Expedition Unknown in Socorro

 

The other day I stumbled into an episode of Expedition Unknown that was investigating the Socorro UFO landing of April 1964. I would have ignored it, except it seemed to suggest that the UFO was, in fact, terrestrially based, meaning it was a misidentification of something made on Earth. The investigators were impressed with the idea that the UFO was a lunar landing being tested at the White Sands Missile Ranch at the time and they produced a document showing those tests.

The problem was that the times didn’t match. The sighting, by Police Officer Lonnie Zamora, was about 6 p.m. on a Friday night. The document suggested the testing much earlier in the day. You can see that for yourself here:

 

On Friday, April 24, the date of the sighting, the testing of the surveyor was between 7:45 a.m. and 11:45 a.m., which means the testing was finished about six hours before Zamora saw a craft. I will also point out that the testing was over the White Sands Missile Range which is south of Socorro. There is no evidence that the testing was delayed or that the surveyor strayed off the range. To suggest a delay or the off-range trouble is pure speculation.

For the tests on April 27, these are irrelevant. All it demonstrates is that there were scheduled tests on the range and there were no corresponding UFO sightings.

There were mentions of the landing gear impressions that Zamora found. These were documented by the military that night. Captain Richard Holder requested assistance from the military police to first guard the site and later to make measurements about the landing traces. That documentation appears in the Project Blue Book file. The illustration shows an asymmetrical landing gear, which, I believe is the result of the terrain, meaning that the uneven surface gives the impression of asymmetry. If it had been a flat surface, then the landing gear would have been symmetrical.

The surveyor landing gear is asymmetrical. On its longest dimension, it is just over 31 feet. The landing impressions, on the longest dimension is just under 15 feet. The overall pattern does not match that of the surveyor.

Site survey conducted on the night of the sighting. From the Blue Book files.

Here is the problem. There are various models of the surveyor and there is no indication which was being tested in New Mexico. There might be a surveyor that has landing gear that more closely matches that of the markings found by Zamora.

In a point that isn’t all that important, they suggest they might have found a corporate logo that matches that seen symbol by Zamora. They said, during the program, that Zamora had drawn the symbol from memory, implying a passage of time. But, according to Zamora, he made the drawing within minutes of the UFO taking off and that drawing is available in the Blue Book file. It does not resemble the corporate logo very closely, though the investigators in the show were impressed by it.

In the Blue Book file, there is another corporate logo that more closely matches that which Zamora saw. It is not an exact match and it does stretch credulity to claim it does, but it is closer than the one shown on the program.

Finally, they displayed an illustration, drawn by Dave Thomas, that shows an OH-13 helicopter used to suspend the surveyor under it. This contraption might be what Zamora saw, except that he never mentioned a hovering helicopter.

On the show the two investigators pointed out that there was a two-man crew in the helicopter and Zamora had reported seeing two beings on the ground. I can think of no scenario in which both pilots would leave the helicopter with the blades turning and the engine running. One would remain behind, which is another reason to reject this theory.

At the end of the segment, it seemed that all agreed, that is the two investigators and Dave Thomas, that the Socorro sighting have been solved. The surveyor straying off the Missile Range, held aloft by a helicopter, was what Zamora saw. Well, of course, I wasn’t convinced, which set off this investigation.

As noted, the landing gear impressions don’t match, the range times for testing the surveyor don’t match, the theory that the object was a surveyor carried by a helicopter doesn’t come close to the description offered by Zamora, and the corporate logo isn’t a match. In other words, there were too many unanswered questions.

My first step was to look all this up on Dave Thomas’ website which can be found here:

www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

It’s clear from that website that the solution for the case isn’t quite as solid as presented. According to Thomas:

Of course, this new evidence is far from conclusive (emphasis added). A lot has happened since 1964, and it's difficult to reconstruct events from that long ago, especially events with strong implications. Was it a college prank? A hoax? A balloon? An alien craft from another world? Perhaps we'll never really know. Gildenberg is confident that William of Occam, of Occam's Razor fame, would think kindly of the Surveyor explanation, especially over some of the other contenders.

I reached out to Dave Thomas for his impressions, rather than just relying on that had been broadcast and what was found on his website. He responded, telling me:

I would describe the WSMR Surveyor log Duke Gildenberg found as at least tantalizing evidence.

It's my understanding that there might have been more than two people involved, two to stand in for astronauts controlling Surveyor rocket jets, and one or maybe two pilots for the helicopter itself, which was required because of Earth's 6x gravity.

