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Project Blue Book Socorro file

The Black Vault · 167 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This Black Vault release compiles 1964 newspaper and wire service clippings plus a Project Blue Book summary on the Socorro, New Mexico sighting by policeman Lonnie Zamora on April 24, 1964, when an egg-shaped object left four depressions and burned brush. It covers J. Allen Hynek's site visit, APRO and NICAP comment, and related New Mexico reports at La Madera, Edgewood and Albuquerque. The Air Force summary reports that soil and brush analysis found no radiation or propellant, and the case remained open.

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# More UFO Sightings Are Reported Over Wide Area

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS State officers and the military are investigating more unidentified flying object reports.

The reports came from Socorro and the Espanola area.

State Police Capt. Martin Vigil said investigators from Kirtland Air Force Base at Albuquerque were to arrive in Espanola today after noting the similarity in the different reports.

All of the reported sightings are similar in that they describe oval or egg-shaped objects, flames surrouding the craft when on the ground, scorched earth and wedge shaped depressions that officers say appeal

to have been left by some type of landing gear.

The latest report came from a Santa Fe resident, Orlando Gallegos, 35, who told of seeing an object early Sunday morning at his father's home north of La Madera, sitting in a gravel area.

State Police received a report from two men traveling in the same area Saturday night that a flying object, which they said definitely was not an airplane, had swooped down toward their ear, then veered off. At Socorro, where the first such report came Friday evening from a city officer, a motorist, George Mitropolis of Albuquerque, told of seeing Sunday night "a luminous flying thing, like an upside down bath-tub, without lights except for a glow like exhaust underneath it, come up over the crest of the mountains and then go back down."

An unidentified girl, about 18, told Socorro officer Bill Pyland that she saw a fire in the hills southwest of Socorro Sunday night, where city officer Lonnie Zamora first reported seeing an "egg-shaped object" fly away from a draw. She said she went to within 300 feet to 500 feet from the fire when she thought she saw something in the flames. She then left to report it.

About the report from Gallegos, State Police Capt. Martin Vigil said, after visiting the site, "There was definitely something there.

"The ground was still smoldering 20 hours after the sighting."

Gallegos said he had gone out to chase away some horses when he saw the object. He said he was about 200 feet away when he first saw it.

Gallegos said there was no noise and as he watched, the flaming jets were turned off. He said he didn't see anyone or anything moving around the craft.

He said he returned to the house and told his family but no one else ventured outside. Gallegos said he returned twice more to look at the object. He described it as being of bright metal, without windows, as long as a telephone pole and about 14 feet in circumference. It was egg-shaped, he said, and resembled a large butane gas tank.

Capt. Vigil said the ground was smoldering. later Sunday and he found what looked like paw prints along with the depressions that indicate some type of landing gear.

The captain said he contacted Kirtland AFB and an unidentified officer there told him a team of military investigators was on its way.

State Patrolman. Marvin Romero told of the Saturday night sighting by two motorists in the Espanola area.

Romero said the men told him they were driving from Abiquiu to Espanola when the flying object came straight toward their car. They said it veered away and all they could see was a jet stream of blue flame.

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 167 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.