Reel Talk: Fire in the Sky

We're hello everyone, and welcome to Scary Stories. We tell we are your host, Chris and Emma, that's me. I hope so, I would hope so, and hey everybody. On this episode of Scary Stories, we tell we're gonna be talking about something that we haven't talked about before. We're gonna talking about a little movie though at the same time, because we're gonna be doing another one of these real talks where we talk about the movie, but we also talk about the events surrounding the movie, or the events in this case purported to take place in conjunction with the events that are being portrayed on screen.

On this episode, rayby talking the nineteen seventy five case of Travis Walton, which would then inspire the nineteen ninety three film aptly titled Fire in the Sky. So, Emma, before we talk about the Travis Walton case, which we also watched the movie Fire in the Sky together before we kind of looked into the case, you had never heard of this before? Yeah, no, I'm not, most definitely not. But because we haven't really talked about it a lot on the show, I figured this is a good way to open up the episode. Opening salvo as it were, How do you feel about the belief in extraterrestrials and sidebar if you have strong feelings on it, which I'm sure you may have some feelings, what where or what are those rooted in it?

Okay? My stance I think is similar to a lot of people in you know, the general scientific community, which is just it seems illogical that we're the only sentient beings that have created some form of a society in the vast universe. I feel like that's pretty safe to say, you know, it's the odds of us being the only ones out here is very, very low. I think it's more than possible that there could be intelligent life somewhere else, if not tons of intelligent life somewhere else. I don't feel comfortable saying one way or another, but I feel like it's pretty safe to assume that we are probably not alone.

And I think that a lot of people share that same sentiment. Pretty lukewarm take, if you ask me. I don't think it's lukewarm. I think it's a I think it's a take that most people would agree with. Not a very hot take.

I mean, what hot take can you offer in twenty twenty three eight. Let me break it down for you really fast, Like here's my thoughts on aliens that you haven't heard before. Like, well, that's the thing, like in a lot of ways, like it's old trodden ground. Like even if we talk about this case that you know, I know about and I brought to you and you had never heard of, Like the Travis Walton case is old trodden ground. I mean, they released a documentary on Discovery.

Plus I want to say either this year or last year, because it's pretty recent and I was one of the things I watched to prepare for this episode. But I mean, this case had a movie made out of it. Like how unknown is it? Really? Like it's probably unknown now more so than it used to be, only because again, like it's from the seventies, Like it's not it's not I mean, and again like I don't even know, like do you know about Roswell?

Like where how far does your alien knowledge go? Like what's your is it cursory? Like what are we? What are we thinking? Feeling like I've heard roswell thrown around, so you don't know what you you kind of our okay?

Interesting, this is an interesting kind of line, though, because this is what one of the directions that I bring to the show that is kind of a blind spot. That's interesting because like you brought stuff to the show that was a blind spot for me, like manifestations and taro and astrology. So like it's interesting because like this is this was the stuff I was into as a kid. Yeah, aliens and oh yeah more like aliens encrypted stuff like I was really into like big I mean I still am, Like Bigfoot is definitely I mean I have Bigfoot stuff, Like I have a giant Bigfoot like metal sculpture in my backyard that my parents bought for me for my birthday last year. The year before, I have I mean, Jess has bought me.

Jess, who's another host of this show has bought me Bigfoot stuff for my birthday before. Like I have a squatch and hat that a buddy of mine bought me for my birthday. Like Bigfoot is my jam. But if I were to say, there's a close second, for sure, it's aliens, Like no questions asked, Like aliens are something that has interested me since I was a kid, the point where I pestered my parents to go to Roswell. Really like we had to had to had to go there when we went to I think we went to Vegas when I was a kid, when I was like eight or nine, and I was like, we have to go to Roswell.

If we're going that way, can we go to Roswell? And then we went on like a like go out with someone and they're going to take you to where the saucers supposedly crashed and there was like a giant rock that was like cleaved into and he was like, this is where this? I mean, who knows? It was fucking real, Like it could have just been a fucking hookem bullshit like Blair witch right for the tourists. Yeah, like, oh, a bunch of fucking idiot tourists two hundred dollars, you know, for fucking four people to go out fifty dollars a person make two hundred dollars and show them a brock broken in half and they're oh, wow, So I don't it could be that, But I distinctly remember that as a kid, and like aliens for me were definitely there.

They were my jam and and a lot, like I said, in a lot of ways still are. So what is your stance on us being visited in history because I feel like that's the thing that people bring up a lot, you know when people talk about like origins of religion or you know, like who built the Pyramids, etc. Like I feel like that's come up a lot in at least a lot of like the documentaries and theories. What is your stance on aliens in human history? And I'm like, Ancient Aliens?

Yeah, great show. I mean, I don't know how I feel about the show. Have you ever seen the show? I'm sure you've seen it, right, Ancient Aliens. It's been on for like fifteen seasons on the History Channel.

It's insane. It's like I've probably caught glimpses of it, but I haven't turned on a TV and ages that's fair. I mean, it's literally just like, oh, we have an episode about the Pyramids, and here are some weird things about the Pyramids that maybe don't add up and have rights. It's all based off of a book written by Eric Vandanikin called Chariots of the Gods, where he threw some bad evidence and also evidence possibly presented by a Nazi or Airy and sympath the sympathizer of known after the fact Obviously Eric Vandanikin is not a Nazi. But again, people you work with don't necessarily not reflect you in a way.

But that book was kind of one of the early things that was positing maybe there was a extraterrestrial hand in the creation of things like religions like we've meant like you were mentioning, like pyramids, like big like quote wonders of the world, like created by extraterrestrial forces. Like the people who lived in darren coo you, which is an underground Turkish settlement. They were underground and the show posits that they were under crowd because the aliens were attacking them if they went outside. Look, I used, I don't know why people would live underground in Turkey versus living above ground. Maybe it was the aliens.

I don't know, because I can't go back in time and tell you, and nobody can. But that doesn't mean that there aren't you know, scientists who do their research and make pretty good suppositions about things. But you know, I think it's it's in an interesting spot where I think it's I think it's ridiculous to think we haven't been and Jess mentions this when we did our Haunted Hawaii episode where we talk about um pre and post colonization myths, because there's a colony. There's a like a cryptid in Hawaii that only showed up after the colonizers showed up. And so I wonder how many of our creation myths or other myths about creatures and gods are tied to people in ancient times being visited by aliens under the guise of gods quote unquote, like if Zeus is interacting with people, might have been just like an alien walking around because he could do things they couldn't understand.

Like, I don't know why that would be so hard to believe unless we're not assuming that the literal the literally interacting with the gods. And again they're maybe they're just having fanciful dialogues in romantic text, but it doesn't necessarily feel that way. It feels like they were communing with the gods in a more direct way than we do now, right right, Like, Dad, how do you feel about it? I guess I feel like they're obviously I don't know enough to say, like I think because of this reason, but like, are you saying my reasoning is somehow sound more sound than what I feel like that's fair. But I mean again, like, and anyone who is a quote scientist might look at what I said and say, well, let me tell you something.

So from when you say I believe in this stuff, you kind of lower yourself in people's eyes immediately, And that's a problem in and of itself, obviously, right. I think that it is definitely a possibility if at some point we can confirm that we have been visited in you know, you know, the past twenty thirty years. I don't see why it's impossible to say that we were visited a lot, you know, way further back. I something that was coming up all is doing some research. Is a lot of people assume, you know, that aliens evolved or could have evolved at like, in the same timeline that we have, and they just happen to be more advanced.

But if they're so much more advanced, it makes sense that they've been around a lot longer than we have. So I mean manocentric way of viewing things like and also the sun refalls around the earth, right well, and I view aliens in a very human lists like existence, like our existence is not dependent on theirs and vice versas, so to think like you know, like, oh, maybe maybe they were evolving at the same time, ass but like that's idiotic, Like there's millions of years on either side of us, Like and who knows the technology that they have, who knows if it's even our dimension? Like again, there's a question of dimensionality to this, our aliens actually of our dimension or are they just traveling as opposed to through space through time?

Like how is that any less valid of and of reasoning? Like of course, literally, when you bring this stuff up, anything is possible. It's it's the same way that when you know, ghosts are brought up, we don't know anything, So anything could be possible. A lot of it is conjecture and circumstantial evidence, and because of that we can come to just about any conclusion. So I think with anything in the occult realm, you know, it's very easy to say, well, you know, this could have happened, or that could have happened, and I think all of those theories are equally valid to it.

