On April 24, 1964, Lonnie Zamora, a police
officer in Socorro, New Mexico, spotted a landed object and two small humanoids
standing near it. According to the Project Blue Book files, Zamora was chasing
a speeder when he heard a loud roar and saw a flash of light in the
southwestern sky. Fearing that a dynamite shed on the edge of town might have
exploded; Zamora broke off the chase and headed in that direction.
As he approached an arroyo, he saw what he
first thought was an overturned car. He stopped his patrol car and saw, near
the object, “two people in white coveralls…”
Blue Book files recorded the story and
Captain (later lieutenant colonel) Hector Quintanilla, provided a perspective
on this situation from the Air Force point of view. As the chief of Blue Book
at the time, he not only had access to all the classified files but he was
running the Project Blue Book investigation of the particular case personally.
Quintanilla in his unpublished book about UFOs, wrote:
All hell broke loose on April 24, 1964, and I started
smoking again. On that date at approximately 17:45 hours, at Socorro, New
Mexico, police officer Lonnie Zamora was headed south chasing a speeding
automobile when he suddenly heard a roar and saw a flame in the sky to the
southwest. He decided to let the speeder go in favor of investigating the
flame, because he knew there was a dynamite shack in the area and it might have
blown up. He turned onto a gravel road that led by the shack.
As he was driving slowly along the road, Zamora saw above
a steep hill just ahead a funnel-shaped flame, bluish and sort of orange. The
base of the flame was hidden behind the hill, there was no smoke connected with
the flame. He had trouble getting the car to the top of the hill because of
loose gravel; he had to try three times before he made it. As he reached the
top of the hill, he saw a shiny object to the south, this side of the dynamite
shack, about 150 to 200 yards away.
It was off the road to the left in the arroyo, and at
first glance it looked like a car turned over, but when he drove closer it
appeared to be aluminum clay, not chrome, and oval-shaped like a football.
Zamora drove about fifty feet along the hill crest, radioing back to the sheriff’s
office, “10-44 (accident), I’ll be 10-6 (busy out of the car), checking a wreck
down in the arroyo”. From this point, seated in the car, he could not see the
object over the edge of the hill. As he stopped the car, he was still talking
on the radio, and while he was getting out he dropped his mike. He picked it up
and put it back and started down towards the object.
Just then he heard a very loud roar, not exactly like a
blast, but also not steady like a jet engine. It was of low frequency at first
and then became higher. At the same time he saw a light blue flame, sort of
orange at the bottom. Zamora believed the flame came from the underside of the
object; he could see no smoke but he did see some dust in the vicinity. He
panicked, thinking the object was going to blow up. The following is his report
of what he experienced (with slight rearrangements for the sake of clarity)
[parenthetical statement in original].
As soon
as I saw flame and heard roar…ran away from object but did turn head towards
object. Object was in shape [sic]. It was smooth—no windows or doors. As roar
started, it was still on the ground.
Noted red
lettering of some type like______________________. Insignia was about two and
one half inches high and about two inches wide, I guess. Was in the middle of
object, like ______________. Object
still like aluminum white.
(Running),
bumped leg on car back fender area. Car facing southwest…fell by can [sic] and
(sun) glasses fell off, kept running to north, with car between me and object…rose
to about level of car, about twenty to twenty-five feet, guess. Took I guess,
about six seconds when object started to rise and I glanced back… it appeared
about directly over the place where it rose from.
I was
still running… (then) about fifty feet from car. I ducked down, just over edge
of hill…I stopped because I did not hear the roar. I was scared of the roar,
and I had planned to continue running down the hill. I turned around toward the
object and at the same time put my head toward ground, covering my face with my
arms…when the roar stopped, heard a sharp tone whine and the whine lasted maybe
a second. Then there was complete silence about the object.
That’s
when I lifted up my head and saw the object going away from me…in a
southwestern direction…It did not come any closer to me. It appeared to go in
straight line and at same height—possibly ten to fifteen feet from ground, and
it cleared the dynamite shack by about three feet. Shack about eight feet high.
Object was traveling west fast. It seemed to rise up and take off immediately
across country.
I ran
back to my car and as I ran back, I kept an eye on the object. I picked up my
…sunglasses, got into the car, and radioed to Nep Lopes, radio operator, to
look out the window to see if he could see an object. He asked, “What is it?” I
answered, “It looks like a
balloon”.
I don’t know if he saw it. If Nep looked out his window, which faces north, he
couldn’t see it. I did not tell him at the moment which window to look out of.
As I was
calling Nep, I could still see object. The object seemed to lift up slowly, and
to get small in the distance very fast. It seemed to just clear the Box Canyon
or Mile Canyon Mountain. It disappeared as it went over the mountain. It had no
flame whatsoever as it was traveling over the ground, and no smoke or noise.
Feeling
in good health. Las drink—two or three beers over a month ago. Noted no odors.
Noted no sounds other than described. Gave direction to Nep Lopes at radio and
to Sergeant Chaves (of New Mexico State Police at Socorro) to get there. Went
down to where
the
object had been, and I noted the brush was burning in several places.—I got my
pen and drew a picture of the insignia on the object.
Then Sgt.
Chaves came up, asked me what the trouble was because I was sweating and he
told me that I was white, very pale. I asked the Sgt. To see what I saw and
that was the burning brush. Then Sgt. Chaves and I went down to the spot and
Sgt. Chaves pointed out the tracks.
When I
first saw the object (when I thought it might be a car) I saw what appeared to
be two legs of some type from the object to the ground. At the time, I didn’t
pay much attention to…the two legs. The two legs were at the bottom of the
object, slanted outwards to
the
ground. The object might have been about three and a half feet from the ground
at the time…
Lonnie Zamora experienced an event which left quite an
impression on him. He was a serious officer, a pillar of his church, and a man
well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He was puzzled by
what he saw, and frankly, so am I [emphasis
added]. And yet, I’ve always had some doubt about this case, even though it is
the best documented case on record. In spite of the fact that I conducted the
most thorough investigation that was humanly possible, the vehicle or stimulus
that scared Zamora to the point of panic has never been found.
During the course of the investigation and immediately
thereafter, everything that was possible to verify was checked. The
communications media must have been waiting for a case like this, because
immediately after Zamora reported his sighting all hell broke loose. The
telephone at my house was ringing off the hook. I went to my office so that I
could direct the investigation from there and at the same time contact
Kirtland, Holloman, and White Sands via our telephone communications system. As
I walked into our building, and turned into the hallway towards my office, I
could hear the telephone ringing, ringing, ringing. The operator informed me that
I had ten or twelve calls waiting for me. I decided not to accept the calls
until after I had talked with my UFO investigating officer at Kirtland. Major
Connor was my primary investigator at Kirtland, but he was inexperienced.
Fortunately, my chief analyst, Sgt. David Moody was on
temporary duty at Kirtland. I asked Major Connor to get in touch with him and
for Moody to get in touch with me regardless of the hour. It was hours before
the investigation could be organized and on its way. A Geiger counter had to be
found and the base photographer had to be called. The staff car, which had been
provided for the
investigation, had a flat tire midway between Albuquerque
and Socorro. Socorro is located fifty-five miles south of Kirtland Air Force
Base.
The Stallion Range Officer had already conducted a
preliminary investigation and had also interviewed Zamora. This information was
turned over to the Air Force investigators as soon as they began their
interview with Zamora.
Connor and Moody kept in touch with me and provided me
with good information, but there was nothing from which we could draw a
definite conclusion or a decent evaluation. The news media was on SAFOI’s back
and SAFOI was on my back. I didn’t have any idea as to what Zamora saw and
reported, but by God, I was going to find it. Because of the pressure from the
news media, I decided to send Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Project Blue Book consultant,
to Kirtland to help with the investigation. I felt that Hynek could concentrate
on Socorro while Connor and Moody could check all other activity at the other
bases in New Mexico.
In the meantime, Marilyn Beumer Stancombe, my secretary,
and I began checking for some sort of positive activity. Radiation had been
checked by Connor and Moody and the readings were negative. I checked the
Holloman AFB Balloon Control Center for balloon activity. All local weather
stations and Air Force bases in New Mexico were checked for release of weather
balloons. Helicopter activity was checked throughout the state. Government and
private aircraft were checked. The reconnaissance division in the Pentagon was
checked. I checked with the immigration division hoping they might help.
Finally, I was at my wits end, so I told Marilyn, “Get me the White House
Command Post”. She looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers like I
was nuts. I said, “Yes, Marilyn, the White House Command Post”.
She never asked me a question, she just started dialing. I
was afraid she would ask me how she could reach them, but she didn’t. It took
her five or six calls, but she got me the Command Post. A Major General
answered and I explained to him my situation. He was very sympathetic, but off
hand he couldn’t recall any type of activity in my area of interest. However,
he’d check and call me back.
Fifteen minutes later the General called back and told me
that the only activity which he had was some U-2 flights. That was no help, so
I thanked him for his cooperation and put my thinking cap on again.
It took days for us to check all of these agencies and
activities. I finally received Dr. Hynek’s report; it was one of his typical
reports which contained few technical details and added practically nothing to
what had already been submitted by Connor and Moody. Actually, Hynek added very
little to the investigation, however, his typical press interviews added more
flame to the fire. The more press coverage the sightings got, the greater the
number of sightings which were reported throughout New Mexico.
I was determined to solve the case and come hell or high
water I was going to find the vehicle or the stimulus. I decided that it was
imperative for me to talk to the Base Commander at Holloman AFB. I wanted to
interview the Base Commander at length about special activities from his base.
I needed help to pull this off, so I called Lt. Col. Maston Jacks at SAFOI. I
told him what I wanted to do and he asked, “Do you think it will do any good?”
I replied, “God damned it Maston, if there is an answer to this case it has to
be in some hanger at Holloman”. He went to work from his position at the
Pentagon and the approval for my visit came through. Colonel Garman was the
Base Commander during my visit. He was most cooperative and told me that I
could go anywhere and visit any activity which interested me. I went from one
end of the base to the other. I spent four days talking to everybody I could
and spent almost a whole day with the down-range controllers at the White Sands
Missile Range. I left Holloman dejected and convinced that the answer to
Zamora’s experience did not originate and terminate at that base.
On my way back to Wright-Patterson, I hit upon an idea.
Why not a lunar landing vehicle? I knew that some research had been done at
Wright-Patterson; so as soon as I got back I asked for some briefings. The
briefings were extremely informative, but the Lunar Landers were not
operational in April 1964. I got the names of the companies that were doing
research in this field and I started writing letters. The companies were most
cooperative, but their answers were all negative.
It was now time for me to pass judgment on the case after
a careful review of all the information at hand. I hate to use the word
“judgment”, but that is exactly what it boils down to. As President Truman used
to say, “The buck stops here”, and in the world of UFO’s my desk was the end of
the line. It was time for the Air Force to make a formal decision on the
sighting of Socorro, New Mexico. I reviewed the Air Force Materials Laboratory
Analysis of the soil samples which were gathered at the alleged landing area.
Conclusion: no foreign residue. Laboratory analysis of the burned brush
revealed no chemicals that could have been propellant residue. Radiation was
normal for the alleged landing area and for the surrounding area. There was no
unusual meteorological activity, no thunderstorms; the weather was windy, but
clear. Although we made an extensive search for other witnesses, none could be
located. There were no unidentified helicopters or aircraft in the area. Radar
installations at Holloman AFB and at Albuquerque observed no unusual blips, but
the down-range Holloman MTI (Moving Target Indicator) Radar, closest to
Socorro, had been closed down for the day at 1600 hours. All the findings and
conclusions were negative. The object was traveling at approximately 120 miles
per hour when it disappeared over the mountains according to Zamora’s best
estimate.
I labeled the case “Unidentified” and the UFO buffs and
hobby clubs had themselves a field day. According to them, here was proof that
our beloved planet had been visited by an extraterrestrial vehicle. Although I
labeled the case “Unidentified” I’ve never been satisfied with that
classification.
Zamora apparently wasn’t the only
witness to the craft. The Blue Book files provide indications of additional
witnesses. Opal Grinder, owner of a Socorro service station reported that a
tourist had said something about jets flying very low over the town. That
tourist has never been found and interviewed so any description of the craft
and the incident is second hand at best. It might have provided some important
corroboration for the case if the man and his family could have been located.
As it is, it is simply an
interesting anecdote with little value as evidence.
 |
| One of the landing gear impressions. Photo courtesy of the USAF. |
There are, however, two other
witnesses who have been named and have been interviewed by reporters and UFO
investigators. According to an article published in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald
on Wednesday, April 29, 1964, Paul Kries, who was 24 and Larry Kratzer who was
26, had been in Socorro the previous Friday when the object took off. They had
been traveling along the highway.
Kratzer told the reporter, “We saw
some brown dust, then black smoke – like rubber burning – then a fire. The
smoke hid the shiny craft as it flew away.”
Then they began to talk about things
they couldn’t have seen, but might have heard on the news or read in the
newspapers. Remember, they were talking some five days later, after there had
been a great deal published and broadcast about the sighting including the CBS
Evening News.
Kries said that federal agents had
cordoned the area and that government sources had denied they had anything like
the observed craft near Socorro. Kries also said that there were four
depressions, about twelve feet apart, left by the object. He also claimed that
there was a large burned patch on the desert and that the exhaust had melted a
pop bottle when it took off. Neither of these things is true.
Sometime later, an Iowa UFO
researcher, Ralph DeGraw interviewed the two men, but he was not impressed with
their story. He said that it seemed to be in conflict with what Zamora had
described. He believed their testimony was not trustworthy.
The descriptions offered by Kries and
Kratzer, of what was found on the landing site seemed to imply that they had
been there and seen it. They suggest the area was condoned, which could be
suggested by the police officers and police cars parked around it. They talked
about the landing traces left by the craft as it took off, implying they had
seen that as well.
However, there is no evidence that
any civilians were on the scene that night. Almost all the testimony that was
offered by Zamora, Sergeant Sam Chavez of the New Mexico State Police, FBI
agent Bynes and Army Captain Richard Holder and some later filtered through
Col. Eric Jonckheere seemed to suggest no civilians there, though it is
possible that some of the military men might have been in civilian clothes. The
descriptions given by those who were there is based on the documentation
available in the Blue Book files differs from what Kries and Kratzer said.
Their description of the landing
marks were nothing that new. It could have been picked up by anyone who had
watched the story unfold for the last couple of days and they didn’t say
anything until a week or so have passed. There had been plenty of stories about
what was seen on the alleged landing site.
While it would be nice to have
additional witnesses to the case, and these two men claim to have been on the
scene, there are many problems with them. Had they left it with having seen
something in the sky, as they drove by, it would be one thing, but it seems
they were suggesting they were at the landing site. It might be the way the
story was written, or it might have been they incorporated the additional
information they read in the various newspaper accounts without thought about
ramifications. They might just have been trying to give the reporter the
impression of something other worldly, but it is clear from the evidence found
in the Blue Book files that neither of these men had walked the field.
In the end, the Air Force which is to
say Quintanilla listed the case as an “unidentified.” Quintanilla said that he
didn’t like that solution, or more properly the label he had applied to it,
probably because it would delight those who believed that some UFOs represented
alien visitation. As he said about the case later, “Although I labeled the case
‘Unidentified’ I’ve never been satisfied with that classification.”
This then is what I think of as a fairly
neutral representation of what happened in Socorro because I draw heavily on
the obviously biased account presented in both the Blue Book files and that
written by Quintanilla himself. Had he had any solution to provide, no matter
how off the wall, he would have provided it.
Over the last couple of years I have
written about this case a few times. Once to expose the Phil Klass ridiculous
suggestion that it was a hoax created by the mayor to make some money. Klass
expanded on this notion and unfortunately others, in the interest of seeming to
be unbiased reported the story. It wasn’t true. This tale and others can be
found here:
I have also attempted to append the
various comments made to the Best UFO Cases posting that sort started this
latest discussion. To do that I have had to copy them all and repost them
which, unfortunately, puts them under my name… I will attempt to get the name
of the author of the posts placed with them but if I fail, please don’t accuse
me of plagiarism even though that is a hot topic at the moment.
Tommy Bahama said...
ReplyDelete@ Kevin
I was under the impression that the Sorocco UFO case was solved - See http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0909/socorro.php. If not, let us know!
Thanks
July 17, 2016 at 7:06 PM
zoamchomsky said...
ReplyDeleteTommy; There's an even better explanation for Socorro, I think, by Dave Thomas:
"Bernard 'Duke' Gildenberg, learned...that on April 24, 1964, there were special tests being conducted at the north end of the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) involving a helicopter used to carry a Lunar Surveyor around for some tests.... Surveyor was a three-legged, unmanned probe, which was used to learn about the moon before the Apollo program got there.... This new angle on the old Socorro story was first mentioned publicly in a brief piece in the July 15th, 2000 edition of James Moseley's Saucer Smear." http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm
And an even better physical match for what Zamora described was the Bell prototype Apollo Lunar Lander. It almost certainly existed at White Sands during that period but there's no evidence that it was flying that day.
Zamora's account describes a rocket-powered vehicle flying horizontally with a flame and after lifting off with same and a roaring noise. He also described the vehicle from a distance as first looking like the underside of a car but painted silver, but then it appeared as a sphere as it lifted off and moved away.
Remember that Zamora was very frightened and had lost his glasses. And there was an anecdotal report of a low-flying "funny looking helicopter" trailing black smoke that day.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/20/article-2468895-18DB6F8000000578-154_964x1145.jpg
Whatever Zamora saw, the idea that he most likely saw a test vehicle from nearby White Sands Testing Range should have been an obvious explanation from the start.
July 18, 2016 at 9:28 AM
Tommy -
ReplyDeleteThat impression is based on a single story written by Tony Bragalia, who emailed the president of university (his name was Colgate) who said that it was a prank by the students. He refused to give names or explain how it was accomplished. At the other end of the spectrum, if believers cited a source that was unnamed (meaning the students) and there was no other corroboration for it, the story would be rejected and rightly so. Without the names of those who participated in the prank, then we have no real solution. Besides, you have to wonder why Colgate didn't confide in J. Allen Hynek when Hynek was in Socorro. It seems reasonable that Colgate wouldn't have wanted to get his students in trouble in 1964, but that problem is long since passed. You would think that a quiet word to Hynek would have been sufficient. So, what we have is a possible solution that has no corroborative witnesses, and for that reason, I reject the explanation. Tony and I discussed this when he proposed the solution and he knows my objections to it.
Zoam -
John Callahan who was the FAA investigator on the case does not agree with this solution (and yes, I know that is somewhat an appeal to authority). One of the problems is that the others in the cockpit, when interviewed in 1986 weren't fluent in English and there is evidence that they misunderstood the questions and did not communicate their answers very well. When I discussed this with Callahan, I got the impression that it was the CIA guys at the White House meeting who said they weren't there, not that no one was there or that the meeting didn't take place.
The object was seen on three radars... one was FAA, one was military and one was the cockpit weather radar. If I understand this correctly, the FAA radar and the military radar received their signals from the same source but set the discrimination levels differently for their specific purpose, which means that, in essence, it was a single radar source. According to some, that split of the radar returns has caused the radar sightings.
I am unaware of any credible source that "Terauchi was later under a psychologist's care and expressed regret and great sadness about his life as a believer, calling his belief an 'illusion.'" I would appreciate it if you could point me to a source.
July 18, 2016 at 9:41 AM
Brian Bell said...
ReplyDelete@ Kevin and all - Socorro, NM
I don't know what Zamora saw, but I can tell you the story that Bragalia claims "explains" the event as a "hoax" just isn't possible (see below):
http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0909/socorro.php
If you've ever walked that site, which is still almost exactly identical to the landscape during Zamora's sighting, there is absolutely no way this was a "student hoax". That explanation is so lame and with no real evidence to back it up that it's preposterous. Yes I've heard of the students with stilts and all that nonsense and it's dumber than claiming the incident was absolutely an alien spacecraft!
First, having walked the site myself, I believe anyone can easy see no one could conduct a hoax and not be fully observed setting it up and running away and hiding. The terrain is totally incapable of supporting a preplanned event by students conducting a balloon hoax and then scurrying away unseen. No chance. Walk the site and you will see for yourself.
Additionally, how in the heck would these students even know when or if Zamora was coming that way? They really couldn't. No one has ever fessed up to being one of the hoaxing students and by now they would have just for the attention. Bragalia is wrong and it wouldn't be the first time.
Additionally, I understand that a bulk majority of people prefer the explanation that a NASA helicopter was flying a lunar surveyor from guide wires and let it touch ground and then took off again.
Well that doesn't work either because again if you walked the site you can clearly see that the sky is big, wide, and open. There's no chance of Zamora "missing" a view of the helicopter, its noise, or its position directly above. No way, unless you want to claim it was @ 10,000 ft and so far up that it was invisible, and we know that isn't possible anyway. Besides, Zamora didn't lose his glasses immediately, only after he ran back to the car and took cover when it launched upward.
These explanations are insufficient when you look at the entire incident.
I don't know what it was and won't claim it was an alien spacecraft. However the incident is meaty and rich with indisputable facts.
Was it a test rig from White Sands? Maybe, but that piloted lunar lander was not flying that day and from an engineering standpoint it's not at all like what Zamora described as a horizontal "egg shaped" craft.
I do have some thoughts about what it might have been that have not been shared to my knowledge.
July 18, 2016 at 6:39 P
Tomas -
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the source of the letter is Colgate. While it is documentation, it is from the source we've already examined and there is nothing in the letter that leads us to more witnesses or the perpetrators of the hoax. Pauling is not confirming the hoax, he is only receiving information of it. What we need is someway to identify the hoaxers so that we can attempt to verify the information.
This is not unlike the Barney Barnett tale of a crash on the Plains of San Agustin. We can talk of multiple witnesses such as Harold Baca and Major Leeds and several others, but when we get to the end of the trail, there is Barney Barnett. We don't have any independent corroboration for the Barnett story. It is single source with all roads leading back to Barnett. This is a similar circumstance with all roads leading back to Colgate
zoamchomsky said...
ReplyDeleteBrian says, "Was it a test rig from White Sands? Maybe, but that piloted lunar lander was not flying that day and from an engineering standpoint it's not at all like what Zamora described as a horizontal 'egg shaped' craft."
What Zamora described for most of the event was what looked like--from 150 to 200 yards--the underside of a car standing on end, taller than wide. So he thinks he's seeing an aluminum-silver colored nuts-and-bolts assemblage of ambiguous metal struts, cables, tanks and whatever. And then returns to his car and reports that he's going to investigate the overturned "car" in the arroyo.
Immediately after beginning that walk to the "car," the deafening high-pitched and changing-frequency roaring begins, which frightens Zamora so that he runs back to his car, running into it, falling down, losing his glasses, gets up runs past and beyond his car, where he falls to the ground again and covers his face with his hands. Only then, glancing up did he see what NOW appeared to an "egg shaped" craft rising and quickly moving away--in much the way of a rocket platform.
So one should be able to see why--if we can trust Zamora's account at all--the car-sized Bell prototype lander, taller than wide and composed of both "car" like undercarriage and "egg-shaped" Lexan canopy, seating two men, might just be the best fit for what he claimed he saw.
Bell had been working at White Sands since the 1940s, and on the Lander contract since 1961. They had built operational prototypes (as depicted above and below) that continued to be used in NASA training even after the LLRVs were delivered in 1964. And there's no doubt that prototype editions of the LLRV were built and tested before the first two contracted and operational LLRVs were delivered to NASA at Edwards in 1964.
There's just no evidence that Bell/NASA jet jockeys were out hotdogging it on that Friday afternoon. Otherwise it's a convincing case, I say.
http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_US/apollo/astronautes/entrainement/LLRV_LLTV.htm
Larry said...
ReplyDeletePart 1
Zoam’s thought processes (if we can call them that) always provide a target rich environment for critical analysis. His recent musings over the Zamora incident are no exception.
Let’s consider both the structure of his argument and then the content.
I think it’s worth considering the structure because it is an example of a kind of argument that I often see debunkers make and I personally have never seen criticized. It goes like this: an individual comes forward (Zamora, in this case) and claims to have taken in sensory data (sight, sound, sometimes smell and touch) which leads them to assert that they have witnessed an unconventional phenomenon (UP) of some sort. So, in general, they have a claim, UP, based on some set of claimed characteristics, let’s say characteristics A, B, C, D, and E. Then a debunker comes along with the aim of showing that UP was really a misidentified Conventional Phenomenon (CP1—in this case, perhaps the Lunar Surveyor spacecraft). They then list the characteristics of CP1, and find that it consists of C, D, E, F, and G. If the characteristics of CP1 had been A, B, C, D, and E, then congratulations; you would’ve probably just debunked the claim. However, because the characteristics of CP1 don’t overlap perfectly, the debunker is in the position of having to argue that the witness made mistakes and actually misinterpreted characteristics F and G as characteristics A and B. Sensing that this position is logically weak, the debunker will sometimes bring up another conventional explanation, CP2 (the Apollo LEM lander trainer, perhaps). CP2 will have its own set of characteristics, some of which must overlap with UP otherwise it wouldn’t be a viable explanation on the face of it. Furthermore, some of the characteristics of CP2 will probably overlap some of the characteristics of CP1, but some will not be shared with CP1, otherwise CP1 and CP2 would not be distinct phenomena. So let’s say that the characteristics of CP2 are A, B, C, G, and H.
The impulse on the part of debunkers to heap on multiple putative explanations is driven, no doubt by the desire to imply that there are so many possible CPs that one of them must be right.
The problem with piling on multiple conventional explanations (meteors, swamp gas, Venus, etc.) is that every time a new explanation is added the explainer is introducing characteristics that are at odds with the previous explanation. This is pretty good evidence that the explainer is actually quite uncertain about the veracity of some of the characteristics of their explanations. In the example above, if you are arguing for CP2, then you are simultaneously arguing that characteristics D and E which the witness said were present were actually not present and also that characteristic F (which is required by explanation CP1) was not present but that characteristic H was present (which neither the witness nor explanation CP1 admits).
You can see how it goes; by piling on multiple conventional explanations, the explainer is not only putting him/herself in opposition to assertions that the witness made, but also in opposition to assertions that the explainer him/herself made in a previous explanation. The larger the number of explanations, the worse it gets, so it’s actually a divergent process. The fact that a debunker can suggest a large number of putative conventional explanations that neither agree nor disagree completely with each other nor with the witness’ statements is not necessarily support for the idea that “a conventional explanation must be out there somewhere”. Rather, it could be an indication that the explainer(s) simply don’t know very much about the explanations they proffer and don’t care to think very deeply about the internal inconsistencies within them.
July 20, 2016 at 12:46 PM
Larry said...
ReplyDeletePart 2
Now, about the content of Zoam’s comments; he writes (not in this order):
“Whatever Zamora saw, the idea that he most likely saw a test vehicle from nearby White Sands Testing Range should have been an obvious explanation from the start.”
Earth to Zoam: it was.
According to the Wikipedia entry for the Lonnie Zamora incident: “….The evening of the encounter, Army Captain Richard T. Holder (then the senior officer at White Sands, as the higher-ranking officers had gone home for the weekend) and FBI agent Arthur Byrnes, Jr. together interviewed Zamora. … Zamora speculated that the object was some kind of newly developed craft being tested at White Sands Missile Range or at nearby Holloman Air Force Base. Holder shot down this idea, and was later quoted in a Socorro newspaper as saying, that there was in military custody "no object that would compare to the object described ... There was no known firing mission in progress at the time of the occurrence that would produce the conditions reported."
“Zamora's account describes a rocket-powered vehicle flying horizontally with a flame and after lifting off with same and a roaring noise. …”
No, he didn’t. He described an object flying around making noise and displaying some luminous energy source located at the bottom of the object, which he described in some detail. That energy source did NOT behave like a rocket plume, for several different reasons which—as a professional rocket scientist—I could enumerate, if anyone is interested. The conclusion that it was a rocket plume is erroneous and is added by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
“And an even better physical match for what Zamora described was the Bell prototype Apollo Lunar Lander. It almost certainly existed at White Sands during that period but there's no evidence that it was flying that day.”
