Ray Stanford's Socorro Photograph

For those interested in such things, Ray Stanford had claimed that he had a photograph of a Socorro-like UFO, he had taken after the Lonnie Zamora sighting. He was careful who saw the picture. I’m not sure his rationale for that, but there were very few who had seen it. We had to rely on their descriptions of the picture, if they were inclined to give us any information about it.

Ben Moss, who had worked with Stanford for years, thought the picture to be important. He had mentioned to me that it looked somewhat like an egg-shaped UFO with landing gear underneath it. With Stanford’s passing, and with Stanford’s wife’s permission, Ben searched through the mountains of material that Stanford had collected. He didn’t want to say anything about this, though he had located a print. He wanted to have the negative.

From what he emailed me, he thought he had the original negative, but, apparently, it was only a duplicate. It follows here:

The Ray Stanford photo of the Socorro like-object.

Close up of the object, whatever it might be.

Here is the important part of Ben’s email to me. “If you wanted to post the Socorro craft pictures I sent, please feel free to do so with any commentary you want to add, I'm sure the usual suspects will be commenting on them. I discovered that the picture of the dynamite shack that I thought had the images was the wrong one, it is in the original polaroid Ray took without the kid standing in front of it. I will scan that picture in January, but have no negative, yet I did find it at Ray’s house listed as 'original', and as I examined it there are several objects in the background sky, I just need to get a high DPI scan to confirm.”

Here’s where we are with this. A solid analysis has not been made but Ben plans to do that. We have an interesting story that connects to the Zamora sighting, we have photographic evidence, but those of us who have been around for a while, we know we need the original. Ben is attempting to find that doing the follow up investigation as time permits.

Without the original, and without a solid analysis, I can say nothing about the authenticity of the photograph. All I’m able to say is that we now know what it looks like. We need the analysis to determine the important of the picture. 

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Ben Moss and the Socorro UFO Landing

Ben Moss was the guest this week. We talked about his book on the Socorro UFO landing case, and our investigations into it. My book about Socorro, Encounter in the Desert, came out in 2018 and Ben’s, Not of this World: The Socorro Landing with Humanoids, is available from Ben by writing bmoss6@verizon.net for an autographed copy. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41803533

The one point of disagreement was about the symbol that Police Officer Lonnie

Ben Moss

Zamora reported. While the credibility of the case does not hang in the balance, it is an interesting point. Very few UFOs are reported to have any symbols on them and the situation that created the discrepancy provides some insight into UFO investigation, at least in the 1960s. For those interested, you can read some of my comments and an FBI document about which is the correct symbol in my book and take a look at these postings:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/10/chasing-references-socorro-edition.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/treasure-quest-socorro-and-zamora-symbol.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-final-analysis-of-socorro-symbol.html

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/fbi-files-on-the-socorro-ufo-landing-april-24-1964/

We also discussed the Project Blue Book investigation into the landing case and what Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla had to say about it. Upon his retirement from the Air Force, he wrote a book about his experiences investigating UFOs. Although there are many cases in the Blue Book files in which witnesses reported some sort of entity, there are only three in which the cases weren’t written off as some sort of psychological problem. Of those three, the Socorro landing is the best.

Briefly, we talked about the claims that the case was a hoax. Like Ben, I don’t believe that a strong argument can be made for the hoax theory, though there are those who believe otherwise. I have explored those claims here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2009/10/lonnie-zamora-socorro-ufo-and-new.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/08/tony-bragalia-and-socorro-landing.html

We did mention an article in the MUFON Journal that Don Burleson had written. You can read it here:

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/MUFON/Journals/2008/November_2008.pdf

All this should give you some insight into this important UFO case. We have moved it from a single witness event into one in which there were multiple witnesses. The trouble is that those witnesses entered the arena and left without providing all the testimony necessary to elevate the status. Socorro was a missed opportunity, but given the time of the report, it is not surprising that more wasn’t done.

Next week, I’ll be talking with Colonel Richard Weaver about his official investigation into the Roswell case for the Air Force in the mid-1990s. He too, has written a book about it, and it does provide some very interesting insights into that investigation. If you have questions, append them here and I’ll get them asked. 

Chasing References - Socorro Edition

As many of you know, especially those who visit here regularly, I sometimes chase footnotes because it provides, well, a different perspective on some UFO reports. Finding the footnotes to chase isn’t all that easy and it is usually the result of researching another aspect of the UFO field. Sometimes, however, it can be a single reference in a book or article that triggers a question or two.

Such is the case of an article in the September 2019 issue of The MUFON Journal. Yes, I touched on this in the report on my interview with Don Burleson, and I don’t mean to target him here, but there is a point that needs to be made. As noted, you can hear our discussion in the last half of the October 9 interview.

