Did Blue Book Obtain Alien Debris - The La Camp UFO Case

 

There are many jewels hidden in the Project Blue Book files. Had I discovered the information about this case earlier (which is to say, had I paid attention to it), it would have been included it in The Best of Project Blue Book. This is a physical evidence case that was marked as “unidentified,” even after samples had been taken and analyzed. They too, remain unidentified.

According to the documentation and newspaper reports, a farmer, Monroe Arnold, living in the Lacamp, (sometimes La Camp) Louisiana area, reported that he had seen a fiery red, disk-shaped object strike the ground about 300 yards from where he was standing. He estimated that it was about eight feet thick, eight feet wide and twelve feet long with a short exhaust flame extending about a foot from one end. This happened about 9:00 on April 12, 1960.

The UFO struck the ground, bounced, and there were three or four explosions. Arnold was the only one to see the object but others, in the area, heard the explosions. The object bounced along for about a thousand feet, finally became airborne again, turned west and disappeared in the distance.

The ground where the UFO hit, was plowed up and there was damage to a nearby tree. The grass and the tree had been scorched but not burned according to the investigation. Metallic residue was recovered, described as looking like paint chips of some kind.

Deputy Sheriff Oscar Haymon, of the Leesville, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Office was the civilian who investigated. The newspaper quoted Haymon as saying:

It came from the dark and landed about 300 yards from the Monroe Arnold home. When it hit the ground there was an explosion that could be heard for miles around.

After landing it bounced around on the ground in an easterly direction… then rose and headed west just above the tree tops.

You could see where it bounced around on the ground and places where it hit the ground and made an impression about the size of a water bucket. It scorched but did not burn the grass.

It cut the top out of a tree and strange as it seems, hit only the one tree.

The sighting was investigated for the Air Force by Major Ray F. Grodhaus and Master Sergeant Robert F. Plympton. Both men were assigned to the intelligence office of the 401^st Tactical Fighter Wing at England Air Force Base, Louisiana, which is not all that far from the crash site.

Included in the Blue Book report were nine photographs of the crash site (landing site?) and a description of damage to the tree. According to the report prepared by Plympton:

A piece of scorched bark and a branch of scorched tree leaves… were taken from the tree at the impact area… at approximately 0300 Zulu 13 April 1960. [Zulu is GMT and the event took place at 9:00 p.m. local time).

The leaves and the bark were removed by the UFOB [which is what they were designating UFOs at that time… to be added to the term UAO, UAP and UAV being used today]. This is evident because the leaves and the bark are missing from one area of the tree only. The branch… that the officer is holding [in one of the photographs] was broken off and laying beside the tree. It is not known if the UFOB did this or not.

Officer holding the branch broken from the tree. Notice
the leaves are missing from part of the tree
.

In an additional report, also prepared by Plympton, said that he found Arnold to be a credible witness. He pointed out that Arnold had found military debris, JATO bottles, that is, jet assisted take off rockets just to shorten the take-off roll for aircraft on his farm in the past. The debris from the object did not resemble them. That conclusion was held up by scientific analysis. In other words, whatever it was that fell, it was not the remains of a JATO bottle.

Plympton also interviewed B. E. Allbritton, Jr., who lived about five miles from the UFO landing site. Although Allbritton, who had not seen nor heard the UFO, pointed out that he had heard, over the radio, that the Navy had been conducting missile tests in the Gulf of Texas. He said that what he heard was a warning to stay away from the area and he thought that a runaway missile might have been responsible for the sighting. Plympton wrote, “This office has no way to inquire to the Navy about these related missile firings.”

I’m not sure why this would even be included in the report. One man heard a radio broadcast about missile tests more than one hundred miles away and thought this might be an explanation. And I’m not sure why the intelligence officer (well, the NCOIC) couldn’t figure out which military department to call for information. This seems to be something of a red herring.

Listed as other contacts, but with no names attached, Plympton wrote, “Other contacts were made with people in the general area. All contacts shared the same description of the sound as it passed over their houses; that it sounded like artillery shells passing overhead, but much louder with a high velocity shrieking sound and low in altitude.”

An official teletype message received at ATIC on April 18, 1960, at 10:50 a.m., provided a couple of additional, and a few additional and interesting, details. According to that document:

The 1908 AACS (RAPCON UNIT) picked up an unidentified target on their radar screens at approximately the time of this sighting. This unidentified target was travelling at an estimated speed of 800 knots. Further investigation is being conducted on this unidentified target…

Major Ray F. Grodhaus... 401^st TFW intelligence officer… From interrogation of the witnesses and the marks on the ground it was apparent that the object hit the ground at a terrific rate of speed. It is my opinion that some type of rocket hit the ground and then ricocheted off across country. It is possible that a wing-tip could have made the impressions on the ground, but I think it is very improbable. There was no sign of, or pieces of any type of equipment in the area at the time of the investigation. Mr. W. P. Harper, a fifty (50) year old farmer, who lives approximately 100 yards from the source said that his T.V. set blacked out for about five (5) seconds at approximately 130310Z Apr. [9:03 local time on April 12]. Before it blacked out, he heard a high whine followed by about ten (10) to (12) fast explosions sounding like, but louder than artillery shells, since these two men live on the border of Fort Polk Reservation, they have much experience in hearing artillery fired. However, Fort Polk is now closed* and no artillery fire is being accomplished. Mr. Monroe Arnold has little formal education but is a keen observer with a passion for accuracy that is common with country folks of his generation. He had had JATO bottles fall on his farm before without causing undue excitement… All the people in the general area heard the explosions, i.e., Buddy Spurgen, Pete Brown, and Wes Geeter.