I think Zoam is confusing what at that time was called White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) with the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (FRC). The FRC, located at the edge of the Rogers Dry Lake bed in the Mojave Desert managed the development of the Lunar Lander Research Vehicle (LLRV). According to the official NASA history of the LLRV, the first flyable unit was shipped to FRC in April of 1964, where it remained until its first flight on October 30, 1964. Thus at the time of the Zamora sighting, the LLRV appears to have been parked two states away from Socorro, New Mexico.
July 20, 2016 at 12:48 PM
Larry said...
ReplyDeletePart 3
"…on April 24, 1964, there were special tests being conducted at the north end of the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) involving a helicopter used to carry a Lunar Surveyor around for some tests.... Surveyor was a three-legged, unmanned probe, which was used to learn about the moon before the Apollo program got there.... “
Those tests were of the radar landing system, NOT the propulsion system. The inert spacecraft (that means it didn’t contain any of the extremely toxic Hydrazine fuel) was dangled from a tether underneath a helicopter which flew approach and landing profiles over the basalt flows of North WSMR that mimic the lunar regolith. There are numerous reasons why such tests would be conducted with an inert spacecraft, safety being paramount among them. Another is the fact that the Surveyor spacecraft had a maximum total thrust from all 3 of its thrusters of about 310 lbf. The mass of the spacecraft was 292 kg. In the lunar gravity field, this would give it a thrust to weight ratio of close to 3 to 1. Obviously, the thrust to weight ratio has to be greater than 1 in order to provide a usable retro burn to null out the residual descent velocity, hover, and then soft land. However, in Earth’s gravity field, the thrust-to-weight ratio of Surveyor would have been less than 1 (about 0.5). Thus, it would have been entirely unable to fly around under its own power and there would have been no useful reason to have rocket propellant on board. At that point in time, I believe JPL (the managing Center for Surveyor) had a hydrazine handling facility located at the Dryden FRC. I would make an educated guess that that is where they would have conducted live firing tests of the propulsion system. There is no question that the Surveyor spacecraft could not have gotten from its test location at North WSMR to Socorro without being flown there by the helicopter it was attached to.
This is a good example of the multiple explanation problem I referred to above. If you support the LLRV explanation (leaving aside the fact that it was in the wrong state) then you have to believe that Zamora saw a piloted, jet-powered vehicle weighing about 2500 lb. If you support the Lunar Surveyor explanation then you have to believe that Zamora saw an unpiloted, rocket powered (but inert) vehicle weighing about 640 lb dangling from a helicopter. You can’t believe in both at the same time. The fact that debunkers can not distinguish between these two options based strictly on the testimony tells me they are simply flinging feces at the wall and hoping something sticks.
July 20, 2016 at 12:51 PM
zoamchomsky said...
ReplyDeleteThey're only "bizarre" cases if you take them literally, Paul. And they only continue to be if you steadfastly ignore, reject and straw-man all reasonable explanations that conflict with your beliefs. And then you blame the skeptic for offering real-world explanations! That's the believer modus operandi--the real difference between skeptics and believers--which is itself a subject of interest to skeptics and social psychologists.
Just look at Larry's multi-part straw-man from today. It's not that there's anything really wrong with my admittedly speculative identification of Zamora's object as the Bell prototype lunar lander (pictured) while it might have operated out of Bell at White Sands, it's simply that Larry fears this close physical match and so fairly plausible identification might finally destroy the Socorro case, one of the foundations of his belief in the "UFO" myth. So as a believer he must reject it immediately, even if to do so he must ignore what I really did say, straw-man the few parts he chooses, make the obligatory appeal to his own authority, and add a few dashes of ad hominem.
Near the northern extent of the White Sands testing range in 1964, Lonnie Zamora saw what he thought was the the underside of a car standing on end, so taller than wide, a silver colored nuts-and-bolts assemblage of ambiguous metal struts, cables and tanks. But he also described the object as being a vertical oval of sorts on splayed legs, in hindsight, and with a red arrow-like logo and two very human operators in coveralls.
Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?
"Hynek and Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla initially thought the sighting might be explained as a test of a Lunar Excursion Module, though after some investigation, Hynek determined that this could be definitely ruled out as an explanation for what Zamora saw."
That's why. And my guess is that Hynek was misinformed--for whatever mundane reason.
July 20, 2016 at 4:29 P
Neal Foy said...
ReplyDelete@Larry
Thank you for your informative and detailed posts. It's great to have you back posting again. Unfortunately zoam either didn't read or didn't understand what you were saying. A shame really.
He is still saying that a research platform that was two states away at the time was what Zamora saw. Un freaking believable. He fails miserably and is using the approach you described in post #1.
In fact, Quintanilla wrote in a CIA report two years after the sighting that they had no idea what Zamora saw even after extensive research of military records.
Sorry to address this to you Larry but there was no point in talking to zoam who is apparently unwilling or incapable of understanding simple facts.
July 21, 2016 at 7:49 AM
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteSome Corrections to my previous posts are in order. I have located a technical paper that was presented at the 2004 AAS Rocky Mountain Guidance and Control Conference. The paper can be downloaded for free, here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24338802_Surveyor_spacecraft_automatic_landing_system
The author, Sam Thurman, was a member of the JPL team that had responsibility for developing the Surveyor Lander. He discusses the unique problems associated with developing the Radar guidance and control system that was used for the soft landing. In characteristic NASA fashion, the system was referred to by the acronym RADVS (for Radar Altimeter/Doppler Velocimeter System). According to the paper, the RADVS was “…used to measure slant range and velocity vector components for terminal descent guidance. The RADVS was an L-band FM-CW system employing two 36 in. parabolic antenna assemblies ….”. In other words it was a radio frequency electronics package.
He describes the testing process for the various parts of the spacecraft: “Subsystem testing included static firings of test models of the main retro motor and vernier engine assembly, static and dynamic tests of various mock-ups of the landing legs and crushable blocks mounted underneath the vehicle’s primary structure, ….”. Note that all of that testing would have been done somewhere other than WSMR.
But he goes on to add that there was “….extensive testing of the RADVS.” And this is the part that’s relevant to the helicopter testing that took place at WSMR: “ Due to the large altitude velocity regime of RADVS operation, a series of 18 tests were conducted using a specially modified RADVS- equipped helicopter, ultimately executing a series of 53 flight profiles designed to simulate various mission-like scenarios to the maximum extent possible. These tests were conducted at the White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The helicopters used in the testing were equipped with a complete mock-up of the RADVS, employing a special test fixture that positioned the two antenna modules in the same relative locations and beam pattern geometry as on the actual spacecraft.”
So, I was right that the helicopter tests were intended to test the radar landing system. But I was wrong that the tests were conducted by dangling the spacecraft from a tether underneath the helicopter. Instead, the tests were conducted with a “complete mock-up of the RADVS” attached rigidly to the helicopter by a test fixture. According to the engineer who participated in the tests, there was no complete spacecraft involved in those helicopter tests. I repeat: there was NO Surveyor spacecraft present at WSMR at the time of the helicopter tests. I got the idea (some years ago) that there was a complete spacecraft present, from the source that Zoam cited, namely, “New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR)”; like a lot of people (including Zoam) I accepted it at face value without checking into it further. I further assumed that if a complete Surveyor spacecraft was present, it would have to have been suspended beneath the helicopter for the simple reason that it is too large to be bolted solidly to the helicopter. This morning, when I re-read the NMSR article and realized that they were claiming that the helicopter supported the test apparatus from the side, I realized that there was a major disconnect somewhere in the story and I started digging deeper. That’s when I came up with the journal article that explained it all.
In summary, it appears that NEITHER a Lunar Surveyor NOR an Apollo LLRV lander was present at WSMR at the time of the Zamora sighting.
July 21, 2016 at 1:11 PM
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteP.S.
Where did NMSR get the notion that there was a Surveyor spacecraft at WSMR? According to the source Zoam cited, they got it “from Capt. James McAndrew, the AF's point man on Roswell”, who obtained copies of WSMR range logs. That’s the same CIC officer who so thoughtfully obtained copies of McCrary’s diary “proving” that the Roswell event was explained by Mogul flight #4. That’s a whole ‘nother story.
July 21, 2016 at 1:12 PM
P.P.S.
ReplyDeleteCorrection of typo in my last post: That should be Crary, not McCrary
July 21, 2016 at 2:01 PM
zoamchomsky said...
ReplyDeleteLarry;
A recent paper on one aspect of Surveyor systems testing and development doesn't preclude all the other aspects and configurations of testing at White Sands. There were certainly other times when the full Surveyor was attached directly to a helicopter or was attached by cable to a helicopter. Records and expert witness testimony say this in fact, and the same for Bell lunar lander prototypes and the LLRVs, even though they were capable of free flight. As with the gantry test system, it kept various editions of these inherently unstable and expensive landers from crashing regularly and saved pilots lives.
And do you really think that the two LLRVs that at arrived at Dryden in early 1964 sprang out of nothing? As I've reported but you ignore: Bell built an operational prototype to win the NASA contract in 1962, and had an additional 14 months of R&D to build and test other prototypes (pictured) before delivering the operational and more horizontal and stable LLRV in early 1964. At least one of these LLRV prototypes, like the Bell prototype, even sported the Bell Lexan canopy instead of an open cockpit.
So take your pick. I say the Bell prototype is the best match in form, but an LLRV with the Lexan canopy would still match Zamora's understandably confused account that combined both "car" like trusswork and tanks standing on end with a vertical "oval" on "legs." Two very human operators in coveralls and a red arrow-like NASA logo should remove any last bit of doubt about the identity.
Zamora was confused even before got to the location--chasing a speeding car, seeing a rocket-like flame in the sky, hearing a boom, and thinking that a dynamite shack had exploded--and then being puzzled by what he saw at 150-200 yards and frightened by the roaring so much that he ran away and lost his glasses--never understanding what he had seen at any time during the event.
Larry, a bit of logic: Showing what did happen will never show what didn't happen. We simply don't know what testing might have occurred at Bell-White Sands on April 24 1964. What we do know is that nothing about what Lonnie Zamoro described required technology in advance of that available at that time.
July 21, 2016 at 5:22 PM
Neal Foy said...
ReplyDeletezoam
Give it up man! The LLRV was indeed capable of free flight but it had a very limited fuel supply. About 6 minutes, from one source, this does not make it suitable for tooling around the countryside. The object Zamora actually described was oval and had a skin with an insignia. That is not even close to any LLRV.
You keep coming back to the car, what Zamora actually said was that his first impression was of a car turned over with an exploded fuel tank. It would be perfectly natural for him to expect to see something mundane. You seem fixated on this one really irrelevant detail. When he got a better look he described the egg shaped object, no trusses involved. At no time did he describe what you say he did. He also said he saw two beings the size of children, How does that fit an LLRV? The object then took off with a sound that Zamora said WAS NOT A JET ENGINE SOUND. The engine on the LLRV was a jet engine.
The object then flew off quickly in a straight line, again this is not what an LLRV is capable of. It was a rather ponderous vehicle that was incredibly difficult to control. At least two of the later LLTVs crashed during training. One with Neil Armstrong at the controls. He did an incredible job of piloting to avoid death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlJGQ92IgFk&spfreload=10
July 21, 2016 at 7:45 PM
Anthony Mugan said...
ReplyDeleteHello all
Re: Socorro
I'm sorry but I really don't understand why this case is so prominent. If Zamora's description of events is precisely accurate then it would indeed be an interesting event. I have absolutely no reason to doubt his integrity but we are ultimately dealing with a single witness report with no really diagnostic hard evidence one way or the other. Human perception can often lead to honest misperceptions.
Personally I can't see how anyone can reach a firm conclusion either way on Socorro...it is 'insufficient information' in my book.
What's needed is cases with multiple lines of evidence collated at the time or very shortly thereafter and with original primary sources available. The cases need to include enough such evidence to credibly eliminate all known mundane explanations AND need to suggest an artificial aspect to the characteristics or behaviour of the UFO.
There are a small number of cases that cut the mustard ( if that phrase crosses the pond). Of the ones Kevin has listed I personally think the very best ones are Tremonton and Levelland, but I would include a number of others as particularly important as previously discussed.
July 22, 2016 at 1:10 AM
Larry said...
ReplyDeletePart 1
Zoam wrote:
“There were certainly other times when the full Surveyor was attached directly to a helicopter or was attached by cable to a helicopter. Records and expert witness testimony say this in fact…”
I don’t necessarily dispute this. The Sam Thurman paper I cited says that later on in the program they built a special model of the complete spacecraft system that weighed 1/6 as much as the space flight article specifically so they could test it in free flight under its own power. They tested it by dropping it from a balloon. I can easily imagine that they might have transported that flight article around WSMR on a tether underneath a helicopter.
But so what? The crucial part of your statement is the “other times” part. This drop test doesn’t show up in the Range log on April 24, 1964. What do you want to bet that if someone looked at the range log for the year or two following April 24, 1964 they could find an entry for the Surveyor drop test?
“…and the same for Bell lunar lander prototypes and the LLRVs, even though they were capable of free flight. …”
Again, I don’t dispute this, but the LLRV would certainly not have been transported by the Bell 47 helicopter that was supposedly used for the Surveyor tests. The useful load of a Bell 47 is about 1000 lb, and the LLRV weighed about 2500 lb. But again, so what? You have produced zero evidence to support the idea that there was a Bell prototype or a LLRV at White Sands on the day in question.
“… And do you really think that the two LLRVs that at arrived at Dryden in early 1964 sprang out of nothing?”
Nope. I never implied that in any way, shape, or form. Total straw man argument.
“So take your pick. I say the Bell prototype is the best match in form, but an LLRV with the Lexan canopy would still match Zamora's understandably confused account that combined both "car" like trusswork and tanks standing on end with a vertical "oval" on "legs."
I pick neither one; you have produced zero evidence to support the idea that either object was present at White Sands on the day in question and could have made it to Socorro, even if it had been. Why do suppose there is no entry in the Range log on April 24 for a Bell flight mission?
I also agree with Neal Foy. I think that logically, Zamora’s best (i.e., most accurate observations would have been the ones when he was closest to the object (about 30 or 40 feet away). He described the object as oval and smooth with no windows or doors (with legs underneath, when it was on the ground). Even when he first saw the object at a distance of 150 to 200 yards, he described the object as shaped like a letter “O”. I can’t find any place where Zamora used the term “trusswork”. Is this just something that Zoam made up?
July 22, 2016 at 11:44 AM
Larry said...
ReplyDeletePart 2
“We simply don't know what testing might have occurred at Bell-White Sands on April 24 1964.”
Zoam, a bit of logic: The most parsimonious explanation is that no Bell testing whatsoever occurred at White Sands on April 24 1964; zero; nada; zilch. Otherwise it would have appeared in the Range log and Captain Holder would have mentioned it when he was summoned to Socorro that evening.
However, even if you want to take an extreme “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” stance on this (oh, the irony!), there is no rule of logical inference that I was ever taught in my academic career (spanning 20 years and 4 separate degrees in science and engineering) that allows one to use some hypothetical “might have occurred” as evidence in an argument. The fact that you “simply don't know what testing might have occurred” means exactly that; you don’t know. If you stopped there, you would be on firm ground, logically. If, instead, you conjecture (in the absence of evidence) that any Bell testing occurred at all, you are moving into the realm of having a “hunch”, an “opinion”, or a “wild ass guess”. If you go further and conjecture that this presumed testing that you guess might have occurred has just exactly the right set of characteristics needed to explain the Zamora sighting—well, then you have moved decisively into the realm of just making crap up.
July 22, 2016 at 11:46 AM
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteAnthony Mugan wrote:
"...I really don't understand why this case is so prominent. ... we are ultimately dealing with a single witness report with no really diagnostic hard evidence one way or the other."
Not true; this is a landing trace case. There were singed plants, vitrified sand, possible radiation fogging of camera film, and a complete absence of any surface disturbance that would be indicative of the presence of a high powered rocket or jet powered vehicle. These physical effects, together with a few supporting characteristics that appear in Zamora's testimony (the shape of the "flame" underneath the object, the peculiar sound, and the radiant heat he felt on his face from the "flame") paint an entirely consistent, picture that falsifies Zoam's naive, uninformed statement:
"... nothing about what Lonnie Zamoro [sic] described required technology in advance of that available at that time."
As a Physicist, Allen Hynek understood intuitively that all of these interlocking features of the case rendered it almost impossible that an individual like Zamora cold have made it up. This is why he said: "I think this case may be the 'Rosetta Stone' ... There's never been a strong case with so unimpeachable a witness."
July 22, 2016 at 12:03 PM
“It looks like a balloon”
ReplyDeleteHe was right about that.
Hi Kevin. As you may or may not know I, along with fellow investigator Tony Angiola, are presenting our Socorro investigation at the Mufon Symposium in August. (www.mufonsymposium.com). As I read thru this blog I see that many are rehashing old and false info about this event. If this had been a Bell prototype, the Airforce, CIA and everyone else involved would have announced a 'case closed' (like Roswell) release and Hector would have certainly posted as such. We have spent 2 years on this case, and have done 3 presentations on it. We have the original blue book files, found and purchased on Craig's list by Rob Mercer, an Ohio state Mufon director. The case files turned out to be directly from the Air Forces Blue Book man on the scene, and we have an interview made some years before his death where he says that is was never close to being solved.
ReplyDeleteIn 1964 no lunar lander had any workable engines, and certainly would not have been towed many miles off course over Socorro. In 1965 when the engines were tested, it blew the engine each time and had to be rebuilt because of the caustic nature of the propellant. In 1964 it was being dropped from cables to test the integrity of the landing gear. Hughes, White Sands, and any other company involved with aircraft and black projects all said it was not a craft they had made or tested..
The office of the president asked them what it was, and could it be put down as a hallucination, yet Hynek said hallucinations do not burn bushes and put 4 holes in the ground. We have visited the original NICAP investigator, Ray Stanford, for over 200 hours and he has shared all of his documnets, pictures and correspondence. We have also seen a never before shown interview of Ray with Dr Hynek talking about the case, the rock with metal, and the irradiated film taken just after the event. Ray also revealed on Martin Willis' podcast that he has a picture, taken many days after the event, that shows 2 egg shaped objects in the sky in the direction of departure, one showing 3 of the four landing gear. We have seen this picture and it is clearly a match for Lonnie's description. A scientist at Goddard worked with Ray on this picture (taken by an Argus C3 with a 50 MM lens) and the object is .6 miles away and about the correct reported size.
We are bringing all of our materials to the symposium, and are still trying to get Ray to release the original picture so that anyone can analyze it. We will not hold a conference in Mexico, charge people to see it, and then not return the funds when the Internet feed does not work.
In summery our presentation is that this was a non human craft, from who knows where, part of that reasoning because no company anywhere on Earth said it was theirs and would have had to tell either the White House, CIA, FBI or the military when requested to do so.
There is so much information and documentation we uncovered, like what the real symbol was, that our 2 plus hours presentation has to be whittled down to the 60 minutes we are allowed to speak.
Ray has been extremely generous in sharing his data and insights.
Tony and I walked the site in February of 2016, and the hoax theory is not plausible in any way shape or form.
If you would like to have a private talk about this case, reach me on Facebook and I will share how to reach me.
Thanks for the great work over the years, and know that we will present good evidence that has not been seen before on this case.
Sincerely,
Ben Moss
Chief Field Investigator, Mufon Virginia.
Larry;
ReplyDeleteHere's another bit of logic: Zamora's story is the best evidence that what he saw was very earthly technology.
He said he saw two "people," period. He refers to them as "persons" three times and adds that "possibly they were small adults," which is easy to understand since they were down in an arroyo 150-200 yards away.
He said he thought he was seeing the underside of a car standing on end--so it was the size of a car and taller than wide--but of white metal like aluminum. He said he thought it was an accident or prank. The underside of a mid-century car was composed of a framework of trusses, support bars and plates, components, cables and tanks. But it was also in the general shape of an "O" he said, with splayed legs.
Are we to ignore one part of his description in favor of the other? I suggest that he was describing two different parts of one thing, it was both at once, but he's never clear on that fact because he was never sure of what he was seeing. But I've seen a picture of a Bell lander prototype that amazingly combines the two, seats two men (who most likely wore white coveralls), and it has a red arrow logo on its side. All too much to be coincidence.
So given that the location of this event is adjacent to the White Sands testing range, seeing a flying machine he doesn't understand attended by two men in white coveralls, I say a mundane explanation is the most very likely. And so much so that I can ask again, "Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?"
That's the most parsimonious explanation, Larry. Nothing about what Lonnie Zamora described required technology in advance of that available at the time.
Do you think it's just possible that things could have gone on at White Sands that day that weren't logged? Of course they could. Things of which we have little knowledge and can only surmise and speculate given the bits of evidence we do have.
Deconstructing "UFO" stories is detective work, psychological analysis, cultural history, and "pelicanist" literary criticism. And the trials of most cases is composed of almost entirely circumstantial evidence. So yes, Larry, there is a lot of guesswork, inferences and imagining the most likely scenario in a known context, as I've freely admitted. The debunker and psychosocial methods of case analysis together--if they can be distinguished--are a formidable system. And any determination made by such a process, however uncertain, is infinitely more likely than the extremely tenuous hypothesis.
If you know very well that the various Bell lander prototypes and R&D editions of the LLRV existed before two were delivered to Dryden in early 1964, then stop referring them as if they were the only ones in existence.
Show me where Zamora says he was 30-40 feet away.
The man saw some very earthly machine that he simply didn't understand. He could not comprehend what he saw, then it made a lot of noise that frightened him greatly. And his experience was transformed into a "UFO" report.
That doesn't make it a spaceship.
Larry;
ReplyDeleteHere's another bit of logic: Zamora's story is the best evidence that what he saw was very earthly technology.
He said he saw two "people," period. He refers to them as "persons" three times and adds that "possibly they were small adults," which is easy to understand since they were down in an arroyo 150-200 yards away.
He said he thought he was seeing the underside of a car standing on end--so it was the size of a car and taller than wide--but of white metal like aluminum. He said he thought it was an accident or prank. The underside of a mid-century car was composed of a framework of trusses, support bars and plates, components, cables and tanks. But it was also in the general shape of an "O" he said, with splayed legs.
Are we to ignore one part of his description in favor of the other? I suggest that he was describing two different parts of one thing, it was both at once, but he's never clear on that fact because he was never sure of what he was seeing. But I've seen a picture of a Bell lander prototype that amazingly combines the two, seats two men (who most likely wore white coveralls), and it has a red arrow logo on its side. All too much to be coincidence.
So given that the location of this event is adjacent to the White Sands testing range, seeing a flying machine he doesn't understand attended by two men in white coveralls, I say a mundane explanation is the most very likely. And so much so that I can ask again, "Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?"
That's the most parsimonious explanation, Larry. Nothing about what Lonnie Zamora described required technology in advance of that available at the time.
Do you think it's just possible that things could have gone on at White Sands that day that weren't logged? Of course they could. Things of which we have little knowledge and can only surmise and speculate given the bits of evidence we do have.
Deconstructing "UFO" stories is detective work, psychological analysis, cultural history, and "pelicanist" literary criticism. And the trials of most cases is composed of almost entirely circumstantial evidence. So yes, Larry, there is a lot of guesswork, inferences and imagining the most likely scenario in a known context, as I've freely admitted. The debunker and psychosocial methods of case analysis together--if they can be distinguished--are a formidable system. And any determination made by such a process, however uncertain, is infinitely more likely than the extremely tenuous hypothesis.
If you know very well that the various Bell lander prototypes and R&D editions of the LLRV existed before two were delivered to Dryden in early 1964, then stop referring them as if they were the only ones in existence.
Show me where Zamora says he was 30-40 feet away.
The man saw some very earthly machine that he simply didn't understand. He could not comprehend what he saw, then it made a lot of noise that frightened him greatly. And his experience was transformed into a "UFO" report.
That doesn't make it a spaceship.
zoamchomsky
ReplyDeleteLarry;
Here's another bit of logic: Zamora's story is the best evidence that what he saw was very earthly technology.
He said he saw two "people," period. He refers to them as "persons" three times and adds that "possibly they were small adults," which is easy to understand since they were down in an arroyo 150-200 yards away.
He said he thought he was seeing the underside of a car standing on end--so it was the size of a car and taller than wide--but of white metal like aluminum. He said he thought it was an accident or prank. The underside of a mid-century car was composed of a framework of trusses, support bars and plates, components, cables and tanks. But it was also in the general shape of an "O" he said, with splayed legs.
Are we to ignore one part of his description in favor of the other? I suggest that he was describing two different parts of one thing, it was both at once, but he's never clear on that fact because he was never sure of what he was seeing. But I've seen a picture of a Bell lander prototype that amazingly combines the two, seats two men (who most likely wore white coveralls), and it has a red arrow logo on its side. All too much to be coincidence, I think.
So given that the location of this event is adjacent to the White Sands testing range, seeing a flying machine he doesn't understand attended by two men in white coveralls, I say a mundane explanation is the most very likely. And so much so that I can ask again, "Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?"
That's the most parsimonious explanation, Larry. Nothing about what Lonnie Zamora described required technology in advance of that available at the time.
Do you think it's just possible that things could have gone on at White Sands that day that weren't logged? Of course they could. Things of which we have little knowledge and can only surmise and speculate given the bits of evidence we do have.
Deconstructing "UFO" stories is detective work, psychological analysis, cultural history, and "pelicanist" literary criticism. And the trials of most cases is composed of almost entirely circumstantial evidence. So yes, Larry, there is a lot of guesswork, inferences, imagining and best guessing involved, as I've freely admitted. The debunker and psychosocial methods of case analysis together--if they can be distinguished--are a formidable system.
If you know very well that the various Bell lander prototypes and R&D editions of the LLRV existed before two were delivered to Dryden in early 1964, then stop referring them as if they were the only ones in existence.
Show me where Zamora says he was 30-40 feet away.
The man saw some very earthly machine that he simply didn't understand. He could not comprehend what he saw, then it made a lot of noise that frightened him greatly. And his experience was transformed into a "UFO" report.
That doesn't make it a spaceship.
Anthony Mugan has left a new comment on your post "My List of the Best UFO Cases":
ReplyDeleteHi Larry
The problem to me is that whilst, if I were a betting man, I'd guess that Zamorra was telling the truth there is nothing in this to rule out a hoax.
All we have is evidence of fire, heating of sand, and some holes. Nothing that couldn't be done with a blowtorch and a spade. Even then we don't have any original paperwork for parts of that.
I guess I'm looking for things that force me to drop misidentification or hoax and this is nowhere near that (unlike Tran en Privence or Stephenville or the USS Gyatt cases for example).
Ben -
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm sure you're aware of this, might I point you to the article and Philip Klass and the landing site. There are some interesting points there, such as the mayor not owning the land where the landing (alleged) took place. I learned this from an article in the Socorro newspaper and then emailed the writer to ask a few questions. He said that I was only the second person to ever contact him about the case... I put the information into the blog post.
Do you have a link? If not I will find it.
ReplyDeleteI see more distortions on this case. We have Lonnie's original interview as well as several others. He said he saw "2 things in white coveralls" and not people. He said that they were "the size of a small child" about 10 years old. "but I cannot say it was people". We have the Blue Book papers that show Bell Labs did not have anything in that area, nor did they have a craft like that. Same from Hughes. The lander did not have an internal engine until 1965.
Just like other well known cases many people buy the first statement from debunkers. Balloon, nope. Wind was 35-45 MPH gusting out of the North West, just like it did when we were on site.
