Monday, July 2, 2007

Roswell's Haut: The Affidavit and the Mind


Sixty years ago. Where's a good, reliable time machine when you need one?. Numerous researchers claim an in-depth familiarity with the 1947 "Roswell incident" involving an alleged UFO crash and alien bodies, and I need to state right up front that I'm not amongst them. I only know what I read from their own reports, and indeed there have been some remarkably detailed witness accounts and other documentation offered publicly.

However, I did want to comment briefly on the affidavit left behind by the late Walter Haut, as revealed prominently now in the new book, Witness to Roswell, by Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt.

Last January 15 I reviewed for UFO Updates (online) a tape-recorded interview conducted in 2000 by Wendy Connors and Dennis Balthaser with Walter Haut. I was not familiar with the affidavit at that time, and my review was based solely upon what I had read in the past about Roswell, as well as events referenced by Mr. Haut himself.

Since the recent release of the Haut affidavit, kept secret until his death at his own request, there has been speculation by some who heard the tape that perhaps his mental faculties weren't quite up to par due to age or because of his medical status. I strongly disagree with any such uninformed speculation myself, having felt that, if anything, Haut attempted methodically, with purpose unknown, during the course of the Connors/Balthaser session to withhold information -- sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Following are two quotes from my January review of the Haut tape, based upon my impression from the audio:

(1) "Frankly, Haut makes occasional declarations that cause us
double-takes, particularly when we know that he knows things
he's not exactly ready to spell out in depth. . ."

(2) "As forthright as Haut becomes during the interview, one cannot
logically escape the impression that he isn't telling everything
he knows, and at times he seems to avoid questions asked
repeatedly in progressively pointed terms."

With wide release of the affidavit, I would venture that Haut's reasons for apparently holding information back during Connors' and Balthaser's interview have become clear, and let there be no doubts now that he knew exactly what he was doing whenever he tried to select his words cautiously.

My review of the 2000 interview may be read on the Virtually Strange web site using this link:
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/
2007/jan/m16-001.shtml