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[SPEAKER_00]: from the darkest reaches of space to the deepest corners of your mind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to From the Void.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey friends, welcome, grab a seat around the fire because today we're going to dig into another one of the most famous cases of UFO abduction.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One that occurred nearly a decade before Whitley's streamers experience, and one that had not won, but multiple witnesses lie detector tests, accusations of murder, and a whole lot more.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So settle in because tonight we're going to dig into the story of Travis Walton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Before we talk about UFOs, before we talk about abduction, before we talk about missing time, we need to talk about work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because the Travis Walton case doesn't begin with belief, it begins with a logging contract.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In November of 1975, seven men were working in the Apache St. Greaves National Forest near Snowflake, Arizona.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't researchers, they weren't investigators, and they weren't looking for anything unusual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were loggers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just ordinary men doing a job that paid by the acre, with deadlines, penalties, and pressure to finish before winter set in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of them was Travis Walton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The crew was led by Mike Rogers, the contractor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The others were friends, co-workers, locals, men who had worked together before, entrusted one another with dangerous equipment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They spent long days in the forest.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They argued about money, and they worried about time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing about their routine suggested a story that would still be debated nearly 50 years later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that these men work together doesn't prove that their story is true.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What it does mean is that their testimony came from people who knew one another's habits, voices and reactions, and who had every reason not to complicate their lives with the story that brought police scrutiny and public suspicion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were driving out of the forest in a pickup truck following a familiar road.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was already dark, and then something appeared ahead of them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At first they thought it might be a fire, a glow through the trees.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But as they got closer, the light didn't flicker, it hovered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Illuminous object, disk-shaped, metallic, hovering above the forest floor, close enough to illuminate the trees around it, close enough to make sound feel unnecessary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The truck slowed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the men wanted to leave, others stared, and then, Travis Walton opened the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: because the next decision, one step forward into the light, is the moment everything fractures.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Before we go any further, there's an important detail about the people involved.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Travis Walton was not the leader of the crew.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was my Rogers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And by most accounts, their relationship at the time was strained.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The job was behind schedule.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The contract penalties were real, and there was tension over money, responsibility, and time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't a tight knit group chasing an adventure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a group of men under pressure, and not all of them got along.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that matters, because what happened next required split-second reactions, not coordination.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So as the pickup moved down the forest road, the light ahead became clear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't diffuse, it was concentrated.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As I said before, hovering above the ground roughly the size of a small vehicle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The men described it as dis-shaped with a metallic surface and a soft cloth that illuminated the trees around it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the crew later said they yelled for Rogers to stop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Others said the truck slowed down on its own.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Accounts vary in small details, but not in the central fact.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They all saw the object, and they all understood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't belong there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At some point Travis Walton opened the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This decision has been debated ever since.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why would anyone get closer?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Walton later said he felt compelled that he wanted to understand what he was seeing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Other crew members said they shouted at him to get back in the truck.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That they were afraid that the situation felt wrong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Walton walked toward the object.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He closed the distance to roughly 30 feet.
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[SPEAKER_00]:
Load full transcript
Close enough that the light intensified.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Close enough that the air itself felt charged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, without warning, a beam of light struck him, not a blast, not an explosion, but a focused burst of energy that lifted him off his feet and threw him backward.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The other men screamed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Several later said they believed that they had just watched Travis Walton die.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They described him lying motionless on the ground.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The object's still hovering.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment, fear took over.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Microdgers started the truck.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They drove.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not because they didn't care, but because they believed that staying meant dying, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They would later describe that decision as the worst moment of their lives.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Within minutes, they stopped, argued, and turned back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When they returned to the spot, Travis Walton was gone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When the truck turned around, the men expected to find Travis Walton where he had fallen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The clearing was empty, nobody, no movement, no sign that anyone had gotten back up and walked away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The object was gone, the light was gone, and Travis Walton was nowhere to be found.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The men searched the immediate area, they shouted his name, they scanned the ground, nothing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and starts being serious.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because now, there was a missing person.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is where the crew tension matters again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My Rogers, the crew boss, was responsible for the job, for the contract, for getting everyone home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Travis Walton, by multiple accounts, had already been a point of friction.
