Travis Walton incident
Alleged alien abduction, 1975 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Travis Walton incident was an alleged alien abduction of American forestry worker Travis Walton on November 5, 1975, while he was part of a logging crew in the Apache–Sitgreaves National Forests near Heber, Arizona.
On October 20, 1975, the NBC network aired The UFO Incident, a special made-for-TV movie about the alleged alien abduction of Barney and Betty Hill. The film depicted a motorist who walks into the woods toward an overhead light when he is illuminated by a beam of light. Within weeks of the broadcast, Walton was reported missing to law enforcement after having walked into the woods toward an overhead light where he was illuminated by a beam of light.
Police organized multiple search parties to look for the missing man. After five days and six hours, shortly after midnight on November 12, Walton called his sister from a payphone in Heber where he claimed to have re-appeared after the abduction.[1][2][3]
Within days, Walton sold his story to tabloid The National Enquirer, which published the account nationwide and awarded the crew a $5,000 prize. In 1978, Walton wrote a book about his purported abduction titled The Walton Experience, which was adapted into the 1993 film Fire in the Sky.[4] Walton's case received mainstream publicity and Walton remains a regular guest on TV shows and podcasts.
The Walton incident is widely regarded as a hoax, even by believers of UFOs and alien abductions.[5] They note that the Waltons were longtime UFO buffs and pranksters who had recently watched a TV movie about a supposed alien abduction. They suggest one motive for the hoax was to provide an "Act of God" that would allow the logging crew to avoid a steep financial penalty from the Forestry Service for failing to complete their contract by the deadline.[6][7][8][9][10]