Believers gather to talk UFOs, paranormal

Travis Walton, author of “Fire in the Sky,” tells his story of alien abduction Saturday evening at the Days Inn Conference Center during the first Midwest UFO Conference.

Walton’s book was the inspiration for a movie of the same name, and the 1975 encounter in the woods of northeastern Arizona still haunts him to this day.

By T.J. Greaney

In November 1975, Travis Walton and a group of loggers were riding home after a day of work in the mountains of northeastern Arizona when they saw a bright light in the sky. Walton left the comfort of the truck to set off on foot for a closer look.

“It was kind of an impulsive sort of thing,” said Walton, now 53. “One of the other guys said it looked like I was drawn towards it. Really, I was just curious and, I confess, I was kind of showing off to the crew.”

Walton said the hovering disc looked like it was formed by hot metal from a blast furnace, and it glowed with a golden hue. As he approached the craft, Walton said a long blue beam hit him in the upper body and threw him off his feet and back into the forest.

His fellow loggers, fearing for their lives, fled from the scene in the truck. “I don’t blame them at all,” he said.

Five days later, after an intensive manhunt and with Walton’s co-workers being held as suspects in his murder, he reappeared. Walton said he woke up in the forest with only vague recollections of what happened to him.

He knew he had been aboard the spacecraft, but he initially believed only several minutes had elapsed. Five days worth of beard growth and the time on his watch were the first indications that this wasn’t the case.

“I couldn’t make myself talk about what I remembered for awhile,” he said quietly during an interview, staring off into the distance.

Walton, whose story became the inspiration for the 1993 movie “Fire in the Sky,” has one the most famous claims of alien abduction ever reported.

He and about 150 other believers and paranormal investigators gathered at the Days Inn Conference Center for the first Midwest UFO Conference.

In an interview with the Tribune, Walton said he still is haunted and endures nightmares from what he can recall from his time aboard the spaceship.

He said he remembers seeing small, hairless aliens with huge heads and huge eyes staring at him as he lay on a gurney.

He also recalls seeing humans in blue uniforms.

“Just looking into those eyes was the main thing that my nightmares were about for months and months,” he said. “It seemed like they were looking into me. In a way that, just that feeling was the source of a lot of trauma.”

Reach T.J. Greaney at 573-815-1719 or e-mail tjgreaney@columbiatribune.com.