APRO supports the efforts of Phil Klass and others to comment critically on our case investigations. Such comment, when executed objectively and in good faith will only result in the strengthening of a good case. For example, Klass' implied suggestion that the six witnesses to the initial phase of Travis Walton's experience should undergo more complete polygraphic testing is commendable. If present plans proceed as expected they will all be retested.
It is commendable too, that'Mr. Klass understands and respects the time-honored jounalistic tenet that allows an investigative reporter to protect the identity of his sources and the nature of privileged information. During a telephone conversation which took place while the existence of Travis' first polygraph was privileged information, Mr. Klass asked me if I had any knowledge of a poly aph test of Travis which took place earlier than Pfeifer's test.
John J. McCarthy, the first polygraph examiner to test Travis Walton on November 15, 1975, was quoted in the ARIZONA REPUBLIC for July 12, 1976 as follows: "I decided to break silence because the National Enquirer is involved in complicity which is detrimental to our profession."
A number of peers feel that it is McCarthy's action that has damaged the image of the profession. After all, he had advised Travis of his rights against self-incrimination and a assured him that the test results would become the property of the National Enquirer's Paul Jenkins. "If there's any release of the information it will come from him, not me," he had promised. And he had signed an agreement to preserve the confidentiality of the test. Prospective polygraphic subjects are assured of the privileged nature of the pre-test interview. What happens when they can no longer take that assurance seriously?
Of major concern to polygraph operators in the Phoenix area is McCarthy's apparent willingness to disclose confidential information in direct violation of verbal committment and written contract. He has also talked freely about information gleaned during his "confidential" pretest interview. It was during this interview that Travis confided that he had been in trouble with the law over the theft and forgery of payroll checks. Although thorough investigation confirms that this was an isolated event in what Travis calls his "wild teen-age phase" and has nothing to do with the UFO case that was supposed to be the focal point of McCarthy's test, McCarthy seems to feel perfectly comfortable in using this material to "crim alize" his former subject.
In addition, McCarthy, possibly due to faulty memory, is propigating false information as to what took place in that pre-test interview. He claims that Travis admitte that he, his brother Duane, and his mother, often speculated about riding in a UFO. The tape recording made of that interview shows that (1) Duane and mother were not mentioned by Travis in connection with UFO riding and (2) that in response to McCarthy's repeated and persistent questioning about riding in a UFO, Travis maintained that he had merely speculated about making contact with UFO beings, not in taking a ride per se. When reviewing the question "In the past have you ever thought of riding in a UFO?" Travis decided to respond with a "yes" because he probably had thought about it sometime or other. He explained this to McCarthy. So once again McCarthy had asked the wrong question.
"Have you recently thought a lot about riding in a UFO?" would have been a lot better indication of whether or not Travis had been planning a hoax.
In the test administered by Pfeifer the question, "Before November 5, 1975 were you a UFO buff?" (suggested by Travis) was asked. Travis answered "No." Klass insists that this answer is a lie. We maintain that a person may at some time or other have thought of riding in a UFO and may have speculated about contact with extraterrestrials and still not consider himself to be a "UFO buff." Travis had not read a book on UFOs, did not know that there were UFO research organizations and in fact did not recognize the name J. Allen Hynek.
Klass' investigation is targeted to prove that the Walton brothers and their mother, Mrs. Mary Kellett, were very much involved in the UFO subject and flying saucer lore. A first-hand investigation as conducted by APRO does not bear this out. The members of this intelligent family group have an attitude in common with over half the citizens of the United States; i.e., they think that some UFO reports are based on the existence of real vehicles and that these vehicles are possibly extraterrestrial in origin. They were interested enough to read reports that appeared in the press but not concerned enough to buy (or borrow) books or magazines on the subject.
Duane reports that he saw a UFO close at hand when hunting about 12 years ago. It came nearly to tree-top level and seemed to be following him. He ran home and of course told the family about it. In ensuing years the subject has been discussed occasionally and Duane has recounted his adventure. On one of these occasions Travis had made a tongue-in-cheek remark, "If one of those things ever grabs you make sure they come back and get me." Duane, during Travis' absence, recalled this remark and repeated it with a fair amount of embellishment to newsmen and other investigators. In the press this developed into a "pact" between the two brothers. Also, during Travis' absence, Duane made quite a few positive statements about UFOs which Klass interprets as indicating that Duane had a thorough knowledge of UFO lore. The same facts can just as easily support the hypothesis that Duane believed the accounts given by the six witnesses, some of whom he knew personally, and that he was talking to keep up own hopes as well as those of his mother.
In earlier correspondence with Mr. Lorenzen, Klass had forwarded a report to the effect that when Mrs. Kellet had been notified of the incident involving her son's disappearance she had responded with, "Well, I'm not the least bit surprised." He included the names of a half dozen law-men who were supposed to have been witnesses to this event. APRO investigation discloses that Mrs. Kellett was notified by Mike Rogers, and that the only other person present was Under-sheriff Ken Coplan. The above quote attributed to Mrs. Kellett could only have come from Coplan but Coplan has now retreated from such a position and so has Phil Klass. Ken Coplan was Dr. William Bickel's source for the talk show rumor (see APRO Bulletin for December 1975). Coplan later denied that he had ever heard or repeated such a rumor.
Coplan's current position is that Mrs. Kellett didn't act very surprised. However, we find that Coplan was not previously acquainted with Mrs. Kellett and therefore can make no valid appraisal of her reactions. Mike Rogers notes that both Travis and his mother are reserved in nature and simply are not in the habit of reacting visibly. Rogers says that when he told Mrs. Kellett of the incident she seemed unable to grasp what he was telling her and insisted that he repeat the details at least twice and that on the drive to Snowflake she continued to ply him With questions about details inter-mingled With her own recollections of Duane's experience and other accounts she had heard. Coplan does not disagree with Rogers' account.