The statement in question, the one that caught my attention, and frankly the attention of some others, said:

April 24, 1964, when Socorro policeman Lonnie Zamora saw an egg-shaped, whitish object down in a gully and observed a red symbol on its surface. As investigator Ray Stanford discovered, authorities soon published an altered version of the symbol in order to guard against copycat reports, but area military pilots would have been given a classified briefing to warn them to be on the lookout for any airborne craft bearing the insignia the way Zamora had really seen it, an inverted V with three horizonal lines through its middle. Clearly the Socorro object and the Holloman object were somehow related, though I [Don Burleson] infer from various details that the Holloman object was probably larger.

The problem here is that there are errors in the thinking and speculation that is presented almost as if it is fact. The first real problem is the claim that the correct symbol is the inverted V with the three lines through it. This is the information supplied by Ben Moss, Tony Angiola and Ray Stanford. The trouble here is that

Zamora's sketch of the symbol made moments
after the object took off.

Zamora drew the correct symbol, that is an arc over an arrow with a line under it on two occasions. As the object departed, he drew the symbol on a scrap of paper and that scrap can be found in the Project Blue Book files. He signed that illustration.

On the evening of April 24, Zamora was interviewed by Captain Richard Holder of the Army and Arthur Byrnes of the FBI.  They suggested that Zamora not reveal the symbol to others to eliminate copycats, but he did draw it for them and he signed that image as well. This was what I think of as the umbrella symbol.

Zamora's drawing of the craft and the symbol
signed by him.

During the initial investigation, other military officers were involved during the investigation and they too, filed reports. In those documents, the umbrella symbol is identified as the true symbol.

Interestingly, Ray Stanford who was on the scene within days sent a letter to Richard Hall of NICAP in May 1964, a week or two after he had been to Socorro. In that letter he not only identified the true symbol as the umbrella symbol, but wrote that the inverted V with the three lines through it was the fake. Ten years later, when Stanford published his book, he had switched the symbols, now claiming that the inverted V was the true symbol.

Zamora had an illustration made of the craft that he had seen. The Socorro mayor thought it might be a good idea. The artist was Rick Baca. Under Zamora’s direction, the umbrella symbol was placed on that drawing.

The "Umbrella" symbol and the
inverted V with the lines through it,
as well as a couple of other variations.

Both Ben Moss and Tony Angiola believed that there had been a “secret” Socorro file that was separate from that found in the official files. All these official files entered the public domain when the Blue Book files were declassified in 1976. These unofficial “secret” files were obtained from Rob Mercer. The Socorro file was 200 pages that duplicated most of what was in the official file. In that unofficial file were two cards that held the inverted V. It is clear from the context that these cards were based on newspaper articles that were released in 1964. Ben Moss and Tony Angiola believed that this was the true symbol because it was in that file.

Carmon Marano, who was the last officer assigned to Blue Book, who had the responsibility of closing down the office after Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla had moved on to a new assignment, said that the information obtained by Rob Mercer was a document put together by those in the Blue Book office to show to reporters and others who were there to do research. You can listen to my interview with Rob Mercer here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/x-zone-broadcast-network-rob-mercer.html

In other words, it wasn’t an “official” document and it wasn’t a classified file about the Socorro landing. It was a briefing document for those without security clearances or who were civilians who had been granted access to the Project Blue Book files.

Rick Baca's drawing of the Zamora craft with the
"Umbrella" symbol added under Zamora's guidance.

What this means is that a suggestion that military pilots had been given a classified briefing containing the inverted V symbol, is in error because that is not the correct symbol. I can think of no reason that such a briefing would even take place. The pilots didn’t need to know what the symbol looked like. If they encountered an alien craft and saw a symbol, they could report that. If it doesn’t match that seen by Zamora, well, it just didn’t match. We can assume here that the military pilots wouldn’t be inventing a tale of seeing an object when they did not.

However, if you’ve told them what to look for, then you have contaminated the operation. You’ve told the pilots what they should see, and that means that they might just see what you told them to see. In other words, the classified briefing has defeated the purpose set out for it.

If you read the wording in The MUFON Journal paragraph carefully, you’ll notice the qualifiers. It said, “…area military pilots would have been given a classified briefing…” I asked Don Burleson for the source of this information. What I learned, from him, is that this was speculation based on what he believed would have happened. The real point is that no such briefing was given. It was pure speculation.

Here’s the problem with this. Someone else, writing a book about UFOs or an article about the Socorro sighting, might quote this particular paragraph, giving

the source as The MUFON Journal article. But there is no ultimate source for the information. The discussion of the symbol is flat out wrong and the classified briefing never happened. We follow it to this point and we can go no farther.

