Lonnie Zamora

Sergeant Lonnie Zamora (1933–2009) of the Socorro, New Mexico police department is the principal named witness to the April 24, 1964 Socorro incident — a daylight close encounter that the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book formally classified as 'unidentified' and that Project Blue Book's own scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek later described as the case that most changed his thinking. ^[1]

Zamora, on duty that afternoon and pursuing a speeding vehicle, broke off pursuit to investigate what he reported as a loud roar and a blue-orange flame in an unpopulated arroyo south of town. He observed a smooth white object roughly the size of a passenger car standing on landing legs, with two small figures in white coveralls beside it. As he approached, the object emitted a roar, lifted off, and departed at high speed toward the southwest. ^[2]

Zamora's report was investigated within hours by FBI special agent J. Arthur Byrnes, by Captain Richard Holder of the U.S. Army, and by Hynek for Project Blue Book. Physical traces — burned vegetation in a roughly rectangular pattern, four landing-leg impressions in the soil — were documented and photographed by all three investigators. ^[3] Blue Book's final report on the case, retained in the Project Blue Book records at the National Archives, lists it as 'unidentified.' ^[4]