1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,720 These are the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. 2 00:00:03,720 --> 00:00:07,000 The U.S. government is running out of excuses. 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:12,160 As more and more documents become declassified, officials can no longer blame every major 4 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:16,000 UFO sighting on comets, clouds, and weather balloons. 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:20,400 Does this mean the government will finally begin telling us everything it knows about 6 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:29,280 UFOs? 7 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:33,840 Socorro, New Mexico is the kind of small town people are usually traveling through on their 8 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:36,840 way to someplace else. 9 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:42,600 Visitors rarely slow down long enough to learn that this place has a mysterious past. 10 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:47,680 And that one retired Socorro police officer is still haunted by the unearthly encounter 11 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:50,800 that took place here 32 years ago. 12 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:54,800 Lonnie Zamora remembers April 24, 1964. 13 00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:59,160 He was a rookie on the force, returning to the station after an uneventful day. 14 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:03,920 Then a speeding vehicle passed Zamora's patrol car, and he set off in pursuit. 15 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:10,920 When we got to this hill, saw a lot of dust, and I let the speeder go, and I turned to 16 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:11,920 investigate. 17 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:20,120 I could see a white object sitting between those two bushes over there, and I had to 18 00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:25,720 come real slow because this was a messed up road, had big rocks on it and everything. 19 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:30,360 I thought it was the kids from high school that were racing up here, and maybe one of 20 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:32,960 the teenagers had turned over. 21 00:01:32,960 --> 00:01:38,120 When the speeding object came to a stop, Zamora claims that he saw two figures in white cover 22 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:41,120 holes emerge from a strange white UFO. 23 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:43,840 He moved in slow. 24 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:53,280 I came up here on this road, so I could find a flat spot where I could park my car. 25 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:58,320 I got out of the car and glanced down to the royal there, and I saw this white looking 26 00:01:58,320 --> 00:01:59,320 object. 27 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:02,840 It was sort of a big egg shape, bigger in the car. 28 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:06,440 Those are the bushes that were there, and the craft was sitting right in between them 29 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:07,440 too. 30 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:14,080 So I started down to see what it was, and then I heard this big boom in the bottom, and 31 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:16,160 the fire came out of the bottom. 32 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:19,800 So I started running behind my police car to take cover. 33 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:24,440 I could feel the heat up there because it was windy like now, and then it gradually 34 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:29,160 pulled up, up about 20, 30 feet, and stayed there for a while, and it just took off. 35 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:30,760 His radio was dead. 36 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:35,080 Zamora could only watch in awe as the object disappeared over the horizon. 37 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:39,160 As soon as it was gone, the police radio cracked into light, and Zamora called for 38 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:40,160 backup. 39 00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:42,560 A New Mexico state police unit quickly arrived. 40 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:49,000 I came down here, and we saw this big rock right down here, and it was still on fire. 41 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:54,920 Then we saw the imprints of the legs, of the craft, and there was four of them. 42 00:02:54,920 --> 00:02:57,600 Then we saw this footprints around here. 43 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:02,040 By nightfall, the FBI had arrived on scene and began gathering evidence. 44 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:08,960 They went down there and measured the footprints and everything, and we stayed out here until 45 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:14,000 about seven or eight o'clock at night, still wondering what it was. 46 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:15,840 But they didn't say if it was or not. 47 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:20,280 At nine o'clock, they said we went down to the courthouse, and we talked about it until 48 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:21,840 about midnight. 49 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:25,880 Instantly, Socorro was the center of an unprecedented media frenzy. 50 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,400 This is one of the few sightings that got national attention immediately. 51 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:35,160 Lonnie Zamora's story is on the national news, it's in all the newspapers, everybody's talking 52 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:37,320 about it. 53 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:41,120 Kevin Randall is an internationally renowned UFO investigator. 54 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:46,040 He feels the Socorro events stand alone because of the amount of physical evidence collected 55 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:47,640 at the scene. 56 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:52,120 Landing gear marks were found, the bush was burned by the UFO engine. 57 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:56,840 There were occupants, creatures from the craft, sighted by Lonnie Zamora. 58 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:00,400 And the event brought the greatest UFO researcher of the day to Socorro. 