Saturday, October 15, 2016

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.

32 comments:

RRRGroup said...

The arc over the arrow, Kevin, was confirmed by Mrs. Zamora (who may, admittedly, have been holding to the hoaxed scenario, which I doubt).

Holder Jr. wrote to Jose Caravaca (and also sent a note to Ray Stanford) that the symbols shown through the years did not look like any that his father had drawn for him, and which, he said, were in a Blue Book document that no longer is shown in the BB files.

Caravaca (and others, presumably you also) is pursuing a FOIA request to locate missing the Holder Sr. BB file, which, if found, may truly resolve the matter.

(Ray Stanford's hand in all this has merely mucked the matter up.)

RR

Wind Swords said...

If there has been no other sightings of a UFO with ANY of these symbols (fake or real) then it seems a rather moot point, except for the purposes of historical accuracy. After all the whole point of obfuscating the "real" symbol was to weed out copy cats and hoaxers (and maybe to see if the "real" symbol was spotted again. But to my knowledge there were no future sightings of the "fake" or the "real" symbol. If the object Zamora saw was extra terrestrial then one can only conclude that the particular craft/race has never come near the earth again.

TheUFOGuy said...

The referenced symbol supposedly drawn by Lonnie right after the event could have been made anytime and inserted into the files. In my opinion it really does not change what I believe to be the real symbol, a /\ with 3 lines. Blue Book original HANDWRITTEN files also contain an inverted v with the bars, as do many newpaper articles. I cannot paste it here since there is no way to add attachments. I guess Kevin that we agree to disagree. Despite what it may have been, the event, IMHO, is of a non-human landing.

KRandle said...

Ben -

I have gone through the entire Blue Book file on the case, again, carefully and the only representation that I can find showing the inverted "V" with three bars is the one that Hynek drew in his letter, which I have published twice. The Blue Book files have both handwritten notes and typewritten notes. I don't know if you are suggesting that there are additional files to which I have no current access, please let me know. As I say, the handwritten portion shows only Hynek's illustration.

And yes, there are newspaper articles that describe the inverted "V" with the bars, but there are no real illustrations and the writing is open to interpretation. That means that the three bars could be underneath the "V" rather than through it. Ray Stanford's about what is faked, which I published the relevant part, suggests that in 1964, he believed that the inverted "V" and the bars was the wrong one.

If you have any evidence that the symbol drawn by Lonnie Zamora that was made some five minutes after the sighting was inserted into the file sometime later, please let me know what it was. That image is consistent with almost everything else in the file.

Finally, as I was going through this again, I was reading the short report offered by CPT Holder. He wrote that he had been told by the police dispatcher that he had received three calls about the blue flame around or just before Lonnie Zamora's report, which confirms that information... he also noted that these reports had not been logged by the police, but since Holder was right there, taking to the guy, I view this as important but not conclusive documentation.

If you wish to submit a counter report, email it to me, and I will publish it on this blog with no editorial comment other than to say this is your perspective of this aspect of the controversy.

David Rudiak said...

(1/2)
First of all, it makes no difference to me which is the "real" symbol, which I consider a secondary detail that has no bearing on the extraordinary nature of the case. Far more important were Zamora's observations of the "blue flame" (with absence of jet or rocket excavation of the soil), the silent departure, the highly controlled horizontal trajectory, and the very rapid disappearance. That plus the fogging of the film of state patrolman Ted Jordan who arrived minutes later. These all point to the highly unconventional nature of the craft. The symbol with unknown meaning does not.

I sent this off to Ray Stanford who has confirmed that is indeed his handwriting. It was 52 years ago and he doesn't remember writing the note or why it contradicts everything he wrote later. One guess of his is that maybe he changed his mind afterward what the real symbol was. I think looking at the note and other things Ray has told me that it was more likely a momentary mistake. For one, he says he was returning home from Socorro when this was written and his mind was focused on the metal scrapings he had recovered off a crushed rock in one of the landing impressions, extremely important physical evidence. He also doesn't understand why it would be handwritten, as he normally typed out his notes. To me this looks like he hurriedly scribbled this out without referring to his notes and temporarily got things backwards.

