1
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.
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Hey, well thanks for coming. How many people have seen the movie?
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Most of you. Well, I'm still going to go through this.
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If you know the basic story, there's still new stuff
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coming up all the time. And follow-up research
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is really the main thing of what I'm talking about.
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First of all, you know,
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if you've seen the movie and know enough about the story, you know that there's
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been quite a bit of departure. You know, Hollywood always does that.
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I've never seen a movie about anything where I knew the background story that it wasn't
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altered for dramatic purposes. You know, that just comes with the territory.
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It's not a documentary. It's a dramatization.
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Some of the changes were
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forgivable and others were not.
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There were some changes that they made that were
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really out there that got edited out, fortunately.
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So there it was in the high country of Arizona.
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Largest ponderosa pine forest in the world.
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And
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just about as high as you can get in that whole area.
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There were seven of us. In the movie
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they depicted five. That's just to
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simplify the cast, you know, fewer characters for people to
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keep track of. There were actually seven of us.
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And, you know, I had two brothers that were rolled into one
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character named Dan. Don and Dwayne became Dan.
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And there were like four or five
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different lawmen and investigators that were rolled into James Garner's
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character.
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November 5th, 1975, the seven of us
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working, putting in some long days, you know,
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in anticipation of winter weather shutting us out of the woods, we wanted to get
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the contract done. And so it was getting dark.
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We loaded up our equipment. We're headed out of there.
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In the movie it looks like we'd been driving for some time and
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everybody was sleepy or drowsy. But actually we were all in a very alert
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state of mind recently doing hard physical labor.
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And that's how seven of us fit in one vehicle,
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a crew cab truck. We're driving up this
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rough road and
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it was on the low side, left side of the ridge
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headed south up towards the rim road.
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And we sighted these little glimmers of light coming through the trees ahead.
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And right off it was something that was out of the ordinary, caught our
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attention, but it wasn't alarming at first. It was just as we
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looked, it just wasn't adding up with any possible explanations.
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It was deer hunting season. I thought maybe deer hunters were camped there.
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We had encountered trees that had been
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hit by lightning before and stopped and put them out. And that's where the
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term fire in the sky, because we were thinking that maybe that had happened again.
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The Hondurusa pine forest right through there has the highest number of lightning strikes
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in any place in the United States other than
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the Everglades. So we were thinking
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maybe the moon, but then we look over here and see the moon in a different direction.
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But you could tell that the light was coming from higher than where
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ground level would be. It was very thick tree growth, but
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all these little glimmers coming through there. So we were thinking
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maybe a forest fire.
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I could see
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that there was a break in the trees up ahead and where the light was coming across the road.
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And I said, Mike, hurry up, get up there so we can see where it is. And
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as soon as we got up there, boom, there it was. It was unmistakable.
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This craft was hovering
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less than between here and the outer door. I mean, it was
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unmistakable. The skeptics said, well, they just saw the planet Jupiter.
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This was not some hazy ball of light in the distance.
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I mean, it was just, you know, Mike
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and John, they said, you know, they were so
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impressed by the grandeur of this thing that they compared
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it to, they said it was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.
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But that was later.
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I mean, they weren't pausing to reflect. I mean, as soon as
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I saw it, I thought it would just take off and gone in a flash.
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So I said, Mike, stop the truck. And as soon as he hit the break, I just threw
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open the door and jumped out and headed towards it thinking I'd get a closer look
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as it zipped away. But as soon as we saw it,
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Alan Dallas yelled out, it's a flying saucer.
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And as I got out of the truck,
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I was already having
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misgivings about what I was doing, you know.
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This was a very risky thing.
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But, you know, it was kind of the way I was at the time.
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And I was hearing these guys
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get more and more agitated the closer I got. And I was getting more and more scared.
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So I slowed down as I approached it. Now, Alan later said
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that he thought it looked to him like I was in some kind of a trance.
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Like I was being drawn towards it. And Steve is saying
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that he thinks I was under their control and they were making me do it.
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And I didn't feel that way. I felt, you know, like this was my own
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impulse, my own curiosity. And so,
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but they argue that, you know, if they were
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in mind control, that they could make you think it was your own idea, too.
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But, you know, I remember the thought processes, you know,
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about the danger and everything. And the sound it was making was
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really powerful. It was kind of an intimidating
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feeling. My heart was really pounding and
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I got more and more scared the more agitated they were saying, you know,
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get back in the truck, let's get out of here.
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But as they later said that it seemed like
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something was about to happen. And I don't think that's just from the
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circumstances of me getting too close to this thing. I think part of that
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was that there was this sensation, sort of,
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subconscious that was making the hair stand up, that it was
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some kind of an electrical charge building up. But when I got
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up closer, I was standing there looking up at
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an angle and it was just
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parts of it were glowing and parts of it were metallic, but it was like glass
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over the whole surface, real smooth. And even though it was giving off light,
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it was reflecting the trees and the surroundings.
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But it wasn't so bright that you couldn't see it clearly,
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you know. In the movie they made it look red, but it wasn't red at all.
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It was kind of a soft golden color.
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And we compared it to
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metal coming out of a blast furnace, but that's like
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quite hot, you know, towards a very light golden color. So they made it
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look like lava in the movie, but it didn't. But
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when I was standing there looking up at it and those guys were screaming at me and swearing at me to get away from there,
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suddenly it got louder and it started to move.
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And it wasn't real steady, it was sort of a little bit jerky as it moved away from me.
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And that startled me, so I jumped for cover.
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And the nearest cover was that much closer to it.
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I went down and into a crouch there. And they were, you know,
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really in a frenzy at that point, the rest of the crew, get the hell out of there,
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you know. I didn't need to be told, I was already feeling,
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I was really got myself in a tight one.
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So I decided to run back to the truck and I jumped up to sprint back
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and as soon as I straightened up, bam, that's when it hit me.
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This blast of energy came out of the craft.
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And you know, at the time, I thought that, you know,
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in the days afterwards, I thought that something had been fired.
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Maybe I had accidentally triggered some automatic defense or
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something of that nature or that they actually thought I was some kind of a threat.
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You wouldn't think a man on foot on the ground would present
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any threat. But now I think that what happened
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was when I stood up, I closed the distance.
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And that there was a charge built up in this thing that jumped
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to ground through my body.
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And that is really, you know,
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this is the key point to the whole episode, that, you know,
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interpreting what happened and what their agenda is and
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why I was kept for five days, all has to do with the power of this energy.
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In the movie, surprisingly,
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Hollywood played it down. It was depicted as
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much less violent than it actually was. They said it was like
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I'd stepped on a landmine, like a grenade throwing me through the air.
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Steve said it threw me 20 feet. John said my body
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hit the ground like a sack of meat, you know, that it was no attempt to defend
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myself or protect my fall, that I just landed
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crumpled up so limp that they immediately were screaming at each other,
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he'd killed him, he's dead, he's dead. So, to the
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people that criticized them and say that they were cowardly
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to take off at that point, I gotta tell them
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that, you know, Mike's responsibility to the rest of the crew was to get them
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to safety, and there was no sense in them
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putting everyone's life at risk to save somebody they thought was already dead.
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They were certain of it. And so, they took
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off, and
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they said they stopped up the road as soon as they were
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far enough away to see that it wasn't chasing them, and then they spotted
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some deer hunters going down the road, and they went to try to catch them, thinking
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they'd get some rifles to go back, because even at that point, they were already
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realizing that they were going to have to see if they could
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save my life. And so, they were unable to catch the deer hunters. Now, in
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the movie, when Mike says, you know, we gotta go back, and the guys start
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arguing that they didn't want to go back, Mike made the offer.
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Anybody who doesn't want to go back can just wait here for us, and
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we'll pick you up on our way back. But in real life, nobody
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volunteered to get out and wait alone in the dark.