So then so we come to the case of Travis Walton. So our good old friend Travis, who, by the way, I always want to put this out here and I haven't tried to do it yet, but I'm going to and there's another person that I'm going to be reaching out to this year as well to try to speak. I would love to speak with Travis Walton, genuinely. And we know that he does podcast because he was on a certain other podcast of a certain other person whose name we won't mention because that person's podcast is big enough and they don't need us saying their name on our show, so I won't. But he's been on there, so I know.

We watched some of that interview together and again we did our own separate research. But our good friend Travis Walton got abducted in nineteen seventy five, November fifth to be exact, two days before election day. He was abducted and he went missing for five days and six hours, and then he mysteriously showed back up. And this all happened in the most exciting place in the world, you know, Northeast Arizona, you know snowflake Eras Zona, where they're logging, because Travis Walton was a logger. So, Emma, I've set it up a little bit, but what do what do we want to talk about?

What the Travis Walton case specifically what are beside what I set up, what other pieces of information are we are we missing here to further flesh out the narrative of mister Travis Walt. Good question, And I think it's really important to note that a lot of this case and the movie, the story as a whole, revolves around the fact that Travis, you know, was in a group of friends, and that group of friends honestly, the majority of the movie centers around that group of friends and their reaction to all of this happening. Um, And I can only assume that that meant that they were very integral in the actual case. So I think that's important to note. So I believe in the movie there were six of them, but I think I read somewhere that there were seven.

There were six, There were six, there were six, Yeah, so one of them was a convicted felon, and but they were all like just loggers, and they were all on the same they were all doing the same project, the same job, yeah, at the time that this was happening, and so you know, they were all out in the woods at the same time when this all went up. So I think that's important to note. Yeah, this is not a case of one person went into the woods and was abducted and showed up a week later. The six of them go out into the woods, Mike Rogers, Alan Dallas, David Whitlock, Greg Hayes, and Bobby cod Cogdill and Travis Walton. Obviously they got into the woods together.

Alan Dallas is the one that you're talking about, the one that has the kind of a shady history. If you go and watch the documentary The Discovery plus did they talk about it there as well, But he had a quote shady history, and he was kind of, you know, kind of a local known troublemaker. Again, as much as you could be in the seventies, you're probably drunk getting into bar fights. I mean again, still someone who clearly went out worked with these people. They you know, they mentioned that they're loggers who can't be drunk while logging.

It's dangerous fucking work. Like, it's genuinely dangerous work. So these six dudes are out there and on this evening they encounter a light in the sky, right light in the sky. And this is the first part here that I want to I want to bring up to you, and I think it's the part of the story that maybe I don't have a thought that I don't have a problem with it, it's just I have a hard time understanding it. On the night of November fifth, in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, these six guys are driving along and they see a light in the sky and they stop the car near the lights.

And what happens, Emma, this is something I have a really hard time understanding. Still, that's very specific. One of them gets out of the car and approaches Travis Wallen gets out of the car and goes and stands effectively the way they're describing it, the way it's portrayed in the movie. And yes, I know the movie is not factually correct because they made his abduction a lot more exciting, at least the alien autopsy parts a lot more exciting than the way he describes it the multiple times I've heard, as I'm sure you did. But he gets out of the car of his own volition and goes and stands under the UFO looks up at it, which I remember as we were watching it, we were both very verbally expressing how stupid we thought that was, as were everybody else that were, you know, in the car at the time.

Saying get back here. What the fuck are you doing? Why are you standing there? Why are you why? Why did you leave?

Why did why? And apparently I mean, like just about everything that I had seen, I just like keep hearing the word entranced and curious, but like, I think one thing was like it was like opportunity of a lifetime. Curiosity would never be sated, and like I get it. But also no, I mean if we're if we're looking at it from that angle, and I'm okay, here's the question. Put yourself in the position, right, are you telling someone to like let me out like I want to go look at it?

No? Yeah, Like I'm kind of I'm kind of of two minds though, Like I if you're describing it that way, and it's like I'll never get this chance again. Like I don't know though, like if you do, if you do look at it that way like that, it doesn't I'm not saying it makes sense, but you are not going to get that opportunity again. I think your background of being fascinated with aliens, I think backs up your being of two minds. I think it's cool, yeah, but at the same time, I value self preservation and my instincts of not fucking getting out of the vehicle would keep me firmly rooted.

I think I'd be pressed up against, you know, the glass of the of the window. I would be like looking at it and saying what the fuck over and over, but I wouldn't get out. I would lock the goddamn door, and it'd be like, we need to leave. What the fuck is that we need to get out of here? So that's what his friends do.

His friends, so there's there's something that want to point out here. So they do see a saucer as a saucer shaped object. So this is them saying what I could only describe to be in Travis Walton describes it because I think he talks about when he speaks to that podcast interview, he talks about what is effectively Bob Lazar's image of an eva UFO, which is now more or less the commonly accepted UFO, which is what he claims they were working on and had at Area fifty one. But they see a saucer shaped object and for whatever reason, it shoots down a light and they see it happen. It shoots down a light and it like concusses him to the ground and knocks him down.

And they show this in the movie and it's a pretty dramatic. I mean, he gets you know, it's like he's getting hit with like a wave of energy so hard that it knocks him off his feet. And then what happens? What friends? Dude?

He's not? Maybe not friends? I mean again, question becomes, are people doing this to you? Your friends? But what is this group of loggers that he's out there with you?

After he gets knocked down? Well, apparently from their accounts, they assumed after this blast, because he apparently had been like blasted backwards a few feet, landed pretty harshly on the ground and looked pretty fucked up, they just assumed he died instantly and they were like fuck this and they all left him there for dead, like really good friends should. Yeah, Like, here's the thing. They're not his friends, right that I thought. I did notice while doing my research, and I saw that come up a lot.

They were on that they were working on the same project. They were you know, effectively contractors together, but that did not make them friends, unlike what the movie would lead you to believe. And Travis Walton married Mike Rogers's sister so Mike Rogers and Travis Welton knew each other, and they show that in the movie where you know, played by Robert Patrick otherwise own as the T one thousand, he goes and he's like, I got we gotta turn around, we gotta go back, we gotta we gotta save him, and he goes back to save Travis because again Travis is dating his sister and he's gone, and then the movie spends another thirty minutes on this because the movie has enough. See that's honestly the thing that's maybe the bigger issue here is the movie is more about the way the rest of the five people retreated, which is something we're going to talk about, but it doesn't have anything to do with aliots, like it has to do with something else that's just as interesting in a lot of ways, because this case, I feel like we could have entered this in a different direction the way the movie does, because the movie enters this as like a true crime story it does.

One thing I do want to note from what I found in my research is that apparently so in the movie only Mike goes back, but apparently that wasn't the case, and all of them went back to look for him immediately. So I think that that's important to note, even though they weren't friends, which in the movie they would lead you to believe they were really shitty friends, worse than apparently real life. So I think that's an interesting thing to note. I don't know why. I guess for the drama of it they decide for the movie.

Well, it's because again, like the connection to him is makes it more personal that he's the only one thing it's right, I mean again, like the I think my issue overall is the movie does a bad job in telling the tra It tells the story of everybody else and Travis Walton and I think that, and again I get it because the part of this story is, and this is where the public would have entered it, is this guy is missing, right, they saw aliens, Like that's the entry point here for the story in the movie is these five dudes are sitting get this bar, and here comes James. Here comes James Garner, of all people, and James Garner goes, you boys, your friends mission, Hey, tell me what happened, and they're like, you wouldn't believe us if we told you, And then they tell their story about you know the aliens, and you know what, shucker, they don't fucking believe them, and they didn't believe them in real life either.

They're like, you guys fucking murdered him, which is like I wanted to add, I want to ask you, like, what did you think about that? Like that? And like if you watch any of these documentaries or do any research like this was not like oh we think you well, you guys went out there and you killed him, Like though, they were like, you fucking murdered this guy, right, like where's his body? You're somebody murdered him and you're gonna have to tell us, like they thought he was fucking dead. My stance on that is it's not that hard to believe.

