Travis Walton: Abducted by a UFO | Crimes Of…

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

Podcast: Scams, Money, & Murder
Episode: Travis Walton: Abducted by a UFO | Crimes Of…
Hosts: Sabrina Diana Roga & Corinne Vian
Date: December 26, 2025

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the infamous Travis Walton UFO abduction case—one of the best-known and most controversial alien abduction stories in history. Sabrina and Corinne, self-declared believers in aliens and passionate defenders of Travis Walton’s account, guide listeners through the events, the evolving investigation, theories of hoax and belief, and the cultural aftershocks that made Travis Walton’s story legendary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Would You Rather” Thought Experiment (02:07)

• The episode kicks off with a playful (yet thematically relevant) “Would You Rather” scenario:
  • Be abducted by aliens and never believed
  • Or fake an abduction and live with the secret forever
• Sabrina, with conviction:
  “I would much rather be abducted...I don’t need everyone. I—I just need to have the moment with the aliens.” (02:28)
• Corinne’s take:
  “The anxiety of trying to hold a secret for the rest of your life...That seems...that would eat me alive, right?” (02:40)

2. Setting the Stage: The Walton Incident (07:45)

• Timeline: November 5, 1975 in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Arizona.

  • Travis and his logging crew witness a glowing UFO.
  • Travis approaches, is struck by a beam, and vanishes for five days.
  • His friends—terrified—initially flee and then return; both Travis and the UFO are gone.

• Host Perspective:
  “Travis’s story has become one of the most well known and controversial alien abduction stories in history. ... Whether or not his story is true is hard to verify. I will say...we personally do believe that this is true.” (06:26–07:41)

3. The Abduction Narrative—Walton’s Experience (12:48, 61:25–67:22)

• Walton’s Account (Reconstructed):

  • Wakes in a blinding light, surrounded by humanoid beings with large eyes.
  • Recalls a “strange, sterile place,” feeling paralyzed and weightless (12:53).
  • UFO leaves; he is left on the road, confused, cold, calls for help (13:30).
  • Under hypnosis, later details: wakes on a metallic table, three beings with big eyes, no words spoken—possibly telepathic communication.
  • Sees a human on the ship (“oh my gosh, someone from NASA here to save me...”), but instead is forcibly subdued, given a mask, blacks out, then wakes up on the road again (66:15–67:22).

• Notable descriptive moment:
  “There was a bitter, metallic taste covering his tongue. His mouth was dry, and he was very thirsty. His muscles felt weak...As his vision became clearer, he could make out one single light source that is above his head…” (61:31)

4. Suspicion, Community Response, and the Investigation (16:40, 33:48–42:43)

• Immediate aftermath:
  • Walton’s family, known local UFO believers, react skeptically calm.
  • “...when told her son was missing, [Travis’s mother] just asked if they were sure he wasn’t dead.” (34:16)
  • Critics point to family behavior and prior beliefs as possible explanations for a hoax motive.
• Police and GSW (Ground Saucer Watch) skepticism:
  • A lack of physical evidence at the scene, no footprints or tire tracks, deepens suspicion (31:48–33:05).
  • Lie detector tests are administered; all of Travis’s friends pass, but doubts persist due to the unreliability of polygraphs (44:08–45:53).

5. The Media Circus—Skeptics, Supporters, and the Human Toll (47:54–53:49)

• Walton becomes the focus of national attention:
  • Press, UFO groups, and skeptics besiege Walton’s family.
  • “...the phones won’t stop ringing. Reporters, deputies, UFO people. Everyone wants something from Travis. Answers. Proof. A story.” (47:54)
  • Medical tests and hypnotherapy sessions are fraught with misunderstanding and suspicion, adding fuel to hoax theories.

6. Theories: Was It a Hoax or a True Abduction? (36:50, 38:35, 41:30, 68:56–73:08)

• Major Possibilities Presented:

  • Murder cover-up by coworkers.
  • Orchestrated hoax for fame or money.
  • Reaction to psychological trauma or medical accident.
  • Or, simply, a true extraterrestrial encounter.

• Critical quote:
  “The choice you make depends on what you believe. We here, Corinne and I, we believe in aliens and therefore we also believe in Travis. And you should too.” (73:59)

7. Lingering Mystery and Cultural Aftermath (69:48–71:27)

• Walton’s steadfastness:
  • Never changes his story.
  • “...Travis absolutely believes what happened to him is real and it is traumatizing to him...He is re experiencing the trauma every time he talks about it.” (69:37–69:48)
• Betrayals and regrets:
  • Mike Rogers, once Walton’s defender, recants his support in 2021, calling Travis a liar (73:08–73:41).

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• Sabrina on Walton’s sincerity:
  “I believe in aliens. I believe in Travis Walton and I believe he was abducted. Put it on a shirt. I’ll wear it very proudly.” (07:34)

• Hypnotherapy’s weird turn:
  “But when they arrived at Dr. Stewart’s office, his, like, plaque on the door states that he’s a hypnotherapist. So they’re confused. And Dr. Stewart…was like, ‘I’ve heard your story. I would love to hypnotize you. Come sit in my chair.’” (50:44–51:26)

• On the emotional toll:
  “Travis can’t sleep. He’s home again, but it doesn’t feel like home. His body is weak. His thoughts are foggy and scattered…” (47:54)

• The big, unsettling question:
  “This is not a story with clear distinctions between truth and lies…but in the decades after the abduction, some former believers have turned against Travis, which makes me so sad.” (72:15)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:07 – “Would You Rather” (abduction vs. lying)
• 07:45 – Setting the stage: the November 5 abduction
• 12:48 – Walton’s return and initial confusion
• 13:30 – The account: waking up on the road
• 20:04 – Description of the UFO encounter
• 31:48 – Police investigation, the “missing evidence”
• 44:08 – Polygraph tests for the six witnesses
• 61:25 – Walton’s detailed hypnosis recollections
• 67:22 – The “human” on the ship
• 68:56 – Conclusion of the investigation, cultural debate
• 69:48 – Walton’s persistent trauma and final reflections
• 73:08 – Mike Rogers’ about-face and episode wrap-up

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Takeaways

• This case embodies the heart of the “alien abduction” debate: Unexplained events, split public opinion, devoted family and friends, skeptic organizations, media sensation, and a protagonist who—after decades—has never wavered or retracted his story.
• Hosts Sabrina and Corinne’s perspective is clear throughout: They believe Travis and encourage listeners to do the same, but also leave space for doubt and mystery.
• Ultimate listener question: Do you believe Travis Walton, or is this story a long-running, perfectly executed hoax?

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A luminous, unsettling journey into one of UFO history’s most legendary mysteries. Beam yourself up for a listen.

Transcript

[Vanessa Richardson]

Hi Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson looking for another Crime House original podcast to add to your rotation. You will love Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaylin Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kaelyn dig into the world's most notorious crimes, clue by clue. From serial killers to shocking murders. They follow the trail of clues, break down the evidence and debate the theories. It's like hanging out with your smart and true crime obsessed friends. Listen to clues on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the fifth day of Crimesmas, we look back 50 years on this day when 22 year old Travis Walton was struck by a blinding light in the Arizona forest and vanished without a trace. Five days later he returned with a story that defied belief. He in this episode join Crimes of with Sabrina Diana Roga and Corinne Vien as they uncover the truth behind this alien abduction case that made headlines and still haunts UFO history. Here's the episode now. For more, follow Crimes of on your podcast app.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

This his crime house.

[Corinne Vian]

Sabrina, are you ready for another game of Would you rather? Absolutely.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Especially because today's episode is taking us away from haunted houses and ghosts into space. Your favorite, my absolute favorite. I want to live there.

