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This 217-page Project Blue Book desk file on the 24 April 1964 Socorro, New Mexico sighting by policeman Lonnie Zamora comes from the Rob Mercer collection. It contains the Blue Book record card, which carries the case as unidentified pending more data, along with Foreign Technology Division messages and resumes and a narrative of the sighting. It also holds inquiries about lunar modules, helicopters and VTOL craft, soil and radiation findings, and a letter by J. Allen Hynek rejecting Donald Menzel's hoax hypothesis.
“Socorro, New Mexico”40 pages
speeding car had turned into his line of sight from a side road, and we followed the pursuit path, going to the place about 1/2 mile ·south of town where Xamora then pointed in the direction in which he · had seen the flame and had heard a loud roar. It must be remembered thatat this time he was giving chase to a speeding car, and it would seem that, to be diverted from this jolly procedure, the noise and/or light must have been fairly strong. Zamora did not describe the light to me in the detail that he has described it in Captain Holder's report. He stressed only the roar and the fact that he thought the Mayor's dynamite shack had exploded _and that somebody might have been in trouble. From that point on, his report to me was virtually identical to that he gave to Captain Holder - his three attempts to get up the hill, his .sighting of the object at a distance, as his line of sight went longatudinally down the small arroyo - it was at this point that he thought he saw an overturned car standing, however, either on the trunk or on its radiator. He described that, at this point, he picked up the radio and called back to Sergeant Shaves. There is a little contradiction here, probably not serious, as to where he had made the call, and exactly how many calls he made. He then stated that he proceeded down the very poor gravel road, temporarily losing sight of the object behind a slight rise in the land, that is, behind one of the hillocks that formed an arroyo between them. He thus came up upon the object from behind the hill and from the side, so to speak, he apparently saw the object again while he was driving and continued to drive for some distance. He finally stopped the car at the clearing just before the ground descends into the little arroyo (see photograph number 2) Photograph No 2 is important in that it shows how close he was to the object. It is clear from this that any common object would certainly have been easily recognized. It would seem virtually incredible that an ordinary object, such as a balloon, heliocopter, private small plane, etc., could have remained unidentified, and further, could have caused Zamora to become as frightened as he did. Zamora drove up to this spot, windows rolled down, and looked to his left out of the window, to see the object. At this point, he indicated that he still thought that "it" might have been an overturned car. It is not clear whether he made a call to the station at this time (presumably he did), but, in any event, he knocked the mike to the floor, as he got out of the car, apparently in some excitement. He started to walk toward the object, but apparently did not get very far before he heard some noises. The noises were described as two or three bangs, as though someone were shutting a door (the space visitors were undoubtably saying "Let's get the Hell out of here " ) and this was followed almost immediately by a roar. He did not describe the pitches of the roars to me as well as he had in Capt Holder's report. Apparently, by this time Zamora was 3 ,- , ·~Rob Mercer
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 217 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.