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Everybody stayed in the truck. In the movie, Mike went back
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alone. I don't know why they did that. But when they
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approached the area, they saw the thing leave, and
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so, Kenny
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said that he wasn't so worried that the thing was going to come back. His main
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concern was how horrible my body was going to look,
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because they had this argument about whether it incinerated me or disintegrated me,
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and Kenny was thinking there'd be a charred corpse there.
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So, they found where the truck had spun out when they took off,
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and made a search around the perimeter
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of the clearing, John said, and
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they were calling and looking, and
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at one point, Mike broke down crying, fell to his knees, and
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that was his one break.
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Not finding my body where it landed,
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and then feel all this guilt about taking off, which is
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totally understandable.
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It was something that just
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really affected him at that moment. So, when they
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headed back to town, were they deciding what to do, they
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knew they had to get help.
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Alan had had some trouble with the law in the past, and he didn't want to go tell
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the authorities, let's just get some friends with guns, and we'll come back, and then if we
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can't find Travis, then we can report it. But some of the others
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said, look, if Travis is never found, how's that
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going to look if we don't report this?
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They did decide to report it. They went
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to a phone booth and called the sheriff's deputy,
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and he called the sheriff down. When the sheriff and his men,
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his deputies, were interviewing them in there,
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they were so terrified, so upset, some of the guys were still crying,
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that, you know, the sheriff had no doubt that something really serious
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had happened, but come to find out, their immediate suspicion
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was that they'd murdered me, buried my
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body somewhere out there, and made up the craziest, most unlikely cover story
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you could come up with.
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You know, the sheriff was checking the back of the truck to see if there were beer cans in there,
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and he said, you know, when people ask him, he says,
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you know, I looked, and I didn't spot anything,
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and I was looking. So, they went out there,
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and made a search that night, and half of the crew,
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and the other half went back to town.
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But they mounted
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a massive manhunt. They got volunteers out there the next morning,
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60 men on horseback, on four-wheel drives,
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on foot. They would space everyone
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equally across a huge area where each searcher was in
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sight of the other, and they made these grid-like sweeps through there.
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They had helicopters and airplanes. They even brought in
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the tracking dogs from the prison, and the dogs were unable
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to find a trail other than up to where my body fell.
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And so, this went on for five days,
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but this whole time, this suspicion of murder grew
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and grew, and the men were hearing it from the searchers. They were hearing it
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walking down the road in town, and the pressure was really
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heavy on them. So, they said, hey, we'll take sodium pentothal,
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lie detector test, anything you want. We're telling the truth here.
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So, during the search, some UFO researchers
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came out and found some anomalous magnetic readings. There was another
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guy there that had a Geiger counter, and
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when the men went over there and said, what are you doing? He says,
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he was acting real uncooperative, like he didn't want to even talk to the guys.
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And there was kind of a suspicion about who this guy really
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was, but
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the background radiation was a reading of one and a half.
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And they said, well, it's
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ticking, and he says, well, that's just background.
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And then he held it up to this other guy's radium dial watch,
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and that was a reading of three. So, when he
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tested the men, they got no reading. Mike says, well, we've bathed
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and changed our clothes, but he went back to the truck and got the
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hard hats that they'd been wearing the night before, and
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when they tested that, it went up to a reading of six. Four times
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background, double a radium dial watch.
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But the guy didn't want to do any further testing with those guys present,
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he just stomped off and avoided them from then on.
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And so, we had to do some follow-up when National Geographic come out,
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and also some follow-up research that was overseen by
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Ben Hanson, the host of the TV series,
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Factor Fake, and more about him later in some of the follow-up research.
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But during this build-up, this accusation
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of murder, my brother
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Dwayne was pretty suspicious of the men at first, but he was a very intimidating guy,
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and in talking with them, he gradually became
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convinced. But my other brother, Don, you know, he was
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threatening them the whole time. He was looking for my body.
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You know, the piles that we had been making out there, pile and brush,
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he was digging through them, expecting to find a body.
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And so,
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the sheriff brought in the state police lie detector expert.
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He was the top guy in the state, probably one of the top in the nation.
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And fully expecting to find that the men had murdered me,
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they passed. And
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that led to a whole series of, well, we have to explain it
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this way, this away some other way, you know. And it was just
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one ridiculous scenario after another.
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In the days that followed, there was a
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sort of a researcher who
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sent us, see, I'm getting ahead of
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myself. When I woke up, I was
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lying on my back. I was in a lot of pain, a lot of pain.
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I felt something was seriously wrong.
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Mortally wounded is how it felt.
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There was a huge pain in my head and chest,
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and I was having a lot of trouble breathing.
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I just kind of faded into consciousness. It wasn't like I just woke up.
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And first I didn't even know where I was.
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I was lying on my back, and there was this thing across my chest.
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And if I moved in the slightest, it made it even more painful.
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And then I remembered
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that we'd seen this object in the woods.
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And I thought maybe I'd been hurt, and the crew had taken me to the hospital.
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But I heard the
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sounds of movement around me. And there was a light above me.
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That hurt to look at, even though it wasn't even as bright as that. It was
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not that bright. But I had double vision, and
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it was real blurry. So when I saw these faces, I thought it was
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doctors with a surgical mask and cap, you know, with just this
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part open. But when my vision cleared,
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then I could see these creatures standing there.
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And I just flipped out at that point.
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I just really lost my mind with fear.
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And some people don't understand that.
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They think, well, I wouldn't be that scared. I would just
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stay calm, ask
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good questions, pick up a souvenir,
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put it in my pocket. But I try to explain this
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level of fear that I was experiencing by comparing it to being
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waterboarding. The one factor above all was that
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feeling of suffocation. And even though terrorists are aware
20:18.000 --> 20:22.000
of this technique, they even practice resisting it, it still works.
20:22.000 --> 20:26.000
You know, our guys practice it. They know
20:26.000 --> 20:30.000
it's not fatal, and they know they're going to survive it. But the feeling of
20:30.000 --> 20:34.000
suffocation generates fear that you just can't reason away.
20:34.000 --> 20:38.000
There's a scene in the movie where the actor is held down on a table, the aliens
20:38.000 --> 20:42.000
are surrounding him, and they have this membrane over his face, and he's
20:42.000 --> 20:46.000
struggling to scream, struggling to breathe through it. And I think
20:46.000 --> 20:50.000
that does a better job of explaining that level of
20:50.000 --> 20:54.000
suffocation, that smothering feeling, than if you just
20:54.000 --> 20:58.000
showed the actor looking panicked and breathing hard, you know?
20:58.000 --> 21:02.000
It's, that added to
21:02.000 --> 21:06.000
the feeling of pain, a feeling that something was mortally wrong
21:06.000 --> 21:10.000
inside. And this dimly lit,
21:10.000 --> 21:14.000
claustrophobic, humid atmosphere, all
21:14.000 --> 21:18.000
being confronted with these creatures
21:18.000 --> 21:22.000
that are definitely not human. And so
21:22.000 --> 21:26.000
the perception that I was in the most life-threatening
21:26.000 --> 21:30.000
situation being attacked by monsters that were causing this pain
21:30.000 --> 21:34.000
was what generated this panic that just wouldn't
21:34.000 --> 21:38.000
go away. So I tried to move,
21:38.000 --> 21:42.000
and I was so weak. I don't know whether I was
21:42.000 --> 21:46.000
weakened by the lack of oxygen, or by the results,
21:46.000 --> 21:50.000
the effects of my injury, or
21:50.000 --> 21:54.000
maybe the gravity was actually heavier in there, but
21:54.000 --> 21:58.000
it felt like, and that added to the panic, you know, the need to
21:58.000 --> 22:02.000
move and move quickly, and not being able
22:02.000 --> 22:06.000
to, you know, the feeling you're dragging back when you need to move
22:06.000 --> 22:10.000
fast. The one that was closest to me, his face,
22:10.000 --> 22:14.000
or its face, was close by, and I
22:14.000 --> 22:18.000
tried to move my arm to strike at him, but it was just more of a push
22:18.000 --> 22:22.000
than anything. And it fell back into the other one,
22:22.000 --> 22:26.000
and I rolled away, and that thing they had across my chest fell off.
