Zamora had ever experienced. At about 5:50 PM Sgt. Zamora started pursuit of a speeding car. But the chase was
broken off when Zamora heard a loud explosion. He thought perhaps it came from a dynamite shack nearby. He then
observed a cone of flame traveling over a hill. Once over the hill, Zamora stopped his car about 100 feet away from
what he reported as a strange landed, 20 foot "aluminum-white" oval object resting on structured "legs." The ovoid
had a red insignia about two feet wide on its surface. Though the artistic rendition of the UFO above depicts an
opening- Zamora had reported the object as smooth, without any windows or doors. Zamora also noticed what
appeared to be two figures "the size of small adults or large kids" and "normal in shape" wearing "white coveralls"
walking around the object.
THE SOCORRO UFO HOAX EXPOSED! (Famous 1964 sighting was a college prank) by Anthony Bragalia
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After 45 years the truth is now revealed- one of the most famous UFO
sightings in history was a hoax. The recent confession of an elderly
College President -and a newly discovered document- indicate that the
1964 sighting of a landed UFO by Socorro, NM policeman Lonnie Zamora
was the result of an elaborate school prank. This incredible story is
publicly recounted for the first time ever by individuals who have held the
secret of Socorro for decades.

THE SOCORRO UFO STORY

Socorro Policeman Lonnie Zamora was performing his town patrol duties
on Friday, April 24, 1964. But this would be unlike any other patrol Sgt.
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It was also an active one for Lonnie Zamora. He was visited
by many journalists and UFO researchers. This included
officials from the US Air Force Project Blue Book,
investigators from the civilian UFO study group NICAP and
noted skeptics. The story received national and international
media attention. To this very day Socorro remains one of
the most well-known UFO incidents in history. Still living,
long retired and exhausted of the matter, Zamora now
avoids any talk about the event.

THE INCRIMINATING DOCUMENT

A former New Mexico Tech President affirmed in the 1960s in
a letter to renowned scientist Dr. Linus Pauling that the
Socorro UFO was a hoax.

A letter from Dr. Linus Pauling located within the Special
Collections of Oregon State University (where the Pauling
You need Java to see this applet.
TODAY IS
OFFICER LONNIE ZAMORA
As Zamora started to approach the object on foot, the figures jumped away from his
view. As Zamora left his car, he bumped it and his glasses fell off. He reports that a
flame from the underside of the craft then appeared and the object roared away.
Zamora heard a high-pitched whine and then silence. The object traveled very fast
over him, and then just three feet above a nearby shack- and finally out of view over
another hill. Left at the site were four "landing impressions" as well as areas of burnt
creosote bush near where the object has rested.

Zamora, shocked, then radioed to another officer what he had just observed. When
the officer asked Zamora "What does it look like?" Zamora responded, "It looks like a
balloon." Zamora would later state that he did not know exactly what it was -it could
have been a secret military experiment or even ET. Zamora has remained reluctant to
offer his opinion on the specific nature or origin of the craft. He says it was strange
and frightening. But he leaves the analysis to others- and only indicates that he was
sincere in reporting what he had observed. And Zamora was sincere. And he was
extremely cooperative with investigators. But he was also hoodwinked.

The period following the sighting in 1964 found Socorro a town turned upside-down.
papers are archived) provides insight into the true nature of the Socorro sighting. In a 1968 letter to Dr. Stirling
Colgate -the President of New Mexico Tech- Pauling inquires about the Socorro sighting. Colgate replied to Pauling by
sending back Pauling's letter with a handwritten notation at the bottom. Dr. Colgate writes: "I have a good indication
of the student who engineered the hoax. Student has left. Cheers, Stirling."

This telling letter can be viewed here:

Letter

Dr. Pauling (a multiple Nobel-Prize winner) was very interested in the UFO phenomena. An earlier article by this author
details Pauling's secret UFO studies. He was researching the Socorro-Zamora landing case and decided to write to his
friend, Stirling Colgate, President at New Mexico Tech to see what he might have known about the incident. Dr.
Colgate's blunt reply leaves little doubt that tricksters were involved. But to allay any further doubt, I contacted
Colgate.
THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S CONFESSION

As well as having been NM Tech's President, Dr. Stirling Colgate was a world-famous
astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Considered a science visionary, he
specialized in plasma and atmospheric physics. His discoveries in these fields are
acknowledged as monumental. His associates included such luminaries as Oppenheimer
and Pauling. Colgate still maintains an office at Los Alamos at age 84! This author emailed
Colgate to see what his thoughts are today on the Socorro UFO and to see if he would
shed additional light on the event. In my email to Colgate I attached the Pauling letter
from 1968 with Colgate's handwritten notes on the Socorro UFO.
DR. STIRLING COLGATE
Colgate took several days to reply to me. In his email, Colgate answered very cryptically and sparingly:

- To the question, "Do you still know this to be a hoax? His reply was simple: "Yes."
- When asked, "Today, decades later, can you expand on what you wrote to Pauling about the event?" He wrote: "I
will ask a friend, but he and other students did not want their cover blown."
- He offered that the hoax, "was a no-brainer."
- When asked "Specifically how did they do it?" He just answered, "Will ask."
- When queried, "Have you ever publicly commented on this?" he replied "Of course not."

