ON THIS PAGE:
- The UFO matched the description of Gentry Lookout Tower cab, lit up at night.
- The blue beam was probably a searchlight.
- Descriptions of the craft's appearance, movement, and sounds have changed over the years.
Squashing the UFO
Travis describes the UFO as 15-20 feet in diameter, and 8-10 feet thick [tall] (p.56). The initial witness report to GSW gives a width of 15 feet. While these proportions match the original sketch, that's not typical "pancake" flying saucers, which are much wider than they are tall. Travis's UFO is rather squat and coincidentally matches the dimensions of the lookout tower cab (14' x 14', and about 7' tall).
Before getting out of the truck, he saw "a small round bowl turned upside down on the top. Barely visible at our angle of sight, the white dome peaked over the upper outline of the ship." This dome, significantly, is not on the initial sketches immediately following the sighting.
Travis's description of the UFO has morphed over the years. In this 2019 interview he almost doubles the diameter of the craft, stating it was "40 feet [wide] or less" but still 8-10 feet thick - a more palatable flying saucer shape.
In this interview with Joe Rogan (Jan 19th, 2021), Travis has become vague about the craft's size ("It wasn’t real huge, it was probably not as big as this room.") and "It was a classic disc-shaped craft." Well, no, it really wasn't a classic shape when this whole thing started.
And what are we to make of Mike Rogers' painting from Fire in the Sky (1996) captioned thus: "The incredible object has been rendered in various progressively improved representations. Yet no art could ever do justice to the imposing grandeur of what the seven woodsmen witnessed." [Emphasis mine]
Here are Mike's illustrations over the years, along with the one from SyFy channel's Paranormal Witness that the witnesses claim is overall the best retelling of their story. Mike's "improved" drawings along with Hollywood ensure you'll never think of the UFO as the clunky pointy thing from 1975.
Before getting out of the truck, he saw "a small round bowl turned upside down on the top. Barely visible at our angle of sight, the white dome peaked over the upper outline of the ship." This dome, significantly, is not on the initial sketches immediately following the sighting.
Travis's description of the UFO has morphed over the years. In this 2019 interview he almost doubles the diameter of the craft, stating it was "40 feet [wide] or less" but still 8-10 feet thick - a more palatable flying saucer shape.
In this interview with Joe Rogan (Jan 19th, 2021), Travis has become vague about the craft's size ("It wasn’t real huge, it was probably not as big as this room.") and "It was a classic disc-shaped craft." Well, no, it really wasn't a classic shape when this whole thing started.
And what are we to make of Mike Rogers' painting from Fire in the Sky (1996) captioned thus: "The incredible object has been rendered in various progressively improved representations. Yet no art could ever do justice to the imposing grandeur of what the seven woodsmen witnessed." [Emphasis mine]
Here are Mike's illustrations over the years, along with the one from SyFy channel's Paranormal Witness that the witnesses claim is overall the best retelling of their story. Mike's "improved" drawings along with Hollywood ensure you'll never think of the UFO as the clunky pointy thing from 1975.
Mike's "progressively improved representations" of the UFO (top) culminating in the TV version (bottom) that bears no resemblance to the shape or dimensions of the original report.
Here's how Steve Pierce describes the sight back in 1978:
Steve Pierce interviewed by Philip Klass, Jun 1978.
He was seeing a two-dimensional shape, not a round disc. It sounds nothing like a flying saucer. It also doesn't sound much like Steve's description in 2013 or the images Mike has drawn over the years.
Various descriptions of the "UFO" by the witnesses over years - basically, window frames and glass with the lights switched on.