22:26.000 --> 22:30.000
But I was mainly just focused on them, and
22:30.000 --> 22:34.000
they're coming around the table towards me. So I stumbled back, and I
22:34.000 --> 22:38.000
bumped up against a shelf, and I looked back there, and I could
22:38.000 --> 22:42.000
see some instruments laid out there.
22:42.000 --> 22:46.000
And I didn't stand there and amuse about
22:46.000 --> 22:50.000
what they were for or anything like that. I just grabbed the biggest thing I could find,
22:50.000 --> 22:54.000
and started swinging it, and tried to make a weapon out of it,
22:54.000 --> 22:58.000
and to keep them away from me. They were not within
22:58.000 --> 23:02.000
striking distance, but they stopped short of that, and
23:02.000 --> 23:06.000
they sort of had their hands extended, but the most memorable thing was
23:06.000 --> 23:10.000
this stare. The three of them staring at me
23:10.000 --> 23:14.000
in a most
23:14.000 --> 23:18.000
disturbing part of the entire experience.
23:18.000 --> 23:22.000
The memory of that stare, the three of them, and
23:22.000 --> 23:26.000
they would blink occasionally, but they never took their eyes off of me, and it gave
23:26.000 --> 23:30.000
me this sort of a squirmy feeling in my head
23:30.000 --> 23:34.000
that felt very invasive, intrusive.
23:34.000 --> 23:38.000
After I was returned, one of the medical tests that
23:38.000 --> 23:42.000
I underwent was an EEG, brain wave scan.
23:42.000 --> 23:46.000
And because of the intense media scrutiny, I was put in
23:46.000 --> 23:50.000
there under an assumed name. This is the world famous
23:50.000 --> 23:54.000
brain trauma center, Barrows Neurological. And so the technician
23:54.000 --> 23:58.000
knew nothing about, he was just told to look for injury, and there was a wave
23:58.000 --> 24:02.000
pattern that was in the report that backs up the idea that
24:02.000 --> 24:06.000
perhaps they were trying to assert some kind of
24:06.000 --> 24:10.000
mind control, some sort of a
24:10.000 --> 24:14.000
subduing sort of an effect, or maybe just to communicate
24:14.000 --> 24:18.000
their intentions, but it wasn't working because of this
24:18.000 --> 24:22.000
damage from this blast of energy.
24:22.000 --> 24:26.000
So, they
24:26.000 --> 24:30.000
abruptly turned and left. I think
24:30.000 --> 24:34.000
now, in retrospect, that probably they were just giving up and realizing that
24:34.000 --> 24:38.000
at that point, even in my impaired state,
24:38.000 --> 24:42.000
that I was more of a threat to them physically,
24:42.000 --> 24:46.000
without that power to control me and to keep me
24:46.000 --> 24:50.000
knocked out on the table,
24:50.000 --> 24:54.000
that that wasn't going to work.
24:54.000 --> 24:58.000
There's
24:58.000 --> 25:02.000
a plan to have the original EEG
25:02.000 --> 25:06.000
examined by a neuroscientist in terms of
25:06.000 --> 25:10.000
the effects that you see in people who have been electrocuted
25:10.000 --> 25:14.000
or hit by lightning, and also to run new ones
25:14.000 --> 25:18.000
and see if any of these patterns are still there.
25:18.000 --> 25:22.000
But, I was just
25:22.000 --> 25:26.000
immediately in a frenzy to escape. And so,
25:26.000 --> 25:30.000
when they went out and went down to the right, I went
25:30.000 --> 25:34.000
down to the left. And there was this real cramped
25:34.000 --> 25:38.000
dimly lit passage that was curving so tightly
25:38.000 --> 25:42.000
that I couldn't tell if they were pursuing me. They could be right behind me,
25:42.000 --> 25:46.000
and I wouldn't know where, and was I running into something worse ahead?
25:46.000 --> 25:50.000
But, I got up there, and
25:50.000 --> 25:54.000
I found an opening into a room, and I saw
25:54.000 --> 25:58.000
what were doorways on the opposite side. Now, I pieced together
25:58.000 --> 26:02.000
this layout later, but
26:02.000 --> 26:06.000
because I wasn't thinking very clearly or didn't really know the whereabouts
26:06.000 --> 26:10.000
of the whole thing, I was thinking that if I opened one of these doors,
26:10.000 --> 26:14.000
that maybe I could just drop to the ground, I'd be back in the woods.
26:14.000 --> 26:18.000
Which is probably not the case at all. It was probably not in the
26:18.000 --> 26:22.000
woods anymore, and it certainly wouldn't have led
26:22.000 --> 26:26.000
out of the craft, and could have been
26:26.000 --> 26:30.000
in some place without air. But, I was trying to open a door,
26:30.000 --> 26:34.000
not thinking clearly, just total
26:34.000 --> 26:38.000
frenzy, hysteria. And, when I moved
26:38.000 --> 26:42.000
into this room to inspect the doorways, to find a way to
26:42.000 --> 26:46.000
open them, there was
26:46.000 --> 26:50.000
the effect of being able to see
26:50.000 --> 26:54.000
the stars surrounding me.
26:54.000 --> 26:58.000
The points of light, you know,
26:58.000 --> 27:02.000
whether this was a planetarium, just a map room,
27:02.000 --> 27:06.000
or an actual view of where it was at,
27:06.000 --> 27:10.000
the closer I got to the chair in the middle of the room, the more
27:10.000 --> 27:14.000
visible these stars were. But, I was
27:14.000 --> 27:18.000
not finding any doorknobs or buttons to open the doors,
27:18.000 --> 27:22.000
I thought desperately, just
27:22.000 --> 27:26.000
push some of these controls on the chair, maybe that would open a door.
27:26.000 --> 27:30.000
And so, I was trying all kinds of things. Didn't have touch screen at the
27:30.000 --> 27:34.000
time, so I never touched the screen.
27:34.000 --> 27:38.000
And, it was glowing soft green
27:38.000 --> 27:42.000
with black lines that moved sometimes.
27:42.000 --> 27:46.000
Some of the buttons didn't seem to do anything.
27:46.000 --> 27:50.000
But, there were no characters, no
27:50.000 --> 27:54.000
little numbers or letters or anything like that. At least that I could see,
27:54.000 --> 27:58.000
some people think, well, maybe it was there in infrared or ultraviolet or something.
27:58.000 --> 28:02.000
But, what was really alarming was when I moved
28:02.000 --> 28:06.000
that lever, the entire star
28:06.000 --> 28:10.000
pattern shifted, and I was already really unsteady on my feet.
28:10.000 --> 28:14.000
And, that was very disorienting. So, I
28:14.000 --> 28:18.000
resolved not to mess with that anymore. But,
28:18.000 --> 28:22.000
thinking of pushing another button, my attention was
28:22.000 --> 28:26.000
caught by either sound or a change in light from the
28:26.000 --> 28:30.000
door that I'd come into. And, I turned
28:30.000 --> 28:34.000
and I saw a man standing in the doorway. And, I just took
28:34.000 --> 28:38.000
it to be somebody that was there to take me away from these monsters.
