Jerome Clark - Walton Abduction Case

High Strangeness:

uns from1960 through 1979

Walton Abduction Case

WALTON ABDUCTION CASE Few abduction reports have generated so much con­ troversy as an incident that began on Wednesday, November

5, 1975, in a remote area of east-central

Arizona. Two decades later the dispute still rages. To all but a very few combatants the stakes seem high. If Travis Walton and other participants are telling the truth, so it is assumed, UFOs exist; UFO abductions are physical, not imaginary, events; and UFOs are piloted by alien, presumably extraterrestrial beings. No wonder, then, that the Walton case has become one debunker's particular obsession. By now, after years of wildly conflicting claims and charges, a mass of confusion surrounds the episode. Thus the sorting of the reasonable conclusion from the unreasonable inference, much less the certifiably true from the undeniably false, is no simple task. It is not, however, entirely impossible. This account draws on many sources, including the two books that have been written on the case.

The disappearante.

Travis Walton,

22, worked on a

wood·cutting crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves Nation­ al Forest, set in a high mountainous area

15 miles

south of Heber. The crew's foreman, Mike Rogers, had contracted with the U.S. Forest Service to thin out

1277 acres of scrub brush at Turkey Springs. In

practice that meant that brush six inches or less in diameter was to be cleared with chainsaws. While half of the crew wielded the saws, the other members dumped the debris into slash piles behind them. Besides Walton and Rogers, the crew consisted of Ken Peterson, John Goulette, Steve Pierce, Allen Dalis, and Dwayne Smith. All were young men, rang­ ing from

17 (Pierce) to 28 (Rogers). All of them lived

in Snowflake, a small Mormon town

33 miles east of

Huber. Rogers had been doing contract work for the Forest Service for nine years. The Turkey Springs contract was the most lucrative he had landed so far, but he was late in fulfilling it. He already had secured one extension, and he and his crew were working hard and long to catch up. Thus the men labored until after sunset. When they quit for the day at darkness had begun to fall.

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6 P.M.,

Walton Abduction Case

High Strangeness beginning to emit sounds.The men in the truck were

Ten minutes later the exhausted workers piled into their battered pickup to begin the return trip to

hearing low beeps. Then Walton heard them, too,

Snowflake.Rogers,Walton, and Peterson,the three

only they were mixed somehow with a distant rum­

nonsmokers, sat in the front seat, the others-al­

bling, an industrial sound reminiscent of a "multi­

ready puffing away--in the back. As Rogers drove,

tude of turbine generators starting up." The UFO

Walton sat by the right window, bouncing up and

started to wobble slowly,one side tipped toward him.

down as the vehicle, its shock absorbers long worn

Then it wobbled faster,and the sounds grew louder.

out,negotiated what passed for a road. It had gone no more than

By now thoroughly shaken,he ducked down behind a

200 yards before something unusual

log which was jutting from the slash pile. He had to

came into view.

get away. He rose to his feet, and just as he was turning away from the UFO and toward the truck,he

Either Walton or Dalis (accounts vary) saw it first. It was a glow shining through the trees on the right,

felt a "numbing shock ...like a high voltage electro­

about a hundred yards ahead of them. As the truck

cution." It hit particularly in his head and chest,but

drove up the hill,the men fell silent.Forty yards away,

he could feel it all over his body. He heard a cracking

the light bled over the road,but a dense stand of trees

or popping sound, and then he heard, saw, and felt

still obscured its source. Then they passed a small

no more.

clearing to their right, and the source was now clearly

Walton did not know what had hit him.Those look­

in view. It was a luminous, disc-shaped structure,

ing on,however,saw a bluish-green beam strike him.

hovering 15 to 20 feet above a slash pile and casting a

He rose a foot into the air, his arms and legs out­

milky yellow glow through all of the clearing. Ap­ proximately

stretched, and shot stiffly back some

100 feet from them, 20 feet wide and

10 feet, all the

while caught in the glow of the light.His right shoul­

eight feet high, it was divided by dark-silver vertical

der hit the earth, and his body sprawled limply over

lines, longer than they were wide, into panel-like

the ground.

geometrical forms on its surface.A thin band with an

Rogers and his crew were beside themselves with fear

outer protruding ring encircled the middle. Some­

at this point, and amid much shouting and cursing

one blurted out,unnecessarily at this point,"That's a

they fled the scene, leaving their fallen comrade

UFO!"

behind.Rogers was driving dangerously fast,though

Rogers was bringing the truck to a stop when Walton

he could barely see the road; he was certain that the

jumped out and walked briskly toward the UFO.

object was coming up behind him.A quarter of a mile

Later he would explain his action thus: "I was sudden­

later, he swerved to avoid hitting a pine tree. The

ly seized with the urgency to see the craft at close

truck slid sideways and stopped, stuck crossways in a

range. I was afraid the thing would fly away and I

bulldozed pile of hard dirt.

