Travis Walton’s story about being abducted by aliens hasn’t changed in more than 40 years.

But his perception of the 1975 incident has.

He told more than 300 people at the Alien Cosmic Expo on the weekend at the Best Western Brant Park Inn that, over time, he has developed a better understanding of what happened to him in 1975 while working with a logging crew in Arizona.

“Rather than call it an abduction, you could say it was an ambulance call. I got too close, was injured and they were the only ones in position to reverse the damage.”

Walton, who was 21 at the time, was working in Sitgreaves National Forest, near Heber, He said he got too close to a mysterious craft, knocked unconscious and then beamed up into the UFO. He was missing for five days.

His story was the subject of the 1993 movie, Fire in the Sky. Two years later, Walton wrote about his experiences in a book with the same title.

Walton’s story, the impact it has had on his life and others involved has been made into a 90-minute documentary by filmmaker Jennifer Stein. Called The True Story of Travis Walton, the documentary was screened at the second annual expo, which began Friday and concluded Sunday.

Walton was part of session at the expo that was billed as the first public examination and investigation in Canada of the truth behind UFOs.

He said that people’s reaction has changed to him and his story.

“Initially, reaction was pretty hard to endure,” he said. “People were frightened by the very idea and that was the motivation, the basis, for not accepting it.

“They would rather believe that the (logging) crew had murdered me than see what they had seen.”

However, over time, the reaction of people has improved because they are better educated.

Other speakers included Nick Pope, Stanton Friedman, Grant Cameron, Stephen Bassett and former federal cabinet minister Paul Hellyer.

Bob Mitchell, a Brantford resident and an organizer of the hearing, called the group of speakers a lineup of rock star researchers, authors and historians. Mitchell is the author of several books on UFOs and extraterrestrials.

One of the panelists, Richard Dolan, a UFO historian and researcher, spoke about some of the government documents he has seen on UFOs.

After the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that made it easier to get documents through freedom Of information requests and a lot of UFO documents were released, he said.

“A lot of the documents were boring but quite a few were not,” Dolan said. “They showed case after case of violations of sensitive air space over U.S. (military) bases.”

Descriptions of the UFOs were similar in that they had flat bottoms, dome tops, were silent and had incredibly maneuverability. On top of that there were statements from military personnel about the serious nature of the air space violations, he said.

Dolan also told the audience that it is important to know the history of UFO sightings and reports.

“History is all we have and if we throw away our history we have nothing,” he said. “We need to maintain our understanding of the historical record of this phenomena.

“We don’t want to just jump into this in 2016 as if it hasn’t existed throughout our lifetime.”

He said that the historical record appears to show, that after the end of the Second World War and the advent of the nuclear age. that there was a change with respect to the UFO phenomena, which became more visible.

Dolan speculated that the change may be attributed to technological advances and humans becoming better at testing things.

And, while the U.S. government has consistently said there is nothing serious about the phenomena, it is known that at deeply classified levels the problem is being taken seriously, Dolan said.

“I would like to know why there is this discrepancy,” Dolan said. “Whatever it might be, we need to know why these lies have been allowed to flourish.

“Whatever the truth is on this subject, whether its extraterrestrial and they are here to enslave us or to help us or if its something else entirely, something is going on and we need to know what it is.”

Source: Vball@postmedia.com // twitter.com/EXPVBall