28:38.000 --> 28:42.000
And so, as he came towards me, I ran up and was
28:42.000 --> 28:46.000
just battling questions, telling him, you know, there's
28:46.000 --> 28:50.000
these things in here, you know, as if he didn't know. But,
28:50.000 --> 28:54.000
he wasn't answering, he wasn't responding. And so,
28:54.000 --> 28:58.000
when he wanted me to go with him, I went, because, you know, if he's there to
28:58.000 --> 29:02.000
save me from these things,
29:02.000 --> 29:06.000
that's all great. And, I was thinking that maybe with that
29:06.000 --> 29:10.000
helmet on, he couldn't talk or hear me clearly.
29:10.000 --> 29:14.000
So, going back to the
29:14.000 --> 29:18.000
this, we went out through this little passage I think was probably
29:18.000 --> 29:22.000
an airlock, because when we came out on the other side,
29:22.000 --> 29:26.000
it was opening up into this huge room.
29:26.000 --> 29:30.000
So bright that it just hurt my eyes,
29:30.000 --> 29:34.000
because it was so dim inside there. But, much
29:34.000 --> 29:38.000
cooler, much more fresh air. He wanted me to go down
29:38.000 --> 29:42.000
this ramp, which seemed way too steep, but it was real
29:42.000 --> 29:46.000
sure gripping surface of some kind of rubbery.
29:46.000 --> 29:50.000
But, the light seemed kind of like sunlight.
29:50.000 --> 29:54.000
So, I don't know whether these were windows, translucent windows,
29:54.000 --> 29:58.000
or if they were some kind of an artificial fixture that put off
29:58.000 --> 30:02.000
something close to sunlight. But,
30:02.000 --> 30:06.000
I tried to look around, but he seemed to be
30:06.000 --> 30:10.000
in a pretty big hurry. He was pulling me along, even though I was half stumbling.
30:10.000 --> 30:14.000
And, I saw these other craft in there,
30:14.000 --> 30:18.000
these more rounded saucers, much shinier.
30:18.000 --> 30:22.000
And, he took me
30:22.000 --> 30:26.000
through, see, this room was shaped like a quarter of a
30:26.000 --> 30:30.000
cylinder. So, it gave me the impression of an airplane hanger.
30:30.000 --> 30:34.000
Like, you know, a big half round. But, it could have been like a larger
30:34.000 --> 30:38.000
craft, like a mother ship, you'd call them.
30:38.000 --> 30:42.000
So, whether it was
30:42.000 --> 30:46.000
on earth, or who knows where, under the
30:46.000 --> 30:50.000
water, anywhere, you know, I don't know where this was. So,
30:50.000 --> 30:54.000
he took me out through the vertical wall, down a hallway,
30:54.000 --> 30:58.000
to a room, and there were some other
30:58.000 --> 31:02.000
people dressed like him, except for one thing. They didn't have the helmets
31:02.000 --> 31:06.000
on. So, I thought, you know, maybe here's
31:06.000 --> 31:10.000
somebody who can answer my questions. And,
31:10.000 --> 31:14.000
so, they
31:14.000 --> 31:18.000
weren't answering the questions either. And,
31:18.000 --> 31:22.000
so, they're trying to lead me over and get me to lay down on this table.
31:22.000 --> 31:26.000
And, you know, I was really became suspicious at that
31:26.000 --> 31:30.000
point, was this a rescue? You know, thinking that these were,
31:30.000 --> 31:34.000
you know, some military or NASA or something. And, so,
31:34.000 --> 31:38.000
I started to fight them. But, I was in a really weakened
31:38.000 --> 31:42.000
condition. I was in great shape at the time, but I could hardly move. I
31:42.000 --> 31:46.000
was so impaired. And,
31:46.000 --> 31:50.000
they pushed me down on the table fairly easily.
31:50.000 --> 31:54.000
But, in my panic, I was able to get one hand
31:54.000 --> 31:58.000
free. And, I got my hand underneath the edge of this
31:58.000 --> 32:02.000
oxygen mask they put over my face.
32:02.000 --> 32:06.000
But, before I could pull it away, I just went out.
32:06.000 --> 32:10.000
And, it wasn't painful or anything. I just, everything just went
32:10.000 --> 32:14.000
black. So,
32:14.000 --> 32:18.000
when I woke up,
32:18.000 --> 32:22.000
I was lying face down. My
32:22.000 --> 32:26.000
head was on my arm. I could feel the cold
32:26.000 --> 32:30.000
of the ground. And, my clothing still had warmth in
32:30.000 --> 32:34.000
it. But, it was cold outside. And, there was a light
32:34.000 --> 32:38.000
above me. So, I looked to see where the light was coming from. But, just as
32:38.000 --> 32:42.000
I looked in my vision, that's when I saw
32:42.000 --> 32:46.000
that the light went off. And, all I could see in the dark
32:46.000 --> 32:50.000
was this real shiny hull reflecting the highway.
32:50.000 --> 32:54.000
And, then it just shot straight up.
32:54.000 --> 32:58.000
It didn't turn on edge. And, it was silent. It just
32:58.000 --> 33:02.000
went straight up. And, it just seemed like, you know, it would be like a
33:02.000 --> 33:06.000
rifle shot or, you know, scream through the air to move that fast. But,
33:06.000 --> 33:10.000
it didn't. Now, maybe the fact that it wasn't lit made it seem
33:10.000 --> 33:14.000
to disappear from sight faster. But,
33:14.000 --> 33:18.000
my immediate reaction was this feeling in contrast to that hysteria
33:18.000 --> 33:22.000
and fear, that feeling of being trapped. You know,
33:22.000 --> 33:26.000
even at night, the woods are a much friendlier place to, you know,
33:26.000 --> 33:30.000
someone who's worked in the out-of-doors all this time. So,
33:30.000 --> 33:34.000
there was this feeling of relief. But,
33:34.000 --> 33:38.000
the fear of what I experienced was the main memory that was dominating
33:38.000 --> 33:42.000
my thoughts. I looked down the hill, and I could see
33:42.000 --> 33:46.000
the lights that I recognized as Heber, the town
33:46.000 --> 33:50.000
nearest where this happened. So, I ran down towards the town, and
33:50.000 --> 33:54.000
there was a building with some lights on, smoke coming out of the chimney, and I pounded
33:54.000 --> 33:58.000
and yelled, and nobody came, either because nobody heard
33:58.000 --> 34:02.000
me, or nobody was there, or maybe, who's this crazy person screaming
34:02.000 --> 34:06.000
in the middle of the night? You know, they don't want to come out. But,
34:06.000 --> 34:10.000
nobody came out, so I went on down. I was afraid to go into the side
34:10.000 --> 34:14.000
street, so I went right on down across the second bridge, and found
34:14.000 --> 34:18.000
a row of phone booths at the
34:18.000 --> 34:22.000
gas station there. Went into the first one.
34:22.000 --> 34:26.000
It was out of order. So, you know, I was on my last
34:26.000 --> 34:30.000
leg. You know, that burst of energy that got me
34:30.000 --> 34:34.000
there was gone. I went into the middle one, and it worked.
34:34.000 --> 34:38.000
Now, people wonder, did I have a quarter in my pocket?
34:38.000 --> 34:42.000
In that part of the country at that time, all you did was pick up the
34:42.000 --> 34:46.000
receiver and hit zero, and you could talk to the operator. So, I made a
34:46.000 --> 34:50.000
collect call to my brother, Grant, and
34:50.000 --> 34:54.000
he thought it was another prank call, family having all kinds
34:54.000 --> 34:58.000
of crank calls. And so, he was real sarcastic, like said,
34:58.000 --> 35:02.000
I think you have the wrong number. He didn't believe it was me. But, I screamed,
35:02.000 --> 35:06.000
and I managed to convince him it was me, Travis, you know. So, he said,
35:06.000 --> 35:10.000
okay, I'll get your brother and come and get you. So, I was thinking, when I hung
35:10.000 --> 35:14.000
up, you know, my brother, you know, he doesn't live here, and I just
35:14.000 --> 35:18.000
slumped down in the phone booth there. That's where they found me.
