S04 Episode 20: The Homecoming (Pt. 2 of 2)

the previous week. First and foremost, a young man was missing, and no matter what anybody else said, though he couldn't rule anything out, it was his duty to take the family at their word that they knew nothing about any of it, and if so, that was a family desperately worried about the fate of a brother and a son. Of the rest of it, he couldn't make head nor tail. He certainly wasn't ready to accept that Travis might genuinely have been attacked and possibly even abducted by a UFO.

And yet, as his own man sy Gilson had attested, Travis's co workers, in all statistical likelihood were telling the truth about what they'd seen, and hadn't he too seen the odd unexplained object or light in the sky from time to time, driving those quiet forest roads alone at night. Just then the phone rang startled Gillespie grabbed the receiver.

The local phone company had traced a call placed close to midnight to Allison and grant Net property from outside a gas station in Haber, the town closest to where Travis had gone missing. It must be him, thought Gillespie. And yet if it was Travis, why hadn't he called the police instead. It was barely thirty minutes later when Deputy Chuck Ellison and Lieutenant A. M. Romo, on Gillespie's orders, pulled up to the Haber gas station. With the place

completely deserted. Ellison and Romo made their way over in the dark to the three phone booths at the front of the store and began dusting for Prince. In the end, however, there were just too many to be able to tell whether Travis had been there or not. Meanwhile, at the junction of Highway seventy seven and two seven seven, the road out to Phoenix from Snowflake, Deputy Glen Flake roused from bed by an excited Gillespie sat in his patrol

vehicle keeping a firm eye on the road ahead. By two am, however, he'd seen no sign of any vehicles belonging to the Walton family. A short time later, Flake pulled up to Travis's mother, Mary Kellett's home. Seeing lights on inside, he stepped out of his car and quietly headed toward the front door when he noticed Travis's brother,

Dwayne siphoning petrol from a vehicle on the driveway. Surprised to see the deputy, Dwayne explained that he had been late getting back from the Sheriff's office earlier in the day, so had missed the chance to get more gas for his car in preparation for his return to Phoenix that morning.

Since Dwayne said nothing about Travis, Flake thought it reasonable to assume the perhaps it wasn't him, after all, that had called the neft property earlier that night, And with that he said his goodbyes and returned home to bed. It was around lunch time the next day the reports began filtering through that Travis was back and being treated

in a hospital in Twucson, Arizona. Angered not to have been kept in the loop a deeply frustrated Gillespie is finally called by Dwayne late on Tuesday to inform him that Travis isn't in Tucson after all, but at home with him in Glendale, just outside of Phoenix. Dwayne was still talking when Gillespie slammed down the phone, grabbed his hat from the peg, and piled into his patrol car.

In the past five days, Gillespie's office had spent over ten thousand dollars looking for Travis, damaging several expensive vehicles in the process. One of the department's horses had also been put down after sustaining a devastating injury during the search. Coupled with the count less hours Gillespie had put in fielding one call after another from news outlets all over the world regarding Travis's bizarre disappearance, it was fair to say,

at the very least, the sheriff deserved some answers. It was late in the evening by the time Gillespie arrived at Dwayne's house. At first sight of the sheriff, Dwayne did his best to apologize for not alerting him sooner, while insisting that he only had Travis's best interests at heart. Unmoved, Gillespie demanded to see Travis immediately. Dwayne hesitated for a moment before showing the sheriff through to the living room.

Gillespie was in the process of detailing exactly just what length his department had gone to to help Dwayne and his family when the sight of an exhausted looking Travis stretched out on the sofa stopped him in his tracks. It wasn't that he seemed physically different, although he'd never seen Travis with five days of beard growth before, but something about his demeanor had changed. Then Gillespie realized what

it was. It was shock. The sheriff quietly took a seat next to the young man and began by asking him to describe everything he could remember about the last few days. Travis glanced nervously toward Dwayne, who nodded for him to begin. As Travis went on to recount, he remembered being up on the ridge in the forest, seeing the object glowing in the trees, and then having the

overwhelming urge to get close to it. He just turned back to see Mike and the others begging for him to return to the truck when he was engulfed in a blinding white blue light. In an instant, he felt as though he'd been hit on the back of the head by a baseball bat, and that his whole body was being electrocuted. The next thing he knew, he felt as though he was waking up from a deep sleep, but in excruciating pain, as if his whole body had

been burned inside and out. Finally opening his eyes, he found himself lying down on some kind of table with a large rectangular light above him. Gathering his thoughts. Though he didn't recognize the place, he assumed he was in a hospital of some sort, thinking that he must have sustained an injury on the job and his friends had brought him in. Looking down his body, he could see that his shirt and jacket had been pushed up towards his shoulders, leaving his chest and belly exposed over which