It has been some time now, and I have never heard back from Stirling Colgate. He indicated that he would "make
some inquiries" to see what more could be detailed on the event. Perhaps his "friend and the other students" who he
alludes to are still not ready to come forward and be identified. As Colgate puts it, maybe they still do not "want their
cover blown."

Or perhaps Colgate was stunned that the Pauling letter was ever discovered- and knows that he has already said too
much. Colgate is likely conflicted about having known about the hoaxers -and the truth about the Socorro UFO- for
decades. He said nothing publicly then- and prefers to not say a whole lot more now.
THE COLLEGE PROFESSOR'S CORROBORATION

Dr. Frank T. Etscorn was a Psychology Professor at New Mexico Tech
from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s. Dr. Etscorn is famously
known for being the inventor of the Nicotine Patch. A wing of the
College was dedicated to Etscorn in 1993. Etscorn had known about
the Socorro UFO event from the decade before he began work at the
College- and it had always intrigued him. This author had learned of
his interest and contacted Dr Etscorn to see if he had ever found out
anything about the sighting and what had really happened. In a
recent telephone conversation, Dr. Etscorn related:

"As a project, a former student of mine had examined the case in
NEW MEXICO TECH
the mid 1980s. Using yearbooks and networking, she began calling alumni who were at Tech in 1964. She somehow
located one of the former students believed to have been involved. He would not expand on the hoax or have his
name used- but she found out it was a hoax. My memory of her investigation is spotty- it was 25 years ago. But I
remember that she found also found out through records that coincidentally a rear projection device was stolen from
the campus the day of the UFO sighting."

Etcorn was a noted psychologist. He said that the psychology of these Techies was such that they liked to fool those
who they thought were foolish.

We discussed how the pranksters may have incorporated 1) a large helium balloon resting on the desert floor to
appear "landed" and then released up into the air on cue. Perhaps it was a reflective white colored balloon or a balloon
fitted over with glossy-white craft paper- with added "landing struts" and a red insignia drawn on its side 2) "roaring"
or "whining" explosives, pyrotechnics, model rockets, thrown flares or a flame device 3) smaller students dressed in
white lab coats acting as the "aliens" and 4) the digging out of "landing depressions" and burning of nearby bushes.
Soil or rock in the area may have been "salted" with silicon or trinitite from the school's Geology Lab. And perhaps it
was intentional that Zamora was led to the landed craft by a speeding car. One of the students may have purposely
engaged Lonnie in a car chase to lure him to where the hoax was staged. Zamora reports that he "broke the chase"
to investigate the UFO- just as the students knew that he would.

Though these ideas about how the hoax may have been accomplished are strictly speculative, Dr. Etscorn reminded
me of an important fact: Nothing that was reported was beyond the abilities of "smart Techies" to create.

WHAT A TECHIE LEARNED

Dave Collis was a freshman at New Mexico Tech in 1965, a year after the Socorro UFO incident. Collis went on to
become a published scientist helping to lead the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at NM Tech. He is
considered a world expert in researching blast effects and explosives.

Collis explained that he himself enjoyed planning pranks when he was a student at Tech. In 1965, he and his friends
had planned a "paranormal" prank and shared the plan with one of his trusted Professors. The Professor (who had
been with Tech for years) told him that NM Tech had a long history of pranking- and that one of them was especially
noteworthy. Collis then said that the Professor (whose name he does not remember or does not wish to offer) had
"confidentially told me that the UFO sighting by the town cop was a hoax done by Techie students." Collis did not
want to press the Professor on who did it -or how. Collis says, "he was telling me this in confidence, so I didn't ask
for the details and he didn't offer." When asked if the Professor could have been making up the hoax story, Collis
replied that in the context of his conversation with him- there was no reason for him to lie. The Professor had told
him the truth about the hoax, of that he was sure. Collis, when told about Stirling Colgate's confirmation that it was
a hoax said, "Colgate is a brilliant man and he was a great College President. From what I was told by my Professor, it
was a hoax. And if Colgate also says it was a hoax, it was." Collis (who is a pyrotechnics expert and often directed NM
Tech's July 4 Fireworks) said that it always has surprised him that people didn't seem to realize just how "terrestrial"
the reported Zamora UFO seemed to be in the first place.

