Friday, July 23, 2021

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.  

15 comments:

  1. Would you please ask, if almost all of the other alleged ufo abductees, such as Barney and Betty Hill, Betty Andreason Luca, Kathie Davis, Whitley Strieber, Charles Hickson, Calvin Parker and Linda Cortile, were completely under the control of the aliens, why is it that Travis Walton, upon awakening on that apparent examining table onboard the the ufo, how did he possess the ability to grab some alien object (perhaps an ET ashtray?) and ward off the assembled aliens?

    I have never heard of any other alleged ufo abductee actually fighting off their alien abductors. Travis Walton must be quite a guy.

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  3. But I thought it had been well established, more or less from the beginning, that the actual abduction had not been witnessed.
    The guys in the truck had warned Walton against going toward the craft...but Walton walked up the slope to get a closer look and when the craft emitted a bright light, his workmates panicked and drove off, leaving Walton to his fate!

    I'm trying to understand how Mike Rogers, reiterating that he had not actually seen the abduction take place, is a change in the narrative!

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  4. Philip Klass was so desperate to show this case was a hoax that he offered $10,000 (a lot of money in 1975) to Steve Pierce to get him to say it was a hoax. Steve turned it down!

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  5. Correcting something from your interview: Erica Lukes and Scott Browne (who interviewed Mike Rogers and then Ryan Gordon) are not based in Australia. They are in the U.S. I don't know why you thought they were in Australia.

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  6. The Gentry tower hypothesis they present may have to be amended.
    I have confirmed with the us forestry service that the tower would not have been manned or rented out beyond the 138 days of fire season in the 1970s. So there was no accomplice staff person with a five day shift. Today there is no regular manning of that tower as the fire season is all year round. They go up there when special conditions are alerted. When Travis returned, there was an item in the paper noting that observers from the Gentry tower saw overflow traffic below. So apparently staff went up there then. Today the Gentry campground closes Oct 31. Duane would be the likely suspect to have broken into the tower, turned on the lights and the beam, and set Travis up in the tower. Problem with that is Duane was at home in a suburb at Phoenix and was contacted by his mother shortly after midnight.
    There are factors that diminish Walton's credibility: prior ufo interest/desires; the APRO docs not finding ketones nor body marks; signs of story being conditioned by prior lore. So some of us have basicly ignored this high profile case all this time.

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  7. Charlie -

    Someone had suggested it to me in an email. I wondered about the Australia bit. Thanks for the correction.

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  8. Unknown -

    These are all very interesting points. I should attempt to get Gordon on my radio show/podcast so that we might explore all this together.

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  9. Paul Young said:
    "I'm trying to understand how Mike Rogers, reiterating that he had not actually seen the abduction take place, is a change in the narrative!"

    I believe the change in Roger's narrative is Gordon's claim that Rogers said to him that the incident was a hoax. Rogers, however, denies he said this but after listening to both Gordon and Rogers in their Lukes interviews, I believe Gordon.

    I'm with you Kevin. I too have some grave misgivings about the veracity of this story whereas before I solidly believed it.

    I listened to both the first (the one you mentioned Kevin) and second (July 23, 2021) Erica Lukes interview with Gordon. He is VERY persuasive in his arguments that the incident is a hoax and gives a very convincing argument as to how they did it. He has numerous pictures and diagrams of the alleged abduction site and numerous pieces of documentation, including the actual polygraph questions and official results, to support his theory.

    If Travis did indeed dupe us for all these years, he should be entered in the Guinness World Records as being one of the greatest con men in the last 50 years.

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  10. Sorry, I forgot to sign my name (I knew my email had a no name handle): Mike Jamieson (on Facebook as Michael Cosmos, but active friends and ORTK FB group and others know my last name).
    The real way to prove a hoaxed ufo sighting that fooled the crew is to establish that they had an accomplice in the tower. And, to gather all historical data about the use of that tower and by home. I did a little of that with a quick phone call to (928) 333-6280 Greater digging is needed on that front.
    Of course the abduction claim is seperate from the sighting. If it turns out the tower wouldn't be a plausible solution, then they need to find who sheltered him during those five days.

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  11. I listened to the entire four hour interview with both Mike Rogers and Ryan Gordon. Mr Rogers spoke first and said the event wasn't a hoax. He then says no comment when asked if the recording he made with Ryan Gordon was altered. I wrote an earlier comment and had not listened to the entire show and mistakenly thought Mike Rogers made the claim the incident was hoaxed. He did but then he didn't but not on that show.

    Ryan Gordon does show how the incident could have been hoaxed which does raise a lot of unanswered questions. Perhaps you should interview Mr Gordon so people here can learn more about how it could be hoaxed.

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  12. Last night Travis Walton was interviewed by Jimmy Church on his Fade to Black program to respond to Gordon's hoax accusations. Travis raised some good points such as if he was in the Gentry lookout tower why didn't the search dogs pick up his scent? Wasn't the tower checked during the the five-day search? Also, he allowed himself to be regressed. Why would someone who perpetrated a hoax allow himself to be regressed?

    So who knows? Hopefully you can interview both Walton and Gordon.

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  13. You just had Don Schmidt on your radio show and you guys didn't mention this Travis Walton stuff?! Too busy talking about the Alamo LOL.

    Get him back and ask him what he thinks about these new allegations. I definitely hope you ask Robert Shaeffer about it whenever you can get him on. Also, I would pay to hear you question Ryan Gordon and Walton about it. Maybe you can get Erica Lukes on to get her take on it all.

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  14. It looks like Karl Pflock (RIP) was right all those years ago. He was the first (to my knowledge) to hypothesize that there was no need for the entire crew to be in on the hoax.

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  15. Travis was extensively interviewed a couple days ago on a youtube channel called The Theory of Everything with Curt Jaimungal. He of course had alot to say about this hoax theory and the guy perpetuating it. He was very convincing as always. Right now I am leaning slightly in favor of Travis. The drama continues . . .

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