I think the time, men were often seen as creatures of instinct, which I think you and I both know is very stupid and dismissive. But at the time, I think like men around that age, like in their twenties, were often seen as creatures of instinct, very quick to anger, you know, and it's very plausible that one of them got into a fight with another and it just went a little too far. And then because there were witnesses, they were all like we just got to cover it up. Like I could see why that would be the thought process. Yeah, I actually I agree.

Like it's it's funny to me because you would think it's like, oh, they just oh they killed him. It's like no, no, they're like you're you're gonna you're all going to jail one of you killed him and you're all covering it up. Like because again, like what is the other option? You have to you have to believe something, And that's the thing here, Like you have to believe something that's again we've all been told is frankly unbelievable, Like you have to believe that Travis Walt Kind abducted What is the other what is the other option? That that they're all making this up like that?

That for me is the problem here because there are five people here. It's the five people who have no reason to lie that confounds me and this whole thing. You know, it's not Travis Wall's part of it. It's those five people who are who are what covering for him? Like yes, and that's something that I did actually have in my notes, is that despite not being friends, they all stuck to the same story, which would be to cover but for why, like, is what is the reason?

And obviously if they didn't actually kill him, which they didn't um which is pretty clear since the man is still alive, right or is he What if he's an alien replacement they actually killed him in the aliens dropped off a clone and they're all just like, wait, we killed that guy. That's an interesting theory. Well so he's so here's an alternate theory. Before we get to the Travis has come back part of the story, I want to just focus on this moment here because I think it's a moment worth talking about. The moment of Travis is gone.

You have five people who there were six when they went out, There are five five. Now someone is missing. Travis Walton is missing. He's been missing for let's say day two, right, not day one, you know whatever, he fucked off and he can't be found day two, day three. This guy's gone.

Okay, if it's not the UFOs and they didn't kill him, then what explanation is there for where Travis Walton is for five days? That's all I want to know what your thoughts are if we say it can't be aliens, but he does come back somehow, because again, he has gone for five days, incontrovertible proof he's gone for five days. What is it then, if it's not aliens or it's not the Aliens story that he's telling. So something that I saw quite a bit during my research, apparently both Travis and Mike were known to do acid and also Travis was a known liar. That's what I found during my research.

I'll conjecture I can't necessarily back it up. But while I was allegedly allegedly he was a own liar and someone in the group I forgot if they said who, but someone in the group also was like a pretty well known dealer of LSD. So in my opinion, it had to do with It could have been an elaborate cover up for the six of them for having a reason. Apparently they there was an issue with their their logging contract. They were apparently really far behind in their logging contract, and you know, maybe they all did some LSD together and they came up with this amazing story as to why they were so behind to get out of their contract, and you know, maybe he ran off for a little too long.

I've never done LSD myself, and I couldn't tell you why that would be the order of events. But I don't think it's too far fetched to believe that this group of people would come up with an elaborate story to get out of something, especially if one of them is a known liar and others of them also partake in hallucinogetics often and could come up with something quite fantastical because of it. Is it fantastical though? Is my question. I think it's relatively fantastical for the time.

You think so, I think so. And one other thing that I could not find another source that said this so again allegedly. But what I did find it's gonna be the allegedly episode. It's all listen. I mean again, this Travis Walden is still alive.

I'd love to speak with him one on one. So it is all allegedly right. Apparently the group submitted the story to a science fiction contest where the prize was five thousand dollars and they split it amongst the six six of them to make up for the money that they lost on the logging contract. I couldn't find another source that back that up. I couldn't find any record of it.

I did try to do a little deeper digging into that. So if somebody else has something else to back that up, that'd be amazing. But if that's to be believed, you know, I think they realized along the way that they could make money off of a story like this. You know, they were in a job that made them a bunch of nobody's and they wanted to be somebody's. I have a problem with this line of reasoning, though, because this line of reasoning gets used a lot.

They got run out of town. Like if you if you watch the documentary, they're bullshitting again. Like as I first said, they were smart. No, no, but like to twenty something, your old men, especially at that time, understand the consequences of their actions. But I think if you're saying that they want to pretend that they're aliens to get all this money and do all this stuff, then I feel like they have to they you can't be stupid stupid people, Like stupid people aren't making up that aliens are around, because the stu people that are making up that aliens are around don't get any further than I saw an alien.

That's the people that are smart, or at least grifters, or the people that make it up, stick to it, and then milk it for all it's worth. I don't see that here, do you know, Like it's I don't see that here. They might have been bullshitting, but it's not like they're all millionaires now and they're all living on the you know, they're living on the good, the good, you know, the milk and honey. Like they're just like if you watch the documentary, these people are still like living like normal lives. They're not getting any any notoriety from this more than like I don't even know, like what is the equivalent now, like TikTok shit, Like I guess, but like at the same time, there's no way of knowing they to them making the newspaper was probably at the time pretty fucking cool.

I mean, but that's not that's not that's not enough to do this. Let me put this way. It's not enough for me to do this. If it's enough for someone else to do this, fine, But like I also don't you want to just paint everybody that does this and like that doesn't understand the consequences as a moron though, like fair, that's fair, because I think there's also that like stereotype of like the dumb hick because the Kelly Hopkinsville encounter where the people were in their house shooting at the aliens outside, they're essentially painted as drunk hillbilly shooting at owls. And yet when we interviewed one of the grandchildren of that family, I mean, it's one of those things where she's heard it before.

And to me, it's like, it is unfair because, like I don't people can't control when these things happen. If we say that these things are happening, right, it could happen to me and you, to people who are very different with very different upbringings, very different backgrounds, just like it could happen to somebody who's rich or poor or anything else. Like I feel like people who are of a certain class have less to lose. Someone who's like a professor at a university who's in a serious academic has a lot to lose if they say I believe in aliens, right, it's fair. Yeah, that's a really good point, right, And I will say that a lot of my feelings are obviously based off of what I saw in the movie.

It's really hard to separate the personas that they portrayed in the movie. From who they must actually be. I have no reference for who these people really actually are. I don't either they're not. Yeah, that I think is a bit of a block for me.

It's like, obviously there's tons of footage of Travis telling his story, but is there a lot of footage of everybody else or did they just want nothing to do with it after a while? And if that's the case, you know, that sort of leaves you to that type of scrutiny, which I mean isn't fair, especially if you want to distance yourself from it, but you know, not speaking out about your side of the story in a modern context, it's hard to say whether or not you know what that integrity actually is. And for me personally, I will continue to see this group of you know, five people everybody other than Travis as their personas in the movie because I have nothing else to go off of, and that's fair. I think the question that I ultimately have is and this is the thing that like, I do have a hard time wrapping my head around.

So maybe you can help me. Why would five people willingly make up a story that gets them question for somebody's murder? And that's a good point, Like that's that's my point here, like it's a true crime story that intersects with an alien story because we haven't even gotten to the Travis alien thing yet, which is much more exciting in the movie than it is in the stories he tell It's very that pedestrian because again of being abducted by aliens is not in any shape, forward or fashion pedestrian. But it's not. It's not the harrowing piece of adventure, horror filmography or film that we get to see in the movie, which is even now it's very scary, it's very it's affective, it's affective provocative.

If the question becomes, you have five people in a car who if they return to town without one of them, they're going to be the first people that are asked, where is this guy? Why would they make that up only to have an entire town assume that they're fucking murderers? And or is it worse to be a person covering up for a murderer, because that's essentially what it is is one of them killed him and they all covering it up, or they all killed him and they're all covering it up. But the question I've had this whole time is why fuck would anybody make that up? And if they're not making it up, then he got fucking abducted by aliens.

Like question, if the LSD angle, let's explore it for a second, if that's to be, If that's to be, let's say for a second that it is known for a fact that we you know, indisputable that the group partakes in LSD. If not even one of them deals in LSD. And let's say that Travis had a bad trip ran would they then if they couldn't find just hear me out, I'm listening, they could I just saw your expression like no, I'm listening, I'm listening, I'm just and they couldn't find him. They returned to town. They can't say, you know, one of our friends got super high off of LSD and just booked it, because that puts them all in under scrutiny of having an illegal substance.

Why would there was there was there verifiable fact that they were all doing it or was it just him? Because like, if it's just him, they could all just be like that fucking guy did LSD and ran off into the woods, Like in my mind, how was a dealer? Though? Right? But like but one of them being a dealer doesn't mean that that guy is smoking or using that guy's stuff either.