[Corinne Vian]

Blast her off into space. Say bye. Bye Sabrina. She'll be the happiest person ever.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's right. This week we're talking all about my favorite aliens. And today we're covering the story of Travis Walton who claimed that in 1975 he was abducted by a UFO. Before we get into the juicy deets, we are going to pick two moments from the story and see which one you think is the lesser of two evils.

[Corinne Vian]

Okay, Sabrina, here are your two choices. And all of you too. Would you rather really be abducted by aliens but you live in this world where like no one will ever believe you? Or would you rather fake an alien abduction but you have to hide that secret for decades or the rest of your life?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I would much rather be abducted. Easy. This is the easiest one I've ever had to answer and have no one believe me because I don't need everyone. I. I just need to have the moment with the aliens. Yeah, that's all I want.

[Corinne Vian]

And also the anxiety of trying to hold a secret for the rest of your life. True to like trying to figure out vacant abduction and then cover it up forever. That seems that would eat me alive, right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Why lie? Doesn't sound fun.

[Corinne Vian]

No. And if you. So long as you believe in yourself, that's all that matters.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Also, I know that if I was abducted by an alien and I told you you would believe me.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, I would 100% believe you. Yeah. And then if the aliens weren't nice to you, guess who's getting beamed up and is gonna start some shit? Me with my boy Bigfoot. We're going to.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Okay, so either option can be pretty isolating, especially in the context of this case. As we get into the story of Travis Walton's alien abduction, you might grapple with these two narratives as well. Was it real or was it all a hoax? Those are the questions. According to Travis, the alien abduction was very, very real. We believe it, but not everyone does. Some people think that Travis is full of it. We have our own opinions, which we will get into, but we believe Travis.

[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Visit blueapron.com terms for more. Welcome to Crimes of the Paranormal, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Where are your hosts, Sabrina deannaroga and Corinne Vian?

[Corinne Vian]

Every Tuesday we are exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season we're diving into cases where the evidence doesn't end at blood stains and fingerprints, but it drifts into the unexplainable, into the unknown.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

If you're loving crimes of please follow rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts for ad free early access. And if you can't get enough true crime, go search and follow Crime House daily. Our team's twice a day show bringing you breaking cases, updates and unbelievable stories from the world of crime that are happening right now.

[Corinne Vian]

Today we're talking about Travis Walton, a man who vanished in 1975 and later claimed that he had been taken aboard a ufo, abducted by aliens. Was this a genuine alien abduction or one of the most elaborate hoaxes in UFO history? Well, let's talk about it. A warning before we begin. This episode contains descriptions of abduction.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

This story is a bit different than the other ones we've covered on the show, which I'm very excited about because unlike a lot of the more grisly stories we've talked about, the case of Travis Walton doesn't involve any death or murder. Woohoo. Yay. In a way, nobody was harmed, at least physically. This case does come with what I imagine was and still is a lot of psychological trauma, especially for those involved.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But depending on who you talk to, Travis Walton is either a pillar of a fringe community or its biggest grifter. Travis's story has become one of the most well known and controversial alien abduction stories in history. And it even inspired the 1993 film Fire in the Sky. But whether or not his story is true is hard to verify. I will say, as we have said already, we personally do believe that this is true. And while we're here to state the facts, I'm not a journalist, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now, I'm not going to be unbiased, I am going to be biased this entire episode and will believe Travis. Yeah. Because he's the victim in this story and we see that he shows us.

[Corinne Vian]

What happened to him.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. I believe in aliens. I believe in Travis Walton and I believe he was abducted. Put it on a shirt. I'll wear it very proudly.

[Corinne Vian]

Bumper cigarettes.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Okay, Tantrum over. Why don't you set the stage for us, Corinne?

[Corinne Vian]

Okay. On November 5, 1975, Travis Walton and some friends were driving through the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest near Huber, Arizona. After a long day of work in a logging crew. On their way home, they were startled to see a bright light floating in the sky. It was a UFO projecting a beam of light onto the ground. And despite their friends warnings, 22 year old Travis approached this light. They watched as Travis was struck by the light and then thrown some distance away. And they're terrified. And the friends fled. They eventually told the police about the event, claiming that a UFO had taken Travis in front of their very eyes. And police and officials searched for Travis for five days with nothing to show for it. But shortly after midnight on the fifth day, Travis returned. And just like his friend said, Travis claimed that he had been abducted by aliens.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

There is so much to this case. It is one that I have wanted to cover for so long, One, because I'm obsessed with aliens. But two, because it really is one of the most infamous cases.

[Corinne Vian]

He's done interviews like, he's willingly speaking on this. And so you also get the opportunity to see him recall the things that happened to him. And you kind of get to, like, think saying it, but, like, you get to, like, judge based on his behavior and the way he's presenting, whether you believe him or not. But sometimes we don't get that, like, people are either hidden away and won't ever talk about it or the way that they're talking about it feels so outlandish that they just immediately get deemed a hoaxer.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, then also with alien cases in general, like, the stereotype or the belief is that a lot of people lose time, they lose memory. They know that they lost time and that something strange happened, but they don't have memory of what actually happened. Whereas this is one of those instances.

[Corinne Vian]

Where the men in black didn't get him. His mind wasn't wiped.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Or if some of his mind is wiped, he does have some memory. And what he does remember is wild.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, it's not like Kate McKinnon's experience aboard a UFO.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Aliens or no aliens, but definitely aliens. Travis Walton's story is fascinating to say the least. Despite Travis Walton's insistence and never changing story, by the way, people are divided. And given that aliens and the existence of aliens or presence of aliens is a hot topic, it is one filled with lots of controversy, lots of political conspiracies and real hoaxes. It is difficult to verify what happened to Travis. We can't call up my BFF alien. Be like, hey, buddy, tell me your side of the story.

[Corinne Vian]

Did you take Travis? What was he like?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. And it's hard to know what actually happened to him during that week, that five days and six hours that he disappeared.

[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Vanessa Richardson]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

Rough, hard.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Asphalt, maybe, he can't tell. Above him, he sees that same light. But now it's shrinking, moving away, disappearing higher and higher into the dark sky. And that's when his mind is flooded with memories. Flashes. The walls of the craft, the dull hum vibrating through his bones. And those ominous beings. But as he tries to remember what they'd done to him, the UFO careens away into the night sky, leaving him in the dark, alone, under the stars. He realizes he's outside, lying in the middle of the road. He tries to prop himself up, but his body feels like it's been hit by a truck. How long was he gone Minutes, Hours. Eventually, Travis regains his strength. He stands, and he begins to hobble down the road when he sees the yellow glow of a gas station sign. He picks up the pace, beelining to a row of payphones. And shakily, he punches in the phone number of his brother in law, Grant. Travis prays that Grant is still awake. It rings and rings. Travis's hands shake uncontrollably. Then finally, Grant answers. His voice groggy and confused, crying into the receiver, he tells his brother in law, they brought me back. Please, somebody come get me. When he's finally reunited with his family, Travis is disoriented, convinced he's only been gone for a few hours. But the truth is, Travis has been missing for five days.

[Corinne Vian]

In the hours following that call, it was just a whirlwind, both for Travis, but also for his family, trying to figure out, like, what exactly happened to him. He had just been missing for five days, and in those five days, his family had begun to be convinced that he had been murdered.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. So there's this weird mix of relief, Travis is alive, but then they're like, what the heck happened to you, though?

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. And poor Travis, he's also super confused. He's disoriented. He's trying to grapple with the truth of what happened to him because it feels impossible. I'm, like, trying to picture myself just, like, laying there in a field watching a spacecraft just, like, take off above me, and me being like, wait, what? That is so confusing. You start to question, like, are you losing your mind? Did you hit your head and you have a traumatic brain injury, like, what's going on? So as he's regaining his sense of surroundings, he starts talking to his family about what he'd seen when he was gone. He talked about the spaceship full of creatures. They had unsettling large eyes and abnormal gray skin. And in short, he basically was like, I think I was abducted by aliens. Which actually backed up the claims of Travis's friends who fled the night of his abduction, also saying that he was abducted by aliens. Right. And despite the numerous people who at the time and even today don't believe that Travis was abducted, his family actually did believe him, which I love.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And I think that's, if anything, taking away from this story. Like, I'm glad that Travis has a good support system around him.