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[SPEAKER_00]: arguments over pace, over decisions, over responsibility, which meant that when Walton vanished, suspicion didn't wait.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It landed immediately.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After searching on their own, Rogers drove to the nearest town in contact at authorities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The call did not go well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To law enforcement, the situation looked bad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Seven men go into the woods.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Six, come out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The seventh is missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the explanation involves a strange light and a flying object.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Police questioned the men separately.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They noted inconsistencies in minor details.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They noted emotional distress.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And they considered the most obvious possibility first.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that Travis Walton had been injured or killed, and that the UFO story was a cover.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is an important point to sit with.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The men were not treated as witnesses.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were treated as suspects.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their truck was examined.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The work site was examined.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their stories were scrutinized.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the strained relationship between Walton and the crew boss
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[SPEAKER_00]: If this was a hoax, this was the moment to abandon it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The story had already brought police scrutiny.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It had already raised the possibility of criminal charges.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Travis Walton was still missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As night fell, search efforts began.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Local enforcement, volunteers, lights moving through the forest where the egg counter had taken place.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the woods gave nothing back, no blood, no tracks, no sign of where Walden had gone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By morning, the story had changed again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was no longer an unexplained encounter, it was a missing person case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And with every hour that passed, the pressure on the six men left behind increased.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By morning, Travis Walton was still missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the story surrounding his disappearance was already beginning to harden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not as a mystery, but as a problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Law enforcement expanded the search.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Volunteers joined in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The forest was combed on foot by vehicle and from the air.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But nothing turned up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No sign of injury, no sign of a struggle, no sign that Walton had walked out on his own.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As hours turned into days, the tone of the investigation shifted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The explanation involving a hovering object and a beam of light was
noted, but it wasn't driving the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The working assumption was far more ordinary, that something had gone wrong between the men and the woods, and that the truth was being concealed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The six remaining crew members were questioned repeatedly, separately and in detail.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their statements compared, small inconsistencies were logged, emotional reactions were scrutinized, and one fact kept rising to the surface.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were the last people to see Travis Walton alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Word of the disappearance spread quickly, local media picked it up, then regional outlets.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A man was missing, a group of co-workers had an explanation that didn't sit comfortably with authorities, suspicion followed them into town, into their homes, into every conversation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At this stage, the UFO story wasn't helping anyone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It made the man look evasive,
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[SPEAKER_00]: and it gave investigators reasoned to believe they were hiding something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By the third day law enforcement made a decision, the men would be asked to take polygraph tests.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't unusual, it was a pressure point, a way to see who might break.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The six remaining crew members agreed to take polygraph tests.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The results were mixed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: but not in the way they're often described.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The results indicated that five were being truthful in their responses and one was inconclusive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: None were recorded as outright failures.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Another important point to mention is that this initial polygraph test was about possible harm or murder, not proof of the UFO allegations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Later tests would report passing results across the group, but by then suspicion had already taken hold.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By the fifth day, expectations had narrowed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Law enforcement had begun preparing for the possibility that Travis Walton would not be found alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then, late on the night of November 10, 1975, a phone rang.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not at a police station, not at a hospital.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At Travis Walton's family home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Walden said he was calling from a public phone booth in Heber, Arizona, roughly 30 miles from where he had disappeared.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He sounded disoriented, weak, and shaken.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Family members later said they were unsure at first whether it was really him, until he identified himself clearly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Once it became clear the call was real, people moved quickly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mike Rogers was contacted, law enforcement was notified, and arrangements were made to bring Walton in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When Walton was picked up, his appearance raised immediate questions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was thin, unshaven, and visibly distressed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After five days missing, there were no clear signs of where he had been, or how he had
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[SPEAKER_00]: The disappearance had ended, but the mystery had only deepened, because now the investigation had to account for something new.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not just where Travis Walton had gone, but what he said happened while he was gone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the next episode, we'll leave the search behind and listen to Travis Walton himself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's next time, on From The Void.