Here Mike Rogers describes the UFO in the usual way, then seems to realize it sounds, as usual, exactly like a lookout tower and abruptly reverts to the classic "two pie pans":
"It was three-dimensional, it was lighted, it had like a metal framework but it was very shiny. The outside surface of it was like all one piece, it was shiny. It was like looking at a car at night with a... dome light on... The windows were reflecting what’s around, and this particular thing you couldn’t see into it. There were windows but they were – it was like two pie pans lip to lip, okay." Mike Rogers on the Observation Deck with Captain Ron, Oct 24, 2021
Steve acknowledges his perception of the UFO may have been distorted: "I seen it move. I don’t know if I was stoned - that was some good weed or what - but it started rocking back and forth." [UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022]
"It was three-dimensional, it was lighted, it had like a metal framework but it was very shiny. The outside surface of it was like all one piece, it was shiny. It was like looking at a car at night with a... dome light on... The windows were reflecting what’s around, and this particular thing you couldn’t see into it. There were windows but they were – it was like two pie pans lip to lip, okay." Mike Rogers on the Observation Deck with Captain Ron, Oct 24, 2021
Steve acknowledges his perception of the UFO may have been distorted: "I seen it move. I don’t know if I was stoned - that was some good weed or what - but it started rocking back and forth." [UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022]
Hovercraft
How far off the ground was the UFO hovering? The lookout cab is 70 feet up, which more-or-less matches the initial description given in the book:
There, a mere 90 feet above the ground, a strange, golden disc hovered silently. (p.35)
[Botanical note: Ponderosa pine grows 60-100' tall depending on conditions. From photos of this area, they appear to be around the height of the lookout tower, which sits "on" the treetops from a distance, and among the treetops from close range.]
Curiously, in the first edition of his book The Walton Experience (1978), this same sentence was as follows:
There, a mere ninety feet away, a strange, golden disc hovered silently. (p. 25 TWE)
So Travis edited this sentence in order to correct and specify that the UFO was 90 feet up, rather than 90 feet away.
Inexplicably, but probably due to making an edit without reading the surrounding sentences to make sure it didn't introduce a contradiction (which itself is an indication that someone somewhere is bullshitting), the next description of the UFO places it almost on the ground despite no indication it suddenly lost altitude:
Less than 30 yards away, the metallic craft hung motionless, 15 feet above a tangled pile of logging slash...
The craft was stationary, hovering well below the treetops near the crest of the ridge. (p.35)
When I read something like that, my first thought is: This reads like yet another obfuscation.
My second thought is: How tall is a pile of logging slash?
This article from the Forest Service tells me a new pine slash pile is 5 feet tall, putting the UFO only 20 feet above the ground and obviously "well below the treetops.” Technically Travis could be using that phrase truthfully, but if I asked you where your knees were, would your best answer be: “well below my nose”?
The original report to GSW doesn't mention the UFO’s height above the ground (at least, not in the legible parts of the report), but the drawing does seem to portray it as only a few feet above the slash pile, thus misdirecting investigators from the start in case they dared to consider the tower.
There, a mere 90 feet above the ground, a strange, golden disc hovered silently. (p.35)
[Botanical note: Ponderosa pine grows 60-100' tall depending on conditions. From photos of this area, they appear to be around the height of the lookout tower, which sits "on" the treetops from a distance, and among the treetops from close range.]
Curiously, in the first edition of his book The Walton Experience (1978), this same sentence was as follows:
There, a mere ninety feet away, a strange, golden disc hovered silently. (p. 25 TWE)
So Travis edited this sentence in order to correct and specify that the UFO was 90 feet up, rather than 90 feet away.
Inexplicably, but probably due to making an edit without reading the surrounding sentences to make sure it didn't introduce a contradiction (which itself is an indication that someone somewhere is bullshitting), the next description of the UFO places it almost on the ground despite no indication it suddenly lost altitude:
Less than 30 yards away, the metallic craft hung motionless, 15 feet above a tangled pile of logging slash...
The craft was stationary, hovering well below the treetops near the crest of the ridge. (p.35)
When I read something like that, my first thought is: This reads like yet another obfuscation.
My second thought is: How tall is a pile of logging slash?
This article from the Forest Service tells me a new pine slash pile is 5 feet tall, putting the UFO only 20 feet above the ground and obviously "well below the treetops.” Technically Travis could be using that phrase truthfully, but if I asked you where your knees were, would your best answer be: “well below my nose”?
