Project Blue Book Socorro file

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

# 29 April 1965

Dr. Donald Mensel Mrs. Lyle Boyd Harvard College Observatory Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Don and Lyle;

At long last I am prepared to make a reply to your letter of February 19.

I am also enclosing a piece of the identical type of cardboard originally picked up by me at the landing site. The only difference between this cardboard and the one that I picked up and turned into the Air Force is that the original piece had charred edges which may or may not have had any connection with the alleged landing. But that it was charred I will attest to. This sort of cardboard gets caught under many of the bushes in that area. As you know the winds there can get very high in the windy season, and you not only see tumbleweeds batting across the country, but papers, old lunch boxes, packing crates, etc. also nerrily batting along. These get wedged in under the bushes and stay there to weather sometimes for a year or more, I would judge. This cardboard, as you can see, has plainly been weathered quite some time and is hardly the kind that would have been used to fake a model of a spaceship.

I should mention that I discussed this whole matter with Major Quintanilla, and he and I are in agreement on what follows:

In my visit to Socorro I determined that Zamora had been urged by the Mayor to get into the movie and that he himself had been rather reluctant to do so. The movie is due to have its world premiere in Socorro, and I am hoping to get down to see it!

I don't think we can say too much about the flame which could be pretty subjective. A swirl of dust, etc. might from the distance have been interpreted as a flame. As far as smoke or a burning bush, etc., I couldn't get anyone to say at this time that they had seen smoke or that anything was burning. Chavez insisted only on the fact that a greasewood bush appeared to be charred in spots or rather seared and that the searing was highly localized. Greasewood is notoriously hard to ignite, and a match or ordinary flame held to it hardly affects it. Chavez said that the burns appeared as though intense but localized flames had seared the grass and the ushes, but remarked that right next to a seared portion be found portions quite untouched. Again, I don't know how much credence can be placed on all the burning bush, etc. I think we must go to other major points.