Mike Rogers, foreman of the 1975 Arizona logging crew at the center of the Travis Walton abduction case, died on Feb. 6, 2026, at 78. Walton vanished for five days after the crew said a glowing craft struck him with a beam, a story later made into the 1993 film Fire in the Sky. Rogers drove the truck that fled the scene, and for decades he stood by Walton at conventions and painted many of the case’s best-known images.

Within weeks, a claim surfaced in the comments of UFO researcher Kevin Randle’s blog. A commenter, Charlie Wiser, said Rogers’s daughter had recorded a deathbed confession and summarized it in a Quora post she later deleted. In his telling, the abduction was staged: Rogers stopped so Walton could slip away, then faked panic and drove off. Wiser says he has a screenshot. No recording or transcript has surfaced.

Others push back. Jennifer Stein, who directed a Walton documentary, says an Arizona filmmaker, Patrick James, visited Rogers three days before he died and heard a completely different story. She adds that Rogers never mentioned a confession in friendly texts with her in his final weeks.

There’s history here. In 2021, during a falling-out with Walton, Rogers was secretly recorded calling the incident staged. He later made peace with Walton and took it back.