would miss the chance of a lifetime to satisfy my

As one of his passengers screamed at him to get

curiosity about it." When his co-workers, whose

going, Rogers looked around and saw that the UFO

reactions to the UFO's presence ranged from in­

was gone.The sky was quiet and empty of anything

trigued to petrified, saw what he was doing, they

but stars. No one spoke for some moments. Then

shouted at him to get back. Walton paused for a

everyone began to talk at once, not necessarily

moment, turned to glance over at the truck, and

coherently. Peterson and Rogers argued that they

reflected briefly on the wisdom of his course before

should go back to rescue Walton.At first the others

deciding to proceed.

rejected the idea, but over the next few minutes, as

In short order he was standing on the perimeter of

the discussion continued outside the truck and nerves

the dim halo of light the object was casting on the

calmed, they changed their minds.As they piled back

ground. He was only six feet away from being directly

into the truck, Rogers thought he saw a flash of white

underneath the object. Mesmerized by the "unbeliev­

light in the woods, something like a streak ascending

ably smooth, unblemished surface of the curving

into the air. No one else saw it, but then none had

hull," he at first did not realize that the UFO was

been looking in that direction at that moment.Rog-

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High Strangeness

Walton Abduction Case

ers believed he had witnessed the departure of the

good part of their attention on the trail that would

UFO.

have led Walton from the pickup to the slash pile. There were no prints in the hard ground. The pine

Rogers drove around in the gathering darkness in

needles that covered the clearing floor looked undis­

search of the spot where they had seen the UFO.

turbed. There were no broken twigs. There were no

There were a number of clearings and any number of

burn marks or other unusual effects in the slash pile

slash piles in the vicinity, and one looked pretty much

or in the trees. Nothing, in short, to back up the story.

like another, so it was not easy. But eventually they found it. Rogers drove into the site. His headlights

When last seen, Walton had been wearing no more

revealed nothing except the slash pile their compan­

than a light jacket. As the evening progressed, the

ion had been standing beside. He shined a flashlight

temperature plummeted. If Walton was somewhere

through the clearing. Then he stepped out of the cab,

out in the woods, the bitter cold could represent a

and his crew reluctantly followed. The panic they had

direct threat to his life. Ellison went back to Heber to

suffered had made them feel almost physically ill.

collect additional searchers, but even with the further manpower the mystery of Walton's whereabouts re­

Twenty minutes of searching failed to uncover any

mained unresolved.

trace of Walton. As the enormity of the evening's strange events began to sink in, some of the men,

Finally around midnight Rogers remarked that Travis's

including Rogers, who considered Walton his best

mother, Mary Walton Kellett, ought to be notified.

friend, wept. When they pulled themselves together,

She was staying in a remote cabin on a ranch in Bear

they headed for Heber and the initiation of the police

Springs, about 10 miles in the woods to the east. (Kellett lived there part of the year and spent winters

investigation.

at her home in Snowflake. She was shortly to return

Five days. The authorities first heard of the incident

just after

7:30,

to town.) Rogers and Undersheriff Coplan set off to

when Navajo County Deputy Sheriff

see her. They showed up at her door around

Chuck Ellison took a call from Ken Peterson, who said only that one of the crew was missing. Ellison

Coplan before now.

met the group at a Heber shopping center. The men

Still visibly shaken, Rogers related the circumstances

were in a highly emotional state. Two were crying.

of her son's disappearance. Apparently not quite

Even as they related the bizarre and unbelievable

comprehending what he was telling her, Kellett asked

UFO story, Ellison could not help reflecting that if

him to repeat the story. Then, after some moments'

they were acting, they were awfully good at it.

pause, she asked him if he had told anyone else.

Ellison quickly notified Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, who

Coplan, who had expected Kellett to respond more

ordered him to wait with the crew until he could get to Heber. Gillespie was in Holbrook

40

dramatically, did not like the way she was acting, and

miles to the

he-as well as later critics of the case-would make

north. Within the hour he and Undersheriff Ken

much of Kellett's apparent composure, interpreting

Coplan arrived and commenced their own interview

it as evidence that as a party to the hoax she knew her

of the witnesses. Rogers, who wanted to get back to

son was all right and hidden away somewhere. In fact,

the site as quickly as possible, urged the sheriffs men

those who knew Kellett far better than Coplan would

to bring bloodhounds to aid in the tracking, but none were available. Pierce,

1 A.M.

Mrs. Kellett knew Rogers, of course, but had not met

insist that a hard life-she had raised six children on

Smith, and Goulette said they

her own under difficult economic circumstances­

had no desire to return, and so they went off in

had long since taught her not to fly to pieces in the

Rogers's truck to Snowflake to notify Rogers's wife of

face of crises and tragedies. It was part of her person­

what had happened.

al code not to display emotion before strangers. Yet

At the site the six men stalked the clearing and

in the days ahead, as events overwhelmed her, she

surrounding area with flashlights and a searchlight

would show emotion before friends, acquaintances,

mounted atop a four-wheel jeep. The understand­

and strangers alike-a fact that would go unmentioned

ably suspicious law-enforcement officers focused a

in debunking treatments of the Walton episode.

