The Travis Walton “UFO abduction” back in 1975 is one of the best-known and most widely believed of all UFO cases. It was depicted in the movie Fire In The Sky. Serious researchers have known for a while that the case was a hoax. Now Steve Pierce, one of the woodcutters in the truck with Travis, not only admits the hoax, but explains how it was done.
In August of 2026, researcher Ryan Gordon traveled to the ‘abduction site’ with Pierce to try to untangle the confusion. Gordon published a YouTube video to document their discussions about the case. He writes,
On November 5, 1975, deep in the chilling timber of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests just outside of Heber, Arizona, a logging crew experienced an event that would cement itself in UFO history forever. What started as a routine day in the woods ended with 22-year-old Travis Walton vanishing without a trace for five agonizing days and allegedly taken aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft. But as the years have passed, cracks in the world’s most famous abduction story have begun to show. What really happened in the forest that night?
In this exclusive and gripping deep-dive interview, producer Ryan Gordon sits down with original logging crew member and eyewitness Steve Pierce to unravel decades of mystery, rumor, and shocking revelations.
The video begins with Pierce and Gordon at Turkey Springs in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. This is where the woodcutters were working on their forest service contract. It is also where Travis Walton claims he was “abducted,” leading a group of researchers there, amid absurd claims about ‘radioactive trees’ and the like.
But a little reflection tells us this cannot be true. The woodcutters normally returned home using Black Canyon Road, a primitive but direct route through the forest, starting before it gets dark. However, on Abduction Day, Mike Rogers, the crew chief and driver of the truck, had the crew work until it was dark. He then chose to return via the Rim Road, a forest road they had not taken before. At the intersection of another road, they reportedly saw a UFO. Rogers stopped the truck, and Travis ran out to see the UFO. When Travis was reportedly struck by a beam of light from the UFO, Rogers hit the gas and sped away from the site, reaching a speed of 60 MPH on Rim Road, until they decided to stop and go back to try to find poor Travis, which of course they could not.
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| The Gentry Tower as seen from the road in daylight. Travis Walton’s “UFO.” |
At the site of the Gentry Tower, Pierce says that he is “100% certain” that this was Travis Walton’s UFO. A brief description of the case as we now know it:
- The hoax was planned by Travis Walton and Mike Rogers. The other woodcutters (including Steve Pierce) knew nothing of it at the time.
- There was a third hoaxer working in the Gentry Tower. He shone a searchlight on Travis, to make it look like he was being “zapped”.
More recently, Travis has been claiming that the beam from the UFO ‘killed’ him. Fortunately, the aliens took him aboard their craft, and restored him to life.
Mike Rogers died this past February. According to his daughter, he made a deathbed confession of the Travis Walton hoax. Rogers had “confessed” this in 2021 in a phone call with Ryan Gordon, but then retracted his confession soon afterward. Rogers also reportedly “confessed” to his daughter to having hoaxed the famous Phoenix Lights using balloons or something, which is preposterous. Those “lights” traveled 400 miles in less than an hour, so they were obviously aircraft. Frankly, this detracts from the credibility of Rogers’ other confession, although I still don’t doubt it..
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Steve Pierce at the Gentry Tower.
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Forest Service CL-100 lookout tower (same model as Gentry Tower in Apache-Sitgreaves Natl. Forest) |
The National Enquirer was offering $1 million for “proof that UFOs come from outer space.” The Walton/Rogers crew was hoping to win that prize, but fell short. However, they received instead $2,500 each for ‘1975’s most extraordinary encounter.’