Hoax, nowhere to hide and the Air Force found" no evidence of gasoline, kerosene, or any other evidence of pyrotechnics. There would have been footprints all over the place. Not a hoax. I could go on but when people make up statements that were not said by Lonnie, it shows you what we have to deal with. The theory of the debunker is, "since I do not believe in UFO's or aliens, then no matter the case or its merits, it has to be man made or weather."
Just the facts mam..
Kevin perhaps the article you mentioned had this?
ReplyDelete"Or maybe that’s not the real flaw... it seems that the mayor didn’t own the land in 1964. According to the Socorro newspaper, El Defensor Chieftain, which did a long story about the Socorro landing after it was suggested in 2008 that a historical marker be erected at the site, noted that the land in question had been part of the estate of Delia Harris in 1964. In 1968, the land was bought by the Richardson family and they apparently still own it. Mayor Bursum had never owned it. I don’t know where Klass got that idea. Maybe someone mentioned it to him and he believed it, figuring they should know."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePart 1
ReplyDeleteIn one of my previous posts I wrote about the blue “flame” that Zamora described: “That energy source did NOT behave like a rocket plume, for several different reasons which—as a professional rocket scientist—I could enumerate ...” Since Kevin has now elevated this topic to a dedicated discussion, perhaps I should enumerate my reasons.
In order to see why the object that Zamora described was not a liquid fuel rocket propelled vehicle, it is useful to briefly review the essential characteristics of such rockets. First there needs to be a propellant--a liquid chemical that contains a large amount of potential energy in its chemical bonds and is capable of rapidly decomposing and turning into a gas. When the propellant decomposes, the potential energy in the chemical bonds converts to heat; the heat causes the pressure of the gas to rise.
The second essential element is the combustion chamber. It's a pressure vessel that has a small hole through its wall at one location and a larger (exhaust) port through its wall at another location. A small volume of liquid propellant is injected through the small inlet hole and a much larger volume of gas escapes through the exhaust port. The relative sizes of the inlet and exhaust ports are chosen so that at a given propellant flow rate, the combustion chamber is maintained in dynamic equilibrium at a relatively constant pressure and temperature. Most bi-prop rocket thrusters like those used on the Surveyor operate at a combustion chamber pressure of a few hundred PSI, with a flame temperature of about 3,000 F.
The third essential element is the rocket nozzle. Once the hot, pressurized gas escapes from the exhaust port of the combustion chamber, its natural tendency is to try to expand in all directions. The nozzle has the job of collimating the exhaust gas and making it all flow in a single direction. The narrow end of the nozzle has an inlet hole the same diameter as the exhaust port of the combustion chamber, while the open end has a diameter that is typically about 10 times the diameter of the inlet. As the hot gas escaping from the combustion chamber encounters the sloped interior wall of the nozzle its flow is turned in the direction of the long axis of the nozzle (i.e., rearward). As the exhaust gas flows from the inlet end to the exit end of the nozzle it expands, accelerates, and decreases in both pressure and temperature. So, for example, while the flame temperature in the combustion chamber is about 3,000 F, the temperature at the exit plane of the nozzle has dropped to a few hundred degrees. Simultaneously, the gas flow speed has increased to around 3,000 m/s and exits the nozzle in a single, well consolidated, cylindrical jet with parallel walls. It is this high degree of collimation that the rocket designer seeks, because it represents turning as close to 100% of the kinetic energy of the exhaust gas into thrust as possible. This well collimated jet of high speed gas is also responsible for two other characteristics of rocket thrusters; they are noisy and they are very good at blasting away unconsolidated surface material (on those occasions when they are operated in close proximity to a surface). This latter property is of particular concern when the intended purpose of the rocket thruster is for soft landing on an unprepared planetary surface. See, for example, the paper at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2007JE003059/asset/jgre2468.pdf;jsessionid=73BB81FBAA52A0277FB2389EB9BC2436.f01t01?v=1&t=iqzpgl1i&s=5a19af8cf242f0de9c379f4002489051012207d2
which discusses the NASA modeling and testing that was conducted in support of the Phoenix Lander Mars mission.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteSo, to recapitulate: when a well-designed, liquid bi-prop rocket thruster is generating useful amounts of thrust it has a well-collimated, cylindrical column of exhaust gas with a mean velocity of a few thousand meters/second and a mean black body temperature of a few hundred degrees, attached to and extending below the open end of the rocket nozzle. When such a thruster is operated inside the Earth’s atmosphere, the interaction of the high speed jet with the stationary surrounding air produces large amounts of aerodynamic noise. When such a thruster is operated inside the Earth’s atmosphere AND in proximity to an unprepared surface (e.g., desert floor), the high speed jet is a very efficient excavator of the surface. NASA tests of this interaction which I have seen result in large excavated craters underneath the thruster and large clouds of dust and debris injected into the surrounding air.
With this in mind, how does this compare to Zamora’s descriptions?
At an early point in his narrative, Zamora described a “long, narrow, funnel-shaped "bluish orange" flame extending beneath what appeared to be the center of the object. Because the word “flame” was used and because of the apparent location of the “flame”, non-specialists are quick to jump to the conclusion that he must have seen a rocket thruster plume. Zamora gave a rather detailed description of the "funnel" shape of the “flame” in terms of its angular size (about 2.5 by 2.5 arcmin, as I recall). I worked through the geometry and it turns out the shape he was describing was a truncated equilateral triangle (or cone, as seen from the side). In other words, the sides of the cone were diverging from each other at a 60 degree included angle. This is why I went to some lengths to describe why a competent rocket thruster design results in a cylindrical jet of exhaust gas. A rocket thruster of the type that was used on the Lunar Surveyor would not generate an exhaust plume with an included angle of 60 degrees. Nor would it have been "bluish orange". It most likely would also have been invisible, because it would have consisted of Nitrogen, Water, and Ammonia in gaseous form, with a blackbody temperature of a few hundred degrees.
At another point in his narrative, when the object was landed, Zamora described seeing the interaction of the blue “flame” with the desert floor. He described the “flame” as seeming to penetrate into the sand. A real rocket plume cannot penetrate into the sand without displacing it violently. If there had been a rocket thruster located where the “flame” was seen, Zamora would have been showered with sand, gravel, and other debris and a large dust cloud would have obscured the sky (and probably still have been visible a few minutes later, when the other officers arrived). What Zamora described sounds more like a field of penetrating radiation creating blue fluorescence when it interacts with air molecules.
Singed plant material, vitrified sand and pieces of rock with heat blisters were discovered underneath where the “flame” was supposed to have been and were apparently created in-situ. Because these characteristics imply the existence of heat, non-specialists are again quick to jump to the conclusion that they must have been caused by a rocket thruster plume. But rocket thruster plumes of the type that are used for planetary landers are not even close to being hot enough to melt sand.
Finally, at the end of the incident, as the object was speeding away toward Six-Mile Canyon, Zamora said “It had no flame whatsoever as it was traveling over the ground, and no smoke or noise.” So if you think the flame was actually a rocket plume (even though I don’t), then it should have been present if the rocket was generating thrust. Likewise, there should have been noise if a rocket was generating thrust. If there was no noise and no flame, then it wasn’t generating thrust and should have fallen out of the sky.
Anthony Mugan wrote, of the singed plants and vitrified sand:
ReplyDelete“….Nothing that couldn't be done with a blowtorch and a spade.”
Anthony, I’m assuming that that is a conjecture on your part. Or do you have any actual evidence? Perhaps you’ve done the experiment yourself, or know of someone who did? If so, I
would appreciate a reference.
I have not done the experiment, but I don’t think it’s true that the physical traces could be hoaxed with an oxy-acetylene torch. The first time these kinds of traces were observed by scientists was in the aftermath of surface or near-surface bursts of nuclear weapons. Upon investigation, there was no question whatever that they were caused by the radiative transfer of heat, not conductive or convective (as would be true of a torch). The reason these effects had not been seen before was because they require the presence of a very high power radiant energy source. The only large sources of such intense thermal radiation other than nuclear fireballs are comets disintegrating in the atmosphere, which may have been responsible for the creation of the Libyan desert glass, also apparently formed in-situ 26 million years ago.
Some data on the formation of these effects was first declassified and discussed in the classic, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” by Samuel Glasstone. In that work, he presents tables that show how much absorbed radiant energy is required to produce the different levels of effects. The absorbed radiant energy required to singe green plants and produce “popcorning” in siliceous sand is about 20 cal/cm2 (plus or minus), so the observed effects (plants and sand) could have been produced by the same radiant source. Inputting heat into sand with a torch flame is an example of convective heating, and depends on the conduction of heat through the sand or rock from the location where the flame touches the sand or rock to other nearby locations. Sand is a lousy thermal conductor, so the process is slow and produces only a localized effect. Deposition of energy by thermal radiation is an entirely different physical process and should be expected to produce a different signature. Thermal radiation penetrates to a given optical depth everywhere on the irradiated surface at once, at the speed of light. It is this very rapid melting of the rock together with the simultaneous vaporization of the water trapped in the rock crystals followed by rapid resolidification that causes the blisters. If someone can do the experiment and show that it is possible to create the same phenomena with a torch, I will accept that as a data point. However, we know for a fact that the phenomena can be created by thermal radiation.
(Actually, I have both an an oxy-acetylene torch and a bag of silica sand; maybe I’ll do this experiment myself in the next day or two.)
Zoam
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the Bell LLRV...
Based on about 10 minutes of fact checking this morning the first LLRV was delivered by Bell to NASA FRC at what is now Edwards in California in April 1964 but did not fly until October. It had a crew of one and a flight duration of 10 minutes.
Later in the 60's they developed a second version termed LLTV, but that didn't fly until 1967.
I'll keep trying to find exactly where they built it but the flight duration rules it out anyway. They wouldn't have been fooling around with it away from the company test facilities. If Zamora was accurate about two occupants that also argues against the LLRV ( and I doubt the pilots wore white overalls).
If Zamora was describing events broadly correctly then this would be very interesting ( e.g the funnel shaped flame), but unfortunately I remain of the view that there just isn't enough there to rule out a hoax. It wasn't a Bell LLRV though!
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteHaving read many UFO reports and stories, most and nearly gets down to the judgment and believability of a single witness in most cases. The Zamora case is no different.
However, my comment is not negative about you but you are being overly judgmental about your own beliefs about this case. You analysis UFO cases as well as anyone. I think you nailed the Zamora case and conclusion precisely and accurately. However your are starting to question yourself and if you missed something. Part of this is you want to stick it to Klass for his stupid comments.
Well, in my mind, you won. You beat Klass then and now. Sure, you would love to find more witnesses today but that's not likely. Accept the win for whatever than means to you.
Let me finish by saying this. I started playing poker for bigger stakes about 40 years ago. There have been more than a few times where a lot of money was on the table and it got down to whether I believe the other guy was trying a bluff or did he have a hand. For both of us, it gets down to instincts and trusting our own gut feeling about the right decision. You do a great job in my opinion that your writings and instincts are correct. My belief is you would not be a good poker player because you don't know how to bluff others. (complement for a writer).
Anthony Mugan said:
ReplyDelete"If Zamora was describing events broadly correctly then this would be very interesting ( e.g the funnel shaped flame), but unfortunately I remain of the view that there just isn't enough there to rule out a hoax. It wasn't a Bell LLRV though!"
While I certainly agree that the LLRV can be safely ruled out now as it was then I would like you to expand on your comment regarding a hoax. Can you tell us exactly the nature of the hoax, the person or persons who were responsible, and how did they cover their tracks. After all Blue Book by this time was in the business of debunking reports, and for the most part a PR program. BB ruled out a hoax.
Larry is spot on. The blue flame "knifed into the ground" but did not cause a blast of sand or material as a propellant engine would. The object, when leaving, sliced a creosote bush perfectly in half (I have the picture). There was NO HOAX. There is nowhere to hide at the site and many forget about the fogged film, the rock broken by one strut that had metal in it that Goddard stole, the fact that it passed over the highway before landing, the fact that it flew of into a 35-45 MPH wind, the 11 witnesses that heard the booms. Chavez indicated to his fellow officers that he saw the vehicle leaving, and many of the police brothers saw this object before and after the event, but they saw how Lonnie was treated and kept these facts among only fellow officers. If you think this event was a hoax then that simply means you do not know the case and are 'armchair quarterbacks'. Blue Book wanted desperately to show it as a hoax, spent a lot of money investigating it, and still have it classified as "Unknown".
ReplyDeleteLonnie Zamora, when asked by his daughter if the story was true, pointed to a copy he had of Ray Stanford's "Socorro Saucer in a Pentagon Pantry" and said that was the only book to get it right. Ray wrote the Eulogy for Lonnie when he passed. If you have not read this book then you do not know the case. This is the case that pushed Dr. Hynek over the edge of debunking to really thinking that there is a real phenomena, and then he formed his own group CUFOS.
And finally, we have this info that most do not know..when Lonnie and Chavez got back to the Socorro Country building just after the incident, Ned Lopez (Sheriff office radio operator) told them that 3 reports had come in by three separate people, of a blue light in the sky, well before any report of the incident had been made and in the same time frame of the landing.
ReplyDelete>> As he approached an arroyo, he saw what he first thought was an overturned car. He stopped his patrol car and saw, near the object, “two people in white coveralls…”<<
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kevin!
Anthony; I appreciate your skepticism. There is a lot to this story that sounds like an "airship" tale from decades before. More that just wandering lights at night, many people told stories daylight landings of strange aircraft, meeting their very human wizard inventor-operators from faraway places, even other planets, and they spoke English too!
Yes, Lonnie could have made the whole thing up. But is he really claiming so much?
People regularly see things above and around military bases and test ranges they don't understand, usually just strange lights. Zamora said he saw two men in white coveralls and some sort of rocket or jet-powered flying machine. It had been flying, landed and then flew away, presumably with the two men seen near it aboard, if we choose to believe Lonnie's story is true and fairly accurate. And why not? He's not making any truly extraordinary claim.
"NASA issued Bell a $50,000 study contract in December 1961. Bell had independently conceived a similar, free-flying simulator, and out of this study came the NASA Headquarters' endorsement of the LLRV concept, resulting in a $3.6 million production contract awarded to Bell on February 1, 1963, for delivery of the first of two vehicles for flight studies at the FRC within 14 months."
Several times already I've posted pictures of that simulator or one like it from 1963. And even though I realize every example cost about a million, I find it hard to believe that Bell did not make others in R&D before finally delivering a fully operational product in 1964. A contractor simply could not sign a contract and not deliver. It was all about Bell making money, they did that by delivering product.
Someone might say the LLRV was that R&D product, designed by Bell to NASA specifications and tested under NASA supervision. But then what was Bell doing for 14 months from early 1963 to April 1964?
Call it an hypothesis, Anthony, for which there is plenty of evidence. I've heard all the obvious objections to the idea for several years now: it didn't exist; it couldn't fly; the engine didn't work; it couldn't carry enough fuel; and it couldn't be off the test range.
Yet we have Lonnie's story, somewhat confused as it is--he was in frightened and confused state by the time it was over. And we have the anedote from that day of the tourist commenting on the "funny looking helicopter" trailing black smoke.
Maybe it was another project, a Hughes project has been suggested, much being made of the logo. And for the same reason, and Lonnie's description of the object going away, some have suggested it was a Weyerhaeuser balloon. And on seeing Lonnie, the two men in white coveralls got into its gondola and flew away. But there's too much of his description that's unlike a balloon.
I also agree with Brian Bell's point that a lander of any kind suspended by cable from a helicopter seems unlikely. Certainly Lonnie would know a helicopter. And we'd have to dismiss the jet flame and roaring portion of the story. If we can't accept that being accurate then why accept any of the rest?
Continued: Anthony;
ReplyDeleteLike your spade and blowtorch, the jet-powered lander prototype hypothesis doesn't require anything not found on Earth at the time: “two people in white coveralls," a hotshot pilot and a technician, and a jet-powered piece of machinery that was being developed for the space program.
Maybe Lonnie appeared so shaken up because he was lying. I don't believe that. If you're going to lie, why not tell a whopper? Was it the best "flying saucer" story Lonnie could make up? No, as I've said, the man saw some very earthly machine that he simply didn't understand. He could not comprehend what he saw, then it made a lot of noise that frightened him greatly. And his experience was transformed into a "UFO" report.
And finally, maybe the people responsible for this jet-powered flying machine operating out of White Sands that day--if they were ever asked--simply refused to acknowledge its existence. We were in a space race! And the military's "UFO" public relations program and its need to know didn't even begin to approach breaching space program secrecy.
EOS
Ben:
ReplyDeleteI probably can't make it to the annual MUFON symposium to hear your presentation. Is there any chance you will be in the Northern California area in the near future?
Hello,
ReplyDeleteWhen you read what ufologists themselves propose as "best qualitative criteria" for a good UFO case, and in first "multiple witnesses" as first, you are here (Zamora case) seeing ufologists not respecting their own criteria!
Well, that's ufology, after all.
Best Regards,
Gilles Fernandez
Ben Moss writes: "Lonnie Zamora, when asked by his daughter if the story was true, pointed to a copy he had of Ray Stanford's "Socorro Saucer in a Pentagon Pantry" .... If you have not read this book then you do not know the case. This is the case that pushed Dr. Hynek over the edge of debunking to really thinking that there is a real phenomena, and then he formed his own group CUFOS." (YIKES!)
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about strong belief in otherworldly interlopers and their motives, Ben, it blinds the believer to earthly, all too human, base, even crass motives. I can think of a single reason for all of those things that has nothing to do with what Lonnie Zamora saw or story he told. Can you?
Maybe Lonnie was telling his daughter something very different from what you imagine. Think about it.
Gilles -
ReplyDeleteIf you have been paying attention, you would have noticed that there are other witnesses involved in this, some to the object in the air who called the police station (which have not been identified, but the records of the calls exist and the two guys from Dubuque, Iowa, who claimed to have seen the object (but, for those paying attention, I also mentioned their tale was somewhat dubious).
And, there is the physical evidence left on the site... I even supplied a picture to show that something had altered the landscape (for the skeptics, please note the neutral language... I could have said something landed).
So, while Zamora is the main witness, there is some testimony (well, some claims) that it is more than single witness... and before you or anyone jumps on me, I'll point out that none of that takes us to the extraterrestrial on this, only that it isn't about one guy claiming to have seen something without some sort of corroboration.
I have never said that this was an ET event, but I also do not believe this was an earthly craft. These replies keep showing that the authors do not know the case at all. Lonnie said 2 things in white coverals, nor people. In the original Walter Schrode interview he replied to Lonnie "2 people?" and Lonnie said "no not people".
DeleteAlso I have from the Blue Book files that they went to Hughes and Bell, who were quite open to the Air Force investigators, and both said IN WRITING that it was definately NOT one of their craft. A Bell device is so far off that I am amazed it was brought up. In Orlando we will provide all of the Blue Book and Air Force documents to back this up. So far all I see here is speculation and opinion, not documented facts.
More on what real rocket-propelled Lunar landers are like...
ReplyDeleteThe Morpheus Lunar lander was a project run out of NASA-Johnson Space Center between about 2011 and 2014. That project built and flew a rocket powered vehicle that was designed to be able to fly in Earth’s gravity field and simulate the terminal maneuvers that would be required for soft landing on the Moon. As such, it is a good, real world example of the features such a vehicle would have to have had in order to be an explanation for what debunkers claim Zamora saw in April of 1964. Being about 12.5 feet in diameter and height, Morpheus was approximately ½ the size of the vehicle that Zamora described.
To get some idea of what such a rocket powered vehicle looks and sounds like, watch the following video:
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylc=X3oDMTFiaHBhMnJmBF9TAzIwMjM1MzgwNzUEaXRjAzEEc2VjA3NyY2hfcWEEc2xrA3NyY2hhc3Q-?p=morpheus+lander+video&fr=yfp-t-s&fp=1&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
Note that Morpheus has a single main engine located under the center of mass, firing vertically downward; this matches Zamora’s description of the location and number (1) of the funnel-shaped “flames” he saw but does NOT match the location (periphery) and number (3) of thrusters on the Surveyor lander. Note that for the entire time the Morpheus lander is off the ground the rocket motor is firing and there is a continuous, loud, white noise roar. Note also that the rocket exhaust plume consists of a long, thin, columnar jet of high velocity gas extending about 3 body lengths below the vehicle. We can see this because this particular vehicle uses the Liquid Oxygen-Methane (LOX-CH3) bi-propellant mixture which produces a characteristic blue flame the same color you would see from a butane or propane camp stove or blowtorch. This color allows the outline and internal structure of the rocket plume to be visualized, including the 5 or 6 well-formed shock diamonds immediately downstream from the nozzle exit plane. The LOX-CH3 propellant combination is extremely rare because the infrastructure to support it was never well developed within the US aerospace industry. In 1964, there may not have been any LOX-CH3 rocket motors available for purchase (my conjecture). The LOX-CH3 combination was chosen for Morpheus because NASA foresees that that particular combination can be produced on the Moon and on Mars using in-situ resources. Even though the LOX-CH3 combination is very efficient as rocket fuels go, the maximum flight duration of a Morpheus lander if the entire available mass allotment was used for fuel (i.e., no passengers or payload) would only be about 6 minutes. Allowing mass for passengers and payload would reduce to max flight time to about 2 minutes. For reference, the Surveyor Lunar lander could only fire its thrusters for about 1 minute before running out of fuel.
Finally, note that when Morpheus hovers and lands, it kicks up a massive dust cloud that completely obscures the lander and landing pad. The landing pad, by the way is steel reinforced concrete, not desert sand.
Hi Larry
ReplyDeleteI presume you're not implying it takes a nuclear bomb to create a fire....???
In terms of the vitrified sand...if I understand it correctly there isn't any original documentation for this so strictly speaking we don't need to accept it into evidence, however....
You could fake it with a blowtorch. If I understand it correctly you need to get the temperature up around 1500 deg C. which should be achievable.
Lightning strikes might be simpler suggestion,( as no dating evidence) but the key point here is that it all boils down to do you believe Zamora.
Personally I think he was telling the truth, but there's nothing here to force that conclusion.in researching this I may have stumbled on another lead which I will report back on later.
Is anything known about Zamora's life BEFORE his encounter? I ask because when I tried to find out, via searching the internet, he was said to have been born in New Mexico in 1933 (in one source) and in Norfolk, England in another! And if the latter is true, when did he emigrate to NM?
ReplyDeleteWhere was he educated? More important, was he always a policeman or did he have an earlier job, or maybe a later one? What sort of UFO 'experience' did he have, in the form of books read, meetings attended (if any), writings on UFO-related subjects and so on? Personal interests maybe?
Almost nothing is known, at least nothing seems to have been published, about his beliefs, personal life or such that I can discover. Did he have any family, and what did they think of his encounter?
And where WAS he born? Does anyone know?
@ Anthony Mugan
ReplyDeleteyou said:
"You could fake it with a blowtorch. If I understand it correctly you need to get the temperature up around 1500 deg C. which should be achievable."
Did you bother to read Larry's explanation for why the blowtorch theory doesn't fly? Speaking of flying, your blowtorch wielding hoaxers would have to be capable of hovering over the ground in order to not leave footprints. And they would also have to be invisible in order for Zamora not to have seen them. Just what comic book character did the hoaxing? Was it Superman or the Flash? Neither of them were invisible, just very fast.
I asked you to give us a plausible scenario for a hoax, are you afraid to address that question?
The faking-it-with-a-blowtorch-question was discussed in this episode of "UFO Hunters" (whith Zamora himself):
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuh1oRUgvE
Can I ask if anyone knows any wider background on Officer Zamora, in particular any political or similar groups he may have been associated with in 1964? Very little information about him on line. Thanks
ReplyDeleteCurious what the consensus is on Ray Stanford and his opinion. I've heard good and bad about Ray. I know his material, but interested in why he is rejected by some of the UFO community.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the story there?
http://www.skeptic.com/insight/multidisciplinary-nature-of-fringe-claims/
ReplyDeletePart 1
ReplyDeleteAnthony Mugan asked... I presume you're not implying it takes a nuclear bomb to create a fire....???
Anthony, no, of course not. I am absolutely NOT saying I think a nuclear bomb was involved with the Zamora sighting. However, I AM saying that the effects that Zamora described do not, in fact, imply the existence of “a fire” by which I mean “flame” otherwise known as the self-sustaining combustion of some fuel with the surrounding oxygen. The region of luminousity that he reported underneath the center of mass of the object sounds more like fluorescence of the nitrogen molecules in the air, being excited by some kind of penetrating radiation. There’s no evidence for the combustion of anything.
Let me back up and set the context. From our standpoint here in mid-2016 I know of about five different kinds of case where in-situ vitrification of sand of some sort has been observed—some instances are naturally occurring and some man-made. First consider the naturally occurring ones:
Fulgurite can occur when lightning strikes sand. Although the resulting feature is vitrified sand, it is not, strictly speaking a surface feature. Rather, it’s formed underground when the current flow of the lightning stroke flows from the point where it enters the ground until it dissipates some distance below. We usually discover them after the surrounding sand has eroded away and revealed their tubular, sometimes branched shape. Note that they are formed instantaneously at the moment of the lightning strike and do not involve chemical combustion of any sort.
Another example is the Libyan desert glass which has been a kind of mystery for quite some time, but radioisotope identification seems to have shown that the formation event coincided with the entry into the atmosphere of cometary material. Also, in recent times, the computer modeling of Mark Boslough (from Sandia National Lab) has shown that the disintegration of a high speed bolide high in the atmosphere can produce a light curve similar to that of a nuclear explosion. So it looks like we have a natural explanation for the Libyan glass.
As I’ve mentioned before, the introduction of nuclear devices into the environment marked the beginning of observation of thermally induced bubbling in ceramic tiles and stones in addition to wholescale vitrification of sand.
More recently, the testing of NASA’s newest solid rocket motor in the Utah desert also created an example of vitrification of desert sand. This did NOT occur by directing the rocket exhaust onto the ground; in fact, the rocket test stand is designed to prevent this. Unlike liquid fuel, solid rocket fuel of the type used by NASA contains a substantial amount of powdered Aluminum metal. The purpose of this additive is to greatly increase the heat of combustion and increase the overall thrust. However, when Aluminum burns it forms Aluminum Oxide—a refractory ceramic material. After the Aluminum Oxide particles exit the rocket nozzle they still have an instantaneous temperature of about 5,000 K (close to the surface temperature of the Sun). Once they exit the nozzle, they quickly radiate their excess energy away to the surroundings. Essentially, the cloud of Aluminum Oxide particles immediately outside the exit of the rocket forms a “miniature Sun” a couple of meters in diameter and parked a couple of meters above the sand. It is the radiant energy from this “miniature Sun” that creates the vitrified sand during the couple of minutes that the booster is firing.
Finally, I have personally watched videos of high energy lasers of the type that might be used for weapons, interacting with soil and rocks and producing these effects.
So there we have multiple different events that produce similar results. What do these 5 different examples have in common? The effects were produced rapidly—almost instantaneously in some cases—by the transfer of electromagnetic energy; they had nothing to do with transfer of energy by conduction or convection of heat.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I ran the experiment with an oxy-acetylene torch and sand and a rock. As I expected, I was unable to reproduce the effects reported at the Socorro landing site. There was one, kind of unexpected effect that contributed to this. The heat output of a torch is proportional to the amount of gas flow, but the speed of the flame flowing out of the torch tip is also proportional to the amount of gas flow. At very low settings, it is possible to hold the torch flame in contact with the top layer of sand, but the heating rate is abysmally low. It appeared to me that at the minimal heat settings, heat was being dissipated by the surrounding air faster than it was flowing into the sand, so the sand would never get hot enough to melt. As the torch was turned up to higher heat settings the gas flow speed quickly increased to the point where the gas jet was blowing the sand grains away very effectively. It quickly dug a crater in the sand about 2 inches deep and then extinguished the torch flame.
