Project Blue Book Socorro file (direct PDF)

It seems much more likely to me that he saw a strange test craft which is super secret. The flaws in this reasoning are that if it is so super secret why would anyone be landing a half mile south of a town. Why, also, have we been unable to unearth from various agencies any classified clues as to such goings-on?

The year 1964 had fifteen other unidentified cases besides Zamora's. I investigated two others, one a vary interesting incident which occurred to two graduate students in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin along with their mother-in-law and their kid sister. They were "buzzed" by some strange craft; after talking with them for nearly two hours, I came away still puxaled. A radio announcer in Toledo, Ohio, who when leaving the station at night, saw a similar array of lights hover in a wheat field by the side of the road be was walking on.

There is no question that a mighty folklore is being built up in this whole field. Someday, it might be worthwhile to document all this for the benefit of historians who will look back on this era. I believe I have found one generalization which, being a generalization, is subject to all the illus of generalizations, but be that as it may: the people who believe in flying sauders are generally distinct from those people who report them. This is Hynek's Axiom No. 1 and is as full of holes as Swiss cheese, but it has struck so many times that the "believers" are so thoroughly wishful in their thinking that they just don't need any personal experience to bolster their faith. Any newspaper clipping or any runor is all the fuel they need. They have their fan clubs, and their meetings as they get a cheap thrill out of vilifying the Air Force and in "gee-whizzing" each other.

On the other hand, the rest reports of UFO's that I have come across are from people who have had little contact with UFO material previously, remain skeptical even though they have had an experience that they can't understand, and are generally quite reticent about saying anything about it as first. Very frequently they are articulate and solid citizens, and, in talking to them, one gathers that they wish the whole thing hadn't happened to them. Time and again, they will write to ask that I please tell them what they saw, or they will write "I don't ever want to see anything like this again." They do not join UFO clubs after their experience and generally do not care to talk about the experience. When they do make the mistake of talking about it, they find that ridicule is their reward, and although I can't document it, I feel certain that their social life is affected and that even jobs and promotions have been lost by their having reported their experiences in the first place.

It is reports such as these that constitute the phenomenon to which I feel more attention should be paid. It is easy to dismiss the cases of birds, balloons, meteors, and the like, but when good citizens of average or better than average intelligence, and above all, sincere citizens report some thing puzzling, I think we have some sort of social obligation to do as good a job on it as we can. I don't like a mystery any more than you do and these series of "unidentifieds" down the years I regard as rather a blot on the escutcheon. Somehow, as scientists, we should be able to (if we are given the opportunity) come up with answers that would stand up in court, but I am still somewhat of a voice crying in the wilderness in this respect. The Air Force is no (primarily a scientific organization, and its concern in these