[Corinne Vian]

But then I guess, like, on the side of the non believers, it doesn't help that Travis's family, they were really big believers in UFOs and aliens. So it's also like well, was that part of like the groundwork and psyche of Travis? Like, is this hoax perpetuated by all of his friends and family? Sure. And so then when Travis told them about his experience, they were like, great, we're glad you're back. We understand you were abducted and we totally believe you.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, I love that they believed him. And I mean, also, let's look at the landscape here. So Heber, Arizona. It's Arizona. We've got the desert landscapes. It's a UFO hotspot. It's Sedona. Is there superstition? Mountains are there not far from Area 51. And people in this area are not strangers to UFO sightings either.

[Corinne Vian]

No. Half the gas stations have like a little hokey alien statue to take a picture with.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly. And even local police had experience or at least knowledge of alien and UFO sightings in this area. So the idea that someone could have been taken by aliens or by a UFO wasn't fully out of the realm of the possibility. And the more Travis spoke about his abduction, the more press it generated. Soon, newspapers were breathlessly covering the tale of the Arizona man who claimed he had been beamed up by a UFO. So since 1975, since Travis returned, this has turned into an extremely polarizing story.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. And whether you believe Travis or not, well, that is up to you. But for this episode, how do we feel to understand his story and to understand the conspiracies behind it, we are going to go back to the very beginning, to November 5, 1975, when the abduction supposedly took place. The day passed by like any other for Travis. He was a forestry worker, and for the last few months, he'd been thinning out trees in the Apache six Greaves National Forest. For hours. Travis worked away that day, sawing enormous logs into planks that would later be burned in the wet season. There were seven men in total on this crew, including Travis's friend and future brother in law, a guy named Mike Rogers. The group often carpooled together, spending the long drives talking about their interests and their hobbies. And according to Mike, this is how things went on the evening of November 5, 1975. So, so far, nothing out of place, just like a normal day, nor conversation. Normal group gathering for these guys. So after a long day of work in the woods, the seven men loaded up into Mike's pickup truck to head home. The sun had already set and the truck's headlights were the only thing illuminating the road for a while. The truck wove through the two lane road in the dark as the group just chatted about their plans for the evening. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, a blinding light is shooting through the trees. And the men cannot figure out where this thing is coming from.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No. And they're all really confused by it. And they're like, is that the moon? But then they can see the moon somewhere else in the night sky.

[Corinne Vian]

A new street lamp someone put in today.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. They're very confused by it, but they're trying to think rationally.

[Corinne Vian]

But they know their mind wouldn't immediately go to ufo.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No, not immediately.

[Corinne Vian]

Unless you're us.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Sure.

[Corinne Vian]

So naturally, they're all very curious and they want to know what this thing is. So they keep driving closer to this light to get a better look at.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It, which we would do. I think I would be like, let's go. Follow this line.

[Corinne Vian]

What is that? Yeah. Is the moon coming up, like, so bright and huge through the tree line? So up ahead, there's a small clearing amongst the trees. And from what they could tell, it seems like this clearing is where the light was coming from. So Mike gunned the engine, picking up speed so that they could reach the clearing as quickly as possible before this light disappears so they could figure out what it was.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

And finally, in the thicket of evergreens, as it parted, they saw something unbelievable.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Hovering about 90ft off the ground was a shining golden spacecraft. It was small, no more than 20ft in diameter. And this ship emitted an eerie glow, casting the surrounding trees in a golden hue. So now they're looking at this, and they're like, oh, that's where the bright light is coming from. Definitely not the moon. Definitely not a street light.

[Corinne Vian]

Is that a ufo? An unidentified flying object. Flying object.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So Mike slams on the brakes, stops the car on the side of the road, and for a few minutes, like, this whole group of guys is just staring at this thing with nothing to say. They're like, is this real?

[Corinne Vian]

But then if it's not moving too, it doesn't seem threatening. Right. Like, I would imagine myself parking and being like, what is going on?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right, Right. Parking and staring at it. But all of a sudden, Travis throws open the passenger door and jumps out of the truck. And Mike is recalling this, and he's saying it's almost like Travis was possessed. And so these men are watching Travis, their friend, approach this ominous ufo, and they're, like, yelling at him because they can tell that he's going to walk up to it, right? They're yelling at him. They're warning him, like, come back. Come back. He is not listening. And as Travis Would later tell it. He walked straight into the clearing toward the strange light. And he said that as he approached it, this floating spacecraft started to whir louder and louder, as if it could sense him coming.

[Corinne Vian]

And then a beam of light just shot out of the craft and onto Travis. I would be shrieking if I were in the car witnessing that.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And I think they were.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. It was so bright, the men in the truck had to shield their eyes. And the noise from the ship was now deafeningly loud. As their eyes adjusted to the light, Travis's friends saw him being lifted from the ground. His body was limp and motionless. So whatever this beam was, it, like, basically knocked him out. So he's just like a limp body there. Yeah, being brought up off the ground. He's floating 20ft in the air, and then suddenly he falls. The light drops him, and Travis's body is laying there unmoving, unconscious. His friends are now convinced and terrified that he probably, like, died from this fall or from being struck by this beam. And so they're shitting themselves, and they hightail it out of there. They drive away. They leave him in the clearing, which.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I'm sure you're like, what the helly? Why did he do that? Why would. What the heli. Why would you abandon your friend? But also, keep in mind, you're terrified there's this ufo, which is not something you see in everyday life.

[Corinne Vian]

No.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That just maybe killed your friend. I think they're all like, oh, my God, are we next? So they're in traffic.

[Corinne Vian]

The truck is not gonna protect them.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly.

[Corinne Vian]

They just witnessed something so otherworldly that they can't explain. And it does look like, in an instant, it was able to kill her friend.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So they chose flight. They storm out of there. Mike slams on the gas, guns the pickup truck down the road as quickly as it would go, leaving Travis behind. And as they're speeding away, the men in the truck are in a full panic, trying to understand what the hell just happened and if their friend Travis really was dead.

[Corinne Vian]

And what was that object floating in the sky?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Had all of them truly just seen a ufo? All these questions felt impossible to answer. But the further away they drove, the more the men started to calm down. And whatever had happened back there, they could just agree it was very, very bad. Whatever it was, was bad. And the more they were able to calm down, the more they realized that they should not have fled. Or maybe they should have. But now they need to go back and find Travis, their friend.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So Mike swings the truck back around and they head back toward the clearing. Truly, only 15 minutes, as they said, had passed since they first fled. But when they get back to the clearing, there's no sign of a UFO and there is no sign of Travis. They are both gone.

[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story.

[Corinne Vian]

Until now.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

People assume that I'm like this pervert.

[Corinne Vian]

My name is Natalie Robomed and in my new podcast I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member and what she thinks of it all. Now. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I mean, I don't even know how.

