The Roswell UFO Crash: Walter Haut Speaks From the Grave ...by Bill Knell

Walter Haut died in 2005 at the age of 83. The loss was as great to the UFO Community as it was to the Town of Roswell, New Mexico where Haut lived. It can easily be argued that his actions over almost sixty years helped put Roswell on the map. Those actions began while he was the Public Information Officer at Walker Air Force Base in July of 1947.

The base formerly known as Roswell Army Air Base transferred from the Army to the newly created Air Force in June of 1947, but was still in a transitional stage in July of 1947 when the UFO Crash occurred. Most people still referred to Walker as the Roswell Army Air Base at that time. Despite the identity crisis, there was no doubt about who was in charge. That would be Colonel William Blanchard, the Base Commander.

Walter Haut says he received a call from Colonel Blanchard on the morning of July 8, 1947. According to others that live in Roswell, the two had been lifelong friends. If that’s correct, it wasn’t surprising that Blanchard took the time to tell Haut the tale of the Roswell Crashed Saucer. In a 1993 affidavit, Haut says of his conversation with the Colonel:

“I received a call from Col. William Blanchard, the base commander, who said he had in his possession a flying saucer or parts thereof. He said it came from a ranch northwest of Roswell, and that the base Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel, was going to fly the material to Fort Worth.”

“Col. Blanchard told me to write a news release about the operation and to deliver it to both newspapers and the two radio stations in Roswell. He felt that he wanted the local media to have the first opportunity at the story. I went first to KGFL, then to KSWS, then to the Daily Record and finally to the Morning Dispatch.”

“The next day, I read in the newspaper that General Roger Ramey in Fort Worth had said the object was a weather balloon. I believe Col. Blanchard saw the material, because he sounded positive about what the material was. There is no chance that he would have mistaken it for a weather balloon. Neither is their any chance that Major Marcel would have been mistaken. In 1980, Jesse Marcel told me that the material photographed in Gen. Ramey"s office was not the material he had recovered. I am convinced that the material recovered was some type of craft from outer space.”

I met Walter Haut on several occasions in Roswell. While I respected his willingness to come forward as he has and contribute so much to the town in terms of helping to establish and promote the UFO Museum, I was always concerned about his statements. Due to my father’s military service with the Air Force and my own time spent in the USMC, I always wondered about the events that allegedly occurred at the Roswell Base when the crash occurred and the credibility of the witnesses that came forward.

My concerns were wrapped around the sequence of events that occurred and the way everything was handled by the top brass at the Roswell Base. I can’t imagine a Base Commander with the rank of Colonel putting out a press release like the one Walter Haut was ordered to draft without one or more consults with the general in overall charge of the Base or someone else at the Pentagon.

The new information from Haut quells some of my trepidations by placing General Ramey at the Base and in the mix of original decision making, but also adds another mystery. Most people like to cast Ramey in the part of the Puppet Master that ordered the cover-up. If he was present at the meeting held on July 8, 1947 in Roswell, that theory seems unlikely. It would be completely ridiculous to believe that Blanchard would order a press release with Ramey’s knowledge saying that they had recovered parts of a crashed Flying Saucer one moment, than retract everything and completely change the story a couple of days later. It would be ridiculous unless Ramey was even smarter than we all thought possible.

General Ramey was deeply involved with the post World War II Atomic Bomb Project as a member of Army Air Task Group 1.5 which was responsible for the testing of the A-bomb on Bikini Atoll. After an air crew chosen by Ramey missed their target and ruined most of the A-Bomb test results, he managed to spin that completely around and become the darling of the mass media. Knowing that the press was unlikely to take on a General or do anything to make the A-bomb look like anything but a successful weapon that might challenge the territorial objectives of a very Stalinist Soviet Union, he simply told Reporters what they wanted to hear. He left any errors or problems created by his mistakes to be cleaned up by the scientists involved. None of them would take him on knowing that the government was where their bread was buttered.

Ramey used a similar tactic to take on the task of debunking Flying Saucer sightings even before the Roswell Crash, but he also added a new twist that would serve him well when that situation fell into his lap. As Commander of the 8th Army Air Force, he was headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. General Ramey and Colonel Alfred Kalberer, his Intelligence Chief, went to work on the famous June 24, 1947, sighting of nine unidentified objects by Kenneth Arnold. Instead of appearing before the press and offering some official explanation regarding the sighting, Ramey used Kalberer to call the Arnold Sighting “Buck Rogers stuff” (Fort Worth Star Telegram, 7/1/47) and inferred that anyone seeing these things were probably mistaking distant jet planes for something else.

