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[Admin]

After 45 years the truth is now revealed- one of the most famous UFO sightings in history was a hoax. The recent confession of an elderly College President -and a newly discovered document- indicate that the 1964 sighting of a landed UFO by Socorro, NM policeman Lonnie Zamora was the result of an elaborate school prank. This incredible story is publicly recounted for the first time ever by individuals who have held the secret of Socorro for decades.

Socorro Policeman Lonnie Zamora was performing his town patrol duties on Friday, April 24, 1964. But this would be unlike any other patrol Sgt. Zamora had ever experienced. At about 5:50 PM Sgt. Zamora started pursuit of a speeding car. But the chase was broken off when Zamora heard a loud explosion. He thought perhaps it came from a dynamite shack nearby. He then observed a cone of flame traveling over a hill. Once over the hill, Zamora stopped his car about 100 feet away from what he reported as a strange landed, 20 foot "aluminum-white" oval object resting on structured "legs." The ovoid had a red insignia about two feet wide on its surface. Though the artistic rendition of the UFO above depicts an opening- Zamora had reported the object as smooth, without any windows or doors. Zamora also noticed what appeared to be two figures "the size of small adults or large kids" and "normal in shape" wearing "white coveralls" walking around the object.

As Zamora started to approach the object on foot, the figures jumped away from his view. As Zamora left his car, he bumped it and his glasses fell off. He reports that a flame from the underside of the craft then appeared and the object roared away. Zamora heard a high-pitched whine and then silence. The object traveled very fast over him, and then just three feet above a nearby shack- and finally out of view over another hill. Left at the site were four "landing impressions" as well as areas of burnt creosote bush near where the object has rested.

Zamora, shocked, then radioed to another officer what he had just observed. When the officer asked Zamora "What does it look like?" Zamora responded, "It looks like a balloon." Zamora would later state that he did not know exactly what it was -it could have been a secret military experiment or even ET. Zamora has remained reluctant to offer his opinion on the specific nature or origin of the craft. He says it was strange and frightening. But he leaves the analysis to others- and only indicates that he was sincere in reporting what he had observed. And Zamora was sincere. And he was extremely cooperative with investigators. But he was also hoodwinked.

The period following the sighting in 1964 found Socorro a town turned upside-down. It was also an active one for Lonnie Zamora. He was visited by many journalists and UFO researchers. This included officials from the US Air Force Project Blue Book, investigators from the civilian UFO study group NICAP and noted skeptics. The story received national and international media attention. To this very day Socorro remains one of the most well-known UFO incidents in history. Still living, long retired and exhausted of the matter, Zamora now avoids any talk about the event.

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[Slaphappy]

Over 40 years latter, they decide to confess now. BS......

[Admin]

Reading over the posting by Bragalia I wondered why Dr. Stirling Colgate at time president of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, if he knew this to be a hoax back in the 1960s, had not let Dr. J. Allen Hynek (seen here) in on it. Hynek, at the time, was the Air Force consultant to Project Blue Book and investigated the case in person and on the scene not long after it happened. It would seem to me that if Colgate had the answer, he could have let Hynek know without violating any confidences about those who had perpetrated the hoax and saved Socorro some public embarrassment.

In fact, looking at the newspaper clippings that appeared in the Socorro newspaper, the El Defensor Chieftain there was one headlined "Air Force Consultant Checks UFO Site Here. Dr. Hynek Feels Zamora’s Account Not a Hoax." That seems to indicate that everyone in town would know about Hynek, his visit and his investigation. Had there been any indication of hoax, it would seem that this would have lead those who suspected it, meaning the staff and faculty at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to try and get some word to Hynek. I mean, Hynek is a scientist on the faculty of a university and would certainly wish to have that information, the Air Force would certainly need the information so that they could clear this case from their books but there is nothing to suggest that ever happened. Instead, everyone kept quiet about it for decades. It is only recently that we learn the case is a hoax...

Or is it?

I remembered the late Philip Klass claimed that he too had solved the Socorro landing case and he had found evidence that it was a hoax. Klass wrote, in his 1974 book, UFOs Explained:

During my two days in Socorro, I talked with many residents in addition to Zamora and [Sgt. Sam Chavez, Zamora’s superior] Chavez, including several scientists – professors at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, the town’s principal "industry." I was amazed to find that with one exception, these scientists exhibited no interest in the Socorro UFO case, despite the fact that it had achieved international fame and had brought thousands of curious tourists to the town [Well, dozens, at least]. If the story was true, the most exciting scientific event of all time – a visit from an extraterrestrial spacecraft – had occurred almost with sight of the institute. How could these scientists be so uninterested? [Which, by the way, is a damn fine question and says more about the scientists and their perceptions of UFOs than it does about the validity of the case.]