The document ended, “It is impossible at this time for me to give any estimate of what could have caused the sighting. It is possible that equipment could have been removed from the area prior to my investigation. However, this possibility was denied by Mr. Arnold and Mr. Harper.”

In the interest in fairness, and because it is relevant, there is supplemental information to the initial report. According to that document, received at ATIC on April 21, “It has been determined that the unidentified target could not have been the object in question. Subsequent investigation revealed that the unidentified target was picked up by upon the radar scope was subsequent to 0545 Zuly, 13 April 1960, which is approximately two and thirty minutes later than the original sighting.”

The Lacamp landing (crash?) site.

That would be, basically, the end of the reporting on the case. However, I received a letter from Robert Plympton that provided more information and provides us with a little bit of insight into Project Book and this investigation. He told me that he, and another sergeant, Warren E. Moore had made the investigation. He wrote:

This sighting is without a doubt one of those to which you refer on the inside cover of your book [Project Blue Book – Exposed] as: “…some reports are tagged with labels that don’t fit the facts…”

For instance, Mr. ARNOLD observed the object for longer period than stated. He reported hearing it passover his house, seeing it land, and seeing it lift off. Also, the physical evidence not only included a substantial quantity of paint samples (metal shavings) and soil samples but also tree limbs (branches) which had the appearance of having been scorched. Additionally, a number of high-quality photographs were taken from the air by a professional photographer and included close-up shots of “holes” and other indentations in the ground possibly caused by the object.

I and my associate [I will note here that it is probably Moore] conducted two visits to the point of the sighting. The second visit was prompted by Dr. HYNEK follow [sic] his receipt of my report. He called by phone asking that I return to the sight [sic] and obtain more soil samples from each “hole” as well as from other indentations in the ground with may have been caused by the object. Additionally he requested that additional photographs be taken of certain key points at the sighting. He instructed that all matters be properly packaged, including the tree limbs, and sent by Airfreight (Military or Commercial Airlines) to ATIC as soon as possible. His request was immediately complied with.

After several weeks had passed, I phoned Dr. HYNEK inquiring about the current status of my reports. He thanked me for our prompt handling of his telephone request and stated that we had conducted a very good investigation. He also told me that this was the first time that a report had been received under the Project Bluebook [sic] program where physical evidence was obtained from a reported UFO landing. He said that the paint samples (metal shavings) could not be identified as having come from ore deposits found on this planet. Those were his exact words. He concluded by saying that he would let me know if further assistance was needed. This was the last contact I had with Dr. HYNEK or with anyone else having interest in this report.

In my judgement, this was the only noteworthy UFO investigation that I ever covered. Considering the public focus on UFO’s [sic] at the time (1960), it was surprising to me that no one from ATIC or other Air Force interests come [sic] to the scene to assist us in our investigation of this unusual sighting.

It should be noted here that the Air Force did attempt to analyze the “paint” samples that were recovered. According to the Project Blue Book file, “Samples of paint from impact area obtained and correspondence with paint from rocket samples proved negative. Apparent rocket, however paint samples proved negative and no other physical evidence found.”

We have here, an opportunity to look beyond the activities of Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We see that some investigations were carried out by the intelligence officers and NCOs at the Air Force base closest to the event. There is nothing here to suggest that the investigation wasn’t competent. They talked to the witnesses, both Arnold who saw the object and those who heard it fly over. They gathered samples of soil, the metal debris labeled as “paint chips” for some reason, and the tree limbs and leaves. We do have some results from the analysis but those seem to be inadequate at best. We also know that Hynek requested additional samples be gathered but we don’t know anything about the analysis of that additional material.

I’m not sure why they even worried about the alleged missile testing in the Gulf of Texas. That gulf is, at least, more than a hundred miles from the impact site, and the actual testing, if there was such testing, could have been several hundred miles away. The only indication of this is one man who heard a warning issued over the commercial radio. Had such a warning been issued, then the FAA would have issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) and that warning would be available in the Operations section at England Air Force Base. Given that this was an Air Force base, I’m not sure why Plympton or one of the others didn’t ask the Operations Officer about it. This information is unverified and at this point, useless.

The real problem here, at least for me, was the disappearance of the samples and the analysis of them. Once the material had been gathered in Louisiana and sent on to ATIC and Blue Book, we learn very little about it in the case file. We know it was gathered and we know that the metallic debris was not identified. I’m not overly impressed with the unverified statement from Plympton that Hynek had said that the debris could not be identified as “having come from ore deposits found on this planet.” If there was something in writing in the file, some additional analysis, then would be a major find. Without that sort of documentation, it is interesting but it is also unverified. While I don’t believe Plympton invented the quote, it is certainly possible that he misinterpreted it, or that subsequent analysis revealed the source of the debris. No one ever got back to Plympton with that analysis and I find no reference to it anywhere in the Blue Book files.