The original report to GSW doesn't mention the UFO’s height above the ground (at least, not in the legible parts of the report), but the drawing does seem to portray it as only a few feet above the slash pile, thus misdirecting investigators from the start in case they dared to consider the tower.
Excerpt from the initial report to Ground Saucer Watch: diagram of UFO hovering over wood pile between trees. The same report gives the width of the craft as 15', so here it is drawn between trees 30' apart.
The only conclusion we can draw, in terms of what the witnesses actually saw, is that distance, height, and size are impossible to judge in the dark. The structure holding up the tower was obscured by trees and even the claim they had an unobstructed view of the UFO in a "clearing" is not accurate, as we'll discover on the next page.
Beam me up
In the book, the witnesses say (via Mike) that Travis was thrown back "10 feet" by the blue beam that zapped him. In this interview (1975 according to the Walton Experience Facebook page, although the presentation is from later), Mike Rogers says "I turned back just in time to see Travis flying back through the air. He hit the ground about 10 feet or so from where he'd been standing."
In the 2019 interview this has grown to a bone-crunching "15 to 20 feet".
Travis told Art Bell (2015) that the beam "was so violent it was compared by the crew that was watching to a grenade or a land mine throwing me through the air."
Steve Pierce corrects the record: "A bluish-green light came out and it zapped him. Okay, now we’ve made jokes about he went 15, 20, 30 feet, on other shows. But in reality I think he only like fell back. People said, Well he said he fell 15 feet. Well, we were on shows joking, you know?" [UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022]
The earliest accounts of the beam were also less dramatic. Three days after the incident, a family friend called NUFORC in Seattle to see if they'd heard the story - they hadn't, so he relayed it including this description of the beam and its effect: "this bluish ray of light projected from the bottom of the craft and silhouetted him completely and then he just crumpled." [NUFORC recordings, 1975, 051.mp3]
NUFORC talked to Travis's step-brother Ralph Anderson the next day. What the witnesses had told him was: "all of a sudden this blue flash came out from underneath it. They said it was in a beam form, just a little bit wider than his shoulders, it covered him, and it silhouetted him because it was so bright… They weren’t sure whether it hit him directly but part of it did. They thought part of it did. Anyway he collapsed and hit the ground." [NUFORC recordings, 1975, 052.mp3]
The Ground Saucer Watch report from Nov 13, 1975, reports that the beam was 18 to 24" wide:
In the 2019 interview this has grown to a bone-crunching "15 to 20 feet".
Travis told Art Bell (2015) that the beam "was so violent it was compared by the crew that was watching to a grenade or a land mine throwing me through the air."
Steve Pierce corrects the record: "A bluish-green light came out and it zapped him. Okay, now we’ve made jokes about he went 15, 20, 30 feet, on other shows. But in reality I think he only like fell back. People said, Well he said he fell 15 feet. Well, we were on shows joking, you know?" [UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022]
The earliest accounts of the beam were also less dramatic. Three days after the incident, a family friend called NUFORC in Seattle to see if they'd heard the story - they hadn't, so he relayed it including this description of the beam and its effect: "this bluish ray of light projected from the bottom of the craft and silhouetted him completely and then he just crumpled." [NUFORC recordings, 1975, 051.mp3]
NUFORC talked to Travis's step-brother Ralph Anderson the next day. What the witnesses had told him was: "all of a sudden this blue flash came out from underneath it. They said it was in a beam form, just a little bit wider than his shoulders, it covered him, and it silhouetted him because it was so bright… They weren’t sure whether it hit him directly but part of it did. They thought part of it did. Anyway he collapsed and hit the ground." [NUFORC recordings, 1975, 052.mp3]
The Ground Saucer Watch report from Nov 13, 1975, reports that the beam was 18 to 24" wide:
Does "bluish ray of light" and a 2-foot-wide beam that "covered him" sound like a powerful bolt of energy to you? Does it sound like a lightning bolt caused by a build-up of static electricity (Travis's latest explanation) Or does it sound kinda like... a spotlight?