What most suggests this to me is that the note has a huge internal contradiction: "I advise not letting out the (REAL as told in tape by Mike Martinez) description of symbol_ on UFO, so if person(s) claim UFO 'contact' with 'A' [single bar] or 'A' [three bars] on side we can suspect a hoax, while anyone giving the real (& unpublished) description would tend to authenticate himself..."

The big contradiction is that the "real description" of Martinez (radio dispatcher, heard directly from Zamora) was of the inverted V with three bars underneath it (said in Spanish, taped, recording still exists), yet this is immediately followed by Stanford saying the inverted V was the faked symbol(?????). This is why I think it was a momentary mistake on a note that seems to have been hastily written, with Stanford perhaps working from memory at the time and getting the facts reversed. (Stanford told me he has another typewritten letter to Hall buried in his files somewhere written in this time frame, which he is now looking for, which may clear this up.)

We also know that that both NICAP and APRO shortly thereafter published the other symbol instead (the “umbrella” one), even though the Lorenzens (APRO) simultaneously made it quite clear that they agreed with the Holder/Zamora scheme of the fake symbol to catch hoaxers. If the inverted V symbol was the fake one, why didn’t they publish it instead to go along with the scheme? Same with NICAP. If Stanford really thought the inverted V was the fake one and recommended NOT publishing the “real” one to Richard Hall, then why did Hall publish the other “umbrella” “real” symbol?

Even more importantly, Hynek had been quoted on tape April 29 by KSRC reporter Walter Shrode about the inverted V symbol plus Hynek himself was widely quoted the same day in newspaper articles about the inverted V symbol (either with one or 3 bars). The day before, before Hynek even arrived in Socorro, state trooper Sam Chavez (first by Zamora's side as Zamora was sketching the symbol) was quoted in the papers with the inverted V with three bars.

David Rudiak said...

(2/2)
Hynek had spoken to both Chavez and Zamora the night of April 28, the day before he publicly used the inverted V description. Obviously Hynek thought this was the real symbol, and must have gotten it from Zamora and maybe also Chavez April 28, used it publicly the next day, then 5 months later still thought it the real one writing to BB.

If the "A" symbol was indeed faked, Hynek was either also very confused in his handwritten letter to BB, or he had been deliberately deceived April 28 by Zamora and maybe Chavez, even though Zamora had told the Lorenzens that Cpt. Holder said he could describe the real symbol to official investigators, but not anyone else. Chavez would have also had to lie to the newspapers the same day, so he would have had to be in on Holder's fake symbol plot as well. Zamora would have also had to lie to Martinez. And various unnamed people, possibly police, would have had to tell Walter Shrode about the inverted V/3-bars as well, because he asked Zamora about it, with Zamora saying he was told not to talk about it.

There are problems as well with the Zamora-signed scrap of paper that he supposedly wrote on right after the object departed, seemingly out of some magazine. It has always bothered me that Zamora would write this down on some random scrap of paper instead of using some good blank paper that he probably carried around in his car, like a traffic ticket book or a police log. Talking with Ray Stanford yesterday, he said that scrap of paper is still in the National Archives when he visited with James Fox a few years ago (they scanned both sides while there). The backside seems to indicate this was from something like a sociology journal. That seems like unlikely reading material for Zamora. Where did it come from? Was it some random scrap of paper out in the desert? He was at his patrol car. Why not just reach inside and get some good piece of paper to write on?

We also know the other signed "umbrella" symbols have Holder's handwritten headings on them. Zamora's statement to Holder, again with the umbrella symbol written in, (taken the night of April 24) is a combination of 1st and 3rd person narrative and obviously written up by Holder. We know Holder was the one who dreamed up the symbol deception scheme to begin with. Kevin logically asks why they would use the hoax symbol signed by Zamora inside official Blue Book files. Very good point. (But then, Hynek’s inverted V letter is ALSO in BB files.)