35:18.000 --> 35:22.000
But, I was talking to a radio host in the
35:22.000 --> 35:26.000
Great Lakes region, and he pointed out that at the time that I was making
35:26.000 --> 35:30.000
that call to my brother-in-law, Grant, there was
35:30.000 --> 35:34.000
the exact moment of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
35:34.000 --> 35:38.000
And the radio host told me that they had actually scrambled jets because of
35:38.000 --> 35:42.000
UFO sightings near where that shipwreck happened on the Great
35:42.000 --> 35:46.000
Lakes. And, 29 people disappeared that
35:46.000 --> 35:50.000
night, and one of them, one of the crewmen was named
35:50.000 --> 35:54.000
Grant Walton. So, that's, you know, one of a lot of really amazing coincidences
35:54.000 --> 35:58.000
in connection with this incident. But,
35:58.000 --> 36:02.000
next thing I knew, my brother, you know, and brother-in-law pulled up in
36:02.000 --> 36:06.000
the truck, and he came and opened the
36:06.000 --> 36:10.000
booth and picked me up out of there.
36:10.000 --> 36:14.000
I was just a wreck, you know, I was just, I couldn't finish a
36:14.000 --> 36:18.000
sentence, and it was that way for days. I was just trying to tell him what happened.
36:18.000 --> 36:22.000
But, he said something about how worried my
36:22.000 --> 36:26.000
mother had been all these days, and I said, days, you know. And he said, Travis,
36:26.000 --> 36:30.000
fill your face. Because it was apparent to him, I thought this was still the same night.
36:30.000 --> 36:34.000
And I felt a five-day growth of beard, and then I looked at my
36:34.000 --> 36:38.000
watch, and the date had changed, and I was just,
36:38.000 --> 36:42.000
you know, I just kind of went catatonic at that point.
36:42.000 --> 36:46.000
I was in such horrible shape. My brother said, there ain't no way
36:46.000 --> 36:50.000
I'm letting that crazy mom get a hold of this guy. Because, you know,
36:50.000 --> 36:54.000
unbeknownst to me, you know, by the time I was returned, this was already worldwide
36:54.000 --> 36:58.000
news. They had camera crews from England and Japan,
36:58.000 --> 37:02.000
and, you know, photographers walking through my mother's flower beds and trying to take
37:02.000 --> 37:06.000
pictures through the window. Steve said even at his place there in Taylor,
37:06.000 --> 37:10.000
you know, they were trying to take pictures through his bedroom window. And so, it was
37:10.000 --> 37:14.000
just crazy, you know. John said he'd be walking down the street, and people
37:14.000 --> 37:18.000
would scream, where'd you hide the body? It was a madhouse.
37:18.000 --> 37:22.000
And plus, some of the crank calls, or calls that the
37:22.000 --> 37:26.000
family had been getting included one from this lady who said she was
37:26.000 --> 37:30.000
a nurse, and she was working at a hospital where a couple came in who had
37:30.000 --> 37:34.000
had a UFO encounter. And when she came back on
37:34.000 --> 37:38.000
shift, this old couple was gone, their records were gone, and people were saying,
37:38.000 --> 37:42.000
that never happened. So she was saying, just be careful who gets a hold of him,
37:42.000 --> 37:46.000
should he ever be found. And another guy called
37:46.000 --> 37:50.000
and said he was retired CIA. It sounded totally
37:50.000 --> 37:54.000
insane, unlike some of the calls, and he left his contact information.
37:54.000 --> 37:58.000
But he said, just be careful who you hand him over to. And so,
37:58.000 --> 38:02.000
because of the distrust between the family and the sheriff
38:02.000 --> 38:06.000
over the lie detector test, because, you know, Alan's
38:06.000 --> 38:10.000
mom had been telling people, they're just gonna, you know, make it
38:10.000 --> 38:14.000
look like you killed Travis, they're gonna set it up, you take these tests, and they're gonna
38:14.000 --> 38:18.000
put you in jail for murder. So there was a lot of distrust about
38:18.000 --> 38:22.000
turning me over to the law enforcement.
38:22.000 --> 38:26.000
And my brother's main concern was, get him some medical help.
38:26.000 --> 38:30.000
So we went to Phoenix, tried to get with this
38:30.000 --> 38:34.000
one doctor that was recommended by this one kind of wacky
38:34.000 --> 38:38.000
UFO character that was represented in the movie. And the guy turned out
38:38.000 --> 38:42.000
to be a total quack, he was not a medical doctor at all.
38:42.000 --> 38:46.000
So we left there, but because of their resentment, they'd been bragging to the media that they
38:46.000 --> 38:50.000
were investigating the case, and, you know, they were proud to get all this
38:50.000 --> 38:54.000
attention. They started attacking
38:54.000 --> 38:58.000
and saying, the reason I left is because this guy was a drug expert, which he
38:58.000 --> 39:02.000
wasn't. He had this diploma mail
39:02.000 --> 39:06.000
degree that had come from a correspondent school
39:06.000 --> 39:10.000
that had only been in existence for two years. And so, but they were
39:10.000 --> 39:14.000
saying that, you know, that we left not because he turned out not to be a medical
39:14.000 --> 39:18.000
doctor, but because we're afraid of his
39:18.000 --> 39:22.000
expertise in drugs. And so they started telling the media
39:22.000 --> 39:26.000
that it was all a drug hallucination. Well,
39:26.000 --> 39:30.000
the Aerophenomenal Research Organization, this is my
39:30.000 --> 39:34.000
brother, who, you know, shielded me from the
39:34.000 --> 39:38.000
incredible pressure I was under. He's now passed away, but, you know,
39:38.000 --> 39:42.000
he saved my life. I would not
39:42.000 --> 39:46.000
have survived those days without his protection.
39:46.000 --> 39:50.000
But he got us in touch with
39:50.000 --> 39:54.000
the Aerophenomenal Research Organization. This here is Jim Lorenzen.
39:54.000 --> 39:58.000
That time it was the oldest and largest
39:58.000 --> 40:02.000
move-on type organization. And they had two
40:02.000 --> 40:06.000
real doctors in their Phoenix membership who came to the house, did
40:06.000 --> 40:10.000
a house call, and they were able to get a
40:10.000 --> 40:14.000
house call and examination immediately.
40:14.000 --> 40:18.000
And then signed off on a bunch of tests,
40:18.000 --> 40:22.000
among which was blood and urine samples that were
40:22.000 --> 40:26.000
put through the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's drug screen, which
40:26.000 --> 40:30.000
proved there was no trace of any drugs in my body.
40:30.000 --> 40:34.000
But another theory that was offered to try to explain it away
40:34.000 --> 40:38.000
was that the hypnotist, Dr. James Harder, had
40:38.000 --> 40:42.000
planted these memories in my mind.
40:42.000 --> 40:46.000
Another theory was that I had a transitory psychosis, that I
40:46.000 --> 40:50.000
temporarily became insane, hallucinated this experience, and then
40:50.000 --> 40:54.000
returned to normal. Well, I had a whole battery of
40:54.000 --> 40:58.000
psychiatric tests that were reviewed by Dr. Leo Sprinkle,
40:58.000 --> 41:02.000
counseling testing at the University of Wyoming,
41:02.000 --> 41:06.000
which proved to be a total normal pattern of scores.
41:06.000 --> 41:10.000
But these three theories did not take into account
41:10.000 --> 41:14.000
that six other people saw what I did.
41:14.000 --> 41:18.000
So, you know, how would one man's drug hallucination make seven
41:18.000 --> 41:22.000
people see the exact same thing? And the news media never stopped to question that.
