Policeman Lonnie Zamora saw something strange outside of Socorro on April 24th, 1964. Do YOU know anything about what he saw? We are looking for New Mexico Tech students from the 60s who may know ANYTHING about Zamora's sighting. Was it lunar module testing by White Sands? Or, as has been much discussed recently, a student prank/hoax? Or was it really from Outer Space? Now that officer Zamora has passed away, perhaps it's time to come forward with new information. If you were really there, please comment on this blog!
Here is the letter which is producing some of the buzz, as discussed at length on the UFO Iconoclasts page. It is an exchange between Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and Tech president (in 1965) Stirling Colgate. In reponse to Pauling's query about the NMIMT response to the "flying saucer on the ground," Colgate wrote cryptically
I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left. Cheers, Stirling.
Here's your chance to come clean! Do YOU know something about this incident? Of course, we really do want to get to the bottom of this long-standing mystery. We are hoping for information from Tech students at the time, and are NOT looking for a discussion on ther merits of UFOlogy or the Socorro Sighting as an extraterrestrial visitation.
If you want to contribute something more privately, please email me at nmsrdaveATswcp.com (please replace the AT with an @,to help stop SPAM).
I was a student at Tech (1962-67) at the time of the great "UFO incident" and visited the site a couple times before it was totally obliterated by site seers. The population of Tech was relatively small at the time and everyone knew everyone and what they were up to. I never hear any rumors about this incident being "student engineered." That would have been impossible to keep a secret, especially considering the size of the mysterious craft. I think Dr. Colgate's comments were just his manner of glossing over the subject so as not to involve the school in the incident and possible negative backfire. Even Lonnie Zamora, an honest cop, was not capable of concocting such a story on his own.
ReplyDeleteI have a video of the "Unsolved Mystery" segment done on the event as well as books and articles on the occurrence. As far as I know, it is still a great mystery. I have original copies of El Defensor Chieftan" as well as clippings from the Albuquerque Journal related to the siting. I would be willing to send these to you if you are interested.
Hello Dave,
ReplyDeleteI was there in 1964. It was widely belived then that it was a Tech student's prank. There were numerous pranksters at Tech in those days. No one I know ever fessed up about it though.
Perhaps you remember the Freshmen's trip to Rosies, the appearing and disappearing outhouse, the President's tree desk chair, the mysterious campus boulders that silently became rubble overnight, how the dorm proctor's room furnishings ended up nearly arranged on top of the entry to President's Hall, the missing Virgin of the Desert statue, and more.
Good old memories, but no proof that Techies did it, or didn't do it.
Larry Boucher
Dave,
ReplyDeleteMy tenure at Tech was '63 - '67.
I recall this "incident" and even visited the site (at night) when it supposedly occurred and saw nothing that could remotely substantiate a UFO "landing". Though, I have to admit, that I may have been under the influence of study fluid, aka beer; ergo, my senses may have been somewhat dulled, as they usually were. And if us "schoolies" were responsible for it, I would have been either the ringleader, or an active supporter of the hoax.
Bottom Line: Schoolies had no part in this incident.
We did have parts in many other incidents though: (1) painting a T inside the U on the Albuquerque mountainside, (2) stealing the golf course watering man's truck, (3) stealing the campus guard's car (a highlight I might add) (4) stealing the Xmas star off of the research tower (adjacent to Colgate's penthouse) in a blinding snowstorm, at night, (5) leader of the infamous visit to Rosie's (got "shot" in the process) (6) getting arrested for painting a St. Patty's Day "M" at the intersection of I-25 and I-60 before either one of them were "I's" etc. etc..
