Nov 05 2009
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Lonnie Zamora 1933-2009
One of the most famous UFO witnesses of the 20th century has died. New Mexico police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora claimed that he saw an anomalous object take off from an arroyo near Socorro, New Mexico on April 24, 1964. Zamora was out on patrol when he heard a “roar” from a nearby area where dynamite was stored. When he pulled off the road to investigate:
Zamora struggled to get his car up the steep hill, and on the third attempt, which was successful, he noted no further noise. For the next 10-15 seconds he proceeded west, looking for the shack whose precise location he did not recall. It was then that he noticed a shiny object, “to south about 150 to 200 yards”, that at first he took to be an “overturned white car…up on radiator or on trunk”, with two people standing close to it, one of whom seemed to notice him with some surprise and gave a start. The shiny object was “like aluminum–it was whitish against the mesa background, but not chrome”, and shaped like a letter “O”. Having stopped for a couple of seconds, Zamora approached in his car meaning to help.
Zamora only caught a brief sight of the two people in white coveralls beside the “car”. He recalls nothing special about them. “I don’t recall noting any particular shape or possibly any hats, or headgear. These persons appeared normal in shape–but possibly they were small adults or large kids.”
The figures appeared startled when they noticed Zamora, and disappeared behind the object, which soon after emitted another loud roar and disappeared quickly over a mountain range.
Recently, a small rumpus has ensued over a post by Anthony Bragalia claiming that what Zamora and others saw was a prank by University of New Mexico engineering students. Personally, I don’t think Bragalia has made his case, but he has attracted the attention of original Socorro investigator Ray Stanford, who has vociferously disagreed with Bragalia’s theory. Stanford is the author of the only full length book on the case, entitled Socorro Saucer In A Pentagon Pantry.
A rosary will be recited for Zamora on Friday, November 6th at the San Miguel Catholic Church in Socorro, with the funeral set for 9AM Saturday.
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November 6th, 2009 at 3:09 am
Rest in Peace, Officer Zamora.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Do we know more details abut the morphological features of the beings? I always read they were like “small adults” (5 feet or so), but what about the color of their skin, the size of their noses, or maybe the size and color the eyes?
Maybe Zamora wasn’t close enough to pay attention to these features. But then, how was he able to perceive that the creatures looked startled to see him? Was that due to their body language alone?
Descanse en Paz.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“Maybe Zamora wasn’t close enough to pay attention to these features. But then, how was he able to perceive that the creatures looked startled to see him?”
He couldn’t since in his report he stated:
1) The Sun was in his eyes
2) He was wearing green-tinted sunglasses
November 9th, 2009 at 3:32 am
Sure he could. You don’t need to be
able to read facial expressions to see
a sudden change in posture, a change
in stance that indicates awareness.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:44 am
That’s why I referred by “body language”, Craig. And I can be comfortable with the idea of a police officer being quite good at interpreting shifts in posture with mood changes.
But… we reach another conundrum —why do we presume an alien being would share our same body languages, when we don’t even know if they share our same body chemistry? The only thing we can tell from Zamora’s report is that the beings he saw were humanoid in shape, but that’s it :-/
November 10th, 2009 at 10:47 am
“You don’t need to be able to read facial expressions to see a sudden change in posture, a change in stance that indicates awareness”
Then you need to change RP’s wording to “acted startled” instead of “looked startled”.
“Why do we presume an alien being would share our same body languages, when we don’t even know if they share our same body chemistry?”
Besides yourself, who else is making that presumption? And why do you also presume that what Zamora saw was an alien?
“The only thing we can tell from Zamora’s report is that the beings he saw were humanoid in shape, but that’s it”
…maybe because they were human. By the way, it isn’t the only thing we can tell from Zamora’s report. We also know that the object looked exactly like a hot air balloon with a propane torch, and the object took off real slow like a hot air balloon, taking six seconds to rise a mere 25 feet in the air.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:03 am
“We also know that the object looked exactly like a hot air balloon with a propane torch, and the object took off real slow like a hot air balloon, taking six seconds to rise a mere 25 feet in the air.”
Methinks someone here fully endorses the “college prank” hypothesis recently proposed
We also know that, after that, the object disappeared quite rapidly from Zamora’s POV. You should check out the Paracast show where Ray Stanford discusses the Zamora case.
“…maybe because they were human.”
Definitely maybe
November 14th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
“Methinks someone here fully endorses the ‘college prank’ hypothesis recently proposed”
Is that a fact?
“We also know that, after that, the object disappeared quite rapidly from Zamora’s POV”
And just exactly how many MPH is “quite rapid” from Zamora’s POV? We do know it took six seconds for the object to rise vertically 25 feet in the air. It then took another six seconds to rise yet another 11 feet. That is not “quite rapid” to me.
Lonnie was not very good at making scientific observations. For example, he estimated his time observing the object at twenty seconds, but he spent 12 seconds running away from the object and his car, which implies he at least spent 12 second running back to his car, and this doesn’t include the time spent fumbling for his glasses and stopping to take cover from the object. That is much longer than 20 seconds. So if Lonnie estimates 20 seconds and is way off, why take him at his word that the object moved “quite rapidly” — whatever that means anyway?
“You should check out the Paracast show where Ray Stanford discusses the Zamora case”
I’m not interested in what Ray Stanford says about the case, I’m interested in what Zamora said about the case, in his own words when he gave his statement to Project Bluebook.