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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - August 19, 2007
More -- yes, more -- on the affidavit ... I know I'm beating this drum incessantly, but the release of this affidavit reminds me of something one of my professors once suggested in graduate school. In a course on Beowulf, he suggested that the study of the poem would be vastly different if we had recovered another version of the Beowulf manuscript. It would give us an entirely separate perspective of the poem. In a similar way, the Walter Haut 2002 affidavit gives us another perspective on what happened at Roswell. Like a separate Beowulf manuscript, however, the Haut affidavit still has to be vetted. What do I mean by vetted? Isn't its very existence enough authentication? Why shouldn't the affidavit be self–authenticating? Actually, the answer comes from three different sources: Tom Carey, coauthor of Witness to Roswell; Dennis Balthaser, whose 2000 video interview of Walter Haut might have been part of the genesis for this 2002 affidavit; and Stanton Friedman, who has raised some serious questions about the genesis of the affidavit and some of its content. Dennis Balthaser, in a radio interview with Gene Steinberg and David Biedny raised the issue of whether Carey and Schmitt actually provided an aging Walter Haut the information that appeared in the affidavit. Did they give him the story, which he then signed off on? In which case, Balthaser asks, how can we trust the affidavit if the information was provided by Carey and Schmitt? Both Tom Carey and Don Schmitt told me in separate interviews that they did provide some of the information to Walter to help him remember. Tom Carey talked about showing him Lloyd Nelson's statements about Walter's going out to the debris field to see it and retrieve some of the wreckage. Don Schmitt also told me he helped Haut with the affidavit. But Tom Carey correctly explained that this is the way affidavits are drafted. Attorneys provide witnesses with information they have and the witness, or affiant in this case, affirms the statement and ratifies it with his or her notarized signature or disaffirms it by not signing it. As Tom explained to me, an attorney was present with Walter as well as members of his family during the entire process. So, if someone charges that the statements in Walter's affidavit were forced on him, that simply wasn't the case. However, Stanton Friedman raised an interesting question in our interview. He asked me if I knew of any independent verification that General Ramey and Thomas DuBose actually went to Roswell. Where were the flight logs? he asked. Who, besides Walter Haut was a witness? Certainly, if Ramey and DuBose were at the July 8th staff meeting, wouldn't Major Jesse Marcel, whom Stanton knew very well, have mentioned that? Why wouldn't Jesse Marcel, who went public with his story all the way back in 1978, have said that he was part of the coverup established at the staff meeting on July 8 at Walker Field with Ramey and DuBose in attendance? He didn't. Why hide that fact when he was coming out with the rest of the story? Also, Stanton also reminded me that both he and Don Schmitt had traveled to Florida to interview Col. DuBose. DuBose had been forthcoming about telling his story. Why wouldn't DuBose have told both Friedman and Schmitt that he went to Roswell for the July 8th staff meeting, especially when he assured them that if he remembered anything else he would tell them? But he never mentioned being in Roswell on July 8th. This is a problem in vetting Walter's affidavit, to the extent that he mentions Ramey's and DuBose's presence at the July 8, 1947, staff meeting. Walter's revelation that he saw the alien bodies has a different genesis. First of all, unlike his statement about Ramey and DuBose, Walter Haut previously revealed that he had seen alien bodies in the hangar after the debris was brought back to Walker Field. First, Walter Haut mentioned it to a French film crew in 2000. Both Dennis Balthaser and Wendy Connors overheard that mention, which prompted them to do the video interview with Haut to confirm his statement about the bodies. Carolyn Syska also says she heard Walter Haut talk about the bodies in his conversations with some of the visitors at the Museum. (See UFO Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 7, page 34.) Accordingly, there is extrinsic evidence to support Walter's statements in his affidavit about seeing the bodies in the hangar. And, as Tom Carey points out, there is extrinsic evidence in Lloyd Nelson's statement that supports Walter's going to the debris field. Walter Haut's description of Jesse Marcel's return from Fort Worth is also supported by Jesse Marcel, Jr., who described his father's demeanor that night, his degree of upset, and his telling both Jesse Jr. and his mother that Roswell "never happened" and that they should never discuss it again. It was a taboo subject. We are left with Walter's description of the July 8 staff meeting. This, Stanton said, is something he will now try to track down because, we all agree, that if Walter's statement in his affidavit can be substantiated it will go a long way to blowing the Roswell skeptics out of the water. Bill Birnes |
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