Against this we also have BB Sgt. David Moody's Socorro report where he also writes that after speaking with Zamora he talked to Holder about the symbol and Holder said he didn't know anything about it. That strongly suggests to me that Holder (representing the Army) was not fully cooperating with Blue Book (the AF) for reasons unknown. Moody wrote he was attaching the signed (umbrella) symbol to the end of his report, which may mean he simply accepted the Holder/Zamora symbol without pressing Zamora further about the symbol. It would be very reasonable to ask why Holder would want to propagate a fake symbol within official files instead of sharing correct information. I have no good answer to this, other than to point out from what Moody wrote, this may very well have happened if Holder lied about not knowing about the symbol.

All that can be concluded at this point is that various facts are contradictory about which was the “real” symbol, which leaves the whole issue muddled. It is possible to reasonably argue either way.

The same happened with Zamora’s initial description of the two occupants. FBI agent Byrnes was also there with Holder and Zamora. Byrnes advised him NOT to discuss the occupants, as he had initially done with newsmen. Thereafter the occupant descriptions also got muddled, with Moody describing them as “things” in white that Zamora only assumed were occupants, instead of actively reacting to his presence.

TheUFOGuy said...

In the presentation I sent you is the handwritten Blue Book notes with the inverted v and 3 bars.

KRandle said...

David -

Easy to resolve since the tape of Mike Martinez exists. Have a listen to it and see if it corroborates the story.

The important point in David's comment, I believe (and a similar comment in Ben Moss' comment)is "It is possible to reasonably argue either way."

TheUFOGuy said...

If you go to the 10 minute mark or so you will see the Blue Book file with the inverted v and 3 bars.
http://www.miamivalleyufosociety.com/inside-project-blue-book
Rob Mercer got the project Blue Book files on Socorro on Craig's list. They came from Holder's son who found them in a box in his garage after his father had passed. I have copies of all of them. They definitely show this symbol. If I could attach it here I would be cannot.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin: "Easy to resolve since the tape of Mike Martinez exists. Have a listen to it and see if it corroborates the story."

Here it is:

http://www.noufors.com/audio/Cops%20and%20Saucers/09.mp3

See about 40-60 seconds in where Martinez repeats at least twice what Zamora told him in Spanish: "es un 'V' invertido, con tres líneas debajo." (Recording is not good quality and very hard to understand, but listen carefully and you can hear Martinez saying this.)

As to when Martinez said this, Stanford is discussing it as the "real" symbol mentioned by Martinez in his note to Hall May 3, 1964, so obviously the recording was made before then, or sometime between the evening of April 28 when Stanford first got to Socorro and May 3.

(That is why the May 3 note makes no sense. Martinez tells Stanford Zamora said the real symbol was the inverted V with 3 lines beneath it, Stanford mentions that first in the note to Hall as being the REAL symbol description based on what Martinez said, then immediately contradicts it saying the inverted V is the hoax symbol. That is why I suspect it was momentary confusion and a simple mistake that Stanford later corrected.)

Other Socorro related recordings here:

http://www.noufors.com/COPS_&_SAUCERS_-_Law_Enforcement_and_UFOs.html

Links to transcripts of most of these (Zamora, Hynek, Reidel, Grinder) at my website:

http://www.roswellproof.com/socorro/socorro_main.html

purrlgurrl said...

I wouldn't say the symbol was resolved. That's overstating. I would just say the symbol originally reported has been tentatively identified.

The entire case is still unresolved.

Paul Young said...

David Rudiak wrote..."If the "A" symbol was indeed faked, Hynek was either also very confused in his handwritten letter to BB, or he had been deliberately deceived April 28 by Zamora and maybe Chavez, even though Zamora had told the Lorenzens that Cpt. Holder said he could describe the real symbol to official investigators, but not anyone else."

No doubt, the former.
Any noble reason Zamora might have had in giving false information about the insignia to the public, becomes totally redundant when dealing with an investigator working on behalf of the Government/Military.

I used to considered Hynek to simply be a debunker. But the more I read about this duffer, the more convinced I am that he was only drafted into investigating the UFO phenomenon because he was known, by the people behind the cover-up, to be profoundly inept. He could be trusted to make a pigs ear of it.

Inspector Clouseau must have been busy, so they head-hunted Allen Hynek
If Hynek was commissioned to investigate "Watergate", then Nixon would have his face on Mount Rushmore by now.