It would have been a strange looking device, indeed. Of course, it's not 100 percent Surveyor or the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). There are former Tech students swearing by the playing with dynamite explanation, and then there are locals like Ron and Dorothy Landoll, who heard a fresh description of the craft from a police colleague of Zamora's, and later realized its similarity to the LEM when it was publicized in 1965. When I interviewed Stirling Colgate about his report of a student-led hoax, he unfortunately couldn't recall anything about that incident, and has passed away since.

While we don't know for sure what Zamora saw, I think he honestly did see something strange that day. I don't think it was extraterrestrials, however, that would require much stronger evidence to get me onboard.

Please note the language used here. There are qualifications in it, and in a discussion such as this, we all use qualifications. Nothing is written in the absolute, rather there is a suggestion that an extraterrestrial explanation is not the likely solution and given that we have only witness observation and landing traces, that is understandable. To be fair, to reach the extraterrestrial should require more concrete evidence. However, none of the other solutions offered, and over the years there have been several, have been proven.

I will note here, that Thomas interviewed Stirling Colgate, who, in other communications, didn’t seem to support the idea of a student hoax, which had also been offered as the solution. I draw attention to that here, only because Thomas mentioned it without any prompting from me.

In the end, we’re left with a sighting that is unexplained. I have covered parts of this in the past, and it is reported in great detail in Encounter in the Desert, which is about the Zamora sighting.

For those who wish more information, just type Socorro into the search engine for a listing of articles. For those who wish a little help, see:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/07/socorro-new-mexico-and-lonnie-zamora.html

This contains a list of other relevant articles as well as being a good synopsis of the investigation.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Andy Marocco and Flight 19

In a sort of follow up from last week, I talked with Andy Marocco about the disappearance of Flight 19. His take on what happened and where the flight might have come to rest is different than that of Douglas Westfall. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

We did talk, briefly about the headstone for George Paonessa that is found at Arlington National Cemetery. Those of you who visit here frequently (and who have read the last couple of posts) know that the mystery has been solved. A member of

Andy Marocco

Paonessa’s family arranged for the headstone and as is policy, in cases where the body has not been recovered, a headstone was erected in a part of the cemetery devoted to those whose bodies were lost for whatever reason.

In a revelation I found interesting, when I asked about the theory that Paonessa had survived and moved to California at some point, Andy was able to clear up part of the problem. According to the information George Paonessa was buried in California. I had wondered about finding an obituary that might list family members. My thought was that we could learn if this was, in fact, the George Paonessa who had been lost with Flight 19. According to Andy, he found the man’s headstone in a California cemetery and the information available told us it was a different man.

We did talk about the idea that all the planes of Flight 19 had gone down together and that none of the pilots broke away from the formation. Andy suggested, based on the Navy records of the flight, that he was able to locate the general area of the crash site, which, ironically, is outside the limits of the Bermuda Triangle. To prove this point he revealed that the navigational records show that a mistake in reading the precise heading would have caused the planes to be some fifteen miles where they should have been. That was enough to radically throw off the navigation.

Although I wanted to talk a little more about the Martin Mariner, one of the search aircraft that was lost that same night, we didn’t have enough time to get deeply into it. I had seen an episode of Josh Gate’s Expedition Unknown where they did find wreckage on the ocean floor that might have come from a Martin Mariner. Andy said that he hoped to be able to return to the site and find evidence to prove that.

So, what has happened is that my interview with Douglas Westfall led to John Steiger’s finding of the Headstone for Paonessa, which led to research about how that happened. In less than a week, I was able to resolve this, learning exactly how that marker came to be. We have heard, in the last two shows, two theories about what happened to the various aircraft involved in the disaster, which aren’t exactly the exact opposite but which don’t exactly support one another. We have gained additional insight into what happened, learning that the aircraft took off in poor weather rather than a bright, clear, sunny sky. We learned that the Martin Mariner, which some have labeled at the “Flying Gas Tank,” was no such thing and that the evidence that it blew up was shaky at best.

But, then, we have cleared up a couple of issues. True, there still is the mystery about what, exactly, happened, but I think it is a little clearer in our minds.

Next up is Tom Carey. He listened to my interview with Don Schmitt and Tom seems to disagree with Don’s assessment of the Glenn Dennis and the missing nurse story. We’ll delve into that and some other matters Roswell related. If you have a question or two, append them here and I’ll try to get them asked.

The Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19 and Josh Gates

In a strange coincidence, I stumbled across the second part of Josh Gates’ episode dealing with the Bermuda Triangle. I was able to learn the results of the experiment he had conducted with a couple of scientists. They launched a balloon into the upper atmosphere to find out if there were any anomalies to explain the trouble with compasses and other electronics. Yes, they found a spike in the

Josh Gates and me... published here to show that
I'm not really bald.

electromagnetic radiation that they couldn’t explain. Interesting, but not too illuminating.

He also was involved in an experiment created to explain the disappearance of the USS Cyclops, a strange looking Navy ship designed to carry coal to the fleet. That mission explains the weird metallic superstructure. Using a university’s facilities that had been designed to recreate ocean conditions, they created what is now known as a rogue wave to attempt to sink the ship. I expected it to do so, but not with the rapidity that it did. The wave hit the exact model of the ship and took it down in seconds… no time for a radio call, no time to for the sailors to abandon the ship and no time for any sort of rescue. One minute the ship was on the surface and the next it was under water. I might add that there are some portions of the Bermuda Triangle that are the deepest in the North Atlantic. If a ship or a plane sank there, no one is ever going to find any sign of it.

I was more interested in Josh’s take on Flight 19, a five-plane formation of Avenger torpedo planes that disappeared in 1945. This is the cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle mystery. It seems inexplicable and I wondered just what Josh would do about it. He gave a good account of the preliminaries meaning that weather at the time of take- off wasn’t great, the make-up of the flight, and its training mission. Everything was fine as they approached the target, Hens and Chicken Shoals, some 70 or so nautical miles from their base.

Once beyond that, they seemed to have drifted off course. The Flight made a scheduled turn, but the Flight Leader, Charles Taylor, said that both his compasses had malfunctioned. From that point, it seems they made several turns, first flying one direction and then another until they ran out of gas. Radio contact had been lost prior to that and when it was obvious that the Flight was down, a Martin Mariner with a crew of 13 was launched to attempt a rescue. That aircraft slipped off the radar and disappeared as well.

But, unlike the Avengers, there were witnesses to this part of the disaster. The crew of a ship in the area saw an aerial explosion. When they reached the scene of the crash, they spotted floating debris but the bad weather forced them to abandon the search. They next day, no one could find the wreckage… but the ship’s crew did get a good fix on the location.

All this is important because Josh, with another crew using high tech sonar, were able to see the ocean bottom in what looked like high definition detail. Scanning the area, they found debris on the ocean floor that looked suspiciously like the remains of an aircraft. Diving down, Josh found what looked like the type of engine that the Martin Mariner had used, and a propeller blade, or rather the engine hub with all three blades on it. Given all that, it is almost certain that they had found the remains of Martin Mariner. Although Josh and crew were unable to recover the engine or the propeller, it was suggested that it should be recovered at some point.

Given that, and what he learned about Flight 19, Josh suggested that a

combination of events doomed the Flight. It was a cascade of circumstances that brought down the planes and had there been any variation in those events, even a slight one, the tragedy might have been avoided. The conclusion is that it wasn’t some mysterious force that brought down the Flight, it wasn’t aliens and it wasn’t some sort of interdimensional warp… it was bad weather, faulty navigation and a series of other events that combined to doom the Flight.

Again, I was surprised by the rationale brought to this. Josh suggested at the end that there might be some weird weather and magnetic anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle but there was nothing supernatural. That was a conclusion that I had reached many years ago after reading Lawrence Kusche’s book.

Of course, having met Josh (yes, I have to bring that up again), I’m not surprised that he came to the conclusions he did, based on the evidence and the experiments in which he was involved. For those who wish to learn the truth about this, Expedition Unknown has done a good job of relating the facts without delving into the wild speculation that obscures the reality of the situation. I believe that we can say “solved” to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. It is delightful to see an intelligent documentary about the Bermuda Triangle when there is so much nonsense out there.

The Bermuda Triangle - The New Programming

If I remember correctly, I first learned about the Bermuda Triangle in a book by John Godwin called This Baffling World. It was a compendium of stories of the strange from around the world that included a section on the Bermuda Triangle he

called, “The Hoodoo Sea.” Although he used the terms “Danger Zone,” and “Devil’s Sea,” in his book, he did not say “Bermuda Triangle.” Vincent Gaddis had invented that term (it seems) in a 1964 magazine article.

