Project Blue Book desk file, Socorro (217 pages)

He had gone into this thing quite thorou&~ly and in a quite sedate
and unexcited manner. His story, published Tuesday, April 28 , 1964,
is an excellent summary of the sighting. It includes one point not
mentioned previously: "At least one other person - an unidentified
tourist traveling north on US 85 - saw the UFO just before it landed in
a gulley. Opel Grinder, manager of Whitting brothers' Service Station
on 85 North, said the man stopped at the station and remsrked that
aircrafts flew low around here. Grinder replied that there were many
helocopters in this vicinity, and the tourist said, "It was a funny
looking helocopter, if that's what it was." The man said further ·
that the .object had flown over his car. It actually was headed straight
for the gully where it landed moments later. The tourist also commented
that he had seen a police car heading up the hill. This was apparently
Z8mora's .car.
I believe that we can dispense with the rash of other reports that sprang
up immediately thereafter. This was the case near Santa Fe, the case
in Montana, the girl with scorched eyes because she looked at a flying
saucer in Albuquerque, and others. But, it is essential .that the Socorro
case be given the treatment.
I also questioned, while in Socorro, my old friend, Dr Jack Whothmen,
President of the New Mexico School of Mines, who said he knew of no
geophysical or other types of experiements going on in the area at the
time. ~e, as the rest of the townspeople, were puzzled by the event,
but. the general underground slull of opinion was that it would turn
out to be some device which the government still ~ad under raps. Not
one person whom I talked with in the least, by either implication or
inuendo, challenged Zamora's veracity.
F~ally, the drawings which Captain Hilder and his associates made,
when replotted according to scale, (already enclosed with the report
of Captain Holder, already sent to you) which indicate that the diagonals
between the markings intersected perpendicularly. It would appear
essential that for this case to be fairly closed out, if the interpre-
tation is that of a new device and its dimensions be shown to match
the markings found on the ground; that is, that the device finally
selected as the culprit, be indeed capable of producing the marks observed •
.I left Socorro shortly after noon on Wednesday April 29th, Major Conner
and James Ray having come down late that morning to pick me up. We had
a late lunch enroute to Albuquerque.
In Albuquerque, I had the opportunity to talk with Mr .Arthur Burns , of
the FBI, who added nothing new to the situation but confirmed the general
reliability and stability of Mr Zamora. He also was of the opinion that
the marks might well have been fresh ones. I also called the mother of
the young glr~whose eyes were alledgedly burned by having looked too
long at a flying saucer, and found that the name of t he Doctor who treated
her and Who had confirmed the burns,~s a Dr Best of Albuquerque. Major
Conner indicated that he would investigate further. That is all.
7Rob Mercer