Although I don’t discuss the “classified briefing,” in Encounter in the Desert, my recent book on Socorro, I do discuss, at length, the whole sad tale of the true symbol seen by Lonnie Zamora. Much of that has also been discussed on the blog. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/x-zone-broadcast-network-ben-mosstony.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-final-analysis-of-socorro-symbol.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Lonnie+Zamora+symbol

In the future, as others research this case, I hope that they’ll find this as well. They’ll then know that there is a problem with that information. Maybe they’ll think twice about including it, or, if the do, they’ll qualify so that their readers will understand what has happened.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Tony Angiola and Ben Moss

Ben Moss

A few weeks ago, I had said that I’d have Ben Moss on the program, but various problems kept that from happening. This week I had planned to talk with Tony Angiola and we were able to get Ben to the microphone as well. The topic was the Socorro UFO landing. They had been continuing their investigation into the sighting, and as I said, some of the things they had told me a year ago sparked my interest in the case. For example, they had said that three people had called the Socorro Police Department to say that they had seen a blue flame or a light in the sky the same evening that Zamora had found the landed craft. I was able to find a report written by Captain Richard Holder that very night that mentioned those telephone calls (Well, it wasn’t much of a find because it was right there in the Project Blue Book files for all to see so we have a very good provenance for it.) What was interesting was that the calls were

Tony Angiola

made prior to Zamora reporting anything about the landing to the police dispatcher. Unfortunately, the police dispatcher didn’t take the names of those reporting the sighting. Holder’s report does verify that the calls had been made and what was said. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/S7o7uFf4UXM

In my book, published in the last few days, I report on the trail to that specific information that tends to corroborate Zamora after a fashion, and the documents created at the time that do verify the telephone calls. During the program we do talk about why no one in Socorro in 1964 tried to find those witnesses. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult since the path of the object over Socorro was known, Socorro wasn’t all that large, and there was huge interest in the story… though, I suppose the counter argument would be why didn’t those people come forward with their information.

For those who wish to learn more about the Socorro case, including what I discovered in my investigation over the last year, you can find the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Desert-Alien-Contact-Socorro/dp/1632651130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508096455&sr=8-1&keywords=encounter+in+the+desert

The cover of the book, obviously.

I should also point out that the Socorro landing didn’t happen in a vacuum. There were other sightings around that time in New Mexico. True, some of them were hoaxes, and I believe that two men who claimed to have been driving through Socorro at the time of the sightings were not telling the truth. However, we did talk about some of the good sightings that happened within days of the Socorro landing. We gave a good overview, but for those who want the full story, take a look at Encounter in the Desert, my book about this.

Next week’s guest: Brad Steiger

Our topic: Halloween Spooktacular (yeah, I’m a little embarrassed about resorting to that Spooktacular phrase, but hey, it fits… more or less.)

Chasing Footnotes -The Socorro Case

As anyone who visits here regularly, you know that I chase footnotes. I sometimes try to find specific instances to make the case, but when I search without a known destination, it seems to be an impossible task. Instead, I find the bad footnotes by accident. This is just something that cannot be forced.

Lonnie Zamora

As you all also know, I have been looking into the symbol that Lonnie Zamora reported seeing on the side of the landed UFO. That research has bled into other areas, including the idea that other members of the Socorro Police Department or the New Mexico State Police saw the same object as Zamora. In the Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document: The Best Available Evidence compiled by Don Berliner, Marie Galbraith and Antonio Huneeus and “presented” by CUFOS, FUFOR and MUFON, in December, 1995, I read the short segment on the Socorro case. They wrote, “At this time, Zamora was joined by a police sergeant [Chavez] who watched the craft fly away into the distance.”

This is an argument, that Chavez saw the object, that has been made here by David Rudiak and one that Ray Stanford as well as Ben Moss and Tony Angiola shared during the interviews on my X-Zone Broadcast Network radio show. The links can be found in the postings for those programs. It is not this argument, that Chavez saw the object, which I’m concerned with here, but with the footnote about where this information was found or where it could be verified. According to Berliner, Galbraith and Hunees, this was a “Written statement by Lonnie Zamora to Project Blue Book, 1964; reprinted in Steiger, Brad, ed. Project Blue Book, ibid.”