[Corinne Vian]

To answer that question.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

The forest is completely still as the men stare in disbelief. The only sound is that of their ragged breathing. They're staring at the spot where their friend Travis had just been standing, where mere minutes ago a light hit him and threw him backward. Where is he? Where is Travis? Where is the ufo? They call for him, yelling his name, searching tirelessly for him. But there is no sign of Travis. How could he just vanish? So panic settles in as the clock starts to tick. What do they do next? Some of the men want to keep searching. Others are convinced that they are still in danger. Finally, they agree they need to call for help. But there's no 911 system out here in rural Arizona, so they have to drive 10 miles to a payphone in the town of Heber, Arizona. Ken Peterson volunteers to make the call. But as the line begins to ring, a bubble forms in his throat. What is he supposed to even say? Then another voice picks up on the other end. Deputy Ellison of the Navajo County Sheriff's office. And Ken doesn't have any more time to think. He stammers out that one of their crew, Travis Walton, is missing. He might be hurt or dead. A short While later, around 7.40pm, nearly an hour after Travis was struck and went missing, Deputy Ellison arrives immediately. Ellison gets the feeling that this group is holding out on him. They know something, and for some reason, they aren't telling him. Some of the men look away, fidgeting, kicking at the dirt. But seeing the hesitation in his friends, Ken decides to speak up. He tells the deputy everything about the ufo, how Travis was taken away. And then the other men back up his story, insisting that, yes, all of that is true. The deputy stands patiently listening to all of it. He doesn't betray a single expression, which only makes the group of men more uneasy. They start talking over each other, trying to think of some detail that might convince Ellison that their story is the real deal. Because they know what they're saying. Sounds totally ridiculous. Finally, Ken looks nervously at Deputy Ellison and says, quote, you don't believe us, do you? There's a long, terrible pause while Ellison thinks it over. But then Deputy Ellison says he does believe them. In fact, he believes them so much that he needs to call for backup.

[Corinne Vian]

And this was so much more support than this group of men had hoped for, Right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

How terrifying.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, my gosh. Because I almost can't even imagine going through that.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right? Like, if you and I were together and I was abducted by aliens, you would be like, I need to help her. Because, yes, I can talk about wanting that all day. But in reality, if that happened, if you were truly taken. Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, sound the alarms. This is international news, right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But then what do you do?

[Corinne Vian]

I don't know. We. We, like, can barely get to space ourselves.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Like, exactly.

[Corinne Vian]

What's a human to do? So even they knew that an alien abduction would sound very bizarre to anyone who hadn't been there to see it. But sure enough, Deputy Ellison said that he believed them. He was willing to make some calls. And shortly after, the six forestry workers found themselves talking to the county sheriff himself. He had them recount the events of that night in great detail, leaving nothing unsaid. And incredibly, the county sheriff also believed this group.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Mm.

[Corinne Vian]

The sheriff could Tell that the group of men had been so seriously spooked by whatever had just happened out there in the field that this was definitely not a prank. This was the real deal.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. And it wasn't just that because the sheriff himself had personal and professional experience with UFO sightings. So he told the group that this was not the first time someone had called 911 about seeing a strange unidentified aircraft in this region. In fact, he himself had even seen a UFO once and it looked very similar to what this group of six men had described seeing.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So that made him believe them even more.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. And that's so incredibly reassuring to the group of friends of Travis's friends. But when the sheriff said that they needed to drive back up to the site of the disappearance, all six men are suddenly frozen. Because none of them want to go back up. They're super scared. Not after everything that they've just seen. Like the threat is still there.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Like what, what if it comes back the ship? That could kill them. But the cops were insistent that at least one of the witnesses needed to join them to help them begin their search. So after some convincing, Travis's brother in law, Mike Rogers agreed to join them.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I imagine like them playing rock paper scissors shoot to decide which one of them has to go.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh gosh.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Okay. So as the police cruiser pulls onto the gravel near the forest clearing, Mike feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. And walking through the grass, he couldn't help but continue to steal glances upward at the night sky, fearing that this aircraft, spacecraft, UFO is going to come back for him.

[Corinne Vian]

I just had a thought that like if that happens today, now that we have drones, like are there microphones? I've never used a drone. Like could there be like a little microphone or like tap so they can stay back. I'll FaceTime, stick me on the drone on FaceTime and then I'll.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I'll drive you there. Well, I also just my understanding and belief of aliens is that they are much more advanced beings than we are. So like, are any of them really safe anywhere?

[Corinne Vian]

No.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. So I imagine that they spend a lot of time paranoid, but. So Mike goes up with them and this is when things in the case do start to turn a little bit. Because when they survey the area, the supposed encounter abduction site, things stop adding up.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. Because there was no evidence of any living creature being in this entire area at all. So there were no footprints, animal, human or otherwise, which is so weird. Just like a completely untouched.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Section.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Which again going back to aliens being more advanced than us, I would believe that they would wipe the evidence because they don't want people finding it.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Or they have men in black come and sweep the dirt.

[Corinne Vian]

But this time a couple days have. Yeah. You would still think that there'd be some sort of evidence. Cause I was like, well, maybe it left some sort of like electric or like some sort of thing where like all the animals were steering clear. But that doesn't mean that prints and feces and things left behind from hours before shouldn't still be there.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, and also this group of six men had just been there an hour before, calling out for the friend Travis, looking for him. So their footprints should be there.

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Their car prints should be there.

[Corinne Vian]

That's exactly like they're a big heavy work truck.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

That definitely leaves a mark.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So I do understand from the police side of things why they would start to question it. Because they're like, okay, they brought us back to the site, but there's literally no evidence of anything that they said here.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So they're like, hmm, maybe there's something else happening here. But they're like, okay, let's continue to search, maybe we'll find something. But they do come back empty handed. So eventually the police had to call off the search. By the end, like, it's getting late, they can't find anything. And they couldn't find any clues to lead them to this missing man. So now by the end of the night on November 5, 1975, police are starting to worry that maybe there's a bigger crime here, one committed by man, not by alien. That perhaps something happened between these seven men. A fight, an accident, that Travis had been killed. And now these six living men were trying to cover it up.

[Corinne Vian]

Which is a good theory to have. Right. Like you want to cover all the bases. But there was also no evidence to back that theory up either. Right. So the investigation continued. And the following morning, the police returned to the site with around 50 people to begin scouring the surrounding woods looking for Travis or any evidence of Travis. Yep. And while the police resumed their search, there was another order of business to take care of telling Travis's family about his disappearance.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So according to the sheriff's report and multiple interviews, Mary Walton, who's Travis's mother, took the news really well. And this is a big factor that people who are pro hoax really lean on because they're like, Mary was just told her son is missing and she's super calm. Ellison even stated that Mary didn't seem upset. She Just asked if they were sure he wasn't dead. Which. Let's unpack that. Because, sure, it can be seen as a weird reaction.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. But I know in my mind I was just going through, like, did she ever have dreams as a young kid of, like, being abducted or something? And so she's like, oh, is it the same people who took me once? I love that.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's for you. Conspiracy. Tinfoil hat is on. I'm more like, what is a normal. What is a good reaction to being told your son is missing? Like, it sounds like asking, are you sure he wasn't murdered? Is this like, please tell me he's not murdered. Like, I'd rather him be missing because then there's hope to find him.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. And it's also like, okay, you're about. You're spinning this, what could feel like an outlandish tale to me. Like, what are you covering up? Like, is this a cover up from the police themselves, too? Like, I would also be really suspicious.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. So according to people, she acted very weird, irregular and calm when told her son was missing.

[Corinne Vian]

Which maybe, I mean, I feel like I kind of have those same reactions when things happen where I immediately go to, like, what's the action? Or, like, how can I plot.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

To uncover something or to, like, solve something.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. Like, I can't panic right now.

[Corinne Vian]

No, no. Yeah. There are some other reports that Travis's older brother, Duane Walton, also reacted a bit strangely. And as the case and investigation unfolded, both Duane and Mary Walton were very adamant in their belief that Travis had been abducted by aliens. So much so that they didn't participate in any search efforts, which definitely is weird. Claiming earthly searches were pointless.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I want to play devil's advocate, maybe this is a form of denial, but also it's really freaking weird. Even if you think he's abducted by aliens, wouldn't you want to go search for him?