However, it must be noted that the case was labeled as “unidentified,” at a time when Blue Book was busy changing designations to remove cases from the unidentified category and when the prevailing attitude was to accept “possible” answers as the true answer without qualification. That this one was left as “unidentified,” especially since there was physical evidence involved is significant.

In the end we have a case that has no explanation, with physical evidence and a suggestion by one of the investigating officials that, at one point, those at Blue Book were looking toward the extraterrestrial as the solution. Granted, without additional information, we shouldn’t make that leap, but the conclusion is intriguing.

*I can find no evidence that Fort Polk was closed at this time. I note that the armor division that had been stationed there was moved to Fort Hood in 1959, which would have required a draw down of forces at Polk. While the fort, in 1960, might have had areas closed (artillery ranges for example), it seems that the post was not completely closed and eventually became a huge training site for infantry soldiers. I took my basic training at Polk in 1967.

Lonnie Zamora as the Hoaxer*

We have talked about the possibility of a hoax in the Socorro UFO landing case. We have, or at least I have, thought that the idea of a student hoax has been rejected as implausible. There were way too many moving parts that required way too many unpredictable actions to be a reasonable scenario. From the very beginning, it required Lonnie Zamora to react in a way the students needed him to react so that he would find his way to the location of the landing.

Socorro, New Mexico. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who seemed to have liked Zamora and thought of him as a good police officer also paid him a left-handed compliment. Hynek, according his “Report on Socorro New Mexico Trip” found in the Project Blue Book files, “That Zamora, although not overly bright or articulate, is basically sincere, honest, and reliable. He would not be capable of contriving a complex hoax, nor would his temperament indicate that he would have the slightest interest insuch (sic).”

Hynek seemed to be indicating that Zamora, on his own, couldn’t have pulled this off. He would have needed help which is suggestive of a conspiracy involving at least one other. Philip Klass thought that it was the mayor of Socorro who had a financial motive and the intelligence to set this up. Research by others, including Paul Harden, proved that this was not the case.

But then I got to thinking about it.

The hoax scenarios, as they have been developed over the years, are way too complex. They involve balloons, which should have been recognized as such, several different people who left no trace of their presence at the landing site, and no way for them to escape before the arrival of others on the scene to spot them. Sergeant Sam Chavez of the New Mexico State Police arrived within three minutes of receiving the call from Zamora but, unfortunately not long after the craft had disappeared.

All this presupposes that Zamora related, accurately, what he had seen. It presupposes that he didn’t embellish in any way, and it presupposes he wasn’t clever enough to have pulled it off, just as Hynek suggested.

Let’s look at this from, well, a different perspective.

According to what we know, no one else saw the landed craft. No one else saw it lift off and disappear in seconds. No one else saw the little beings near the craft. All of this came from Zamora and if he wasn’t telling the truth about it, well, then, the hoax becomes easier to accept. Just assume that he hadn’t really seen all these

Lonnie Zamora

things, and some of the arguments about the alien nature of the craft and its capabilities are no longer relevant. The whole thing becomes much simpler to explain in terrestrial terms.

Chavez said something during his interviews with the Lorenzens, when viewed in this light seems strange. According to The A.P.R.O. Bulletin of May 1964 (page 3, second column), “Sgt. Chavez also told the Lorenzens that he had looked into Zamora’s car to see if there were any implements of any kind with which the indentations and fire could have been effected. There were not. Mrs. L asked Chavez why he did that. Chavez admitted that Zamora’s story had been so strange, and he followed the regular procedure to establish evidence.”

Going back, and looking specifically at the descriptions of the landing marks, it seems that the various witnesses talked mostly about how the soil had been scraped to one side or the other. That seemed to indicate that something heavy had set down, but in the process, as the weight was applied, the landing pads shifted slightly. It didn’t seem as if they had been scraped out in the way it would look if a shovel had been used but more as if it was the result of something having landed there.

Ray Stanford reported in his book, Socorro Saucer in a Pentagon Pantry, in the caption on page 37, “The southwest imprint photographed on the morning after by New Mexico State Police Sergeant Samuel Chavez, giving the distinct impression of having been gouged into the earth by great weight from above.”

One of the landing pad traces.

And, finally, Hynek wrote in a letter to Dr. Donald Menzel of Harvard, on September 29, 1964: “…I have the word of nine witnesses who saw the marks within hours of the incident, who tell me that the center of the marks were moist as though the top soil had been freshly pushed aside.”

But we have to remember here that those nine people only saw the landing impressions and the burned vegetation. There might have some embellishment simply because it seems that no one really saw the bush smoking after the craft took off. Oh, it seems to have been reported that steam or smoke was rising from that bush by Chavez, but it is one of those things that is hard to pin down in the world today.

