Project Blue Book Socorro file

and his feeling that he had seen something truly unusual is attested by the fact that he asked whether he should speak to the priest first before saying anything about it.

Any question of hallucination seems clearly out. He is a non-drinking man, and is a solid, well-built, physically healthy individual (Photo- grph No 10). He is a cop who looks as though he could be pretty gruff with his customers, and in fact, his complaint about the UFO sighting was that it did not allow him to give out his full quota of tickets for the day. Photograph N 11 is of Sergeant Chaves, who is considerably more articulate than Zamora, and appears to have a greater awareness of things and relations than Zamora does. Both men seemed to give every indication of being devoted to duty and being basically simple and honest. Photograph No 12 is a close-up of one of the markings, made very shortly after the craft had departed.

By the time that I got to see the area, it had been so badly trampled over that I could make no assesment of the burned areas. There appear to be a fair amount of charred particles mixed in with the dirt, and some charred cardboard was also found (enc). In conclude, therefore, that Zamora saw a tangible, physical object, under good daylight illumination, and from fairly close range (at the closest, almost as little as 100 feet).

It appears essential that we discover what the physical object actually was. It is clear that the UFO officianados are going to make a great case of this one. Two days before my visit, Mr Lorenzen, husband of Carol Lorenzen of APRO, had visited and taken numerous samples of charred remains and of rocks and ground, etc. I had not been at the site more than ten minutes when Mr Sanford of NICAP showed up and took samples, photographs, etc. It was remarked at the time as to how Menzel would go about explaining this one! No doubt was left in my mind but that NICAP and APRO, and possibly others, would consider this the best authenticated landing sighting on record. They will use it, very likely as a lever for a congressional investigation, and will deride any attempt to "explain it away" as a balloon, conventional heliocopter, etc. They will set great store on the paucity of the burns and the relative lack of disturbance would have been very much greater. They will probably say that the burns are "plasmaburns" which can scorch locally, I understand.

It is therefore essential to consider this one of the major UFO sightings in the history of the Air Force's consideration of this subject, and to spare no effort in establishing whether maneuvers of any sort were taking place in that locality either on the part of the Air Force, the Army, or even the Navy. However, I am quite certain that it will not be sufficient for the Air Force in this case to indicate that the sighting was"probably a new type of craft being tested," or that a secret war