41:22.000 --> 41:26.000
It's like if we can explain it away any way we can get it, no matter
41:26.000 --> 41:30.000
how flimsy it is, it's the planet Jupiter. You know, this is not at
41:30.000 --> 41:34.000
all what we saw. Then people just glom onto it, say, oh yeah, you know,
41:34.000 --> 41:38.000
there, you know, and in many, many cases you'll see this in the media
41:38.000 --> 41:42.000
where, you know, they'll explain something away. It doesn't make
41:42.000 --> 41:46.000
any sense at all. But if you want to believe
41:46.000 --> 41:50.000
what they're saying, it doesn't have to really stand up to much
41:50.000 --> 41:54.000
scrutiny. I was interviewed by Dr. Janellen Hynek. He was
41:54.000 --> 41:58.000
in charge of Project Blue Book for the Air Force concerning
41:58.000 --> 42:02.000
UFOs, one of the major landmark
42:02.000 --> 42:06.000
studies commissioned. And even though
42:06.000 --> 42:10.000
he was famous for coining the term swamp gas in connection
42:10.000 --> 42:14.000
with UFOs, he issued a press release the next day that I
42:14.000 --> 42:18.000
was not hoaxing and had been the subject of many unfounded accusations.
42:18.000 --> 42:22.000
But at the time the crew passed
42:22.000 --> 42:26.000
the polygraph test, the president of the American Polygraph Association
42:26.000 --> 42:30.000
made a statement which was pretty unequivocal.
42:30.000 --> 42:34.000
He said that when you have, you know, upper
42:34.000 --> 42:38.000
90 percentiles of reliability of polygraph with a single
42:38.000 --> 42:42.000
test, when you have six people passing tests on the same issue,
42:42.000 --> 42:46.000
the odds are over a million to one if there being any error in the testing.
42:46.000 --> 42:50.000
And as of now, there's been 16 or
42:50.000 --> 42:54.000
17 tests in connection with this
42:54.000 --> 42:58.000
incident. Some of the crewmen passing two or three tests
42:58.000 --> 43:02.000
each. I've passed five different light
43:02.000 --> 43:06.000
detector tests from three different examiners, all of whom had many
43:06.000 --> 43:10.000
years of law enforcement experience, which is supposed to be the gold standard for
43:10.000 --> 43:14.000
polygraph training.
43:14.000 --> 43:18.000
But in the aftermath of my experience, those eyes
43:18.000 --> 43:22.000
were that, that bored into me in that
43:22.000 --> 43:26.000
excruciating way. It took me a long time to figure out that
43:26.000 --> 43:30.000
was probably their attempt to control me when
43:30.000 --> 43:34.000
the neurons were not in a proper state
43:34.000 --> 43:38.000
for that sort of thing. When I was being filmed
43:38.000 --> 43:42.000
for 701 the Movie, it's a movie that's not out yet,
43:42.000 --> 43:46.000
701 refers to the 701 unresolved
43:46.000 --> 43:50.000
cases from Project Blue Book, but
43:50.000 --> 43:54.000
the day I was filmed, they had the school kids from Zimbabwe
43:54.000 --> 43:58.000
incident. I don't know if you've heard about that, but there were 60 kids at recess
43:58.000 --> 44:02.000
in South Africa. These are, you know,
44:02.000 --> 44:06.000
it's kind of a United
44:06.000 --> 44:10.000
Kingdom satellite place at the time.
44:10.000 --> 44:14.000
The kids were actually from Australia, UK,
44:14.000 --> 44:18.000
and Canada, the three that were there that day. And I asked
44:18.000 --> 44:22.000
her, what did that feel like when they got out and
44:22.000 --> 44:26.000
were staring at you like that? See, this craft came down broad daylight,
44:26.000 --> 44:30.000
middle of the day, all these kids at recess, and they came out and communicated
44:30.000 --> 44:34.000
to the kids through this stair, and they said it was not
44:34.000 --> 44:38.000
painful, that it was pleasant, and that it was just a message that came
44:38.000 --> 44:42.000
telepathically through that stair. So that's what makes me
44:42.000 --> 44:46.000
think that, you know, that
44:46.000 --> 44:50.000
backs up the idea that they were trying to communicate, maybe
44:50.000 --> 44:54.000
even to reassure me with that. But that wasn't what I was getting at the time.
44:54.000 --> 44:58.000
It was just, you know, it was the feature of my nightmares for
44:58.000 --> 45:02.000
weeks afterwards. And I just couldn't get
45:02.000 --> 45:06.000
past that. And it was so traumatic that until I actually did
45:06.000 --> 45:10.000
the hypnosis, I couldn't finish a sentence. That was the first time I'd actually,
45:10.000 --> 45:14.000
you know, completely told the story to the researchers.
45:14.000 --> 45:18.000
And there was a number of people present, reporters,
45:18.000 --> 45:22.000
psychiatrists, other researchers, and none of the
45:22.000 --> 45:26.000
questions or discussion during the hypnosis
45:26.000 --> 45:30.000
was leading in any way. It was just getting
45:30.000 --> 45:34.000
me to relate what I experienced.
45:34.000 --> 45:38.000
But the main thing that was achieved there was to separate the fear
45:38.000 --> 45:42.000
reaction from the experience. So I was finally able to talk about it.
45:42.000 --> 45:46.000
And I was talking about coincidences.
45:46.000 --> 45:50.000
I got a topographical map of the state of Arizona
45:50.000 --> 45:54.000
and, you know, to look at where the incident happened.
45:54.000 --> 45:58.000
And just a coincidence was, of these
45:58.000 --> 46:02.000
70-some areas, the area where the incident happened was labeled
46:02.000 --> 46:06.000
Area 51. So
46:06.000 --> 46:10.000
just coincidence after coincidence. Maybe the mapmaker's sense of
46:10.000 --> 46:14.000
humor. But there was a lot of them. We went back to the site
46:14.000 --> 46:18.000
to do some filming for a show
46:18.000 --> 46:22.000
for the promotion of the movie when it was coming out. And there was
46:22.000 --> 46:26.000
three feet of snow out there, but Lord Paramount wanted that interview on the site.
46:26.000 --> 46:30.000
So they rented these big snowcats with big four-foot wide tracks on them
46:30.000 --> 46:34.000
and we went plowing through the snowdrifts, found the spot finally with some
46:34.000 --> 46:38.000
difficulty, did the interview with icicles in my mustache.
46:38.000 --> 46:42.000
But Mike was there.
46:42.000 --> 46:46.000
He was being interviewed, the crew boss.
46:46.000 --> 46:50.000
And he never said a word to me, but he figured out why we had such trouble
46:50.000 --> 46:54.000
finding the spot. The trees were much bigger than he thought they would be.
46:54.000 --> 46:58.000
And, you know, following spring he went out there and did this core
46:58.000 --> 47:02.000
sample and discovered that this tree nearest where the
47:02.000 --> 47:06.000
craft had come down had suddenly started growing
47:06.000 --> 47:10.000
to where the tree was twice the diameter it would have been in that much time.
47:10.000 --> 47:14.000
You see, you can see that from 1918
47:14.000 --> 47:18.000
when the tree first started growing up to the time of the incident
47:18.000 --> 47:22.000
the tree was 85 years old. And in
47:22.000 --> 47:26.000
the next 15 years it's doubled
47:26.000 --> 47:30.000
in diameter. And since the outside of the tree contains
47:30.000 --> 47:34.000
much more volume than the inside, the calculation
47:34.000 --> 47:38.000
for the volume of a tall cone, it's not really a cylinder,
47:38.000 --> 47:42.000
it's a point. So the formula is that approximately
47:42.000 --> 47:46.000
36 times the amount of wood fiber was being pushed by these trees.
47:46.000 --> 47:50.000
And there's been quite a bit of follow-up research on that.
47:50.000 --> 47:54.000
But here recently we discovered something else.