In the last weeks I have been through the Blue Book files several times. I have discussed this idea of other police witnesses, both privately with a number of people and publicly on this blog. I have a copy of Steiger’s book and a complete copy of the Blue Book file on the case. Nowhere in the statement by Zamora does it suggest that the police sergeant arrived in time to see the UFO as it disappeared in the distance. In fact, Zamora in that statement said:

As I was calling Nep [a police radio operator], I could still see the object. The object seemed to lift up slowly, and to “get small” in the distance very fast. It seemed to just clear Box Canyon or Six Mile Canyon mountain. It disappeared as it went over the mountains. It had no flame whatsoever as it was traveling over the ground and made no smoke or noise…

Zamora said that he then went down to where the craft had landed and saw that one of the bushes was still smoking. He then said:

Gave directions to Nep Lopez at radio and to Sgt. M.S. Chavez to get there. Went down to where the object was (had been), and I noted the bush was burning in several places. At that time, I heard Sgt. Chavez calling me on radio for my location, and I returned to my car, told him he was looking at me. Then Sgt. Chavez came up and asked me what the trouble was, because I was sweating and he told me I was white, very pale. I asked the Sergeant to see what I saw, and that was the burning bush. Then Sgt. Chavez and I went to the spot, and Sgt. Chavez pointed out the tracks.

It is clear from Zamora’s statement in the Blue Book files and in Steiger’s book, that Chavez didn’t arrive until after the UFO had disappeared in the distance. Now we really don’t have to go through the arguments again about how Chavez did arrive in time to see it in the sky. What I’m saying here is that the sources quoted for the information do not support that idea. We can argue about other sources, but in this very limited case, those additional sources are irrelevant because they weren’t cited. The sources quoted do not support the statement, and that is all that is relevant here.

Boxes of Blue Book Material on Craig's List

Ben Moss and Tony Angiola are probably annoyed with me for sticking my nose into this Socorro investigation. As I have explained, they made some very interesting comments during my radio show and I believed those comments deserved some follow up. That has been the point of several of the postings here. It truly is a descent into the minutia of the case but it has been sort of fun for me, though maybe not so much fun for Ben or Tony.

There was some discussion about the symbol that Zamora saw on the object. Ben and Tony thought that the proper version was the inverted “V” with the three lines through it. They mentioned (or more probably Ben) that they had documents from the Blue Book files that had been found in a box of material purchased at a garage sale. Yes, I know this is beginning to sound like the slides fiasco all over, but there was a provenance for this box as well as a chain of custody. It did contain Blue Book files and it seemed, for a time, that it had once belonged to CPT Richard T. Holder, who had been the first of the military officials to interview Zamora. Holder was an Army officer rather than a member of the Air Force or on the Blue Book staff.

Naturally, I was interested in this aspect of it, especially since there were two documents in that recovered file, both handwritten and both without date or signature that seemed to suggest the inverted “V” with the three lines was the correct symbol. If it could be confirmed that it had been Holder’s son who had sold the box, then that changed the story slightly. I learned, indirectly from Ben, that an Ohio UFO investigator, Rob Mercer, had purchased the box. I wanted to talk to him about what he had found and to learn if there had been a context for those two handwritten notes. Ben had supplied a web site and there was contact information for Rob. I sent an email to him and he responded with a long explanation of how he had come into possession of these Blue Book files… and from the look of what he had posted to his web site, it was clear that he had documents from Blue Book as well as notes and comments made by someone who had been intimately involved with Blue Book. You can review that information here:

http://www.miamivalleyufosociety.com/inside-project-blue-book

(One of the things was the Tremonton, Utah UFO film taken by Delbert Newhouse that had a black line down the center of it… this was a scratch that was magnified with each reproduction of the film and was in the same place as a copy of that film I had received from Blue Book many years ago.)

Rob told me that he had found the material on Craig’s List and bought the box from the man who found it. Through some fine detective work, Rob was able to trace the information to a specific Air Force officer and eventually located the man. His identity was confirmed and he mentioned that he had additional boxes of information. He sent those on to Rob as well. Since some of the boxes contained actual copies of Blue Book cases, Rob was able to establish that the material in the boxes was legitimate and had been, at one time, in the possession of Blue Book or at the very least one of the men who worked at Blue Book. The former officer confirmed all this as well.

Illustration from the San Antonio,

Texas newspaper.

Given the way things had gone in the Socorro investigation, I was interested in those two handwritten notes that suggested the real symbol was the inverted “V” with the three lines through it. They seemed to confirm it, but as David Rudiak pointed out, that description had been published in newspapers on April 30, 1964. Some of the newspapers suggested Hynek as the source while others hinted at “witnesses” who had seen the original symbol as drawn by Zamora.

The key was the officer who had “saved” the material from destruction but the question was about the creation of the files. On October 20, 2016, I had an opportunity to interview the officer. I have a picture of him (courtesy of Ben Moss) standing in the Blue Book office with Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla and he confirmed that was a member of Blue Book at the end of the investigation.

