Travis Walton - Walton in The UFO

Walton in The UFO

In his survey of UFO abduction literature, Terry Matheson writes that "Walton's experience stands out by virtue of its not being particularly bizarre as far as abduction accounts go." (Matheson, 111-112)

Walton reported that after approaching the UFO near the work site, the last thing he remembered was being struck by the beam of light. When he woke, Walton said he was on a reclined bed. A bright light shone above him, and the air was heavy and wet. He was in pain, and had some trouble breathing, but his first thought was that he was in a normal hospital.

As his faculties returned, Walton says he realized he was surrounded by three figures, each wearing a sort of orange jumpsuit. The figures were not human. Walton described the beings as typical of the so-called Greys which feature in some abduction accounts: "shorter than five feet, and they had bald heads, no hair. Their heads were domed, very large. They looked like fetuses They had large eyes — enormous eyes — almost all brown, without much white in them. The creepiest thing about them were those eyes ... they just stared through me." Their ears, noses and mouths "seemed real small, maybe just because their eyes were so huge." (Clark, 646)

Walton related that he feared for his safety and got to his feet, and shouted at the creatures to stay away. He grabbed a glasslike cylinder from a nearby shelf and tried to break its tip to create a makeshift knife, but found the object unbreakable, so instead waved it at the creatures as a weapon. The trio of creatures left him in the room.

Matheson finds this portion of the narrative troublingly inconsistent, noting that "despite his 'weakened' condition, 'aching body' and 'splitting pain in his skull', maladies for which no cause is suggested, he has no trouble jumping up from his operating table, seizing a conveniently placed glasslike rod, and, assuming a karate 'fighting stance', frightened them with this display of macho aggression, enough at least to cause them to run away." (Matheson, 110)

Walton then left the "exam room" via a hallway, which led to a spherical room with only a high-backed chair placed in the center of the room. Though he was afraid there might be someone seated in the chair, Walton says he walked towards it. As he did, lights began to appear in the room. The chair was empty, so Walton says he sat in it. When he did, the room was filled with lights, similar to stars projected on a round planetarium ceiling.

The chair was equipped on the left arm with a single short thick lever with an oddly shaped molded handle atop some dark brown material. On the right arm, there was an illuminated, lime-green screen about five inches square with black lines intersected at all angles.

When Walton pushed the lever, he reported that the stars rotated around him slowly. When he released the lever, the stars remained at their new position. He decided to stop manipulating the lever, since he had no idea what it might do.

He left the chair, and the stars disappeared. Walton thought he had seen a rectangular outline on the rounded wall — perhaps a door — and went to look for it.

Just then, Walton heard a sound behind him. He turned, expecting more of the short, large eyed creatures, but was pleasantly surprised to see a tall human figure wearing blue coveralls with a glassy helmet. At the time, Walton said, he did not realize how odd the man's eyes were: larger than normal, and a bright gold color.

Walton says he then asked the man a number of questions, but the man only grinned and motioned for Walton to follow him. Walton also said that because of the man's helmet he might have been unable to hear him, so he followed the man down a hallway which led to a door and a steep ramp down to a large room Walton described as similar to an aircraft hangar. Walton says he realized he had just left a disc-shaped craft similar to the one he had seen in the forest just before he had been struck by the bluish light, but the craft was perhaps twice as large.

In the hangar-like room, Walton reported seeing other disc-shaped craft. The man led him to another room, containing three more humans — a woman and two men — resembling the helmeted man. These people did not wear helmets, so Walton says he began asking questions of them. They responded with the same dull grin, and led him by his arm to a small table.

Once he was seated on the table, Walton says he realized the woman held a device like an oxygen mask, which she placed on his face. Before he could fight back, Walton says he passed out.

When he woke again, Walton says he was outside the gas station in Heber, Arizona. One of the disc-shaped craft was hovering just above the highway. After a moment, the craft shot away, and Walton stumbled to the telephones and called his brother-in-law, Grant Neff. He thought that only a few hours had passed.

After hearing Walton's story, Gillespie speculated that Walton may have been hit on the head and drugged, then taken to a normal hospital where he had confused the details of a routine exam with something more spectacular. Walton dismissed this, noting that the medical examination had found no trace of head trauma or drugs in his system. Walton told Sheriff Gillespie that he was willing to take a polygraph, a truth serum, or undergo hypnosis to support his account. Gillespie said that a polygraph would suffice, and he promised to arrange one in secret to avoid the growing media circus.

Duane and Walton then drove to Scottsdale, Arizona, where a meeting with APRO consultant James A. Harder had been arranged. Harder hypnotized Walton, hoping to uncover more details of the missing five days. Clark writes that "Unlike many other abductees, however, Walton's conscious recall and unconscious 'memory' were the same, and he could account for only a maximum of two hours, and perhaps less, of his missing five days. Curiously ... Walton encountered an impenetrable mental block and expressed the view that he would 'die' if the regression continued." (Clark, 637)