47:54.000 --> 47:58.000
This core sample was just coincidentally was on the side of the
47:58.000 --> 48:02.000
tree towards where the craft had hovered.
48:02.000 --> 48:06.000
Well, since the incident there was
48:06.000 --> 48:10.000
a forest fire that came through there and killed a lot of the trees. So we were able to cut
48:10.000 --> 48:14.000
the tree completely off. See, we didn't want to damage the tree. And what Mike did was
48:14.000 --> 48:18.000
take the core sample and then put another piece of wood
48:18.000 --> 48:22.000
in that fit closely and seal it back up so the tree wouldn't die
48:22.000 --> 48:26.000
from it. Well, now that they were already dead, we cut the tree off
48:26.000 --> 48:30.000
and then found out that this effect was on the side of the tree
48:30.000 --> 48:34.000
in the direction that the craft had been. So whether it was
48:34.000 --> 48:38.000
north, south, east, or west, the high growth rate side was
48:38.000 --> 48:42.000
towards the craft. So it definitely shows
48:42.000 --> 48:46.000
all the theories about it being the north wind or the southern
48:46.000 --> 48:50.000
exposure from the sun or any of those kind of effects,
48:50.000 --> 48:54.000
that this was a directional effect. You can see when we were out there with
48:54.000 --> 48:58.000
National Geographic a year prior,
48:58.000 --> 49:02.000
we found a tree that had been cut the year before the incident.
49:02.000 --> 49:06.000
And this stump was very large
49:06.000 --> 49:10.000
and we had 200 years of growth rings
49:10.000 --> 49:14.000
recording the growth conditions on that
49:14.000 --> 49:18.000
ridge. And it was like what you see here.
49:18.000 --> 49:22.000
With, you know, a little bit of variation, but nothing like this huge
49:22.000 --> 49:26.000
increase of growth that occurred after the incident.
49:26.000 --> 49:30.000
So Ben Hanson supervised some research
49:30.000 --> 49:34.000
out there on the site. We gridded off the area, very carefully mapped
49:34.000 --> 49:38.000
it with certain landmarks, covered the whole area with metal
49:38.000 --> 49:42.000
detectors and what do they call those things, gossameters,
49:42.000 --> 49:46.000
that sort of thing, and
49:46.000 --> 49:50.000
Geiger counters, and discovered some very interesting things
49:50.000 --> 49:54.000
including this directional effect. But
49:54.000 --> 49:58.000
in follow-up research, Ben also found that
49:58.000 --> 50:02.000
the scots pine trees in the vicinity
50:02.000 --> 50:06.000
of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Russia,
50:06.000 --> 50:10.000
they found that those trees had grown
50:10.000 --> 50:14.000
at three times the rate they had previously. So
50:14.000 --> 50:18.000
there's been other research that shows that rather than radiation actually killing
50:18.000 --> 50:22.000
plants, that it can paradoxically increase the growth.
50:22.000 --> 50:26.000
And they even went in this study, this research paper that he found,
50:26.000 --> 50:30.000
they were speculating about why
50:30.000 --> 50:34.000
there was so much increase in volume that it was some sort of a compensation for
50:34.000 --> 50:38.000
the damage. But that adds to the whole idea that there was
50:38.000 --> 50:42.000
a large amount of radiation there.
50:42.000 --> 50:46.000
And in addition to that, I found out here this last
50:46.000 --> 50:50.000
year that Ken Peterson, he was sitting in the truck, he was the crewman right next
50:50.000 --> 50:54.000
to me. When I threw open the door, I left it open.
50:54.000 --> 50:58.000
I need to ask him how soon it was that he pulled that door shut, but
50:58.000 --> 51:02.000
he came up with skin cancer on the arm,
51:02.000 --> 51:06.000
side towards where the craft was from.
51:06.000 --> 51:10.000
So I think that what happened there
51:10.000 --> 51:14.000
was I
51:14.000 --> 51:18.000
experienced something possibly fatal.
51:18.000 --> 51:22.000
At least cardiac arrest, maybe something much worse.
51:22.000 --> 51:26.000
And I found that at that point, rather than leaving me there
51:26.000 --> 51:30.000
as galactic roadkill,
51:30.000 --> 51:34.000
that they felt like they better take me aboard, revive me.
51:34.000 --> 51:38.000
The nearest hospital was over an hour away.
51:38.000 --> 51:42.000
None of the crew knew CPR.
51:42.000 --> 51:46.000
So at the time, I was traumatized by what I
51:46.000 --> 51:50.000
called an abduction and this horrific
51:50.000 --> 51:54.000
treatment. Was this some kind of experimentation? These instruments
51:54.000 --> 51:58.000
that were behind me, what were they doing with that? Was I some kind of guinea pig?
51:58.000 --> 52:02.000
Some kind of a bug in a jar? And the media reaction made me feel
52:02.000 --> 52:06.000
that even more. And so the metaphor in the movie
52:06.000 --> 52:10.000
when D.B. Sweeney's returned is that he's naked.
52:10.000 --> 52:14.000
Which I was not. That's the obligatory Hollywood nude scene.
52:14.000 --> 52:18.000
But it was really
52:18.000 --> 52:22.000
exposed to the world and they examine your entire
52:22.000 --> 52:26.000
history with a microscope. So they made
52:26.000 --> 52:30.000
a mountain out of a lot of molehills.
52:30.000 --> 52:34.000
It was something very difficult to cope with.
52:34.000 --> 52:38.000
My chief detractor was a UFO debunker
52:38.000 --> 52:42.000
who wrote parts of several books.
52:42.000 --> 52:46.000
Many papers that he sent out to the media attacking me, my crewman,
52:46.000 --> 52:50.000
my family. And after he passed away,
52:50.000 --> 52:54.000
I was able to obtain the Freedom of Information Act
52:54.000 --> 52:58.000
on him from the FBI. And he
52:58.000 --> 53:02.000
had been under investigation for revealing classified information
53:02.000 --> 53:06.000
in connection with his job. But there's a memo
53:06.000 --> 53:10.000
in the file from J. Edgar Hoover himself
53:10.000 --> 53:14.000
to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
53:14.000 --> 53:18.000
He was basically telling them that we're not going to prosecute this guy
53:18.000 --> 53:22.000
but here, he's yours. And that standard CIA recruiting
53:22.000 --> 53:26.000
tactic is to get something you can prosecute somebody
53:26.000 --> 53:30.000
for and say, okay, we'll hold off on this but you do us some favors.
53:30.000 --> 53:34.000
And so part of those favors was to bankroll
53:34.000 --> 53:38.000
his activities as a UFO debunker. I don't think they made him
53:38.000 --> 53:42.000
into a skeptic but I think they had to been the ones
53:42.000 --> 53:46.000
offering the money because this Philip Glass guy made
53:46.000 --> 53:50.000
a $10,000 bribe offer to the youngest guy on the crew
53:50.000 --> 53:54.000
to discredit the incident. And the proof of that is that the
53:54.000 --> 53:58.000
offer was carried by Deputy James Click, there in
53:58.000 --> 54:02.000
Taylor, to Steve's house. And
54:02.000 --> 54:06.000
I found out later when Steve finally came back around, you see
54:06.000 --> 54:10.000
he changed his name and moved away and yet this guy tracked him down anyway,
54:10.000 --> 54:14.000
took him out to dinner and again tried to get him to take the $10,000 bribe.
54:14.000 --> 54:18.000
And his salary
54:18.000 --> 54:22.000
at the Aviation
54:22.000 --> 54:26.000
and Space Technology Magazine would not have covered the $10,000
54:26.000 --> 54:30.000
that he was offering Steve.
54:30.000 --> 54:34.000
In those days, the FBI and the CIA were famous for not cooperating.