The Socorro case, from April 1964, was before his time. He mentioned that Sergeant David Moody had been involved in that case, which, of course, we all knew based on what is in the Blue Book files not to mention newspapers from around the country. I knew that we were going back some 52 years, and if he hadn’t been there, I had little or no chance of learning how those documents had been created. I asked him about it, tried to put it into perspective, but since he had not created that specific file, he just couldn’t provide any useful information about it. All I can say with confidence is that the two documents, which reference State

Sergeant Moody on the left. US Air Force

photograph.

Police Sergeant Chavez, are handwritten and show the symbol to be the inverted “V” with the three bars. I don’t know whose handwriting it is, I don’t know when the notes were made, I don’t know if they are based on newspaper reports (the wording is very close) and I don’t know why these documents are not in the Blue Book file proper if they are representative of the symbol that Zamora saw though many of the newspaper articles that mention it are there.

The upside of this is that the officer has agreed to appear on my radio show for November 2. We’re not going to concentrate on Socorro on that show because his experiences at Blue Book were not during that time, but about the attitudes, investigations, and handling of UFO reports, including how he ended up with boxes of the material. I will note here that everything I have seen (and Rob Mercer has been most generous with that) has no classification markings on it. It was unclassified material so there is no real reason for him not to have it. (It wasn’t even marked “For Official Use Only,” which is a very low level of classification that doesn’t require safe guarding or accountability.)

After our service in Iraq, I was tasked with writing the Unit History. I had, in my possession, hundreds of documents from that time but none of them were classified.  These were notes from the staff meetings, the information from the change of shift briefings and from a dozen or so other things that would be of no real interest to the average person, but for a historian looking into the Iraq War fifty years from now, it could provide a glimpse into what we were doing. I have a copy of the history, which ran to more than 700 pages.

For those interested, Ray Stanford, who literally wrote the book on Socorro (as he likes to say) will appear on November 9, though I don’t think we’re going to devote the show to just the Socorro case. He wants to talk about some of the other cases he has been involved in.

So, the point here is this. Ben Moss and Tony Angiola sparked my interest in parts of the Socorro case. With their help, I delved a little deeper into this and through that research end up communicating with Rob Mercer (who will be on the show November 16) to talk about what he found in the files and some of the ancillary items that went with them. I also had the chance to talk with a former Blue Book officer. We now have the opportunity, together, to learn about how some of this played out and to learn a little about the inside workings of Project Blue Book.

Additional Witnesses for the Zamora Sighting

Since I’ve had so much fun with the “What symbol did Lonnie Zamora see?” a question sparked by my interview of Ben Moss and Tony Angiola, I thought I’d try it again. If you remember the interview, Ben or Tony mentioned that three people had called the police in Socorro to say that they had seen or heard something about the time that Zamora was approaching the UFO. I asked if they had checked the police logs to confirm this but somehow I didn’t get a solid answer for it.

Well, I now have that answer.

As I was looking for descriptions of the symbol in the Blue Book files, I was reading the various reports made by those involved in the investigation. Although undated, one report does mention the sighting on April 24, 1964, and was clearly written in the days that followed the sighting. It is signed by Captain Richard T. Holder, who was an Army officer assigned to White Sands in 1964 and who lived in Socorro (he was the up range commander and Socorro was closer to his duty station than Alamogordo).

Holder wrote, “Upon arrival at the office location in the Socorro County Building, we were informed by Nep Lopez, Sheriff’s Office radio operator, that approximately three reports had been called in by telephone of a blue flame or light in the area… These reports were not entered on the dispatcher’s log so no time on those reports is available – the dispatcher indicated that the times were roughly similar. Reports were completed at approximately 0100 25 April.”

Holder's report from the Project Blue Book Files.

I will say that this is becoming slightly annoying as I gather more information. We can say that Zamora’s report is single witness, but that’s just not accurate. Here is an indication of three other sightings of the blue flame or light (and there could be more that had been called in) but no one logged them and no one bothered to get the names. Holder, however, has confirmed the reports into the police and that is something. In other words, the Zamora sighting is not single witness

Did Lonnie Zamora See Alien Creatures?

We have discussed the Socorro case a couple of times here recently. When Ben Moss and Tony Angiola appeared on the Different Perspective radio show, they suggested that Lonnie Zamora had not said that he had seen creatures or aliens or figures. He had merely said that he had only seen two pairs of white coveralls in the distance, suggesting a humanoid shape but he couldn’t make out a head or facial features.

Socorro, New Mexico. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

This seemed odd to me because nearly every account I had read talked about the humanoid creatures. That was one of the most important features of the case, yet it seemed that Zamora might never have said such a thing. This was one of the more recent findings.

