Une nouvelle mise au point de Ray Stanford sur UFO Updates !
Lonnie Zamora (1933 - 2009): Eulogy, to a Man of His Word, and
The Finest Witness One Could Ever Interview...
By Ray Stanford, author of the 211-page book on the Socorro case
On Monday night, November 2, 2009, 'Lonnie' Zamora, likely North
America's most highly respected witness to something that the
U.S. Air Force's chief scientific investigator of UFOs
eventually admitted was, to use his own term, a "close encounter
of the third kind" died of what a Socorro Police spokesman
described as a heart attack.
The April 24, 1964 (5:50 - ~ 5:53 PM), Socorro, New Mexico, case
of a well-documented, multi-witness, UFO landing is so well-
known that it need not be described in any great detail here.
Instead, our focus is upon the quality and character of Lonnie
Zamora, at the time a Socorro policeman, who reluctantly became
the 'central' and closest witness to the landing of, occupants
of, take-off and high-speed departure of, an ~ 18' UFO shaped
like an elongated egg. After the encounter, Zamora's ability as
an accurate and careful observer was attested to by the famous
meteor tracker, Dr. Lincoln la Paz, because of the extraordinary
accuracy of meteor-trail coordinate data Zamora had earlier
provided him, in helping search for a fallen meteorite.
Before April 24, 1964, policeman Zamora would have laughed at
the suggestion that UFOs are anything about which a sensible
person should be concerned. When he had seen a brilliant 'flame'
in the sky and, then, the whitish, elongated object with two
figures no larger than "ten-year-old boys" in what looked like
white coveralls beside it, Zamore didn't think "Wow! A UFO with
humanoids beside it!". Absolutely not. He thought, at first
sight of the 'flame', of a nearby dynamite shack blowing up, and
upon first sight of the landed UFO and occupants, that a car or
van might have rolled or tumbled down into the ravine bottom,
and that the two well-under-five-feet-tall bipedal figures in
white might be children, perhaps escaped from what he had taken
to be a car in the ravine bottom.
Such was the character of the policeman, concern for safety and
certainly not about turning anything he saw into a UFO and
occupants. Until less that two minutes later, UFOs were
absolutely not a part of Lonnie Zamora's 'world view'.
Well, most readers know the rest of the story, but in
remembering Lonnie Zamora, let's have a brief look into a
personal moment of his family life, as a window into
understanding the man.
After years of research into the case and publication, in 1976,
of my 211-page book thoroughly documenting it, five more years
had passed when I received a totally unsolicited letter in 1981.
It was from Lonnie Zamora's daughter!
She wrote the following: "I just read your book, SOCORRO
'SAUCER' IN A PENTAGON PANTRY. For once I felt like I was
finally finding out the truth about what my dad experienced on
April 24, 1964. As you well know, my dad is not a very verbal
man, and the only things my brother and I ever knew about my
dad's sighting was what we read in papers or books, and you know
how distorted those stories were. I was five years old at the
time of the sighting. I'm now 23. It was seventeen long years
ago."
She continued by writing, "My dad, as I mentioned, has never
been willing to discuss the sighting with me. Finally a few days
ago he let me have your book and a box full of letters,
articles, and other books that he had saved. (All letters
unanswered.)"
Zamora's daughter concluded that letter by saying, "Reason for
my letter? I'd like to talk with you...", and she gave me her
phone number in a location that was not Socorro, so she said
that if I'd be more comfortable that she was who she said, it
would be O.K. to send a letter to her father's address in
Socorro, and that he would forward it to her.
I trusted the young lady and telephoned her. She was delighted,
saying, "...After all those years, dad handed me your book and
said it would tell me everything anyone could know about the
sighting. Dad said, emphatically, you're the only writer who
told the story, everything, and with total accuracy. He wanted
me to know that, unlike all other accounts he had read, your
book had everything right...So what I want to know is whether
you've learned anything more about the case since finishing your
book."
Of course, I told Lonnie's daughter what I had learned since the
book, but at that time, it wasn't very much.
After the nice conversation with her, I began to ask myself what
it was in Zamora's character that might make him hesitant to
personally tell the details of his sighting to his own children.
For one thing, the experience was both frightening (Those who
know the details will understand immediately.) and probably a
bit painful to Zamora. You see, he was, upon contemplating what
had happened afterward, forced to admit to himself that highly
extraordinary, small-occupant-bearing craft are flying around
and sometimes landing. He didn't like to talk about that reality
- not to the media, not even to his own daughter and son. Yet,
I think there was more to Zamora's hesitancy to talk freely
about the occupants. By contrast, he had talked very freely
about them to Dr. J. Allen Hynek and me, along with State Police
Sergeant Samuel Chavez, who was the fourth and only other person
allowed at the site on the morning of April 29, 1964, the fifth
day after the landing. [See for reference, page 61 of the U.S.
hard-cover edition of my book on the case.]
