On this episode of the world Famous Sofa King Podcast, we examine the Lonnie Zamora UFO Encounter. Zamora was a police officer from Socorro, New Mexico, and he had an experience on April 24, 1964. What he saw lead to an investigation by local police, civilians, the media, the FBI, and the US Air Force, including Project Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek, one of the leads of Blue Book describes it as the “Rosetta Stone” of UFO cases, and it is still considered one of the most investigated and valid UFO encounters to date.

In April of 1964, Zamora was perusing some rowdy teens in a car when he suddenly heard a huge roar and saw a massive pillar of flame and dust a mile or so from his position. He turned to investigate what he thought was a local dynamite shed blowing up.

He drove to the top of a steep hill where he could see what has happening, and to his surprise, he saw a strange oval craft on the ground in an arroyo, out of sight to anyone but those at high elevation. The craft was a while aluminum with an insignia on it, and nearby were two humanoids. He called them large children or small adults. They seemed surprised that Zamora saw them, and they headed back to their vehicle, which he thought was some strange car that had run into the gulch.

There was a second roar and a second pillar of flame, and Zamora ran for cover on the other side of the hill. The craft was in the sky soon, no more roar, no more flame, just silently moving. And moving quickly! Estimate are that it was going at over 700 MPH with no clear sign of propulsion or noise.

Zamora called it in, and another cop named Chavez came. He said Zamora looked freaked out but publicly claimed he never saw the craft. They went into the gully and found four imprints from landing legs and burned bushes from the flame. Within two hours, the FBI was one scene was were other cops, and shortly thereafter the USAF showed along with their Project Blue Book as well as investigators from NICAP. The speed with which big league investigators flooded the area was alarmingly fast.

This case has it all. UFO? Check. Little “aliens?” Check. New Mexico? Check. Reliable witness? Check. However, some claim it was not real, anything from ball lightning to a college hoax, to a Scooby Doo like scam to boost tourism in the local town. But what did Project Blue Book’s report ultimately say? What did the pre-media witnesses confirm? Why is this considered such a rock solid case? Listen, laugh, learn.

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Zamora_incident

https://www.socorronm.org/attractions/socorro-landing-a-ufo-story/

https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/socorro-ufo.htm

http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2010/03/p25.pdf

https://peoplepill.com/people/lonnie-zamora-incident/

https://www.ufocasebook.com/Zamora.html

https://supernaturalmagazine.com/articles/the-lonnie-zamora-incident

https://www.history.