TheUFOGuy said...

Hynek was not the sharpest tack in the box. When Zamora pointed out to Ray Stanford and Dr. Hynek that a rock looked like it was broken and scrapped by one of the landing gear, Hynek looked at it and said "you could be right". Yet he made no attempt to grab the rock (which contained metal alloy from the landing gear). They stared at it, then Ray reminded Hynek of their press conference, and they all took off. Ray then drove back and collected the rock.For Hynek to just let this slide and not care to grab the rock shows just how spaced out he could be.

KRandle said...

All -

I can't let this pass. This is not a forum on Allen Hynek who was a respected scientist. He entered the arena consulting for the Air Force and with the idea that these flying saucers had mundane explanations. He was hammered for an off the cuff remark about swamp gas which is just another example of media bias and shallow journalism. Looking that the evidence he changed his outlook on UFOs and believed that there was something of importance there. If we wish to single out missteps, then we should all look into our research and our work to see if we haven't made an error at some point. For those who wish a more rounded picture of Hynek, might I suggest that your read his books on UFOs and to read Quintanilla's analysis as well. It might provide some greater insight into this... and now might we return to our regularly schedule blog posting.

KRandle said...

Ben -

I have gone through the Blue Book file again and I will say that it is quite confusing with it filed in a couple of locations. I cannot find the handwritten note in it, which suggests to me that either Holder did not submit this material to Blue Book or that it was removed for some nefarious purpose.

I worked from a microfilm copy of the Blue Book file that I own. I also went through the material on Fold3, and looked at the NICAP site as well. I noticed that the information you provided mentioned a La Madera case, which, BTW is in the Blue Book files, but I didn't find it there either. There are two pages that are nearly blank in that file, the result of very faint writing and the microfilming process. At Fold3 I was able to make out just enough to suggest it was a teletype message and not a handwritten note.

My conclusion, based on the source of the document, is that it was not part of the Blue Book file. I do have a list of other agencies that might be the repository for UFO information where this document and CPT Holder's longer report might be found and will attempt to get them.

I will note, apropos of nothing, that the only symbols in the file that Lonnie Zamora signed were the "umbrella" symbols and those talking about the inverted "V" and the three lines through it didn't see the symbol themselves.

David Rudiak said...

Paul, when I read Hynek's write-ups on Socorro, I see a trained scientist logically and methodically going through the list of possible conventional explanations (hoax or conventional but possibly secret aircraft) and then tossing them out as being logically inconsistent with the actual evidence. Hoax didn't work no matter how he looked at it, and conventional craft like balloons or helicopters or small planes didn't either. Balloons can't buck the strong wind blowing at the time given the direction of departure and Zamora was way too close to have not seen or heard something like a helicopter. Hynek was notoriously absent-minded, but he wasn't a dim bulb by any means. If I were to nominate anyone in the incompetent category, it would be Blue Book's Sgt. Moody, whose write-up on Socorro is full of very serious errors. (Plus internal BB correspondence make clear he was outrageously hostile to the subject, whereas Hynek was much more scientific and objective about it.)

By the time Hynek got to Socorro 4 days after the incident, Zamora had already been worked on the first night by Cpt. Holder of White Sands to change the symbol (whatever it was) to smoke out hoaxers and FBI agent Byrnes not to disclose everything about the occupants. Zamora became very guarded in what he would say. The Lorenzens two days later pressed him on the occupants after Zamora wouldn't tell them much and got him to admit he had said more about them to reporters initially. The found out from a reporter in Albuquerque who had talked to Zamora on the phone that Byrnes had instructed him not to talk about the beings. Zamora wouldn't tell them at all about the insignia, saying he had been told not to discuss it except with official investigators. Unlike Hynek, they weren't official. He did admit to them that Holder had changed the real insignia to help detect hoaxers and Holder confirmed this.