[Corinne Vian]

Right. Or, like, any evidence of, like, how to get in contact with the aliens, which aliens took them?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I don't know. So by November 6, 1975, the police are shifting from confusion to suspicion. They interview the Walton family as well as the six men who were supposed witnesses or now maybe potential suspects, and they start to build some theories.

[Corinne Vian]

So first and foremost, Travis was murdered. And this theory is basically saying, like, the UFO and abduction story is starting to sound like a really big cover up. Right. And these men had murdered Travis. Maybe it was an accident. Travis was their friend. But the UFO story is made up. This is their cover up to explain why he's Missing.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

The men start to double down on their accounts. And Mike Rogers even tells officials that Travis loved aliens and spoke of them on occasion, even when saying, I wouldn't mind being abducted. Which sounds like someone I know, Sabrina.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So basically someone could murder me. And then basically like, no, she got abducted by aliens.

[Corinne Vian]

She finally fulfilled her wish.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

There's years and years, I'm so happy for her. Of evidence of me saying I want to get abducted.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. So a statement like this only made police believe that there was a cover up and that they were really now trying to sell the story of, like, it was aliens, it was a ufo.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now they start operating under this belief that this is a cover up of Travis's murder. But soon a new theory starts to unfold because naturally, man abducted by aliens in Arizona becomes quite the sensational story. And as the days passed, local newspapers start to pick up this story and quickly. It's gaining a lot of attention. A lot of other interested parties as well. And the family and these six witnesses are starting to get a lot of attention. Enough that it's planting little seeds of suspicion that these people are doing this for attention. And so investigators and journalists and people in the public are starting to worry that this was planned.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. And I feel like that's actually something that comes up with like almost every public UFO story where it's like the idea that this was for attention.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

It's the classic hoax. It's like, why are you doing this?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Attention. There's other ways to get attention.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. Starting only fans. On November 8, three days after Travis's disappearance, a local UFO interest group called Ground Saucer Watch interviewed Mike Rogers, which.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

We'Re going to call them GSW for this case.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, gsw. They. They interviewed Mike Rogers, Dwayne and Mary Walton about this abduction and none of them seemed concerned. They all believed that Travis was abducted by aliens and they're all sticking to this story. We both have brothers.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

What would your reaction be if Graham.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, I'd be terrified for him because if he was abducted by aliens, he would not want that. And I would go look like I would go looking for him. I would do everything I could to try to bring him back because my brother is an earthbound being. He wants to be grounded. What would you do?

[Corinne Vian]

I would definitely go looking for Christian.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. I'm not gonna say, but do think.

[Corinne Vian]

Christian would end up, like, assimilating very quickly. And will.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I feel like Christian would have the Kristen Wiig or not the Kristen wig. That sketch from snl. He would have the really pleasant experience. He'd come back and be like, those are my best friends.

[Corinne Vian]

He also, like, Christian, can't talk without smiling and laughing. So if that's something that aliens like, then he might be, like, very quick, instant friends. Like, deemed.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

He's the jester.

[Corinne Vian]

The Jester. Stay with us, Entertainment. They're like, christian's the show. But, yeah, no, I would definitely immediately be like, we got to do everything.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

You'd like.

[Corinne Vian]

Take out my walkie talkie or, like, the anything. All the radio frequencies, try to beam some messages up, do something.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

So, yeah, we'd be worried if our brothers weren't on the planet anymore, but his family thought that he wasn't, and maybe they weren't overly concerned. So Travis at this point could have been a million light years away on some alien planet having maybe some terrible experiences.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Or experiments done to him, or maybe he's something specified.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Maybe.

[Corinne Vian]

I hope he's dropped off at the Cat Planet.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Who knows?

[Corinne Vian]

The people close to Travis didn't really seem concerned at all. They all start to tell police that they knew Travis would come back with no harm done to him. Really putting a lot of trust into this extraterrestrial group that they don't even know which type of alien took him.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And we're speaking on this so much as alien experts. Yeah, as experts, but no, it's also so after the fact, like, we weren't there. We didn't get to sit with the family and really understand what they were experiencing. But they're talking about it as far as the narrative has been told, as if Travis just went down the street to grab a gallon of milk.

[Corinne Vian]

He'll be right back with his girlfriend. He'll be back because I'm sure he's having a good time.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. So how this is suspicious to the police, it's also suspicious to gsw.

[Corinne Vian]

GSW is the first group to outwardly question if Travis's abduction was a hoax. So this is literally a group dedicated to aliens and the belief in aliens.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

And they're like, ooh, we really don't know about these folks.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Which I do appreciate, because I feel like alien enthusiasts or anyone who likes the paranormal and the Cryptids get this bad rep where it's like, oh, they just believe everything.

[Corinne Vian]

But this is a meme from the History Channel of that one guy with spike hair going, aliens, Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But this group is like, we're gonna investigate all angles and come at this from a rational mindset and rule out all rational reason before saying, yes, this is an alien abduction, Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. They're looking for proof and evidence of it. So the cops were also, at this point, growing pretty wary of the alien abduction theory for the same reasons, because something definitely felt off. People were acting strangely. Just. Yeah, things were weird. It seemed like the only person who could shed a light on the situation was Travis himself. But he was nowhere to be found. He could be anywhere. He could be lost in the woods, he could be in an alien spacecraft, he could be in another galaxy. So until Travis came back unharmed, the cops were basically at a dead end. No one knew what happened or what to believe.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now, just after midnight on November 10, 1975, five days and some six hours or so after Travis was abducted, Travis Walton returns. It's wild.

[Corinne Vian]

It is. That's such a long time to be missing and come back.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. And Travis frantically calls his brother in law, Grant. And then news quickly spreads to the rest of the family. They're like, travis is back, Travis is back. Everyone's calling each other. I imagine it's like the phone lines are going crazy. And in the early hours of the morning, Duane Walton, Travis older brother, got the call. Duane wastes no time. He drives over to Grant's place and he meets with Travis to see how his little brother is doing after being gone for five days and six hours.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. Like thinking about if he wasn't taken care of, being without food, being without water, whatever sort of harm could have happened to him, being in the elements, whatever that might be, whether it be space or earthly woods.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, cause keep in mind, like when the six men had driven away, could Travis have gotten up and wandered away into the desert and he had a head injury or something from his fall.

[Corinne Vian]

He got confused.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly.

[Corinne Vian]

Because he fell 20ft. Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Travis could have been in really bad shape. And he was, he was a mess. He was completely disoriented. He's talking about aliens and spaceships. And so Dwayne takes Travis home, he tells him to rest. They didn't need to get into it tonight because Travis was in a bad state.

[Corinne Vian]

Meanwhile, Travis's friends were doing their best to convince police that he really had been abducted. So also on November 10, the same day Travis returned, the six men go to the police station to take lie detector tests. And if you follow true crime, you probably know that lie detector tests are not an exact science. And a lot of people say it's like just basically the most unreliable thing.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. Because they're ever testing for stress rather than like truth and lies. And if you're on the Spot. I would be stressed. You can beat.

[Corinne Vian]

Yes.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And my heart rate would be like, woohoo. Through the roof.

[Corinne Vian]

There's evidence of like, different.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

If my name is Sabrina and I'd.

[Corinne Vian]

Be like, I don't know and keeping there. I think there's like literally tests where like they have thumbtacks in people's shoes and if they like press down on it and create this other stimulus, how it can change their answer. Well, yeah, I did learn it doesn't work.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, I learned in the Americans, the show that if you clench your butthole really tight, that it is a way to pass the test.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, really? So do you just clench the whole time?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. Or only. Yeah, just clutch. If you're trying to pass a polygraph test, there's your answer.