Although many rejected the idea that Zamora had created the hoax on his own for some unknown reason, the Zamora hoax explanation is by far the simplest. It eliminates the need for a balloon either hot air or helium filled, it eliminates the need for other participants to create the illusion of something landing there, and it explains the lack of physical evidence that the hoax scenario should have left behind. If Zamora had done it, he just needed his shovel and a tape measure. Then he called the station to make his report and request that Chavez come out to meet with him. This also explains why none of those other people who said they had seen something ever came forward. All the rest of it, from the alien creatures, the banging of the hatch, the red symbol… all of it was so much window dressing created by Zamora.

And while that theory is applauded for its simplicity, it fails when other facts are figured into it. We can begin with the three telephone calls into the police station. Again, we know little about them, we don’t know who made them, but they are documented in the records gathered that night and in the report filed by Richard Holder. It would mean that, at the very least, one other person had to be involved. He or she could have made the three telephone calls though it is more likely to have been three people.

It would have involved Opal Grinder who said that he had talked to the tourists from Colorado who mentioned the low flying aircraft. That adds another person to the conspiracy which is, of course, another person to spill the beans on this unless, of course, Grinder was the one who made the telephone calls to the police.

We also have to wonder what inspired Zamora to create the hoax. The Project Blue Book files confirm that there were no other reports of UFOs in New Mexico at the time and there had been very little publicity about them anywhere prior to Zamora’s sighting. In fact, from Hynek’s “Report on the Trip to Socorro – Albuquerque, March 12 – 12, 1965, we see, “One should remember that before the time of the sighting there had been no talk in the Socorro region of unidentified flying objects.”

Hynek also mentioned, “No paraphernalia of a hoax was ever found. It would be rather hard to have done away with all the tell-tale evidence, such as tubes of helium, release mechanism, etc.”

And one thing that might argue the loudest against Zamora doing it on his own was that the impressions on the ground, when corrected for the terrain features are symmetrical and the burned bush seemed to be located at the precise center where you would expect the rocket or jet used to lift it would be situated. That seems to be much too sophisticated for Zamora to have pulled off. It is one of those things that he might have lucked into, but it does seem to argue against a Zamora alone hoax.

I’m not a fan of the Zamora hoaxed the sighting without any real motivation and no real inspiration. Again, Hynek mentioned there had been no UFO sightings reported around Socorro prior to Zamora’s sighting, but afterwards, there were many (some of which were hoaxes). The sightings for April 1964 from other parts of the world are fairly mundane and didn’t receive much in the way of publicity if any at all. Had Zamora’s sighting come in the middle of the wave, it might be that these other reports suggested the idea to him.

I like this idea, that Zamora hoaxed it by himself because of the simplicity of it. However, when we add in other factors, all the factors, it seems that the theory is flawed. Hector Quintanilla suggested the solution for the case would probably be found in Zamora’s head, and had he hoaxed the thing, then Quintanilla had it right. But Zamora never suggested to anyone that he had made up the story, his friends and his actions that night seem to argue against hoax, and there is no real motivation for him to have created the hoax that included the landing site.

And any theory, or solution, that has to discount some of the evidence to work is no real solution. In this case there are too many factors that argue against a Zamora designed hoax, not the least of which is the physical evidence and the other, unidentified witnesses. If we can come up with a theory that explains all that, then we have something. Until that time, the case remains, “Unidentified.”

(Blogger’s note: I thought it important to say that in one aspect of my training as an intelligence officer, we were taught that you needed to review all possible scenarios when assessing a situation. In one example of that, I was analyzing the military and political situation on East Timor. In one of the most ridiculous scenarios, I had to determine the possibility of the United States and Australian peacekeeping forces engaging in some sort of conflict. The possibility of that happening was almost zero, but, given that armed military forces were occupying the same terrain, there was the possibility that something would go horribly wrong. Didn’t mean that it would, it was just one of the possible outcomes. I mention this because the idea that Zamora invented the whole tale it practically zero, but it is one possibility. I say this because I don’t believe it happened that way, but I do like the simplicity of that solution.)

*I had thought that "hoaxster" was a proper name for someone who had created a hoax... I just liked the sound of it better. But, after a number of people suggested that the word was not correct, I tried to look it up in my whopping, huge dictionary, but it wasn't there. So, I corrected it.

A Final Analysis of the Socorro Symbol

It is time to put the controversy about the symbol Lonnie Zamora saw to rest. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that Zamora saw what I have begun to call the “umbrella” symbol. I say that based on the “official” Project Blue Book files, what those investigators, the civilians that include Coral and Jim Lorenzen and Ray Stanford and even Rick Baca said in the days after the sighting and what was printed in some of the newspapers and in the APRO Bulletin.

Although I have gone over this before, I will repeat it here. In the minutes after the sighting, according to the testimony given on the night of April 24, 1964, Zamora scribbled the symbol on a scrap of paper. That scrap is in the Project Blue Book files and it was signed by Lonnie Zamora. There have been suggestions that it isn’t the original because Zamora would have drawn it on something else or that it was inserted into the file later. The only truth we have here is that the scrap of paper is in the Blue Book file and that Lonnie Zamora signed it.  It is clear from the deterioration of the tape that it had been in the file for a very long time. The testimony tells us that there would be a piece of paper and there is one. There is no evidence to suggest it is anything other than what it purports to be.

Also contained in the “official” Project Blue Book files is a drawing by Zamora of the craft with the symbol on the side. It is of the umbrella symbol and once again, Zamora signed it. This too argues for the authenticity of the umbrella symbol.