Hynek wrote that Zamora was so up-tight when he spoke to him that it took half an hour to thaw him out. Apparently Zamora did discuss one of the symbols as being the real one (the inverted V), because Hynek publicly discussed this the next day (and wrote to BB 5 months later about it, asking them to track it down). Was Zamora being completely candid about the symbol with Hynek because Hynek was an official investigator? I think he was, but then again, Hynek wrote he couldn't get Zamora to tell him the complete story about the occupants, like he had initially to reporters.

At this time the inverted V was the ONLY symbol being mentioned in the newspapers or on local radio. State policeman Chavez spoke of it starting April 28, Hynek April 29, KSRC reporter Walter Shrode interviewing Zamora perhaps April 26, even Zamora was cited as providing it. UPI April 30 transmitted a wirephoto drawing of it and the object, said to be based on eyewitness accounts.

I'm having a hard time tracing how and when the "umbrella" symbol got out. The earliest so far I've been able to trace it was the Lorenzen's APRO Journal the following month. But then the Lorenzens also wrote they were on board with Holder's plan of concealing the real symbol in order to detect hoaxer. Wouldn't they therefore publish the fake symbol?

Finally Holder apparently wasn't cooperating with Blue Book, because Moody wrote that when he asked Holder about the symbol, Holder said he didn't know anything about it. This should have been the time when Holder disclosed his scheme with Zamora of creating a fake symbol and told Moody what the real symbol was. But he didn't. Instead Moody used the "umbrella" symbol signed by Zamora in his report, that clearly has Holder's handwritten header to it and created that first night.

So this leaves the whole "real" symbol matter enormously confusing today. However, I consider other Socorro evidence much more important concerning the anomalous nature of the Socorro craft. The "real" symbol doesn't really bear on this.

David Rudiak said...

Ben Moss wrote:
If you go to the 10 minute mark or so you will see the Blue Book file with the inverted v and 3 bars.

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

Rob Mercer got the project Blue Book files on Socorro on Craig's list. They came from Holder's son who found them in a box in his garage after his father had passed. I have copies of all of them. They definitely show this symbol. If I could attach it here I would be cannot.


Ben, this is very interesting. I have not seen this before. It is very similar to an AP news item from April 28 quoting Sgt. Chavez about what Zamora had seen.

(Handwritten note): "Sgt. Chavez says that the Socorro policeman had told him that the sighting had red markings on its silvery side. Chavez said the officer told him that the design was an inverted [drawn symbol of inverted V with three cross lines] with three crossings on it, but that the Air Force had told him not to discuss the markings."

(AP story, Hobbes N.M. Daily News-Sun): "State Police Sgt. Sam Chavez said he was told by Socorro policeman Lonnie Zamora that the UFO he saw Fr iday, the first of a series of sightings, had red markings on its silvery side. Chavez said Zamora told him the design was an inverted V with three bars crossing it but that the Air Force told him not to discuss the markings."

Which makes me wonder if the note item wasn't paraphrased from the news article or maybe written by the reporter. I would very much like to get a good copy of the entire page with the rest of the notes on it, if that could be arranged (with maybe Kevin as an intermediary). It does not appear to be in Holder's handwriting, but maybe we can figure out from the rest of it who did write it.

When I spoke to Ray Stanford the other day, he mentioned Mercer serendipitously finding this file on Craig's list, but he didn't know it was from Holder's son, which is very significant.

David Rudiak said...

I would like to add to my last post that the handwritten note in Cpt. Holder's files mentioning Sgt. Chavez talking about the inverted V as what Zamora said the symbol was confirms what Ray Stanford would later write in his book that this symbol was what all the Socorro police he talked to said Zamora described to them. We can document this in part from Stanford's tape recording of dispatcher Martinez saying it, and also the newspaper article and this note having Chavez say it.

As to Stanford's own handwritten note to Richard hall from May 3, 2016 where he mentions Martinez as giving him the "real" symbol, confusingly and contradictorily followed by him advising Hall this was the decoy one, when I talked to Ray the other day, he doesn't remember writing the note or exactly what he was thinking at the time (though indicating it is clearly his handwriting). He isn't sure if it was a simple mistake or confusion in his own mind at the time what the real symbol was, even maybe whether the police were jerking him around as a 25-year-old "kid". He is searching for his full NICAP Socorro file and communications with Hall which may clear this up.