What I learned, however, doesn’t seem to support this. Coral Lorenzen, who interviewed Zamora two days after the sighting, wrote in Encounters with UFO Occupants, (published in 1976) “…and spotted what appeared to be a light colored car standing on end and two humanoid figures beside it (he said they looked about the size of young boys) about 600 feet away. One of the figures seemed to look toward Zamora as if startled by his presence.”

Timothy Good, in Above Top Secret, wrote, “Eventually he came across what he thought was an upturned car and two occupants, both dressed in coveralls.”

In The UFO Encyclopedia (1991) compiled and edited by John Spencer, it was reported, “…a shining egg-shaped object and two people who were obviously startled at the appearance of his police cruiser…. The ‘people’ apparently got back into the object which took off immediately…”

The same description, that is, people, was used by Robert Emenegger in UFO’s Past Present & Future (1974). He wrote, “‘I [Zamora] saw two pair of coveralls.’ One person seems to have turned and looked straight at Zamora’s car.”

Jacques Vallee in Dimensions (1998) wrote, “…Lonnie Zamora, who reported two small beings, dressed in white…”

Curtis Peoples in his Watch the Skies (1995), wrote, “…he was looking at the two figures, he did not notice ‘any particular shape or possibly any hats or headgear.’ They looked normal in shape, ‘but possibly they were small adults or large kids.’”

Jerome Clark in his massive UFO Encyclopedia, 2^nd Edition (1998), wrote, “Then he ‘saw two figures in what resembled white coveralls… The figures were small ‘maybe the size of boys,’ and from a distance looked ‘normal in shape.’”

Even Don Keyhoe who nearly always rejected accounts of the alien creatures wrote in Aliens from Space (1973), “Beside it [the UFO], unaware of his presence were two humanoids dressed in silvery coveralls.”

And in what might be the best example, the Albuquerque Tribune (April 27, 1964) reported, “Moving closer he [Zamora] saw two figures moving about outside the vehicle. One looked directly at him.”

But now we learn that Zamora allegedly never talked about figures or beings or anything like that. He just talked about seeing these white coveralls which suggested a human shape but he couldn’t see a head because of the brightness of the surroundings.

He was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal of April 27, that “He [Zamora] saw what appeared to be a pair of white coveralls, but whether there was anything in them he did not know.”

Ronald Story in The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (2001) tended to confirm this. He wrote, “He [Zamora] was quoted by Look (1966) magazine saying: ‘All I could see from that far away was what looked like two sets of white coveralls beside the object. I couldn’t see any features.”

Is there a way to resolve this?

Certainly.

What we need to do is look what was said in the hours and the days after the sighting. Fortunately there is a good record of this not only from the Air Force Project Blue Book files but also from some of those who investigated the case. Take, for example, what Coral Lorenzen wrote in the May 1964 APRO Bulletin. She, along with her husband, Jim, interviewed Zamora less than 48 hours after the sighting. While it generally agrees with what she wrote years later in her book, the Bulletin is much more descriptive. According to her, “… he [Zamora] said he hadn’t seen any ‘little men.’ Mrs. L [Lorenzen] pointed out he had told reporters for the first wire story that he had. He then admitted he had, and described them. He said they looked like ‘young boys’ or small adults…”

In fact, if we look at the Project Blue Book file, we learn that the descriptions really aren’t quite as vague as has been recently suggested. Even the Project Blue Book file suggests that Zamora saw something more than just white coveralls. In a letter dated May 13, 1964, signed by Colonel Eric T. Jonckheere and sent to the Headquarters, USAF (SAFOI), it was noted, “The only time that Mr. Zamora saw the two people in white coveralls…”

Also in the Blue Book file is a report apparently prepared by Major William Connor, who had come down from Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. Quoting Zamora, he wrote, “The only time I saw these two persons was when I stopped…”

There is another document in the file, but there is no name associated with who took the report. It is apparently a transcription of an early interview with Zamora but there is no date on it. According to this report, Zamora said, “Saw two people in white coveralls close to the object.”

TSgt David Moody, the Blue Book investigator sent out from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in his report, wrote, “…and the two things (described as coveralls) were no longer visible.”

Where does all this confusion come from? It seems that those investigating in some sort of official capacity were telling Zamora not to reveal certain things. According to the May 1964 APRO Bulletin, “Terry Clarke called to tell them [the Lorenzens] that he had called and talked to Zamora and that Zamora said that the FBI man [Art Byrnes] had cautioned him not to talk about the ‘little men’ to newsmen.”