Likewise, with heating a granite rock. At low settings, there is not enough heat flux to stay ahead of atmospheric cooling; at high settings, preheating of the Acetylene when the flame flows around the rock surface causes predetonation (i.e., blows the flame out). When you connect this result with the experiment that was shown in the “UFO Hunters” episode, I am convinced that the heating rate required to melt surface desert sand is way, way outside the capability of an oxyacetylene torch.
If someone with better torch technique can produce better results I would love to hear about it, but right now it's not looking good for producing a 20 to 30 inch strip of vitrified sand with a hand held torch.
This is why when I read about vitrified sand I don’t think about torch flames; I think about high power electromagnetic radiation.
Ray Stanford: Pro and Con
ReplyDeletehttp://the-truth-uncensored.blogspot.com/2009/11/ray-stanford-is-researcher-of-things.html
RR
ReplyDeleteOK - let's see what this adds up to.
1) At the site there was definite evidence of some patches of burnt plants. Hynek also refers to some charred cardboard.
2) At the site there were four holes, with various witnesses noting the soil in the base was damp which, given the time of day, suggests fairly recently created holes. These holes form the corners of an apparently rather uneven four sided shape. The unequal side lengths may be related to slope effects (suspect that may be the case as the diagonals cross at more or less a right angle) but there isn't enough info in the BB documentation to be sure of that.
3) There is no reference to this vitrified sand in the original investigation (the paperwork for which is extensive). They do contain info on analysis of the soil samples but nothing unusual reported. This idea of the vitrification of the sand came later from a claim by someone else in 1968 for which there is no documentary evidence at all. Even if it was there it can occur naturally and I strongly suspect that with the ability to create flames with temperatures over 3000 deg C it should be possible to produce something along those lines if we really tried. However there is no point as there is no evidence that there was actually any vitrified sand at the site at all.
4. The whole thing depends on one eyewitness, apparently highly credible.
5. There are some features of the case that do not fit the typical 'UFO pattern' at all. In particular the loud roaring noises (apparently heard first whilst Zamora was chasing the speeding car, so quite some distance away from the site). The shape is not all that typical and very few symbols appear normally (and none in what I think of the strongest cases).
Possibilities
a) Zamora saw exactly what he said he saw. This is possible.
b) Zamora saw a helicopter with a Lunar Surveyor bolted to the side. This is remotely possible. There was such a scheduled test at WSMR earlier that day and it it landed and tested out the Surveyor's sampling gear and vernier motors the landing site itself could fit with that. The solar panels on the top of the Surveyor fit with the shape of the symbol, but not the colour. The roar and the flash do not fit well. Also the timing is not quite right and the location, outside WSMR and direction of departure do not fit. Just possible but not convinced.
c) Zamora was in the location for some other reason. Some other activity produced the burnt plants and the holes. He becomes aware of Chavez' car approaching and thinking quickly calls it in and makes up one of the best UFO stories of all time. Highly unlikely as he seems to have been universally highly regarded but I haven't totally ruled that one out yet.
At the end of the day - it all depends on Zamora's word - insufficient evidence
Being one of the original investigators on site AND invited by Hynek himself Rays book is the definitive investigation of this event. The guy talking about he blowtorch is reaching for straws, and that is laughable as an explanation. It takes 2000 degrees to fuse a small batch of that sand. Once again the lunar lander had no internal engine in this time frame. If you have not read Rays book you do not have a well informed reference point to begin to discuss this case. Those that reject Ray have preformed opinions from what they have read, none of them have met him. He is incredibly observational and discovered on the Goddard walking path, the most incredible finding of Dinosaur tracks ever found inside the beltway. That release by Goddard is coming shortly. There are over 40 different tracks on the cast.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/features/2013/nodosaur.html
I challenge anyone to prove that Socorro is a hoax and how they did it. Officer Zamora after a few years quit the police force and worked at a gas station. He never changed his story. Nobody in the town, including the mayor, make one cent on this event.
A hoax was ruled out by the FBI (who tried to hide the fact that they were investigating this case), Project Blue Book and the Air Force. If they had found one, or a vehicle responsible, they would have immediately closed the case after having a big show about the case being 'solved'. That never happened.
ReplyDeleteProject Blue Book's director, Major Hector Quintanilla (sometimes criticized for a perceived debunk-on-sight approach) said regarding the Zamora case, "There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora's reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic," according to NICAP's report on the case.
@ Larry
ReplyDeleteI was a photographer at NASA Michoud, the ET manufacturing facility. The TPS (Thermal Protection System) lab would have me photograph samples they had sent to Marshall SFC for testing. Marshall had an infra red oven capable of reproducing the effect of the SRBs on the TPS applied to the ET. It was amazing just how close to the aluminum base the heat penetrated on some samples. Some had only a few millimeters of foam remaining. Of course that represented a failure. It would be interesting to test sand in such an oven. Naturally, it seems unlikely that a hoaxer had access to one of these.
@ Brian Bell
That's a very good question on Ray Stanford, I'm familiar with his material as well. I too would like to know what part of his story certain other UFOlogists object to.
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ReplyDeleteThe MANY reasons why a hoax can absolutely be ruled out:
1. If you visit the site (as I have), you will quickly realize that there is no place for hoaxers to hide. There was also no time for hoaxers to escape, cart away hoaxing equipment (such as alleged blow-torches), and leave no track or other trace evidence of their presence behind. (more below) To see what Zamora would have seen when he got to within about 50 feet of the object: www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Soccorro-UFO-Zamora-viewpoint.html
2. Also note in above photo/graphic that it would have been quite impossible for Zamora to have not seen something like a helicopter or failed to hear it. Although taking off with a roar, the object then when into a completely silent mode and took off at high speed in dead silence. Thus some skeptics have claimed it was a balloon involved, but the object took off to the WSW in a straight, ground-hugging line for 2 miles bucking a very strong wind coming out of the SW or SSW. That the winds were completely wrong for it to have been a passible object like a balloon is PROVEN by historical wind data I compiled at my website:
www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/SocorroWinds_April_24_1964.html
3. White Sands Proving Ground was south of Socorro and the closest portion was over 20 miles away. So if the object was allegedly from White Sands, why would it depart in a direction that would take it AWAY from WSPG instead of back to it? (Huh, Zoam?) There is absolutely nothing out there, including no bases of any kind. And why fly directly towards the mountains that started only 2 miles away to the west? That’s a damn poor escape route for an alleged “helicopter”. (Zamora reported the object going into a sharp and rapid climb when it reached the base of the mountains, quite impossible for a “helicopter”.)
4. Zamora was on patrol and was alone at the site for no more than a minute before his first back-up arrived (state patrolman Sam Chavez). According to Zamora, Chavez was overlooking where he was as the object vanished in the distance (and seeing everything from the previous mesa top where Chavez would have had a panoramic view of the whole area). Thus no time for Zamora to be a hoaxer and other hoaxers could not have escaped Chavez's (or Zamora’s) view. Besides noting that Zamora (a friend of his) appeared to be in shock, Chavez immediately turned the area into a crime scene and quickly noted no evidence of anyone else besides Zamora having been there before him. Chavez was also among multiple first responders noting that the ground and brush were still smoldering. (Proving that any burning had to be done immediately before he arrived.)
5. The site was only a mile from the Socorro police station. Within minutes, multiple other police officers were at the site combing the area (again making it impossible for alleged other hoaxers to flee and clean up after themselves). Cpt. Richard Holder from the WSPG and FBI agent Arthur Bynes, both of whom lived in Socorro, soon joined the search for evidence. As Hynek observed, everybody involved would have had to be in on the hoax for a hoax to be possible. How plausible is that?
6. Multiple first responders (Hynek mentioned nine) said the four rectangular, wedge-shaped impressions in the sand were fresh because moisture from the underlying arroyo soil was visible at the bottom.
7. In the days to follow, an attempt was made to replicate the impressions with a shovel. This proved impossible. Instead the impressions appeared to have been made by something of great weight pressing down into the soil, compacting and mounding soil to the sides. (Remains of the impressions have lasted nearly half a century.)
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ReplyDelete8. When investigator Ray Stanford was there several days later, Zamora pointed out a crushed rock in one impression with small metal shavings on it. Later when analyzed by a NASA lab, Stanford was initially told the metal content did not match any in their database of thousands of alloys. (Then the story was changed to the metal being silica, or common sand.)
9. One first-responder, senior patrolman Ted Jordan, started taking photos of the landing impressions about 10 minutes after the incident. The film soon confiscated by the Air Force. The Air Force later told Hynek the film turned out fogged by radiation. But photos taken the next morning turned out fine, indicating a very short-lived form of radiation at the site caused by the object. (This goes along with Larry's comments about the "flame" observed by Zamora being caused by high energy radiation, which would create short-lived radioisotopes.) This is essentially impossible to fake, even if hoaxers had access to the equipment to create such isotopes (such as a particle accelerator). The isotopes wouldn't last long enough to get out to the site. (For this very reason, PET scans can only be done at facilities with particle accelerators right there to create the necessary short-lived radio isotopes used in the scans, which then have to be used within minutes because the half-lives of the isotopes are so short.)
10. The fused glass later described by Dr. James McDonald (based on his later interview with a Univ. of NM grad student Mary Mayes brought out the next day, who specialized in the biological effects of radiation), could NOT possibly be created at the site with a simple blow torch. This was convincingly demonstrated by a UFO Hunters’ documentary from 2009 (which also had Zamora’s last interview before he died, also Zamora pointing out the site and the landing impressions(:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuh1oRUgvE
See starting about 6 minutes into documentary. A glassmaker stated that a blowtorch simply could not generate enough heat to melt the sand. A small sample of sand from the site placed in his 2100 deg. F. furnace took about 25 minutes to finally melt into a fused mass.
11. A mesquite bush directly under where the object landed and took off had been burned and cut cleanly in half (and as already noted, was still smoldering for at least minutes while backup arrive). Believe it or not, this is not exactly easy to do with a blow torch, mesquite being very difficult to ignite. It would have taken considerable time to do this by hand, probably would have taken multiple people with several torches, then you have the problem of immediatley cleaning up your tracks, escaping with your equipment under the nose of Zamora and Chavez in open country, etc., etc.
12. The Air Force obtained soil samples collected at the site. Spectrographic analysis revealed “no chemicals were detected in the charred or burned soil which would indicate a type of propellent”, as would be expected from a chemical flame (which would include blow torches).
13. The geometry of the four irregularly spaced landing impressions turned out to have interesting aeronautical engineering implications applicable to a VTOL craft, namely how the weight was distributed on the landing impressions (equally distributed), and where the center of mass (CM) of the object would be located (where you would want to place the propulsion on a VTOL craft). The CM predicted by the unusual geometry turned out to be exactly where Zamora reported the “flame”, where the primary burn area was located, where the Air Force found the unusual blistered rock, where the bush was burned cleanly in half.
To cda re: Lonnie Zamora's place of birth [from Mountain Mail - Soccoro, NM]--
ReplyDeleteNovember 05, 2009 OBITUARY
Lonnie Zamora
Sept. 7, 1933 - Nov. 2, 2009
SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- Dionicio E.(Lonnie) Zamora, 76, passed away on Monday, Nov. 2, in Socorro.
Lonnie was born in Magdalena [NM] on Sept. 7, 1933 to Domingo and Rafelita (Gomez) Zamora. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mary (Baca) Zamora of Socorro; sons, Michael Zamora; and Dennis Valdez, both of Albuquerque; daughter, Diana Martinez and husband, Roland of Albuquerque; Sisters Manuelita Sedillo of Socorro; and Marcella Sisneros of Albuquerque; granddaughter,Theresa Recio of Albuquerque; Grandson, Anthony Recio of Albuquerque; great granddaughters, Adrianna Recio- Hernandez; and Kassy Recio, both of Albuquerque.
Lonnie was a Socorro Police officer for 15 years and worked as Landfill Supervisor for the City of Socorro until he retired. He retired from the T6 New Mexico National Guard after 23 years of service. Lonnie was an avid Dallas Cowboys fan.
Lonnie is preceded in death by brothers, Luis Zamora; Tom Zamora; Frank Zamora; and sisters, Mary Chavez; Benita Sedillo; and Sofia Chavez.
A Visitation will be held at Steadman-Hall Funeral Home on Friday, Nov. 6, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. A Rosary will be recited on Friday, Nov. 6, at 7pm at San Miguel Catholic Church in Socorro. A Mass of Ressurection will be celebrated on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 9 a.m., at San Miguel Catholic Church with Father Andy Pavlak as Celebrant.
Burial will take place in the San Miguel Cemetery. Pallbearers are Michael Gonzales, Raymond Gonzales, Albert Chavez, Johnny Sedillo, Anthony Recio, and Frank McQuerry. Honorary Pallbearers are Damascus Smith, and Santos Hernandez.
Arrangements are under the care of Steadman-Hall Funeral Home, 309 Garfield, Socorro. (575) 835-1530. END OBITUARY
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ReplyDelete14. There were other witnesses besides Zamora to the object or similar objects:
A. Gas station operator Opel Grinder (also his son) stated a family of tourists pulled into the gas station when this happened and reported to him that some very low-flying object had just passed over their car and almost taken the roof off. They said they saw a policeman chasing after it. (Hynek noted Grinder would also have to be lying for this to be a hoax.) Police dispatcher Ned Lopez reported three people had called him reporting a bright light in the sky, this being before anybody in town knew about Zamora’s encounter.
B. Socorro KSRC radio newsman Walter Shrode interviewed Zamora shortly thereafter, and told him: “...according to a report from on one of the news television stations in Albuquerque, [they] claimed that they had a call, just about 5:30 in Albuquerque of a sighting of a flying object, flying in this direction.” (Zamora’s encounter was about at 5:50). Ray Stanford in his book expanded on this, saying the object reported by the Albuquerque TV station was like Zamora’s, white and oval-shaped, flying at about the speed of a plane, flying south in the direction of Socorro, about 75 miles away. Similar objects were reported by others in newspaper stories in the following days, including a very similar trace evidence case at La Madera, N.M. 2 days later with the ground burned and four rectangular, wedge-shaped impressions.
C. Policemen and Schrode told Ray Stanford there were numerous aural witnesses on the south side of town (about ½ mile away) to the roars. Stanford in his book mentioned two women he and Shrode spoke to, reporting they heard two distinct roars about a minute or two apart. This would correspond exactly with Zamora’s story of the object landing with a roar, taking about 2 minutes to get out there (about ½ mile from the main highway), then the object immediatley taking off with a roar as he began to approach on foot.
D. Zamora said backup Chavez was overlooking the scene as the object was disappearing in the distance. Stanford said every Socorro policeman he spoke to said Chavez had also seen the object disappearing in the distance when he arrived, but refused to go public with this information, fearing he and Zamora had witnessed a secret government project and didn’t want to draw more attention to it.
Obviously a great deal more than a blow torch and a shovel would be needed for all this.
For those who were speculating Lonnie's birthplace:
ReplyDelete"Lonnie Zamora
Sept. 7, 1933 - Nov. 2, 2009
SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- Dionicio E.(Lonnie) Zamora, 76, passed away on Monday, Nov. 2, in Socorro.
Lonnie was born in Magdalena on Sept. 7,1933 to Domingo and Rafelita (Gomez) Zamora. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mary (Baca) Zamora of Socorro; sons, Michael Zamora; and Dennis Valdez, both of Albuquerque; daughter, Diana Martinez and husband, Roland of Albuquerque; Sisters Manuelita Sedillo of Socorro; and Marcella Sisneros of Albuquerque; granddaughter,Theresa Recio of Albuquerque; Grandson, Anthony Recio of Albuquerque; great granddaughters, Adrianna Recio- Hernandez; and Kassy Recio, both of Albuquerque.
Lonnie was a Socorro Police officer for 15 years and worked as Landfill Supervisor for the City of Socorro until he retired. He retired from the T6 New Mexico National Guard after 23 years of service. Lonnie was an avid Dallas Cowboys fan.
Lonnie is preceded in death by brothers, Luis Zamora; Tom Zamora; Frank Zamora; and sisters, Mary Chavez; Benita Sedillo; and Sofia Chavez.
A Visitation will be held at Steadman-Hall Funeral Home on Friday, Nov. 6, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. A Rosary will be recited on Friday, Nov. 6, at 7pm at San Miguel Catholic Church in Socorro. A Mass of Ressurection will be celebrated on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 9 a.m., at San Miguel Catholic Church with Father Andy Pavlak as Celebrant.
Burial will take place in the San Miguel Cemetery. Pallbearers are Michael Gonzales, Raymond Gonzales, Albert Chavez, Johnny Sedillo, Anthony Recio, and Frank McQuerry. Honorary Pallbearers are Damascus Smith, and Santos Hernandez."
Notice no mention of the incident. Loony wished he had never seen it or reported it.
Chance of a hoax is ZERO.
Two minor corrections:
ReplyDeleteThe bush burned cleanly in half was greasewood, not mesquite, as I wrote. But the comments about being difficult to ignite and burn stand.
The key point is that everything (soil, grass, & brush) was still smoldering when backup arrived, starting only a minute or so later, thus VERY FRESHLY burned, NOT something prepared well in advance.
It wasn't just the four landing impressions that were fresh with moisture in the bottom--so was the burning. Try explaining that PLAUSIBLY in any hoax scenario that actually sticks to the facts determined by police, military, and civilian investigators in the case.
One of the unique aspects of Socorro is that it wasn't just Zamora's say-so. There was FRESH physical evidence left behind with multiple police backup swarming over the site within minutes.
Regarding my comments about how a balloon was impossible because the object flew against and bucked a strong wind. I wrote: "...the winds were completely wrong for it to have been a **passible** object like a balloon is PROVEN by historical wind data I compiled at my website". I meant "passive". Passive, unpowered objects like balloons cannot fly against the wind. Yet one key Zamora observation was that the object (after taking off with a roar), rose to about 20 feet, then departed in DEAD SILENCE at high speed. The only conventional human flying object that can fly quietly like this is a balloon, yet it was impossible because of the wind at the time.
A balloon would also have to be dismissed because of the way the object flew: an unwavering straight path for 2 miles towards the mountains hugging the ground. Even if a balloon had a cable tow, it could not show such controlled flight. (And there was no road that a vehicle could have towed it on in the described direction.)
Also the idea that the object was something like a lunar lander being towed by a helicopter is equally preposterous. (In fact such proposals, merely illustrate the irrational desperation of skeptics trying to come up with anything to dismiss the case.) It would have been quite impossible for Zamora to have not heard or seen a helicopter hovering overhead.
Hynek also wrote about this and of course dismissed "helicopter" for the exact same reasons, or small airplane, or anything else conventional. Zamora would have easily heard and seen any of these. Zamora got VERY close to the object. He was able to pull his patrol car to the lip of the shallow arroyo, placing him only about 60 feet away (determined when I checked on-site in 2012). Zamora said he managed to take a few steps towards the object before it started to take off with a roar and he ran away. So he probably got to within 50 feet of it, maybe a little closer.
But, this isn't the only UFO case in which vitrified sand has been mentioned by an alleged witness. What about this?
ReplyDelete'..5.4 Bill Rickett
[Bill Rickett was a Counter Intelligence Corps officer based in Roswell. He had an opportunity to examine some of the wreckage recovered from the Foster Ranch. He escorted Dr Lincoln LaPaz, a meteor expert from the New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics, on a tour of the crash site and the surrounding area.]
...At one point LaPaz interviewed the farmer [Mac Brazel]. I remember something coming up during their conversation about this fellow thinking that some of his animals had acted strangely after this thing happened. Dr LaPaz seemed very interested in this for some reason.
LaPaz wanted to fly over the area, and this was arranged. He found one other spot where he felt this thing had touched down and then taken off again. The sand at this spot had been turned into a glass-like substance. We collected a boxful of samples of this material. As I recall, there were some metal samples here, too....'
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDeletec) Zamora was in the location for some other reason.
In the middle of nowhere down a bad dirt road. There was no reason for Zamora to be out there WHILE ON PATROL DUTY (not like he was going to find any speeders out there). Instead, he said he only diverted onto the dirt road off the main highway while chasing a speeder because he heard the roar and saw the bright light in the sky pass overhead in that direction. He knew of a dynamite shack out there and his first thought was maybe the shack had exploded.
There was also corroboration for Zamora's story from gas station operator Opel Grinder, who said a car of tourists pulled into his station, told him about a low-flying object pass over their heads just south of town, and seeing a policeman take up chase.
Some other activity produced the burnt plants and the holes.
But the burnt plants and ground plus the holes were completely FRESH. Multiple first responders like Chavez (below) stated the soil and vegetation were still smoldering when they got there, including up to 10 minutes later. The "holes" (really identical rectangular wedge-shaped depressions with compressed soil and mounding) were also FRESH because their was still moisture in the bottom from the underlying soil that had been pressed into.
So what other activity could have produced such extremely FRESH physical evidence that Zamora stumbled onto?
He becomes aware of Chavez' car approaching and thinking quickly calls it in and makes up one of the best UFO stories of all time.
Chavez was not out their purely by accident. Zamora had become concerned that there was something very odd going on and had radioed Chavez for backup. (This was when he was back on the previous mesa top, about 800 feet away, first got sight of the object, and noticed two small beings near the object.) Chavez said he was nearby and would be there in 2 minutes. (Probably took a little longer because at first he missed the cutoff to the dirt road from the highway.)
Zamora had yet to get to the landing site, had not examined anything up close. After calling Chavez for backup, he drove on to the site and parked close to the arroyo edge, radioed in that he was going in to investigate, took a few steps into the arroyo, then ran away beyond his car when the object took off. After the object departed, he ran back to the car, and called the Socorro police dispatcher to look out the window and look for the object as it flew off to the west. Zamora had yet to get into the bottom of the arroyo for a close look.
Chavez then radioed Zamora and asked where he was. When Zamora looked back up the road, he saw Chavez at the top of the previous mesa overlooking the area. When Chavez got to him (maybe half a minute later), he reported Zamora being as white as a sheet from shock. The two of them together then went back down into the arroyo, found the "holes" and saw that everything was still smoldering.
Highly unlikely as he seems to have been universally highly regarded but I haven't totally ruled that one out yet.
It goes well beyond Zamora's credibility. There was FRESH PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that something had just happened along the lines that Zamora reported (what else would cause the fresh burning?) Lots of police witnesses to that within minutes (they were only about a mile from the police station). Also fresh indentations in the soil (still moisture in the bottom). There was absolutely no reason for Zamora to make up a UFO story and no way for him to hoax the FRESH physical evidence in such a short time frame.
Nice to see you back here again David...
ReplyDeleteRegards
Nitram
Hello David
ReplyDeleteIt could indeed all be true but the basic point I am trying to make is that the most 'interesting if true' bits of information such as the vitrified sand, the fogged photos and the characteristics of the flame do not have a secure evidence base. There is no documentary evidence for any of them recorded at or near the time. As such, given the sorry history of how 'evidence' has often come forward in these sorts of cases, I am extremely wary of relying on them.
Holes in the ground and burnt vegetation do not fill me with puzzlement and all the rest of it is really anecdotal.
Now if the roots of the plants had been charred with no burning above ground, or there had been a correlated radar track ( or even just a triangulated independent visual) that would all add to it ( assuming a proper evidence trail), but no, nothing like that.
I don't want to speculate on what may or may not have been going on near a dynamite shack but there are certain aspects of this case which come accross as odd, not least the reports of loud roars and the symbol.
As I've said before, it all could be true, or it could have been the Surveyor exercise or the cynical part of my brain is thinking there could have been something else entirely going on (NB I do not think anyone was playing a hoax on Zamora). These are in declining order of probability to me, so best bet is he was telling it as he saw it but that is a long way from beyond reasonable doubt and that threshold is itself short of the standard of evidence needed.
All,
ReplyDeleteFrom start to finish, this is a very long read and string of post. To sum this up, it gets down one of the following beliefs about Zamora and this sighting.
1. This sighting is a outright hoax. Zamora made up the story.
2. Zamora may have seen a real earth made craft but misidentified the vehicle including in this category a helicopter with a possible payload.
3. Zamora may have seen a craft and saw beings or humans then take off and fly away but changed some of his story about the details and what he saw.
4. Zamora saw a secret military project and was asked or pressured to change his story.
5. The story was false and potential evidence was planted like the burn marks, including the mesquite to create a cover story for the hoax and Zamora might have run across this scam or a partispatant in the scam.
6. This was a very real UFO sighting by Zamora. His story was an actual sighting and he saw a UFO take off.
My belief that this was a real sighting. Zamora strikes me as having been honest and sincere. He might have been in mild shock of seeing something he didn't expect to see but did see a real UFO. He did make several comments that suggest he gathered his senses fairly quick and made mental details about what he saw.
Last, I don't believe in the blow touch possible story. I took welding at our high school/Vo-Tech and used a cutting torch. It takes two tanks, one acetylene and one oxygen. Both tanks of gas, even small sets of tanks weight 300 pounds or around that weight. With a wheeled cart and pulling-pushing the tanks and carts would have be very difficult and would have left identifiable tracks. Then you would have foot prints and maybe other clues left behind. Trust me, moving a oxygen/acetylene tank rig on a cart is tough enough on concrete let alone soft dirt. If the torched was used then Zamora would have had to been part of a hoax along with a truck and at least one or two other people to haul of the cutting torch cart and rig and do the cover up. Then total amount of time it would have taken to pull off this hoax.
I simply don't see how a hoax could have happened if you walk through all the stages and what was needed, planning and the man power. Then I can not see a motive for a faked hoax. Zamora didn't make thing off of this I can see in the evidence other than a cup of coffee maybe.
When I look at all the plausible facts we do know, if this was hoax, this was Hollywood quality. So I come down on the side of this was a real sighting.
Part 1
ReplyDeleteThe Zamora incident is complex—lots of moving parts. With a case like this there are so many contingent logical possibilities it is easy to get lost in the weeds.
I like to begin analysis of the Zamora incident with the witnesses who claimed they saw something flying around Socorro at low altitude, emitting bright light and making loud noises. In addition to Zamora, there were--I believe—4 in the car that stopped at Opal Grinder’s, 3 town residents who called in to the police station while Zamora was out investigating, and 2 male tourists from Colorado. They all claimed to have witnessed whatever phenomenon it was within a total time interval of about 5 minutes, and a space interval of about 5 km. This set of circumstances actually allows us to draw some rather strong conclusions.
In a separate analysis, I asked the question, “given a UFO report at some specific location and time in the US, how long would I expect to wait until the next report is made, and how far away would the location of that next report be?” In that analysis, I made some calculations based on what are called Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimates. This is a common practice in science for the purpose of establishing approximate relationships and bounding conditions in various problems. I estimated that the expected time interval between independent reports is about 525 minutes (8 ¾ hours) and the expected distance between independent reports is about 1770 km.
Using these estimates, if you have a pair of witness reports separated by 5 minutes, the probability of those reports being uncorrelated in the time dimension is 5 minutes divided by 525 minutes or about 0.0093. If that same pair is separated by 5 km in the space dimension, the probability of those reports being uncorrelated is 5 km divided by 1770 km or about 0.0028. If I weight a probability in the time domain as being equally important as a probability in the space domain, I get a Root Mean Square probability of about 0.0069 of the two observations being randomly distributed in space-time. So the probability that Zamora’s reported sighting of the object was independent of a reported sighting of one of the townspeople is about .69%. The probability that those two sightings were independent of one of the other towns people is (.69%) times (.69%), or .005%. Add a fourth report, and the probability that they were independent goes down to .00000033%, or 1 chance in 3 million. You can see how it goes, the probability decreases exponentially as the number of witnesses increases. When you get to 10 witnesses the probability that they were making independent reports is astronomically low—approximately 1 over Avogadro’s number.
