Dar
Sur le cas Walton, il existe des textes sceptiques, comme celui là :
Citation:
[quote]The following appeared in the March/April, 1993 issue of The Georgia Skeptic, the newsletter of the Georgia Skeptics
"Fire in the Sky" -- The Walton Travesty
by Anson Kennedy
On November 5, 1975, a 22 year old logger by the name of Travis Walton was allegedly abducted by a UFO near Snowflake, Arizona. Witnessed by six companions, his experience is possibly the most unique and controversial alien abduction tale in the short history of the phenomenon. Now, some seventeen years later, Paramount Pictures has brought this incredible story to the silver screen. On March 12, 1993, Fire in the Sky opened in theaters across the country. Scripted by Tracy Torme', who also wrote last year's CBS miniseries on alien abductions, Intruders, the movie is loosely based on Walton's book, aptly named The Walton Experience. "Loosely" because Torme' has significantly altered the portrayal of Walton's experience on the UFO from what Walton himself described, because Torme' has created a fictional UFO investigating organization to replace the real group involved, and because Torme' combined several real individuals into "composites," all for the sake of literary license. However, after examining the full evidence of the case, he may be forgiven these fictionalizations -- for how can one be too critical of fictionalizing a work of fiction? Philip J. Klass, chairman of CSICOP's UFO Subcommittee (which also includes such noted skeptics as Robert Sheaffer and James Oberg), investigated the Walton case immediately after it occurred. As detailed in his book UFOs: The Public Deceived (Prometheus, 1983), in the months following Walton's disappearance, Klass found significant evidence of "gross deception."
According to Walton, he and six other loggers were driving from their work site at Turkey Springs in Sitgreaves National Forest to their homes in Snowflake about forty-five miles away. Sometime after 6:00 P.M., both Walton and one of his companions, Allen Dalis, saw a saucer-shaped object hovering over a slash pile of cut timber in a clearing. Walton jumped out of the truck (luckily, he was sitting next to the door) and ran towards the object, which was emitting a yellowish light. Suddenly, the object let loose a flash of brilliant blue-green light which reportedly "blew him [Walton] back ten feet" according to Walton's friend and employer Mike Rogers, who was driving the truck at the time. In a panic, Rogers sped off leaving Walton at the mercy of whatever controlled the UFO.
Upon reaching Heber (a small town between the work site and Snowflake), Rogers contacted Undersheriff L.C. Ellison, who met them in the village. Rogers and the rest of his crew told Ellison their story; Ellison then called Navajo County Sheriff Marlin Gillespie. Gillespie, his deputy Kenneth Coplan, Ellison, Rogers, and two other crew members (the other three refused to go along) returned to the site and searched for several hours for Walton.
Approximately 1:30 A.M. on the morning of the sixth (and after abandoning the search for the night), Coplan and Rogers went to notify Walton's mother, Mary Kellett, of her son's disappearance. Mrs. Kellett's calm response upon being awakened and told her youngest son had been kidnapped by a UFO was "Well, that's the way these things happen" and then she proceeded to described two instances when she and/or her oldest son, Duane, had also seen UFOs. Later that morning (approximately 3:00 A.M.) when Mrs. Kellett told Walton's sister, Mrs. Grant Neff, that "a flying saucer got him [Travis]," Mrs. Neff surprised Coplan with how calmly she too took the news.
The rest of the that day, November 6, was taken up by an extensive search of the area where Walton allegedly disappeared. Curiously absent from the site was any physical evidence of anything happening, in spite of the "explosive" force of the blue-green beam. No blood, no shreds of clothing, no evidence of the blast effects was found by any of the nearly fifty searchers involved.
By November 7, law enforcement officials were concentrating on the possibility that Walton might have been the victim of foul play at the hands of his coworkers. Walton's other brother Donald also felt that the UFO story was a cover for something else. To this end, Rogers and his crew volunteered to take polygraph examinations the following Monday, November 10. During the exams, C.E. Gilson of the Arizona Department of Public Safety asked four "relevant" questions; three of which dealt with whether Walton had been seriously injured or killed by the one or more members of the crew. The fourth question, added at the last minute, was: "Did you tell the truth about actually seeing a UFO last Wednesday when Travis Walton disappeared?" Not surprisingly, the six crew members were unanimous in their responses: "No" to the first three questions and "Yes" to the last. Five were judged to be truthful, results on the sixth (Allen Dalis) were "inconclusive." In his formal written report, Gilson said, "The polygraph examinations prove that these five men did see some object that they believe to be a UFO and that Travis Walton was not injured or murdered by any of these men, on that Wednesday (5 November 1975). If an actual UFO did not exist and the UFO is a manmade hoax, five of these men had no prior knowledge of a hoax. No such determination can be made of the sixth man whose test results were inconclusive."