When I pressed one man for an explanation, he urged me to "nose around a bit." When I sought clarification, he pointed out that except for the Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro had no industry, and some citizens feared the town was "going to seed."

After explaining all this, Klass noted that one way to attract tourists was to use the UFO landing though, at the time there was no evidence that a UFO landing would increase tourism. And then he drifted off into bizarre speculation, writing:

The property where the UFO reportedly landed had, prior to the incident, been next to worthless "scrub land." But now, if the site became a long-lived tourist attraction, there could be need for refreshment stands, perhaps even a motel for those who might like to spent the night near the spot where an extraterrestrial spaceship had seemingly landed. By a curious coincidence, the property where the UFO reportedly landed was owned by Mayor Bursum, officer Zamora’s boss! The mayor’s principal business? He is the town banker and as such would not be unhappy to see an influx of tourist dollars.

So, apparently to Klass’ way of thinking, Zamora and the mayor cooked up the UFO landing as a way of generating tourism in Socorro and dragging those tourists to a spot owned by the mayor. We all know how well that has worked out more than a quarter century after Klass made this rather ridiculous suggestion.

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[Admin]

[Nicole]

It makes you wonder if after all this time, they were told to play it down as a hoax. I don't know why a police officer would get involved in such an elaborate hoax.

[Slaphappy]

Nicole, on 02 October 2009 - 06:59 PM, said:

It makes you wonder if after all this time, they were told to play it down as a hoax. I don't know why a police officer would get involved in such an elaborate hoax.

He wasn't, the prank was towards him, according to the ones who say it was hoax.

[Nicole]

But surely a police officer would be intelligent enough to tell it was a prank. It had to have been one hell of a realistic prank to fool a police officer. I don't buy it.

[Admin]

Veteran Ufologist & Expert On The Socorro UFO Case, Ray Stanford Challenges Newcomer & Hoax Pronouncer, Anthony Bragalia To a Live Debate On C2C!!

Bragalia and Sterling Colgate are going to end up with egg on their faces from promoting the unfounded 'student prank' rumor concerning the Socorro CE-III case. Their claims are of such character as to be unacceptable as testimony in any US court of law. The egg on their faces will be facts about the egg-shaped (albeit an unusually elongated 'egg') vehicle which displayed two distinct modes of sophisticated propulsion technology (also seen in cases describing the same thing, from as much as ten years earlier, in 1954) that actually landed at Socorro after being observed by five Colorado tourists because it almost took the roof off their car, so they reported it to Socorro service station operator Opal Grinder and his son BEFORE the Zamora encounter was ever known publicly.

For some well-researched facts (instead of 45-years-after-the-fact totally unsubstantiated silliness) about the case from the only other person (me) who investigated the Socorro case with official USAF investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, click The Paracast link, below. My in-Socorro investigation began on April 28, 1964 (the fourth day after the event), and next day, I was on-site participating, at Allen Hynek's unsolicited invitation, in the public-barred official USAF in-depth investigation involving, other than me, only Hynek, the central witness, Socorro police officer Lonnie Zamora, and N.M. State Police Sergeant Samuel Chavez (first person to arrive at the landing site after the object left), details of which are explained below:...

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[Admin]

Eyewitness 'Lonnie Zamora' Passes Away

Veteran researcher, and lead investigator of the Socorro Incident, Ray Stanford has informed The UFO Chronicles, that former Socorro, New Mexico police officer and preeminent eyewitness to one of the most well-known UFO cases in history, "Lonnie Zamora" died Monday night of heart failure. Ray received direct confirmation from the Socorro Police Department.

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[Slaphappy]

RIP Lonnie.

[Admin]

[Admin]

In the last few weeks, a controversy about the Socorro UFO landing has erupted when it was suggested, again, that a hoax had been perpetrated. The theory was, now changed slightly, that students at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology had created the spaceship and the landing evidence in an elaborate plan that fooled not only Lonnie Zamora but a group of investigators that included the FBI, Army Intelligence, the Air Force and its scientific consultant, and, of course, Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO and Ray Stanford the researcher from NICAP.

