Mike Rogers, who was the leader of the logging crew that included Travis Walton, died on February 6, 2026. He became something of a controversial character in the tale, often accompanying Walton to various UFO conventions, appeared with him on several documentaries, and was a featured character in the movie about the abduction, Fire in the Sky. He eventually said that no one saw Walton abducted, but seemed to believe that was what happened.
He
was a gifted artist and many of the drawings and paintings of the Walton case
were the work of Rogers. He was also somewhat hot headed and sometimes saw
conspiracy where none existed. When I interviewed him for my X-Zone radio show
and podcast, there was a glitch in the taping which he believed was our attempt
to sensor some of the things he said. It was just a glitch which arose out of
the complications of creating a show with the host in Iowa, the guest in
Arizona and the producer in Canada. Sometimes the Internet did not cooperate
and sometimes mistakes were made.
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| Rogers's interpretation of the Walton aliens. Used with permission of Mike Rogers. |
During
that interview, Rogers said that the Phoenix Lights were not the important
sightings. He, among others in widely spread parts of Arizona and southern Nevada
had seen a large, triangular object that traveled across most of Arizona. He
provided a detailed description of that UFO, but the lights seen over Phoenix
dominated the news media reporting of the events that night.
As
we discussed the Walton abduction, I told him I thought it was a little chicken
that he and the others left Walton behind. True, they did return, but that was
after Walton disappeared. That is, of course, why no one saw Walton abducted,
but they did see him hit with that beam of light.
On
March 19, 2021, Mike Rogers in a Facebook post wrote, "I, Michael H.
Rogers, being of sound and rational mind, do hereby give notice that I am no
longer to be considered a witness to Travis C. Walton's supposed abduction of
November 5, 1975.”
That
set off a firestorm of controversy. After that, Rogers told me that he not only
hadn’t seen Walton abducted, but that he had been saying that for years. It was
only in 2021, that people noticed. Given that discussion, I wasn’t sure exactly
what Rogers was saying but note that it doesn’t bode well for the Walton tale.
To
make matters worse, a couple of days later, Rogers told movie producer Ryan
Gordon, " We were talking about creating a UFO hoax, okay? I don't know
how the UFO got there. But I remember... when I was driving the truck and he
jumped out; it was all deliberate. It was all a staged thing, okay? He ran up
there and there was something about the UFO not being real, although it looked
real.’”
Rogers
and Walton later reconciled and Rogers issued a statement retracting his
confession but the damage was done. And there was the important point that
Rogers said that no one saw the abduction and that, of course, included Rogers.
