As you may or may not know, I don't believe anyone spent more time and effort attempting to get Walter to provide more information than we publicly did. Each and every trip to Roswell and all the personal phone conversations slowly but surely tricked what eventually would become his final affidavit.

Previously we had even tried hypnosis with Yvonne Smith in the presence of Mark Rodeghier and Mark Chesney. Walter was a most resistant candidate for regression.

Next, we tried a sworn statement in the presence of a government official from Chavez County. He would only state what he had in two previous affidavits, 1991 and 1993.

When Walter was video taped on his "historic record" by Wendy Connors and Dennis Balthaser, he never was told in advance that they would ever touch on the subject of Roswell. The agreement was to discuss the pre-Roswell years from his youth up till that time. When they crossed that line it is abundantly clear that he was getting more agitated by the second and wanted no part of it. Mark Rodeghier was quick to point out "how pressured Walter was and how he finally succumbed to leading questions." Walter's demeanor becomes more and more perturbed as he looks down and his fingers tapped faster and faster across the chairs armrests. Rodeghier felt that the video was worthless on those merits alone. We agreed.

The late Sheridan Cavitt's son Joe, a practicing attorney provided us a solution. Prior to his own father's passing, we discussed and attempted to get his father to write a sealed statement for posthumous release. Joe will verify that all his father would say for weeks leading up to his passing, "I'm not ready." As you know, he never was. But for us and Walter it proved to be the answer. But timing was critical.

In more and more private conversations through 2002 between both Walter, Tom Carey and myself, Walter was close to signing a prepared affidavit. All through that time, we were in complete cooperation of the Haut family and his personal physician monitored his physical and mental condition as to any changes or urgency we needed to consider.

With Tom's full input and final approval I drafted the affidavit just as we had prepared affidavits in the past - and just as Fred Whiting had drawn up many, including Walter's in 1991.

In December, Walter underwent another full physical examination and his doctor informed the family and us that aside from his deteriorating hip joint and diabetes, he was completely mentally stable and alert. We immediately acted and Walter agreed that he was ready.

The draft was sent to his daughter in Roswell, and the day after Christmas in 2002, Walter, in the presence of three people, including Julie, read each line word for word and reread and reread each point for any changes or additions. Julie would ask him repeatedly if anything at all needed to be amended in any way. To Walter, it was just as we had previously discussed. All of the information contained within the document was all that he would admit to us - nothing more - nothing less. He next signed the sworn statement. Julie was quick to point out, "If my father disagreed with anything on that piece of paper he never would have signed it." If anyone knew better what was in the man's heart, it certainly was her and that's good enough for me.

We would not even start writing the new book until about 4 years later and Julie honored all of us at that time by asking if we would "like to include Padre's statement in the book?"

I was an honorary pall bearer at Walter's funeral and she didn't have to ask twice.

Don Schmitt