Project Blue Book desk file, Socorro (217 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
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·~Rob Mercer