Part 2
Part 2
ReplyDeleteWith this in mind, it is a moral certainty that the 10 witnesses (including Zamora) were reacting to the same thing, whatever that was. As I see it, there are only two reasonable options; either all the witnesses are telling the truth and saw the same thing, whatever that was, or they are all telling the same falsehood. That means that all 10 of them had to somehow agree on what the content of that story would be. That implies some sort of organization; someone had to make up the story, recruit people, and then coach them to play their part. That person would not have to be Zamora, but Zamora would have to have agreed to be a co-conspirator. And that’s what it would have been—a conspiracy. I also think it would have been difficult to assemble such a conspiracy. Blue Book Report #14 concluded that less than 10% of the reports were the result of hoaxes or psychological problems on the part of the witness. This would imply that someone trying to assemble a cadre of 10 co-conspirators would have to approach more than 100 candidates before getting 10 to say “yes”. I would imagine that perhaps 1 or 2 of those 100 who were approached but said “no” might have come forward to unmask the hoax in the intervening 50 + years.
BTW, please do not write in and nitpick the numbers out at the third decimal point. Unless a number is off by an amount that would change the overall conclusion (usually, an order of magnitude or more), arguing about it is a needless diversion.
@ Larry
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that ROM is a project management tool applied to cost projections, and project timelines. It also has an error rate of between 50 to 100 percent (roughly).
What is interesting is with all the technology we have today (I.e. Camera phones) we still have not captured video of a real UFO. Rather we have lots of witnesses creating videos representing they have captured footage of a UFO, when in fact they have created, and edited in the UFO.
What would be the probability that if we were visited at least once in each decade (I.e. 1940, 1950, and 1960) that we would be visited at least once in each decade there after?
I believe in a lot of these cases we have honest people identifying something as unknown, and jumping to the conclusion it is not of this world because they have not seen a similar object before.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone have access to copies of the local newspaper (El Defensor Chieftain) from the days immediately after this? I've seen the clippings relating specifically to the incident itself but I am interested in what else was going on in the area at the same time. In particular I am curious to learn if there was anything criminal underway that evening. Alas I don't think I can get at this online.
Just my cynical little brain at work here - probably nothing to it and I don't want to elaborate on my thinking at this stage.
TomasBahama wrote:
ReplyDelete"What is interesting is with all the technology we have today (I.e. Camera phones) we still have not captured video of a real UFO. Rather we have lots of witnesses creating videos representing they have captured footage of a UFO, when in fact they have created, and edited in the UFO."
Kevin posed a similar but more intelligent question in a recent blog. He asked why with new technology we don't have pictures and videos of the same object taken from multiple locations at the same time. You may want to read that.
Briefly though, cell phone cameras and even more sophisticated digital cameras are simply not suited for this purpose. The auto features that make them so easy to use for general photography actually defeat them. They are simply incapable of focusing on a small object against a vast sky. Even in good light they tend to search for focus when confronted with this situation. Kodak called this subject failure. At night the problem is compounded by the auto exposure system which tends to grossly overexpose the subject, the result is a blurry image with very little detail. Believe it or not a Brownie box camera would be a better choice for taking a picture of a UFO.
How do you know that we have no video of a real UFO? Have you looked at every single one posted on the internet? Even if we can assume that you are qualified to examine them at pixel level you couldn't make that statement unless you had at the very least a statistical qualifying sample that you had examined.
I don't bother to look at videos posted on you tube claiming to be UFO's, when I did the comments were usually "fake", "CGI" etc. Unfortunately that was obviously true in many cases. Ask yourself how many people would post a video of a real UFO knowing they would be blasted by comments like this. The stigma attached to the subject of UFOs is real and ongoing. It has been estimated that only 1 in 10 sightings are reported. Even if only 1 in 2 video sightings are reported that leaves one hell of a lot of videos which have not been examined.
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDeleteHoles in the ground and burnt vegetation do not fill me with puzzlement and all the rest of it is really anecdotal.
You are badly oversimplifying the evidence again. If that were all there was, then Blue Book's debunking head Quintanilla would have surely written Socorro off as a hoax (or human craft) long ago, but even he had to admit there was no evidence for a hoax (or a human craft). Instead he labeled it the best documented case on record.
For Hynek, this was a "tipping point" case, pushing him solidly into the "pro-ETH" camp. It was MUCH more than burnt vegetation and "holes in the ground".
The evidence is certainly NOT all anecdotal. Multiple first responders (mostly police), who got there within minutes, noted the FRESH burning of the soil and brush ( still smoldering). This was not something prepared well in advance, but something that had just happened. How do you freshly burn everything leaving no track evidence of equipment or your presence (footprints)? Further, how do you escape right under the noses of Zamora and Chavez out in open country where there was no place to hide?
When multiple eyewitnesses record the same basic observation (area still smoldering), it ceases to be "anecdotal" and instead becomes a well-established FACT. This fact was indeed documented at the time in the newspapers and in official reports by Hynek, Blue Book, and the FBI. It was also documented that there was no track evidence found suggesting anybody else had been there.
Another documented fact about the burning is that spectrographic lab testing was done on the burnt soil by the Air Force, reporting they could find no trace of any accelerants, meaning organic fuels like gasoline, butane, acetylene, etc., what you might expect being used by a hoaxer to cause such burning. How do you explain the burning if there was no physical evidence to support the idea of such agents being used?
Same with the FRESH impressions in the soil (which could NOT be reproduced by simple digging). Hynek said nine eyewitnesses reported this to him, noting that there was still moisture in the bottom when they arrived, as if something had pressed into the moist subsoil underneath. The soil was also compacted (impressions lasted for decades); at least one rock was crushed leaving metal scrapings behind
We also know officer Ted Jordan's film taken about 10 minutes after the event was confiscated by the Air Force and never returned. When Ray Stanford asked Hynek about this, Hynek told him the Air Force said the film was not returned because it was fogged by radiation. (Stanford has Hynek on tape saying this.) You might say this was "anecdotal", but why would Hynek make this up, or why would the AF tell him this if it wasn't true? Jordan's photos of the landing impressions and other things would have revealed nothing terribly incriminating (other than maybe documenting the area still smoldering). We also know photos taken the next morning turned out fine.
Socorro is much more than just an "anecdote" by Lonnie Zamora with nothing to back him up. The physical evidence left behind PROVED that something had just been there. The multiple police swarming down on the site within minutes made it impossible to account for the fresh physical evidence as being hoaxed and also made it next to impossible to explain how supposed hoaxers could immediately clean up after themselves and escape unseen.
As Hynek observed, the ONLY possible way this could have been a hoax is if all the investigators were in on the hoax, including the police, the Army, the FBI, the Air Force, etc.
And no such human craft existed then or now that could account for what happened. Quintanilla searched for such a craft using official channels, and could find nothing.
It was the confluence of multiple details like this that made Socorro unique and such a strong UFO case. Cartoon sketches of the evidence do not do it justice.
@ Neal
ReplyDeleteHow would you rate digital cameras at taking photos of things that are stationary, like a UFO sitting on the ground, with two small beings walking around, and taking samples? Or of debris lying on the ground.
I give you another example, when the Space Shuttle Columbia met it's fate, I believe there were detailed photos/ videos taken from far away. Now, that information was not initially released, but years later it was. If the same equipment could photograph the Columbia, don't you think the same equipment would have already photographed a UFO's?
ThomasBahama wrote:
ReplyDelete“I was under the impression that ROM is a project management tool applied to cost projections, and project timelines. It also has an error rate of between 50 to 100 percent (roughly).”
You are correct that the term ROM is commonly used today in the field of project management cost estimation. But that’s not where the concept started.
Back in the good old days before the invention of cheap and abundant electronic calculators, scientific calculations were routinely done with a slide rule. When I first started working toward a BS in Physics in 1972, slide rule technique was a required course. By the time I graduated in 1976, everyone was using HP calculators.
The first step in multiplying two numbers on a slide rule is to convert the number to “standard scientific notation”. For example the number “one hundred twenty three” is written as “1.23 times 10 raised to the power of 2”. In this case, the number 1.23 is referred to as the “mantissa” and “10 raised to the power of 2” is referred to as the “order of magnitude”. To multiply two numbers in standard scientific notation on a slide rule, you MULTIPLY the two mantissas to get the mantissa of the result and ADD the orders of magnitude to get the order of magnitude of the result. This way the answer will also come out in scientific notation and can then be introduced directly into the next link in a chain of calculations. The slow and tedious part of this is manipulating the slide rule to calculate the mantissa. Adding the orders of magnitude is trivial, since you’re often just adding numbers like “2”, “3”, or “4”, and you can do that in your head. Physicists developed the practice of simply treating the mantissas as equal to 1.0 when they wanted to estimate a rough approximation to an answer; since 1.0 multiplied by 1.0 is always going to come out equal to 1.0, this allowed them to dispense with the slide rule entirely and simply add up the orders of magnitude. The resulting estimate is not exact, but is usually correct to the right order of magnitude; hence the term "Rough Order Magnitude".
This is most often used when you want to get an idea of whether one physical process is significantly bigger or smaller than some other, competing process, which will tell you which direction the reaction will go. For example, if you estimate that a ROM heating rate of 10 to the power of 4 Watts is needed to melt desert sand and a torch can only put out a ROM heating rate of 10 to the power of 2 Watts, you can pretty well conclude that it won't work, even if you don't know exactly how close it might come.
Some people who have never been introduced to this idea of estimation and wouldn’t know a mantissa from a mantis, think this process is evidence of scientists just making up fraudulent answers because they are either stupid or lazy. But that’s not true; this estimation technique is a standard part of a Physics curriculum and is usually taught before the end of the Sophomore year.
@ Larry
ReplyDeleteAs I seem to recall from taking science related courses in university it is one thing to propose a theory using one event as the example, it is another to test a theory, and prove the validity with several random samples. You have proposed using ROM (physics) to measure the probability that since those witnesses reported an event within a particular time, and within a specific distance to each other, that more likely than not, they all saw the same thing.
I would like to suggest you take your theory and test it. You should be able to reproduce the results several times over. You may be able to get data on other events (not related to UFOs) that people have seen, and reported to the same police department. Then test your theory to see if the evidence supports your theory. I look forward to seeing your results.
Tomas;
ReplyDeleteDaylight landing encounters are very rare in the modern age. Why wouldn't the average person react to one much the same as Zamora did? He called for help, I don't think he had a camera but many people have reported that when they observed a near flying object they totally forgot they had a camera in their pocket. They were transfixed by the sighting and didn't want to miss a second of it.
If the pictures taken of the Colombia's last moments were claimed to be a UFO you and your ilk would laugh it off. Not enough detail, too blurry, and on and on. This just goes to illustrate the double standard you debunker types embrace. A blurry or far distant picture of the mundane is totally acceptable as proof, call that object a UFO and OH MY GOD, the standards suddenly become far more critical. Before you go to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence BS, let me remind you that science only requires enough evidence to prove the claim, nothing more.
Tomas;
ReplyDeleteI should have added then when I had my own sighting of a Black Triangle that flew over my car while I was driving I had no thought of getting a picture. That may be more than a little ironic because I am a professional photographer. I had two Hasselblad cameras in the trunk of my car along with several loaded film magazines. Yet, I was so interested in this sighting I forgot all about them. Actually I thought about the golf clubs in the back seat, I was thinking that I could easily hit this thing with a sand wedge.
David
ReplyDeleteThe reason I am pushing this point is that the whole thing depends on accepting Zamora's word as to the sequence of events.
There is no evidence to prove he was lying, went up there earlier and created the scene before Chavez's arrival and on balance I don't think that is likely.
On balance I suspect he described events accurately, which then would be interesting.
The problem to me is that to make an extraordinary claim such as a evidence of an ET craft requires rather more than good character witness reports, at least it does to me. I need something that forces me to conclude that no other option exists.
In this case there are two scenarios that are not impossible, albeit problematic. These are the 'Zamora hoaxed it' idea ( problem is that he gets very good character reports and motive is unclear) and secondly the lunar Surveyor idea ( problems include precise timing and it only fits part of the scenario).
In terms of the fogged photos, they also took Geiger counter readings at the site showing no excess radiation, so this information is a bit contradictory.
The other witnesses all appeared later and in not ideal ways ( second hand, unidentified or otherwise problematic)
I don't for a moment doubt that there were physical traces present and they were recently created. The record at the time shows patches of burnt vegetation and the holes ( and some charred cardboard). The vitrified sand is a later claim with no documentation. Assuming it actually existed this implies a less than obvious alteration of mineral grain surfaces which has been widely observed in studies of the effects of smouldering.
Anyway...I'll leave it at that. If you believe Zamora 100% it's unidentified, if you don't it's a hoax or the lunar Surveyor. To me it's insufficient information.
Tomas..."I give you another example, when the Space Shuttle Columbia met it's fate, I believe there were detailed photos/ videos taken from far away. Now, that information was not initially released, but years later it was. If the same equipment could photograph the Columbia, don't you think the same equipment would have already photographed a UFO's?"
ReplyDeleteThe difference with Columbia is that it was returning, more or less, to schedule. The only surprise was that it exploded. (Well...less surprising to some at NASA who knew there was a potential problem with the heat barrier tiles.)
There's always someone, somewhere, with an interest in filming such events, with cameras poised...("poised" being the key word here.)
I'm a bit of a geek for going to air shows and have hundreds of photographs of all sorts of military aircraft. Some years back I was out hiking and an RAF Tornado zoomed through the valley just below me. By the time I'd fumbled about and got my camera out, it was gone. I wasn't expecting it. I'd instantly recognised it but couldn't react quickly enough to photograph it and I expect that would be the experience of many people who happen across UFO's.
As I mentioned on an earlier thread here...even with my iPhone in my hand, after punching in my pin...selecting the camera icon and taking a snap, probably 20 seconds have gone by.
Shame these damned flying saucers can't run to a schedule or be as punctual as a comms sat.
PART 1.
ReplyDeleteI find myself in agreement with most here that Zamora did indeed see an unknown object, that it left real traces, but there is no way to prove the object seen was of extraterrestrial origin. But I have a theory...one that doesn't jump to the conclusion every unknown object is alien, and one that doesn't paint Zamora as some dope who couldn't identify a hot air balloon or a lunar surveyor hung from a helicopter.
First, this is just a theory that includes some speculation on my part, although there are real facts behind this theory that haven't come to light for a very long time.
Regarding Zamora, it's important to note that he stated very clearly he didn't believe in flying saucers from outer space. He never changed his mind. This almost assuredly means he didn't hoax it and he wasn't pushing an ET explanation for what he witnessed. That also means he thought the object of terrestrial origin.
My theory begins with Romanian born inventor Henri Coanda who discovered the "Coanda Effect" decades before Zamora's sighting. Coanda stumbled upon a principle of fluid dynamics when he became the first pilot to fly a jet aircraft near Paris in 1910! The principle he discovered allows for accelerated lift using an aerodyne that directs the flow of air over a curved surface as show in the wind tunnel demo below:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AqxJe-RMUsI
In the 1930's Coanda patented disk aircraft designs (in France) using this principle. Patents were submitted in 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1940 (the "aerodyne flying disk"). He also submitted patents after WW2 in the 1950's and 60's. Isn't it funny that we've never seen a full scale version of these disks fly, or have we? The designs do work as shown in these small scale present day mock-ups:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sdGVI7kJld0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KXVtUCABiv8
Notice the "wobble" so commonly described by UFO witnesses back in the 1950-60's.
PART 3.
ReplyDeleteNow about the logo Zamora saw, if the Houston based Astro Kinetics had a logo it can't be found because the company records aren't available or have been classified.
But isn't it funny that the first logo with the line underneath and arrow pointing upward to a curved arch resembles EXACTLY the Astro Kinetics silver saucer below? Line for ground, arrow for lift, dome for saucer?
Craft: http://www.laesieworks.com/ifo/lib/Astro-V-Dynafan/Astro_Kinetics-July-1963-Popular_Science.jpg
Symbol:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yF7H1VCM5zQ/U9mq9QeVW-I/AAAAAAAAF9A/1oP3H-rXqP4/s1600/Socorro1.jpg
Interestingly I have searched for a similar logo in vintage 1960's logo registries. Surprisingly I found one logo that is a very close match but turned on its side. While published the logo is marked "Identity of logo misplaced during publication". How odd....
In conclusion what I theorize is that Houston based Astro Kinetics developed and demonstrated a flying saucer to the military, who in turn "acquired" the company after the president and founder "died" one week later, then tested improved versions (two man vehicles etc) and quite literally collaborated with Avro or the Canadian government in its development following the Avro saucer failure.
There's too many coincidences here for me. But you be the judge. Isn't it at least possible the man saw one of these dynafans in operational testing? The flight characteristics are the same, and the aircraft travels very close to the 120 mph Zamora claimed.
None of those vehicles was egg shaped, and they worked pushing air not a blue flame.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ufor.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Real-Flying-Saucers.pdf
When I was in Socorro I took pictures of every single article from El Defensor concerning the Socorro incident up to 2 years from the event. (In their office they have original copies)
I will be showing the recording of Ray Stanford and Dr. Hynek CONFIRMING the fogged film and the metal in the rock.
Once we present in Orlando this information will be out on CD's.
This was no hoax.
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDeleteIn this case there are two scenarios that are not impossible, albeit problematic.
I disagree. They are both impossible. What you are proposing (hoax, US craft) was all proposed 50 years ago by investigators and rejected for complete lack of evidence.
These are the 'Zamora hoaxed it' idea ( problem is that he gets very good character reports and motive is unclear)
No, the fundamental problem is that it was impossible for him to hoax it since he would not have had the time to do it (e.g. the area still smoldering when Chavez arrived at his side a minute later and multiple other police within minutes) and the ability to create the physical evidence (e.g. the burning without any trace of accelerants)
and secondly the lunar Surveyor idea ( problems include precise timing and it only fits part of the scenario).
Fits none of the scenario: 1) Tested 100 miles away near Alamogordo; 2) no way to get there (the idea that a helicopter could have been carrying it without being observed or heard is preposterous--Zamora also said it flew away in total silence); 3) No conceivable reason to test it WAY off-range; 4) See Larry’s post—no complete Surveyor existed there—only landing systems were being tested 5), Even, ignoring that, no way for it to burn the soil or plants (would not be fueled; also would have left traces of its fuel behind, not found); 6) had three, circular, flat landing pads symmetrically arranged, not four, asymetrical rectangular, wedge-shaped ones; 7) Was much smaller than what Zamora described (born out by measured larger spacing between impressions); 8) looked more like a camera tripod, not even close to the smooth, egg-shape described by Zamora; 9) Lacked the red symbol Zamora described; 9) No reason to take off in a hurry with a policeman approaching (nothing secret about it); 10) Escaped AWAY from White Sands Proving Ground, not toward it, heading towards the mountain range only 2 miles away, then said Zamora, went into a rapid, steep climb.
In terms of the fogged photos, they also took Geiger counter readings at the site showing no excess radiation, so this information is a bit contradictory.
Doesn’t take into account the chronology--radiation readings were done two days later. Nobody argued the radiation was long-lived, because pictures taken right afterward were fogged, but pictures the next morning were OK. This is what would be expected from bombardment of the soil by an intense beam of charged particles. Just like a particle accelerator, it would create various isotopes that would decay quickly, most with half-lives measured in millisecs to minutes. E.g., silicon is the most abundant element in most soils. Bombardment of the three stable isotopes with protons or alpha particles would be expected to produce one isotope, Si(31) with a half-life about 160 minutes. The following morning, 5 to 6 half-lives later, it would have decayed to only about 2-3% of its original value, probably enough that it would no longer fog film. But 2 days later, it would have decayed a thousand-fold more, probably no longer detectable above background radiation. (Other short-lived isotopes of other elements would also be expected.)
The other witnesses all appeared later and in not ideal ways ( second hand, unidentified or otherwise problematic)
Opel Grinder, gas station operator, appeared very quickly to back up Zamora. So did police dispatcher Ned Lopez, saying three residents called in reporting the bright light in the sky. Second-hand, but I don’t know what’s problematic about their testimony. State policeman Sam Chavez took only a minute or so to get to Zamora and reported him appearing to be badly shaken, seeing no evidence of anybody else being there, seeing the area still smoldering, and seeing fresh impressions in the ground. The policemen who arrived minutes later reported the same things. Nothing second-hand, unidentified, or problematic about them.
David wrote:
ReplyDelete"... Nobody argued the radiation was long-lived, because pictures taken right afterward were fogged, but pictures the next morning were OK. This is what would be expected from bombardment of the soil by an intense beam of charged particles."
I had never thought about that particular angle before, but you're right. Proton beams are used for a standard elemental analysis technique called Proton-Activation Analysis. When the nuclei of elements commonly found in the soil, such as Calcium, Iron, Silicon, etc. are irradiated with a high energy Proton beam it creates meta-stable, excited states of the nuclei. The excited states quickly decay away to the ground state and emit Gamma rays of very specific energies. The energies can be measured very precisely and used to infer the presence and concentration of specific elements.
The fact there are negligible long-lived activation products left behind is why you can use a Proton beam for Cancer treatment. You can irradiate the tumor and surrounding body tissue with Protons and it will produce a lot of prompt radiation localized at the spot where the Protons are absorbed, but the residual radiation decays away rapidly and does not present a persistent danger.
Couple of minor notes...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Zamora, the time he broke off the chase of the speeder was "17:45" (Mil) on April 24, 1964. Thinking about this, the time he stated would have been dusk outside. When it got to the arroyo, Zamora would have been looking East in to the darker background (assuming I have my orientation correct) and the sun, would have been at his back. This is one reason why Zamora might have been able to get as close as he did because the sun, if any, was at his back. Lighting conditions would have been darker to begin with. Thereby, if this had been a hoax, the darkness would have made a cover-up take longer. (speaking to and agreeing with those who noted about the witness(s) who got their quick.)
Also these conditions might have made an identification slightly more difficult for Zamora. Zamora had the high ground and started "down towards the object."
After this Zamora said "It appeared to go in straight line and at same height—possibly ten to fifteen feet from ground, and it cleared the dynamite shack by about three feet. Shack about eight feet high. Object was traveling west fast. It seemed to rise up and take off immediately across country."
Here is where I have a comment and question. Socorro is North NW of White Sands Missile Base. The craft ("traveling west") would be nearly in the opposite direction of White Sands. If I understand Larry's math correctly about the LLRV theory, heading west would have been stupid for fuel reasons if it was heading back to White Sands.
The second comment I have is what Zamora heard (from the craft) and when it stopped. He also made the comment about the craft "possibly blow up". With the dynamite shack a short distance away. and all of this happening within seconds, this would have given most people a heart attack. Personally I would have saying my prays at this point thinking the sound ended and this thing could go into the dynamite shack. Also no responsible person and especially a police officer would be a part of any hoax with dynamite close by.
Comments?
David wrote:
ReplyDelete"....all proposed 50 years ago by investigators and rejected for complete lack of evidence."
Just because they couldn't find the evidence they were looking for doesn't mean the object was an alien space vehicle. Obviously this wasn't a hoax or a wayward hot air balloon.
If it's not a lunar surveyor, which I think it's not, then we are still left with a terrestrial explanation - that can only mean some unidentified secret aircraft landed briefly and took off again.
No one asks why these "aliens" landed so close to the town or even near a police chase....were they dumb aliens? If they wanted rock samples they had the entire state of NM to obtain them, and from remote locations where they never would have been seen.
What landed was probably terrestrial. Any "blue flames" may simply have been the reason this craft landed - fuel leak - perforated fuel tank - temporary engine malfunction. Who knows....
And don't forget, some ufologists have shown that the FBI was involved and confiscated evidence. That alone may be the reason Quintanilla didn't find what he was looking for. And why would he be briefed into a classified project when his task was to minimize credibility of sightings via Blue Book? They may have kept all of this from him.
But no....certainly not a hoax.
Brian wrote;
ReplyDelete"No one asks why these "aliens" landed so close to the town or even near a police chase....were they dumb aliens? If they wanted rock samples they had the entire state of NM to obtain them, and from remote locations where they never would have been seen.
What landed was probably terrestrial. Any "blue flames" may simply have been the reason this craft landed - fuel leak - perforated fuel tank - temporary engine malfunction. Who knows...."
I don't see many who are saying this object was alien Brian, please don't confuse the issue. As for why an alien would land there, that's really a stupid question, who the hell knows why aliens, if indeed they are visiting us, do anything.
I realize that your mindset prevents you from considering anything other than a mundane explanation. The Air Force investigated all the known ongoing projects, how did they miss the one you postulated. Were the records that are missing now, missing then? Did this hovercraft emit radiation? What about the blue flame, did it have those. Did they use jockeys as pilots?
What we have is a mystery, we don't know what it was or where it came from.
@ Neal
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to argue with you Neil. It's a mystery.
My point is just because it's a mystery that couldn't be solved and still isn't solved, doesn't mean the answer must be extraterrestrial visitation.
There are many unsolved mysterys besides this particular sighting. For example there are earth lights, bloops from the bottom of the oceans, and some who say the universe is expanding. We don't know how it happens or the reason, so should we assume all those mysterious things are related to or caused by extraterrestrials? No.
There's nothing in this case that indicates it was an extraterrestrial visit. Even Zamora said he didn't believe in flying saucers from outer space.
What we are left with is a description of an unconventional terrestrial aircraft of some sort which likely landed due to malfunction, and rapidly took off again most likely because it was a classified project and wasn't really supposed to be observed close-up.
We have background information indicating the manufacture of unconventional aircraft which quickly got gobbled up and classified just months before this sighting which has factual data to support it.
That may sound mundane to you because it has nothing to do with it aliens, but it's not really mundane when you consider the fact that the technology I'm describing has still not seen the light of day in any major fashion even though it's viable for both commercial and military use.
There are many aspects of this case which have morphed well beyond what was actually reported. Foggy film, glass like melted sand, radiation, hoaxes, and other aspects which go far beyond what the original reports actually stated.
If you want to be technical about what Zamora saw, he didn't draw an egg on its side he drew an oval. It only has two legs- look at the drawing.
And the symbol on the craft he drew differently during different interviews. Once with an arrow, and once in a narrow fashion with the two arms of the arrow disconnected from the point.
Google the artwork that has been created depicting this incident and you'll see the craft drawn inconsistently in just about every shape possible. A disk, an upright egg, an egg on its side, a pill shaped oval tilted downwards, or a simple oval. There's even one depiction which is an almost identical dome shaped object reflecting the Astro Kinetics aircraft.
All of this artwork shows the red symbol he described as a large insignia on the side of the craft. In truth he claimed it was about 2" x 2". That's pretty small and difficult for somebody to be able to correctly identify from the distance he was from the object.
The problem with people who insist every mysterious flying object is an alien spaceship is that they will do everything possible to ignore real data which may point towards a terrestrial solution in favor of continuing their push that aliens are frequently visiting the planet.
Thanks for that info on "Astro Kinetics", Brian. Interesting stuff. I hadn't heard of them before.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the big problem with that kind of new tech hardware being that of which Zamora saw, is the intense heat and short life radiation it seemingly pumped out.
Brian wrote..."What landed was probably terrestrial. Any "blue flames" may simply have been the reason this craft landed - fuel leak - perforated fuel tank - temporary engine malfunction."
If these two guys originally landed in order to check out a malfunction that was causing it to spit out blue flame and radiation...would they be so quick to get back into the thing again and risk flying in it just because a cop had shown up?
I don't have a problem with people proposing GOOD mundane explanations. I do have a big problem with people proposing crappy mundane explanations that clearly don't fit the known facts, e.g. hot air balloon, Surveyor spacecraft, LLRV. Let's look at the BB proposed Coanda effect craft, made by Astro Kinetics of Houston, first demoed Dec. 1964 in San Antonio. Indeed, it was a VTOL craft, but does anything else really match?
ReplyDelete1. At least 1964 matches, but Socorro incident in April, not Dec. Did an operational craft even exist then?
2. Company and demonstration in Texas, Socorro incident in--Socorro, N.M.--one large state and 800 miles away. What would they be doing in Socorro, and 8 months before they even had a working prototype? (Also, according to Net docs, flew for only 2 hours--quite impossible for it to fly there, much less fly back. So where was its base near Socorro? No doubt that's top secret as well.)