Like, that's that's an assumption. I'll give you that. I mean, yeah, he's dealing one thing and the other guys using it. So and they're all in the same town, and they all are on the same logging crew. So yes, there's a possibility and a pretty high one, that that might be the case.

But again, what would the consequences have been? Though? If let's say that they got caught for dealing LSD, one of them got caught for dealing LSD, which meant that they all went down, what would that consequence at that time? What would that have been? Would they have gone to jail?

Would that have ruined their lives? Like? Because if so, that's a pretty decent incentive. But again, like, why wouldn't they just say, like this guy did LSD, he was the one doing it, like because it Maybe they were afraid. I'm sure I'm sure LSD or even laced LSD would cause symptoms of paranoia, and maybe they were terrified that if they told the truth, even if it was just what happened to Travis, they would or Travis would you know, come clean about all of it, and all of them would go down for it.

I don't want to roll that out. Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess the fear of going the fear of being abducted by the police and thrown in a prison cell because you did an illegal drug. It's pretty scary, right, especially because they were in their mid to late twenties. Correct. Yeah, well, I mean they're look there, they're dudes.

They're dudes with a lot of life left to live, regardless of their age. Right, none of these are old guys. They're old guys. Travis as an old guy. Now, I don't want to rule out the idea that they could have been covering for several things, but one of them could have been specifically, so they wouldn't all go down for LSD use and potentially dealing it.

I don't understand why, if that's the case, why they don't just say he wandered off in the night, like they woke up and he was gone. Like that's what I don't like. That's what they never said. They always said he got abducted by in a like he got abducted by aliens. Like that's what I don't get like any of these you could still lie out of that position that you're in, couldn't you.

Couldn't you just be like he we woke up the next morning and he was fucking gone, and he was gone, Like, let me ask you something, take this out of Take take him getting abducted out of this, right, And let's just say they woke up morning and he was just fucking gone and a wild animal came in the night killed him type thing, right, which can happen? I mean, they're out in the fucking woods. I don't know if there's an animal big enough to kill someone, but a sleeping person maybe, But say he got dragged out into the night. And that's not that there's no evidence. But again, you have, like you said, five guys in the wood, six dudes, and some of them are fucking maybe weird or maybe have some priors.

And this guy disappears and they can't unequivocally confirm that it's an animal. Is that any different? I guess not. But at the same time, which one would have them suspected for murder more in their eyes before telling the story? I feel like saying I got abducted by aliens is like that's like a fucking joke.

Answer, is it? Not? Like nobody in their right mind would use that as a That's the problem I keep coming back to. Nobody in their right mind would use that as an answer. But would anybody on a hollicinogenic drug use that answer?

If they saw the aliens, that's the thing. But then they would have to all have seen the same ones. They could have gotten their stories straight together. Do you think I got their stories straight? Do you think that's what this is?

They passed lie detectors? All but one of them passed it with flying colors, and Alan Dallas passed it the first two of three times he did it. How accurate were lie detector tests back then? How accurate or lie detector tests? Now?

That's a great question, and they're not permissible in court as evidence. They still asked, That's what I'm saying, Like, and why are we bringing them up? I don't know, Like I just perpetuating the problem by bringing them up, right, the problem of we don't like them and like don't like talking about them, but we always bring them up because that's somehow Let me put it this way, for a certain group of people, that's a that's an indicator that matters yes or no. I just it makes me wonder, like I've never had one done myself write me either, and I feel like that's an experience that I would want to have to test myself. And like you see a lot of like celebrities doing them now for fun and even you don't like Pedro Pascal being asked if he thinks he really or what do they ask him?

Do you know you're a heartthrob? And he goes no, and then it's like like lie, Like what the fuck is the point of this? Like that's what I'm saying, Like I feel like it's something that you'd have to experience for yourself in order to know whether or not it's legit. And I myself have never experienced all. I didn't have to desk.

I couldn't tell you really if it's legit or not. And I feel like at that point, not even just doing it once, but like doing it like ten times with different sets of questions like And this was the stance that I took in general. Back when I was doing the other podcast with Arthur, when we were talking about anything that wasn't proven, we would I would often pitch ideas of like experiments that I feel like we could have possibly done if we had the means that I wish people would be doing, or that there was documented evidence for. And maybe there is. Maybe there is a study out there that has been conducted on the effectiveness of Lie deecter tests, if anything, I would be surprised if there hadn't been.

But then again, you have to ask what is the validity of said test? What was it? You know, who sponsored that test? It's like one of those things where you just kind of have to experience it for yourself. I don't know.

I want to believe that, you know, if they all passed a lie detector tests, that meant that they were all telling the truth. But could you wholeheartedly say that? I mean again, like that's like you said, I don't know lie detectors well enough outside of what I know about them by doing research. I've never had one done to me. I would like, I'm with you, I would like to then maybe I feel like I could have a better personalized opinion about them, right exactly?

Yeah? Does it? What does it? How does it make me feel that those five dudes all pass lie detector tests? It means that something else is saying that the stories that they're telling they believe.

That's I mean a lie detector test in my mind, Like you could full of light detector tests if you believe a lie, right, I don't understand. How is that not? Like the way to pull the light detector tests is just believe the lie so implicitly that you could not convince yourself it's not true. I mean, that's what which could be done if you had a shared hallucination via to hallucinogen X. I'm just saying, like it's not out of the question, but what but why would they not like I murder?

Though? Like, if you're not going like murder murder, that's the problem here, Like this is the thing. I can't they know if they don't come back with him, that they're gonna get accused of making him disappear. You've got right, Like are they assuming that put yourself in that shoe and that fucking weird car ride back to town where these five motherfuckers are in the car together, and again, take whether or not the aliens happened out of the equation. These five guys have to come up with the story.

If it's not the story that actually happened. They have to fucking come up with some fake ass story to describe what this dude was doing. Why would aliens would not be at the top of my tongue, even if I did murder someone, if I had murdered him, that wouldn't be the story I use, because it's too fantastic put that and put that out in there, Like what if let's say Travis Walton didn't die, or didn't he did die, but he didn't get abducted by aliens. They murdered his ass. Right, Let's say for whatever reason what happened in the quote unquote like belief of everybody outside of aliens happening this one time, because there are plenty of other cases of people going into the woods and disappearing or going on vacation and getting pushed off a fucking cruise ship.

Like, opportunities do present themselves, people do take them. Let's go and play the scenario out, like you said, play a scenario route, they go out, Alan Dallas kills Travis Walton. Okay, he's five guys. Now have to four guys, I guess, have to cover up for Alan Dallas. Why would they Why wouldn't they just say, this guy fucking did it, Like that's my question here, Like if that actually happened, they just be like, he did it.

He killed them, He's the one who did it. Why would they cover up for him, because that's what they thought was going on initially, They're like, well, the alien story is just to cover up because this guy killed him. It's like, why the fuck would they be covering up, Like what would this guy what? Why would they cover up for him when they could just be like, we didn't do anything. This guy killed him, end of story.

Maybe he threatened them, but they would get in more trouble by lying to the police than anything else. Like there's four of them and one of him. It just kind of it kind of doesn't like it just kind of doesn't make sense. I'm not saying your things that you're getting, like the drug stuff, I could totally get why they would cover that up, But why they would cover up if he like like quote unquote murdered, Like, there's no reason to lie. In my mind.

If they lied, it's because it's something like the LSD thing. But again, like the lying is only to prevent them all going to jail. Maybe, but again, Travis Walton comes back. I don't think they're going to get in any kind of trouble. But they didn't know that he was going to come back.

But they didn't know he was going to be dead either. That they assume that if he wandered off, that okay, so let's play this out. He takes LSD and he disappears, they're going to tell the cops that he wandered off and did LSD. Why wouldn't they if they don't know where he is, Like, why would't they just be like, we don't know where he is? Why why would they be like, what are you?

Disappears fucking gone? Like they could just be like, this is where we were, this is where he might be. Let's go look. It's not like they didn't go out and look. They went and looked, they couldn't find him.

At this point, I feel like either way could be equally plausible in my personal opinion. I mean, like I said, we haven't seen any interviews with that original crew. We don't know what kind of people they were. We don't know how honest these people were. We don't know how smart these people were, and whether or not they perceived certain threats, you know, or certain consequences worse than others.

We don't know what was going through their minds. They could have been drunk, they could have been high, we don't know. There were some of them in the documentary on Discovery. Plus they're Mike Rodgers is interviewed on there, and I think one of the other guys. So they're there, and they don't they see again, they seem just like normal people.

