Here is a summary of this famous UFO sighting, followed by one researcher’s findings about possible suspects.
The Zamora Socorro Event
In the late Friday afternoon of April 24, 1964, Officer Lonnie Zamora was on a routine pursuit of a speeding vehicle south of Socorro, New Mexico, when he observed a strange object in the sky. Sergeant Zamora witnessed, at approximately 5:45 p.m., an “egg shaped craft” traveling into Socorro from the south. It was also witnessed (in flight) by 5 tourists traveling through Socorro. In an interview following the incident, Zamora stated that he witnessed a bluish flame and a loud roar coming from the direction of the arroyo. The object appeared like a shiny, white disc and was emitting a loud roaring sound.
Zamora approached the area where he believed the craft landed. He later stated he had first seen the object from about 150 yards and believed it was a car or other vehicle in need of assistance. Zamora then radioed the Sheriff’s Office about a possible accident he would be investigating and next contacted New Mexico State Police Sergeant Samuel Chavez, an officer Zamora trusted to assist in the investigation. After requesting the assistance of Sergeant Chavez, Zamora once again began to approach the object.
Zamora said that when he was about 50 feet from the object he saw landing gear and a red insignia, which he later drew for authorities. Zamora nextx noted bright blue flames and another loud roar until the object began lifting away from its resting place. He reported seeing flames and smoke emanating from the object. Additionally, he observed two individuals nearby who seemed startled by his presence. Zamora recalled that the disc flew off with a deafening noise and a trail of flame.
Zamora quickly radioed for backup and several other officers soon arrived at the scene. Together, they examined the area and found landing traces, including deep, cone-shaped depressions on the ground. In addition, they discovered charred bushes and broken branches, further confirming Zamora’s account.
Numerous investigations were carried out following Zamora’s sighting, including by the U.S. Air Force, who classified the incident as an “unknown.” Despite extensive scrutiny, no definitive explanation for the event was ever found.
Following the incident, many local residents visited the sight and witnessed not only burned bushes but also landing gear depressions in the ground. This incident has been recorded in many newspapers and magazine articles as well as written about in many books.
Zamora’s UFO sighting remains one of the most intriguing cases in UFO history. His credibility as a police officer and the physical evidence found at the scene have added weight to his account, capturing the attention and curiosity of UFO enthusiasts to this day.
That is the story, and below, is some background on the group one UFO researcher believes may have pulled off a hoax, some white overall clad students who walked the arroyos outside Soccoro in 1964, fooling a cop, a town and the world for decades. {Link}
Investigator Finds Suspects
This following was written on Anthony Bragalia’s UFO Iconoclast blog, and I saved a copy. I’m reprinting it here because I can’t find it there now. He had previously given me permission, after interviewing me about my own research on the alien bodies in the Roswell crash, to repost. Anthony, if you find this and have any changes or objections, give me a call or drop me an email. This story, unfolding at the time I wrote this article, was a debunking one of the most famous UFO incidents from an author who does believe the earth has been visited by aliens.
New investigation reveals that the likely culprits behind the Socorro UFO hoax in 1964 were part of a highly secret group of student pranksters at NM Tech. It is now learned that so extreme were some of these Techie “pranks” during the 1960s that they even caused physical endangerment. One especially sophisticated UFO hoax at that time led to the severe reprimand by U.S. military base officials of a Techie whose prank had caused the emergency scrambling of jet interceptors!
… As a vocal advocate of ET visitation, this author struggled with release of this information. I did not look for this story, it fell upon me when I discovered Linus Paulings’s archived secret UFO studies. I did not intend on dousing this campfire story. It is hoped that in reporting this, readers understand that I am simply following the evidence where it takes me. I am obligated to report what I find and have no “hidden agenda.” I remain firm in my conviction that life from elsewhere visits Earth. But I am also firm in my conviction that many UFO researchers simply do not appreciate the extent and sophistication with which UFOs are pranked by our nation’s college youth. This was especially true in the 1960s at places like NM Tech:
“STUDENT SAUCERS” IN THE SIXTIES
John W. Shipman came to NM Tech in the Summer of 1966 as a Freshman. John -an admitted serial prankster- remains so enamored of his college experience that he recounts events of the time in an online blog. John offers keen observations about this most unique school in the mid-1960s:
“The spirit of technological uproar rubbed off on the students. With limited opportunities for recreation, the happiest students were the ones that made their own fun.”