But clearly by the time he published his book in 1976, he indicates he believed the various police were telling him the truth, though also writing he still wasn't absolutely sure what the "real" symbol was, but wanted to get the alternate inverted V symbol out into the public record.

Anonymous said...

The whole event has very much of a "terrestrial" feel to it. The Lunar Excursion Module had been in development for more than a year at the time of the event, Full-scale mock-ups had been made, with some of the early designs looking remarkably like what Zamora reported. See https://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Lunar_Excursion_Module_Simulator, which includes also some photos of the proverbial figures in white coveralls. The propulsion system was being tested at White Sands. The Project Apollo program insignia was "a large letter 'A' with the constellation Orion positioned so that its three central stars formed the bar of the letter" (NASA's description - at least on the patches, the A might well be described as an inverted V). I am not a Socorro novice, and I realize the event is not a perfect fit with the LEM explanation, but it is almost impossible for me to believe the explanation does not lie more in the direction of NASA than aliens. Aliens were flying a flame-spewing egg-shaped craft with Alien Air Force markings on the side at precisely the same time the Lunar Excursion Module was in full-scale development and testing?

JohnSmith535353 said...

This article resolved precisely nothing. Kev, you're getting too old for this and you should probably retire from ENDLESSLY attempting to debunk everything, it's rather sad at this point. You're sitting on your proverbial lawn shaking your proverbial cane at kids riding their bikes across your dead lawn. Zamora saw what he saw, I knew the man personally, and for you to pick this apart and try to find flaws in it so many decades later is a waste of your time. By all means, have at it...but your logic and your research is flawed at best.

KRandle said...

John Smith (If that really is your name) -

Really? This is your takeaway? I have said nothing to suggest that Lonnie Zamora was anything other than a fine police officer who had an encounter with something he believed to be extraordinary. All I have suggested is that others, Holder, Byrnes, thought that certain aspects of the case should be withheld and the documentation supports that. All I have done, is wonder which is the correct symbol.

The point is, I have no quarrel with Zamora's testimony about this. I do, however, have questions, legitimate questions about the true symbol he reported.

And apropos of nothing, I tell you I do not sit on my lawn shaking my nonexistent cane at anyone, even those who allow their dogs to use my lawn as its toilet.

BTW, I see no debunking in what I have written about this case so it might be time for you to check your reading comprehension. Just a thought.

TheUFOGuy said...

David, the Blue Book files that we have are from Lt. Carmen Marano. I will post the entire story of how they came into our possession. Kevin has been looking at the online BB files, but the ones we have, showing an inverted v with 3 bars, is missing from the online files. Big surprise...not. So this is further documentation that the inverted v WAS the correct symbol, and all else was subterfuge. The handwritten notes that we got are interesting, full of bad grammar, and show how confused they were about the cause of this event. The Blathering Knave obviously has not done his homework, the Lunar lander had no internal engine in April of 1964, and certainly could not fly 50 miles off course. That has been debunked, but once again people post without reading the entire blog. The official investigation found that THERE WAS NOTHING FLYING IN THIS AREA AT THIS TIME. NOTHING.
Ray Stanford will weigh in soon and he and I spoke for 2 hours last night about this.

KRandle said...

Ben -

Actually, I have a complete set of the Blue Book files on microfilm in my office. I also have a complete copy of the CUFOS file on Socorro and full runs of the APRO Bulletin, the NICAP UFO Investigator, IUR, and MUFON Journal (starting with Skylook) through 2007.

Although I really didn't want this to blow up the way it has and I thought that Ben and Tony have done a very good job or researching the case, I do want to point out that the files Ben refers to are not Blue Book files but derivatives of them created by Marano (or someone else associated with Blue Book). These seem to be notes and comments made by the creator of the files in much the same way that someone doing research keeps files on UFO cases. The fact that Marano was a member of the Blue Book staff in its waning years lends a little more credibility to these notes. Of course we all now have the opportunity to read the entire Socorro file. Everyone can find it online at Fold3 and I can find it in my office along with all the other microfilm rolls from Blue Book.

zoamchomsky said...

