. So they arrived to the hotel and Travis felt very tense. He was understandably so. He's tense from everything he experienced and he also doesn't know these people very well. But he's introduced to Jim Laurencin and Dr. Harder to APRO scientific consultants. Their first impression of Travis was that Travis seemed like a caged wild cat. He's that traumatized. Yeah. He doesn't trust anyone. He's like looking around uneasy. Like could the UFO come back for him? That makes me so sad for him. I know. Travis spent the evening talking to Dr. Harder who was trained in hypnotherapy, something that Travis was skeptical of. But the more they spoke, the more Travis felt at ease. And while no hypnosis was performed that night, Travis was becoming more warmed up to the idea, especially because Dr. Harder never pressured him. Whereas Dr. Stewart was like, get in my chair. Right. You have to do this. Yeah. Even though I didn't even know you were coming two seconds ago. So as I head to bed that night, Travis is starting to feel a little bit more optimistic. But before they can really get into the testing with the inquire in APRO, there's something more pressing they have to attend to the polygraph test. On the morning of November 14, 1975, Travis and Duane head for the Department of Public Safety Headquarters where Sheriff Gillespie had arranged for the test to take place. Just as they were leaving for the appointment, the phone rang. It was a reporter who asked for an interview about the upcoming polygraph test. Gillespie had promised that he wasn't going to share any information about the polygraph test with media. So clearly, someone broke their promise because no one was supposed to know it was even happening or where it was happening until all of this was already done. So now pissed off Travis and Duane were like, well, they're breaking their end of the Gillespie, so are we. So we're not going. Right. Which I understand. Like what incentive do you have now? Right. It's like you're going to anything that happens. You're just going to immediately feed it to the media or spin it in whatever way you want. That's how it feels in that moment. Yes. Absolutely. They did later learn that Sheriff Gillespie actually did keep his promise. But the reporters, these news outlets were just so obsessed with this case that they started tailing people and they learned it on their own. Or I feel like it could be just a tactic from a reporter too to just call and just say something like that and take your bus guess. Either way, in the moment, it felt like promises had been broken. Right. So they went back to the hotel where they told apro and the inquirer, what happened? They seemed to all agree that due to Travis's mental state and stress, he likely would have failed the test anyway because polygraph test measure stress levels. Yeah. More than lies. So maybe he would have failed everything he said. What's your name? Travis. Nope. Fail. Yeah. So they decide to perform one amongst themselves. And sure enough, the polygraph indicated Travis was very stressed while recalling all the details of his abduction. And then bad evening, Travis underwent his first session of hypnosis. So that evening of November 14th, 1975, Dr. Harder puts Travis under hypnosis. And it's observed by multiple doctors and the entire inquirer crew. And this is what Travis recalled. On November 5th, 1975, as the six other men watched Travis get beamed and thrown by a light, Travis was knocked unconscious. He regained consciousness inside a craft. He opened his eyes in a strange bright room with metallic walls. There was a bitter metallic taste covering his tongue, his mouth was dry, and he was very thirsty. His muscles felt weak. And as he's trying to get his bearings and understand where he was, his eyes were struggling to open. Like it almost feels like he was like knocked unconscious. And he was groggly waking up. And even the metallic pace, I was just picturing like biting his own tongue when he falls, like it's just like blood in his mouth. Yeah. As his vision became clearer, he could make out one single light source that is above his head. So he's like laying down, right? He looks down and he sees his shirt and jacket are opened and pushed up to his shoulders. And that there is a strange device curved across his body, like up into his armpits. Hmm. And so at first his instinct is like, am I in a hospital somewhere? Yeah. I just keep thinking like, would this still have happened to him if he hadn't run into the field or hard to tell? Now I'm trying to picture myself from the alien's perspective where it's like he ran into the field. They were like, gosh, we have no choice but to abduct this guy now. And then someone else panics and it's like, why are you abducting him, presses the button and then he falls. And they're like, well, shit. Now we need to fix him and save him. But I'm not the alien. I don't know. I think it's fine. It's always thinking of things from the alien's POV. So then he sees something. He sees someone or multiple someone's. And at first it's very blurry and he's like, oh, these must be the doctors. But as his vision starts to get clearer, he realizes that before him is not a doctor, it is a creature of sorts, with big luminous brown eyes, the size of quarters. And he frantically looks around and he sees, there's not one. But three of these big saucer eyed beings. And Travis is now trying to defend himself. He's looking around and he grabs an object trying to find his way out like something to beat them up with. So he thrust himself upwards from his laying state. And this strange device that was around him pops off at clatters onto the floor. He sees the door that he has to get to. But between him and the door are the three figures. And then this is where it becomes like a bit of a standoff. So the beings stood mutely still. And they were a little under five feet in height. They had basic humanoid forms, so two legs, two arms, hands with five fingers each, a large bald head. But beyond the