It was in 1974 that the Lorenzens of APRO were holding a convention or symposium in Denver, Colorado. Circumstances meant that I would be able to attend and one of the few things I remember is Jim Lorenzen on the stage, talking about the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. Specifically, he mentioned Flight 19, the five Avenger Torpedo planes that disappeared in December 1945. Lorenzen said that there was no way that all five planes would have crashed as once. What was there that could take all five planes at once, without warning.

Years later, as I was studying some of the cases from the Bermuda Triangle, I learned the answer to that question. According to the available records, at 5:22 p.m., Lieutenant Taylor, the flight leader was heard to say, “When the first man gets down to ten gallons of gas, we will all land in the water together. Does everyone understand that?”

Of course, that might not have happened but that would explain how five aircraft can all disappear at once… but I digress.

In those early years, I believed there was something weird going on in the Bermuda Triangle. Planes and ships just don’t disappear like that… unless there is something strange happening.

I also thought, if you are going to promote a point of view, you should understand what the enemy claims. Given that, I picked up a book, The Bermuda Triangle

Mystery – Solved by Lawrence David Kusche. I wanted to be able to refute what he had to say by examining the evidence he presented. Imagine my surprise when he convinced me, with facts and documents, that he had discovered what was really going on. There was no mystery until it was invented by imaginative magazine and book writers. Sure, Flight 19 seemed to be really strange and once you have found that, well, then there were other strange disappearances to be found as well.

One of the disappearances that Kusche covered was that of a C-119. In his write up, he used the Miami Herald as a source, but the newspaper doesn’t supply much in the way of evidence. He theorizes that the plane might have ditched, but he doesn’t really know. He brings up the UFO sighting by Gemini 4, which is completely irrelevant.

I wouldn’t bother with this if I didn’t have additional information. I covered all that “new” information on this blog a number of years ago. You can read about the disappearance and the solution here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bermuda-triangle-and-c-119.html

But the point here is to look at these shows that are now searching for answers in the Bermuda Triangle. I had thought it would just be more of the same hype that solves nothing but adds to the mystery. It seems that this assumption might be wrong.

My pal (and I use the term loosely since I only met him once but did have a late lunch with him), Josh Gates, got sucked into the Bermuda Triangle lore. But the

Josh Gates on the right.

tone of the program seemed to be more about finding an answer or two and the attempts to use science in the search. Sure, he talked to some of those who have had weird experiences in the Triangle, but those experiences don’t really take us outside the realm of modern physics. Nothing that would suggest an otherworldly presence or some sort of interdimensional warp. Just weird weather in an area where weird weather seems to be a regular occurrence.

Although it seems that he is going to attack the problem of Flight 19, I haven’t seen that episode yet. I do know that there have been several Avenger Torpedo Bombers found in the Triangle, but none, according to official sources, have been proven to be part of Flight 19. For example, in 1991, treasure hunter Graham Hawkes said that he had found the wreckage of all five aircraft. The tail number of one of the aircraft came from a crash some two years earlier. Hawkes later said that the Pentagon and therefore the Navy had pressured him to make the case “go away.” Then in 2012, he said that he believed that he had actually found Flight 19, but he couldn’t prove it.

In 2015, there was a claim that an aircraft had been found near Sebastian, Florida with two bodies inside. Although the Navy initially said it was part of Flight 19, they later retracted the statement. FOIA requests for more information didn’t provide any conclusive evidence.

What was more interesting for me, the wreckage of an Avenger was found during the search for parts of the Challenger Space Shuttle. I say interesting because Jon Myhre raised the wreckage, which he thought was part of Flight 19.

I mention this because Myhre did publish a book about Flight 19 which suggested the aircraft had been found. I’m working to learn a little more about this because, if even one of the aircraft has been found, then we might have a solution to this mystery.

But, back to the original point here. I’ve seen a couple of other episodes of Curse of the Bermuda Triangle. While they seem to be doing quite a bit to fill the hour with their investigations, they also seem to have a real mission of finding answers. I mean did we really need to show that a powerful magnet would affect the operation of a compass? We all know this and if I remember correctly, there are documented magnetic problems in the Triangle area. According to the program, the yacht, Yahtzee, which disappeared in the Triangle has been found.

At this point, I’m rather pleased with both the Curse of the Bermuda Triangle and Josh Gate’s Expedition Unknown. Although they talk of thousands of disappearances, none of the research I’ve done suggest anything like that. True, as mentioned, there have been 300 shipwrecks found around Bermuda but a shipwreck isn’t a disappearance. Of course, that report didn’t mention the massive reef system around Bermuda that was responsible for some of those wrecks. Lloyd’s of London did look at the statistics and suggested that the Bermuda Triangle was no more dangerous than some other areas of the world.