John mentions his accomplices to hoaxes- with code names “Joe Hat” and “Harry Hat.” Both he says, were extremely competent with electronics. Shipman says, “They were nerds long before the term was invented.”
Shipman says that during that summer, the Hats bought a surplus radar and began working on it. The school paper featured them on the cover with the caption, “They’ve Landed.”
Harry had found out that jets from Holloman AFB often used Socorro Peak as a radar target for simulated bombing runs. Apparently the Hats were able to devise a jamming device and then left it on a nearby mountain to the base. Shipman says that the bombing scores “all went to hell” because of this jamming device. Shipman explains that the Air Force had tracked down the problem. As Shipman understands, two MPs came into the Tech classrooms and physically hauled Harry to the Base Commander. After over an hour of scolding, an officer admitted to Harry Hat that, after graduation, he would like to hire Harry because he was better at radar research than most of his people at the base!
Shipman recounts that “Harry also experimented with making Flying Saucers, a popular diversion for dorm residents.” He says that an even more impressive student-made “saucer” was “specifically designed to upset the folks at White Sands.”
Shipman explains, “the envelope was a surplus weather balloon filled with natural gas. The payload consisted of a highway flare, a hundred-foot surveyors measuring tape made of steel, and a long fuse. The measuring tape was weighted at one end rolled up and secured with a piece of waxed string. After the prevailing wind had blown the balloon out over the north end of the range, the fuse burned to the end and lit the highway flare and burned the string around the steel tape.
The radar operators were rather upset when a hundred-foot long radar target appeared suddenly on their screens. They scrambled several interceptor jets. The interceptors never found what they were looking for.”
Though Shipman came to NM Tech a couple of years after the Socorro UFO event, the information he provides is invaluable in understanding how such a thing could have ever happened. From Shipman we learn that in the 1960s, Techies were making “Flying Saucers” that even fooled military men. This brand of brilliant “merry pranksters” was of an entirely different order then found then or now at other schools.
The Techies of the 1960s were so “ballsy” and rebellious -and had such little regard for safety or legality- that they would even jam sensitive radar and disrupt military exercises! To cause a “hub-bub” with town cop Zamora paled by comparison!
Retired soldier Kevin Randle, who wrote Encounter in the Desert: The Case for Alien Contact at Socorro, provided at his blog [kevinrandle.blogspot.com] supplementary material and explanations about the 1964 Lonnie Zamora/Socorro UFO sighting “in response to Anthony Bragalia’s recurring insistence that the iconic sighting was prompted by a college hoax.” An article on Kevin Randle’s site give an interesting account of differences in Zamora’s story about seeing people, perhaps short in white overalls, or not people, or not sure if he saw anything.
The AstroPower Logo
The book Forbidden Science by Jacques Vallée states: “In the meantime the Air Force continues to look into a curious fact I have uncovered: the insignia seen by patrolman Zamora looks very much like the logo of AstroPower, a subsidiary of the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. I found the logo in an ad they recently published in an engineering journal. I am suspicious of this aspect of the sighting. To my knowledge there has never been a genuine report of a saucer with an insignia painted on the side. Could the Socorro object be a military prototype?” (p.110-111, Chicago, 27 September, 1964)
Note for modern 2023 researchers, this is not the AstroPower founded in 1983 which is referenced on Wikipedia, which later had financial trouble.
The Astropower Vallee mentions is from two decades earlier.: “It bore an insignia which closely resembled the logo of Astropower, a company founded about 1961 as a subsidiary of Douglas, under the presidency of the propulsion expert Y. C. Lee.” (p. 286)
And there is this quote: “I thought of AstroPower and the McDonnell Douglas company, who is rumored to have a secret team, employing a physicist named Stanton Friedman to collect physical data in a hush-hush manner.” (p.304, Chicago, 2 August, 1967)
Conclusion
This famous Zamora / Socorro case is not considered solved. There are many clues uncovered by many researchers over many years and it remains an interesting UFO case to consider.
We have another article on this topic, with similar but additional detail here.