They don't seem like there's any like pretense. They're just like again, Like that's the thing. For all intents and purposes, these guys had one weird experience, it would probably be a rather mundane life otherwise, right, I mean, that's the thing about all of this. It's like Travis Walton and what happened to him. This guy had a normal life, Like watch the movie, Listen to him talking, Listen to him now, Like, this guy's not sitting on like a fucking mountain of money.

I don't know what the residuals for Fire in the Sky are, but they're not Halloween Kills levels, they're not Batman residuals. He maybe's getting a couple thousand dollars a year from the book. Couple thousand dollars a year from the movie, like ultimately at the end of the day, like these people that they have one experience in their lives that they can't understand or explain, but other than that, they're just normal fucking people. And that's like really hard to in my mind grapple with because a lot of this it's like, well, these are special and like that's one thing Travis Walton has never said. He's like I was special or they picked me specifically.

And that's something interesting about his story that often crops up in these alien narratives. It's like, oh, they visited me a lot, like Whitley Strieber with communion. It's like they've been visiting me since I was a child, And it's like, well, if they're doing that, like then you specifically have something that is bringing them to you that you offer to them or for them or whatever. Nothing I ever listened to with that Travis Walton said made it seem like he felt like he was the reason that he was taken. He was just taken because right, So it's interesting that you say that because from what I had found, he does know the re and why he was taken, and did that come up at all in the interviews that you said, guess he didn't talk about any interviews that I saw, So this might have been when I was watching that other podcast that Champion named, and I was also reading a lot of comments as well.

But what I had found is that apparently, because as you said, the abduction itself in in the alleged real life of what had happened in his true account was a lot more tame because they weren't trying to probe or dissect him. In his opinion, he set off something in the ship that had caused that blast that we spoke about, some sort of something fired a defense system, and that the aliens presumably rescued him and brought him back from the brink of death. And I did see that, and so in that case, he does know why he was abducted. It was because they were trying to help him, because they felt bad for hurting him. They didn't mean to, you know.

And he even said that he regrets the way that he had acted. Obviously he was scared, but that he was the one that was hostile, that they were never hostile. And I think that that's really important to know in terms of just his stories. Something that I think adds credibility. I think that makes a lot of sense.

After watching the movie, that makes so much more sense to me. You know, I feel like a lot of the Hollywood movies, especially you know Hollywood movies that are meant to be horror esque, like to portray you know, aliens as horrible, horrific, you know, unfeeling beings and that we're just you know, puppets to them, were just you know, we're nothing to them. They're just curious and they're going to dissect us the same way we would die actofrog in biology. And I think it makes so much more sense that that wouldn't be the case, you know, if they're coming out of their way to come and visit us and they have that advanced technology to do so. I think a lot of people like to believe the same sentiment that you know, they evolved out of that fear response that we as humans have.

I think that makes a lot of sense. If they're so much more advanced, why would they need to be afraid of us? Why would they need to be malicious towards us? I want to clarify, I'm talking about someone who had been visited like multiple times and felt like the aliens were like call and that's like a thing, like obviously, like we both know, Like I mean, you're right, Like no, Travis Walton speaks about the thing you're talking about, but like that's just but essentially like this all seems like an accident, right, like yeah, he went out and got accidentally beats examped and they were like, well shit, like you know, like the mess right like roadkill, like you hit an animal and you broke its leg and it's like, well, I could take it somewhere to have it fixed, and this is the same thing.

But like he doesn't say like, well, you know, I had been seeing aliens my whole life and then one day I just happened to be like there's none of that, but like there are plenty of people who like that's their whole thing. It's like I was seeing this and the aliens visited me so many times and I was a child the first and like that's a thing. And what's weird is like there's none of that here. I know that. You know Philip J.

Klass, who is one of the people that has really didn't like this case and felt like this was a complete hoax, Like I get it, he's a very well respected UFO researcher, and he felt like there was a lot of discrepancies and all kinds of stuff, but at the same time, like, you're going to see discrepancies in a polygraph, but you're still going to trust that the polygraph telling them, Like there's discrepancies in the polygraph and it's poorly administered, but when it's administered correctly and it's lying, well, okay, great, perfect, then it's like, well, it's because you've got the response that you wanted, that you agree with it, and that's why you like it, And like, I have a problem with that because for me, in a lot of ways, lie detectors are just confirmation biases, like if you think about it hard enough, you can manifest it the way you want it too, Like maybe that's me just believing one thing, But like lie detector tests, like sure, whatever, there's easier ways and better ways to go about getting that kind of information than lie detectors.

People incriminate themselves a lot more obviously than that. And again, when it's not admissible in court, it doesn't fucking matter period. But again I come back to this idea of why would five guys pretend that someone went missing in the woods when you know that when you come back, you're going to have to answer for is he dead? And again like if okay, here's the other thing. Even if he died and they were to blame, then they would lie, you know, like if he was doing something stupid or they didn't stop him, or he was doing something and they didn't help him and he died.

Like they all got drunk, right, so say the six of them got drunk and then he died in alcohol poisoning, Yeah, they would be in big trouble. But again, like they like, then they would lie and say, well, the aliens took him. But then he wouldn't come back because he would be dead six feet underground and hiding in the Arizona woods somewhere. It's the him coming back part, And like where was he? He doesn't know where he was unless he was just hiding in a gas station somewhere.

I want to point out one other thing that I feel like again makes me feel very neutral, but I want to I want to posit this as well. So apparently authorities when he was discovered, they believed that at the very least he thought he was telling the truth, but they thought it was the cause of you know, drugs, as I had said. But apparently when doing tests there were no drugs found in his system. However, I looked up how long does LSD last in your system? So what do you think?

How long do you think LSD is traceable? I guess the question I would have is were they testing for LSD at that time? To begin with? Is I would assume they were. If they were, it's probably two days maybe, like is it two days?

So apparently in urine it's two to four days. In blood it is a mere six to twelve hours. However, in hair up to ninety days, which is interesting. That's a very big jump. But I'm assuming if they're doing, you know, a drug test, they're probably either doing urine or blood.

They're probably not a small town like this, probably does not have the facilities to go and test hair. That's an assumption, but I think it's safe to say that. Being said, if he took LSD five days ago, it would be out of his system by the time he returned, And maybe he left and waited to make sure that it was all gone out, that it worked its way out of his system, you know, like when they say, like, oh, authority, you know, tested him and all the drug tests came back negative. It's like, well, it doesn't last in your system that long. So I again, like I said, it left me feeling very neutral learning this information.

If it had said, you know, last lasts you know, and can be traceable in a blood test for a week, then I would have been like, oh shit, or you know, all right, last in your urine for two weeks, like that would have made me feel different. But the fact that it's like it just fits in the window of five days, it's interesting, don't you think I can like yeah, I mean, I'm not. If it wasn't the UFOs, then it's in my mind it's this like that's the only other explanation because like the ramifications, I could be convinced that the ramifications would be bad enough. In my mind, it's like I'll take whatever punishment the drugs have, because like it's better than being like our friend got abducted by aliens, Like yeah, he fucking did, and now you're going to prison like like that, like I don't want to go to like you're gonna go to prison for a lot longer, or your friend being fucking dead from a bad acid trip than your friend disappearing and you claiming that he got fucking abducted by aliens, Like I don't, I don't know, Like it's criminal negligence.

If he took a bad trip and died, it's murder. If he disappears and it's aliens and he never comes back, what would have happened if he never came back? Is my question. Those fucking guys are going to be in prison, right, yeah? Right?

Yeah? So what then? Like what so? What do we believe? Then he got abducted and they just kept him.

Not every abduction story that necessarily ends with and they came back. How many of those stories are there? I don't know. That's an interest. That would be an episode worth doing, because that's gotta be a thing people who go missing, right because that's like, that's not just Fox Mulder's sister in the X File.

I mean, that's that's the most famous pop culture version. But that's gotta be a thing that's happened, like people went missing with the aliens and never came back, not not like Richard Dreyfuss and Close Encounters of the third kind. I'm going with them willingly because I want to learn. It's like, no, the aliens took my husband and he never came back. Like that's got to be a thing.