While some of those believe that Atlantis and that mythical civilization had some power source that causes the disappearances, others thought that proof for Atlantis had been found. I believe it was Josh Gates who dove on the “Bimini Road” which supposed to have been built by the Atlanteans. But in the program, they concluded that the road was a natural formation based on wave action.

If both Josh Gates and the crew of Curse of the Bermuda Triangle continue to investigate for real rather than ratings, then these programs are both interesting and useful… True, a mystery is more fun than the solution, but ignoring the solution for the sake of the mystery does none of us any good

The Ramey Memo - The Latest Information

For nearly thirty years or more, various researchers and experts have been trying to read the Ramey Memo, believing that it might hold the key to the Roswell crash. What can be seen easily in the document held by Brigadier General Roger Ramey suggests that the text does relate to the Roswell case. While some words are obvious, others are tantalizing close to being read, but are open to various interpretations.

The Ramey Memo

Back about two decades ago, one phrase that was almost readable, suggested one of two things. In one interpretation, “victims of the wreck,” suggested a biological recovery, which, in turn, suggested something extraterrestrial. The second interpretation, “remains of the wreck,” suggested metallic debris which suggested something more mundane. Remains was a terrestrial-based answer and victims could easily be something from outer space.

From the beginning, those two phrases have been discussed at length. Both emerged from the start of the search for meaning. Another interpretation appeared just a couple of years ago, “viewing of the wreck,” which didn’t tell us much, other than the solution was probably based on Earth. Again, it was just beyond our ability to resolve the words on the memo.

Back a couple of years ago, a new, high power scan of the negative of Ramey holding the memo was made. The idea was to use the latest technology to attempt to read the new and improved scan. Universal acceptance was just out of reach. The critical line could not be resolved to the point where the majority of those interested in it would agree on an interpretation.

Josh Gates, and those at Expedition Unknown took a another look at it in 2017. The results by an independent expert suggested that “viewing” was the critical word, rather than “victims.” Viewing was seven letters and it made since in the context of the rest of the sentence, but it just wasn’t the slam dunk needed.

Josh Gates in the University of Texas at Arlington,
Special Collections. Copyright by Kevin Randle.

Research continued, with several experts from around the world attempting to decipher the word and the sentence. Now, a fellow who wishes only to be known as Kaleb, used SmartDeblur 2.3 PRO version (trial edition) to enhance these scans.

He has shared the images with very few people and cautions, “No one else has seen them as of yet, but I am sure they are big enough and strong enough to make a few waves in the UFOlogy community?”

But to be fair, I can see both “victims” and “remains” in these new images. And, one of those who worked with us completing the new scans, and who, I believe has no dog in the fight, wrote:

At the risk of being redundant, Mr. Kaleb is getting farther away with each iteration.  The process he’s using is inherently destructive and his "new" images are beginning to take on the appearance of written Sanskrit.  Until such time that the images provided … are subjected to a substitution and comparison algorithm using computers on the order of those provided to NSA the odds of the memo being any more clear and readable are slim and none.  The Texas University images clearly show sharp and perfectly clear grain image.  There is no "de-bluring" or "enhancement" to be gained to those files by imaging software of any design.  The very nature of such software destroys far more than it reveals.   Were the images to be subjected to a crypto analysis type program similar to that of the proverbial hundred monkeys pounding away on typewriters and eventually writing the complete works of Shakespeare…well, you get the idea.

Another assessment, from another of those involved in this problem, provides a little more information. It said:

… assessment I think is fair in terms of our work producing a cleaner ‘base image’ than previously available and that re-enhancing those images is going backwards.

But I do believe an approach to correct the topography of the memo (angle; orientation; perspective fall-off etc) would yield improvements which Kaleb’s efforts hint at.

If Kaleb (or others) could manipulate the memo without falling prey to destructive image enhancements - … informed concerns could be address and the work taken in a more fruitful direction.

While it might be said that progress is being made, and that any suggestion and attempt at reading the memo provides some insight into what was happening in 1947, it can also be said that we’re basically at the same place. There are two interpretations of the memo. One suggests something alien and the other suggests something terran (yeah, I used a science fiction term for those of us from Earth… I don’t like earthling).

As for me, I’m a little disappointed that we haven’t made better progress. I had hoped that our new technologies and new technics would enable us to make a better run at this. For those still engaged in the work, I have nothing but respect. The work continues, and I’ll report the findings as soon as I have them.