As
anyone who visits here regularly, you know that I chase footnotes. I sometimes
try to find specific instances to make the case, but when I search without a
known destination, it seems to be an impossible task. Instead, I find the bad
footnotes by accident. This is just something that cannot be forced.
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| Lonnie Zamora |
As
you all also know, I have been looking into the symbol that Lonnie Zamora
reported seeing on the side of the landed UFO. That research has bled into
other areas, including the idea that other members of the Socorro Police
Department or the New Mexico State Police saw the same object as Zamora. In the
Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing
Document: The Best Available Evidence compiled by Don Berliner, Marie
Galbraith and Antonio Huneeus and “presented” by CUFOS, FUFOR and MUFON, in
December, 1995, I read the short segment on the Socorro case. They wrote, “At
this time, Zamora was joined by a police sergeant [Chavez] who watched the
craft fly away into the distance.”
This
is an argument, that Chavez saw the object, that has been made here by David
Rudiak and one that Ray Stanford as well as Ben Moss and Tony Angiola shared
during the interviews on my X-Zone Broadcast Network radio show. The links can
be found in the postings for those programs. It is not this argument, that
Chavez saw the object, which I’m concerned with here, but with the footnote about
where this information was found or where it could be verified. According to Berliner,
Galbraith and Hunees, this was a “Written statement by Lonnie Zamora to Project
Blue Book, 1964; reprinted in Steiger, Brad, ed. Project Blue Book, ibid.”
In
the last weeks I have been through the Blue Book files several times. I have
discussed this idea of other police witnesses, both privately with a number of
people and publicly on this blog. I have a copy of Steiger’s book and a
complete copy of the Blue Book file on the case. Nowhere in the statement by Zamora
does it suggest that the police sergeant arrived in time to see the UFO as it
disappeared in the distance. In fact, Zamora in that statement said:
As I
was calling Nep [a police radio operator], I could still see the object. The
object seemed to lift up slowly, and to “get small” in the distance very fast.
It seemed to just clear Box Canyon or Six Mile Canyon mountain. It disappeared
as it went over the mountains. It had no flame whatsoever as it was traveling
over the ground and made no smoke or noise…
Zamora
said that he then went down to where the craft had landed and saw that one of
the bushes was still smoking. He then said:
Gave
directions to Nep Lopez at radio and to Sgt. M.S. Chavez to get there. Went
down to where the object was (had been), and I noted the bush was burning in
several places. At that time, I heard Sgt. Chavez calling me on radio for my
location, and I returned to my car, told him he was looking at me. Then Sgt.
Chavez came up and asked me what the trouble was, because I was sweating and he
told me I was white, very pale. I asked the Sergeant to see what I saw, and
that was the burning bush. Then Sgt. Chavez and I went to the spot, and Sgt.
Chavez pointed out the tracks.
It
is clear from Zamora’s statement in the Blue Book files and in Steiger’s book, that
Chavez didn’t arrive until after the UFO had disappeared in the distance. Now
we really don’t have to go through the arguments again about how Chavez did
arrive in time to see it in the sky. What I’m saying here is that the sources
quoted for the information do not support that idea. We can argue about other
sources, but in this very limited case, those additional sources are irrelevant
because they weren’t cited. The sources quoted do not support the statement,
and that is all that is relevant here.
