(3) I am employed as: was a practicing attorney and (X)I am retired
(4) I am a native of Roswell, New Mexico, where, at the age of 12, I started working for the Roswell Morning Dispatch, sweeping out the back shop after school. Shortly before World War II, I was named editor of the paper. After the war, I became an Associated Press (AP) reporter, later going to law school and entering into practice in 1951. In July 1947 I was a reporter in the AP's Albuquerque bureau.
(5) On July 8, 1947, someone in Roswell called our bureau with the news that the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) had announced the Army had "captured" a flying saucer on a ranch in Lincoln County. Although I may have taken the call, I do not remember doing so. The story was put on the wire, and AP headquarters in New York ordered our bureau chief to send someone to get more information. He sent me and, because he thought there might be a photo opportunity, our wire technician and photographer, R. (Robin) D. Adair. We took our portable wirephoto machine with us.
(6) Our first stop was the Foster ranch, where the discovery had been made. At the ranch house, we found William "Mac" Brazel, his wife, and his small son. It was Brazel who made the find in a pasture some distance form the house. He was not happy about the attention he was getting and the people traipsing around his place. He said if he ever found anything again, he would not tell anyone unless it was a bomb.
(7) Brazel took Adair and me to the pasture where he made his discovery. When we arrived, there were three or four uniformed Army officers searching some higher ground about a quarter to a half mile away. Apparently, they had been there for some time.
(8) There was quite a lot of debris on the site -- pieces of silver colored fabric, perhaps aluminized cloth. Some of the pieces had sticks attached to them. I though they might be the remains of a high-altitude balloon package, but I did not see anything, pieces of rubber or the like, that looked like it could have been part of the balloon itself. The way the material was distributed, it looked as though whatever it was from came apart as it moved along through the air.
(9) After looking at the material, I walked over to the military men. They said they were from RAAF and were just looking around to see what they could find. They said they were going back to Roswell and would talk with me further there. They had a very casual attitude and did not seem at all disturbed that the press was there. They made no attempt to run us off.
(10) Adair and I, Brazel, and the Army men then drove down to Roswell, traveling separately. That that afternoon, or early evening, we met at the offices of the Roswell Daily Record, the city's afternoon newspaper. The military men waited on the sidewalk out front, while I and a Record reporter named Skeritt interviewed Brazel and Adair took his picture. (Adair also took photos of Brazel and the debris at the ranch, but these were never used.) Walter E. Whitmore, owner of KGFL, one of Roswell's two radio stations, was also present during the interview. Whitmore did his best to maneuver Brazel away from the rest of the press.
(11) After interviewing Brazel, I spoke with the military people outside then went over to see Sheriff George Wilcox, whom I knew well. Wilcox said the military indicated to him it would be best if he did not say anything. I then phoned in my story to the AP office in Albuquerque. The next morning, Adair transmitted his photos on the portable wirephoto equipment.
(12) I have not been paid or given or promised anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.
Signed: Jason Kellahin
Date: Sept. 20, 1993
Signature witnessed by:
Michele Guadagmole (sp?)
Sept. 20, 1993
[Source: Karl Pflock, Roswell in Perspective, 1994]
Associated Press Reporter Jason Kellahin
Below is the affidavit of former Associated Press reporter Jason Kellahin who interviewed rancher "Mac" Brazel in Roswell the evening of July 8, 1947. This introduction is a comparison of Kellahin's recollections with known details of the case.
According to former Roswell newsman George Walsh of KSWS radio, he phoned in the Roswell base flying disk press release to Kellahin at the AP bureau office in Albuquerque. Kellahin, however, in his affidavit, says he has no memory of handling the call. We do know historically that the AP was the first to break the story over the wire at 2:26 pm MST .
After the story went out over the wire, Kellahin remembers AP headquarters in New York ordering his bureau chief in Albuquerque to send somebody to Roswell to get more information. As a Roswell native and former editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch, Kellahin would have been a natural to send there. This part of Kellahin's recollection seems to square very well with the AP sending out a priority message at 3:10 pm MST stating that they were going after the story.
Just before this, at 2:55 MST, another priority message announced the location of where the "disk" had been found. A bulletin from United Press at around 3:00 similarly mentioned the Foster Ranch and rancher Mac Brazel as the finder of the "disc", the source being Sheriff George Wilcox in Roswell.
The important points here are the times and Kellahin probably knowing about the Foster Ranch and Brazel before he left Albuquerque. Kellahin was obviously dispatched to Roswell after the press release hit the wire at 2:36, probably at around 3:10, when the AP told editors all over the country they were going after the story. Even if he left immediately, Roswell was a 200 mile drive by the most direct route, and it probably would have taken him 3-1/2 to 4 hours to drive there over old 2-lane highways. Under this scenario, he probably would have arrived in Roswell at around 7:00 pm. This does seem to match his recollection of interviewing Brazel in the late afternoon or early evening.
However, Kellahin claims to have first stopped at Brazel's place on his way to Roswell, talking to Brazel and his family at his house, having Brazel take him out to the debris field site (according to Brazel's interview, some 7 or 8 miles away), claiming to see balloon debris, having pictures taken of Brazel with the debris, walking a good quarter mile out into the field to talk to some military officers, walking back, then driving the rest of the way into Roswell along with the military people and Brazel for the interview.