54:34.000 --> 54:38.000
This was before 9-11. And so for them to turn
54:38.000 --> 54:42.000
this particular matter over from the top guy at the FBI
54:42.000 --> 54:46.000
to the top guy at the CIA is really compounding a whole lot of
54:46.000 --> 54:50.000
evidence that points to the idea that this guy was a government
54:50.000 --> 54:54.000
disinformation specialist and that was the reason for all these
54:54.000 --> 54:58.000
propaganda style tactics. He would take quotations
54:58.000 --> 55:02.000
and alter them in order to make it look like people said things
55:02.000 --> 55:06.000
they didn't say. When Mike heard about the
55:06.000 --> 55:10.000
$10,000 bribe, he said, well, if you would take that,
55:10.000 --> 55:14.000
if Steve would take that, and he would take the
55:14.000 --> 55:18.000
do it just for the money, even though you know
55:18.000 --> 55:22.000
what really happened and would do it just for the money, then you'll be bruised.
55:22.000 --> 55:26.000
Well, when class published that quotation, he took out the middle part.
55:26.000 --> 55:30.000
He says, if you do that, you'll be bruised. Say, see, Mike's threatening
55:30.000 --> 55:34.000
to keep him from recanting and revealing the truth rather than
55:34.000 --> 55:38.000
leaving in the middle part of the sentence, which he just substituted three little
55:38.000 --> 55:42.000
dots, even though you know what really happened and would do it just for the money.
55:42.000 --> 55:46.000
But in many cases where he altered the things, you know,
55:46.000 --> 55:50.000
he had a quotation from me saying that I had been bleeding heavily
55:50.000 --> 55:54.000
and there was no trace of any blood on my clothing and this
55:54.000 --> 55:58.000
is just a totally outrageous claim. Well, you go back to the tape and it's
55:58.000 --> 56:02.000
clear that I said I was breathing heavily. But
56:02.000 --> 56:06.000
you know, this is the kind of thing that this guy did. But what was really strange
56:06.000 --> 56:10.000
is that badgering Mike with dozens of letters
56:10.000 --> 56:14.000
and phone calls, chasing Steve down, trying to get
56:14.000 --> 56:18.000
him to take this bribe, he never once attempted to call me,
56:18.000 --> 56:22.000
contact me, or anything. Now, you know, some people say
56:22.000 --> 56:26.000
enough about the skeptics, you know,
56:26.000 --> 56:30.000
but I think it's important for people to
56:30.000 --> 56:34.000
know that there is a definite attempt
56:34.000 --> 56:38.000
to suppress the public perception of this, that it's organized at the
56:38.000 --> 56:42.000
government level. And there's much more to this story. There was a guy from military
56:42.000 --> 56:46.000
intelligence involved. But
56:46.000 --> 56:50.000
here's some quotations from the FBI file. He's well
56:50.000 --> 56:54.000
known to us, deficient on all points of his argument.
56:54.000 --> 56:58.000
His previous communications have been accusatory and argumentative
56:58.000 --> 57:02.000
in nature. And Newark field office of the FBI's
57:02.000 --> 57:06.000
in possession of a letter class mailed to Bell Lab suggests the reading of the letter
57:06.000 --> 57:10.000
indicates Ryder is most likely not in full possession of his faculties.
57:10.000 --> 57:14.000
So, you know, it's what the government calls useful idiots.
57:14.000 --> 57:18.000
You know, they don't have to think well of you if you can just do what
57:18.000 --> 57:22.000
they would like you to do. But the FBI had
57:22.000 --> 57:26.000
enough of him. In view of classes and temperate criticisms and often irrational
57:26.000 --> 57:30.000
statements he made to support them, it was recommended that the Bureau
57:30.000 --> 57:34.000
be most circumspect in any future contacts with him.
57:34.000 --> 57:38.000
So, this next quotation is curious
57:38.000 --> 57:42.000
because they redacted nine lines between
57:42.000 --> 57:46.000
being investigated and
57:46.000 --> 57:50.000
this line not to be of assistance to his government.
57:50.000 --> 57:54.000
And that's the clue about why the FBI was turned over
57:54.000 --> 57:58.000
to the CIA.
57:58.000 --> 58:02.000
So, I'm going to take some
58:02.000 --> 58:06.000
questions because there's lots more to this than I've covered already.
58:06.000 --> 58:10.000
Yeah.
58:10.000 --> 58:14.000
Through hypnosis were you able to put together anything that happened when you were on board or was that all in the film?
58:14.000 --> 58:18.000
Well, the stuff that they depicted in the film was
58:18.000 --> 58:22.000
just Hollywood imagination. But, you know, the part that I was consciously
58:22.000 --> 58:26.000
remembered I described to you there, I remembered
58:26.000 --> 58:30.000
even prior to hypnosis. I just couldn't get it out. But
58:30.000 --> 58:34.000
another thing that came out in hypnosis was that there were
58:34.000 --> 58:38.000
repressed memories that I was unable to recall
58:38.000 --> 58:42.000
because of fear that I would die. And at the time I thought
58:42.000 --> 58:46.000
perhaps this was just an idle threat, just an intimidation thing
58:46.000 --> 58:50.000
to keep me from getting at that information hypnotically.
58:50.000 --> 58:54.000
But in the last few years
58:54.000 --> 58:58.000
it came to me that
58:58.000 --> 59:02.000
if I were regressed hypnotically back to and through a time
59:02.000 --> 59:06.000
in which I was in cardiac arrest, what if that caused cardiac arrest?
59:06.000 --> 59:10.000
And then at that point you're not going to get you back
59:10.000 --> 59:14.000
out of there with more hypnosis because you're dead, you know.
59:14.000 --> 59:18.000
So that's the reason I never underwent anymore hypnosis.
59:18.000 --> 59:22.000
But back
59:22.000 --> 59:26.000
the time I was doing all these interviews for the movie, I started
59:26.000 --> 59:30.000
having these little dreams
59:30.000 --> 59:34.000
involving the human looking ones in the blue uniforms. And I asked
59:34.000 --> 59:38.000
Tracy Tormé, I said, do you think that maybe some of those repressed memories
59:38.000 --> 59:42.000
could be leaking through? And he says, no, it's probably just because you're doing
59:42.000 --> 59:46.000
all these interviews and they're probably just dreams. So I asked him about it
59:46.000 --> 59:50.000
here more recently and he goes, oh no, that's probably memories coming back to you.
59:50.000 --> 59:54.000
So he's changed his view on that point.
59:54.000 --> 59:58.000
Another question.
59:58.000 --> 01:00:02.000
In the movie, it was like the aliens were not very sensitive.
01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:06.000
It was trash all the time.
01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:10.000
Well see, that's Hollywood for you. That was exactly the opposite. It was very sterile, very
01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.000
devoid of featureless interior, just bare metallic.
01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:18.000
It looks all organic and cluttered, but
01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:22.000
not that at all. So I'm trying to get a remake of the movie.
01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:26.000
And I think it's going to happen. I've collected hundreds, thousands
01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:30.000
of emails from people.
01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:34.000
And the idea would be to tell it how it really happened.
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:38.000
And I'm going to stick to my guns. It ain't happening
01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:42.000
unless we can tell it accurately. I was approached
01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:46.000
by a production company that really had the power to do a
01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:50.000
top notch job on this. But when I emphasized
01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:54.000
that I wanted to be in keeping with my new
01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:58.000
interpretation of what happened and more sticking close to
01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:02.000
the facts, then they said, well, we're going to move in another direction.
01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:06.000
And this was the company that produced Game of Thrones,
01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:10.000
the most expensive miniseries in television history.
01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:14.000
But it doesn't matter what they're paying. I'm not doing it unless
01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:18.000
it's how it really happened.
01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.000
.
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.
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.
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.
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.
01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:04.000
.
01:02:04.000 --> 01:02:08.000
.