Walter Haut was born on 1922-06-02.1 In July 1947 he was stationed at Roswell Army Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, serving as the base’s public information officer,2 a role that placed him at the centre of the Roswell incident (1947). On the morning of 1947-07-07, he became aware that someone had reported the remains of a downed vehicle,3 and base commander William Blanchard sent Jesse Marcel, the base’s head of intelligence, to investigate.4 By late afternoon that day, additional civilian reports described a second debris site just north of Roswell.5
At a regularly scheduled staff meeting at 7:30 a.m. on 1947-07-08, Blanchard, Marcel, Sheridan Cavitt, James I. Hopkins, Patrick Saunders, Isadore Brown and Ulysses S. Nero were present,6 along with Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and his chief of staff Thomas J. DuBose, who had travelled from Carswell Army Air Field in Texas Fort Worth.7 Marcel and Cavitt reported on an extensive debris field in Lincoln County, roughly 120 kilometres northwest of Roswell,8 while Blanchard gave a preliminary briefing on a second site, about 65 kilometres north of Roswell.9 Samples of the debris were passed around the table and were unlike any material Haut had seen before,10 including pieces resembling paper-thin but extremely strong metal foil bearing unusual markings.11 No one at the meeting could identify it.12
Haut said Ramey proposed a plan at the meeting - which Haut believed originated with Ramey’s superiors at the Pentagon - to divert attention from the more significant northern site by acknowledging the other location instead.13 At around 9:30 a.m., Blanchard phoned Haut’s office and dictated a press release stating that Roswell Army Air Force Base had recovered a flying disc from a ranch northwest of Roswell, with Marcel flying the material to higher headquarters.14 The 1947 Roswell Army Air Field press release July 8 was issued by Haut, as Roswell Army Air Field’s public relations officer, on Blanchard’s order,15 announcing that the United States Army had recovered a flying disc.16 Haut delivered it to the radio stations KGFL and KSWS and to the newspapers the Roswell Daily Record and the Roswell Morning Dispatch.17 Once it reached the wire services, his office was inundated with phone calls from around the world,18 and Blanchard suggested he go home and “hide out."19
Before Haut left the base, Blanchard personally took him to Building 84, a B-29 hangar on the east side of the tarmac.20 He found it under heavy guard, both outside and inside.21 From a safe distance he was permitted to observe the object recently recovered north of Roswell:22 approximately 3.7 to 4.6 metres long, slightly narrower, about 1.8 metres high and egg-shaped.23 The lighting was poor, but the surface appeared metallic to him,24 and he saw no windows, portholes, wings, tail section or landing gear.25 From a distance he was also able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin.26 He was later informed of a temporary morgue set up to accommodate the recovered bodies,27 and that the wreckage was not radioactive.28 Haut said Marcel later described to him taking pieces of the wreckage to Ramey’s office and, after returning from a map room, finding the remains of a weather balloon and a radar kite substituted for the original material.29 Marcel was very upset about the substitution, and the two men never discussed it again.30 Haut was permitted to visit one of the recovery sites during the military clean-up31 and returned with some of the wreckage, which he displayed in his office.32 He was also aware that two separate military teams returned to each site months later, searching for remaining evidence.33 Haut said he was convinced that what he had personally observed at Roswell was some type of craft and its crew from outer space.34
Haut remained in Roswell after his retirement.35 Whitley Strieber and Anne Strieber met him at his home and had an extensive conversation with him about his work as the base’s press officer.36 He told them he had been surprised when a lid was suddenly put on the Roswell story,37 and expressed disappointment that the greatest story of his life had been spiked.38 He affirmed that Marcel’s description of the desert debris was unusual,39 and said it was his understanding that the debris had been flown to the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field.40 When Whitley Strieber asked whether the remains of a kite or weather balloon would have received the same treatment, Haut said no,41 and told him Marcel was one of the most honest people he had ever known.42 When asked about the bodies, he became evasive; the Striebers later agreed this suggested he was trying not to lie but also not to tell the truth.43 Asked by Anne Strieber whether he simply could not talk about it, he replied that if he couldn’t tell her, he wouldn’t.44
In 2007, Haut’s family released an affidavit that he had sworn and sealed in 2002, with instructions that it be made public after his death.45 According to The Fourth Mind, it was dated and signed on 2002-12-26.46 In it, Haut affirmed he had not been paid or given anything of value to make the statement and that it was the truth to the best of his recollection,47 and specified that it remain sealed until his death, at which point his family would determine its disposition.48 The affidavit stated that when he entered Building 84, only the heads of the bodies under the tarpaulin extended beyond the covering, with no features discernible,49 that the heads appeared larger than normal with the canvas’s contour suggesting the size of a ten-year-old child,50 and that at a later date in his office, Blanchard indicated the bodies’ height by extending his arm about 1.2 metres above the floor.51 Haut’s daughter, Julie Shuster, witnessed the affidavit;52 she was employed by the Roswell UFO Museum, a local tourism attraction Haut had co-founded.53 Haut died on 2005-12-15.54 He was unavailable to answer further questions about the affidavit after its release, and he had previously sworn an earlier affidavit that made no mention of recovered extra-terrestrials or a craft.55 According to In Plain Sight, sceptics charged that Haut might not have been in full possession of his faculties so close to his death, and that Don Schmitt and Thomas Carey, authors of Witness to Roswell, had actually written the affidavit.56 Schmitt said that no one had worked on Haut or spent more time with him than he and Carey had, trying to get him to open up,57 and acknowledged that they had drafted what Haut told them into the affidavit, but said Haut was clearly of sound mind and approved every word.58 He said the statement was based on information Haut had provided over the years, and that Haut read through it with his daughter, a notary and another witness present,59 adding that, as Haut’s daughter had written, if Haut had disagreed with a word of it he would never have signed it.60 According to In Plain Sight, critics also suggested Julie Shuster had a financial incentive to promote the extra-terrestrial explanation and that her dying father was willing to go along with it;61 Schmitt considered this unfounded, saying Shuster was paid a salary not much above minimum wage to run the museum,62 and said he considered Haut sincere and truthful in the affidavit.63