[Corinne Vian]

But hopefully they don't really use that much anymore.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Okay. So this is happening because they're trying to figure out if these guys are lying. It's not the best way to test if this group of witnesses was lying, but this is what happened. And one by one, each of the men was asked about that fateful night. And they all told the same story, about the ufo, the bright light, and how Travis vanished into thin air. The person giving the test watched closely as each man spoke, waiting for the needle to jump across the paper indicating a lie. But as the minutes passed, that never happened. The needle never budged. Not once.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Because as it turned out, they were telling the truth.

[Corinne Vian]

But by the next day, a lot more people were suspicious of this story. Was it a hoax? Had all six witnesses and Travis's whole family been in on it? Is this why the family was so eerily unbothered by their loved one just going missing and being taken by aliens? And the question was like, did they fabricate this alien story? Was it for attention? Was it for fame? What was the right. What was the point?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's almost like Travis coming back made it feel like more of a hoax that everyone was in on because no one was looking for him. And he came back five days later and he's fine and has a tale.

[Corinne Vian]

To tell about aliens.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right?

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. And we've seen this in other obviously not alien related cases, but like there's some true crime cases that basically are the same formula, all elaborate hoaxes.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Travis can't sleep. He's home again, but it doesn't feel like home. His body is weak. His thoughts are foggy and scattered. He doesn't remember where he's been. There's pieces, a ceiling that glows, faces without expression, the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears. And the phones won't stop ringing. Reporters, deputies, UFO people. Everyone wants something from Travis. Answers. Proof. A story. His mother and brother try to protect protect him. But the house is surrounded by cars and cameras. When he looks in the mirror, Travis barely recognizes himself. He's lost weight, his beard's grown uneven, and there's a small mark on the inside of his elbow, like a needle puncture, but he doesn't know where it came from. He's told everyone what he remembers. And in the dark, when he's alone, it keeps coming back in flashes. Sterile white walls, a blinding light. Shapes moving around him. Panic. A hand reaching for his face. Then silence. He tells himself it couldn't have been real, that it must have been a dream or a shock or something his mind made up to fill in the blanks. But the fear feels real. The ache in his chest is real. He closes his eyes, begging for sleep to take him. But the phone rings again. He presses his palms to his temples, trying to steady his thoughts. He needs answers. Not from the reporters, not from police, from himself. Because somewhere out there, something happened to him, and he wants to know what.

[Corinne Vian]

Naturally, when Travis returned, everyone wanted answers, including Travis. He's also looking for answers, right? So Dwayne wanting to protect his brother and wanting to make sure that he was physically okay because he lost 10 pounds in five days when he was missing, even though he looked physically unharmed. Yeah, Travis was very much mentally struggling as well, so Dwayne had this sort of like, protective role. And when Travis got up to pee for the first time since returning, Duane instructed him to save his urine for testing. Yeah, smart.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Very smart.

[Corinne Vian]

Which is what Travis did And the morning after his return, William H. Spalding, a UFO researcher affiliated with Ground Saucer Watch, visited the house. And keep in mind, at this point, Dwayne was working with them while Travis was missing. So he thought he could trust this guy and trust this group. So with Spaulding, they came up with a plan. One that Duane insisted put Travis's medical health first. He wanted Travis to get a full medical examination. So Spaulding suggested that they actually need to refer out to his friend, Dr. Lester Stewart.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So here's where things get weird and where accounts really do start to vary, because now there are multiple POVs being shared. But according to Travis and Dwayne, they believe they're going to a medical doctor. Right. That's what Spalding told them. But when they arrived at Dr. Stewart's office, his, like, plaque on the door states that he's a hypnotherapist. So they're confused. And Dr. Stewart, when he opens the door, was like, who are you? And Spaulding hadn't told him they were coming. But he.

[Corinne Vian]

Which is so sketchy.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So sketchy. But Dr. Stewart is, like, also excited because he's like, I've heard your story. I actually. I would love to hypnotize you. Come sit in my chair.

[Corinne Vian]

How is that a full body examination?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's not. So Dwayne immediately goes protective. He's like, there's something fishy about this. I don't like it. I also, we wanted to do a medical examination. Travis is mentally struggling right now. He doesn't want to be hypnotized.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. So even a full body examination is probably going to be really rough for him to go through.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly. So Dwayne says, no. He tells Dr. Stewart, no, no, no. We're not doing hypnosis. We're going to get medically examined first. It's very sweet. In his book, Travis recalls how his older brother was basically his bodyguard and was so protective of him when he returned. So they leave Dr. Stewart's office without Travis undergoing any hypnosis. But this pisses Dr. Stewart off. And so Dr. Stewart starts to claim that Travis was shifty, and he starts spreading this story that Travis and Duane were hiding things and denied wanting to do hypnosis. And in his mind, it's because they're hiding something, which is ridiculous because they.

[Corinne Vian]

They didn't even know at the first place that they were going into a hypnotherapist office. So, like, I wouldn't do it either.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

They were being taken advantage of. And Spalding from GSW is like, ooh, this is my. This is my chance. Anyway.

[Corinne Vian]

Frustrating, yes. But the word of this strange experience quickly got back to William Spaulding and Ground Saucer Watch. So gsw, they already had their suspicions about the story. Remember, they were the first people to bring up the idea or the theory that this was actually just a hoax and everyone was lying. And this basically was just an extra piece that they took as confirmation of their uneasiness. So members of the group started talking to press, telling anyone who would listen that this case was a hoax.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now reporters who are already hounding Dwayne and Travis are berating them even more demanding to speak to Travis. They are barking horrible insults at everyone, calling them liars. Finally, on November 12, 1975, this is now two days after Travis has returned. Sheriff Gillespie visits the home to take an official statement from Travis and close the missing persons case. Because Travis is back, Gillespie promises that he will not share Travis's location with the media. So kind of behind the scenes, Dwayne is telling the press and people that Travis is getting medical attention elsewhere. And then he called the sheriff to say, hey, he's actually here, but I don't want people to know.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. He's being protective.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Being protective. And the sheriff agrees. He won't tell people. Travis answers all of the sheriff's questions. He insists that he was abducted. And before leaving, the sheriff turns to Travis and says one final thing. He warns him of the consequences that would happen to him if he were lying. Travis promises he isn't. Travis even promises he would take a polygraph test to prove that he's telling the truth. But Dwayne, being the protective brother, steps in and is like, no, no, no, he'll do it if the media is not alerted that he's doing it until after he's completed the polygraph test and after Travis is away from the sheriff's office. So basically, again, protecting him.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. So there's not like a mob of people outside.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly.

[Corinne Vian]

The next day, on November 13, after a sleepless night riddled with nightmares, Travis is finally medically examined. And this examination lasts hours. But his test came back completely normal.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vian]

The nurses saw the small mark on Travis's inner arm, that sort of like needle mark looking thing, and noted that it likely was from a needle. They estimated that the mark had been made no more than 48 hours earlier. So right around the time that Travis came back, they took Travis's blood, but again, nothing out of the normal scope of blood work. His blood work came back totally Normal. The mark on Travis arm was the only physical evidence of something having happened to him. And they said it looks like a needle.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

And without any proof of what had been injected, that was pretty much it. It was a dead end.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. So again, this could either back up that he was abducted but they didn't harm him, or that aliens, whatever they do, is undetectable by us as humans. Or it could also be evidence that maybe nothing happened to him and he was tucked away hiding somewhere for five.

[Corinne Vian]

Days and then poked himself. Poked himself.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, to feed into the hoax. That same day, November 13th, Paul Jenkins of the National Enquirer approached Travis and Duane and makes the proposal. The Inquirer was in association with the apro, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, which I will call the A P R O arpo. Well, no, it's apro.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, apro.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Apro. Confusing. And Paul Jenkins says that together with the Inquirer, with apro, and with Travis, they could do multiple things. One, they could provide scientific testing that would prove Travis's story of abduction. And two, this would serve as research for apro, and then the Enquirer could write a story. Everyone wins. Win, win, win. And they.

