Fire in the Sky
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🎬 Book or film
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Fire in the Sky is a 1993 American science fiction film directed by Robert Lieberman. It is based on Travis Walton's book The Walton Experience (1978), about his claim to have been abducted by aliens in the forests of northern Arizona in November 1975. D. B. Sweeney plays Walton, Robert Patrick plays his friend and crew boss Mike Rogers, and James Garner plays a skeptical investigator.[1][2]
Story
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The film is set in Snowflake, Arizona, in November 1975. Driving home from work, a crew of loggers sees a strange light in the forest. Walton leaves the truck to look, is struck by a beam and thrown back. His frightened friends drive away. When they report him missing, the police suspect them of foul play, and the town turns against them. Five days later Walton reappears at a gas station, naked and traumatised. He later remembers being held and examined aboard an alien craft.[1][2] The closing titles state that Walton, Rogers and another crew member took new polygraph tests in 1993 and passed them.[1]
Production
Development began around 1986, with a screenplay by Tracy Tormé. Principal photography took place in the summer of 1992 around Roseburg and Oakland, Oregon, and in the Umpqua National Forest. Industrial Light & Magic handled the special effects, and Mark Isham wrote the score.[1] Walton and his wife make brief cameo appearances.[1]
The film's abduction scenes differ sharply from Walton's own account. Tormé said studio executives found Walton's version dull and insisted on changes, and film historian Paul Meehan wrote in 2023 that the scenes bear almost no resemblance to Walton's published claims.[1] Lieberman later said he suspected the original story had begun as a prank.[1] After the film's release, Walton's book was reissued under the title Fire in the Sky.[1]
Release and reception
Paramount Pictures released the film in the United States on 12 March 1993. It opened at number two at the box office but earned about $19.9 million at home on a budget of about $15 million.[1] Reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert praised the scenes inside the craft but felt the film ended on a frustrating note, while Vincent Canby of The New York Times found it dull.[1] A later Gizmodo review called it well shot and entertaining but faulted it for taking Walton's story so earnestly.[2]
The film became a popular rental on home video and was nominated for four Saturn Awards.[1] X-Files creator Chris Carter was impressed by Patrick's performance and later cast him as Agent John Doggett.[1][2] As of 2023 it was the most recent theatrical feature film based on a claimed alien abduction.[1]
References
- Fire in the Sky — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "In Fire in the Sky, extraterrestrials need confused loggers", Gizmodo · gizmodo.com · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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