I must be gettin' old. Now I'm confusing Agent K with Rockford. Sheesh. Whichever space cowboy it was who played the grumpy sheriff was pretty convincing, I thought. Many years ago. Great, now I'm going to have to find the movie and watch it again.
Anyway, I just don't see a good reason to judge Walton's story by the movie that was made (more or less) about it. Walton himself was not happy with the way the weirdness was handled in the movie. He had no control over that. I lived in Mormon country for a while, have known quite a few Mormons, and I don't think he's lying. There has never been a "rational" explanation for the events. Sure, lots of people who would otherwise have a lot of trouble sleeping at night have cobbled together silly scenarios that make less sense than the movie version, but that's far from unusual.