There is a report in the file which seems to have been prepared by Major William Connor, who was the Public Relations Officer at Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and who escorted Hynek around New Mexico when he made his investigation in the days that followed. He is reporting on his interview with Zamora. On page three of that report, he included an illustration of the umbrella symbol.

There was a suggestion that Zamora not reveal the real nature of the symbol so that if others reported seeing a symbol it could be cross-checked without fear of contamination. Almost everyone thought this was a good idea but the fact is, the symbol was revealed within a couple of months when the Lorenzens published it in the pages of the May issue of their APRO Bulletin. The symbol they published was the umbrella symbol. To be fair, they also had a different symbol in that same issue, though it vaguely resembles the umbrella symbol.

There is another source for the umbrella symbol. Ricky Baca, a teenager in 1964, drew the craft along with the umbrella symbol on it within two weeks of the sighting. It was ordered by the city attorney whose legal secretary was Baca’s father. The thinking was that a youngster such as Baca would be free of any bias that would influence his illustration. Baca and Zamora sat in the city attorney’s office for two hours working on the sketch. Baca took the job seriously and altered the sketch and the elements in it according to Zamora’s instructions. It was later published in the Socorro newspaper but the symbol had been “whited out” on instructions by Hynek, according to one source. However, Baca retained the sketch and a picture of him holding it many years later was published in the Socorro newspaper and the umbrella symbol is clearly visible on it.

Finally, as I have noted, in a letter to Dick Hall, Ray Stanford himself confirmed that the umbrella symbol was the correct one. Stanford included, in his letter to Hall, a sketch of the “fake” symbol, which at that time, just days after he returned from Socorro, was the inverted “V” with the three lines through it.

This inverted “V” symbol was the first published by the national media. In a newspaper story on April 30, that symbol is shown. If, as has been documented by not only the Lorenzens, but also Captain Richard Holder, that the real symbol had been withheld, then how did the newspapers obtain it only days after the sighting. There is nothing in the official files to suggest that this symbol is the correct one.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, in a handwritten letter on September 7, included an illustration of the symbol. While it is of an inverted “V” and it does contain three horizontal lines, it does not actually resemble the symbol as suggested by others. There is a line above the apex of the “V” and two lines between the legs but that do not touch them. To the discerning eye, it can’t really be called a match.

The best evidence for this symbol seems to be two pieces of paper found in the files that had been retained by former Blue Book officer, Carmon Marano. The story of these files was explored in my interview with him on November 2 and can been accessed on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyz0ZAvhv7g

This information was not part of the official Socorro file and they don’t seem to have been filed with that information. In other words, as David Rudiak tells us about other information from that same source, we don’t know who drew them, who made the notes or when those notes were written. Rudiak suggested that given the wording, which is close to that from the newspaper articles, someone might have been jotting down this information from that source. It might not be based on testimony from those directly involved, but part of the deception of the faked symbol.

Ray Stanford also suggests that Mike Martinez, who was a police dispatcher, said, in Spanish in a recorded interview, that the inverted “V” with the three lines was the correct one. That interview, recorded in the police station, is difficult to understand because of the background noise. I guess the question here is if Martinez was sticking to the script of not revealing the real symbol or if he thought he knew what it was.

As I review all the documentation, all the testimony that is available, everything that was in Carmon Marano’s copy of the Blue Book file, the obvious conclusion is that the umbrella symbol is the correct one. There is nothing in the file to suggest that those signed by Zamora were faked, it is clear that those who spoke to Zamora in the hours after the event all were told of the umbrella symbol, Zamora himself said that he had drawn the symbol on a scrap of paper and that scrap is in the file showing the umbrella symbol and there is nothing in the official file other than Hynek’s loose interpretation of the inverted “V” to suggest otherwise. Given all this, I say that the correct symbol is the umbrella symbol… let the arguments flow.

The Socorro Symbol - Resolved?

For the last several weeks I have been looking into the symbol that Lonnie Zamora saw on the side of the object he reported. (Note to all: I am not suggesting anything other than Zamora saw an object with a symbol on it. I am not drawing any conclusions about that object’s origin). During the research, I have found a variety of documents, I have received assistance from a variety of investigators in a variety of locations, and I have been able to draw some pretty specific conclusions.

For those interested, I have found about a dozen different designs, four of them in the Project Blue Book files. The controversy seemed to arise when Captain Richard Holder (who lived in Socorro), assigned as the up range commander at the White Sands Missile Range, which is not all that far from Socorro, asked Zamora and others not to reveal the true symbol. His thinking was, and it seems that Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO felt the same way, that this could help eliminate hoaxers and confabulators from the witness pool. Oddly, in their APRO Bulletin of May 1964, they print illustrations of the craft with an insignia on the side. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the symbol in one of the illustrations differs from that in the other.

The first of the symbols from the APRO Bulletin.

The second of the symbols from the APRO Bulletin.

Within days of the sighting, on April 30, 1964, San Antonio Express among other newspapers, complicated the matter in a report that said, “Witnesses to the craft seen by Zamora said it was marked with a red inverted V with a line or several lines horizontally through the V.”  