Another "criminalizing" item that McCarthy revealed from Travis' "confidential" pre-test interview was his revelation that he had experimented with "pot" and "uppers" and had ingested LSD once. APRO's investigation supports Travis' claim that his experimentation was a temporary phase, terminated at least two years prior to the abduction incident. Klass, however, indulges in some wild conjecture concerning a red mark that looked like the remnant of a puncture inside· Travis' right elbow, theorizing that Travis could have injected LSD. However: (1) Travis is right-handed so the mark is in the wrong place to have been self-administered; (2) why, when LSD is easily ingested orally, would anyone in this situation resort to injection?; (3) if Travis was indeed participating in a hoax as Klass claims, why would he resort to drugs at all at this crucial time?
It is of importance to note that we are dependent on Travis' basic honesty for all knowledge we have of his drug experimentation. He volunteered this information in good faith. He did not have to do so.
To help portray Travis as a drug user Klass relies on "Dr." Lester Steward, already exposed in these pages as having an unaccredited correspondence school doctorate. Steward claims to have talked about alleged experience in treating drug abuse and to have noted the puncture mark. The Waltons, however, say that Travis was wearing a long-sleeved shirt making the mark invisible and that Steward did not discuss drugs in their presence. They say he spent most of the time on the phone trying to arrange for an M.D. to give Travis a physical and when it became apparent that he was being unsuccessful they left.
Errors and misrepresentations are rampant in the Kla paper and in some instances they are pyramided to produce entirely false impressions. Example: McCarthy's untrue statements about Travis' alleged obsession with UFOs is reinforced by a false quote from Dr. Howard Kandell to the same effect, and these are then used as a basis for discrediting Travis' normal psychological profile as established by M.M.P.I. test.
APRO is described as having alerted the National Enquirer and is implied to have rented the rooms at the Sheraton when in fact, the Enquirer contacted Duane Walton first and then contacted APRO when they learned from him we were investigating. The Enquirer rented the rooms at the Sheraton. We noted these basic facts in the Nov. 1975 APRO Bulletin the receipt of which is acknowledged in Klass' 17-page report dated June 20, 1976.
It is also implied that APRO suppressed what Klass describes as information about Travis' "puncture wound" and he implies that Kandell refers to it as such in his medical report to APRO. Kandell's actual reference reads, "a 2mm red spot in the crease of the right elbow." Dr. Kandell told us that it was completely healed when he discovered it and that it was quite possibly six days old when he examined Travis. At any rate if it was the remnant of a puncture, it had been made too far in the past to account for the drug induced state theorized by Klass' "drug expert" Steward. Travis and some of the other woodcutters have reported that they sometimes pick up splinters or thorns in the course of their work. Punctures from the buckthorn bush, which grows in that area, were commonplace enough that one could conceivably go unnoticed. This seems a much more likely way to account for the Walton red mark and as such it was not considered to be a particularly significant detail in reporting the case.
Klass's final conclusion is that the case was a hoax planned by Rogers and Walton with the help of the rest of the crew to enable Rogers to break a Forest Service contract that had him in serious financial trouble.
The facts are that Rogers was behind on his current contract since he had been working on three other contracts simultaneously. But, he had collected on the other contracts and therefore was not in financial trouble.
Also, it was to his advantage and to the advantage of the crew to work as long as possible on the contract. Rogers knew from experience that a small time overrun would be tolerated providing they were making good progress. In addition, a contract could be defaulted without serious penalty or prejudice without going to all the trouble of creating an excuse. Rogers knew this because he had defaulted a contract a few years earlier.
Rogers had requested an inspection from the Forest Service to take place on November 7, which would enable him to collect for the past three weeks work. The UFO incident short-stopped this procedure and held up monies already earned. Rogers did not have a regular crew on payroll. He picked up men as he needed them and they were paid strictly for the hours worked. For Duane Smith the UFO incident occurred on the third day he worked for Rogers. He had not seen a payday. He was a stranger to the rest of the men. There simply was not the closeness between the men that would support the idea that they could collaborate on a hoax that would gain them nothing - which in fact could well lose them three weeks pay already earned.
In his letter to the Forest Service stating that he could not complete the contract he did not mention UFOs. At this writing Rogers is working on another thinning contract for the Forest Service using a special machine that renders the individual woodcutter with chain saw obsolete. Are we to believe that six men who perpetrated a hoax for Rogers' benefit are now going to remain silent while Rogers collects his best acreage rate ever without them?
What do Forest Service personnel think about Klass' hoax theory? Maurice Marchbanks, the Forest Service contracting officer, thinks it is nonsense. He can see no way that Rogers could have benefited from the alleged hoax. Persistent phone calls from Phil Klass have failed to convince him otherwise.
What does Sheriff Gillespie think about Klass' hoax theory? "A collection of personal opinions and unsubstantiated theory," he says.
From a pragmatic point of view the Klass effort may even be, in the final analysis, a blessing in disguise. It has focused attention on the Walton case once more, largely through his (Klass') challenging.of the validity of the Pfeifer polygraph tests and his touting of McCarthy's test. Rogers and Walton, et al., have issued a challenge to Phil, which he gives every indication of accepting, whereby he will pay for the new tests if the witnesses pass them but he will pay nothing if they do not pass. APRO has obtained a commitment from a polygraph examiner of national stature and reputation, suggested by McCarthy and approved by Pfeifer, to conduct the new tests. Klass has expressed approval of the choice. No date has been set but we hope to be able to report the results in a future issue of the Bulletin.