"I realize the event is not a perfect fit with the LEM explanation"

Yes, Knave; I've posted the pictures and argued here that the 1963 jet-powered Bell Lunar Lander prototype is a very good fit for Zamora's conflicting descriptions of what he saw.

Capable of free flight, upright standing on legs, its transparent Lexan canopy was not noticeable from 150-200 yards, but became very apparent as the aircraft flew up into close view and pitched forward in a more horizontal orientation and away. Zamora was understandably confused and frightened, then mystified and shaken by what he had seen.

Even though it could have easily been since Bell created it in 1963 and had operated at White Sands since the 1940s, there's no evidence that the Bell Lander prototype was at White Sands at all, much less that very day. And even though it was a free-flying prototype, a proof of concept demonstrator, assembled from existing and proven technologies, it was necessarily difficult to fly even for the most experienced pilots. It much more often than not was confined by cables within a gantry because they cost a million dollars each, astronauts lives were invaluable, and any accident would be catastrophic.

So even though the Bell Lunar Lander prototype might be the best fit, there's another candidate that fits Zamora's description, and it was flying at the northern extent of White Sands on that day: the Hughes Lunar Surveyor test vehicle attached to the side of a helicopter.

http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

zoamchomsky said...

"Zamora saw what he saw" says "John Smith"

People can claim to see anything: metal saucers; glowing orbs; black triangles; or "spaceships" but those reports generally cannot be taken at face value because the human perceptual system is extremely fallible under unusual circumstances. The system is entirely predisposed to perceptual errors of "connect the dots," "cause and effect" and culturally ingrained conceptualizations and misinterpretation in narrative creation instead of ideally objective reporting. What one experienced as an extraordinary "unidentified," really wasn't; and there's no way to prove it was.

So Zamora made a report of an experience featuring some "thing" he really didn't understand and it frightened him in the extreme. That's the most one can reasonably claim whether they knew him or not. Third person testimony really doesn't count.

Shane said...

Is there any possibility that Ray Stanford's photo taken at Socorro 120 days after the original sighting, and showing three objects similar to Lonnie Zamora's, might be magnified or enhanced to see if there is any trace of a symbol on them? (As you can see I am a bit obsessed by the photo aspect to this case....) Regards, Shane.

TheUFOGuy said...

It does not have the resolution and there appears to be an energy signal on the craft that obscures any symbol. But it clearly shows the shape and several of the landing struts.

Shane said...

G'day Ben, thank you for that clarification. Would the passage of 120 days after the Zamora sighting have put the photo into a time frame that might have allowed for some experimental craft to have been airborne by then? (I'm sure you and Ray have thought about that!) Cheers mate. Shane.

TheUFOGuy said...

There was nothing flying on that date in that area, but there were several reports of an egg shaped object, one even landing at Hollarman. It was not a Lunar module, Hughes and Bell had to answer queries from the Air force and White house where they stated they had nothing that day, nor anything remotely egg shaped ever, especially flown by midgets. Zoam is just speculating but apparently not doing any homework.

Whistler said...

I COMPARED THE ALIEN LETTERS WITH JIM SPARKS ALIEN LETTERS.AND SURPRISE ..IT SAYS...EH3.And its called EARTH HABITAT 3 . AND THE BOW IS A SIGN FOR PROTECTING.PLANET EARTH IS A ALIEN PROPERTY.AND AFTER THE ATOMIC BOMB TESTINGS WE SAW WHAT THOSE ALIENS THOUGHT BOUT US AND OUR EFFORTS TO KILL ALL HERE.RIGHT?

Whistler said...

ONE SIMILIAR UFO LANDING HAPPENED DURING THE VIETNAM WAR.TMZ . THERE A EGG SHAPED OBJECT LAND THERE.THIS CASE IS ASSEMBLED AT THE NATIONAL LIBERY.WOW...I VE A COPY FROM THIS SIGHTING.ITS.THE SAME WHAT HAPPENED IN SOCORRO.ALIEN SYMBOL MEANS EARTH HABITAT 3.

Cbg96 said...

How do we know they were midgets and not just regular sized people that looked small from far away?