An Associated Press Story, also on April 30 suggested that Hynek was one of those witnesses. They reported, “The scientist [Hynek] also discussed the markings that Zamora said he saw on the side of the object, a red, inverted V with bars through it.”

Ray Stanford reported that he had recorded on tape, a conversation with Socorro police dispatcher Mike Martinez telling him that Zamora described the design as "...un 'V' invertido, con tres líneas debajo," meaning "an inverted 'V' with three lines beneath it". I don’t have an indication of when that recording was made, but it would seem to confirm that the inverted “V” with the three lines is the correct symbol. Note I said “would seem.”

Hynek's inverted "V."

This does nothing to answer the question. Both symbols, or variations of them, were reported in the days that followed Zamora’s sighting. But there is one that appeared in the Blue Book file on the case that might give a hint. Although Hynek, in a letter dated September 7, 1964, drew a symbol that was an inverted “V”, he placed one of the lines above the apex of the “V” and two short lines that did not touch the sides inside the legs of the “V.” Ray Stanford, when he found the letter at the National Archives (in what had to be the Blue Book files) believed that it corroborated the inverted “V” with the three lines through it. I don’t believe it does.

Instead, I look at the symbol that Zamora signed. This is the inverted “V” with the “umbrella” over it, and a perpendicular line into the apex of the “V” and a line under that. Zamora signed this drawing, which to me, suggests that it is the correct symbol. None of the other competing illustrations in the file were signed by Zamora, though there are other representations of something like it.

But there are other documents in the file and these, I believe, give the nod to what I think of as the umbrella symbol. First, is one on a scrap of paper and the notation on the paper suggests that it was drawn within five minutes of the

The first drawing made by Zamora.

sighting, whenever that it might have been, and is the correct one. This tiny scrap of paper, also in the Blue Book file, is also signed by Zamora.

Finally, there is an undated, unsigned report in the file but it seems that it was written weeks or months after the sighting. I base this on the comments section that mentions other sightings after the fact and the analysis of some of the soil samples that had been gathered. This document also shows the “umbrella” symbol, which reinforces the idea that it is the correct one.

The "umbrella" symbol from the undated report in the Blue Book file.

Here’s my thinking on this. I can see no reason why a false symbol would be included in the file without a notation that it is a false symbol. Hynek’s illustration, drawn months after the sighting looks more like he was recreating a symbol that he had been told about rather than he was drawing the real thing. Besides, he never saw it himself and because of that, and because it was months later, no one bothered to mention a thing about it.

I will note that I have, in my possession, a copy of a handwritten letter by Ray Stanford dated May 3, 1964, in which he wrote, “I advise not letting out the real (as told in the tape by Mike Martinez) description of symbol on UFO, as if person(s) claim UFO ‘contact’ with an “A” or “A” (here he drew the one with the three bars through it) on side we can suspect a hoax.” (Or, in other words, he is contradicting himself when he now claims that the inverted “V” with the three lines is the real one.) 

Stanford's May 3, 1964 letter to Richard Hall.

With the symbol signed by Zamora, we have, not only the one reported to have been drawn within minutes of the departure of the craft, but another, apparently created within hours, while the very first investigators were on the scene. It would seem to me that two signed symbols in the file outweigh the contradicted inverted “V” with the three lines. It would seem to me that the correct symbol is the one we thought it was all along.

The Temple, Oklahoma UFO Occupant Sighting

It has been claimed that the only case involving occupants, creatures associated with a landed UFO that was labeled as “Unidentified” was that from Socorro, New Mexico told by Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Although somewhat hidden in the Project Blue Book files, there is another that took place almost two years later. Hynek mentioned it in his book, The Hynek UFO Report, but he doesn’t give a location and he dates it with a newspaper clipping from the Dallas Times Herald.

Although Hynek suggests the case is from the Wichita Falls, Texas area and the witness, W. E. Laxson was a civilian employee at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, the Project Blue Book files list the case as Temple, Oklahoma. The newspaper clipping cited by Hynek is dated March 27, 1966, but the sighting occurred on March 23, 1966. With the misdirection from Hynek, probably a result of the classified nature of the case when he wrote his book, it took a while to deduce the facts.*

Hynek, using the newspaper account said there was nothing in it that varied from what was in the Blue Book file. That file said:

Observer [W. E. Eddie Laxson] was driving his car along the highway at approximately 0505 [a.m.], 23 March 1966, when he noticed an object parked on the road in front of him. He stopped the car and got out so as to get a better view of the object. The object was so parked that it blocked out a portion of the road curve sign. There were no sharp edges noted by the observer. The object had the appearance of a conventional aircraft (C-124) without wings or motors. There was a plexiglas [sic] bubble on top, similar to a B-26 canopy. As observer approached, he noticed a man wearing a baseball cap enter the object by steps from the bottom. After the man entered the object, it began to rise from the pavement and headed on a southeasterly direction at approximately 720 mph. The object had forward and aft lights that were very bright. As the object rose from the ground, a high speed drill type of sound was heard, plus a sound like that of welding rod when an arc is struck. Object was 75’ long, nearly 8’ from top to bottom and about 12’ wide. There were some type of supports up the bottom of the object.

