Project Blue Book desk file, Socorro (217 pages)

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REPORT ON SOCORRO NEW MEXICO TRIP
On TUesday, April 28, 1964, in resp6nse to a call from Captain Quintanilla,
I enplaned for Albuquerque to meet with Major Conner of Kirtland Air Force
Base and associates. I called a prospective graduate student in astronomy,
now working at K~and Air Force Base, before I left the office, asking
him to meet me. rrhis proved totally unnecessary since, when the plane
from Denver arrived in Albuquerque, I heard some mummurs from the front
pert of the plane to the effect that "there must be a celebrity aboard"
· and discovered to my amazement that, as I left the plane, numerous flesh-
bulbs began popping, and I was importuned for one interview after another.
Since I knew nothing, there was very little that I could say, and conse-
quently I got out of the situation very easily. It would appear that
Major Conner's PIO man was very effective. I had unfortunately neglected
to ask Major Conner in advance to keep things quiet.
As soon as I got the reporters out of my hair, we went to Major Conner's
office at Kirtland Air Force Base, where I called Dr LaPaz by phone to
ask whether he might go down to Socorro with us. He"Vasunable to make
it, but told me that a number of a years before he had worked with
Zamora on a field trip in search of a fallen meteorite. He gave Zamora
a very clean bill of health and said that he was a completely reliable
. person. We then headed down in an Air Force car for Socorro, which is
some· 75 miles south of Albuquerque, and when we were nearly there, we
had a flat ·tire. It turned out that the jack was missing, although the
car had been reported in excellent shape, and so we had to hail passers-
by,finally snagging one car whose occupants indicated that they would
inform the sheriff's office When they got into town. Time passed and
we snagged another car, this time with four wone n in it. They took me
into town so that I could relay the call, and this was rather fortunate;
all in ell, because I had the chance to have a preliminary with Sergeant
Chaves before the rest (Major Conner and Mr James Wray, the prospective
graduate student ) got down. It was during this preliminary interview
in the jail that Sergeant Chaves told me that Zamora was getting dis-
gusted with the whole thing and with the general misrepresentation he
was the victim of. After some general reluctance, Sergeant Chaves
agreed to have Zamora there that evening after dinner, provided tha~
Zamora end he could talk to me privately. I agreed to this,. and when
the repaired car finally got down with its occupants, we went to dinner
{ paid for all the meals of the two from Albuquerque both this day and
the next) , and after dinner, Major Conner and Mr Wray went back to
Albuquerque, and I went to the jail to talk for the next two hours · with
Zamora and Chaves.
After a fairly lengthy time spent in getting them warmed up to the subject, .
I got the major sketch of the situation. During one or two times when
Zamora (who was on duty) had to step out of the room, Chaves told me of
some of Zamora's reactions. Apparently Zamora was not going to say any-
thing about it, but it was at Chaves' advice that he did. He then apparentlyRob Mercer