3. Zamora's horizontal egg-shaped craft does not match a "saucer" or bell-shape of a Coanda effect craft. (In fact, the shape Zamora described would NOT work as a Coanda effect craft.)
4. Coanda craft used internal combustion engine (either outboard or car engine) to power UPWARD airflow through vent at top so that air would travel down over outer skin, what provided the lift from the Coanda effect. There is no central, downward "flame" of any kind. So what exactly caused the burning?
5. Engine would be very loud All THE TIME, not just on takeoff and landing. So how did it depart in dead silence as described by Zamora?
6. Landing pads completely different than Socorro--circular, small, flat on bottom closer together, symmetrical.
7. Prototype had power to carry only pilot, not two people. As shown in photo, pilot suspended from seat underneath, very exposed and visible. Zamora got within 50 feet and didn't see this, or when object rose to 15-20 feet and departed?
8. If it was so secret, then why are photos of the craft in the newspapers? If it was not secret, why would they flee the area?
9. Why would they fly to the west toward a mountain range and totally desolate country where there would be no support and a mountain to scale? How would this feeble craft rapidly climb up the mountain when it got there, as Zamora described?
10. Seriously doubt prototype actually flew 120 mph. Even it did, this is at the very bottom of estimated Socorro craft speeds, coming from Blue Book erroneously claiming object took 3 minutes to disappear after it departed. Zamora's written-up statement was that it took maybe 20 seconds before it faded out about 6 miles away, which would actually give it supersonic speed. Even conservatively tripling departure to one minute, average speed would still be 360 mph, much too fast for said Coanda craft.
Other than that, it's a perfect fit!
"What we have is a mystery, we don't know what it was or where it came from."
ReplyDeleteThe witness said he saw "two people in white coveralls" standing next to the machine, and the location is adjacent to the northern extent of White Sands testing range. So it's most very likely the witness saw some very earthy technology he simply didn't understand, period. So where's the "mystery?"
If we can't take Zamora's own statement: "Saw two people in white coveralls..."--and certainly Lonnie knew "people" when he saw them--then there's not much point in discussion.
Without being specific, we really do know the most very likely who, where and what. They just refused to acknowledge it. Why can't you?
If we had a picture of what Zamora saw, its identity would be obvious to us. And it wouldn't be a spaceship.
This is just another example of how the very IDEA "UFO" is absurd: Simply because some person saw something he failed to identify doesn't create a mystery. A mere "UFO" report does not create any thing that doesn't already exist in the world and possess an identity to those who know it in its proper context.
Some reports say the insignia was about 2" x 2". Others say it was 2ft x 2ft. Which is right, if any?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletePaul Young wrote:
Brian wrote..."What landed was probably terrestrial. Any "blue flames" may simply have been the reason this craft landed - fuel leak - perforated fuel tank - temporary engine malfunction."
If these two guys originally landed in order to check out a malfunction that was causing it to spit out blue flame and radiation...would they be so quick to get back into the thing again and risk flying in it just because a cop had shown up?
Yep. And a "fuel leak" and fire capable of scorching the ground would have toasted the pilot underneath in the process. (Did Brian even look at the photo of the craft with pilot he linked to?) This is just one of many fatal problems with the whole idea.
Another is the spectrographic testing of the soil by the Air Force would have turned up traces of the fuel, instead of the statement that no accelerants (volatile organic fuels) were found.
@ CDA
ReplyDeleteIndeed, and that's the problem. Various accounts and their interpretations (then until now) all leave in question certain factual details. Was it really an egg sitting on legs? Was it a saucer? Was it an oval tilted in some odd fashion? Were the markings even discernible?
@ Zoam
Indeed it was close to White Sands which brings up the real possibility of a man-made test aircraft. Doesn't it? Rudiak can claim 100 miles between Socorro and the White Sands Base is too far for various aircraft to fly, but it's ridiculous. If an aircraft can fly for even two hours on its fuel, but can also fly 120 mph or faster, it can easily traverse this distance with some fuel to spare.
CDA
ReplyDelete"Some reports say the insignia was about 2" x 2". Others say it was 2ft x 2ft. Which is right, if any?"
The latter, though also given as about 2ft x 3ft.
Something this large would have been VERY easy for Zamora to see as he got within about 50 feet. Also remember, Zamora was wearing his glasses up until the point that the object took off, he ran back to the car, bumped it and TEMPORARILY lost his glasses as he ran further away. As the object went silent, he ran back to the car, stopping to pick up his glasses, then viewed the object with his glasses zooming away and fading in the distance as he radioed the dispatcher to look for it and asked for backup.
As to his vision, as a cop he had to pass physicals, including vision tests. Minimum vision without glasses is typically 20/100 or better for policemen (varies with departments, but that used to be fairly typical). 20/100 means the ability to read letters 5 times larger than the 20/20 line of what is considered normal visual acuity. Someone with 20/20 acuity can read letters about 1" high at 50 ft. Someone with 20/100 acuity can still read letters 5" high. The insignia, however, was about 2 ft, so easily seen even in the worst case scenario if Zamora never saw the insignia with his glasses on and his vision was only 20/100.
Someone with 20/100 uncorrected vision would normally be near-sighted or myopic (or had some visual pathology that would have disqualified Zamora). The correction for myopes is concave or negative power lenses.
Far-sighted people (hyperopes) require convex or positive power lenses, like magnifying glasses. Unless they are severely far-sighted, young hyperopes often do not need correction because the lenses in their eyes can focus and clear things up. However, the eye focusing can cause eyestrain, so they may wear a correction for comfort and also for reading where the eye would have to focus even more to keep things clear.
So what was Zamora? I just came across an old news movie showing Zamora rotating his head, with the background (brush and soil) visible through his glasses.
www.theufochronicles.com/2015/02/the-lost-socorro-ufo-footage-video.html
(See 52 seconds into video)
The key thing to notice is that the background at one point is clearly inverted. (light soil on top, darker bush underneath). This is only true of positive lenses if you are viewing through the lens beyond its focal point. Thus Zamora was wearing positive lenses, meaning he was far-sighted, and probably had excellent vision close to 20/20 even without his glasses on. He probably wore the glasses to reduce eyestrain (or maybe had an astigmatism).
The correction also was not large, because there is no obvious magnification of his eyes that a high positive lens would have produced, and also would have produced an obvious break in the edge of his face as it passed under the lens, not visible at this resolution.
Another key element to Zamora's testimony had nothing to do with his vision but his hearing. Although the object took off with a loud roar, Zamora said the object then went quiet and departed the area in dead silence. This eliminates any possible human flying craft except a balloon, but a balloon could not have flown into and bucked the stiff wind blowing at the time. (This is just one of several reasons why a balloon could NOT have explained what Zamora saw.)
@ David Rudiak
ReplyDeleteLike I said David, amazing that ET buffs will deny factual evidence to support their claims despite real, earthly evidence even if you want to claim it's just circumstantial.
Regarding your point by point rebuttals:
1) The craft was reported to lift and head to the South East. That's not towards the closest mountain range and certainly not the mountains to the West-South West of Socorro seen from the site or the town. South East is towards White Sands and yes there are mountains that way but mostly an open valley (go and drive it and you'll see for yourself).
2) Measurements taken by police verified that there were 4 indentations on the ground; the distance between them formed a quadrilateral whose diagonals intersected at exactly 90 degree angles. The Astro Kinetics vehicle had four legs exactly at 90 degrees, not to mention (again) the feet being basically the same sized footprint and shape.
3) The figures he saw wore white coveralls and we have photographic evidence of the Astro Kinetics engineers wearing the same - or at least we know humans wear white coveralls.
4) Kratzer said he watched as "a round, saucer or egg-shaped object ascended vertically from the black smoke... After climbing vertically out of the smoke, the object leveled off and moved in a southwest direction."
So was it Southwest or was it Southeast? It all depends on your vantage point.
Was it a saucer or an egg? He couldn't decide but thought it was one or the other. The Astro Kinetics vehicle was technically deemed a "saucer shaped" aircraft.
5) Kratzer said the object was silvery and had a row of apparent portholes across the side and a "red Z" marking toward one end. At the time he thought it might have been an experimental vertical-lift aircraft.
So was it a "Z" or was it the version of insignia drawn by Zamora, or Hynek, or Stanford?
Kratzer thought he saw a VTOL aircraft. The Astro Kinetics vehicle was an experimental VTOL aircraft.
6) The incident happened near the end of April 1964. The second Astro Kinetics vehicle was officially demoed in December 1964. So that's just 8 months later. Did you think these guys just slapped something together in a matter of weeks? It's highly likely given the complexity of a Coanda design that their first model(s) flew long before that demo. The company was formed in 1963. We don't know where they tested these prototypes because after the demo the company literally disappeared along with its records and founder.
7) The Coanda craft uses an engine to push air. Engines run on fuel. Fuel burns. In addition, there's nothing stopping anyone from attempting to gain additional lift through propane jets. Many aircraft of that era, and specifically before, used rockets to gain more speed to aid lift.
8) You claim such an engine would make constant noise. Perhaps, but demonstrations in wind tunnels show the noise is loudest while slowing down or speeding up - not at top speed. Besides, most small scale Coanda RC craft fly rather silently.
Zamora said the "roar lasted possibly 10 seconds...same time as roar, saw flame. Flame was under the object. Object was starting to go straight up slowly up...Thought, from roar, it might blow up... When the roar stopped, he heard a "whining sound going from high tone to low tone, which lasted about a second." Then,he said, "there was complete silence..."
This sounds remarkably like a prop blade winding up and down as it accelerates.
Of course, to you there are no similarities. Maybe in your world there really are aliens behind every bush!
So I guess we should all agree this proves beyond any doubt that aliens have visited this planet. After all, we can bank on that belief based on the nonexistent radiation and melted sand samples that prove aliens need rockets to propel antigravity machines.
Brian wrote;
ReplyDelete"The problem with people who insist every mysterious flying object is an alien spaceship is that they will do everything possible to ignore real data which may point towards a terrestrial solution in favor of continuing their push that aliens are frequently visiting the planet."
Let's turn that around.
The problem with people who insist every mysterious flying object is a terrestrial craft is that they will do everything possible to ignore real data which may point towards an alien or other paranormal solution in favor of continuing their push that aliens or others can't possibly be visiting the planet.
In my opinion neither approach is scientifically acceptable.
"What we are left with is a description of an unconventional terrestrial aircraft of some sort which likely landed due to malfunction, and rapidly took off again most likely because it was a classified project and wasn't really supposed to be observed close-up."
Pardon me but your bias is showing, you assume that they were able to quickly repair the malfunction or were foolhardy enough to take the craft on a flight that not only risked their lives but the secrecy of the project if it crashed.
"If you want to be technical about what Zamora saw, he didn't draw an egg on its side he drew an oval. It only has two legs- look at the drawing.
And the symbol on the craft he drew differently during different interviews. Once with an arrow, and once in a narrow fashion with the two arms of the arrow disconnected from the point."
Zamora could never be accused of being a great artist, his drawing would be called primitive art in the art world and a rough plan view by an architect. I read that some official person advised Zamora to change the logo in order to be able to identify later witnesses as false if they agreed with the drawing instead of the actual logo. Police do this sort of thing all the time.
Think about it Brian, 2"x 2" is roughly the size of a passport photo, at the distance Zamora was claimed to be that would make the insignia nearly insignificant. As CDA commented, I'm sure I read that 2' x 2' is closer to what Zamora actually said.
I don't really care about any drawing other than the one Zamora made soon after his sighting. I'm sure you read what David had to say about your Coanda craft, I agree with David.
@ Neal
ReplyDeletePlease don't throw me in with the debunkers, or the true believers (a new religion). As I have stated before, I believe extraterristal life is out there, but I am skeptical we are being visited as frequently as people claim. I believe we have to look at any event with some healthy skepticism.
I suspect a lot of these cases are related to secret US projects where something goes wrong (mechanically) resulting in a deviation from the flight path, and the general public then sighs these objects. Once the public sees the object they have no frame of reference to explain what they saw, so they jump to the conclusion it is extraterrestrial. I also don't believe this is a criticism of the person, or what they reported. I also hope that comes across in my comments.
I also believe we don't remember an event in a liner format, like watching a film. Rather we remember important segments (for us), and we will fill in the gaps when we recall the event.again. This is not a criticism of the person, rather an observation of the person's memory that we need to be aware of. So, if someone can not completely remember all the facts, I don't believe we discount everything they reported. Rather, a health dose of skepticism will help sort through the details to find verifiable facts.
Wow Brian good job of changing what was actually said to fit your model. Zamora said "2 things in what looked like white coveralls". He also said they were the size of small children, and when standing next to the bush, they estimated, since they were shorter than the 5 foot bush, to be about 4 1/2 feet tall. Tell us of of ANY project that used midgets or children as pilots.
ReplyDeleteThe symbol was 2x2 feet not the ridiculous 2x2" you posted. Hard to have a good discussion when the facts are distorted to fit your bad theory. There were 4 imprints, not 2 legs. Lonnie saw 2 from his angle but saw all 4 as it lifted off. The insignia WAS an inverted V with 3 bars. We have the Blue Book drawing, Hynek's drawing, and the official one in the National Archives, all an inverted v with 3 bars. All from the joint FBI, CIA, Air-force Blue Book files and investigations. They covered all of these companies that had experimental craft, none had one either in the area or actually working like this craft did. The lunar lander did not have an internal engine in 1964. The Bell object pushed air and was very clearly 2 men sitting in a saucer shaped very noisy object that could never hover silently.The office of the President, FBI and CIA would not be lied to. They were given access to all of these companies. Many worked at White Sands and there was nothing there that could account for this craft. They all wanted DESPERATELY to dismiss the case as a black project or something man made. They NEVER could and it perplexed even Hector to his dying day. Very few on this thread seem to have read all of the details on this case, or been on site. It is still classified as an "UNKNOWN". If they had found a good match for any craft they would have surely announced that, instead they spent a lot of money trying to prove its origin, and never ever did.
Tommy said:
ReplyDelete"I suspect a lot of these cases are related to secret US projects where something goes wrong (mechanically) resulting in a deviation from the flight path, and the general public then sighs these objects. Once the public sees the object they have no frame of reference to explain what they saw, so they jump to the conclusion it is extraterrestrial. I also don't believe this is a criticism of the person, or what they reported. I also hope that comes across in my comments."
Indeed there's no question this is the case. It's always "funny" these things show up around military bases, isn't it ?
Of course if you're a true believer like David or Neil, none of that is important. It's easily explained away through speculative reasoning that a technologically advanced race of super-intelligent aliens millions of years ahead of us just happen to be fascinated with our ancient primitive tool-like weapons so much that they've traveled across the entire galaxy to get a very brief look at them then runaway as fast as they can. Of course all backed up with not a single schred of physical evidence proving aliens are visiting.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense....
Brian,
ReplyDeleteHere is the link for the description page, press release and patient (filed on 2/28/64) for the "Astro V Dynafan". (Second story down)
http://www.laesieworks.com/ifo/lib/VTOLdiscs.html
Here is the problems in your argument. The US Patient that the company applied for had only one person in the vehicle. Zamora clearly said 2 humans. So where did the second person sit on this thing?
In the Press Release was the "Specification" of the craft. They used a Chevy Corvair "1965" turbo charged engine rated at 148 net HP. There was a document with a Mercury outboard engine in a earlier version and I will not question this. I will question the second man theory you are proposing. In the specs this craft according to their own engineering was rated at a max. takeoff weight of 1070 pounds with a empty weight of 680 pounds. So the maximum amount of fuel and a man could be 390 pounds. 390 pounds is closer to the weight of 2 man with no fuel.
The engineers rated the "maximum endurance at 2 hours". Explain how you can put 2 man on this craft that was designed for one with little to no fuel then fly all that way from White Sands and back? Impossible.
In the picture of the "Astro V Dynafan", on at least two sides was the American flag decal. Don't you think Officer Zamora would know the American flag which was bigger than the 2" by 2" decal? This picture also shows other decals above it. Do you think Zamora missed those decals or forgot them?
The blue flame. how do you explain the blue flame coming from a Corvair or Mercury outboard engine? With little or no fuel at time of take off? No refuel truck around?
Even with either engine, there was nothing in the patient to suggest that once it got off the ground the craft had a silent engine muffler or however you want to define it. So explain your theory how either engine type could go silent running?
I looked and couldn't find any indication that the "Astro V Dynafan" was ever located at White Sands. There was nothing I could find that it left Houston, Texas. What can you show us in decimation that this craft was ever at White Sands?
Finally I read Kevin's original part about Zamora stating the craft headed "West" and I quoted this in my previous comment. Is Kevin wrong or did I misread what he said?
I strongly suggest you read "Astro V Dynafan" Press Release and Patient and look at the picture again. If you have additional documentation to back your idea up I would like to see it.
Brian
ReplyDeleteDo you ever read what others write here, do you even read what you write? I guess the sarcasm and exaggeration on your part indicates that once again you have failed to pound the square peg in the round hole. You put so much emphasis on the engineers in white coveralls, did any of them look like 10 year old children? Did they fly this craft in coveralls or flight suits like the LLRV pilots.
Near military bases? How near? I have at least three major bases within 100 miles of me, and many smaller units. Again just BS from the debunker types. How many bases are in Texas alone?
I can't speak for David but I'm a true believer in the truth and presenting facts without ignoring important parts so it fit ones mindset. Oh, and please spell my name correctly.
It went into a strong 35-45 MPH wind going SW. The wind on site is very strong.
ReplyDeleteA recurring explanatory scheme for the Zamora sighting is that Zamora and the other witnesses actually saw a conventional aircraft of some sort and misidentified it as being unconventional. I use the same definition of "conventional" as Paul Hill; a conventional aircraft is one that flies according to Newton's laws using some combination of generally accepted principles of aerodynamic lift, propulsive thrust utilizing propellers, rotors, jets, rockets, ducts, etc. One aspect of this type of explanation I’ve never seen addressed is how poorly the reported aircraft maneuvers correspond to “normal” aircraft operations. In particular, it cannot escape notice to those of us who are FAA licensed pilots that the maneuvers would have been in violation of Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) on numerous counts.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we have FAR 91.119 which states in part,
“… Over other than congested areas…the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.”
This regulation was first violated when the car full of tourists that stopped at Opal Grinder’s gas station a few minutes after Zamora turned off the road to pursue the object, reported that they were “buzzed” at close range. Later, this regulation was violated when the object suddenly took off vertically while in proximity to Zamora, and flew off into the distance.
The only conventional aircraft types that seems to have even a chance of matching the characteristics that Zamora described are rocket, jet, or ducted fan (Coanda effect or equivalent) powered VTOL craft. Such craft would have operated under an experimental type certificate. FAR 91.319 states, in part, “No person may operate an aircraft that has an experimental certificate outside of an area assigned by the Administrator…”. In other words, if an experimental Lunar Lander had been given permission to operate at White Sands and the crew had decided to go joy riding hundreds of miles away, they would have been in violation of FAR 91.319.
When the aircraft departed, it flew off over the West end of runway 6/24 at an altitude probably within a few thousand feet of the ground level. In other words it flew straight through the airport traffic area. Since the Socorro Municipal Airport does not have a tower, that might not have been strictly illegal, but it certainly does not represent best practice and could arguably be considered to be reckless.
FAR 91.117 sets the speed limit for flight through Class E airspace as 250 kts (287 mph). As David pointed out, a reasonable minimum estimate for the average speed of the object as it departed Zamora’s sight was 360 mph. So whoever was operating the vehicle didn’t care about the speed limit.
Whether you think the vehicle was of conventional design or not, the pilot was certainly unconventional.
Well said Larry!
ReplyDeleteI have a ton of information on this case as we prepare to present it at the Mufon Symposium.
Here is a little JEWEL, Hynak confirming the "not people" and the insignia. In another interview we have made later than this one, and after Lonnie talks to Lt. Holder, Lonnie says he was told "not to talk about the symbol."
http://www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Hynek_interview.html
People will go to great lengths to distort facts. Let's take a look at what was originally reported at the time of the incident regarding the "occupants" and the "legs" of this craft.
ReplyDeleteBen Moss claims I'm distorting facts, but let's look at what Ben is really pushing here by his inaccurate interpretations.
Ben said Zamora was quoted as having said he saw in his own words:
"2 things in what looked like white coveralls".
No - Zamora NEVER said the occupants were "things", or anything even remotely like "aliens". This is the twisted language used to distort facts to drive a mysterious ET explanation.
In reality, Zamora claimed he saw the occupants once, from about 1.5 to 2 football fields away, according to his official report. And he only got glimpse of them for about two seconds....before he drove to the location 100 + yards away. Here's what he actually said:
"Saw two people in white coveralls very close to the object. One of these persons seemed to turn and look straight at my car and seemed startled–seemed to jump quickly somewhat."
NOTE: "people" and "persons" not "things".
"The only time I saw these two persons was when I had stopped, for possibly two seconds or so, to glance at the object. I don’t recall noting any particular shape or possibly any hats, or headgear. These persons appeared normal in shape–but possibly they were small adults or large kids."
NOTE: "people", "persons", "small adults", and "large kids" from a 2 sec. glance 100+ yards away.
"When I first saw the object (when I thought it might be a car) I saw what appeared to be two legs of some type from the object to the ground. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to what it was–I thought it was an accident–I saw the two persons."
NOTE: "persons"
Ben also claims Zamora testified to seeing four legs on the craft, two initially, and the remainder when it took off.
Ben writes:
"There were 4 imprints not 2 legs. Lonnie saw 2 from his angle and all 4 as it lifted off."
Actually, Zamora claimed this in his official report:
"When I first saw the object (when I thought it might be a car) I saw what appeared to be two legs of some type from the object to the ground."
NOTE: "two legs"
"I didn’t pay any attention to the two “legs?” The two “legs” were at the bottom of the object, slanted outwards to the ground. The object might have been about three and a half feet from the ground at that time. I just glanced at it."
NOTE: "two legs"
"Being that there was no roar, I looked up and saw the object going away from me. It did not come any closer to me."
Please note Zamora never said he saw four legs only two, even when taking off.
In fact, his prescription glasses (and sun shades attached) fell off before he saw the craft take off. His vision was impaired!
He was interviewed later by Streeter Stuart from NICAP and said the following:
STUART: Was it standing on legs?
ZAMORA: Yes sir, it had legs, I called it legs, yes.
STUART: And you thought there were four of these?
ZAMORA: Apparently there was, from the markings on the ground, there was four legs, yes.
So you see Ben the only time Zamora concluded there were four legs was AFTER he examined (with others) the impressions. He NEVER claimed to see these legs as it went upwards and didn't know if they had been retracted or not. He didn't see the four legs as it lifted like you claim.
This just points out that some believers will distort the facts as means to misdirect readers from the truth - they will accuse others when they know that they themselves are the ones distorting facts!
For those of you keeping score at home, I have gone back through the Air Force file and found a statement made by Zamora, not one of the reports written by someone else quoting Zamora, but a statement he made... and yes, he did say two people, though I'm not sure that this should be the issue it has... and I found a report that said Zamora was 103 feet from the object and the beasties (whatever they were).
ReplyDeleteJust a few notes to let you all know that I'm still paying attention.
Brian started out commenting:
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever walked that site... there is absolutely no way this was a "student hoax". That explanation is so lame and with no real evidence to back it up that it's preposterous. Yes I've heard of the students with stilts and all that nonsense and it's dumber than claiming the incident was absolutely an alien spacecraft!
First, having walked the site myself, I believe anyone can easy see no one could conduct a hoax and not be fully observed setting it up and running away and hiding. The terrain is totally incapable of supporting a preplanned event by students conducting a balloon hoax and then scurrying away unseen. No chance. Walk the site and you will see for yourself.
...Additionally, I understand that a bulk majority of people prefer the explanation that a NASA helicopter was flying a lunar surveyor from guide wires and let it touch ground and then took off again.
Well that doesn't work either because again if you walked the site you can clearly see that the sky is big, wide, and open. There's no chance of Zamora "missing" a view of the helicopter, its noise, or its position directly above. No way...
Wow, I said to myself. Having walked the site myself, I 100% concurred with Brian's comments, have written much the same myself, as did Hynek responding to Menzel why a hoax was impossible.
That was the logical, factual Brian. This quickly changed to the bipolar Brian who is illogical, nonfactual, and self-contradictory with his Coanda craft theory. When I pointed out, e.g., that the Coanda craft he cited would have made a continuous loud noise, yet Zamora reported the object departing in dead silence, suddenly it becomes quite possible in Brian's world that the engine would be perceived as completely silent, yet for a helicopter there was "no way" Zamora could have missed its noise. (In reality, the Coanda craft would have to be at high power just to maintain its lift and max power to fly off against a stiff wind.) There was also "no way" that Zamora could not see a helicopter there, but in defending his theory, Zamora now can't see the correct shape of the thing, nor could he see the very obvious pilot suspended underneath.
Brian also obviously hasn't read much of the Socorro documentation. He doesn't even know what direction Zamora said the object went, trying to claim it was described somewhere heading southeast, back towards White Sands. Total bunk! Besides using either “west” or “southwesterly” to describe the departure direction, Zamora unambiguously described four landmarks defining the trajectory as being to the WSW: 1) Over the dynamite shack (about 500 feet away, UP the arroyo), 2) straight for the perlite mine at the base of the mountains, 2 miles away (still easily visible today), 3) climbed steeply UP the mountain when it got there; 4) faded out in the vicinity of 6 mile canyon. ALL of these directions are between W & SW The W or SW direction was also generally used in Hynek and Blue Book writeups, clearly AWAY from White Sands, not towards it.
Unable to explain the burned ground, Brian also flails his arms, saying that the engine used fuel and fuel burns. (Yes, Brian, but inside the engine, not outside. If it was burning outside, the pilot underneath would have been cooked and this flaming craft would not be taking off again.) That not being enough, Brian then argues that maybe the craft also had propane jets for additional lift. (Right! Of course it did. Just invent crap with zero documentation if you have no credible rebuttal argument. Of course, also no explanation how either burning gasoline or propane would leave no trace behind when soil was tested by an AF lab.)
To paraphrase Brian, if he has to defend his theory with made-up facts and multiple inane, contradictory, and desperate arguments, then “it's dumber than claiming the incident was absolutely an alien spacecraft.”
(1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteJ. Allen Hynek wrote Donald Menzel a year letter, with multiple arguments against a hoax, still worth repeating:
... The hoax hypothesis is, of course, one that suggests itself immediately. It is Quintanilla's and my opinion that both Chavez and FBI agent Byrnes must have been in on the hoax if we adopt the hoax hypothesis. They testified that there were not tracks in the immediate neighborhood and so that the hoaxsters must themselves have arrived and left by balloon! Had it been a hoax, certainly some paraphernalia should have been left around if the pranksters beat a hasty retreat. These gentlemen said that nothing of that sort was found.
The wind was blowing strongly from the south [more likely the SSW], yet the object was reported to have gone on directly west [more accurately the WSW]. This would hardly fit a balloon, unless, or course, the directions are wrong. I questioned and requestioned the people on this point and couldn't shake them from that.
... Opal Grinder [gas station owner], of course, would have to be in on the hoax, also. He again told me the story of the tourist who said that he had sighted a strange object crossing directly in front of him on the road and landing in the gully, and toward which an instant or so later, he saw a police car going. I checked out the time on that, and it fits. Opal Grinder's wife was just preparing to go to the bank before it closed at six (apparently she takes the week's loot to the bank on Friday's just before they close). The sighting as you know, was supposedly at 5:45 P.M.