seemed to be some kind of device. Scanning his body slowly, With his eyes beginning to focus, he was able to make out three blurry figures stood around him, dressed in bright orange and wearing white surgical masks, which he assumed to be doctors, only realizing with horror moments later when he locked eyes with one of them that these weren't like any doctors he'd seen before. Panicking, he leaped from

the table, knocking the scanning device to the floor. As two of the figures approached, Travis stumbled back into some kind of instrument tray. Then, grabbing whatever came to hand, he prepared to defend himself. It was only then that he observed the figures properly for the first time. They were each about five feet tall, uncannily familiar with their two arms, legs, and five digits on each hand, but

that was where the familiarity ended. Their bodies seemed unusually light weight, while their skin was bright white, without a crease or wrinkle anywhere to be seen. Their eyes were big brown discs about an inch and a half in diameter, and their hands had no fingernails. As Travis went on to explain, he was just about to attack them when

they ran from the room, leaving him all alone. Seeing his chance, he bolted out into the corridor and ducked into some kind of control room, which was completely empty except for a chair in the middle of it covered in levers and buttons. But as he made his way toward it, the walls began to disappear, revealing a giant three hundred and sixty degree panoramic map of the stars that wrapped all around him as if he were standing

alone in the vastness of space. Moments later, Travis was joined in the room by what he assumed at first was another human man of large muscular build wearing a blue outfit and a bubble helmet over his head. Only when Travis saw the intense color of his electric blue eyes did he realize he wasn't human at all. Travis pleaded for his help none the less. In response, the being led him through an air lock into what looked

like some kind of aircraft hanger. Stepping out onto a ramp, Travis realized he was exiting some kind of craft that was similar to what they'd seen in the woods, but considerably larger in size. From there, no longer feeling any pain, he was led through another series of doors and corridors, until finally he came to a bright white room occupied by three other figures similar to the man who led

him there. The beings then lifted him on to a table and faced some kind of respiratory device over his face. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the pavement in the freezing dark, staring up at the stars in the night sky. Looking frantically about, he realized with relief that he was back in Arizona, somewhere on the highway just outside of Haber. Dehydrated and disorientated, he stumbled to the Haber gas station, from where he made the

call to his sister's home. It was all true, insisted Dwayne, as he then explained to the sheriff. He'd been out at his mother's home in Snowflake when they got the call from Grant, their brother in law, informing them that Travis was alive. Having raced off with Grant to pick him up from the gas station, they found him huddled down inside one of the phone booths, still wearing the clothes he'd gone missing in despite it being well below freezing.

According to Dwayne, Travis was so traumatized when they arrived that he tried to run away, not realizing who Dwayne was at first. When they finally got him in the car, the clearly disorientated Travis was convinced he'd only been missing for a few hours. When Dwayne then told him to feel the beard on his usually clean shaven face. Travis was shocked to find it had been more like five days. Sheriff Gillespie ran a hand through his hair. Could it be, he asked, that he really was hit on the head

by a baseball bat. Perhaps one of his co workers had done it and then drugged him afterwards. Perhaps he really had woken up in a hospital after all, but the effect of the hit on the head and the drugs had left him confused and discombobulated. But the brothers were having none of it. For a start, there was no injury to his head, nor to any other part

of his body for that matter. According to Dwayne, this was one of the first things he checked when Travis got home, shortly before helping him into a hot bath to warm him up. He also claimed to have weighed his brother beforehand, finding that he'd lost at least ten

pounds in the days since he'd disappeared. That first day since Travis's apparent return had been an eventful one for Dwayne and his brother, as they went on to explain to Sheriff Gillespie, it was back during the search for Travis that Duane had been approached by William Spaulding from the Ufology Group Ground Source a Watch, an organization first founded in nineteen fifty seven that sought to provide a legitimate outlet for people to report sightings of unusual aerial

phenomena without the fear of ridicule. Having dealt with a number of similar cases before, Spaulding advised Dwayne to contact him should Travis be found alive. In return, GSW would provide a free medical examination and shelter from the inevitable media storm that would follow in the hope of gaining proof that he had been abducted by an unknown sentient species,

if indeed that was the case. As it transpired, according to Dwayne, Travis was already back at his mother's house in Snowflake the night Deputy Flake saw Dwayne in the driveway siphoning gas for his car. Realizing that he wouldn't be able to keep Travis's apparent return a secret for long, Dwayne informed the press that he was being taken to a hospital in Tucson to recuperate from his exhausting ordeal.

That morning. The pair then traveled to Phoenix, whereby they immediately contacted Spaulding, who gave them an address for a doctor Leicester Stewart, who would be conducting the medical exam. When they arrived there soon after, however, the brothers were surprised to find doctor Stewart's office located in a fairly run down westward Hoe hotel. They only became more concerned when they saw the sign on doctor Steward's door, which

read hypnotherapist. After thirty minutes or so of Travis detailing what he could about his missing five days, it became clear that not only was Stuart Ill equipped to carry out a full medical exam on him, but that he wasn't a medical doctor at all. Returning home, frustrated, Dwain was then contacted by Coral and Jim Lawrenson from another

UFO organization called the Aerial Phenomena Research Group. Much like Crown Sourcer Watch, APRO prided themselves on their rational scientific approach to the UFO phenomena, with large staff of consulting PhD scientists among them, most notably doctor James Harder, a civil and hydraulics engineering professor from the University of California, Berkeley. Famed UFO researcher j Allen Heineck described APPRO as one

of the best civilian organizations of its day. Still desperate to prove what had happened to him, Travis agreed to then let Apro conduct the medical exam. That afternoon, doctor Howard Kendall, predominantly a pediatrician and general practitioner, Doctor Joseph Saltz arrived at Duane's house to assess the apparent abductee. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you.

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Doctor Kendall's report would later state that from the moment they saw him, it was clear that Travis was suffering from extreme stress and anxiety. Kendall and Salts observed that his vital signs were all normal, with no overt signs of weight loss, though his mouth was unusually dry, suggesting a high level of dehydration. Examining his body for any signs of bruising or damage, curiously, doctor Kendall discovered a two millimeter wide red spot in the crease of Travis's

right elbow, much like a needle puncture wound. Travis suggested that it might have been a thorn wound picked up at some point while he was working out in the forest. After the preliminary examination, Dwayne then handed doctor Kendall a jar that he claimed contained Travis's urine, which William Spaulding had advised him to collect. The sample was later found to be normal, displaying no evidence of drug use or anything else untoward, with the exception that it contained no

trace of acetone. Had Travis not eaten in the last few days, ordinarily acetone, which is created when fat stores are broken down in the body, would be present. If Travis had indeed lost ten pounds, an absence of acetone

would have been deeply unusual. Intriguingly, the doctors also noted that the combination of Travis's unmarked body and the fact that it was relatively odorless despite apparently not having used any soap since his return, seemed to suggest that wherever Travis had been for the past five days, it wasn't outside in the woods. Sheriff Gillespie, having listened to it all with quiet patience, thanked the brothers for bringing him

up to speed, then stood up to leave. Sensing the sheriff wasn't entirely convinced by the story, Travis made a request. Since his co workers had taken a polygraph test, it only made sense that he should be able to take one too. Perhaps then people might believe him. We'll be in touch, said the sheriff, before thanking the young men again for their time and heading out. The following day, Wednesday, November twelfth, Travis and Dwayne were moved into the Sheraton

Hotel in Scottsdale, courtesy of the National Inquirer. By the nineteen seventies, The Inquirer, a notorious and controversial tabloid that had previously promoted fascist causes, was enjoying a resurgence as the nations go to paper for all things celebrity and bizarre,

with a particular interest in apparent altercations with UFOs. Having managed to get hold of Coral and Jim Lawrenson before Travis's medical examination, the paper struck a deal with both Travis and APRO to cover all costs in their efforts to prove he was telling the truth. In return, Travis

gave them exclusive rights to his story. Later that afternoon, doctor James Harder of the University California, Berkeley arrived at the hotel to conduct a regressive hypnosis session with Travis, in which, while apparently under hypnosis, Travis repeated the exact same story he told everyone else about his experience on board a UFO. Afterwards, Travis is informed by Sheriff Gillespie that a polygraph test has been arranged for him in two days time, to be conducted by sy Gilson, the

same individual who tested his coworkers. The test is agreed to on the one condition that it remained a secret from the press. However, the test is abruptly canceled at the last minute by Dwayne when he receives a call from a reporter an hour before the test is due to be taken, wanting to know where it's taking place. The next morning, a new story breaks in the Phoenix Gazette with the headline ufocase is linked to drugs by expert.

The expert turned out to be none other than doctor Leicester Stewart, the hypnotherapist that Duane and Travis had blown off after spending only a few minutes with him at his office in the westward Hoe Hotel. Only the way Steward told it, it had been more like two hours, in which he had ample time to assess the patient. It was his conclusion that Travis had made the entire thing up, going on to speculate that his cosmic visions

had been nothing but the hallucinatory effects of LSD. William Spaulding was also quoted in the article stating that in fact, it had been Dwaine and Travis that specifically asked him to set them up with a hypnotherapist. Spaulding, having only days before been so convinced of Travis's story he was willing to offer them financial support to prove it, was now convinced more than ever that it was all just

a hoax. Though we can never know for sure whose version of events is the truth, it has been pointed out that it would have been physically impossible for the Walton brothers to have spent even one hour with doctor Stewart and got back to Dwane's home in time to receive the later phone call from Coral and Jim Lawrenson. That doctor Stuart was found not to even have a license to practice medicine in the United States also cast

further doubt on his credibility. The sudden attack, as some have suggested, appeared to have been made out of spite more than anything else, in retaliation for Travis's rejection of Spaulding's help. The following week, doctor James Harder released his own assessment to Travis on behalf of apro coming to the conclusion that, one way or another, whether the events had occurred or not as Travis said they had, Harder had little doubt that, at the very least, Travis believed

he was telling the truth. Harder's assessment was made partially from the medical evidence, but also on account of another apparent abduction case that had supposedly occurred three months previously.

The case involving US Air Force Sergeant Charles Moody had never previously been reported, and yet Moody's description of the beings that he allegedly encountered bore a striking similarity to those described by Travis, also being five foot tall, with large bald heads, large eyes, and unusually light weight body.

The National Inquirer would eventually publish the story, for which Travis was paid two thousand, five hundred US dollars equivalent to twelve thousand dollars today, with each of his co workers receiving just over four hundred dollars. Over time, the national interest in Travis's story began to die down, until eventually the news outlets stopped calling, and the colorful array of out of towners and UFO buffs headed back to

wherever they had come. From By the new year, Sheriff Gillespie, still none the wiser, with no one to prosecute or charge for Travis's bizarre disappearance, closed the case two months later. In February nineteen seventy six, Travis, Dwayne, and their mother Mary would all be given polygraph tests set up by the Aerial Phenomena Research Group, which concluded that all three were telling the truth with regard to their own experiences

during those extraordinary days in November nineteen seventy five. In the months and years that followed, the people of Snowflake remained divided, with some convinced it was a hoax and others not entirely sure. Being a Mormon settlement, many took umbridge to the heresy at the heart of Travis's story that the creatures he'd encountered were very much not in

what they considered to be God's image. Though they accepted that God had created other worlds and populated them with people, that those people might look a little different was a stretch too far for their beliefs. As for the rest of the crew, the event appeared to affect them in different ways. Kenny Peterson would eventually leave the town making his way to Mexico, where he married and settled down

for a time before returning to Snowflake. Though Mike Rogers was stripped of the Turkey Springs contract, he was eventually paid in full for the unfinished job and continued to work successfully as a contractor. Dwayne Smith and Allan Dallas later underwent hypnotic regression, and both maintained their original version

of events pertaining to the night that Travis disappeared. Despite all the many strange looks and subsequent mickey taking that came with being part of the story, John Goulette had no regrets, saying later only that he was glad to have experienced it. All seven men involved have never altered their story once to this day, with Steve Pierce, who was suffering from financial hardship at the time, even said to have turned down a ten thousand dollar offer to

retract his story. Travis Walton would eventually settle down and marry Mike Roger's sister Dana, with the pair taking up residence above a local store on Snowflake's main Street. In nineteen seventy eight, he published a full account of his story in the book The Walton Experience, that was later adapted into the nineteen ninety three film Fire in the Sky.

He continues to lecture about his apparent abduction today. In the summer of nineteen seventy six, a report was produced by journalist and prominent UFO skeptic Philip Class that purported to provide a detailed forensic analysis of Travis Walton's story, demonstrating that it had been entirely fabricated. Class's claim hinged largely on new and highly controversial information that he'd unearthed

during his investigation. As it turned out, the polygraph test that Travis eventually took in February nineteen seventy six was not the first polygrapht he'd taken on the subject of his apparent abduction. In fact, he'd sat for one as early as November sixteenth, less than a week after his return.

Organized by the Aerial Phenomena Research Group and witnessed by a representative for the National Inquirer, the test was conducted by John McCarthy, the director of the Arizona Polygraph Laboratory, who determined on balance that Travis was not telling the truth. Both the National Inquirer and at PRO agreed not to

publish the result. It was a few nights later, the Deputy Glen Flake was sat in the Navajoe County Sheriff's office in Holbrook, fielding one call after another from news outlets across the world, desperate to know more about the

forestry workers and the UFO. With the phones finally having calmed down, Flake was taking a moment of downtime when a burst of static from out of the station radio was followed by a flurry of excited voices discussing a strange light that was currently hovering near the mountains just to the east. Flake listened in as the voices to deputies stationed at Pinetop, a town just fifty miles to the south, detailed the light and how it seemed to just be sitting there in the sky and slowly changing

from red to white to blue. Seconds later, a third voice broke in in excitement, another deputy, this time from Saint john Sheriff's station, about forty miles to the east. They could see too, whatever it was, he said, it was no aeroplane. Deputy Flake grabbed his coat, stepped out into the freezing cold night, and turned his eyes to the east. Well, I'll be damned he said, as there clearly discernible in the sky just above the forest sat a small bright light changing slowly from red to white

to blue. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've

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