A 1964 UFO Landing In Socorro County, New Mexico
I was talking a while ago to an old-timer in the village of Magdalena, NM where I live, and he told me an incredible story. I was mesmerized and astounded by this old man’s account of something that happened many years ago right in my own (almost) back yard.
I am on the fence in regards to extra-terrestrial beings flying into earth’s atmosphere and crashing on our planet. How could such a spaceship traverse the incredible vast distances (light years) between the stars and galaxies? Science says it’s impossible. And even if aliens are smart enough to get here, how could they crash? Hmmm. But this old man intrigued me and got me thinking in a new way, so I have to tell this story.
The town of Socorro, NM (population about 13,000) is located in Socorro County approximately 90 miles south of Albuquerque. It has a small airport with an elevation of about 4,800 feet. Small planes such as Cesena’s and Piper’s fly in and out regularly. This airport is tiny and has only two airstrips and no control tower. On the west side of this airport lie several acres of bare scrub land where an extraordinary event happened years ago. The Socorro High School is also located on this land right off of Highway 60, and so is the National Army Guard Headquarters (where they fly and land their helicopters).
But getting back to the old-timer’s story. My friend, whom I’ll call “Bill”, knew a Socorro, NM police officer by the name of Lonnie Zamora. Officer Zamora was a well-respected, sober, and liked person in the community. This event happened back in April 24, 1964, when officer Zamora was on patrol in Socorro. He was busy flagging down a speeding car in the late afternoon, when all of a sudden he saw a flame in the sky and heard a blast in the area of the scrub acreage by the airport and the Army National Guard on Highway 60. Officer Zamora decided to abandon the chase to go investigate what he thought was a dynamite explosion from a dynamite shack in that area.
My friend Bill said that Officer Zamora drove to the arroyo cutting across Highway 60 where the flame and blast seemed to have come from and saw something that he could not understand. Officer Zamora said that he saw a rounded egg-shaped vehicle-object standing on legs in the gully. Next to this object, he said that there were two human-like figures standing there. He then called his dispatcher and said he was going out to investigate, and when he did, he heard some “thumps”, and the vehicle took off straight up with a loud blast, and then leveled off, became silent and flew away.
Bill said that Officer Zamora was pretty shaken by the whole episode. He said that when the vehicle left the ground there were burn marks on the ground and he looked at them. The FBI and CIA couldn’t explain this sighting and the marks, and when the burnt ground was examined by a lab, some organic samples couldn’t be identified, and the lab chemist was told not to talk about the incident. Her notes were confiscated.
To this day, Project Blue Book, the FBI and CIA consider this event to be unexplained and it seems that this case has “disappeared” from the official list of unexplained cases of the Project Blue Book! My old-timer friend Bill, who is now in his nineties, said that Lonnie Zamora declared even on his death bed that he actually did see the vehicle and the human-like creatures, and witnessed it flying away. The possibility of life on other planets seems to be real after listening to Bill’s account of this extraordinary event.