Hal Arbogast
BS Physics, 1967
flhtcbob@sbcglobal.net
I still do not feel this was a typical college prank carried out by any of the "usual suspects." As I mentioned above, the enrollment at Tech was fairly small and this project would have required considerable planning, equipment and sophistication not available to your average student. It would have required faculty or staff involvement to obtain the necessary materials. While it was not difficult to obtain a little ammonia and iodine to occasionally make life exciting for the dorm janitors it would have been all but impossible for a few students, acting on their own, to "borrow" the materials and equipment needed to pull off a major event such as this and escape detection.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Lobo at UNM turned up with shamrocks painted on it, we all knew who did it within hours. When the dairy herd at NMSU was found with similar adornments one morning it was common knowledge to the student body who had been the perpetrators. Every year we could expect the "Rosie"
event to be carried out and we usually knew in advance who the performers would be. These were run-of-the-mill, typical college pranks that required little planning or sophistication. An event, such as faking a UFO landing was a bit beyond the capabilities of your average student. It would have required a group to carry out and secrets were hard to hide at Tech. This project was literally "a shot heard round the world."
Some of the information I have read about this being a student prank just did not add up. These explanations were wild speculations that described a school that was not the Tech I graduated from back in '67.
Some have also proposed it was a prank to get even with Lonnie Zamora for his treatment of some students. I had a run-in or two with Lonnie that could/should have sent me and my compadres to the local jail for a day or two. Instead, the group I was with was merely told to cool it and go back to campus. I never heard of anyone receiving poor treatment from Lonnie. He was always polite and cool-headed.
No one has mentioned the tourists passing through town on rt. 60 who stopped at a gas station to report they had been nearly run off the road by a mysterious craft just seconds after Lonnie saw it.
If this was a student prank, these guys had better secrecy and cover than the CIA could have provided.
I went down to the site the next day with a couple of friends. We wanted to take a Geiger counter with us, but could not find the right B+ batteries at the Lab. When we arrived at the site, we encountered a small number of people and a fussy and officious AF officer from Bluebook (or was it Sign by that time?) Anyway, we had a good look at the site. A very small burned patch of sparse grass not much larger than 1 ft square or less. I do remember one footpad mark in sand, looked just like the foot of a 37mm mortar, that is a circular plate with an elongated truncated pyramid on the bottom. These same plates, a little bigger I think, were on the feet of the 3cm Nike radar antennas we had at the time; this must be a standard kind of "field footplate" for military equipment.
ReplyDeleteIf a hoax, rather elaborate and very large effort, as Hal and Anon. noted. I don't think so either, but the "footprint" makes me think it might have been. Stir's comment is typical...
Call me if you want further palaver.
Best, Don
Does anyone know how long this incident took place before final's week that year. Maybe a week or two? I always found that late afternoon on a Friday was pretty curious, and very human, and the college student/time of year relation is interesting.
ReplyDeleteI had nothing to do with the disfigurement of the dairy herd at NMSU, although I went to high school in Las Cruces. We (from Las Cruces) were more into sheep than cows !!!!
ReplyDeleteHal Arbogast (ret'd, an acronym for retarded)
anybody can contact me at flhtcbob@sbcglobal.net
The incident occurred nearly a month before finals.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon. Still feels like a "Grand Finale" for pranksters to me. :O)
ReplyDeleteTo All:
ReplyDeleteQ1) If indeed you all knew each other back then (or that the schoool was small), do any of you recall any of the pranks mentioned above by the others?
Q2) Zamora was interviwed just after the incident on radio: 04.24.1964 - Officer Lonnie Zamora is interviewed by Walter Strode on KSRC Radio. 12:15 (available audio length). Do any of you recall this interview? And. given that it did reach the public airwaves rather quickly, would this have taken the air out of the pranksters sails . . . causing them to instead remain hushed and much less likely to brag about it?
Q3) Do any of you know the names of additional students, that could be contacted or tracked down? Or, do you feel less inclined to tell us if you did?
Thanks,
P.S. - Dave, can you pass this along if we don't get a response. I think these are fair questions that I hope the above could respond to.
This is from my FB friend Frank Etscorn.
