Travis Walton Claims Alien Abduction

November 5, 1975. Travis Walton and six logging crew members left a job in northeastern Arizona's Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. They saw a flying saucer.Mike Rogers, a crew member, later called the object a "luminous object".Mike Rogers, a crew member, later called the object a "luminous object." Travis Walton got out of his truck. He moved toward the craft to see better. A bluish beam threw him to the ground.Walton got out of his truck and went toward the craft for a closer look. A bluish beam hit him and threw him to the ground.His crew drove away, scared. Minutes later, they returned. They searched the spot; Walton and the "luminous" craft were gone. Walton later called the beam a "blast of energy".

In an interview with the Huffington Post,Huffington PostWalton explained his desire for a close encounter with the alien craft.

""I was curious.. I just wanted to see it up close. I thought it would be gone before I got up to it." Other loggers theorized Walton approached the ship because he felt "outside control." Walton admitted he felt "entranced," driven by his "fascination" with the craft. Walton added, "When I got up close to it... it suddenly got louder and started to move."

After the craft moved, Walton jumped away and ran toward the truck. The beam of light hit him. The "long blue flame" made his body numb. He thinks it was an electrical blast, but he admits he is not certain what hit him.

When Travis Walton woke up after his abduction, his first thought was that he was taken to a hospital. He toldHuffington Post, ""There was a light above me.and I could hear the sound of movement around me." Walton saw three creatures staring at him with brown, quarter-sized pupils. Walton knew he was on an alien spacecraft. Walton panicked and tried to fight the aliens. They stood about five feet tall with "marshmallow" colored skin. Walton could not fight them but could run. He sprinted into the ship's center.

After escaping three alien examiners, Walton found a strange room. It had only a chair and a control panel. Walton checked the room to ensure he was alone. He sat in the chair to think. As soon as he sat, lights filled the room. The lights looked like a planetarium. He adjusted a lever on the chair's side. This controlled the star map displayed before him. Leaving the chair, the star map vanished. Someone entered the room. Walton faced a six-foot-tall human in blue coveralls and a glassy helmet, not one of the five-foot-tall examiners.

Walton tried to ask the man questions. He could not understand a word the man spoke, likely because of the helmet. Walton's eyes were bright gold. The man took Walton through the ship. He showed him a hangar and another ship. Then, he led Walton to another examination room where an examiner knocked him out.

Five days after disappearing from the forest outside Snowflake, Arizona, Walton woke up on the road in Herber, Arizona.30 miles southwest of where he was last seen.Walton remembers seeing the alien craft close its door and float away into the distance.

"For an instant it floated silently above the road, a dozen yards away. I could see the night sky, the trees, and the highway center line reflected in the hull's curving mirror. Then, it shot straight up, making a strong breeze. This breeze stirred the pine boughs and rustled the dry oak leaves near the road."

After the craft left, Walton ran into town. He tried to find help. The town was empty. Walton contacted his brother-in-law at 12:05 am. An hour later, he was back in civilization, though he only thought about an hour and a half passing.

Examiners poked and prodded Travis Walton aboard a mysterious ship. The crew faced many legal problems. Local sheriff's department investigated the scene over the next few days. They found no Walton, which led to suspicion on the crew.Suspicion fell on his crew.Did they murder Walton and try to hide it? Were they avoiding a government contract? Theories about the men spun wildly, but nothing made sense. Every man took polygraph tests; all but one passed (the sixth test was inconclusive.)

Some media members assumed the loggers murdered their boss. Others thought the crew was joking about the abduction and things got out of hand. After the crew faced scrutiny, they probably...Walton wished for a return to Earth.They pulled off the world's longest prank.

After Walton returned from the ship, his family tried to keep him out of the public eye. The media and UFOologists hit Arizona over five days to cover the story. They put Walton on the defensive right away. He failed a lie detector test. People believed Walton had either suffered massive trauma or simply returned from five days hiding in the woods without fully understanding his story. Walton passed all the later lie detector tests.

MUFON backs Travis Walton's story. Some people dispute alien abductions in this scenario. Philip Klass, a UFOologist, vocalized support for Walton, believing most UFO sightings were...ball lightningor straight hoaxes. Klass also claimed Walton watchedThe UFO Incident, a made-for-TV movie about the abduction ofBetty and Barnie HillWeeks before claiming abduction, Klass felt Walton either imitated the film to pull a hoax or confused his memories with movie scenes.

Besides Klass, others claimed Walton drank or used drugs during the abduction. Walton always stated he was sober. He noted he used a chainsaw only an hour before the event. He told the Huffington Post.Huffington PostThe accusation that it was a drug hallucination proved false because my blood samplesmy blood sampleswent through the county medical examiners drug screen.

Travis Walton says the area where the UFO blasted him with a ray began growing strangely. After coring trees and testing them, experts found something weird happened where Walton claims he was abducted. Tests show the trees experience rapid growth for 15 years after the abduction. Tree trunks facing the UFO show incredibly wide, elliptical rings, unlike standard tree rings. Tests also showed some chemical change in the soil, though more study is needed to find the cause.some chemical change in the soil, though further investigation must determine the change's cause.

Most alien abductions happen because extraterrestrials want to study human bodies, implant chips, and possibly createalien-human hybridsTravis Walton does not think that explains his five days on an alien ship. Walton thinks his crew found aliens researching something. He wandered too near their beam. An accidental energy blast from the ship zapped Walton. The aliens wanted to check on him. They airlifted him onto their ship.

"Looking back, I think the fear and pain I felt had nothing to do with anything being done to me. It was just a chance accident."