outline, there were no human resemblances. Their thin bodies were covered with white, marshmallow-y looking, flash-holes, grade skin. They had on cover-all type suits, orange, brown, and color. And they had very small feet. They had no fingernails. That detail, there's like a creepy about that. Yeah, a very E.T. phone home. wrinkles and some oversized craniums, but very small jaws and very small lips. As he's taking all of this in, these beings reach out toward him. And one of the strangest details he recalled is that these beings never spoke. Not once, they never spoke to him, they never spoke to one another. There was no words expressed at all, which makes Travis in recollection be like where they communicated telepathically. Yeah. So now, in the moment, Travis is gathering the courage to push past them, went all of the sudden without explanation, these three beings scurry out of the room. Ooh! So he's alone in this room. And he's like, what the heck do I do? He's looking around, and he's again taking inventory about everything. He sees that the room is devoid of color. It contained only the light fixture, the table that he had previously been laying on, and this device that is now on the floor that had been on top of him before. He decides to leave the room, because he has to get out. How is it instinct? So he goes out the door, the same door that these three beings have scurried out of, and he finds himself in a long hallway. He has to keep moving. So soon, he finds himself in another room. And this room is massive. It is dark, and it has two chair-like objects with like a panel of buttons. These steps inside small little lights start to like pop up and illuminate on the ceiling around him, and it dawned on him that these lights appeared like stars. It was almost as if he was in a planetarium, and he apparently tried to touch a bunch of buttons, because he was like, well, maybe I can move the ship when he get myself out. But it kind of sounds like, to me, that maybe this was like their control room. And suddenly navigate space, and all of a sudden, he was looking through the sunroof. Kind of. Yeah. Maybe they weren't. Oh, that's why. That's so creepy to think. All of a sudden, Travis hears a noise, and he whips around to find something standing in the doorway. Not just something, but someone, a human being. This is one of the most wild parts of the story to me. I know. So there before him is this man. He's six foot two, he has a helmet, and a suit on, so Travis is like, oh my gosh, someone from NASA, he saved me from these aliens. So he ran to the man, exclaiming all these sorts of things, but mostly asking this guy for help. But unfortunately, this human-like man was not there to help, not really. The man forced Travis, or guided him, forcefully, into another area where two men and two women stood around a table. All of them are wearing the same helmet. They put him in a chair, and then they restrained him. They then placed a plastic mask over his face, and Travis immediately blocked out after that. When he regained consciousness, he found himself laying on a road near Hebrew, Arizona. What he thought had only been a couple hours in this spacecraft was five days. I mean, I have so many questions, because I feel like there's always been this belief that maybe aliens and humans are kind of in on things together, that the government knows more than they are saying. So this account makes me think that, yeah, there are humans aboard the ship with the aliens working together. But then I'm like, did they perform more tests on Travis over those five days? And he just doesn't remember it, because he was unconscious, or does time work differently? Right, because he very well could have just been in space. Maybe it was truly two hours, but wherever they were, time just during those two hours, time moves differently. It's like interstellar. And even Travis knows that this experience is strange and unusual, and that people asking questions, it's fair, because even he has those same questions. Right. It's hard to make sense of what happened to him. But it also helps carry to not know if you were awake most of the time, and time just is different, or if you were actually like subjected to things that you'll never truly remember for five days, because if it is five days, and he only remembers it as a couple of hours, that means there's five full days and four hours that he doesn't count to time. Yeah. So after the first few days, the story of Travis Wallin grew to mythic proportions, and people started jumping to conclusions, and over the years a lot has unfolded regarding the case, but the police investigation, all that dissolved, which makes sense because it was a missing person's case, and he returned. The police don't really pursue UFOs, who were you going to arrest? Right. They have probably other cases on their plate to deal with. Many reporters and factions like the GSW proclaimed that Travis was a liar, that all of this was a hoax, that he, his six co-workers, and his family, and friends were all in on it, but they planned it, they hid Travis away for five days and six hours, all to get attention. But Travis has never strayed from his story, and even today, so our pain Lindsay interviewed him for high-strange, and he even said that like, Travis speaks about this with, you can tell he's anxious, and kind of goes back to what you were saying, like this is one of those cases where you can see how he acts, and whether or not it's true, Travis absolutely believes what happened to him is real, and it is traumatizing him. He is re-experiencing the trauma every time he talks about it. Yeah. And also, I feel like there's so many cases of alien abductions where someone gets abducted, and then maybe five, ten, twenty years later, it happens again. And so I do wonder if he is scary. Yeah. Like, how much does he know about alien abductions? Has he sought out in his search for his own answers, other people's cases, and now he has the fears of knowing what happened to others, or