...the things that would seem to militate against a hoax are the fact that no tracks coming to or going from the region were found, minutes after the sighting occurred; paraphernalia was not located, again within minutes; Chavez and the FBI agent would have to have been in on the hoax; and finally, the object took off crosswind. Paraphernalia I refer to would have been ropes, launching equipment, gas tanks, etc. which would have been difficult to dispose of in a few minutes and certainly without making any tracks. You say "the whole thing could have easily been planned to come off as it did." I think otherwise; it would have been quite difficult to have a thing like this come off, even as to the original timing. Zamora did not have a regular patrol route so his approximate whereabouts would not be known at a given time. I questioned Chavez on this, and Zamora patrols the whole town in an unscheduled fashion... The fake UFO would have had to have been rather sizeable since it looked to Zamora like an overturned car, upended, first off from a considerable distance.
...You suggest that when Zamora's car crested the hill, the hoaxsters triggered another blast of flame and released the UFO, and ran like hell. The terrain is such that when a car crests the hill, it suddenly comes upon the site. There simply would not have been time to wait until this happened to release the UFO and then hide; not unless there were elaborate ropes and wires running over some distance on the ground. As long as Zamora wears his glasses, his eyesight is good, and you must remember that he did not lose the glasses until after he saw the flame and thought the object was about to explode.
... I have not yet discovered how to make a balloon go off crosswind or to wait to release it and cause an explosion until someone was just one hundred feet away from me, and then disappear and hide "instantaneously." If the purported balloon release had been by means of delay mechanism, with the hoaxsters having had time to hide, then the release mechanism or some parts of it would have been left behind as tell-tale evidence.
Hynek continued (2 of 2)
ReplyDelete... I come back also to the trenchant fact that Zamora was a thoroughly scared person. Chavez has remarked this to me a number of times that never in his long association with Zamora has he seen him in anything at all approaching the state he was in when Chavez joined him. I honestly don't think a small gas-filled balloon carrying a cardboard spaceship could have frightened a gruff, practical type like Zamora who is used to accidents, bloodshed, fights, and even murders. We all seem to agree that Zamora saw something that really and truly frightened him.
It seems much more likely to me that he saw a strange test craft which is super secret. The flaws in this reasoning are that if it is so super secret why would anyone be landing a half mile south of a town. Why, also, have we been unable to unearth from various agencies any classified clues as to such goings-on?...
Coming back to the Socorro case: I'm sorry that I couldn't have been of any more help. Both Quintanilla and I find it impossible to dismiss as a hoax unless we have some evidence that there was a hoax...
To David Rudiak,
ReplyDeleteYou nailed all of the important points. I am in agreement with you on every single one of them.
Here is one more maybe... Even if Brian's secret test craft was USA made, Wouldn't it have to have a FAA flight Certificate for an experimental aircraft? Doesn't flight certificate also require a flight and maintenance logs be created and be kept up-to-date? I don't know much about this subject and thought I would ask.
Thanks,
I quote here Colonel Hector Quintanilla's exact words as per the chapter the wrote in the Fortean Times book "UFOs 1947-1997, Fifty years of Flying Saucers". The chapter is entitled "Project Blue Book's Last Years".
ReplyDeleteHe writes as a conclusion: "Although I labelled the case 'unidentified' I've never been satisfied with that classification. I've always felt that too many essential elements of the case were missing. These are the intangible elements which are impossible to check, so the solution to this case could very well by lying dormant in Lonnie Zamora's head".
I interpret this to mean that Quintanilla believed that Zamora had NOT told him or other investigators everything he knew. Certain 'elements' were being withheld. Of course, it may be the opposite of this, and that certain things Zamora told him had were things he had imagined he saw. We simply do not know.
Perhaps Quintanilla was trying to weasel out of his dilemma and put the blame on Zamora. At any rate Q had done a very exhaustive investigation, looking at every facet of the case, but had turned up zilch.
And it looks like it will stay that way, forever.
The timing is wrong but this vehicle performs like what Officer Zamora saw in 1964.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
@ Craig
ReplyDeleteI'm familiar with your arguments regarding Astro Kinetics.
Not to drag this out, but given that at least two publicly acknowledged vehicles were built, and for all practical consideration had to be started at least a year before Zamora's sighting when the company was formed, isn't it possible the company itself or the military had built test designs and other prototypes as well? Rudiak will say NO, because he believes in nonexistent radioactive and melted sand evidence. He also believes in the USAF lab tested samples despite the fact he claims the USAF has been hiding the truth for 70+ years. One time he despises them, the next he likes them. Which is it?
Prototypes are prototypes and they have mechanical failures. Zamora claimed to have seen two persons from a distance between 150 and 250 yards or so away. He claimed he saw them for two seconds.
Now we learn he saw them about 100 feet away. It's just additional details expanded upon from his first statements.
Which testimony of Zamora's are we to accept? The one that David Rudiak insists points to an ET explanation because Blue Book determined it was "unknown" and truly unidentified?
Now even at 100 feet that's a quick turn of the head and back to see anything and describe it accurately. Try it yourself. Not to mention Zamora lost his prescription glasses mid way through the incident which impaired his vision from then onward.
So we can't rely much on his description as to whether or not it was two, three or even ten dozen persons. It may have been one at that distance given such a quick glimpse. That may (might) explain the engineering improbabilities you describe regarding fuel and weight.
Now we don't know where this company tested its aircraft prototypes because the records don't exist or have been classified. Doing so requires completely ignoring a saucer shaped VTOL aircraft was produced during the same general timeframe AND that it was quickly classified and completely disappeared immediately afterwards including all public records and its founder dead.
So if you want to dismiss a coanda type VTOL craft or even Astro Kinetics' version because of dates, publicity, or mechanical features, go ahead. But alien spacecraft millions of years ahead of us and which use (presumably) advanced antigravity propulsion are not likely to use thruster rockets with blue propane-like flames, are they? They wouldn't need them. If it can lift, float, and fly silently at hundreds if not thousands of miles per hour, it wouldn't need booster rockets at take off.
Yes I know the old excuse, "We don't know how aliens might behave etc.", but that's not evidence circumstantial or otherwise. It's a way of dismissing the things one doesn't like in order to push an idea based on pure, entirely conjured up fictional alien speculations.
To suggest this sighting couldn't be a terrestrial aircraft of some type, a coanda saucer craft or even a prototype of an Astro Kinetics craft, you'd have to IGNORE related information that even if circumstantial is closer to the details of the incident than simply stating this event must certainly have been an alien spacecraft.
Of course people like David Rudiak relish dismissing terrestrial explanations and their related facts because their minds just can't fathom the thought that some mysterious alien race(s) might not be visiting us every day.
There's nothing in this case that proves this craft was an alien vessel. Nada. There's more evidence to suggest a terrestrial aircraft regardless of the claims of Rudiak and others who again just can't stomach the idea they might be wrong about their alien dream fantasy.
No it wasn't a hoax, but that doesn't prove it was aliens from another world.
Nobody reads. How many times does it need to be pointed out: no evidence left of any type of known propellant.
ReplyDeleteBrian you are completely wrong and obviously did not listen to the link. Here is the first Zamora interview in it's complete transcript showing that YOU are inserting the wrong words. Do some due diligence instead of making it up as you go.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Hynek_interview.html
"SHRODE: Well I don’t blame you. The thought if it scares me even yet. Now you did say you saw two what appeared to be people dressed in white uniforms with... did they have helmets on like space men or anything....?
ZAMORA: No sir, I wouldn’t say they were people, I just... I saw something white, white coveralls, that’s all I can say
SHRODE: Like something in white coveralls.
ZAMORA: Right.
SHRODE: But you couldn’t identify them as actually being a actual human being, like you or I are?
ZAMORA: No sir, I couldn't.
SHRODE: You didn’t know where they turned and saw you or what then?
ZAMORA: Well, ahhh [hesitatingly], to my... I would say that... that, that, the white object turned and saw me.
SHRODE: Were there two of ‘em?
ZAMORA: I would say there were two, because one was in front and the other of them was in back."
@ Bob:
ReplyDeleteI'm familiar with those interviews Bob. That's nothing new to me. Think of it this way, the Zamora descriptions and statements that I provided came immediately upon his sighting. His interview comments came after.
You can deny all you want that he didn't see "people," but those are the words he used; I simply wrote them in my commentary. Those are his words not my words.
If anything, Zamora's post sighting interviews reflect the amount of thought he put into his descriptions. No doubt he became even more confused about what he saw, wasn't certain, and therefore couldn't verify it.
Note he states he couldn't say whether they were people or not, and that's post event and post his original testimony that I quoted.
Clearly he didn't know what he saw, which is why he can't really say they were people or not. Imagine that he was simply confused after having thought about what he had really seen.
Is he lying? Is he changing his story? Is he really not wanting to say he truly saw aliens in spacesuits?
No, he's answering the questions truthfully. He was asked if he could confirm they were people. He said no he didn't know what they were.
By doing this he's not saying "I don't know what they were because they didn't look like people they looked like space aliens or monsters", he's simply saying he can't be certain they were people. He doesn't know. He can't confirm any of that having thought about it after the event.
So if he had actually seen what everybody suggests he saw, which no doubt is probably two 4 1/2 foot alien Greys with large heads, big black eyes, dressed in silvery white spacesuits, then why in the heck wouldn't he just say it from the very beginning?
He could've simply said, "I believe I saw a spaceship or a flying saucer from another world. There were two monsters or creatures standing next to it. They were short, had big eyes and big heads and very long arms. They jumped into the craft with a thump as they closed the hatch. And seconds later they blasted off like a rocket going to the moon. As a police officer, I can tell you for certain alien life exists and I've seen it. This is proof of it, and we all need to be aware that creatures from outer space are visiting us and potentially even threatening our national security."
Well, he didn't say it did he. So why does anyone conclude what he saw was most definitely aliens instead of people? There's no poof that aliens exist, but we do know that humans exist.
Who's to say that the entire Socorro incident wasn't what Jacques Vallee refers to as a "staged display," or in other words, something that was made to appear to Zamora as he described, with a surreal combination of both prosaic and unexplained visual and audio elements?
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting an extraterrestrial explanation necessarily, but what if some form of either native or non-native advanced non-human intelligence was involved, or that perhaps what Zamora saw and heard was _designed_ to elicit a form of cognitive dissonance that would inject elements of the unknown not only to him, but the others who soon became involved in trying to investigate Zamora's sighting would also end up, as did Quintanilla, with no logical explanation that would address all the elements that Zamora reported? That would leave the residue of intellectual doubt and a kind of incommensurable curiosity that would, in a plausibly deniable way, drive further inquiry?
Obviously this is mere speculation, but I can't resolve what Zamora claimed to have seen, if he was honestly telling the truth about his sighting, particularly the loud sound of takeoff of the "object" which was then followed by silence as it appeared to move off rapidly into the distance. Nothing we had at that time, especially, nor even now, can or could have replicated that combination of observed propulsion and audio aspects, so I believe any form of prototype lunar or Mars lander can be ruled out, as did Quintanilla after extensive investigation.
To me, Socorro remains an unknown, neither ET, CT, or human-created. The incident just seems inexplicable, unless Zamora confabulated aspects of his sighting. On the other hand, if he was completely truthful, what I'm implying is that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could make whatever Zamora observed appear as "they" desired.
Or is what I'm wondering about too far "out there"?
Also, there has been ongoing debate about whether the 2 1/2' tall x 2' wide red symbol or insignia Zamora reported seeing on the side of the "object" was the traditional publicly known upward pointing arrow with a semi-circle above it and with a horizontal line below it, or as Hynek and Stanford said was, instead, an inverted V shape with 3 horizontal lines running through the inverted V.
ReplyDeleteIt has been claimed that Capt. Richard Holder told Zamora to publicly indicate the former symbol as a means to discriminate between false "copy cat" UFO reports vs. actual sightings in the area, and that the real symbol was the inverted V with three lines across it, and I'd like some of the experts here, like David Rudiak, Kevin Randle, or whomever, to offer their opinions and documentation on that unresolved part of Zamora's report.
Interestingly, there was a contemporaneous newspaper report, with an illustration, allegedly from six different (but unidentified) supposed witnesses, that shows the inverted V symbol, not the "up arrow" insignia:
http://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/04/artists-rendering-of-symbol-on-ufo.html
[Illustration from San Antonio Express, pg. 8-A, April 30, 1964]
Who were the six witnesses? Where did that inverted V insignia come from so soon after Zamora's original report? Were Hynek and Stanford correct or not? If so, how can that be proved, and if not, why not?
Brian asked: "So why does anyone conclude what he saw was most definitely aliens instead of people?"
ReplyDeleteFor me to answer that question, from my own perspective, I would first have to change "most definitely" to "possibly". Then I would say have to say that after reading many reports of interceptions by our pilots, who referred to the objects as being "evasive" in nature, I would ask, "why?" If its "us", why the pressing need to avoid being contacted? I have seen more than one report in the files about a craft being recorded on RADAR, and simultaneously being sighted by intercepting pilots, where the "disc" shot "straight up, as if escaping into outer space". This was in the nineteen fifties. So...who had that ability around these parts?
Then I would consider: Did Sgt. Zamora come across two teenage boys who got caught with daddy's BMW? --as in: "oh no, we are gonna get it now! Let's get outta here!" No, but yet it is clear that the two "individuals" were "evasive in nature".
If he had happened onto a scene of an experimental craft being down, it most likely would have played out much differently. It would have been more like, "hey, Sgt. Thanks for checking on us. Do you think you could go back out and keep people away while we contact our superiors?", etc. They certainly would not have needed to panic and jump back into their (I thought it was a disabled?) craft and escape.
Just like the "flying discs", they try to avoid us. Again I ask, why?
We would then have to consider the possibility that they were enemy agents, of some type. But truly, how likely is that?
I guess my point is, after you start breaking the reports down, and consider them along side the Socorro story, you begin to run out of logical possibilities. So, why NOT consider the last alternative? Is it really likely there is some secret "break-away" civilization out there, unknown to us?
What is left?
If Zamora simply saw two "people" in white overalls, then why was he in such a panic?
ReplyDeleteChavez says that when he arrived, Zamora seemed to be in a state of shock.
I've read elsewhere..."The witness, a patrolman named Lonnie Zamora, insisted on seeing a priest before he spoke of what he saw, "because he thought he might have seen something diabolical"...
We're talking about an experienced policeman here. I'm presuming he was carrying firearms. I'd expect him to not be of such a nervous disposition that he would freak out over the sight of two blokes.
I really don't know what to make of it all. What he reported (an unknown aircraft...a loud roar...and two blokes in white over-alls) doesn't tally with the effect it seemed to have on him.
I can only speculate that he played down what he had seen.
Paul Young: The state of shock Zamora was in was primarily from the object taking off in front of him with a loud roar and Zamora saying he thought it was going to explode. He ran back beyond his car and ducked down. For a brief period he thought he might die. That will usually get the adrenaline going in a big way.
ReplyDeleteSteve Sawyer: The inverted V with bars through it was reported initially in the newspapers from several sources, including Sgt. Chavez and Hynek. The San Antonio Light reported Zamora himself saying it. According to Ray Stanford, every Socorro policeman he spoke to said that's what Zamora told them. E.g., Stanford has Socorro dispatcher Mike Martinez on tape saying this was Zamora's description (in Spanish). The other symbol appeared initially in Zamora's drawing for Army Cpt. Richard Holder, the White Sands officer who quickly investigated the incident starting within an hour or two of when it happened. Zamora and Chavez both were quoted saying the military instructed Zamora not to discuss the symbol, and one theory is that Holder asked him to create the alternate symbol to weed out potential copycat hoaxers who might pop up following publicity. But I can't find the alternate symbol being reported initially.
One of Hynek's original handwritten reports to Quintanilla (based on his interviews with Zamora), recently found in the National Archives by James Fox and Ray Stanford, has the inverted V with three bars (though more like 2 short bars underneath in the interior of the inverted V and another short bar on top, the bars not passing all the way through the V). This was written in Sept. 1964, so seems unlikely that Hynek would be passing on false information to Quintanilla at this point.
www.theufochronicles.com/2014/06/new-revelations-re-socorro-ufo-incident.html
@ Bob Koford
ReplyDeleteyou said; "I guess my point is, after you start breaking the reports down, and consider them along side the Socorro story, you begin to run out of logical possibilities. So, why NOT consider the last alternative? Is it really likely there is some secret "break-away" civilization out there, unknown to us?"
From my and other's many attempts to apply our logic, the way most of us understand logic, to Brian's version I've decided that he is incapable or unwilling to consider any explanation that doesn't include some secret project or another. Call it cognitive dissonance, or some other mental disassociation he just can't seem to consider any paranormal explanation. Maybe he was considering something out of the ordinary with some time traveling secret craft to explain the Kenneth Arnold sighting. But I digress. I should add that from my personal perspective if this sighting did turn out to be a secret project I would be happy with it, case closed would be great. But so far, none has fit the report.
A question, in some interviews with Ray Stanford he has indicated that he has information that he has not released until it was the right time. Will your upcoming presentation be that right time? That was a serious question, I certainly don't want to sound snotty.
Brian is so confused about when the Zamora interview I posted occurred that I will stop doing his homework for him.
ReplyDeleteDavid is correct the symbol is an inverted v with 3 bars. It is in the N. Archive from Hynek, in the Project Blue Book files, and was reported by 4 separate newspapers well before the Air Force had Lonnie change the symbol. This is all documented in official files.
The evidence that Ray has, and that we have seen, contains 2 egg shaped craft flying in the distance, one with landing gear out, one just an egg. Both are tilted at an angle and the closer object with 3 landing gear clearly seen is only .6 miles from Ray's Argus C3 with a 50 MM lens. There are several other objects visible. We are trying to get him to let us show it in 3 weeks, but not there yet. This would be a more interesting exercise if several of the posters here had read Rays book or the Blue Book files. Some, Brain in particular, cannot get his facts right no matter what the evidence says.
@ Ben
ReplyDeleteFunny how Zamora drew a different symbol (not the one you and Stanford/Rudiak claim) in his original sketch isn't it? The quotes I gave you are from Blue Book. It's just your selective mind that wants to ignore them! Still claiming Zamora reported "things" and all "four legs" at blast off?
Steve wrote:
"Who's to say that the entire Socorro incident wasn't what Jacques Vallee refers to as a "staged display," or in other words, something that was made to appear to Zamora as he described, with a surreal combination of both prosaic and unexplained visual and audio elements?"
If we went that route, then the object seen and its occupants shift into the nether realm of the paranormal rather than physical, or material per se.
Diabolical evil spirits, demons, and the like who play games with the mind of observers to taunt them, cause religious confusion, raise internal questions about life after death, human existence, and God. I suppose you could call those creatures "inter-dimensional" since they can phase in and out of the physical world, manipulate space-time, and utilize physical objects as part of their mischievous behavior.
I have no problem with that, but I'm sure many skeptics and believers who post here do. We can't prove it scientifically. Both camps believe in an explanation involving something material from the physical universe as the answer to these sightings. Most can't stomach the thought that these "tricksters" might be the same guys haunting houses, conjuring up Nessie Dog Men, and Big Foot, or throwing objects at them from open kitchen cabinets.
Paul wrote:
"I've read elsewhere..."The witness, a patrolman named Lonnie Zamora, insisted on seeing a priest before he spoke of what he saw, "because he thought he might have seen something diabolical"..."
If that is true, then we might suspect his concerns were rooted, at least for a time, in his religious beliefs related to something more paranormal, such as Steve's reference to Valle's "tricksters". The Devil? Demons? Ghosts?
Bob wrote:
"Then I would say have to say that after reading many reports of interceptions by our pilots, who referred to the objects as being "evasive" in nature, I would ask, "why?" If its "us", why the pressing need to avoid being contacted?"
Only a few answers really come to mind, probably yours and mine.
1) Perhaps these entities really are Valle's "tricksters" who don't care to get caught....their strategy is to remain elusive and yet annoy and boggle the human mind.
2) Secondly the so called "secret government" really does exist, and there's a powerful group of elites who have access to technology that keeps them in power, and occasionally they get seen. Not as far fetched as one might think. It was highlighted during the Iran-Contra affair and remains some people's explanation.
3) These craft really are classified black projects and they have issues with being observed. It's not the first time they have gone to great lengths to hide black projects.
4) On a very remote chance, some could be aliens from another world. Although we don't have evidence to prove it - it's just a hypothesis.
In truth, the answer is likely to be some combination of the things above.
I do not understand this other evidence Ray Stanford claims to have. OK so there are two egg shaped craft in a film he took. What precisely is the connection between this film and what Zamora saw? Other witnesses have at times seen egg-shaped objects. Where and when did Ray take this film?
ReplyDeleteNeal Foy:
"A question, in some interviews with Ray Stanford he has indicated that he has information that he has not released until it was the right time...."
What is this supposed to mean? Is this one of those 'I cannot release everything I know until the appropriate time' utterances just to keep the public on the edge of their seats? If it has ANY relevance to Socorro, which I doubt, then the 'right time' was as soon after April 24, 1964 as possible; failing which as soon after he took the film as possible.
UFO's with legs:
ReplyDeleteSo Ben are you claiming Stanford has actual photos of Zamora's craft? Are these from the incident or years after?
Are they supposed to demonstrate such UFOs exist or prove Zamora's case was ET?
For those interested here are some of the only UFOs photographed with legs hanging down.
1967, Yorba Linda, California
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_adkR8XTZJok/SrgCNcCXXVI/AAAAAAAAIqY/i3pa_FMO3lA/s1600-h/1967-yorba2.JPG
1973, Cocoyoc, Mexico
http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/cocoyoc73.htm
B you are incorrect about the symbol (and everything else) and I am not discussing that as you were easily trapped by the symbol that the AF pushed on Lonnie and had him sign. Lt Holder and Hynek both said that the symbol was changed on purpose. And you believe a newspaper release? I have documents that slap down your take just as the interview did, clearly showing Lonnie did not say people.
ReplyDeleteI am not going into a deep discussion on the picture taken at the site. I already had that experience on another blog. Your reaction to this is one of the main reasons why Ray is reluctant to let the picture out. You have been almost completely incorrect in much you have said so there is no point having a basic discussion since you do not know the case and the facts.
For anyone else hope you can come to Orlando on the 25th. After that event I will share more info on our Mufon Va web site. If I had authority on the picture I would release it on the Internet for FREE and let everyone have at it for analysis. Some top scientist have already seen it. But that is not my call.
Thanks to most for a great discussion.
This is my last post.
As my old friend Spock would say "Live long and prosper".
@ David and Brian.
ReplyDeleteThe point I was trying to make above, (quite poorly, as I read it back to myself) was really directed towards Brian's comments that the two "beings" seen by Zamora were [human} men...otherwise he would have described them as "aliens"
BB..."So if he had actually seen what everybody suggests he saw, which no doubt is probably two 4 1/2 foot alien Greys with large heads, big black eyes, dressed in silvery white spacesuits, then why in the heck wouldn't he just say it from the very beginning?"
What I was trying to say is that there must have been something about the occupants that really spooked him if he wouldn't discuss this with anyone before he saw his priest... ie...maybe they did look like classic greys. (we've already heard that he considered them to be only around 4.5 feet tall)
To reiterate...he was too frightened to have simply seen a couple of blokes. (two guys who didn't threaten him in any way...in fact they couldn't get away from him quick enough!!!)...so what was it about them that made him rush to his vicar?
We've already heard from other people in comments above that Zamora was pressured into giving false info about the symbol on the craft...so is it a step too far to believe that he might also have been pressured into saying the occupants were men, when they most definitely (to his mind) weren't?
"there must have been something about the occupants that really spooked him"
ReplyDeletePaul; Zamora never said anything about being frightened by the "two people."
"Suddenly noted a shiny type object to south about 150 to 200 yards. ... Saw two people in white coveralls very close to the object.
"The only time I saw these two persons was when I had stopped, for possibly two seconds or so, to glance at the object. ...
"Then paid attention to road while drove towards scene. Radioed to sheriff's office 'Socorro 2 to Socorro, possible 10-44 (accident), I'll be 10-6 (busy) out of the car, checking the car down in the arroyo.'"
There's nothing there about being frightened by the "two people" and "a car turned upside down" seen from "150 to 200 yards." He says he drove towards the scene and radioed that would be out of the car investigating the accident on foot and up close AFTER seeing the "two people." Does that sound like he's frightened. Absolutely Not!
Please stop trying to "spook" this story up. Just stick with the facts of Zamora's original report and not what was made up afterwards. We may not know exactly which exotic flying machine out of White Sands Lonnie accidentally witnessed that day, but it was definitely not beyond the space technology being developed at the time.
http://www.nicap.org/reports/640424zamora2.htm
Ben wrote in his farewell address:
ReplyDelete"I am not going into a deep discussion on the picture taken at the site."
NOTE: (at the site)
"I already had that experience on another blog. Your reaction to this is one of the main reasons why Ray is reluctant to let the picture out."
"For anyone else hope you can come to Orlando on the 25th. After that event I will share more info on our Mufon Va web site."
So, nothing against Ben or Ray, but this just smacks of an "advertising pitch" to get people to go to a UFO conference.
As if Ben is saying:
"Ray has secrets...I have secrets...want to know? Come to the event..."
Now if Ray had these photos of Zamora's craft from "the site" as Ben now claims, but was afraid to reveal them in 1964...you have to wonder how legit this is and what Ray's agenda has been all along.
Ray writes a book, goes on talk radio, etc., and holds significant evidence for 52 years before releasing?
And Ben believes that gimmick?
And what's with Ben NOT wanting to discuss this because he took heat on another blog? His secret info is only good before a UFO-ET supporting crowd at a MUFON supported conference?
Give me a break....
"In my opinion neither approach is scientifically acceptable."
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Neal, not opinion, false analogies--as is your comparison of skeptics and believers--aren't acceptable, logically, scientifically or any other way. It amounts to nothing but finger-pointing in opposite directions and claiming they're equal when they're very obviously not. Sharing a disposition to strong beliefs does not make opposites, or any other points on the scale, equal.
I've seen this trick dozens of times over decades used by those trying to rationalize their belief in "UFOs" and other paranormalist mumbo-jumbo. They also like to refer to themselves as "true skeptics," pretending that the suspension of judgment, the inability to make judgment, is of greatest importance, even when a case has been made and the conclusion is obvious. Instead it's simply an excuse to believe anything could be true when there's no good evidence for it, and so no "UFO" case is ever decided in the paranormalist fantasy world.
"Saw two people in white coveralls..." is pretty clear to me. “Well, I didn't think it was an object from outer space because I don't believe in those things” said Zamora, best witness to the event.
Skeptics know that the "UFO" subject has more to do with new-age religion, science-fiction and publishing than it does with astronomy, hypothetical ETs and interstellar travel. And not all but many space scientists will tell you that interstellar travel would be a highly risky if not impossible undertaking for anyone from anywhere, and will be always. A great many more guffaw at the idea that even a fraction of "UFO" reports might be ET spacecraft. It's not impossible, there's just no good evidence.
Hard evidence and where it leads is what counts to skeptics--not credulous belief ahead of selective and wishful enhancement of the details of inherently dubious stories. And all the evidence in total--all "UFO" stories ever--leads to a very different conclusion for why people make "UFO" reports than visiting ET spacecraft.
Brian B:
ReplyDeleteRay is withholding photographic evidence he acquired maybe 52 years ago. This evidence, so we are told, goes to support whatever it was that Zamora saw in 1964.
So yes, we all have to attend the said conference to learn the vital truth of whatever Ray has. You will be missing something vitally important concerning the past, present and future of our planet, and other planets too, if you don't attend.
So make sure YOU are there! Me? At my stage in life, I probably can't make it. A great pity, but there it is.
zoam said;
ReplyDelete"Hard evidence and where it leads is what counts to skeptics--not credulous belief ahead of selective and wishful enhancement of the details of inherently dubious stories. And all the evidence in total--all "UFO" stories ever--leads to a very different conclusion for why people make "UFO" reports than visiting ET spacecraft."
zoam, if you actually practiced what you preach this statement wouldn't be so hilarious. An example would be your failed attempt to prove the LLRV was what Zamora saw. You twisted so many facts, made up your own version, left out important details, on and on, Is this your hard evidence, if so I'm laughing at it.
