Discovery+’s latest Shock Doc installment, Alien Abduction: Travis Walton, is a thorough investigation of seven men who bore witness to a spacecraft of some sort. As a result, six men returned home traumatized and forever changed. Their workmate, and the seventh man, Travis Walton, did not return home until five days later.
“Remember, remember the fifth of November” is a familiar nursery rhyme line about the Gunpowder Plot, which took place on November 5 in 1605. But on November 5, 1975, a far stranger event occurred than renegade Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up Parliament. That November 5, 1975, those six loggers in northeast Arizona witnessed their crewmate Travis Walton’s abduction by what was described as a UFO.
The men drove off in a panic, then doubled back to try and save him, but Travis was gone. The Walton story became an international news item. Walton was gone for five days and six hours. In that period, the small town of Snowflake, Arizona, was awash in accusatory gossip and rumor that his logger crewmates had done him in.
In addition, this documentary will present shocking new evidence supporting the mens’ claims on discovery+. This doc on Walton reveals something extraordinary and powerful had happened in the spot where the craft hovered over the woods. Scientists analyzing carbon-dated tree rings and soil samples have found anomalies that should not be present.
The abduction of Travis Walton
Walton’s story began on an average workday in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The men—Allen Dalis, Dwayne Smith, Mike Rogers, Steve Pierce, Kenny Peterson, John Goulette, and Travis Walton—finished their long workday and jumped in the truck driven by Rogers, a good friend of Walton.
As they progressed down the road and over a rise, they noticed bright glowing lights as they made their way through the long wooded highway, only to suddenly encounter an enormous hovering UFO.
They stopped in disbelief as 22-year-old Travis Walton jumped out of the truck to investigate.
His crewmates were horrified when they witnessed a bolt of blue light flash from the alien ship that knocked Travis down. They fled in fear, only to return to try and save him. But, unfortunately, Travis was gone.
Fearing Travis’s death, the crewmates called the police when they returned. However, when a search of the area indicated no sign of Travis, puzzling questions arose. Did aliens truly abduct him, or was this an elaborate hoax concocted by his coworkers who might have accidentally killed or murdered Travis?
The six crewmen passed polygraph examinations, but the town was awash in rumors. Then the Walton story became an international media circus and caused even more problems for the men who witnessed the abduction.
Now the U.S. government has confirmed the existence of UFOs and worldwide interest, and more reports from credible sources indicate that it would be foolish to think that humanity and life on earth is a solo event in a universe with trillions of solar systems and planets.
Travis Walton and the men he was with all stuck by their accounting of what happened, and Walton spoke exclusively with Monsters & Critics about his experience.
Exclusive interview with Travis Walton
Monsters & Critics: I remember when this hit the news and your appearance on Larry King. My impressions of you were sincere, and I’m a natural skeptic. You lived in a small town, were from a small town, and worked with people from a small town. Did it hurt you—and I’m talking about you and the other six men—when you told your story and so many just refused to believe?
Travis Walton: Oh yes. It made life hard for every one of us. And I think to a large extent that their skepticism was based on fear, but there was also a campaign going by the so-called debunkers, putting out disinformation.
They called themselves debunkers as if they’re an authority off to the side, but it’s just another opinion from someone else. And they undercut themselves. The proof is that they were saying things that just are not true.
M&C: Do you feel vindicated? In 2021, New York Times reporter Julian Barnes published an article on UFOs and aliens. The U.S. government accumulated information on UFO encounters and had no explanation. Yet, in the last few years, there’s been so much revelation that the government has known all along of these inexplicable encounters. How do you feel about that?
Travis Walton: Well, I think that they made a wise move. The announcement was made late on a Friday, which they do with the news that they don’t want to get too much attention.
But I think they’re wise to acknowledge it. It’s not doing any good to ridicule people’s reporting or damage their credibility because it only hurts the government’s credibility.
Because there is just too much public perception that something is going on now, but I am not in favor of the government just throwing open the books and giving everything [information] to the public, and why?