And so you know, again, if we're saying, like why this story, you know, if they really thought that he had run off and he could have offed himself, and they didn't want to be responsible at all, and they washed they wanted to wash their hands at them, and they decided he was abducted by aliens. That doesn't necessarily mean and by the way, he'll be back in five days. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily they were not. I don't think that they would have said that in the assumption that he would have returned. If anything, I think abducted by aliens.

I feel like it's more likely that you're not ever going to be seen again. Just oh we finished our probe, off you go, I'm with you, I'm with you, and again, like that's the other thing here that you know. October twentieth, nineteen seventy five, so less than a month before this happened. There's an NBC Network special called The UFO Incident, which stars James Earl Jones of all people, where it's a recreation of the Betty and Barney Hill incident where Betty and Barney Hill were abducted by aliens and they figured it out after the fact through regression hypnosis. So that was on TV less than a month before all this happened.

So that's the Well, he just made it up and he was just a goof in and he was making a laugher. But again, why would five people make that up so that they could be fucking on the on the hook for somebody's murder. Nobody would willingly make themselves a fucking murder suspect unless they're completely out of their goddamn minds, you know, Like, no serial killers even doing that. No serial killer is like unless we're talking fictional serial killers, no real serial killer like John Wayne Gacy. I'm like, hey, I'm a serial killer and I want you to figure out how I'm doing it, Like that's what we're talking about here.

It's like, oh, well, it's like there's none of that here, Like you would not do that. And it's just again, like that's the whole thing. I have a really hard time wrapping my head around because Travis Walton's explanation of the abduction is they were short and they were bald, and it looked like a hospital, but an alien hospital. It's just like and it's very pedestrian. Like the story that he tells is very pedestrian compared to the story of the movie obviously, but like the story I was expecting him to tell was very much more fantastical than I was, which in my mind comes back to another question of if you're gonna make this up, why wouldn't we have all the way?

Well, are we have two minds that if you go all the way then you seem like more of a bullshitter? Is that it? I don't know, right, Like I'm of two minds, Like if I'm gonna make this up, I'm gonna go I'm not gonna say he didn't go far enough because the guy said I gotta deckted by aliens, which like, again you say that, and you're like, oh, you're being serious, Like the moment you say that, I get it. But like he's just like, well, it's like a little short, little you know, grays, and well they they were kind of you know, dressed up, and then there was a guy and this guy helped me out. And then I remember reading about that as well, Yeah, that apparently there was like a humanoid figure, right like, just like a dude walking around on the helm on the ship with like a helmet on.

Like. So apparently what some people think, because I had also heard that rather than one humanoid figure, there were three humanoid figures, which would have been the same amount of you know, the aliens that were helping him. And since he was so hostile towards you know, their alien form, some people theorize that they had transformed in some way that they, you know, shape shifted into more humanoid figures to put him at ease. Why not just be humans? Then, No, they're like close enough without going over, we'll look like short little humans.

You know, I thought you were gonna say something, here's an interesting here's a you know what, here's an I'll give you a I'll give you a little piece. Here. How's this? So I see a human wearing a helmet. Okay.

So let's say he's tripping balls, Okay, he's getting lying high, he's chasing the White Dragon on lst whatever, chasing White Dragon's heroin. Let's say he's on Earth terrestrially. Where are people wearing helmets in nineteen seventy five, motorcyclists, right, So, like, if this dude's tripping and this person in a helmet takes him away and helps him get away, maybe he's tripping and he's wandering around and wandering into places he shouldn't be because again he gets found in like a gas station. So gas station, he's calling from a gas station phone when he's found five days later. Maybe he's wandering around and he's tripping ball so fucking hard he thinks that a person, a motorcyclist wearing a helmet is an alien?

Is that believable? Is that believable to you? I think so? Is that more or less unbelievable than there were aliens and there was a humanoid alien with a helmet on? That's a question.

Though. It's interesting because I I just you reminded me of something which was in college. I had a friend in my major who was telling me how the night before she had found these two guys that were just absolutely tripping balls, having a horrible, horrible trip, and she had offered to help them, and they would not stop, saying like you're an angel, but like they she was like, but it sounded like they meant it, like more than just like Oh you're so kind. Thank you. But just like you are a literal angel, you are saving us, like and so I feel like if you're tripping hard enough, you believe just about anything.

I've never been on a hallucinogenic I could not tell you me either. I mean that's I mean, that's the other problem. It's like the light detector thing. And like I would love to do hallucinogenics in a controlled environment where I'm not going to hurt myself or anybody else, And I would like to know what that's like, just so I can have a baseline, like a micro dose of psilocybin, like that's what I'm talking about, just to feel what it feels like, because I mean, I'm I'm a I'm a user of some things, and those things aren't hallucinogenic and enough of a potency to matter. So and even if it is, it's it's not lucid hallucinations.

It's like I close my eyes and I see stuff like so it just makes your dreams a little bit more vivid. Whooped you fucking do? Like if you there are some people that can't handle that, and I totally get it, but like it's still not like I'm opening my eyes and I'm seeing things like that's that's what we're talking about here. It's like I can't go to sleep and escape it because it's a while I'm awake, and so I don't know what that's like, Like you just said, neither do you. So again in my mind, it's like is that movie logic?

Is that how this works? Or is this actually how this works? Like again, I have friends that have micro doosed with psilocybin and other things, and they've said it's been immensely helpful. So can't seem like necessarily a bad thing. And if you listen to James Renner, who was on a couple episodes back talk about it, he talks about his kind of experience with psilocybin and it seems like a helpful experience.

So I don't know, like this is maybe like I don't know, like I'm just thinking, like when he talks about a guy with a helmet on, that's like another weird thing in all of this, right, because like a humanoid guy who's wearing a helmet, Like, yeah, why I'm curious. You mentioned early on in this episode that you would love to interview Travis yourself would you ask him if he uses or used hallucinogenics at that time? Yeah, of course, yeah, I would have to, right, I would have to ask him, like and if he said yet. Here's the thing though, if he said yes, that would not change my beliefs on what happened, because I genuinely believe he was fucking abducted. Like, I'll put it to you straight.

You know what, he might do hallucinogens. He might be a liar, but it's a boy who cried rolf. I don't think. I don't think. It's like I could, I see where you're getting at.

But in my mind, it's like, nah, I believe it. I believe it. I don't know. Maybe I'm a sucker. Maybe I'm the sucker that the story is looking for, but there are plenty other people out there, and I have no money invested in this.

I have no reason to believe. This's not like I'm shilling any of his books. I'm saying go watch his movie or any of that. Right, Frankly, the movie it was fine. It was kind of boring, but like it was not boring at one part that it was just straight up uncomfortable, right, Like the part where he's having to you know, dig out of the alien placenta and then he gets essentially gang fucked by a bunch of aliens on a table and it's horrifying.

But that's not what happen. And like in a lot of ways, like the grand majority of the public thinking that's what happened doesn't help his story seem credible when the surface level people who know his story can only equate it to a movie telling his story that was like hyper fictionalized for the sake of entertainment. There's also also that here. I mean that's you know, neither here nor there. Hollywood loves a good story, but they love a good story that they can embellish and you know, up even more, and that's what they did with his story.

You know. I think the film's actually interesting because it tells the story in a way where it's like did these guys murder this guy? Because we don't see a lot of the pre Travis stuff at all. It's all of like why or where is he? The movie takes place in those five days essentially in between when he disappears and when he comes back, and it's that's kind of an interesting conceit for that movie because it makes Travis getting abducted like we see it.

It's literally three minutes at the end of the movie. Gets Yeah, in movies an hour and forty minutes, and it's three minutes. And the movie, you know, say what you will. It's not what I was expecting, but I was still more or less entertained. And it's a movie about, again, a weird thing that happened that a lot of people in the seventies were really intrigued by.

I want to also throw two other little bits of potential evidence into the ring, and again circumstantial, but two things again that I had seen during my research. One is that UFO investigators did eventually return to the site and found that the area had high levels of residual magnetism. And in the documentary I watched they go back and they look at the trees. I was going to bring that up, yea, and the true Okay, go go right ahead then, So I didn't not going to beat into it. I didn't have a basis for this.

So it's interesting that you said that it's in the documentary. So what I apparently had seen, so trees in the area we're producing wood fiber thirty six times faster than the normal rate. And apparently this was only on the sides of the tree that we're facing, where the craft was not on the opposite side. That is very fascinating. So are you saying then the documentary they went back and more or less prove that I'm in there there and they're looking at the trees, and he's showing the tree rings.