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Walton Abduction Case

High Strangeness

3 A.M. Kellett called Duane Walton, the second " oldest of the Walton sons and the one who, owing to

At

brought back because "they don't kill people. " He and Mike denied, however, that they were UFO buffs.

strength of personality, typically took charge when

"I follow it li ke I do a lot of other things," Duane said.

circumstances called for it. Duane left his home in

Later in the interview Rogers expressed concern

Glendale, a western suburb of Phoenix, almost

about another sort o f problem: "This contract that

immediately.

we have is seriously behind schedule. In fact, Monday

10] the

By morning yet more volunteers, including local

[November

Forest Senice personnel, had joined the search. The

work on it since Wednesday because of

time is up. We haven't done any

three crew members who had stayed away the night

therefore, it won't be done. I hope they take that into

this

thing;

before had not returned in the morning, so again

account, this problem." He then returned to a promi­

only Rogers, Peterson, and Dalis participated in the

nent theme in the intenriew: his frustration with what

renewed effort. Already th� •hffifr• men and other

he saw as a less than adequate search for his missing

area police officers were entertaining dark suspicions

friend."Nobody seemed that interested in searching

that the UFO tale was a story concocted to cover

that extensively. No bloodhounds were brought in.

something far more sinister, such

And now it's too late. I've been mentioning it evt:Iy

as

murder. But at

the same time Mike Rogers, who presumably would

day." Duane also complained bitterly about the lacka­

have been in on this hypothetical murder plot, was as

daisical nature of the search.

insistent as Duane Walton, who presumably would

It certainly seemed, Sylvanus thought, as if the two

not have been, that the search be continued . The two

were genuinely concerned about Travis. Yet at the

of them showed up together at Sheriff Gillespie's

same time Duane's remarks about UFOs and

office on Saturday in an explosively angry mood.

did Mike's expressed concerns about the lateness of

detected not a soul.The search resumed that after­

his Forest Service contract. As would soon become

noon. This time it included a helicopter, riders on

clear. the foundations for

horseback, and four-wheel jeeps.

an

alte rnativ e interpreta­

tion of the case had been laid.

That day also brought the outside world into this

Meanwhile Snowflake Town Marshal Sanford (Sank)

obscur e comer of America. Along with h or des of

Flake was telling the press of his certainty that the

reporters and curiosity-seekers, UFO investigator

story was a hoax "staged by Travis and his brother

Fred Sylvanus showed up, sought out Mike Rogers

Duane to mak e some money. I bel ie ve the other kids

and interviewed him in the late afternoon and early

did see something, but they were hoaxed, too. " The

evening. Duane Walton, who sat in on the interview,

Walton brothers, he said, had "lit up a balloon and

repeatedly intetjected with comments of his own.

launched it at the app•uJ.niate

These comments would come back to haunt him and

time . "

Flake's wife

dissented. "Your idea is just as farfetched as Duane

to take a permanent place in the controversy sur­

Walton's." Marshal Flake had a longstanding griev­

rounding the case. Duane claimed t.o have: �P.e:n a

ance against the Walton family stemming from a

UFO "almost identical to what they described, for a

dispute with Travis some years earlier, and he had no

period of about 30 minutes, in broad daylight, about

12

lht:

intentions of their occupants made him uneasy; so

They had just been to the site, they said, and had

specific evidence to support his charge, though he

years ago." He went on to assert, "Travis and I

was poking around the Bear Springs ranch where he

discussed this many, many times at great length....

suspected Tra vis was hiding. On one occasion he

We both said that we would immediately get as

brought a London television crew wi th him to the

directly under the object as was physically possi­

site, presumably so that it could film the live capture.

ble. . . . The opp ortunity would be too great to pass up, and at any cost, except death, we were to make

Flake was not the only officer hoping to crack the case

contact with them. . . . [Travis] performed just as we

by breaking down one of the supposed conspirators,

said we would ... and he's receive::U Lhe benefits for

who so far were sticking resolutely to their story.

it." Not nearly so sure, Rogers said, "You hope he

Some officers marle repeated visits to K.elJ ett ' s house

has." Duane said he was sure his brother would be

to interrogate her at length. Finally one evening

548

Walton Abduction Case

High Strangeness Duane arrived from the sheriff's office at Holbrook,

to question #4. The test results were conclusive

where he had sat in on yet another inten.iew of the six

on Goulette, Smith, Peterson, Rogers, and

witnesses. His mother was crying as an oblivious

Pierce. The test results on Da1is were inconclusive.