Travis Walton - The Empire Strikes Back!

As we have seen in the past few postings, the 45-year old "UFO abduction" story of Travis Walton ("Fire in the Sky") is suddenly under scrutiny as never before. On Friday, July 23 producer Ryan Gordon once again appeared on Erica Lukes' program UFO Classified. He had almost four hours for himself, unlike the two hours he had the previous week, when he followed Mike Rogers, the woodcutters' crew chief. Gordon went over much of the same material as he did the previous week, but with better organization, more time, and more detail. Host Erica Lukes, and guest Barry Greenwood, seemed very impressed. It was difficult to argue with what Gordon was saying (which is why Walton's defenders typically misrepresent what he said).

This poses a serious problem for what one might call Retail UFOlogy, those who derive their income from TV programs, lectures, conferences and workshops, etc. If a skeptic picks off a modest UFO case here and there, it does them no serious harm - even they admit that there are many phonies out there, but you can rest assured that anything these experts put forward as genuine absolutely is! 😏 But the powerful assault on Travis Walton's classic tale, which won surprisingly strong support very quickly, is sending shock waves throughout UFOlogy - so much so that the 'Pentagon UFO report' that dominated the news for many months is scarcely even being mentioned. Something must be done to save Travis Walton!

The Empire Strikes Back

Five of UFOOLogy's major players gather to defend the Travis Walton yarn.
Peter Robbins on KGRA Broadcasting

 

The first major blow from the UFO Empire striking back came on the Webcast "Meanwhile Here on Earth", hosted by Peter Robbins on July 26. Robbins was a close associate of the late UFO abductionist Budd Hopkins, and was affiliated with Hopkins' Intruders Foundation, promoting the idea that 'UFO abductions' are real, and in fact rather common. The subject of that show was "The Travis Walton Contorversy" (!!), and it contained a hodgepodge of misinformation.

Robbins, who has long had an association with Walton, began by saying that he had never before done a show with "an adversarial content," but circumstances dictated this. He compared the attack on Travis to the assassination of JFK, or John Lennon. Worse yet, he said that an attack is waiting in the wings to bring down Betty and Barney Hill! Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Robbins claimed that all seven of the woodcutters were lifelong friends, and grew up together in Snowflake, AZ. Nope! Only Travis and Mike fit that description: the other guys grew up elsewhere, and they hardly knew each other.

Kathleen Marden, neice of the late Betty Hill, who uses hypnosis to uncover UFO abductions, is very upset about all this. So is Denise Stoner, who was abducted along with her family in 1982 in the area of South Park, Colorado (the very place where the aliens gave Cartman an anal probe in Episode 1 of Series 1 of that famous show. Aliens must love South Park.). She and Marden are collaborators in UFO abduction research, and have written a book together, The Alien Abduction Files. 

Charlie Wiser and her NSA handler.

James E. Clarkson is a UFOlogist with a background in police investigations. He is an expert in UFO crashes, and we're not talking about just Roswell, or Kecksburg. There are several other UFO crashes that the government is covering up, and Clarkson can tell you about those.  He talked about Charlie Wiser, the pseudonomyous Australian woman whose website ThreeDollarKit.com, contains a detailed debunking of the Walton story, as well as that of Barney and Betty Hill (hence their obvious worries about defending that story next). Clarkson said that Charlie might be a "cover story" for some sinister government agency. She might be a "unit" in the NSA. Clarkson claimed that when Travis returned, his mental and physical condition was so deteriorated that he was in the hospital for five days. Wrong! As Charlie later noted on Twitter, "Travis was at bro’s house in Phoenix. By day 3 he was in a hotel paid for by the Enquirer. By day 4 he was failing their polygraph."

 Jennifer W. Stein is the producer and director of the documentary film Travis, about you-know-who, so you'd think she would know the story well. However, she was a font of misinformation. She claimed that the loggers were not driving on Rim Road where the tower is, despite abundant testimony that they were. She said that all six woodcutters saw the UFO disappear. Comments from viewers would sometimes appear on-screen, and Charlie Wiser managed to get a single comment through - that according to Travis' book, only Mike saw the object disappear - before she was blocked. Can't have anyone bringing up inconvenient facts!

Everybody joined in to attack the mental state of Mike Rogers, the former crew chief who has of late had some seious disagreements with Travis. Mike is claiming on his Facebook page that Travis owes him tens of thousands of dollars because of agreements they had, but Travis won't pay him a dime. Mike is mentally ill, they all agreed, and it's unethical for people to take advantage of him (i.e., repeat what he says about Travis).

After the show, Charlie Wiser precipitated a Twitter storm (some have called it a "typhoon"), pointing out errors in what these "experts" said. She concludes with,

Peter is infuriated with Charlie Wiser.
Oh, that’s me.
Peter, instead of fretting about who I am, deal with the evidence.
Also, don’t trample on strawmen. They have pain receptors because quantum physics and also it’s a sucky way to argue.
I know I'm snarky. This case makes me angry. A stupid hoax spun out of control and the perpetrators did not come clean. This moral failure ruined innocent lives.
You like Travis, therefore his story is true?
“Use your critical thinking.” - Peter Robbins.
THE END

Then immediately following Robbins' show, Jimmy Church hosted Travis Walton for three hours on his show "Fade to Black". Church, who previously was a big promoter of the "Roswell Slides," began by thanking Peter Robbins, apparently for helping out the 'defend Travis' cause. As for the Travis trolls, he said, I'll block you immediately. Church instructed his call screener, "Anybody named Wiser, kick 'em out."

On the previous show, Jennifer Stein had said that the woodcutters all knew the area around the Gentry tower, and would not be fooled by it. But here Travis threw in an unexpected curve: “I’ve never been to that tower, never seen it - would not be normal for us to drive past Gentry ... it’s actually the first I’ve ever seen of what that tower looks like.” So much for that argument.

Charlie Wiser started another Twitter thread, to deal with the misinformation on  this show. 

Church: “Did anybody search for you near Gentry Tower? How far out did the search perimeter go?”

Travis: “Well I don’t know, but I’m sure it was as thorough as they thought it needed to be.”

Charlie:"Here, I’ll help:" And she produces a quote from the APRO Bulletin (November, 1975) saying that about 40-50 men searched a 2 1/2 mile radius. Which, centered on the false "abduction site", near Turkey Springs, does not extend as far as Gentry. 

One common point of confusion: When Rogers guided searchers to look for Travis, of course he took them to a bogus site, reportedly just 300 yards from the work site at Turkey Springs, instead of the actual site, the Gentry tower. This is where Travis and Mike tell people the incident occurred, so people don't go to the actual site, and become curious about the tower.

(The story continues.)