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UFO Debates

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Trajanus said:
The Walton case was actually quite unlike most abductions, which usually don't involve witnesses other than the abductee(s); nor does an abductee initiate an encounter i.e. run toward a UFO, or get zapped.
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Actually, (off the top of my head) I have somewhere in my files an interesting 1968 case from the SLV that features a two-car convoy traveling late at night north on State Highway 285, just south of Villa Grove, CO stopping upon seeing a lit up disc coming down and hovering a couple of hundred yards east of the highway. One of the passengers, a U of CO student, jumped out of the car, climbed over the barbwire fence and began to approach the object that was hovering a few feet above the ground. As he got within a hundred feet, or so, he was hit by a beam of light that appeared to the others in the car to knock him down. The object took off and the others raced over the fence to see if he was alright. He had been knocked out cold and (if memory serves me correct) it took some time for him to regain consciousness and his senses. He wasn't abducted, but pretty messed up. I thought I included the case in my first book, but a quick look through didn't produce it. I'll do more checking, but it was investigated at the time by Don Richmond from APRO, and I think, Richard Siguismond. Again, this is all from memory, but the case was apparently the real deal.
 
Christopher O'Brien said:
One of the passengers, a U of CO student, jumped out of the car, climbed over the barbwire fence and began to approach the object that was hovering a few feet above the ground. As he got within a hundred feet, or so, he was hit by a beam of light that appeared to the others in the car to knock him down. The object took off and the others raced over the fence to see if he was alright.
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So the object took off before they came for him. If it did so right after hitting him i.e. before they could flee, that's a crucial difference between that case and Walton.

He had been knocked out cold and (if memory serves me correct) it took some time for him to regain consciousness and his senses. He wasn't abducted, but pretty messed up.
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Interesting case which maybe should've gotten a lot more publicity. In any event, being rather obscure, surely there's no suggestion the Walton "hoaxers" based their story on it.
 
Goggs Mackay said:
If anyone reads Bruce Maccabee's examination of what Phil Klass said about JAL Alaska UFO event, then you can only conclude Klass is an actual idiot. But Klass undoubtedly holds quality credentials. So why would an intelligent man use such ridiculous explanations? I can only think that Klass is either religious or something that ET's may go against, or he is an 'official' debunker. He really does use anything to debunk a UFO case - even when those explanations are us unlikely as a flying saucer!
I have little respect for anyone who hold people like Shermer and Klass as fine scientific examples of rational thinking. I believe some debunkers are every bit as strong 'believers' as the tin-foil hat brigade, only that their belief is solely based 'it cannot be true therefore it is not true'.

The idea that a logging crew would fake an alien abduction to make a contract deadline is preposterous. There are a million down-to-earth excuses they could have used instead of something that brought the world's media and the police breathing down their necks thinking a homicide had been committed. I don't know how much faith to put in polygraphs but it seems the examiners were of the opinion the guys thought they had seen a UFO. So if it was not real, then it was a hoax but who perpetrated that?
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do you have a link to this? I can't find one.
 
Frank Stalter said:
By pasting Bill Nye? I don't think so. Nye is an actor who runs around calling himself a "science educator." Bill Nye is an actor, let's be real here.
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Don't get me started on Bill Nye! He is a classic debunker, believing that any prosaic explanation for the anomalous is correct. Most of the time things are mundane but I'm talking about when things really point to something strange, he just cannot allow himself to even go there. He is another Phil Klass.
And, never trust a man who wears a bowtie every day. And terrible ones at that. Bill Nye the 'thumbs down' guy. Spit.
And relax...
 
@Chris - the case you relate makes me think of what Walton tends to now think happened to him, namely that he wasn't attacked by the UFO per se, but that possibly as the craft powered-up to leave, possibly Travis acted like a lightning rod and was a conductor for some kind of accidental electrical/field/whatever discharge?
The thinking being that if Travis being knocked down and out by the craft was an accident, that is why he was brought aboard - to get him back to health after his no doubt narrow brush with death?
 
Goggs Mackay said:
Don't get me started on Bill Nye! He is a classic debunker, believing that any prosaic explanation for the anomalous is correct. Most of the time things are mundane but I'm talking about when things really point to something strange, he just cannot allow himself to even go there. He is another Phil Klass.
And, never trust a man who wears a bowtie every day. And terrible ones at that. Bill Nye the 'thumbs down' guy. Spit.
And relax...
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Bill Nye calling himself a "science educator" is like Adam West calling himself a criminologist because he played Batman on TV 45 years ago. It was a classic moment when Jacobs called him out.
 
Goggs Mackay said:
@Chris - the case you relate makes me think of what Walton tends to now think happened to him, namely that he wasn't attacked by the UFO per se, but that possibly as the craft powered-up to leave, possibly Travis acted like a lightning rod and was a conductor for some kind of accidental electrical/field/whatever discharge?
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I don't buy it. A propulsion system like that seems too dangerous to use.
The thinking being that if Travis being knocked down and out by the craft was an accident, that is why he was brought aboard - to get him back to health after his no doubt narrow brush with death?
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Was that necessary? There have been reports of instantaneous healing with rays.
 
I also feel that there easier and less fantastic ways of getting around a failed deadline. I think Walton really experienced something and I think the crew saw what they said they did. I have no real idea what to make of the events Walton reports happened to him. Bu, I am pretty sure it's not all a hoax.
 
ufology said:
I make an effort to be objective and I don't believe that the evidence for the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest incident ( The Walton Abduction ) is favorable. WIthout going into all the deatils I've posted my reasoning here .
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Well, I read your points along with Walton's rebuttal of what went wrong during The Moment Of Truth show. I've also heard detailed interviews with him recounting his full experience. It's a very convincing, rich account that makes maintenance of a hoax being passed off as abduction truth over the decades hard to believe. But then a number of hoaxes are often revealed on death beds so there is still a possibility that another truth may spill out later from one or more accomplices.

Both his rebuttal and ufology's focus on the question of character, (Walton's previous fraud attempt) certainly shifts this more towards the use of an accomplice for a well maintained hoax. That there were many witnesses who were genuinely scared and given the amount of time that has passed it strikes me that this maintenance is the issue - what, if any, financial relationships are being maintained? It's easy to scare people at night in the woods, even easier with help. However, even without that proof of financial compensation for a partner in deception, I still find the tone of Walton's rebuttal to be suspiciously excessive in its many protestations.

Either way, yet another famous UFO gospel tale gets sent back to the chapter marked, "More Myth than Substance."
 
Trajanus said:
In other words there was no incident at all; he just drove to a coworker's place, hid there, and they were all in on it. Amazing that none of them ever admitted the truth for 4 decades.:confused:

All UFO cases have problems--Iron Law of Plausible Deniability.
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I don't find the thought amazing. The abduction of Travis Walton may have happened, but much suggests to me that it's a hoax.

If they were prepared to pull a hoax for money, why should they not be prepared to keep it secret? Why would they admit it now, and face the anger of the thousands who bought into the story, bought the book etc., that might even be dangerous, I wonder if e.g. movie makers could sue them etc.

Also, they didn't just gain money, they gained notoriety, and Walton has probably made it into a living?
 
@Jimi - what about the polygraph examiner saying that they were being truthful? I can imagine one or two people out of 6 'beating' the test but all of them?

Also, if you say that they faked it for the contract money, well weren't some offered much, much larger sums to admit it was a hoax? If they could keep quiet for X amount, then surely one or more would crack for many times X?
 
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