According to the latest, the one time president of the school, Stirling Colgate, in the late 1960s, told Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling that the whole thing was a hoax. Donald Menzel, the UFO debunker, said that it was as hoax almost from the beginning, but he based that on his own opinion that there were no alien spacecraft and anything that suggested otherwise was inaccurate at best.

But that is just one side of the argument. Like almost everything in UFO research, those arguing for the hoax haven’t presented all the information, though, according to them, they have looked at all the relevant information. I have, in my files, the complete Air Force report on the Socorro landing, and it provides ammunition for other side.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek was the Air Force scientific consultant for UFOs and he visited Socorro in the days after the sighting hit the national press. He interviewed dozens, including the police officer, Zamora, the FBI man and many in the general population.

On page seven of his lengthy report, Hynek wrote, "I also questioned, while in Socorro, my old friend, Dr Jack Whotmen, President of the New Mexico School of Mines (emphasis added), who said he knew of no geophysical or other types of experiments going on in the area at the time. He, as the rest of the townspeople, were puzzled by the event, but the general underground slull (sic) of opinion was that it would turn out to be some device which the government still had under raps (sic)..."

Okay, that doesn’t completely rule out hoax and that idea isn’t mentioned specifically, but we can infer that Whotmen had no indication that it might be a hoax. He, along with many others, believed it to be a government project, probably from White Sands.

Hynek, in his report does write, "No paraphernalia of a hoax were ever found. It would be rather hard to have done away with all the tell-tale evidence, such as tubes of helium, release mechanism, etc. Finally, it was LaPaz’s (that would be Dr. Lincoln LaPaz at the university in Albuquerque and the leading expert on meteorics) feeling had it been a hoax, it surely would have leaked by now."

One of the arguments against this is that there had been a secret society at the New Mexico Tech that engaged in such pranks. They never wanted to reveal what they had done because that was part of the fun. We know about this secret society because they have a website on which they talk about such things. And, if I have understood this correctly, they weren’t in operation in 1964. They came after that.

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[Admin]

I thought, given the tenor of the conversation, that I would attempt to establish some common ground. I believe there are some facts on which we all can agree, and I believe there is some analysis that we can make which would provide a jumping off point.

I believe that we can all agree that Lonnie Zamora saw something in the desert on April 24, 1964. We can agree that he described, as accurately as he could, what he had seen at that time. I’m not going to talk about apparent changes, additions, deletions from his testimony over time because human memory, being what it is, allows for these adjustments that are neither right nor wrong, but often just different.

We all seem to agree that it was more or less egg-shaped, with a red symbol on it. We all agree that he saw two figures near it, that he described as humanoid, that were dressed in white, and that they disappeared behind the object, whatever it might have been. This object lifted off in short order and disappeared, flying into the strong wind. There were no other reliable or identified witnesses to the sighting (and yes, I know about Opal Grinder’s tourist and the two men from Dubuque, Iowa who reported they had seen the craft).

There are a limited number of possible explanations for the case. It was a hallucination. It was a illusion. It was a misidentification. It was an experimental craft from White Sands (or somewhere else that is terrestrially based). It was a hoax. It was a craft from another world.

I have tried to think of any other alternatives, but haven’t come up with anything. By saying this, I hope to draw out someone who might have thought of something different.

Let’s look at the solutions. I discount hallucination because of the physical evidence left behind. I see no reason for Opal Grinder to have invented a tourist and am disappointed that this witness, who surely heard about the case, has refused to ever come forward. The two men from Dubuque, if they accurately reported what they had seen also argue against hallucination. Their reliability is another question.

The problem with illusion is that there is no real good source for the illusion. Some, or maybe one, thought, given the time and location, a bright star near the horizon, seen though the dry air, might have given the impression that it was on, or near the ground. There are many factors that argue against it including the markings left on the ground, and given the history since the sighting, it has little viability.

There is a possibility that it was a misidentification and this is the explanation favored by some such as Charles Moore. Arguing against it is the nearly fifty year history since the sighting. Even a top–secret vehicle would now be known and the records for White Sands, easily available now, have been accessed to no avail. If it was a vehicle from another installation, the same applies. The records would now be in a public arena and someone would have found them by now because there have been a number of people looking for that sort of thing. This seems to have little viability.

There was also a discussion that what he saw was a lunar lander being transported under a helicopter in some sort of test. Of course, Zamora never mentioned the noise that would be generated by the helicopter, the clouds of dust that would have been thrown up by the rotor wash, or that what he saw was lifted under something else. Of course the records don’t support this explanation. There seems to be little reason to accept this as an answer either.

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