what could happen to him again, or is this just like truly viscerally his body's response to remembering exactly what happened? Probably a combination. Yeah. And I think that's probably what's the scariest part about alien abductions is like publicly, it's still such a debate. People are like our aliens real, like there are all these people coming forward who are work at the military who are saying, yes, they're real. But even with that. Outside of the US, too, we look at many other countries and there are leaders and governments and people who are like, oh, 100%, there's something strange that we cannot explain. Right. It's alien to us. Is it from outer space? We don't know. Is it from our own planet? Yeah, it's time. Linear? No. Do we live in a simulation? Probably. But so I think that's the point. Rosebud, semi-colonical, and give me money all the money. But I think that's probably what makes it even scarier is that people are admitting it might be true, but we know nothing. So Travis wrote a tell-all book titled Fire in the Sky, The Walt in Experience. It was written in 1978, which was later adapted into a movie, also titled Fire in the Sky, which came out in 1993. And to this day, he continues appearing at UFO conventions. And this remains one of the most well-known alien abduction cases. Yes. And Travis Walton also has one of the most controversial alien abduction cases. And the decades following his disappearance, many people in the UFO community still debate whether or not Travis Walton really was abducted by aliens. And obviously we wish that there was more scientific evidence regarding this mysterious needlemark in Travis's arm, or like any evidence to help Travis prove what happened to him. But Travis's blood work was totally normal, another bizarre piece of the story. Still, this has not stopped skeptics from questioning Travis's behavior and also like his mom and his brother's behavior after his return and during his disappearance. People wondered maybe if it was the work of drugs, if it was just some very convincing acting, if this all was one big fat hoax. Well, some people have also said maybe he like did get a head injury in that fall and woke up in a hospital but was so disoriented and had a head injury that this is what his mind processed the experience as, but there's no record of him being at any hospital in the area. He literally came to in a freaking road in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So we believe he was abducted, unfortunately despite our belief, there's no real way to prove what happened one way or the other. This is not a story with clear distinctions between truth and lies, but in the decades after the abduction, some former believers have turned against Travis, which makes me so sad. Oh, that makes me so sad. Yeah. In fact, one person, Mike Rogers, who we talked about a lot, who went back in 1975, really backed up the story recently. Was that not just his brother or not? Right. So then I'm like, curious about the dynamics of their family and like, what happened? Fighting. And then Mike is like, well, I'm now going to say that I don't believe your story. I don't know. Anyway. Mike had a weird midlife crisis. Yeah. Everyone, Mike posted on social media that he no longer wanted to be considered a witness to Travis Bolton's abduction, which could also mean, well, that's just maybe like stop bothering me. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't the one abducted. Like, leave me alone. Let me know my life. But he did say he believed Travis to be a liar and called his former friend all kinds of names. So they're probably not spending Christmas together. Yeah. So unfortunately, we might never know. Yeah. Well, the story of Travis Walton is still shrouded in so much mystery and the only information we have is with Travis, his family and his friends have set over the years. And even that changes over time. In the end, there are two choices. One, you believe Travis and his brother that in 1975, Travis really wasn't. was abducted by large-eyed aliens only to be returned to Earth, mostly physically unscathed. Or, too, you believe that Travis was lying and that this was all an elaborate hoax to get famous in the UFO community, which why would you do that? The choice you make depends on what you believe. We here, Crit and I, we believe in aliens, and therefore we also believe in Travis, and we should too. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts, Sabrina, Deanna Roga, and Corinne VN. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another crime sub, the paranormal. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crime's up wherever you get your podcasts. Yes. Your feedback truly does make difference. And we love you all. Thank you so much for listening, and aliens, beat me up. They're real. Take me. But not me. Bye, mommy. Bye, mommy. A woman once survived a fall from more than two miles up because she crashed landed on a nest of furious fire ants. A 13th century pope once condemned black cats as the servants of Satan. A lumberjack once survived near decapitation by his own chainsaw. These aren't tall tales, they aren't urban legends, they're real events. I want to take a quick moment to tell you about the unbelievable, a new podcast from the history channel and rewind studios. Adapted from the hit TV show, every episode opens a cabinet of curiosities to uncover the strangest but true stories in human history, then digs into the historical record to show you exactly how and why they happened. Strange people, odd places, peculiar events. When it comes to history, the truth is always more unbelievable than you think. Follow the unbelievable on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or ever-you-listened podcasts. Looking for your next podcast? Check out what the fact. It's a new show from Connor Tomlinson, who know from Netflix's love on the spectrum alongside Carter Roy. Follow what the fact, wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at what the fact pod.