Admit it zoam, you're no skeptic, you think alien visitation and paranormal mumbo jumbo as you call it can't exist so it doesn't exist.
If you actually read my posts instead of twisting things as is your M.O. you would know that I don't have a preconceived notion that ET is the only explanation.
Try opening your mind zoam, it will be a refreshing change. Someone once said if you don't have an open mind you should keep your mouth shut. I think that's good advice.
All:
ReplyDeleteZamora saw the two "beings" (human or otherwise) from the top of the previous mesa. Having been there, I checked where he would have had a view and found that the topography was such that he could look up the winding arroyo to the site from a distance of about 800-900 ft. Zamora thought he was maybe 200 yards away when he saw the beings, but he was actually further away. Closer than ~800, he would be dipping down between mesas, in fact at 200 yards was at the bottom of the shallow dip between mesa. That and the winding topography would have obscured his view of anyone there until he drove up onto the next mesa and got fairly close and looking down into the bottom of the arroyo.
By the time he got there, he said he didn't see anyone, but heard several loud thumps, like someone shutting a heavy hatch. (Zamora had been in the Army and driven tanks, and compared it to that.)
The point here is when he briefly spotted them, he was too far away to see fine details, like what their faces might look like (assuming they weren't covered up), or what sort of hands they might have (if they weren't covered).
Instead he said they resembled "white coveralls", or what they were dressed in. He said one of them looked up and appeared startled that he was there. He did perceive them as being humanoid (like the shape of coveralls) but small, child-size, because they were shorter than the greasewood shrub they were next to, later measured to be about 4-1/2 feet tall.
So if they were human adults, they were midgets. Any use of "people" would be in the generic sense--they resembled small people wearing white suits of some kind. Here's a short excerpt of Zamora's description during an interview with KSRC radio newsman Walter Shrode right afterward (www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Zamora_interview.html):
SHRODE: Now you did say you saw two what appeared to be people dressed in white uniforms with... did they have helmets on like space men or anything....?
ZAMORA: No sir, I wouldn’t say they were people, I just... I saw something white, white coveralls, that’s all I can say.
SHRODE: Like something in white coveralls.
ZAMORA: Right.
He wasn't scared of the beings seen from afar (though things didn't seem normal--he called state policeman Sam Chavez for backup at that point). What scared the bejeezus out of him was when he attempted to approach on foot after parking his car, probably got within 50 feet, and the thing took off with a roar emitting a bright blue "flame". He thought it was going to explode and ran away. Then it departed the scene in dead silence at high speed, which may have created some additional psychological shock or stress in this conservative, skeptical man, who said he didn't believe in UFOs and was now in a state of major cognitive dissonance from what he had just experienced.
Zoam wrote
ReplyDelete"... We may not know exactly which exotic flying machine out of White Sands Lonnie accidentally witnessed that day, but it was definitely not beyond the space technology being developed at the time."
As I've said before, few people can pack so much BS into such a tight space as Zoam. He's practically in a class by himself. Let's look at that sentence, one piece at a time:
First, as Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial we." Since Zoam is neither king, president, nor editor, you can figure it out for yourself. By using "we", of course he pretentiously sets himself up as though he's speaking for a larger group. Needless to say, that's a lie. He's speaking only for himself. The more accurate confession of his ignorance would be, "I (Zoam) do not know exactly which exotic flying machine out of White Sands Lonnie accidentally witnessed that day...". This would be a true statement as far as it goes, but he's being modest; his ignorance extends further. Zoam has no tangible evidence and therefore no knowledge that any exotic flying machine at all was at White Sands that day much less that it took a joy ride to Socorro. These two ideas are made up out of whole cloth.
Second, the statement "...it was definitely not beyond the space technology being developed at the time..." is factually incorrect. In my longer postings above, I listed at least 4 observations that Zamora and others reported that are definitely not reflected in the space technology being developed at the time (or even today, for that matter). Those are:
1. The wide mouthed funnel shape of the "flame" is beyond rocket thrusters or turbojets of the time. 2) The ability to land, take-off, and hover over unprepared desert floor without creating a crater, ejecta streaks, and a massive dust cloud is beyond rocket and jet thrusters of the time. 3) The ability of space-storable bi-propellant thrusters or vertically facing turbojets to vitrify sand is beyond such thrusters of the time. 4) The ability to fly off into the distance at great speed without making any sound is beyond rocket or jet thrusters of the time. Zoam is the one making the assertive claim here; it is up to him to substantiate his claim. Show some counterexamples from 1964, for instance.
Straw-man, Neal. I never said the LLRV was what Zamora saw, but you pretend that I did so you can wrongly dismiss the "earthly high-technology out of White Sands" hypothesis. Understand the meaning of word "hypothesis," Neal? I said he might have seen the 1963 jet-powered Bell prototype lander since it combines the attributes described by Zamora and could seat two men. And gosh, Bell Aerosystems R&D existed at nearby White Sands testing range. So the lander prototype or something much like it is most likely what Zamora saw.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've seen not one bit of evidence that would cause me to think otherwise. As a skeptic I adhere to parsimony, I doubt any extraordinary explanation is necessary to explain any "UFO" report--a mere anecdote--until someone shows that it is.
All I have seen from known science-fictioneers pushing their flying-saucer and paranormalist beliefs is excuses, phony rationalizations, and make-it-up. If that's all you have, Neal, maybe you should follow your own advice because you're not showing anything otherwise.
Does not this Socorro affair bring up the whole problem with these single witness UFO sightings? If we accept what Zamora says literally, there is no satisfactory explanation in terms of what is known to science. But if we allow for human error and memory lapses (both very common occurrences) then things become more explainable and indeed more terrestrial, such as Zoam proposes.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need to take EVERYTHING Zamora describes as the gospel truth. Quintanilla more or less came to the same conclusion, as I said earlier. This case will simply degenerate into another argument between believers (i.e. those who take Zamora's evidence as the literal truth) and skeptics, who do not.
Naturally I am trying to find a way out of the dilemma, but there is no simple answer. If only we had two or more independent witnesses to this whole affair.
If only!
zoam,
ReplyDeletePlease get this through your thick skull, there simply was no known earthly technology in 1964 that could do what the object Zamora saw did. Read Larry's comment please.
I assume you mean Kevin when you refer to science fictioneers, how does that disqualify him? He has shown himself to be a no bullshit investigator as well. I wish I could say the same of you, you are certainly no investigator and you are chock full of bullshit!
I will have nothing else to say to you, have a good life in your confused little brain.
Gentlemen =
ReplyDeleteLet's reign in the rhetoric a little bit here. Make your points without the name calling. This is not the national elections.
@ Neal who wrote:
ReplyDelete"Please get this through your thick skull, there simply was no known earthly technology in 1964 that could do what the object Zamora saw did."
The operative word here is "known". You really can't say there didn't exist such technology when the facts show:
1) Saucer craft concepts were patented by genius level inventors long before 1964 and the records prove it. It's a fact.
2) Paging through publically available material does not prove such technology could not exist in 1964. There is such a thing as classified projects and they are compartmentalized. It's a fact that such projects do exist and the US Congress knows they do, because they approve most of the funding without knowing where the money goes.
3) Science and engineering has demonstrated multiple ways to levitate and propel an object in flight without the use of conventional wings and fuselage. The object did not behave in such a manner that it couldn't be replicated by humans.
I'm fascinated with the ET supporting crowd who goes to great lengths to debunk terrestrial explanations that may account for many sightings while displaying constant skepticism that humans cannot engineer such craft. The same crowd insists the governments of the world and their military are incapable of classifying and secretly hiding black projects, yet claim the very same governments are more than capable of classifying and secretly hiding aliens and their technology.
Are you people that far lost into this subject that you will ignore and deny terrestrial possibilities because you just can't stomach the thought that aliens may not be visiting or for that matter, even exist?
Brian;
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"The operative word here is "known". You really can't say there didn't exist such technology when the facts show:"
No kidding Brian, that's exactly why I wrote it that way. And maybe you missed it but I also said that I would be perfectly happy with a terrestrial explanation for the Zamora sighting. But so far we haven't had one. You and others have made some proposals that ignore certain parts of the Zamora testimony, sorry, but close isn't good enough. You can't just ignore things and make things up in order to force fit your pet explanation. That's what I object strongly to.
For my own sighting I have always said that there was a possibility that it was a secret project of some kind, among other possible explanations. That's what an open minded person does Brian.
If it wasn't terrestrial then what was it? Just my opinion but I'm leaning toward a dimensional possibility. It's been said the math supports that and now it's an engineering problem. Maybe it's been solved by brilliant engineers somewhere, I don't know. But I can't rule out an alien explanation either. Maybe even time travel, another thing that only exists in theory as far as I know.
Brian
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind, I would like to interject my own thoughts here on the terrestrial secret technology angle.
Even the SIGN, GRUDGE and BLUE BOOK offices were aware of that possibility, and that is why they were given permission to access so many other agencies and offices to confirm or deny that they were "ours". The ones that remained "unidentified" were the ones that passed through the entire mill without explanation.
I often think about certain of the more modern Black Triangle sightings, and group them with the many of the disc sightings that I mentioned before. In the "Flying Disc" sightings, going back even to Gorman (yes, I am aware it was a lighted orb) I would again put forth that they were evasive.
They acted the way our NSA incursion ops would when being confronted by Soviet MIGs, high tailing it outta there, etc.
I add to this thought the fact that our Navy has access to extreme technology that they put to good use when there is a disaster someplace. Whether its drones, or Medships, or just personnel, the Navy is there first, or one of the first to arrive on the scene. Then I ponder: where are the giant black triangles, and the saucers, and whatever super advanced technology we supposedly have at our secret disposal?
Don't you think that these devices would come in handy, lending much needed assistance in, lets say, a flood, or an earthquake? They could be hovering over the area and pluck people out of the water, or off of rooftops.
But according to the school of thought that all these sightings are comprised of "us", they can't bring them out for these disasters cause its all so secret. But wait, they brought them out to hover over a freeway right in front of on lookers, or over someone's house, etc. It didn't seem to matter that it was a secret until an intercepting pilot showed up to check on who it is.
Really? Does that make any logical sense?
Then we are eventually forced back to the idea its some enemy nation --not very likely.
The point is, so many times we get pushed into this ever tightening vortex of possibilities that end up leading back to "Unknown."
@ Neal who wrote:
ReplyDelete"You and others have made some proposals that ignore certain parts of the Zamora testimony, sorry, but close isn't good enough."
Zamora was certainly a good witness, but even he couldn't be sure of certain aspects of his testimony. There's a good chance he got some thing "wrong" about what he actually observed given the "two second" glimpse he got and the various range of distances he reportedly saw things.
Let's not forget he lost his prescription glasses too; and whether he was near or farsighted or with poor vision overall I don't know, but you can't just ignore that and claim anything similar to what he saw is a "forced" explanation or "pet" theory.
Observers, even credible ones, can get some aspects wrong. There's plenty of evidence to prove that too. Case in point, WWII USN observers searching for enemy vessels from the air often reported they saw IJN carriers, when what they saw was really a tanker. Submariners would claim they sunk a battleship when what they really torped was a cruiser.
They weren't lying, they actually saw ships, but what they reported wasn't exactly correct. In other words, they got things wrong despite their best efforts, integrity, training, and determination.
"We may not know exactly which exotic flying machine out of White Sands Lonnie accidentally witnessed that day, but it was definitely not beyond the space technology being developed at the time."
ReplyDeleteWe do know, Larry, that the exotic Lunar Surveyor mounted to the side of a Bell helicopter was flying out of the northern extent of White Sands on the very day of Lonnie Zamora's failure to identify.
So your statement: "Zoam has no...knowledge that any exotic flying machine at all was at White Sands that day much less that it took a joy ride to Socorro" is just factually incorrect. We know that, don't we, Larry?
And we also know that Bell had created a free-flying jet-powered Lunar Lander prototype in 1963 that with a little imagination one might see how Zamora might interpret as the underside of a car standing on end from 150 to 200 yards, but then reinterpret, more closely and so more correctly, as an upright oval on legs. Still, from beginning to end, the man had no idea what he was seeing. But then Lonnie never really claimed that much.
Larry, your dismissal of the "earthly high-technology out of White Sands" hypothesis is based almost entirely on the descriptions made by a man who didn't know what he was seeing. How can you pretend to make definitive judgments based on Lonnie's failure to identify and the dubious claim of fused sand at the site?
Lonnie's account of the event isn't an objective recording, it's not an account of a simple failure to identify a machine, it's an imaginative product of the fallible human perception, conception and reporting process from beginning to end. It's more like a waking dream turned nightmare than an objective recording. First it's the underside of a car standing on end with "two people in white coveralls" standing beside it, then its temporarily out of his sight, but then he's much closer and the machine begins loud, then louder roaring as it blasts out of the arroyo and into Lonnie's sight again. It now appears to be a verticle ellipse with legs and a red arrow-like logo about 2.5 feet square. It rises and flies away horizontally and silently.
That's Lonnie's story anyway. How much of it and which parts are even close to accurate, are real or imagined is unknown. But even if relatively accurate there's nothing about it that's "beyond the space technology being developed at the time." Again, the Bell Lander prototype had been built the year before, the first LLRV was delivered in April 1964 and the rocket-powered Lunar Module would land on the Moon five years later.
"Most people in Socorro, and several of the investigators, thought it was most likely a secret government experiment, and some Blue Book researchers even pinned it down as a tenant operation run by Holloman, the base for the Surveyor test flights." --Dave Thomas, lifelong New Mexico resident and Socorro skeptic, http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm
Exactly, Dave, in 1964, "Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?"
Larry, in nearly every case we discuss, your goal seems to be the dismissal of mundane hypotheses by whatever means, as if by Sherlock Holmes' "logic" we must ultimately default to the extremely tenuous hypothesis. That strategy may work on loyal science-fictioneers but it's worthless in real-world logic and debate.
"For my own sighting"
ReplyDeleteSweet Baby Geezus! Neal has had a "sighting."
Yes, Sir! Nothing says WOO like "my own sighting." Good One, Neal!
"I'm leaning toward a dimensional possibility."
Neal, other dimensions exist ONLY at ultramicroscopic and ultramacroscopic scales. They are most definitely not complete 4D "worlds" that somehow coexist with ours. That's science-fiction.
Sorry, the Interdimensional hypothesis for "UFO" reports is almost as old as the ETH, and just as silly.
"But I can't rule out an alien explanation either. Maybe even time travel...."
Believe me, Neal, you can safely rule them both out. If ET were visiting Earth, we'd all know it already. The much better question is "Why haven't ET visited Earth?" And the most likely answer is that they are so rare and far away, and space travel is all but impossible, and they are so unlike us and a dozen other very good reasons, that we'll never even detect their existence, much less meet them.
As for time travel, Stephen Hawking says one might move fractionally into the future--never the past--while falling into a black hole, but being vaporized you'd never know it. For other hypothetical methods, he thinks that there is some undiscovered physical prohibition to it ever occurring.
Kip Thorne has said that if one were able to construct a viable time machine, it would either simply fail to function, do nothing or it might explode. Again, because some fundamental principle of the construction of spacetime would prohibit its functioning.
But imagine that a time-machine box would work, it would work only on time inside the box! Exactly opposite of the way time-travel is conventionally depicted. Doesn't seem very useful, does it? And again, the box works but it has done nothing; you shut it off open the door to the very same world you never really left.
Think about it, Neal, how's a time machine supposed to transform all of reality? Again, it's science-fiction. Same for worm-hole travel: one would have to physically harness all of the spacetime between two distant points in the Galaxy to open the wormhole. And even if that impossibility were somehow possible, as with a black hole, on entering, a spacecraft would most probably be vaporized.
Brian;
ReplyDeleteyou wrote:
"Zamora was certainly a good witness, but even he couldn't be sure of certain aspects of his testimony. There's a good chance he got some thing "wrong" about what he actually observed given the "two second" glimpse he got and the various range of distances he reportedly saw things."
Two seconds? Where did that come from? A hell of a lot happened in those two seconds is all I can say. When you exaggerate it doesn't help your case Brian. You're also forgetting the trace evidence that doesn't support your pet theory of the Coanda craft, this has been explained to you several times yet you persist.
Yes, observers do get things wrong, but your examples are apples and oranges in regard to the Zamora sighting, regardless of exactly how close Zamora was to the craft he was a lot closer than the observers you mentioned were to what they were seeing. Let's take another example, during the first gulf war gas trucks were mistaken for mobile missile launchers and targeted for destruction. It would be interesting to know if any were destroyed as a result of eyes on from recon troops on the ground. That may be classified, maybe Kevin can help us there.
@ Bob Koford
You made some good points and from what I've seen the military rarely misses a chance to weaponize technology. Yet we have no reports I'm aware of from ISIS or any other enemy forces of these Black Triangles. If they're capable of being used for disaster relief it would seem that extraction of wounded soldiers on the battlefield would also be a possible use. I don't know if Kevin flew medivac missions in Vietnam but I'm sure he would have welcomed one of these things instead of hanging his ass out in a skin ship.
@ Neal
ReplyDelete"Two seconds? Where did that come from? A hell of a lot happened in those two seconds is all I can say."
You could have bothered to read the previous posts. I'm referring to Zamora's Blue Book account of a "two second" glimpse of what Ben Moss insists were "things" (i.e. alien creatures) which they weren't. He never said that.
As for Zamora, you're ignoring that he lost his corrective glasses mid-way through this sighting.
Of course, everyone ignores that because it's so darn inconvenient....
About as inconvenient as time travelors from a parallel dimension....
"We may not know exactly which exotic flying machine out of White Sands Lonnie accidentally witnessed that day, but it was definitely not beyond the space technology being developed at the time."
ReplyDeleteWe do know, Larry, that the exotic Lunar Surveyor mounted to the side of a Bell helicopter was flying out of the northern extent of White Sands on the very day of Lonnie Zamora's failure to identify.
So your statement: "Zoam has no...knowledge that any exotic flying machine at all was at White Sands that day much less that it took a joy ride to Socorro" is just factually incorrect. We know that, don't we, Larry?
And we also know that Bell had created a free-flying jet-powered Lunar Lander prototype in 1963 that with a little imagination one might see how Zamora might interpret as the underside of a car standing on end from 150 to 200 yards, but then reinterpret, more closely and so more correctly, as an upright oval on legs. Still, from beginning to end, the man had no idea what he was seeing. But then Lonnie never really claimed that much.
Larry, your dismissal of the "earthly high-technology out of White Sands" hypothesis is based almost entirely on the descriptions made by a man who didn't know what he was seeing. How can you pretend to make definitive judgments based on Lonnie's failure to identify and the dubious claim of fused sand at the site?
Lonnie's account of the event isn't an objective recording, it's not an account of a simple failure to identify a machine, it's an imaginative product of the fallible human perception, conception and reporting process from beginning to end. It's more like a waking dream turned nightmare than an objective recording. First it's the underside of a car standing on end with "two people in white coveralls" standing beside it, then its temporarily out of his sight, but then he's much closer and the machine begins loud, then louder roaring as it blasts out of the arroyo and into Lonnie's sight again. It now appears to be a vertical ellipse with legs and a red arrow-like logo about 2.5 feet square. It rises and flies away horizontally and silently.
That's Lonnie's story anyway. How much of it and which parts are even close to accurate, are real or imagined is unknown. But even if relatively accurate there's nothing about it that's "beyond the space technology being developed at the time." Again, the Bell Lander prototype had been built the year before, the first LLRV was delivered in April 1964 and the rocket-powered Lunar Module would land on the Moon five years later.
"Most people in Socorro, and several of the investigators, thought it was most likely a secret government experiment, and some Blue Book researchers even pinned it down as a tenant operation run by Holloman, the base for the Surveyor test flights." --Dave Thomas, lifelong New Mexico resident and Socorro skeptic, http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm
Exactly, Dave, in 1964, "Why was there ever a question about the most likely identification?"
Larry, in nearly every case we discuss, your goal seems to be the dismissal of mundane hypotheses by whatever means, as if by Sherlock Holmes' "logic" we must ultimately default to the extremely tenuous hypothesis. That strategy may work on loyal science-fictioneers but it's worthless in real-world logic and debate.
Brian
ReplyDeleteYou could have mentioned people, we were talking about the craft. You continue to ignore the trace evidence. The Corvair was unsafe at any speed but how many burned vegetation?
Brian Bell spun:
ReplyDeleteYou could have bothered to read the previous posts. I'm referring to Zamora's Blue Book account of a "two second" glimpse of what Ben Moss insists were "things" (i.e. alien creatures) which they weren't. He never said that.
He also never said they were human. He was too far away at the time (800-900') to distinguish. He could see they were dressed in white (resembling white coveralls) and they were shorter than the greasewood bush they were standing next to (later measured at 4-1/2'), therefore appeared to be child-sized. To repeat what he told Socorro KSRC reporter Walter Shrode shortly afterward when interviewed when Shrode interviewed him on this (www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Zamora_interview.html):
SHRODE: Now you did say you saw two what appeared to be people dressed in white uniforms with... did they have helmets on like space men or anything....?
ZAMORA: No sir, I wouldn’t say they were people., I just... I saw something white, white coveralls, that’s all I can say.
SHRODE: Like something in white coveralls.
ZAMORA: Right.
Thus couldn't tell who they were, human or otherwise--he was too far away.
More:
ZAMORA: ...I would say that... that, that, the white object [NOTE: Again doesn't call them men, people, human, alien, etc., but "the white object"] turned and saw me.
SHRODE: Were there two of ‘em?
ZAMORA: I would say there were two, because one was in front and the other of them was in back.
And another interview by Ray Stanford with Walter Reidel, publisher of the Socorro El Defensor-Chieftain:
STANFORD: In talking to Dr. Hynek, he implied that Zamora had told him nothing specific at all about seeing any men and implied that he had never mentioned any men. He later seemed to come down and say that he did mention coveralls, after very pointed questioning by one of the persons who was present. But did, um, in this talk with Zamora soon after the sighting, since you were one of the first to be there, did he mention to you that he actually saw men or just coveralls?
REIDEL: He really doesn’t(?). He said there were two there. Now he didn’t say anything about them being men, but, ah, but you were meant to think so, because he said that he, that when he was still in the car, the one of them, both men or objects, had their back turned, and one of them turned around looked him squarely in the face. That was his exact words. And he very definitely said that he saw two men there at the, ah, at the object. He said that immediately, that he, ah, they disappeared, kinda got in the plane, from the side, from the west side, and the plane lifted up and started off.
"Men" is a word being used generically by Reidel as any beings LIKE men, which could be actual humans or "men from Mars". Zamora instead described them as "objects" resembling white coveralls. In fact, Reidel specifically says Zamora didn't say they were "men", but Reidel assumed Zamora meant as much because one of Zamora's "objects" reacted to his approach by turning around and looking at him.
More Brian Bell nonsense:
ReplyDeleteAs for Zamora, you're ignoring that he lost his corrective glasses mid-way through this sighting. Of course, everyone ignores that because it's so darn inconvenient....
In reality, it's been discussed endlessly by me whenever brought up. Zamora lost his glasses probably for no more than 10 seconds when he racing away from the object as it took off with a roar and bumped the rear of his car. When the object went completely silent, he raced back to the car, picked them up, put them on, and watched the object fleeing the scene and fading out in the sky to the SSW WITH HIS GLASSES ON!!
Now what part of Zamora's story was seriously affected by this brief period when he lost his glasses?
1) Before he got to the site and saw the two beings off in the distance from the previous mesa? No, because he still had his glasses on.
2) When he got to the site, got out of his car, approached to with 50 feet, seeing the red symbol on the object, then seeing the object start to take off emitting a bluish "flame" out the bottom which he said seemed to penetrate into the soil? No, because he still had his glasses on.
3) As the object sped away and disappeared in the distance? No, because he had put his glasses back on after returning to his car.
4) When he temporarily lost his glasses while fleeing the object, turned to see the object rising in the air about 20 feet, then speed off in a straight line, barely pass over the dynamite shack, and head for the nearby mountains? No, because he could still EASILY see a large NEARBY object like that rise in the air without his glasses, still see it EASILY as it first left the scene and EASILY see what direction it was headed in (towards the nearby mountains). This is true even assuming the absolute worst case scenario about his uncorrected vision.
E.g., police departments generally allow uncorrected vision up to 20/100, meaning that even assuming this was the worst vision he had, he wouldn't be able to read lettering about a foot high at 100-150'--the furthest he ran to--but wouldn't affect at all his ability to see a 15-20' object rise in the air or seem to pass over the dynamite shack about 500' away. And this is assuming the worst case scenario.
As I tried to explain in a prior post, Zamora was not nearsighted, which might cause worst-case 20/100 vision, but farsighted, and thus probably had very good vision even without his glasses, as mild to moderately farsighted people his age normally do because they can still use the lens in their eye to compensate for their farsightedness. I am an expert in such things having a degree in optometry, where we deal with questions of visual acuity routinely and what people can and cannot see in various circumstances. What is Brian's expertise in such matters?
But the most important part of his testimony while he lost his glasses had NOTHING to do with his vision. He said the object went dead silent after it rose in the air and left the area making no noise. (As he said in his Walter Shrode radio interview: "It was very, very quiet; you could hear a pin drop.")
The reason this testimony is vitally important is that it eliminates absolutely every sort of conventional flying craft (except a balloon, which was impossible because the object flew against a stiff head wind). It couldn't have been rocket powered, jet powered, a helicopter, or Brian's Coanda-type craft (which used a noisy internal combustion engine, just like a helicopter).
Other physical evidence at the scene absolutely ruling out something like rocket or jet-powered was the complete absence of ANY excavation crater that would NECESSARILY be created by jet or rocket propulsion and the complete lack of organic fuel residue from a rocket or jet engine in the burned soil when soil samples were tested by an Air Force lab for same.
But, of course, everyone who wants to debunk this case (Brian, ZoamBot, etc.) ignores all this because it's so darn inconvenient....
Zoam, I will end my comments on this thread the way I began them when I wrote:
ReplyDelete“Zoam’s thought processes (if we can call them that) always provide a target rich environment for critical analysis. His recent musings over the Zamora incident are no exception.”
In your most recent post you wrote:
“…Larry, in nearly every case we discuss, your goal seems to be the dismissal of mundane hypotheses by whatever means, as if by Sherlock Holmes' "logic" we must ultimately default to the extremely tenuous hypothesis. That strategy may work on loyal science-fictioneers but it's worthless in real-world logic and debate. …”
I guess you’re too dim to realize that what you’re suggesting here is exactly counter to the approach advocated by Karl Popper and currently accepted as the consensus modus operandi by scientists, worldwide. The “dismissal” of hypotheses (whether mundane or not) was termed “falsification” by Popper and was recommended by him as a means of avoiding “the problem of induction”, in which no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization. For example, if someone investigates 10 UFO reports and finds all of them to have mundane explanations Popper showed that it is logically indefensible to then make the inductive leap to a statement such as, “all UFO reports have mundane explanations”. However, if someone makes a statement such as, “Lonnie Zamora misidentified a Lunar Lander on April 24, 1964”, that is a scientifically well-formed conjecture, because it is testable. That means that you can consider all the characteristics that a Lunar Lander would have and compare them one-to-one with all the characteristics that Zamora reported and consider whether there is evidence that one was actually present at Socorro on April 24, 1964. If all the characteristics match up then the conjecture is probably validated. If the characteristics do not all line up, or there was no Lunar Lander present, then the conjecture is falsified. This is how scientific reasoning is done. You should try it sometime.
The Lunar Lander did not have an internal working engine in 1963. Zoom and Brian just never want to work with the facts. I do not think they read all of the great post here, they instead change the story to fit their 'proven wrong already' theories. Sometimes you can lead a horse to water...
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