UFO gathering grows

Fire in Eureka

It must have been fate that left me standing alongside Travis Walton in the men’s room at the comfy Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs last week. He was taller than D.B. Sweeney, who portrayed Walton in the popular 1993 movie, Fire in the Sky.

Many know Walton as perhaps the world’s best-recognized alien abductee since he was “Hollywoodized” for his 1975 reported abduction in clear view of six witnesses who’d been logging with Walton in northwestern Arizona.

Millions have seen the movie in the decades since its release. And Walton was one of the speakers at the 27th annual Ozark Mountain UFO Conference. He’d come to explain to well over 700 attendees the story of what he says happened to him on the early evening of Nov. 5, 1975, along a remote logging road winding through the White Mountains.

He said he’s always disagreed with the inaccurate approach of the film and that some scenes were fictionalized for dramatic effect.

“I became a pest on the set trying to explain that’s just not the way things happened,” he told me. Walton’s abduction by a “beautiful, gleaming” craft that sent a beam of explosive energy to knock him unconscious as he stood beneath the mesmerizing object also has been the focus of dozens of documentaries and interviews. He explained that he since has passed five polygraph exams. And his workmates also all passed lie-detector tests in connection with what they witnessed when Walton was missing for five days.

Those fellow loggers initially were suspected of murdering Walton. Not nearly enough space here to retell this remarkable story that I, too, am convinced happened just the way Walton lived it.

“I’m hoping to see a second movie produced that accurately describes what happened,” he said as we walked to the lobby.

Clad in a navy blue suit and pale blue shirt, Walton articulately described the events surrounding his abduction. He said the movie didn’t come close to accurately portraying the explosive light from the saucer that sent him flying backwards. He said he awoke blurry-eyed, initially believing he was in a dimly lit emergency room until his vision cleared enough to see three small creatures with large eyes around the table where he was lying on his back. An object was covering his chest as he struggled to breathe.

Also unlike the film, he awoke-following his experiences in the craft-sprawled, clothed and facedown beside a highway near Heber, Ariz., rather than the film’s version: Naked and hysterical in the rain. He’s since written a book that explains the true story. “With the passage of time, I’ve found myself changing my views. I wonder now if in fact these beings in the craft were actually trying to help me recover.”

Walton’s articulate 90 minutes at the podium held the wall-to-wall audience spellbound. His sincerity was palpable, which made his story more astounding.

Also speaking was movie producer Anthony Cataldo, who is in the early stages of preparing a high-quality “accurate” feature/documentary film (with major actors) called 701 to be released next spring. Cataldo, who has produced 14 feature films, said the film’s title stems from the 701 UFO-related cases that were left unexplained by those who worked on the defunct Project Blue Book. Some people are treated strangely when they say they’ve seen a UFO and are discounted immediately, he said, but many witnesses are credible professionals such as such as airline pilots, police officers and astronauts. Cataldo, also a former corporate CEO, showed four clips from the 11 cases to be featured in 701.

Linda Moulton Howe is an award-winning broadcast journalist and documentarian who for decades has shared her investigative findings in areas of unexplained phenomenon ranging from cattle mutilations to UFOs on her website, Earthfiles, as well as on George Noory’s popular national radio program Coast to Coast (formerly hosted by commentator Art Bell).

She spent an hour talking about the mysteries surrounding mutilations and the enormous stone pillars and the amazing figures shaped into them at the temple in Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, 17,000 years ago. Howe, who holds a master’s degree in communications from Stanford, has proven credible through her abilities and documentation over decades of bulldogging into areas where most timid mainstream journalists fear to tread.

Noory also had flown into Northwest Arkansas from St. Louis to tell the crowd about his late-night radio show (now on over 560 stations) and his experiences. The personable talk show host explained how he and actor Martin Landau together witnessed a massive UFO hovering one evening as they sat on his back patio in California.

Author Dolores Cannon, who has spent 27 years investigating the UFO phenomenon around the world, has hosted the early April conference at the Inn for two years.

Walking to my car, I recalled visiting the conference for the first time years ago when closer to 200 attended. It’s clear to me that widespread interest in the unexplained events around us continues to accelerate.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 04/15/2014

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