THE REASON FOR THE HOAX

Collis also explained that Lonnie Zamora had a reputation for "hounding" the Techie students during that time. The
students and the Socorro police did not have a particularly good relationship back then. He said that there was "a lot
of friction" at the time between what were felt to be "elitist and educated Techies" versus the "under-educated and
simpler town folk." Zamora was always harassing the students for seemingly no reason, and at every opportunity.
Many of the college kids just did not like him. What better way to "get back" at Zamora than for them to fool a fool?

Little known is that Zamora himself had worked at New Mexico Tech as a mechanic for seven years before becoming a
patrolman. He had developed an insiders view of these college kids' world- a world that was very different than his
own. When he left to join the town police, he was then in a position to exert his "influence" on these same kids. Collis
further explains that Zamora was known as being "not especially educated." Supporting this are the observations of
USAF investigator Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He wrote in his report of his interview of Zamora, "I would conclude that
Zamora, although not overly bright or articulate, is basically sincere."

PRANKS AND GEEKS

As readers of my articles well realize, I am convinced that ET has visited Earth. But I am also a critical thinker. I
recognize the role that pranks and hoaxes have played when it comes to things UFO. I am not happy to report the
results of my investigation- but it is a story that must be told. It is an obligation to history and truth. The compulsion
to prank is a reality we must always bear in mind in evaluating all UFO reports.

Neil Steinburg's classic study on college pranks, "If At All Possible Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks" is very
instructive relative to the Socorro hoax. Steinburg's hypothesis is that college pranks happen because there are
many young creative minds that feel "stifled." And these minds are looking for release- a little fun. And there is a
"geek" connection. Complicated and sophisticated pranks are often pulled off by engineering or science students who
have the technical know how. The many well-known stunts by students at MIT and Caltech show that the grander the
stunt- the more highly educated the students. The "fun" of such pranks does not come from admission to them, it
comes from the reaction to them.

I recall two pranks that were pulled off by others during my own college days when living in Boston. MIT students had
perfected two stunts that were mind-boggling. The first involved taking an enormous promotional prop "cow statue"
(weighing a quarter-ton) from the lawn of a suburban steakhouse. Somehow the students were able to hoist the
huge cow figure on top of the famous MIT "dome buiding." They removed it the following day -and returned it to the
steakhouse lawn- without anyone ever having seen them. To this day, no one has ever owned up to the prank- and
no one has ever come forward stating that they saw the stunt being carried out. It is still unknown how this was
accomplished without use of a heavy construction crane. The second prank involved a high-tech catapult. Somehow
the MIT students were able to hurl large clear water balloons made of very thin material up and over two city streets.
The water balloons were sent careening across the block with precision to land exactly at the entrance of another
college's building. When people went to open the door, invisible "water bombs" hit them out of nowhere- causing
them to get soaked. Visibly stunned, they had no idea where the water burst came from- and had to go to class
soaking wet.

THE SOCORRO HOAXERS TODAY

Great jokes can be carried out with great planning and calculation. But great jokes can also backfire. Perhaps the
Socorro UFO hoaxers continue to get a "big laugh" over the whole thing and revel in their prank done decades ago.
But it is more likely that the New Mexico Tech pranksters -who perhaps became famous scientists- are today oldsters
in retirement struggling with what they did. They played a trick on a community, a nation and the world. They are
keenly aware that they had involved the Air Force, media, scientists and many others. They know that Zamora's life
was made difficult by the event. He was made a spectacle and suffered hugely from the unwanted attention. They
must ponder their youthful folly- and how much time, effort and money was expended in the prank's long aftermath.
It was "a prank gone wild." It had escalated beyond what they could ever have imagined. Often pulling off a brilliant
prank "traps" the pranksters. They create the illusion, but they never receive the "credit." And no credit was ever
sought by those who engineered one of the greatest hoaxes in UFO history.
THE ALLEGED SOCORRO HOAX SERIES

THE SOCORRO UFO HOAX EXPOSED! (Famous 1964 sighting was a college prank)
by Anthony Bragalia

REBUTTAL: THE SOCORRO INCIDENT: A HOAX OR A CASE OF JUMPING THE GUN?
by Frank Warren

AN OPEN LETTER FROM RAY STANFORD

THE REVEREND AT ROSWELL: A CHAPLAIN AT THE CRASH?
by Anthony Bragalia

THE SOCORRO UFO: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE POINTS TO A PRANK (Part 3)
by Anthony Bragalia

ROSWELL CRASH REVELATIONS FROM THE FOSTER RANCH
by Anthony Bragalia

THE FOSTER RANCH AND THE BLM
by Dennis G. Balthaser