It's a it's a researcher who worked with Travis Walton and like the twenty tens, like in the last ten years he worked with him, and like they talk about the tree rings and like, yeah, they talk about it that like and that's the thing, Like, okay, so how do we even explain that, Like what explanation is there that makes that makes sense along with any of the things we were talking about, Because how does these dudes taking LSD make the trees grow faster? That is probably the best evidence so far in my opinion. And that's the weird stuff, right, Those are the things that are hard to ignore. Those are the sharp edges that sometimes poke out of these things where it's like, you know, if I follow that sharp edge down, I'm going to go down the rabbit hole because it's essentially just a ramp into the center of the problem.

And sometimes it's easily explainable, and it's just like, well, it's a you know, the guy in Daily Plaza with the umbrella on the day JFK got shot. He was just a guy with an umbrella standing in Daily Plasa. That's just what would happened. He just had an umbrella. He wasn't doing anything, he wasn't a CIA plant.

Sometimes the shittiest explanation is it just was coincidence and happenstance. That's not this, like, that's not this. Say what would have caused that? Like, what about the craft would have caused a rapid growth? Right?

Did they have radiation? Radiation? I mean that's kind of always the answer, Right, it's some sort of whatever they're using to propose for proposal for these spacecraft gives off some sort of radioactive beam or radiation beam or beam of some kind, and it I mean, again I don't know. I mean, that's if they're looking at this and saying, this is a weird phenomenon occurring in nature that we can't explain that occurs here but doesn't occur there. And this is where something weird may have happened this again, it's like, how does five dudes taking LSD make the trees grow faster?

That's a very good point. That is why I will remain on the fence. If you're leaning towards him being abducted, I know you are, because it's it's a want to, right, I want to It's such a like again, like I don't feel a bone of maliciousness in Travis Walton as a person, Like he just seems like a human being, Like I got abducted by aliens? What do you want me to do? Like a lot of people in comment sections on some of the interviews that I'd seen through YouTube often mentioned I like meeting him in person at a convention and how he always just had this far away, distant, sort of not quite their look to him.

And I mean, that's not really something that you associate with somebody who hasn't had a traumatic experience, you know, And so I feel like that's that's also really fascinating. I do want to believe that he's telling the truth. I will forever be at the very least a partial skeptic. I think it's just a part of my brand at this point. But I'm not afraid of exploring that, you know, the possibility of the occult, the metaphysical.

I hope that there's more than what we understand. Why would we want this to be everything when there could be so much more out there. I agree with that sentiment so hard it's not even funny. If this is it, he yikes, bro like the shit that we get upset about, the things that we worry about. If this is truly it, buck buck then, like for real, if there's no mystery in the world and there's no high weirdness in the world, that fuck.

That's all I can say, like fuck it, Like then this shit does suck this bad. And I've been wrong this whole time and trying to be optimistic because in a lot of ways, believing in this stuff is just a brand of optimism. Like I want to believe in weird things because I don't want to believe that the world is this fucking boring and and it's this terrible and children die every day because they starve, and animals starve, and all this shitty shit happens all the time, and it does happen. But I would like to believe that there are some bright spots poking through of things that can't be explained and positive things happening, and like miracles, Like in a lot of ways, these things are just what would be ascribed in religion as miracles.

It's just the unexplained. The unexplained in miracles are often the same thing they really are. It's just one of them is overtly religious in its connotation. But we're talking about the same thing, and this is you know, I don't know, like you could say that this is a miracle at change this man's life, but I don't know, Like in Jordan Peel's Nope, they say is there such thing as a bad miracle? It's like I think you might consider this that, like this guy got abducted by aliens, but it fucked him up because it would fuck you up, like it would fuck you up irrevocably, Like don't I don't know why anyone would think you get abducted by aliens.

And then you're just like, oh, I'm fine now, Like no, it was verified to you that you are not the only being of sentience in the universe. That fucks you up, you know, like it fucks you up in a way that's like hard to even understand because you can imagine having that information being more or less verified to you. But like these fucking people are seeing it. They're sitting on a table, or they're sitting in a chair, or they're sitting in their bed, and something is coming into their room that is proving to them something that again until the moment it's not, you don't believe it either, Like you believe it in as much as you can, but I you know, you know what I mean, Like I believe in aliens, but if I die and I've never seen one, then I guess I believed in them when I never saw him.

But there are people that believe in them and then see them and go day like you know what I mean, Like that's the thing. That's the thing here. It's just like it's very hard to sit and go, well, yeah, he made this up and he's a millionaire. Now it's like that he made this up and he's going the UFO circuit and he's probably like if this actually happened to him, he's fucking PTSD, yeah, forever. Like I also think it's important to note that you can believe in aliens but not necessarily believe in this story or you can believe in aliens and not believe in abductions at all, or that aliens have ever made it here.

Like they are, they don't have to hold hands. And I think that that's important to say, because I most definitely believe that there is something else out there. What I am on the fence about is whether or not they have made contact with us, and whether or not Travis's story is true. That is, you know, like I said, I want to believe, I really do. Why would I want to discount the story of this old troubled man.

And again, like you know, he, like you've mentioned so many times, like he was in his twenties when he told this story. He's like an elder like that, maybe elderly, but he's an older guy now, like he could be my grandfather or your grandfather. And like imagine like your grandfather sitting it down and going, kids, I have a story I want to tell you. And the crazy thing is, if I were to have kids, my father would have those stories. He's come on the show and he's talked about his experiences, and that, in a lot of ways is why I believe these stories.

Because my dad has no reason to lie to me. My dad is the most trustworthy person that I know, so I know he's not making this shit up. And maybe Travis Walden's a liar, but that doesn't mean he lies about everything. And I don't even again, I don't know what you're a liar means? Like what in it's a subjective?

Oh you lie all the time? Oh all the time? What a great measurement of time. That is why I brought up boy who Cried wall The whole thing is, you know, you tell a bunch of lies, and when something is finally the truth, no one believes you. Right again, you could you could be a pathological liar.

That doesn't necessarily mean that you never tell the truth right And you know, I think in my mind it's it would it's interesting if that were the case. You know, he's he is someone who is a liar, but ultimately, even though he is lying, him lying doesn't disallow what he has seen to be believed. I think again, I don't know. Like in my mind, Travis Wallen's story is there are parts of it that are hard to reconcile, like the trees, like the does the general weird nature phenomenon going on, like the fact that five people incriminating themselves about murdering someone is a hard pill for me to swallow. But again, if you could get yourself there mentally, fine you what I believe it, I couldn't get there is more my point.

But ultimately, ultimately I think at the end of the day, this is the one of the more well known blows encounters. But I think also to your point, like I think we do need to kind of reinforce to people like this is separate from believing in aliens, because this is the human element. The moment we encounter aliens and we're interacting with them, human beings are part of this and we like you said, I do agree human beings can't be trusted for the most part. So like I agree, like we should always be going into these scenarios with a healthy dose of skepticism because you can make money off these things. But I think people are making money off of things more innocuous than this, and that's maybe the less exciting thing.

Like this is fleeting fame. This is not Kardashian fame. This is not like that. It's this not lasting fame. And if you really want to be known as the guy who got abducted by aliens?

What cash does that give you? Now? It gives you cashe a with a certain group of people at a certain time in a certain place, which, if you always wanted to be the alien guy, I guess you got abducted by aliens is a pretty good story to tell to get a bunch of people to invite you to the UFO convention without you having to buy a ticket. But like, what kind of a fucking perk is that to them? Be also known as the person who said they were abducted by aliens?

Because yes, people are going to believe in you, but more people are going to look at you and go, are you really? And we're still not there. Even if more people believe in aliens now than they ever have, which I think is the case, you would still get looked at by most people. Like side, if you said I was abducted by aliens, if you actually did that in a group of people, people would would question your sanity. Now even now, with belief in aliens as high as it is, agreed, I wholeheartedly agree with that.

I you know, it's one thing to listen to scientists and people that say that they have worked at you know, area fifty one and saying like I have seen something and we have seen a craft, and like it's one thing to believe in that meaning you know, the potential validity of those statements, that's the whole other thing to be like I have been abducted by aliens. It's like you, that's the thing. This is just like a dude. He's just like a dude. Like if he walked up to him on the street and said hello, you'd be like, WoT you got abducted by aliens?