This "projected" ray that "covered him" and caused him to "crumple" or "collapse" is hardly the same as what Travis (via Mike) relays in his book, in interviews, or the dramatic displays shown on film and imagery:
This "projected" ray that "covered him" and caused him to "crumple" or "collapse" is hardly the same as what Travis (via Mike) relays in his book, in interviews, or the dramatic displays shown on film and imagery:
The increasingly dramatic zappy beam through the ages
Speaking of being zapped by a blue light (variously also called a blue beam, a long blue flame, a static charge, a ray, a lightning bolt, or a bolt of energy): I've come into possession of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Standard Lookout Structure Plans. Fascinating reading, but nowhere in those pages can I find the specs for an energy beam that comes out of the bottom of the thing, not even for protection against bears.
So, what was this strange blue light coming out of the UFO? Based on what he says he was told by the witnesses, Ryan Gordon thinks it was a spotlight. I asked the Forest Service:
“Talking with the firefighters, they do remember 'back in the day' hearing about how lookout towers would use colored lenses to signal other lookouts and fire crews... One color indicated that everything was ok, another color if they were in distress and one color to indicate a forest fire.” - Visitor Services, Forest Service (Apache-Sitgreaves NF), personal correspondence, July 2021
In the early twentieth century an acetylene lantern was used. Modern communication methods have replaced a semaphore system but this is definitely an interesting avenue for further research.
So, what was this strange blue light coming out of the UFO? Based on what he says he was told by the witnesses, Ryan Gordon thinks it was a spotlight. I asked the Forest Service:
“Talking with the firefighters, they do remember 'back in the day' hearing about how lookout towers would use colored lenses to signal other lookouts and fire crews... One color indicated that everything was ok, another color if they were in distress and one color to indicate a forest fire.” - Visitor Services, Forest Service (Apache-Sitgreaves NF), personal correspondence, July 2021
In the early twentieth century an acetylene lantern was used. Modern communication methods have replaced a semaphore system but this is definitely an interesting avenue for further research.
"This thing is beautiful"
Scott Browne has made this recreation of what the tower may have looked like on the night. The crew in the truck were about 200 feet from the tower and their view was obscured by trees.
Recreation by Scott Browne, used with permission
Let's explore this blue beam a little further.
Travis's book, published three years after the event, includes details about, and dialogue from, the rest of the crew about what happened while Travis was knocked unconscious by a "numbing" beam and then missing. Clearly Travis didn't witness any of that. So where does the following description come from?
"a tremendously bright, blue-green ray shot from the bottom of the craft. I saw and heard nothing. All I felt was the numbing force of a blow that felt like a high-voltage electrocution. The intense bolt made a sharp cracking, or popping, sound. The stunning concussion of the foot-wide beam struck me full in the head and chest. My mind sank quickly into unfeeling blackness. I didn’t even see what hit me" (p.58-9)
These vivid descriptions must come from other crew members, since Travis heard and saw nothing. Steve Pierce has told me no one but Mike was consulted in the writing of the book (Steve himself had left town long before then). Mike was in on the hoax so he's what we call an unreliable narrator. He says the bolt made a "cracking, or popping" sound.
But let's go back to the APRO report published shortly after Travis reappeared after his 5-day sojourn:
Travis's book, published three years after the event, includes details about, and dialogue from, the rest of the crew about what happened while Travis was knocked unconscious by a "numbing" beam and then missing. Clearly Travis didn't witness any of that. So where does the following description come from?
"a tremendously bright, blue-green ray shot from the bottom of the craft. I saw and heard nothing. All I felt was the numbing force of a blow that felt like a high-voltage electrocution. The intense bolt made a sharp cracking, or popping, sound. The stunning concussion of the foot-wide beam struck me full in the head and chest. My mind sank quickly into unfeeling blackness. I didn’t even see what hit me" (p.58-9)
These vivid descriptions must come from other crew members, since Travis heard and saw nothing. Steve Pierce has told me no one but Mike was consulted in the writing of the book (Steve himself had left town long before then). Mike was in on the hoax so he's what we call an unreliable narrator. He says the bolt made a "cracking, or popping" sound.