[Corinne Vian]

Which is just like, it's annoying that everyone wants something. It's all about, like, giving everyone what they want.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But at least this is a group that's finally being like, we want to help you tell your story properly and give you the medical testing and research that could help do so. Travis truly believed and hoped that an exclusive with the Inquirer would put the chaos to bed. Because he's sick and tired of being called a liar. He's sick and tired of reporters screaming at him outside his window. So he's hoping that he does this big report with the Inquirer with apro, and that he can get out of doing all the other hundreds of other interviews. Right. So they move to a nearby hotel in Scottsdale. It's a room that was paid for in full by the National Enquirer, which is a act that makes people who believe it's a hoax, like, they harp on it because they're like, oh, he just wanted money. And look, now he gets to say this fancy hotel. But it also makes sense because Travis is about to undergo a bunch of medical testing and he wants to be out of his house, like, where he's being harassed.

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So they arrived to the hotel, and Travis felt very tense. He was understandably so. He's tense from everything he experienced. And he also doesn't know these people very well, but he is introduced to Jim Lorenzen and Dr. Harder, two Apro Scientific consultants. Their first impression of Travis was that Travis seemed like a caged wildcat. He's that traumatized?

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

He doesn't trust anyone. He's, like, looking around, uneasy. Like, could the UFO come back for him?

[Corinne Vian]

That makes me so sad for him.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I know. Travis spent the Evening talking to Dr. Harder, who was trained in hypnotherapy, something that Travis was skeptical of. But the more they spoke, the more Travis felt at ease. And while no hypnosis was performed that night, Travis was becoming more warmed up to the idea, especially because Dr. Harder never pressured him, whereas Dr. Stewart was like, get in my chair.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. You have to do this.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Even though I didn't even know you were coming two seconds ago.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So as they head to bed that night, Travis is starting to feel a little bit more optimistic. But before they can really get into the testing with the Inquirer and Apro, there's something more pressing. They have to attend to the polygraph test.

[Corinne Vian]

On the morning of November 14, 1975, Travis and Duane head for the Department of Public Safety headquarters, where Sheriff Gillespie had arranged for the test to take place. Just as they were leaving for the appointment, the phone rang. It was a reporter who asked for an interview about the upcoming polygraph test. Gillespie had promised that he wasn't gonna share any information about the polygraph test with media. So clearly, someone broke their promise. Cause no one was supposed to know it was even happening or where it was happening until all of this was already done. So now, pissed off, Travis and Duane were like, well, they're breaking their end of the deal. So are we. So we're not going.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. Which I understand.

[Corinne Vian]

Like, why would. What incentive do you have now?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right?

[Corinne Vian]

It's like, you're gonna. Anything that happens, you're just gonna immediately feed it to the media or spin it in whatever way you want.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's how it feels in that moment. Yes, absolutely. They did later learn that Sheriff Gillespie actually did keep his promise, but that the reporters, these news outlets, were just so obsessed with this case that they started tailing people and they learned it on their own.

[Corinne Vian]

Or I feel like it could be just a tactic from a reporter, too, to just call and just say something random and take your best guess.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Either way, in the moment, it felt like promises had been broken.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. So they went back to the hotel where they told Apro and the Inquirer what happened. They seemed to all agree that due to Travis's mental state and stress, he Likely would have failed the test anyway, because polygraph tests measure stress levels more than lies. So maybe he would have failed everything he said. What's your name? Travis. Nope. Fail. So they decide to perform one amongst themselves. And sure enough, the polygraph indicated Travis was very stressed while recalling all the details of his abduction. And then that evening, Travis underwent his first session of hypnosis.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So that evening of November 14, 1975, Dr. Harder puts Travis under hypnosis. And it's observed by multiple doctors and the entire Enquirer crew. And this is what Travis recalled. On November 5, 1975, as the six other men watched Travis get beamed and thrown by a light, Travis was knocked unconscious. He regained consciousness inside a craft. He opened his eyes in a strange, bright room with metallic walls. There was a bitter, metallic taste covering his tongue. His mouth was dry, and he was very thirsty. His muscles felt weak. And as he's trying to get his bearings and understand where he was, his eyes were struggling to open. Like. It almost feels like he was, like, knocked unconscious. He was groggily waking up. Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

And even the metallic taste, I was just picturing, like, biting his own tongue when he falls, like, it's just like blood in his mouth.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. As his vision became clearer, he could make out one single light source that is above his head. So he's, like, laying down, Right? He looks down, and he sees his shirt and jacket are opened and pushed up to his shoulders and that there is a strange device curved across his body, like up into his armpits.

[Corinne Vian]

Hmm.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And so at first, his instinct is like, am I in a hospital somewhere?

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. I just keep thinking, like, would this still have happened to him if he hadn't run into the field or.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's hard to tell.

[Corinne Vian]

Now. I'm trying to picture myself from the alien's perspective where it's like he ran into the field. They were like, gosh, we have no choice but to abduct this guy now. And then someone else panics and is like, why are you abducting him? Presses a button, then he falls. And they're like, well, shit, now we have to fix him and save him. And. But I'm not the alien. I don't know how things went.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Always thinking of things from the alien's pov.

[Corinne Vian]

So then he sees something. He sees someone or multiple someones. And at first it's very blurry, and he's like, oh, these must be the doctors. But as his vision starts to get clearer, he realizes that before him is not a doctor. It is a creature of sorts, with big luminous brown eyes the size of quarters. And he frantically looks around and he sees that there's not one, not two, but three of these big saucer eyed beings. And Travis is now trying to defend himself. He's looking around and he grabs an object, trying to find his way out and like something to beat them up with or like threaten them with. Yeah. So he thrusts himself upwards from his laying state and this strange device that was around him pops off. It clatters onto the floor. He sees the door that he has to get to, but between him and the door are the three figures. And then this is where it becomes like a bit of a standoff. So the being stood mutely still. And they were a little under five feet in height. They had basic humanoid forms, so two legs, two arms, hands with five fingers each, a large bald head. But beyond the outline there were no human resemblances. Their thin bodies were covered with white marshmallowy looking flesh, grayed skin. They had on coverall type suits, orangish brown in color. And they had very small feet. They had no fingernails.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That detail, there's nothing creepy about that.

[Corinne Vian]

Like, yeah, a very ET phone home. No wrinkles and some oversized craniums, but very small jaws and very small lips.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

As he's taking all of this in, these beings reach out toward him and one of the strangest details he recalled is that these beings never spoke, not once. They never spoke to him, they never spoke to one another. There was no words expressed at all. Which makes Travis in recollection be like, were they communicating telepathically?

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now in the moment, Travis is gathering the courage to push past them when all of a sudden, without explanation, these three beings scurry out of the room. So he's alone in this room and he's like, what the heck do I do? He's looking around and he's again taking inventory of everything. He sees that the room is devoid of color. It contained only the light fixture, the table that he had previously been laying on, and this device that is now on the floor that had been on top of him before. He decides to leave the room because he has to get out. That was his instinct. So he goes out the door, the same door that these three beings have scurried out of. And he finds himself in a long hallway. He has to keep moving. So soon he finds himself in another room. And this room is massive. It is dark and it has two chair like objects with like a panel of buttons. As he steps inside, small little lights start to like, pop up and illuminate on the ceiling around him. And it dawned on him that these lights appeared like stars. It was almost as if he was in a planetarium. And he apparently tried to touch a bunch of buttons because he was like, well, maybe I can move the ship, like, get myself out, but in it kind of sounds like, to me that maybe this was like their control room. This is how they navigate space. And they were in space, and all.

[Corinne Vian]

Of a sudden he was looking through the sunroof kind of.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. Maybe they weren't. Oh, that's wild. That's so creepy to think.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

All of a sudden, Travis hears a noise, and he whips around to find something standing in the doorway.