The problem with this scenario is that it would be simply impossible from a time standpoint. A diversion to the remote, isolated Foster Ranch plus everything else Kellahin says he did there would have added at least another 4 or 5 hours to the trip. If that were true, then the interview with Brazel in Roswell would have happened around midnight. This hardly squares with Kellahin's other memory of the interview happening late in the afternoon or early evening. Nor is it likely that the Roswell Daily Record on July 9 meant midnight when they reported that the interview took place "late yesterday."
Kellahin also recalled the AP photographer/wirephoto technician Robin Adair accompanying him from Albuquerque out to the Brazel place and then into Roswell. But Adair remembered being in El Paso repairing wirephoto equipment, having to charter a plane and fly to Roswell. The closest he got to the ranch was an attempt to fly over the site on the way to Roswell, but says they were waved off by men on the ground brandishing weapons. Photographer Adair not being with Kellahin would be another good reason why there would be no photos of Brazel at his ranch.
There is no reason for Kellahin to deliberately fabricate such a story, yet it is clear he could not have made it out to the Foster Ranch as he claimed. Instead the evidence strongly points to him driving directly to Roswell from Albuquerque, with or without Adair, and interviewing Brazel early in the evening.
Because he could not possibly have made it to the ranch in the given time frame, everything he said that occurred out there should be discounted. He could not have met Brazel and his family there, spoken to unconcerned military officers in the field, or seen what he thought was balloon debris, at least, not at the Foster Ranch.
The last item is particularly important, because some skeptics have used Kellahin's account as a piece of evidence that a balloon crash, particularly a Mogul balloon crash, was the explanation for what occurred at Brazel's place. If the skeptics would do the math, they might realize Kellahin's account of being at Brazel's ranch could not possibly be true.
We can only speculate as to why Kellahin thought he was also at the ranch. From what can be reconstructed from the wire bulletins, just before Kellahin was dispatched to Roswell, the AP Albuquerque bureau would have received word that the so-called "disc" was found by Brazel at the Foster ranch. As a native of the Roswell area, Kellahin would probably know of the ranch and maybe even know Brazel. Perhaps he assumed 40+ years later that he must have gone there.
Other parts of his "ranch" story seem to stem from his actual encounter with Brazel in Roswell. There he did speak to Brazel and Brazel's photo was taken by Adair. Adair did wire the photo of Brazel out the following morning.
During his interview, Brazel claimed to be with his wife and family when he found the wreckage and described balloon debris during his interview. Perhaps Kellahin confused Brazel's account with a real life event involving himself.
Another seeming example of this in his affidavit involved the "bomb" part of Brazel's story. Both the Daily Record and Kellahin's AP story mention Brazel being frustrated and saying he would never report anything again unless it was a bomb. While Brazel clearly must have said this during his press interview, Kellahin remembered Brazel saying this to him at the ranch.
(An alternate scenario of a non-Foster ranch balloon crash site has recently been added to this Website. In this theory, the dubious Mogul Flight #4, the alleged Roswell crash object, did not come down on he Foster Ranch, but about 30 miles to the northeast near the main highway into Roswell. This is actually better supported by the wind data. Part of this theory would be the military taking Brazel out to the site for coaching in what to say later on that evening back in Roswell. This would also explain Brazel's crash site description which does strongly resemble what might be expected from a Mogul balloon crash. Thus Kellahin's memory might be partially, but not totally correct.)
What Kellahin remembers as happening in Roswell generally seems to agree with other information. Brazel was in fact interviewed at the Roswell Daily Record. Other witnesses support Brazel being accompanied by military, including Record editor Paul McEvoy. Kellahin could very well have spoken to the military officers there. Kellahin remembers Walt Whitmore, owner of KGFL radio being at the interview. The Daily Record story states Brazel was accompanied by Whitmore. Whitmore's son and business partner also remember Whitmore hiding Brazel at the Whitmore house so that he could record an exclusive interview.
Kellahin also said he spoke to Sheriff Wilcox, whom he knew well. Wilcox, he said, was very circumspect, and indicated that the military thought it best if he didn't say anything. Similarly, an AP based story in the Albuquerque Journal the next day has Wilcox declining to comment further, stating that he was "working with those fellows at the base." Obviously the military got to Wilcox as well.
Kellahin's memory seems fairly accurate when it comes to the actual events in Albuquerque and Roswell, but terribly confused about seeing Brazel at the Foster Ranch. It could be a good example of what Roswell skeptics call old, muddled memories. The problem for the skeptics, however, is the only clearly garbled part of Kellhin's account is the one part of his story they use as evidence of a Mogul balloon crash.
There are other serious problems with this particular set of memories . Although it is known with certainty that he was at Brazel's "press conference" in Roswell and wrote a story about it for AP, the story makes no mention of visiting Brazel at his ranch. Similarly, a known photo of Brazel was taken at the press conference (see insert) and printed in a few newspapers, but there are no known photos of Brazel at his ranch with the debris, though this seems like another natural for publication.
Photo taken of Mac Brazel at his press conference in Roswell, by AP photographer Robin Adair