After the object disappeared the witness got back into his car and drove approximately fifteen miles down the highway. At this time the original witness stopped and talked with another individual who had also stopped along the roadway to watch some lights over Red River which is approximately five or six miles to the southeast.

COMMENTS

Various organizations were contacted around the Temple [Oklahoma] area for a possible experimental or conventional aircraft. The observer stated that he thought the object was some type of Army or Air Force research aircraft. All attempts at such an explanation proved fruitless, since there were no aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. Although there are numerous helicopters and other experimental in the area, none could be put in the area of Temple at approximately 0500, 23 March 1966. Because of this factor the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force.

The second witness, who was not interviewed by the Air Force and who, according to the Blue Book files did not file out their long and involved form, was C. W. Anderson. Anderson confirmed for the newspaper that he had seen the craft as well. He told the reporter, “I know that people will say that Laxson is durned crazy. But that’s what I saw.”

Anderson said that he thought the object had been following him down the road. He had watched it in his rearview mirror for several miles. The problem for the Air Force was that Anderson did not complete their form. He didn’t see the pilot or crewman either.

Laxson's drawing from the Project Blue Book files.

The drawing of the object made by Laxson, resembled, grossly, that Lonnie Zamora had made of the craft he saw, which means it was sort of egg-shaped. It was certainly longer and was lying on its side. Like Zamora, Laxson said that he saw symbols on the object, but unlike Zamora, he recognized them. He told the report that, “On the side I made out… ‘TLA’ with the last two figures ’38.’”

In what might be described as a fit of honesty, the Air Force admitted they had no solution for the case. The description of the “alien” was more human than humanoid and he seemed to be dressed in conventional clothes right to the “mechanics” hat. Investigation revealed a second witness and that might have influenced the Air Force, especially since the men had never met prior to the sighting. In the end, they labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

*It should be noted that Hynek used the information that was available in non-classified sources to write The Hynek Report. When Hynek wrote his book, the Blue Book files were still classified, but by the publication date, they would be declassified and housed at the Air Force Archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Here’s what all this means. At the time, the mid-1970s, a book would be handed in to a publisher and it would be between a year and 18 months before that book would be available, which means, when Hynek actually wrote it, the files would have still be classified… and upon publication it wasn’t common knowledge that the files were declassified. Hynek cannot be faulted for using the publicly available information rather than the classified sources to which he might no longer been granted access.

Kerman, California UFO Case - An Update

As I had hoped, the Manuel Amparano sighting and burn incident has caused some good discussion and a few irrelevant points (let’s look at Stephenville, Hasting’s work and the Phoenix Lights… though I’m surprised that no one mentioned the Washington Nationals, the Lubbock Lights photographs and the Levelland Sightings in their wishes to see information on other cases). The discussion did take a nasty turn when it appears that some couldn’t read what I had posted and when I attributed an International UFO Reporter article to Dr. Michael Swords that he did not write. That article follows:

I also used, as a source, the APRO Bulletin article that was probably written by Coral Lorenzen which follows:

There is also a new assessment of the case written by Jason Marzek for the Fringe Republic which can be found here:

http://fringerepublic.com/kerman-ufo-burning-061401/ 

And there is another assessment with some documentation embedded in it that can be found here:

http://www.examiner.com/article/ufo-evidence-just-the-facts-please

For those who wish another source, the NICAP.org website has a short article that references the IUR article from September 1978 on pages 10 – 11, which appears above, and articles from the Fresno Bee for May 19, 1978 and February 23, 1979.

Dr. Swords did write an article for the IUR, Volume 34, Number 4 (September 2011) which does mention the Kerman, California case, but only in a table on Foundational “burn-like” skin cases. It gives the date and nothing more. The coincidence here is that both articles were published in September in the IUR, though decades apart. There is no byline on the first IUR article. The only names associated with the IUR then were J. Allen Hynek and Allan Hendry. It would seem that Hendry was the author, though, as I say, there is no byline.

This is, however, a secondary issue. The question seems to be, where did the report of second degree burns come from? Clearly the man was burned as the documentation and the witness testimony establishes. Since there is documentation for third degree burns from both the sheriff and the medical facility, I’m not sure why we have bogged down in the question of the second degree burns.

At any rate, if this was one of the articles on chasing footnotes, I would have mentioned that the article attributed to Michael Swords was not written by him but it does appear in the IUR. I will note that I try to attribute the information to the proper source and give credit where credit is due. Here, I believed that Swords, because of the reference I had found, was responsible for the earlier article. So, we clear that up, and I apologize to Swords for dragging his name into this. We can move on to the other questions.

Oh, just for fun, I will note that most of us know that attempting to determine distance, size and speed of an unknown object seen in the night sky with no points of reference is nearly impossible… if the witness gets it right, I would suggest that it more luck than observational ability and that angular size, angle above the ground and direction would be more important than guesses about precise figures for size, distance and speed.

December 18, 1966: Bear Mountain State Park, New York

I thought for fun and to change the tone of the discussion, I'd publish this analysis of a case that appears in the Project Blue Book files. The picture that appears in the files is so poor that it is nearly impossible to see with a magnifying glass. Of course those who wish to see it could take a look at the Fold3 site found here http://www.fold3.com/image/6979057/ to look at the picture and good luck with that.