To make it worse, Dr. J. Allen Hynek made a trip to New Mexico in the days that followed. He produced a long, detailed report about his trip, including his interviews with Zamora and other police and military officers (not to mention other details such as a flat tire on the drive to Socorro, that he stayed in a hotel and that he paid for a couple of meals he had with some of the other officials). Although he mentions the symbol seen by Zamora, one of the things that Holder had told him to keep to himself, he apparently didn’t mention seeing any sort of living beings around the craft, no matter how vague that description might have been. In other words, Hynek said nothing about that.

And there is this from the Dayton Daily News. David Moody (the Air Force representative sent from Wright-Pat) reported, “There were no signs of life around it; but when he approached it, the object rose and flew away slowly until it faded from sight…”We can analyze all this and come to a conclusion based on the information. The timeline of Zamora’s statements is helpful. In the beginning, that is on Friday evening, he told the official investigators, both civilian and military, and apparently some reporters that he had seen something more than just bright, white coveralls. The Blue Book file reflects this in the notes that were taken that evening or the next day and in the reports that were filed. People, persons, boys or young adults is used to describe what Zamora saw. Other reports derived from there or what Zamora said, suggest that he had seen something more than white coveralls hovering over the landscape.

The evolution of Zamora’s descriptions can be seen in the newspaper articles that appeared just a few days after the sighting. The Albuquerque Journal on the Monday following the sighting makes this evolution clear when they reported, as noted above, “…a pair of white coveralls, but whether there was anything in them he did not know.” That sort of thing also appeared in the Look magazine report on the sighting.

The exception that sort of proves the rule is the article published in the Socorro newspaper on Tuesday, April 28. It said, “The two persons appeared to be dressed in white coveralls… He did not take notice of headgear worn by the two short men.” But the information was collected on Friday, April 24. The newspaper only published on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the first chance to print anything was on Tuesday, April 28.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that Zamora had gotten a much better look at the images near the craft and that he told those who interviewed him first more about them. After the FBI agent on the scene, Art Byrnes, suggested it might be better if he didn’t talk about the beings the story changed into the white coveralls (pun intended). Given that we have the reports from the Blue Book file on the case, given what Coral Lorenzen reported in the APRO Bulletin, and given the change in the story over the few days after the event, it can be said that Zamora did see something more than coveralls. The evidence proves he got a better look than some believe he did. There were creatures or entities or beings near the craft and not just the flying coveralls.

The Socorro Symbols - Redux

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Ben Moss and Tony Angiola on the radio version of this blog. At the time they said a couple of things that I attempted to follow up on while we were on the air but didn’t get good answers. In the weeks that followed, I again tried to get more information and now have some of that. Ben Moss sent me a DVD copy of their presentation at the recent MUFON Symposium in Orlando, Florida, which provided some of the answers, and he has been sending me additional information through email. Here’s what I have learned.

First, they had mentioned a picture taken in Socorro though it wasn’t clear if there were pictures, plural, when they were taken, and who had taken them. The presentation answered all these questions. There is a single picture; it shows a number of objects, one of which has landing gear lowered and one that is six-tenths of a mile from the camera lens. The picture was taken by Ray Stanford some four months after the Zamora sighting. Although Stanford said they were “Zamora-like” objects, I haven’t seen the picture though both Ben Moss and Tony Angiola said they have. According to them, Stanford had been attempting to photograph the dynamite shed that Zamora had worried about and the objects were in the background. I don’t know why this information didn’t come out decades ago but I do know that Stanford said he would release the picture when he was ready. This, of course, worries me greatly given the history of claims of photographic evidence from important cases that we’ve dealt with in the recent past.

The Zamora symbol that has been featured as

the true symbol for decades.

Second is the claim that four newspapers of the time had printed either the upside down “V” with the bars through it or a variation of that or they had published a description of it. We’ve all seen the official version that has appeared in magazines and newspapers and we’ve all heard that Zamora was asked (ordered?) to change the design for security reasons. On KSRC radio Zamora told Walter Strode when asked about the symbol, “No, sir, I couldn’t tell you that, because they still don’t want me to say nothing about the markings.” You can listen to it here thanks to David Rudiak and Wendy Connors:

http://www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Zamora_interview.html

Zamora was also interviewed by Jim and Coral Lorenzen the day after the sighting. At the time they lived in Alamogordo which is not all that far from Socorro. When they asked about the design he had seen, he refused to tell them anything about it because he had been told not to by intelligence officers. While I’m not sure it was an intelligence officer who made the “request” it is clear someone in authority had. There were military officers in Socorro, representatives of the State Police and at least one FBI agent, who requested that it not be mentioned he was involved.  (The Lorenzen’s take on this can be seen in the APRO Bulletin for May 1964.)