But let's go back to the APRO report published shortly after Travis reappeared after his 5-day sojourn:
APRO Bulletin, Nov 1975
The GSW report also mentions no sound from the beam, simply a "blue flash".
Setting aside the sound of the beam, what did it look like?
The earliest accounts above were called in by a non-eyewitness. While descriptions have become increasingly dramatic, Steve Pierce's latest account is simply: "a bluish-green light came out and it zapped him." - UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022
Mike's recent descriptions toe the party line:
"very powerful extremely bright bolt of light or energy hit him in the head, or actually the chest" - Mike Rogers, A Different Perspective by Kevin Randle, 2019
"something hit him - this beam or whatever it was, could even have been static electricity from the air" - Mike Rogers, 51 Areas with Dave Miller, March 23, 2021
Then four days later, Mike appears on the same show - this time with Steve Pierce and John Goulette. Steve challenges him on whether he actually saw the beam hit Travis:
MR: We saw him get hit, but we didn’t see him abducted.
SP: I don’t think you saw him get hit, Mike.
MR: What’s that?
SP: You sure we weren’t in the way when he got zapped?
MR: What?... Whaddya mean?
SP: You know, the way we were sitting, it was kinda hard…
MR: Actually, I didn’t see him get zapped, okay? - 51 Areas, Mar 27th, 2021
Note this corroborates Steve's 1978 interview with Klass, where he claimed the others in the truck didn't see much. It also matches what Mike said in that 1975 interview cited above - the full quote indicates Mike did not see the beam (hence: "apparently") as he was looking in another direction at the time (hence: "I turned back"):
"the object apparently blasted him with some sort of a ray or bolt of light or something. When I saw this bright blinding light, I turned back just in time to see Travis flying back through the air. He hit the ground about 10 feet or so from where he'd been standing."
Two months after that 2021 admission, Mike's first-hand eyewitness account has changed to bring things into line with Steve's assertion:
"There was a zap, y’know, and I looked up. I didn’t see the beam that hit him but he was flying through the air backwards." - Mike Rogers, Dark Fringe Radio, May 27th, 2021
"At that time I didn’t actually see what hit him, okay? I had a lot of anticipation, anxiety building up. I just knew something was gonna happen." - Mike Rogers, UFO Classified with Erica Lukes, July 16th, 2021.
As an aside: "I just knew something was gonna happen" - in retrospect, this statement is not doing Mike any favors. But let's continue...
Setting aside the sound of the beam, what did it look like?
The earliest accounts above were called in by a non-eyewitness. While descriptions have become increasingly dramatic, Steve Pierce's latest account is simply: "a bluish-green light came out and it zapped him." - UFO Classified, Jun 24, 2022
Mike's recent descriptions toe the party line:
"very powerful extremely bright bolt of light or energy hit him in the head, or actually the chest" - Mike Rogers, A Different Perspective by Kevin Randle, 2019
"something hit him - this beam or whatever it was, could even have been static electricity from the air" - Mike Rogers, 51 Areas with Dave Miller, March 23, 2021
Then four days later, Mike appears on the same show - this time with Steve Pierce and John Goulette. Steve challenges him on whether he actually saw the beam hit Travis:
MR: We saw him get hit, but we didn’t see him abducted.
SP: I don’t think you saw him get hit, Mike.
MR: What’s that?
SP: You sure we weren’t in the way when he got zapped?
MR: What?... Whaddya mean?
SP: You know, the way we were sitting, it was kinda hard…
MR: Actually, I didn’t see him get zapped, okay? - 51 Areas, Mar 27th, 2021
Note this corroborates Steve's 1978 interview with Klass, where he claimed the others in the truck didn't see much. It also matches what Mike said in that 1975 interview cited above - the full quote indicates Mike did not see the beam (hence: "apparently") as he was looking in another direction at the time (hence: "I turned back"):
"the object apparently blasted him with some sort of a ray or bolt of light or something. When I saw this bright blinding light, I turned back just in time to see Travis flying back through the air. He hit the ground about 10 feet or so from where he'd been standing."
