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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.
“Lonnie Zamora”45 pages
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thoroughly ·tired of going into details. It is clear that he turned
tail at this time and ran for cover, thinking the object was about
to explode. He banged his leg against the rear fender of the car as
he tried to round it, at which time his glasses, and his sunglasses
fell off into the ground, but he did not stop to retrive them. This
is an indication of the state of panic he was in. He ran some distance
behind the car, as indicated in photograph No 3, which shows him
crouching down, but not as he had done that Friday evening. At that
time, he had crouched quite close to the ground, covering his eyes
with his ann. It was at this time that he saw the object rise to
essentially the level of his car and proceed in the direction of the
dynamite shack, shown in figure 4 which shows the sma:n. dynamite shack
about 7 or 8 feet high, off to the right and shows Zamora's arms
extended, his left arm pointing to the direction in which he had seen
the object originally, its takeoff position, and the right ann pointing
in the general direction in which the object had disappeared. A
shadow cast by Zamora in this picture, which was taken approximately
at 10 am, at which time the sun was in the south-east quatrin of the sky,
indicates that zamora is facing southwest, with the shack somewhat to
southwest by west. The dynamite shack is also shown in figure five,
which shows the car parked as it was on the evening of the sighting.
Zamora was looking out of the left hand drivers' window at the object
. when he parked the car. Photograph No 6 shows the position from which
Zamora first saw the object whose location was approximately under the
X mark on the photograph. It was from this distance that he thought
that the object looked like an overturned car. Photograph 7 is the posi-
tion Zamora was in, ·looking at the object disappearing, said object
having missed the dynamite shack by some 3 feet, according to Zamora.
Photography No 8 is approximately the position Chaves and Zamora were
in, on their way down from the rise toward the place where the object
had been, when Chaves first saw the markings the object had left.
Photograph No 9 is 18o degrees, approximately, from that of No 6.
No 9 shows the town of Socorro in the distance, looking down longatudi-
nally through the gulley toward the "road" along which Zamora was
stationed when he first ~aw the object, looking inthe direction Socorro
to the spot from which Photograph 9 was taken.
Resume:
From all of the above and from my personal observations, I would conclude
the following: That Zamora, although not overly bright or articulate,
is basically sincere, honest, and reliable. He would not be capable of
contriving a complex hoax, nor would his temperment indicate that he
Would have the slightest interest insuch. He was simply a copf on duty,
relinquished one discharge of that duty (chasing a speeding car) for
another w~ich he thought was ofmore immediate importance. {Investigating
the possible explosion of a dynamite shack). His fright was genuine,
4Rob 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.