As things had happened, sometime after 7:00 P.M. on the evening
after Zamora's terrifying encounter, Federal Bureau of
Investigations agent J. Arthur Byrnes, Jr., had interrogated the
witness. Upon hearing Zamora tell in no uncertain terms that he
had seen the two diminutive, white-clad, bipedal beings standing
right beside the NW landing leg of the craft and with their head
tops coming to only "well below" (Zamora's words) the 5' 2"
creosote bust's uppermost part, the F.B.I. agent firmly told
Zamora (The words are reported here exactly as Zamore later
confessed them to me.), "It will be better if you don't publicly
mention seeing the two small figures in white. No one will
believe you anyhow."
Now please note the following fact carefully: ZAMORA AGREED NOT
TO TELL about the "as though in white coveralls", diminutive
beings he had seen by the creosote bush, adjacent to the NW
landing strut. Zamora had served in the U.S. army, and
respecting government authority, had taken his promise to the
F.B.I. agent as an oath to officialdom. Resultantly, until later
when Zamora got suspicious that the government was trying to
hide something they didn't want the public to learn about, when
asked about his initial description of the beings, would simply
say things like, "Well, I did see something like a couple of
pairs of white coveralls, kinda' like hanging on a clothesline,
you know..." He never explained how one of the two pair of
coveralls, upon seeing his police car top the mesa, had,
"...jumped, kinda' like startled, you know..." Personally, I
think the white coveralls hanging on a clothesline comment was
really just a sarcastic quip, because of the non-disclosure
promise agent Byrnes had extracted from him. Whatever its
origin, Hynek referred to it in his media conference on April
29, in a continuing government attempt to obfuscate the sighting
of very much alive humanoids occupying those 'coveralls'.
After reading my Socorro book, Hynek confessed to me that he
said that only because he had been there in an official-
investigator capacity for the USAF. After all, Zamora had
carefully, within the hour just before the media conference
described to Hynek and me the occupants wearing those
'coveralls'. :-)
Secondly, about the red shape Zamora saw on the middle-side of
the ellipsoid-shaped craft: ZAMORA HAD, in his own mind, TAKEN
ANOTHER OATH TO THE GOVERNMENT HE LOVED: On that same April 24,
1964, evening, Captain Ord/C, Richard T. Holder, U.S. Army,
095052, Up-Range Commander at White Sand's Stallion Site, had
told the witness, as Zamora described to me, after much coaxing,
on April 29, 1964, "If I were you, I wouldn't describe the
symbol you saw on the side of the vehicle to anyone except
official investigators."
Well, Zamora _agreed_. Then, I have reasons to believe, Holder
drew the now familiar vertical arrow with an arc over it and a
line under it [A copy of that original, clearly drawn in its
first version by Holder - just compare it to Zamora's copies of
that fake symbol - is in my files.] and then Holder had Zamora
sign under it, as though THAT were what he saw. I am now
convinced enough to tell anyone - since Lonnie Zamora is now
gone, and there is no risk to embarrass him for participating in
the cover-up - the vertical arrow with an arc over it and the
line under it IS NOT WHAT ZAMORA SAW. Lonnie kept that promise
to Holder, not to reveal what he actually saw, for the rest of
his life. Zamora had agreed with Holder that putting out the
fake symbol would conveniently identify any copy-cat hoaxers
because they would describe the fake symbol instead of the REAL
one. I agree that Zamora made the right choice, in that case,
because it surely set a trap for hoaxers and even for
hallucinating persons.
The Fake (Substituted) Symbol:
What Zamora Really Saw And Reported To His Co-Workers And To
Captain Richard T. Holder:
Every law-enforcement officer who talked to Zamora within
minutes to an hour or so after the event, including police
dispatcher Mike Martinez, told me unequivocally that what Zamora
really saw on the object was, as Martinez quoted Zamora in
Spanish, "...un 'V' invertido, con tres líneas debajo," meaning
exactly what it says, "an inverted 'V' with three lines beneath
it", and not the thing he was drawing and telling others that he
saw, after Holder's request.
I am very relieved, now that Lonnie has passed on and I don't
have to be concerned about publicly embarrassing him, that I now
can finally stop equivocating about which shape Zamora did or
didn't see on the object.
