Whitlock Henry Thomas as Greg Hayes Bradley Gregg as Bobby Cogdill Kathleen Wilhoite as Katie Rogers Georgia Emelin as Dana Rogers Scott MacDonald as Dan Walton Noble Willingham as Sheriff Blake Davis Charles Foote as Paramedic Production The film is based on the book The Walton Experience by Travis Walton. In the book, Walton tells of how he was abducted by a UFO. Walton's original book was later re-released as Fire in the Sky () to promote the book's connection to the film. The real Travis Walton and his wife, Dana Walton, have a brief cameo in the film. The film's alien abduction scenes bear almost no resemblance to Walton's actual claims. Scriptwriter Tracy Tormé reported that executives found Walton's account boring, and insisted on the changes. Director Robert Lieberman suspected Travis Walton's account was a hoax, saying: "My gut feeling had it that Travis was so much smarter than those other guys, that it started out as a gag. They probably laced their beer at the end of the day with a little acid or something and then they put on a show for these guys and they believed it." Cast members Scott MacDonald, who played Dan Walton, and Robert Patrick, who played Mike Rogers, spent time with their counterparts. Patrick, who felt typecast in villainous roles following Terminator 2: Judgment Day, gained weight and grew a beard for the audition. He later found out that he was related to his character: "Lo and behold, when I contacted the Mormons in my family, I found out through marriage, I am related to Mike Rogers. And I was like, ‘I am?!’ I called him, we spoke, I asked him specifically about how he was feeling during all this. I wanted to know his emotions. And he said to me during the abduction and the subsequent conversations afterward, that he could not control his emotion. And I tried to utilize that during the film." The special effects in the film were coordinated by Industrial Light & Magic, and the cinematography was handled by Bill Pope. The original music score was composed and arranged by Mark Isham. The audio soundtrack was released in compact disc format on March 30, 1993 by Varèse Sarabande. An expanded limited edition CD set of the soundtrack was released by La-La Land Records on March 11, 2022, followed by a cassette release by Terror Vision Records on