Much ado is being made within ufology these days about statements made by the late Walter Haut, the young lieutenant at Roswell in 1947 responsible for releasing the "we recovered a flying saucer" press release, to the effect that he saw alien bodies. He made these claims in an interview with Wendy Connors and Dennis Balthasar in 2000, and again, in much more detail apparently, in an
affidavit he signed for Donald Schmitt and Tom Carey in 2002.
My take?
It's much ado about nothing.
Let's all recall that Haut vouched for Frank Kaufmann, who was shown to be a fraud, and Glenn Dennis, who similarly has been exposed. This stuff about alien bodies, long after there was any reason for him to keep it secret, reads as bogus to me. Indeed, I interviewed Haut and Dennis in 2001 - they sat right next to each other, and Dennis told his story about dead bodies etc., and Haut said not a word about it. Don't tell me it was his "oath" either - he had already talked plenty about Roswell, and broken his oath if he had given such a thing.
It is my considered opinion, which will no doubt make me unpopular in certain quarters again, that there are three possible explanations for this "revelation":
1. Haut may have been manipulated, either intentionally or unintentionally, by unscrupulous or careless and untrained researchers for their own ends.
2. Haut may have told a purposeful tall tale in order to give new life to the Roswell story, which his family still has a financial stake in. A note here - when I interviewed Haut and Dennis in 2001, they both asked for money, even though I was doing a film about their old friend, Stan Friedman. It was only when Stan intervened personally that they dropped their request. They are the
only witnesses to any UFO case that I have ever talked to who ever asked to be paid for an interview, and in my case I was talking to them more about Stan and his career than the Roswell incident itself. Charles Halt, Bruce Bailey, and Robert Salas, all veterans, made no such request for the recent
Best Evidence film, for example.
3. Haut was simply an old man who had heard so many stories like Dennis' that he came to believe them himself.
The latter is the most charitable explanation I can come up with.
The fact that he insisted that none of this be released until after his death should be a red flag as well - it neatly inculcated Haut from having to answer the tough questions about what he said. As a piece of evidence, this kind of statement is practically worthless regardless of who made it, or the circumstances under which it was made, because the person who made it cannot be cross-examined / questioned by independent researchers.
A final note - if the affidavit was given in 2002, and Haut died in 2005, why is it only now making the rounds within ufology? If true, it is indeed an earth-shattering revelation, and yet it was neatly tucked away for well over a year, until (a) Schmitt and Carey had a book to sell (apparently they had to obtain permission from the Haut family to publish it, but why did it take so long), and (b) Roswell had a 60th anniversary to celebrate.
Consider those further red flags. Big ones. Because if aliens on earth really is the biggest story of the millenium, as Stan Friedman is wont to say, then these people deliberately withheld critical information from the public, for motives that could only be attributed to profit. So much for free and easy "disclosure".
None of this will stop those with financial and emotional interests in Roswell from flogging this story, probably for years to come, and claiming it as proof of crashed alien spacecraft near Roswell in 1947. Don't be deceived, folks. It is nothing of the sort.
Paul Kimball