General Ramey knew jets were new to most people, including pilots that were no longer with the military, and probably felt the explanation would do the job without attacking Arnold’s credibility. Because Arnold was a former military pilot, distinguished private aviator, respected businessman, a member of the local Sheriff"s "aerial posse" search and rescue team of Ada County and a relief Federal Marshall, Ramey had to tread carefully.

Instead of attacking Arnold, he attacked the idea of UFOs as intelligently controlled Alien Spacecraft. By using Kalberer to casually respond to the saucer sightings, Ramey intimated that the matter was of no great consequence. His spin worked very well. The press could speculate all they wanted as long as they added the tag line that the military felt there was nothing to it.

After a few more sightings occurred just before the Roswell Crash, General Ramey and Colonel Alfred Kalberer continued their onslaught against the idea that UFOs were anything but misidentified conventional aircraft. They also added a new twist. As civilians with little or no expertise began to report saucer sightings, Ramey had Kalberer issue statements which indicated that the objects were probably figments of people’s imaginations. One such statement read "we"re not being invaded by planes from Mars" and likened the saucer reports to those of sea serpents (Ft Worth Star-Telegram, 7/2/47).

In an even more brilliant move, Ramey had Kalberer stop talking about figments of people’s imagination and start issuing statements to the press which expressed concern about the ‘public hysteria’ being created by the saucer sightings. That introduced the idea that more sightings by more people didn’t establish the credibility of UFOs as a real phenomenon worthy of study. Instead, it merely cemented the government claim that reports by untrained civilians and former military pilots that were no longer in the briefing loop were causing something unreal to become something real in the minds of people. This was creating a hysteria that might deflect from real reports of possible incoming attack aircraft from hostile nations and end up as a possible danger to commercial and civilian aviation as well.

Now that we look back at all this, Ramey had everything in place that he needed to completely and successfully cover-up the Roswell UFO Crash. By indicating that even the best pilots and former military officers can sometimes make mistakes about what they see when not fully or properly briefed and setting in place the idea that all the saucer reports were creating an hysteria that Aliens were everywhere, he had the perfect Roswell UFO Crash cover-up scenario right at his fingertips.

Ramey understood that a cover-up of the Roswell UFO Crash would require more than just a few catch phrases about Martians and comparisons to Sea Serpent reports. There were too many witnesses and too much evidence. He knew that the press was going to find out about it and quickly descend on Roswell. So the very sharp General had others under his command tell the world about the crash, and then stepped up to admit that they had made a mistake shortly afterward. Major Marcel was picked as the fall guy by default since he was in charge of the initial investigation.

Ramey’s actions were brilliant from the standpoint of creating the perfect explanation for the Roswell Crash. He preserved the integrity of the military, enhanced his own reputation by coming clean about the alleged error and created subsequent problems for all past and future UFO reports with his ‘public hysteria‘ and ‘misidentification‘ stories. Given the manufactured candor that came from the embarrassing admission of Marcel’s alleged misidentification of the crash material, people would tend to believe that an honest mistake had been made and soon forget about the entire event.

The public might also start to reconsider reports about Flying Saucers that came from even the most credible people given the simple mistake that a man like Marcel could make when confronted with something new or different that the government had developed and failed to fully brief him about. The alleged radar-reflecting materials shown at the infamous Ramey ‘Oops, we were wrong’ Press Conference provided tangible evidence that we’re all human (well, maybe not) and make mistakes.

The mere fact that Ramey took on the job of appearing before Reporters instead of sending an associate and excused Marcel for his mistake in front of the press sealed his reputation as a master cover-up artist and media manipulator. Because he was able to make these decisions so quickly without a misstep and move the focus away from Roswell to his own command headquarters in Ft Worth, the press had no time to do their own investigation. Few in the mass media at that time were likely to challenge military officers that had already admitted they made a mistake and provided what seemed like a reasonable explanation.

Ramey’s work also established the mentality of a cover-up within a cover-up which allows any and all detractors of the idea that an Alien Spacecraft crashed at Roswell to simply call it all one big conspiracy theory. He did that by twisting facts and getting almost everyone involved to go on record as agreeing with the bogus explanation. If they changed their stories later, it would make them appear to be part of another cover-up designed to preserve the reputations of officers that officially screwed up. That would easily reflect from the government cover-up. Again, brilliant.

In 2002, Walter Haut left us his final statements about the events that occurred around the time of the crash through an updated affidavit:

“In July, 1947, I was stationed at the Roswell Army Air Base in Roswell, New Mexico, serving as the base Public Information Officer. I had spent the 4th of July weekend (Saturday, the 5th, and Sunday, the 6th) at my private residence about 10 miles north of the base, which was located south of town.”

