X-Zone - The Latest on Travis Walton's Abduction

 For those living under rocks, who haven’t gotten out of the basement, or who, though some miracle, have avoided social media, let me tell you that the cracks in the Travis Walton abduction case have widened into deep fissures. This all began a

Travis Walton

while back when Mike Rogers announced that he was through with Travis Walton. At that time, because I have communicated with both men, I asked a couple of questions because it seem the split had nothing to do with the abduction tale. Oh, Rogers had mentioned, several times that no one saw Walton abducted, but that wasn’t really much of a revelation and proved nothing. For those interested in seeing my take on this, you can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/03/did-mike-rogers-repudiate-travis-walton.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/04/coast-to-coast-am-travis-walton-and.html

This latest exchange, which was hosted by Erica Lukes on her podcast UFOs Unclassified, began with an interview with Mike Rogers and ended with a discussion with Ryan Gordon. The Rogers end of the interview was, to be kind, slightly incoherent and the Gordon bit was quite illustrative. Gordon does raise some interesting points about the whole case. You can find all four hours of the show here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtWgwN2hzOA

Peter Robbins, who might be best known as one of the authors of a book on the Rendlesham Forest case that involved a number of Air Force personnel in December 1980, has posted an alternative view of the Walton abduction, which you can read here:

https://www.facebook.com/668953372/posts/10159496184383373/?d=n

And before we get too deep into this, I’ll point out that I interviewed Steve Pierce, who was one of those who was there when Walton was abducted. It might interesting to compare what he told me with some of the information coming out now. You can read about that interview here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/07/steve-pierce-and-travis-walton.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/03/philip-klass-travis-walton-and-steve.html

I was asked by Rob McConnell to provide my take on this latest episode. I confess that I find it disturbing. It seems to me, that after all these years, decades really, that the pot is being stirred again. Rogers seems, to me, to be a loose cannon at this point. Walton, it seems to me, it a little more rock solid. But this latest information, supplied by Ryan Gordon, has caused quite the stir. You can listen to Rob McConnell and me talk about it on his X-Zone show found here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/45809038

There is one other aspect of this that I do want to mention. That is the lie detector tests that have been given. The members of the wood cutting crew were all, with a single exception, given lie detector tests while Walton was still missing. They all passed, but there really weren’t questions about the abduction. The focus was on the possibility that Walton had been murdered.

Once Walton reappeared, he was given a lie detector test arranged by APRO’s International Director, Jim Lorenzen. Walton failed that test but Walton told me that

Jim Lorenzen

it was the polygraph's fault and the test hadn’t been fairly administered. Because the operator didn’t believe the story, that influenced the test and I have to say that such a charge makes sense.Phil

This wouldn’t be of interest, but Lorenzen, at first, denied that such a test had been given. Philip Klass revealed that bit of information harming the credibility of the case and doing some damage to Jim Lorenzen’s reputation.

Other tests, given later, had positive results. Jerry Black arranged for them in the 1990s. You can read about this later test here:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc348.htm

And you can read more about the Walton abduction from some divergent points of view here:

http://www.nicap.org/751105snowflake_dir.htm

http://www.nicap.org/reports/751105snowflake_report.htm

If all this isn’t enough to overwhelm you, I don’t know what it. Like so much of the UFO field, there is a variety of points for view from the debunker’s “It can’t be, therefore it isn’t,” to the other side of the spectrum which is “What more do you need for proof?”

The Walton case is one of the few in which the abduction was witnessed (well, almost… Rogers said that no one witnessed the actual abduction) and that makes it a stronger case. We had, what was once, a solid wall of confirmation by those involved, that now has developed a few cracks that have become wider and deeper.

I confess that at this point I am more confused than ever. Those who visit here regularly know that I’m not a fan of abduction tales. I have said that I think the more likely abduction scenarios are those like the Walton experience in which the “victim” is a target of opportunity rather than a participant in some sort of long-term longitudinal study. I had, provisionally, accepted the story as true but had some reservations about it. This latest pushes me in the other direction and given that a hoax scenario is more likely than an alien abduction, that seems to be the most likely case… but I just don’t really know for sure.

Next up on my radio show/podcast is my interview with Robert Sheaffer. I had thought we’d talk about the UAP report and the latest from the Navy, but given all this about Walton, we’ll discuss that as well. If you have questions, append them here. Since I moderate the comments, they won’t be published.