[Corinne Vian]

Not just something, but someone, A human being.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

This is one of the most wild parts of the story.

[Corinne Vian]

I know. So there before him is this man. He's 6 foot 2. He has a helmet and a suit on. So Travis is like, oh, my gosh, someone from NASA here to save me from these aliens. So he ran to the man, exclaiming all these sorts of things, but mostly asking this guy for help. But unfortunately, this human, like, man was not there to help. Well, not really. The man forced Travis or guided him forcefully into another area where two men and two women stood around a table. All of them were wearing the same helmet. They put him in a chair, and then they restrained him. They then placed a plastic mask over his face, and Travis immediately blacked out after that. When he regained consciousness, he found himself laying on a road near Heber, Arizona. What he thought had only been a couple hours in this spacecraft was five days.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I mean, I have so many questions because I feel like there's always been this belief that maybe aliens and humans are kind of in on things together, that the government knows more than they are saying. And so, like, this account makes me think that, yeah, there are humans aboard the ship with the aliens or working together. But then I'm like, did they perform more tests on Travis over those five days, and he just doesn't remember it because he was unconscious? Or does time work differently?

[Corinne Vian]

Right. Because he very well could have just been in space. Maybe it was truly two hours.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But wherever they were, time, just during.

[Corinne Vian]

Those two hours, time moves differently. It's like interstellar.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And even Travis knows that this experience is strange and unusual and that people asking questions. It's fair because even he has those same questions. Like, right, it's hard to make sense of what happened to him, but.

[Corinne Vian]

And also how scary to not know if you were awake most of the time. And time just is different. Or if you were actually like subjected to things that you'll never truly remember for.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Five days.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Because if it is five days and he only remembers it as a couple of hours, that means there's five full.

[Corinne Vian]

Days and four hours that he doesn't account in time.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. So after the first few days, the story of Travis Walton grew to mythic proportions and people started jumping to conclusions. And over the years, a lot has unfolded regarding the case. But the police investigation all but dissolved, which makes sense because it was a missing persons case and he returned. The police don't really pursue UFOs.

[Corinne Vian]

Who are you going to arrest?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. They probably have other cases on their plate to deal with. Many reporters and factions like the GSW proclaimed that Travis was a liar, that all this was a hoax, that he, his six co workers and his family and friends were all in on it, that they planned it. They hid Travis away for five days and six hours, all to get attention. But Travis has never strayed from his story and even today. So Payne Lindsay interviewed him for high strange. And he even said that like Travis speaks about this with. You can tell he's anxious and kind of goes back to what you were saying, that this is one of those cases where you can see how he acts.

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And whether or not it's true, Travis absolutely believes what happened to him is real and it is traumatizing to him. He is re experiencing the trauma every time he talks about it.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. And also I feel like there's so many cases of alien abductions where someone gets abducted and then maybe five, 10, 20 years later, it happens again. And so I do wonder if he is scary.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Like, how much does he know about alien abductions? Has he sought out in his search for his own answers, other people's cases? And now he has the fears of knowing what happened to others or what could happen to him again. Or is this just like truly viscerally his body's response to remembering exactly what happened?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Probably a combination.

[Corinne Vian]

Can remember.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's probably a combination.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And I think that's probably what's the scariest part about alien abductions is like publicly, it's still such a debate. People are like, are aliens real? Like, there are all these people coming forward who are work at the military who are saying yes, they're real. But even with that, like outside of.

[Corinne Vian]

The US too, we look at many other countries and there are leaders and governments and people who are like, oh, 100%. There's something strange that we cannot explain. Right. It's alien to us. Is it from outer space? Is it from our own planet?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Is time linear? No.

[Corinne Vian]

Do we live in a simulation? Probably, but.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So I think that's the point.

[Corinne Vian]

Rosebud, semicolon, colon, Give me money.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

All the money. But I think that's probably what makes it even scarier, is that people are admitting it might be true, but we know nothing. So Travis wrote a tell all book titled Fire in the sky, the Walton Experience. It was written in 1978, which was later adapted into a movie also titled Fire in the sky, which came out in 1993. And to this day he continues appearing at UFO conventions. And this remains one of the most well known alien abduction cases.

[Corinne Vian]

Yes, and Travis Walton also has one of the most controversial alien abduction cases in the decades following his disappearance. Many people in the UFO community still debate whether or not Travis Walton really was abducted by aliens. And obviously we wish that there was more scientific evidence regarding this mysterious needle mark in Travis's arm. Or like any evidence to help Travis put prove what happened to him. But Travis's blood work was totally normal. Another bizarre piece of the story. Still, this has not stopped skeptics from questioning Travis's behavior. And also like his mom and his brother's behavior after his return and during his disappearance. People have wondered maybe if it was the work of drugs, if it was just some very convincing acting, if this all was one big fat hope.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, some people have also said maybe he like did get a head injury in that fall and woke up in a hospital, but was so disoriented and had a head injury that this is what his mind processed the experience as. But there's no record of him being at any hospital in the area. He literally came to in a freaking road in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So we believe he was abducted. Unfortunately, despite our belief, there's no real way to prove what happened one way or the other. This is not a story with clear distinctions between truth and lies. But in the decades after the abduction, some former believers have turned against Travis, which makes me so sad. Oh, that makes me so sad. Yeah. In fact, one person, Mike Rogers, who we talked about a lot, who back in 1975 really backed up the story recently came out.

[Corinne Vian]

Is that not just his brother in law? Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So then I'm like curious about the dynamics of their family and like what happened? Fighting. And then Mike is like, well, I'm now gonna say that I don't believe your story.

[Corinne Vian]

I don't know. Anyway, Mike had a weird midlife Crisis.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. In 2021, Mike posted on social media that he no longer wanted to be considered a witness to Travis Walton's abduction, which could also mean, well, that's just.

[Corinne Vian]

Maybe, like, stop bothering me. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't the one abducted. Like, leave me alone, Let me live my life.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But he did say he believed Travis to be a liar and called his former friend all kinds of names.

[Corinne Vian]

So they're probably not spending Christmas together.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. So unfortunately, we might never know.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. Well, the story of Travis Walton is still shrouded in so much mystery. And the only information we have is what Travis, his family and his friends have said over the years. And even that changes over time.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

In the end, there are two choices. One, you believe Travis and his brother that in 1975, Travis really was abducted by large eyed aliens, only to be returned to earth mostly physically unscathed. Or two, you believe that Travis was lying and that this was all an elaborate hoax to get famous in the UFO community. Which. Why would you do that? The choice you make depends on what you believe. We here, Corinne and I, we believe in aliens and therefore we also believe in Travis. And you should too.

[Corinne Vian]

Foreign. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts, Sabrina Diana Roga and Corinne Bien. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another crime sub, the paranormal. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at at Crime House. And don't forget to rate, review and follow Crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, your feedback truly does make a.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Difference and we love you all. Thank you so much for listening. And aliens. Beam me up.

[Corinne Vian]

They're real. Take me, but not me.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Bye, mommies.

[Vanessa Richardson]

For more episodes like this, follow Crimes of on your podcast app. I'll be back Monday with an episode about one of the biggest cases of the year. Happy holidays, Nebraska.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Get ready to feel the pride. Love Nebraska. Volleyball is back. January 2026, representing the entire state, featuring some of the best players in the world, including Nebraska's own Jordan Larson, Alexi Rodriguez and Jaylee Winters. Massive blocks, long rallies, and a statewide fan base that shows up loud. This is a season you don't want to miss. Tickets available now. Visit lovbnab.com iheart.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Looking for your next Crime House Listen, don't miss clues with Morgan Absher and Kaylin Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kaylin take you deep into the world of the most notorious crimes ever. Clue by clue. Clue. It's like hanging out with your smart, true crime obsessed friends. Listen to clues on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.