Two months after that 2021 admission, Mike's first-hand eyewitness account has changed to bring things into line with Steve's assertion:
"There was a zap, y’know, and I looked up. I didn’t see the beam that hit him but he was flying through the air backwards." - Mike Rogers, Dark Fringe Radio, May 27th, 2021
"At that time I didn’t actually see what hit him, okay? I had a lot of anticipation, anxiety building up. I just knew something was gonna happen." - Mike Rogers, UFO Classified with Erica Lukes, July 16th, 2021.
As an aside: "I just knew something was gonna happen" - in retrospect, this statement is not doing Mike any favors. But let's continue...
Silence and sounds
What about the sounds from the UFO itself?
Steve recounted in 2013 that he'd told Philip Klass, in 1978, that if the incident was a hoax, “You’re gonna need a big generator, more than one generator because that light was so bright, one little generator’s not gonna work.”
Currently, Gentry Tower does have a generator at its base. I have no information about whether it did, or what type, in the 1970s but will update when I do. What we do know is that watchers lived in the tower for five days at a time, so unless it was on the grid there must've been a generator.
The witnesses' initial report to GSW describes the sound as "electrical - high & low pitch".
Steve recounted in 2013 that he'd told Philip Klass, in 1978, that if the incident was a hoax, “You’re gonna need a big generator, more than one generator because that light was so bright, one little generator’s not gonna work.”
Currently, Gentry Tower does have a generator at its base. I have no information about whether it did, or what type, in the 1970s but will update when I do. What we do know is that watchers lived in the tower for five days at a time, so unless it was on the grid there must've been a generator.
The witnesses' initial report to GSW describes the sound as "electrical - high & low pitch".
Excerpt from the initial report to Ground Saucer Watch: witnesses say the object's sound was "electrical - high & low pitch".
Here's APRO's description from the witnesses:
APRO Bulleting, Nov 1975
So, it seems there were some beeps followed by the generator sounds.
Don't be disappointed! The UFO noise has morphed today into all manner of "eerie and complex" beeps and whines, a high pitched alternating frequency, and a "rumbling" so low and intense it was "felt" rather than heard, and made the steering wheel in Mike's hands shake (from Travis [documentary], 2015). All of this constitutes embellishments after the fact.
Don't be disappointed! The UFO noise has morphed today into all manner of "eerie and complex" beeps and whines, a high pitched alternating frequency, and a "rumbling" so low and intense it was "felt" rather than heard, and made the steering wheel in Mike's hands shake (from Travis [documentary], 2015). All of this constitutes embellishments after the fact.
The accomplice springs into action
Imagine seeing that cab lit up and glowing from on high in the dark, in silence. Awe-inspiring!
Travis is so excited he leaps out of the truck while it's still moving, runs up to the tower "at an angle" (one might say, the perfect angle). Steve Pierce confirms Travis ran to the right of the UFO and was never "under" it. Travis has his hands in his pockets - this is always mentioned and I still haven't figured out why - and looks back (to make sure nobody is following?).
An accomplice in the tower (Ryan Gordon claims it was a friend of Duane Walton's) - fires up the generator.
Travis ducks down. Stands up. That's the signal!
The accomplice points the searchlight, with its blue lens, at our hapless logger, and switches it on.
Zzzzap!!!
"It got him!"
Travis is so excited he leaps out of the truck while it's still moving, runs up to the tower "at an angle" (one might say, the perfect angle). Steve Pierce confirms Travis ran to the right of the UFO and was never "under" it. Travis has his hands in his pockets - this is always mentioned and I still haven't figured out why - and looks back (to make sure nobody is following?).
An accomplice in the tower (Ryan Gordon claims it was a friend of Duane Walton's) - fires up the generator.
Travis ducks down. Stands up. That's the signal!
The accomplice points the searchlight, with its blue lens, at our hapless logger, and switches it on.
Zzzzap!!!
"It got him!"
Read on...
While Mike may not have planned the hoax, he played a key role.
(c) Charlie Wiser 2021