On November 8, Phoenix UFOlogist Fred Sylvanus interviewed both Rogers and Duane Walton. The tape of this conversation reveals several striking details. Not once during the entire sixty-five minute interview did Duane or Rogers express any concern over Walton's well-being. Rogers described the UFO as "beautiful." Duane stated he had been seeing UFOs for the past "ten or twelve years. I've been seeing them all the time." He also stated that he and Walton had made an agreement to "immediately get as directly under the object as physically possible" if one of them ever saw a UFO. Duane went on the state that he felt Walton was "having the experience of a lifetime."
Later on the 10th, Travis Walton reappeared at a gas station in Heber.
Calling his sister collect after midnight, Walton begged for help when her husband answered the phone. Grant Neff picked up Walton's brother Duane and the two drove to Heber to pick up Walton after informing Mrs. Kellett of his call. The telephone operator who handled the collect call called Sheriff Gillespie to let him know of Walton's reappearance; Gillespie then called Deputy Glen Flake and asked him to keep a look out for the men returning to Snowflake.
Flake missed Neff, Duane, and Walton on the way in, so he went to Mrs. Kellett's house. It was after 2:00 A.M., but the lights were on and Duane was outside siphoning gas from one car to another. He made no mention to the officer that Walton had been found and Flake did not reveal the information the telephone operator had provided.
Duane did not inform the deputy that Walton was inside Mrs. Kellett's house, nor did he tell him of the physical examination Duane had performed on Walton. During the exam, Duane found no bruises, burns, or evidence of any physical injury except for a red mark on the inside of Walton's right elbow. Walton's physical condition was curious given his reported violent encounter with the blue-green beam.
In any case, Duane decided to drive Walton to a doctor in Phoenix after the deputy left. They made an abortive attempt to see a hypnotherapist, but Duane backed out saying that Walton was not ready for regressive hypnosis. It was not until the afternoon of November 11 that a cursory exam by two doctors was performed. Like Duane, they found no evidence of physical injury, except for the mark on Walton's arm. One of the doctors, Howard Kandell, stated it "was compatible with a puncture wound such as when somebody takes blood from you." He went on to note that Walton claimed he had not noticed it before, in spite of the fact that both Duane and the hypnotherapist had seen the mark earlier.
More telling, though, were the results of the urine analysis performed on a sample from Walton. It showed no trace of drugs, but also no trace of acetone. After going without food for more than a couple of days, the body begins to break down its own fat. The waste product of this is acetone, and it is excreted in the urine. If Walton had been without food for several days, his urine should have shown some traces of acetone. Also, Walton later claimed to have lost ten pounds during his missing five days.
The doctors who examined Walton were members of APRO, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, and it was at this time that APRO became intimately involved in the case. It is also at this time that the National Enquirer became involved. Coral Lorenzen, who had made the arrangements for the doctor's examination, received a call from the National Enquirer about the case. She convinced the paper to pay Duane and Walton's expenses while being "sequestered" in a local hotel in exchange for exclusive rights to the story.
When Duane finally called Sheriff Gillespie to inform him of Walton's reappearance, he told the sheriff they were in Tucson where Walton was receiving a check-up. He changed the story in a later phone call, saying they were at a private home in Phoenix. At Gillespie's insistence, Duane reluctantly agreed to let him interview Walton. The Walton brothers refused to allow Gillespie to record the interview, but Travis did agree to take a polygraph exam later in the week.
Seven days after Walton had disappeared and two days after his sudden reappearance, his story was hitting the local newspapers. The Tucson Arizona Daily Star quoted Duane as saying, in part: "I'm not a UFO buff and neither is my brother" -- this flatly contradicts Duane's earlier statements to UFOlogist Fred Sylvanus.
Gillespie had scheduled Walton's polygraph examination for Friday, November 14, but Walton did not show up. The excuse was that the press had "laid siege" and Duane did not feel Walton was ready to face the press. This is curious, since a team of reporters from the National Enquirer had been interviewing Walton already. Also, Duane could have had the polygrapher come to the hotel where Walton was staying if he was concerned about exposing Walton to the media.
Some of the most damning evidence that the entire case was a hoax surrounds the various polygraph examinations and the behavior of the principles involved, Duane and Travis Walton, and Mike Rogers. APRO announced on February 7, 1976, that both Travis and Duane had passed an exam given by George Pfeiffer, who worked for Tom Ezell and Associates. But that test was flawed in a number of respects: Pfeiffer allowed Walton to dictate a number of the questions he asked. While it is not uncommon for polygraphers to allow the test subjects and/or sponsors to outline the general area to be probed, allowing the subject to dictate specific questions violates the basic principles of polygraphy and should invalidate the test results. Also, Pfeiffer was relatively inexperienced, having been practicing only two years. This inexperience expressed itself when he judged Walton's "No" answer to the question "Before November 5, 1975, were you a UFO buff?" to be truthful. Walton's answer directly contradicted information provided by both his mother and brother Duane and by Walton himself during an earlier psychological examination.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Les cas intéressants ne sont pas fiables et les cas fiables ne sont pas intéressants (Carl Sagan)
Accueil