ReplyDeleteAugust 27, 2012
Cheers, Dave Thomas
--------------------------
Dave
I've thought long and hard about this so here goes:
When my lab was first being set up, I found an old stainless steel drug cabinet in the boneyard. A fine piece except I couldn't unlock the drug vault. I found a locksmith in town and he came to the lab to make me a key. I think since I have a hillbilly accent he figured that I thought like he did. Turns out he was also the jailer. I let him ramble on. He finally divulged that he loved to get those uppity Tech students in jail because he liked to beat them in the kidneys 'until they pissed blood'. Granted this was years after the 'incident' but it shows the mentality that some had toward us. Also sheriff Naranjo was also known for beating up/screwing with Techies and he was a brute of a man. I know Zamorra was known as a decent guy but who knows, he may have terrorized some kids as well. That said I think yes it was a prank and it was meant to 'get back' at the local cops. And I also think the perps (cop language) wouldn't have dared mention anything for fear of reprisal. Why they won't open up today is a mystery to me. I suspect two Techies could have pulled this off. Who knows? Maybe they've passed away.
In my paranormal classes when we talked about the saucer, kids immediately talked about how to do it better. Salting the 'footprints' from the craft with powered Trinitite. There were several very good suggestions. And as Dean of Students for five years I damn well know our kids can be quite creative when it comes to pranks. I was even given a framed photo of the work our kids did to the CO School of Mines mtn. One prank involved telling Lattman that I had dropped dead. That caused a minor shit storm until they found me on the racquetball court. Lattman even came to our house and scared hell out of Sheri. And I had heard about the prank but didn't think the student could pull it off. We're still good friends today.
And then maybe Socorro just wanted it's own Roswell incident to rake in a few bucks.
A prank one way or the other. And just because a man is a state cop doesn't mean he isn't susceptible to misperception and/or superstition. I'll remain convinced until I croak. Use any of the above as you see fit.
Sorry for the delay in replying. A summer full of company
And so it goes... Kurt V.
Take care,
F
I have been investigating this case for 4 years, and I am friends with the original NICAP investigator Ray Stanford. Most who believe this was a hoax have never been to ground zero. I can say 100% is was not a hoax, and there are many reasons why. A rumor became an urban legend that turned into a lie. One of the so called witnesses, who I found, denies it and was furious that Colgate said he did it to an unscrupulous debunker. The object departed into a stiff 35MPH wind, accelerated to the Perlite mine over 3 miles away, and then shot up into the air many more miles away, into THAT 35MPH WIND. There were other witnesses before and after the event,(including a reported landing at Hollorman) and Lonnie was drawn off of the road by a loud sound and a blue orange flame. In addition, in April the students were in finals and certainly not over in Socorro, in a remote desert location, running around in coveralls. Ignorance may be bliss, but before proclaiming something do some homework, instead of what many have done here, a google search from their sofa.
ReplyDeleteHi! My name is Patricio Abusleme. I'm a Chilean journalist and author with a lifelong interest in ufology and in this particular case.
DeleteI'd like to get in touch with you. My email address is pabuslem@uc.cl
Thanks!
""Several independent witnesses reported either an "egg"-shaped craft or a bluish flame at roughly the same time and in the same area – some of them within minutes of Zamora's encounter, before word of it had spread.
ReplyDeleteStanford wrote about a number of corroborating witnesses in his book, including two tourists named Paul Kies and Larry Kratzer, who were approaching Socorro in their car from the southwest, less than a mile from the landing site. They apparently witnessed either the landing or takeoff and reported seeing the flame and brownish dust being kicked up. Their story was reported in the Dubuque, Iowa Telegraph-Herald a few days later after their return.