Some persons 'engaged in UFO research' will be annoyed with me
for saying the following: I commend Lonnie Zamora, a man of his
word, for keeping his promise in not revealing what he actually
saw in red on the side of the object. I comment Captain Richard
T. Holder for his thoughtfulness in asking Zamora to obfuscate
the real appearance of the red thing he saw, so that any copy-
cat hoaxes could be nipped in the bud.
I also comment Zamora for his patriotism (however ill-conceived
some persons might consider it to be) to things he deemed
important to do for his country.
In turn, I deeply respect Zamora, since he did not want to break
his word to Captain Holder, and, thus refused to tell his two
children anything, in preference to telling them something that
would break his promise(s) to the government., and realizing he
could, when they grew up, let them guess the truth for
themselves, in his saying that I got everything right in the
book.
So, what did Zamora do? He, in fact, gave my book to his
account-insistent daughter, and told her I was the only writer
who got everything right. Surely he had in mind my book's
Appendix A, titled, "An Obfuscated Red Insignia?", which reveals
what really happened concerning the red shape on the object,
without actually saying for sure that Zamora agreed to an
investigations-useful cover-up of the appearance of the real
shape on the object, and leaving a final conclusion to the
reader, because of wanting to protect Zamora for his, in my
opinion, wise decision to comply with holder's explained and
very reasonable obfuscation request. In the book's front
illustrations of the event, I used the substituted (fake) shape
for what Zamora saw, but explained in the appendix that I did it
so that persons who have believed the fake symbol would not
refuse to read my book, thinking I didn't really know what the
symbol was (in their mistaken opinions).
So now, Lonnie's 45-year-old secret is out and I have declared
my reasons for respecting his decisions to abide what Holder
asked him to do.
In later years, Zamora became highly suspicious and even
disgusted at the USAF's refusal to return New Mexico State
Policeman Ted V. Jordan's reportedly irradiated first-after-the-
event photos, or even copies of whatever turned out on the film.
As Lonnie has said publicly, that made him begin to suspect that
the government is unjustifiably hiding something, and that the
something might be visitation to earth by beings and a
technology that could not have originated here.
In closing this eulogy, I should tell you that at least a couple
of weeks before Lonnie died last Monday, November 2, 2009, he
learned of Anthony Bragalia's irresponsible (because Bragalia
did not bother to tell people it was only one man's totally
unsubstantiated claim, made in desperation of disbelief in the
possibility of visitation from outside this planet) internet
headline declaration that the Socorro case had been exposed as a
student hoax. Bragalia knew his case is so totally insubstantial
that he refused (and still refuses) to debate me on Coast-to-
Coast AM, with George Knapp.
People have now asked me if I think Bragalia's insistence that
Zamora was just a fool for an imaginary student's pyrotechnics
and balloon (which would have had to have flown off directly
into the wind) being mistaken for something the policeman never
believed in to begin with, could have caused him such anger as
to induce a fatal heart attack. Perhaps my questioners never got
the chance to see, years back, on the TV show Unsolved
Mysteries, Zamora's obviously completely - no stress-on-his-
face - at-ease statement that he didn't care whether anyone
believes or disbelieves what he saw and experienced.
Now, after due reflection on that question, I must declare:
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Zamora could not have personally cared what a
false-rumor monger trumpets as though the monger were a hero.
But, come to think about it, Bragalia's trumpeting Sterling
Colgate's delusion about what happened at Socorro supports such
utterly ridiculous 'constructs' about how a student hoax might
hypothetically have been performed (forget the hoax's fly over
of some Colorado tourists' car, almost taking the roof and its
radio antenna off, that it made enough sound on landing and
take-off as to be clearly heard over half a mile away, and that
after takeoff it reached a speed of somewhere between 3,000 and
7,000 miles per hour in less than 30 seconds), that knowing good
old Lonnie Zamora, with a little persuasion, I might become
convinced that the truth is:
Lonnie Zamora _died_laughing_!
He was the most objective, unwilling to embellish, witness I've
ever interviewed, among hundreds, across my more than 56 years
of actively researching UFOs.
Memory of Lonnie Zamora will endure in history as a witness so
credible that the USAF officially had to take its hat off to him
and declare what he saw to be a truly unidentified flying (and
landing) object.
May the beloved Lonnie Zamora rest in peace. That is, if he can
ever stop laughing at Bragalian fantasies about his well-
substantiated encounter.
Laugh on, dear friend.
Ray Stanford, who literally wrote the book on the Socorro case
Founder and Director, Organization for Physical UFO Science
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