There are descriptions of the symbol directly attributed to Zamora. In an AP story on April 29, 1964, and carried in many newspapers around the country it was reported, “Officer Zamora said the object he saw last Friday night was a brilliant white. He said there was a red marking on it like an upside down V with three lines across the top, through the middle and at the bottom.” (One of the sources for this is the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald for Wednesday, April 29, 1964, page 1.)  

A few days after the sighting, Dr. J. Allen Hynek was interviewed by the same reporter who had interviewed Zamora, on the same radio station, which is Shrode at KSRC. Hynek was asked what the marking was and Hynek replied, “He [Zamora] described it to me as an inverted ‘V’ with a sort of bar across it…” You can listen to this here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/Socorro/Socorro_Hynek_interview.html

This is actually at odds with the true symbol as has been suggested recently. Rather than three lines through it, Hynek said one line. Without a drawing, the many descriptions we now have can be interpreted in various ways. There are, however, drawings. There is the one that we all are familiar with which has the half circle over the inverted “V” with a single horizontal line under it. It is claimed that this is a faked symbol made up to keep the real one secret to weed out copycats. There is some support for this, with Zamora claiming that he was told not to talk about the symbol, and, according to the Lorenzen’s they couldn’t get him to tell then what the symbol looked like.

There is a hand-written letter by Hynek dated September 7, 1964, in the Project Blue Book files that seems to provide some corroboration. In fact, Ray Stanford made a big deal out of this when he found a copy on August 3, 2013. In an article published on Bill Chalker’s blog on June 4, 2014, Ray Stanford wrote, “James Fox asked to take that photo of me holding an important Hynek letter I had just discovered in the National Archives’s Socorro files.” These are, of course the Blue Book files which Stanford, for some reason, does not mention. You can read the whole article here:

http://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2014/06/socorro-ufo-symbol-1964-2014.html

But, the letter had always been in the Blue Book files and available to nearly everyone since the files were declassified and released to the public in the 1970s. Microfilms of them have been available since about that same time for purchase at the National Archives and Fold3 has put them up on the Internet.

Hynek's symbol that excited

Ray Stanford.

The symbol that excited Stanford isn’t quite the one that is being pushed as the real one. It has a horizontal bar over the top of the inverted “V” and two other bars inside the legs. I’m not sure that it does much to corroborate the inverted “V” with three bars drawn through it. You can argue that Hynek didn’t see the symbol himself and might have created this from the descriptions that have been offered rather than seeing a drawing made by Zamora, but it does complicate the issue and isn’t really corroboration for the symbol being pushed by Stanford.

There is another version of the symbol, also from the Blue Book files, but given that it is from the microfilm and that it was hand drawn in the text of a letter, it is difficult to see. It looks more like the symbol we’ve all seen, but it has variations as well, and in this case, does look like the corporate logo of Astropower, Inc. I’m not sure of the relevance. It’s just one more complication in all this and leads us off in another direction.

Another variation of the Zamora Symbol found in the Project Blue Book files.

The Astropower logo.

The final complication, at least for me, is why the “faked” symbol is in the Blue Book file with no notation about it being faked. There is no reason to include it because, the file, in 1964, was classified as secret so no one who didn’t have a clearance, a need to know, and who wasn’t part of the Blue Book team would have seen it. While it might make some sense to put out a false version to help identify any other sightings for comparison, the “true” symbol had already been described, more or less, in newspapers. There is nothing in the Blue Book files to indicate that they had created a fake, just the various symbols provided by various people at various times with little in the way of identification as to which is right and which are wrong.  

The only symbol that Zamora seemed to identify is the one that looks like an umbrella over an arrow. He signed the illustration and although it is his signature, the claim is that the other words on the paper were written by someone else. I don’t think that is a disqualification given the circumstances. It was merely the investigating officer identifying what the illustration showed.

Given the sighting is now a half century old and Zamora has died, many of those involved in the various investigations have died, I’m not sure that we’ll ever be able to sort this out. A case can be made that the “real” symbol is the inverted “V” with the three bars through it, but the variations to that description and what is found in the Blue Book files does nothing to prove it. A good case can be made for the other symbols as well. It boils down to what you wish to believe about what Zamora saw on the side of the craft. After so many decades, this is going to end up as one more of those little mysteries that we just can’t solve today.

I need to thank Ben Moss for providing the links and other information I used here and to Bill Chalker for his analysis at his blog. David Rudiak indirectly supplied some of the links to the radio interviews that were supplied by Wendy Connors. This just shows that something as simple as attempting to verify the symbols requires a review of the work done by so many others.