A family of five tourists from Colorado headed north also saw the oval object as it approached Socorro at a very low altitude, going east to west just south of town. It passed directly over their car only a few feet above it. After the encounter, the tourists stopped for gas in Socorro. Their identity was never discovered, but the story was learned from the service station operator, Opal Grinder, who reported the incident at the time[6] and later signed an affidavit in 1967. According to Grinder, the husband told him "Your aircraft sure fly low around here!" and that the object almost took the roof off their car. The man thought it was in trouble since it came down west of the highways instead of the nearby airport to the south. He saw the police car headed up the hill towards it, he thought to render assistance.[7]:16
According to Stanford, another witness called an Albuquerque television station around 5:30 p.m. to report an oval object at low altitude traveling slowly south towards Socorro.[7]:82 This report was also brought up by KSRC Socorro radio newsman Walter Shrode when he interviewed Zamora on the radio the next day. Zamora said he hadn't heard of the report. Shrode thought this was likely the same object that Zamora encountered only 20 minutes later and helped corroborate his report.[8] Several other stories appeared in New Mexico newspapers in succeeding days of other sightings of oval-shaped objects, including another landing case with burned soil near La Madera in northern N.M.[9] Also similar to the Socorro incident, the FBI report on the La Madera case further noted the witness reporting a blue-white flame associated with the object, four rectangular, V-shaped landing marks, and several circular marks about 4 inches in diameter.[10]
ReplyDeleteStanford also noted that there were a large number of aural witnesses to the object's loud roar during takeoff and landing. One member of the Socorro sheriff's office told him that "hundreds of persons" on the south side of town had heard it. Stanford said he personally spoke to two women who heard the roar just before 6 p.m. They said that there were two distinct roars, maybe a minute or so apart.[7]:85–87
In addition to the above witnesses, Stanford said there were three other persons who called the police dispatcher immediately following the incident, before it was ever publicized, reporting a bright flame. In October 2009, Stanford first publicly revealed that Sgt. Chavez, the first policeman to provide backup for Zamora, had privately confided to fellow police officers that he too had seen the object rapidly departing to the west over the mountains as he approached the site.[11] In various interviews, Zamora somewhat confirmed the possibility, saying Chavez was at the scene within about two minutes after he radioed him for backup: "...the object was still about a couple of moments up there when he arrived" [8] and "If he (Chavez) had just paid attention he would seen it (flying off towards the mountains)."[12] However, in public statements, Chavez maintained that he arrived too late to see the object. When Chavez first arrived at Zamora's position where the object had departed, he also noted that burnt bushes were still smoldering and Zamora appeared to be in a state of shock.
ReplyDeleteMultiple policemen arrived soon after to help investigate, including Ted Jordan and James Luckie. All noted fresh burning at the site. Luckie and Chavez were quoted in the Socorro newspaper saying that clumps of grass and burned greasewood bushes were "still hot" when they arrived.[13] Chavez was also quoted saying that dry grass was still "smouldering"[14] as were the greasewood plants.[15] Jordan later filled out a sworn statement saying, "When I arrived, greasewood branches were still smoking."[7]:160 Zamora was likewise quoted about the green bush "burned bare by exhaust heat" and that it was "still smoking several minutes after the craft's departure."[16] The FBI report written by the agent on the scene within two hours similarly reported that all first responders noted "four irregularly shaped smouldering areas."[17]
Chavez was again quoted in an Air Force report written two days later about smoking brush. “[Chavez] then went to the area were the craft or thing was supposedly sighted and found four fresh indentations in the ground and several charred or burned bushes. Smoke appeared to come from the bush and he assumed it was burning, however no coals were visible and the charred portions of the bush were cold to the touch.”
Chavez was further reported securing the area and scouring the ground looking for the presence of other human activity. He could find no other tire tracks besides Zamora's and was "adamant" that there was no other "track activity" (footprints or other marks) in the area. In addition, Chavez was also quoted in the report saying that the indentations appeared to be new: "He stated that the marks were definitely 'fresh', and the dirt showed evidence of 'dew' or moisture." [18]
Similarly, several policeman later told Stanford that whatever had produced the rectangular, wedge-shaped landing traces appeared to have penetrated into the moist subsoil, as the bottoms of the traces were moist for several hours, suggesting that the traces were freshly made. Hynek also commented on the freshness of the soil impressions in a letter to astronomer Donald Menzel: "I have the word of nine witnesses who saw the marks within hours of the incident, who tell me the center of the marks were moist as though the topsoil had been freshly pushed aside."[19]
The FBI investigator also observed that the rectangular marks "seemed to have been made by an object going into the earth at an angle from a center line" pushing "some earth to the far side." Also observed were "three circular marks in the earth which were small, approximately four inches in diameter and penetrated in the sandy earth approximately one-eighth of an inch."[20] Speculation in Stanford's book was that these were ladder indentations for the crew to exit and enter the craft."