“I was aware that someone had reported the remains of a downed vehicle by midmorning after my return to duty at the base on Monday, July 7. I was aware that Major Jesse A. Marcel, head of intelligence, was sent by the base commander, Col. William Blanchard, to investigate.”

“By late in the afternoon that same day, I would learn that additional civilian reports came in regarding a second site just north of Roswell. I would spend the better part of the day attending to my regular duties hearing little if anything more.”

“On Tuesday morning, July 8, I would attend the regularly scheduled staff meeting at 7:30 a.m. Besides Blanchard, Marcel; CIC [Counterintelligence Corp] Capt. Sheridan Cavitt; Col. James I. Hopkins, the operations officer; Lt. Col. Ulysses S. Nero, the supply officer; and from Carswell AAF in Fort Worth, Texas, Blanchard"s boss, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and his chief of staff, Col. Thomas J. Dubose were also in attendance. The main topic of discussion was reported by Marcel and Cavitt regarding an extensive debris field in Lincoln County approx. 75 miles NW of Roswell.”

“A preliminary briefing was provided by Blanchard about the second site approx. 40 miles north of town. Samples of wreckage were passed around the table. It was unlike any material I had or have ever seen in my life. Pieces which resembled metal foil, paper thin yet extremely strong, and pieces with unusual markings along their length were handled from man to man, each voicing their opinion. No one was able to identify the crash debris.”

“At approximately 9:30 a.m. Col. Blanchard phoned my office and dictated the press release of having in our possession a flying disc, coming from a ranch northwest of Roswell, and Marcel flying the material to higher headquarters. I was to deliver the news release to radio stations KGFL and KSWS, and newspapers the Daily Record and the Morning Dispatch.”

“By the time the news release hit the wire services, my office was inundated with phone calls from around the world. Messages stacked up on my desk, and rather than deal with the media concern, Col Blanchard suggested that I go home and "hide out."

“Before leaving the base, Col. Blanchard took me personally to Building 84 [AKA Hangar P-3], a B-29 hangar located on the east side of the tarmac. Upon first approaching the building, I observed that it was under heavy guard both outside and inside. Once inside, I was permitted from a safe distance to first observe the object just recovered north of town. It was approx. 12 to 15 feet in length, not quite as wide, about 6 feet high, and more of an egg shape. Lighting was poor, but its surface did appear metallic. No windows, portholes, wings, tail section, or landing gear were visible.”

“Also from a distance, I was able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin. Only the heads extended beyond the covering, and I was not able to make out any features. The heads did appear larger than normal and the contour of the canvas suggested the size of a 10 year old child. At a later date in Blanchard"s office, he would extend his arm about 4 feet above the floor to indicate the height.”

“I was informed of a temporary morgue set up to accommodate the recovered bodies. I was informed that the wreckage was not "hot" (radioactive).

Upon his return from Fort Worth, Major Marcel described to me taking pieces of the wreckage to Gen. Ramey"s office and after returning from a map room, finding the remains of a weather balloon and radar kite substituted while he was out of the room. Marcel was very upset over this situation. We would not discuss it again.”

“I would be allowed to make at least one visit to one of the recovery sites during the military cleanup. I would return to the base with some of the wreckage which I would display in my office. I was aware two separate teams would return to each site months later for periodic searches for any remaining evidence. I am convinced that what I personally observed was some type of craft and its crew from outer space.”

How do we reconcile the differences between the two statements? It’s now obvious that Haut saw he was probably in a no win situation regardless of what he said. Exactly the place that Ramey intended him and any others that decided to become whistle blowers to be. Like Jesse Marcel Sr. and others that have come forward, Haut had a lot to lose by talking too much and that might have included his life. More than a few government whistleblowers have been shot or killed after they crossed whatever imaginary line the Government has created for people that talk too much.

Although we no longer have Walter Haut with us, he has had the last laugh when it comes to challenging excessive government secrecy by reaching out from the grave with these stunning revelations. You can read more about the latest information from Walter Haut at http://www.ufomag.com or in the new book entitled, Witness to Roswell.


Bill Knell is a professional writer. Although semi-retired, he still accepts various writing assignments. Articles on most any topic are his specialty. Bill is also a talented ghost writer for people who have an idea or story to tell without the skills to create a submittable book manuscript. Sorry, Bill does not accept term paper or technical writing assignments. Bill can be contacted on FACEBOOK. If you are interested in Christian resources, articles and topics, stop by Bill's Christian Resources website You Can Trust God. Read Bill's DIY, advice and other articles at Doctor Know.

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