The reason is our enemies would see it just as soon as the rest of Americans, and whatever technology they might have recovered ought to remain confidential for them.
M&C: I know that you remembered more through regressive hypnosis, but did you ever feel an evil intention?
Travis Walton: No. No, I didn’t. And, at the time, I was terrified, and Hollywood formed so much of my earlier influence from their [creative] take on [alien invasions and encounters] as invading monsters.
Still, as time went on, what it boiled down to, they were benevolent in terms of, well, I was actually returned, and you have to say something for that.
It might likely have been an attempt to revive me from something traumatic that happened accidentally [to me].
M&C: In the documentary that I watched and your book, they talk about Nordic aliens. Do you remember Nordic aliens and the little grey aliens?
Travis Walton: Yes. I don’t know whether that was some sort of illusion provided by them because it was the only thing that would allow me to cooperate with them, as I was combative and not going to cooperate at all.
And, if I had been injured [by the impact] and was in desperate need of medical assistance, they needed to get me back under [sedation].
The only thing I was going to trust was something more familiar. Now, these beings may have recruited real humans, or they may have created some substitute, but I’m not against the idea that there could be other superficially human-looking, alien species out there.
I think that it’s pretty likely that most of the species visiting us, and this is just my theory that they are similar in form, [with] two arms, two legs head on top, eyes in the front. I don’t believe that an octopus is going to appear. It’s just not going to happen. Or a giant cockroach. So I think that’s just kind of the way it shakes out.
M&C: Who would be at most risk or threatened if we accepted that another life exists in the universe, outside of human life. All roads lead back to governments and organized religions that have the most to lose by anyone learning about UFOs or the possibility of alien life. What’s your take on that?
Travis Walton: Well, I think they’re capable of adapting and expanding their concepts to accommodate the fact that the universe is one vast place, and it’s very narrowminded to say life occurred on one spot when there are trillions of planets in our galaxy.
And, some of these are older than our planet in terms of age. Now, some of them might not be advanced. Some of them are probably cave-dwelling aliens out there, but others are coming here could be advanced.
M&C: Do you fear any future alien exploration or encounters? Do you think that maybe they’re looking for a new planet to inhabit when they come here?
Travis Walton: No, I don’t, no. If that were the case, I think that it would’ve happened a long time ago.
We’d never know what hit us with that kind of technology. They could easily eliminate all the humans, and it would be something more devastating than COVID, but they could get rid of us without having to fire a shot.
So I don’t think that that’s the case, and I’ve been around for many years. And [they] haven’t made that kind of a move.
M&C: How did you feel when you learned that your coworkers were murder suspects, how did you process that, and how did they feel?
Travis Walton: Well, that was [scary] for them. They told me it was very traumatic, especially before I was returned.
Allen was afraid he would be the one hung with that [accusation], but then each thought they would be an accessory to something, and they had no way to prove what they were saying, other than they all volunteered to take the police lie detector test.
And since then, a lot of new physical evidence at the site has come to light.
M&C: How much weight did you lose in that five-day and six-hour period that you were in stasis on the alien craft?
Travis Walton: It was 10 pounds. And we carefully measured that on the scales that my brother put me on the minute he got me back.
And he brought those scales with us when we went to the doctor’s office the following morning. So the 10 pounds is accurate, and my scale was right on target with the doctor’s scales.
M&C: You had no water, no food, nothing. Your health issues, anything unusual?
Travis Walton: I was worried about medical issues coming up later. One of the men [I was with] developed skin cancer on his arm, which could be related to the exposure, but as it turned out, that never materialized.
As a matter of fact, it was the other way around. I’m usually healthy for years and years, I never called in sick one time, and I worked 12 hour days.
M&C: Maybe the alien encounter elongated your life for all the trouble they caused you?
Travis Walton: Just a little side act of repairing some accidental damage [they may have caused].
I got too close, and something fatal happened, and they made up for it.
Alien Abduction: Betty and Barney Hill and Alien Abduction: Travis Walton streams on February 18 on discovery+.