The Air Force, after a quick analysis, decided, “Photo: Hoax. Photo does not substantiate the witnesses’ description of alleged UFO.”

The quick description was that the object was long with a hump on its back. The color was silver to brown. The witness said that he didn’t know how big the object was, but thought it was big. He would later suggest that it was it was about twenty feet long. The object appeared to wobble and that it disappeared behind a fire tower on a 1320 foot hill.

The official report, which was gathered within days of the sighting in a telephone interview, revealed that there was a single UFO, there was no sound or exhaust and that it had no wings. The pictures were taken about dusk.

First Lieutenant Thomas A. Knutson was the investigating officer. He wrote, “The initial interview was by telephone. The pictures were received 1½ weeks after the call. A second interview (personal) was conducted after receipt of the photographs and Mr. [name redacted but is Vincent Perna, 23] furnished the negative.” Although it is unclear from the Project Blue Book file, Perna apparently took four pictures before the object disappeared.

This sighting would be of no real value, even with the photographs, except for the Air Force conclusion and Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s response to that conclusion. On February 20, 1967, the Air Force provided its solution to the case. On the official form, located in the Project Blue Book files, Douglas M. Rogers offered his opinion:

Examination of the negative has negated double exposure and/or retouching. The photographs appear genuine insofar as content is concerned, however, no satisfactory explanation could be made of the unidentified object. The object appears to be circular in planform, basically flat in cross section with a domed “superstructure.” The object appears to be situated beyond the foreground trees, indicating a diameter in excess of eight inches, and the relative clarity indicates it to be substantially nearer than the background trees. The object could have a diameter as great as two or three feet. No attempt at “panning” was indicated as evidenced by the sharpness of the general scene. The object exhibits some small degree of blurriness indicating motion, the direction of which could not be ascertained.

The report was approved by Major William L. Turner, who was the chief of the photo analysis branch and Wilber Price, Jr., who was the chief of the exploitation division.

Hynek thought that the conclusion was “completely unfounded and unjustified. He sent a letter to Major Hector Quintanilla, who was the Chief of Project Blue Book at the time. Hynek wrote:

Dear Major Quintanilla:

On re-examination I find no substantiation for the evaluation of hoax, particularly in view of the photo analysis report, No. 67 – 10, dated 20 February 1967, which contains no information upon which a hoax can be based. To the contrary, the report stated that close examination of the negative negated double exposure and/or retouching. The photographs appear genuine insofar as content; however no satisfactory explanation could be made of the unidentified object. The lack of a satisfactory explanation of the unidentified object does not constitute sufficient reason to declare a hoax. Further, the interviewed considers the witness to be a reliable source.

After examination of the print by myself and by Mr. Beckman of the University of Chicago, we feel that the original negative should be requested for further examination. Mr. Beckman, a qualified photo-analyst, disagrees with the photo analysis presented in the report as to the distance of the object. He points out that the depth of field extends much farther than indicated in the report. It will be noted, from the print, that the focus is poor in the entire periphery of the picture regardless of distance; only in the center of the picture is the focus good, and this good focus extends essentially to infinity. Consequently no judgment can be made as to the real size of the object, if this judgment is based on the quality of focus.

My recommendation is, therefore, that the evaluation be changed from hoax to unidentified.

The letter was signed by Hynek who was, at the time, their scientific consultant, but the recommendation wasn’t followed. The “Hoax” evaluation was left intact.

It could be argued, and in fact Hynek does say it, that “…the Air Force was not interested in finding out all of the possible facts – or a more thorough investigation might have been conducted.”

It could also be argued that by this time, that is early 1967, Hynek had jumped ship and was always in conflict with the Air Force. He has said that there was animosity between him and Quintanilla at that time. He might have argued with any evaluation the Air Force made.

But what about this Mr. Beckman? He isn’t employed by Northwestern University where Hynek works, seems to have no stake in the case one way or the other, and he apparently agrees with Hynek’s evaluation. Beakman offers a counter to what seemed to be a solid Air Force analysis that had no other mission than to evaluate a photograph of a flying saucer.

In the end, it seems like a case of picking a side and arguing the point. There is no evidence of tampering with the negative or the prints, so the conclusion that it is a genuine picture seemed to be confirmed. That evaluation, for those paying close attention, meant that no one had doctored with the print of the negative. But it did not mean that the object photographed wasn’t a small model suspended some distance beyond the nearest trees and the farthest. Given that the camera had a set focal length, there simply wasn’t enough evidence to make a positive determination so that both sides could make claims that were hard to justify.

There is one other point to this. In 1967, the University of Colorado was beginning their investigation of UFOs for the Air Force. It would seem that a photographic case that was only a few months old, would be of interest to that project. They could have talked to the witness; they could have evaluated the photograph and then would have been able to examine the camera. It was all very timely for them, but there is no evidence that they made the effort to do so. Maybe they took the Air Force conclusion as an accurate evaluation. Hynek’s letter wasn’t sent to Quintanilla until November. Given that, they might not have thought it was worth the effort to investigate for themselves.