Yet? Right? I mean, and that's and that's the thing, Like he there's there's nothing about him that would lead me to believe that that Again, like he got such a monumental amount of fame and notoriety out of this, that that was why you did it. It's just like you get branded as the guy who got abducted by aliens, and like branded is the term I would use. Yeah, I mean, what kind of job do you get after that?

What's your career tradictory? That trajectory, that's my point. That's that's my point. Like it I get the whole argument of like, oh, you become rich and famous, but will you Right, none of these people really are if at most they write a book and maybe two or three or a movie. But like not Mike, Travis Walten's part of the national conversation right now, Like these brought back into the national conversation by something like Discovery Plus because they're always looking to dredge up some old stories to tell in a new format.

Which I'm totally game four because it brings notoriety of these kinds of stories. But again, nobody is sitting and pounding on Travis Walton's store, which is my point of Like there, it's not like he's a multi millionaire now because of this, he's probably better off than he might have been. Maybe maybe again, like there's a working guy going out and working. Like again, he wasn't abducted off of fucking couch while I was eating potato chips. He was abductible.

He was working a hard, dangerous job where people die all the time. It's just there's it's I don't know, it's weird. Like you said, I would like to believe, and I think I'm further over the fence into the belief. But again, what's to say it's not just a bunch of dudes doing drug in the woods. I'm not there, but I see how you can get there, and I totally get it.

I totally get it. So my question to you, potentially a wrap up question, is on a scale one to ten, one being bullshit all this is bullshit, this is stupid, Travis is a liar, etc. Ten being I wholeheartedly, without its doubt in my mind believe Travis's story. He is telling the truth. Where on that scale do you fall like a seven aren eight, seven iron eight, I'm seven and a half eight, Like I'm right there, because again, like there are things that, yes, there are things that stick out in the belief direction, and there are things that stick out in the maybe there's something else going on direction, And there's things that stick out in both directions.

It's just I think for me, they stick out in this direction, the belief direction, just a little bit more like the things with the trees, Like that's hard to explain unless it's just what just this is a weird nature thing, I would say, I most am a I can't help it. It's more than I thought you were gonna say, yeah, yeah, I thought you're gonna say like four. Nah. I was thinking over the hump of belief here, I I think, so he seems like a genuine person. He does.

Yeah, Like that's and for me, like I'm not saying that that's like a huge indicator of anything, but the gut. The gut test is still a thing like in my gut, like I don't I don't immediately get like my antenna, I don't go up immediately, you know. And there are plenty of people where it's like okay, like like the guy who found the alien autopsy video, like my you're an antenna or up immediately when he's like I found it in a I bought it from a British guy who said he got it from here, and it was it's like whoa, Like what you don't even have a fucking paper trail for this thing. You're trying to get me to believe it like this, it's at least like there's none of that. It's like he disappeared for five days.

That's incontrovertible where he went, if he was hiding or if he was abducted, he was gone for five days, Like there's no question of that, Like I don't know my antenna, I don't go up because again, there's some things here that just don't make sense and can't be explained any other way than the fantastical explanation that seems impossible but maybe isn't fair enough. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't know what about you. I think at this point, I feel like there are a lot of really interesting stories out there where there probably are a lot of consistencies to what he had been saying. And at the time that he had told this original story, was there a lot if that readily available, potentially significantly I mean, at the very least, you could say, significantly less than there is today.

I think that there is a lot of merit and it's enough too. As you said, have maybe over the hump of believer. I am definitely more on the believer side than I am on the disbeliever side. So squarely at a six, squarely at a S. And I think the movie is fine if you want to check the movie out.

The movie is If you are into more of that like campy horror true crime type, you know, more old old school Hollywood esque, like, you're gonna love it. It's very much like that cult classic vibe. If you're into like weird shit, you're going to enjoy it. I mean it was definitely a trip. I as somebody who enjoys horror, I will say that I'm not a huge fan of gore.

There is light gore. I guess you know of the in the abduction scene, and so if you're not a fan of that, you might want to close your eyes during that time. But I don't know not If you're into the style of cinema, I think you'll enjoy this. It was definitely, as you said before, at the very least entertaining formally a filmmate in the ninety The looks and feels like a nineties movie. It's fine.

I mean again, it came out either pre X Files or right around the time of the X Files. I feel like if it had come out a couple of years later, it might have been tonally a little different, maybe a little bit more bombastic. It's a pretty grounded and reality movie outside of the abduction at the end, which again is played up so much because it wasn't particularly exciting the real one, And yeah it's not. But again, you're saying that someone getting abducted by aliens wasn't exciting enough. Like, do you hear what you're fucking saying?

Do you hear yourselves. Like I was telling you that I kind of wished that the movie was going to be more documentary styled right likewise, and I probably I think I would have appreciated his actual account much more than the gramaticized Hollywood. But then again, that's just me, And I mean, like, if you're here for the sake of seeing a creepy alien horror movie, then that won't deliver. So yeah, that box will not be checked at all, unless unless you're okay with an hour and forty minutes giving you three minutes of that literally three minute three minutes. So don't watch Skinner Marine if you're looking for something, Well, that's okay, not a good option, not a good Nope, not a good suggestion either.

Don't listomize suggestions. Watch Skinner Marine. Yeah, but then it'll be like, well, I waited forty minutes to be scared. It's like, well, at least there was some scares that weren't just three minutes. Yeah, but Skinna ma Rink is so earned, I know.

Yeah, I mean that's the thing I will say, like when they get to the abduction, it's earned. It's just it kind of sucks knowing what we know now that it's like so played up, it's like, well, what's the point of this then? Absolutely? Why why why am I here? Right?

Like him getting abducted by aliens is horrifying, Like I don't care what they did to him, Like whatever they did to him is going to be pretty horror fying on its own honor. Well, like he was abducted by aliens, Like why is that? It's like, yeah, but give me someone being like abducted by Bigfoot and it's like, well Bigfoot didn't I don't know, turn me into their forest bride. It's like, well, this movie we have to because because that's because that's more entertaining. And it's like I got abducted by Bigfoot?

What is like? What is not? How is that not enough? So? But but I'm glad we watched this together.

This was it was It was fun. Maybe the next thing we do if we do another one of these, but a little bit more of a fun watch so we can have a chortal along with it. Not that this wasn't shortal worthy what, but it was it was beginning was very shortal worthy. Yeah, well there's very It was very campy at the beginning. There was Jersey actors doing like fucking southern accents.

That is very bad. The beginning and the end. I think we're the campiest. The middle was pretty even. You know.

Yeah, again, it's it's a story about it's more a story about his friends and their lives falling apart because he got abducted by aliens. The alien stuff. It's like you could take it out of the movie, like it's it's not inconsequential. But if you go, like like Emma said, if you're here for the alien horror movie, h go watch Alien, go watch anything else, because this is like, you're not going to get your you're not going to be satisfied. But if you're looking for a story about someone who had something happened to them that they maybe can't explain, then this is the and and you want to see how it affected them in their lives, and this is the story for you, and Travis Walton's story, I think again, there's that documentary on Discovery Plus that's also totally worth checking out.

So if you want to see Travis Walton giving the story in his own words in present day more or less, and he also uh, I think they find some like interview footage from him from the BBC from like the mid eighties where he's telling the story. So that's if you want to see the stuff that Emma wished that the movie was, and I'm totally with her, go check that out of Discovery Plus. So oh yeah, until the next time we do one of these, you can find Emma and I over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com where we do this show every week. Sometimes Emma's not here, but I'm always here and Emma's not not here by choice. It's just times Emma's not on the recordings.

The schedule forbids me is that what it is. But yeah, you can find all of us over at Weirdingway Media, where we do this show and so many other shows weekly, bi weekly, monthly, you name it, you can find it at Weirdingway Media. As for this show, scary Stories, we tell dot com Scary Stories WT on social media, but that shit sucks, sure does. And Twitter is going further down the hole as we speak. At some point we won't even have to mention it because it'll be gone.

But we're not there yet. Week hide your bookmarks, oh okay, great good and yeah. As for as for the people who put their hard time and sweat into this show. Maggoty Odd and Dustin Rutledge provide the album artwork. You can find Maggie over at Dolan Museum and Alex Malmack of Blondo provides the music for the show.

You can find him kicking around the Midwest with his band Blondo or on Spotify just search Blondo. And as always, will let our good friend, the former host of Sidings, mister Tim White, lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind.