50 years on, ‘Fire in the Sky’ UFO incident still shapes Arizona town

“The foolishness of the impulse to get out and run towards it, just assuming it would take off before I got very far — that was a big mistake that created a huge detour in my life,” Travis Walton says.

“Tell you the truth: I wish it had never happened.”

It’s been 50 years since Walton’s “big mistake,” when he became the central figure in one of the most famous alien abduction stories in the world: the so-called “Fire in the Sky” event.

The incident

Five decades on, true believers and skeptics continue to debate what occurred in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in central Arizona on Nov. 5, 1975.

A seven-man crew was finishing up a routine shift on a logging contract near Turkey Springs. After their shift ended, they got into the pickup and began their drive back to town. Mike Rogers, the crew boss, was behind the wheel when they saw the craft. 

“ We rounded that corner and there was an open view at a clearing and there was a thing, a UFO … It was an oval-shaped object, three-dimensional, and it had lighter parts and darker parts — looked to have sort of a framework,” Rogers says. 

According to Rogers, he stopped the truck, then Walton got out and quickly walked toward the object that was hovering about 15 to 20 feet above the ground. The crew was yelling at Walton not to approach it. Rogers recounts hearing loud rumbling and piercing sounds, before seeing Walton hit by a “bolt of energy.”

“ It was just a straight beam, like a direct thing, and hit him in the head and chest area and knocked him on his back. He landed about 10, 15 feet from where he was standing. And at that point, it scared us so bad that I hit the gas,” he says. 

Per Rogers’ account, they fled the scene before acknowledging that leaving Walton was not the right thing to do. He gave the others an option to either go back with him or to get out and wait in the middle of the forest. They all decided to go back. Through the trees, he could see light rise up and then streak off. When they arrived back at the location, they searched for Walton. 

“ We went all around through the clearing looking for him, calling his name and couldn’t find him at all,” Rogers says. 

When they found no trace of him, they headed into town to contact the authorities, and that evening, law enforcement began a search.

Over the next few days, what started as small-town speculation turned into a national media frenzy. Theories of a kidnapping or a murder coverup swirled. 

Walton was missing for five days before his reappearance, when he made a collect call to his sister’s house from a Heber phonebooth. When his brother picked him up, he had no recollection and did not realize he had been missing for five days.

“That just kind of, you know, really hit me really hard, wondering what had happened,” Walton says.  

Soon after he reappeared, he underwent regressive hypnosis and psychiatric and medical examinations, including drug and alcohol tests. 

“At first I was completely unable to speak about it at all … I was just so traumatized … I couldn’t even tell my brother what had happened,” he says, but he believes the hypnosis helped him communicate the experience.  

“I was the observer in what happened rather than the experiencer … so it kind of separated me from it … and that made it easy enough to where I could talk about it after that,” Walton says.  

Even skeptics can’t deny the impact the alleged incident has had in the past five decades. Walton’s experience sparked national headlines, lectures, conferences, documentaries, books, podcast episodes, a motion picture (1993’s “Fire in the Sky”) and, most recently, a 50th anniversary event hosted by Walton’s family.

The town

Travis Walton’s UFO experience didn’t just change his life forever; it’s also shaped the small communities of Heber and Overgaard. For the better or the worse depends on who you ask.

The neighboring small towns of Heber and Overgaard, commonly referred to together as the shared community Heber-Overgaard, are about two and a half hours northeast of the Valley, near the Mogollon Rim. Folks come up here to fish, to hike and to wander through the little souvenir and antique shops that dot the area.

And since the 1975 incident, there’s been a new kind of tourist showing up: the alien enthusiast.

“Some locals might not like it, but it draws people in and puts them on the map,” Walton says. 

The town really became a pop-culture touchstone in the 1993 motion picture, “Fire in the Sky.” Although Walton made a cameo and was even brought in as a consultant, he felt the portrayal lacked accuracy in some areas, specifically the extraterrestrial encounter. 

“The first time I got a copy of the script, the portion of my experience aboard the craft was not in the script. And when I saw what they’d done with it — it was not representative of what happened at all.”

Faithful to Walton’s experience or not, the film just intensified the public’s interest in the area.

According to local business owners, the incident regularly brings UFO-enthusiast tourism from as far away as Europe and Australia. One local spot, Fyre in the Sky Smoke Shop, went all in with the theme. The Red Onion restaurant serves fans by selling alien T-shirts. Even the Heber-Overgaard Chamber of Commerce has decided to embrace the local legend by slinging UFO-themed swag such as Travis Walton’s book, DVDs and even an “Alien Rub” cooking spice blend.  

Some local landmarks are popular photo-taking spots, including the forest itself and the “Travis Walton Rescue Site” next to the Heber Tire Shop. It’s the actual phonebooth Walton called for help from, and when its original home at a gas station was torn down, it was moved to its current spot. The booth stands alongside an abduction-themed mural with bright-green, wood-carved aliens made across the street at Wild Woods LLC. 

John Velasquez, Wild Woods LLC owner, does a brisk business in alien wood sculptures created by championship carvers. He recalls when a wood-carver proposed making alien sculptures, an idea the previous owner rejected before realizing how much business it could bring in. Now, it’s a staple in the store. 

“ We’re constantly doing batches,” Velasquez says. “About a month and a half ago, he did a batch of about 12 to 15 aliens. We sold about a third of that before they were even painted.” 

The distinctive wood-carved aliens were a selling point for resident Kathryn Blowers, who admits that the Walton incident was the main reason she moved to Heber. 

“We had a few UFO-type encounters living in Phoenix, and we were invested in figuring out why … Arizona in general had so many UFO experiences …we saw the alien wood carvings all over town and knew this place was for us, and it truly is,” she says.

Kevin Nettles, a metal fabricator and artist, dedicated the outside of his home to extraterrestrial-inspired artwork to show support. The “Alien House” is located just miles from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest entrance. 

“I’d heard the Travis Walton story before, and I saw people selling alien carvings and stuff up here, and I’m like, I’m gonna fit right in. I’m gonna be the alien house. I just made the sign for that and put alien stuff up. I’m showing town spirit.” 

Outside of local tourism, other visual artists have been intrigued and influenced by Walton’s abduction accounts, making it a recurring artistic theme.  

Northern Arizona-based tattooer and artist Kat Richards, known as Miss Kitty, began dedicating her life at an early age to paranormal subjects, specifically UFOs. Walton’s story inspires Richards as an artist to this day; her business logo is a flying saucer with a tractor beam. Clients from all over the U.S. commission her for alien-themed tattoo designs. 

“In my heart, I would love to be a well-respected, highbrow artist who just did really beautiful oil paintings of nudes and still lifes,” she commented on her artistic approach. “But ultimately, if I’m authentic to myself, I just want to create art centered around flying saucers and alien abductions and themes of the paranormal.” 

Richards created the cover art for this article, and is fascinated with the Walton incident. 

“ I think it’s one of the most compelling stories of alien abduction, that they all took polygraphs and they all passed, except one who is inconclusive. It lends a lot of credibility to the entire incident,” she believes. 

The legacy

And that’s the question to this day, isn’t it? Is Walton’s story true?

When we asked for more information about the incident in local Facebook groups, the responses showed the strong feelings the event still elicits in Heber and Overgaard residents. “Hoax,” one responded succinctly. “Walton is a crack head who got high and lost in woods. He made up the story. Those of us from here know he’s a giant liar crackhead,” griped another.

One woman wrote, “I think the controversy and strong emotions reflect the incident, true or not, (and) create a bit of a rift between townspeople that still lives today.”

Even eyewitness Mike Rogers, a self-described rationalist and realist, emphasized the contrast of his own viewpoint to Walton’s.

“I  believe in UFOs. But the one thing that’s really important here is that nobody, none of us but Travis, saw him being abducted.  So I can’t say emphatically that Travis Walton was abducted.”

Rogers, however, stands firmly by his accounts of witnessing the craft and a “beam” hitting Walton before the crew fled the scene. Even without seeing Walton taken onto the craft, he did not deny the possibility that it happened. 

 ”The fact is, we did not see him being abducted, but that doesn’t mean that he was not abducted. (It) means that we didn’t see it.” 

Walton welcomes constructive dialogue from skeptics, though in his view, they always fall short. When asked for a response to the negative comments posted recently online, he adds: 

“Online remarks are mostly positive from many people who actually know me, while the most negative comments come from people who don’t know me. They don’t have even the vaguest knowledge of any of the basic facts that are indisputable, like what the sheriff’s department did and said.

“It’s my duty to be responsible and tell the truth.”

A common theory of skeptics is that the incident was a hoax so the crew could get out of the logging contract they had fallen behind on. Walton says that that extensions are typically granted because of things like weather conditions, and that the job was nearly complete at the time.

And speaking of trees, Rogers points to physical changes in the trees that remain among the strongest pieces of evidence that the incident really happened as the crew described. 

“ I knew the trees well enough to know how fast they grow, and these trees were much larger than they should be in the amount of time that had transpired,” he says.  

He alleges that the trees closest to where they witnessed the UFO grew significantly faster than their typical rate. Researchers have noted a similar growth pattern in pine trees exposed to radiation near Chernobyl in Ukraine.

“I don’t know whether that’s a scar tissue-type response or stimulates it in some other way. I don’t know,” Walton speculates. “But it’s interesting that you can compare another known case where pine trees were exposed to radiation and had a similar growth-stimulating effect.”

Other items that add weight to claims that the abduction was a hoax: A made-for-TV movie about an abduction, “The UFO Incident,” aired two weeks before Walton’s disappearance. However, Walton says he didn’t seek out anything about UFOs during that time in his life.

Some skeptics says Walton was an alcoholic or a drug addict whose “abduction” was a product of him being drunk or high, which he refutes.

“The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s drug screen showed no trace of any drug in my body,” he says. 

Another topic of debate surrounds the polygraph tests administered by an Arizona Department of Public Safety examiner. The six witnesses and Walton underwent tests after his reappearance. All passed, except one was determined “inconclusive,” and both Walton and Rogers explain that this was because one of the crew members did not complete the exam, even though all the questions he answered before stopping were scored as truthful. Later, the same crew member retook the polygraph test and passed.

Some crew members took follow-up tests and passed consistently, as did Walton’s brother and mother, who were accused of being co-conspirators. 

There are plenty of those who, in the parlance of “The X-Files,” want to believe. The Arizona Chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) gave us a statement: “Travis Walton is highly regarded by UFO researchers around the world and has upheld the story of his experience through the years, without any suspicion. His case is bolstered by the unprecedented verification of six individuals successfully passing numerous lie detector tests, of which the odds of false results are near zero … It is one of the strongest abduction or contact cases ever recorded.”

The cultural impact of the incident has evolved over the past five decades. Now 72 years old, Walton sees how his perspective has shifted compared to his 22-year-old self. 

“It was only over time that I realized that it only happened because I was foolish enough to jump out,” he says. 

He adds he once felt anger toward the situation, but now has some understanding.  

“So, you know, rather than taking me and dumping my body in some obscure place, let the crew hang for murder, they went the extra mile to restore me and return me to where I could get help. And to me, that really sets a pretty strong feeling about whether they have evil intent.”

He stood by his account during November’s anniversary event in Overgaard hosted by his family. Although Walton did not plan the event himself, he did participate throughout the day at his family’s request. The event included an option to tour the abduction site, watch a screening of “Fire in the Sky,” participate in Q & A session conducted by Walton himself and watch a special performance by The Figs, a band consisting of some of his children, in-laws and grandchildren who play regularly in the area. Walton even joined in to sing on a couple of songs.

Attendees came from all over the state. During the abduction site tour, Walton pointed out some of the key location. Throughout the tour and movie screening, Walton was visibly uncomfortable at certain points, his posture tense, his voice occasionally shaky and quiet. 

Walton commented on how this event differed from others he’s participated in over the years, explaining that being at the actual site brought back a lot of memories he usually compartmentalizes. 

“This one included a visit to the site, so that was pretty intense for me and brought a lot of things back,” he says.

People continued approaching him throughout the event. He willingly stood by, greeting attendees shaking hands and taking every photo request. Although this attention is not new for him, he maintains that it doesn’t affect his ego. 

“I don’t think what I’ve experienced makes me special — just an ordinary person trying to cope,” he says. 

Even though the 50th anniversary event was not Walton’s idea, he feels as though it brought his life-changing experience full circle. 

“It was kind of an event that gave me closure.”