The Source of the Socorro Symbol?

Just when you thought there would be no more to say about the symbol that Lonnie Zamora saw on the landed UFO near Socorro, New Mexico, a new candidate has entered the competition. This one is from Otis T. Carr, who most of us have never heard of, but who, apparently, in the late 1950s, claimed that he could create a flying saucer and set out to do it.

Carr's billboard announcing his spacecraft.

Carr claimed that he had worked with Nikola Tesla, which, I suppose is an excuse, or a reason for Carr to have slipped off the rails of more conventional science. (Please, no comments about the legitimacy of Tesla, he was a genius, Carr was not.) Carr founded OTC Enterprise, the OTC, are of course, his initials. He hired a business manager and then Carr, and Norman Colton, began to search for funding for his “fourth dimensional space vehicle.” This craft would somehow slip through space without really flying. It could travel to the moon and back in a matter of

Carr's business logo.

hours. It was designated as the OTC-X1, and the first flight would be in April 1959.

Before we get into the success of that flight, I’ll mention something that is always pointed out. Carr received a patent for his flying saucer, which is supposed to add some legitimacy to his invention. Oh, it  was not a spacecraft though, but an amusement park ride. He had partnered with an Oklahoma City theme park, Frontier City (which, if you’ve ever driven through Oklahoma City on the Interstate, you’ve seen), and it was from here that he was going to launch his flying saucer to the moon.

On Sunday, April 19, 1959, some 400 people assembled to watch the launch of the saucer. It didn’t fly… Carr was in the hospital with some sort of lung problem which meant he wasn’t there to promote his craft. He promised that the test flight would take place sometime later, but it never did. Instead, Carr found himself in trouble with the SEC because he had been selling stock in his company without the proper compliance with various governmental regulations. He spent some time in the slam for this. That should suggest something about his credibility, but there are always those who will claim the big, bad government shut him down… but the saucer never flew and his technology as never proven to be real.

None of his craft ever flew, and that is really the real point here. If the craft never flew, then it would be impossible for Lonnie Zamora to have inaccurately drawn the symbol that Carr had created for his company. Although it bears a slight resemblance to what Zamora reported, it is not an exact replica and really shouldn’t even be considered. I mention it here to make sure that no one believes it to be what Zamora saw.

I should thank my pal and fellow GoT enthusiast, Rich Reynolds, for telling me about this. Interesting though it is, there is really no reason to think that Zamora saw a Carr flying saucer with that strange symbol painted on the side.