59 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,120 Jay Allen Hynek, the Air Force consultant, came to Socorro. 60 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,960 He looked at it, talked to Zamora, talked to Zamora's superiors, talked to people who 61 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:11,240 saw the landing traces, took photographs, so there's physical evidence remaining behind. 62 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:15,000 It's one of the few times they said there could be a flying saucer. 63 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,880 I had conversations with Dr. Hynek about the Socorro case, and his comments to me led me 64 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:27,480 to believe that he felt that this was one of those cases where the government was unwilling 65 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:31,880 to permit him to say what he would like to say about it. 66 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:35,920 And that just made him a great deal. 67 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:40,680 According to Timmerman, a longtime associate of Jay Allen Hynek, the Socorro event was 68 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:45,120 one of the defining moments in Hynek's career. 69 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:48,680 He felt that this was one of the most important cases he'd come across. 70 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:54,760 And I think that maybe his attitude toward it was developed as a result of his feel about 71 00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,840 the Lonnie Zamora, the primary witness. 72 00:04:58,840 --> 00:04:59,840 Lonnie Zamora is very credible. 73 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:00,840 He's a police officer. 74 00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:03,160 He has nothing to gain by telling this story. 75 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,240 He is stuck with this story from the very beginning. 76 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:07,240 This is what he saw. 77 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:11,640 There's no question that Lonnie Zamora saw something unusual on the ground. 78 00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:17,240 According to the Air Force and government, they say they don't know what it was. 79 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:24,520 They never told me not to say or say about it, talk about it, but they say that they 80 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,440 don't know what it was. 81 00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:32,280 In fact, it took 21 years for the Air Force to finally offer an explanation for the Socorro 82 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:34,040 UFO landing. 83 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:39,040 They offered logs from the White Sands missile base, charting government testing of the newly 84 00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:42,040 developed lunar landing module. 85 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:48,440 But the logs indicate the tests ended more than five hours before Zamora sighting. 86 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:52,480 The Air Force explanation simply doesn't work because they have no documentation to place 87 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:55,760 the lunar lander in that portion of New Mexico at that time. 88 00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:58,240 It does not match Zamora's description. 89 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:02,880 I think if Dr. Heineck were here today and saw this new documentation available, the 90 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:08,920 report that the Air Force says it was a lunar lander, if anything, that landed near Socorro, 91 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:10,840 I think he'd say bushwalk. 92 00:06:10,840 --> 00:06:17,600 He'd say that this is the government trying to do its fancy little dance and saying things 93 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:23,560 that will satisfy the media, that will satisfy the country and the world, that there's no 94 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:29,480 reality to the UFO phenomenon, whereas there is. 95 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:35,240 And according to JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the lunar lander 96 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:38,280 alluded to in the government data did not fly. 97 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:44,480 It was dropped from a tower and had no system of independent propulsion as reported by Zamora. 98 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:49,600 Randall believes that this is proof the Socorro UFO was not a lunar lander. 99 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:53,880 The Air Force completed their UFO investigation, said they had nothing more to say on it, and 100 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:59,280 yet now they're coming out this year providing us with new explanations for old sightings. 101 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:02,640 I have no idea why they're doing it, but I find it highly significant. 102 00:07:02,640 --> 00:07:07,360 Randall believes it is Socorro's proximity to several highly sensitive military bases 103 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:10,400 that have prompted a continuing disinformation campaign. 104 00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:15,720 It is between the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the White Sands Missile Range, the very large 105 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:19,200 array of radio telescope is 50 or 60 miles to the west. 106 00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:21,080 Socorro's right in the middle of this. 107 00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:25,240 If you've got a race of intelligent beings wanting to see what we're doing, this makes 108 00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:31,240 a perfect place for them to come to observe our steps into space and what our science 109 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:35,440 is doing. 110 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:39,560 According to Timmerman, the Socorro event convinced Dr. Heineck that the truth about 111 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:43,120 UFOs was being manipulated by the Air Force. 112 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:45,880 After Socorro, Heineck left his post. 113 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:51,160 The government lost one of its most prestigious spokespersons and gained its most ardent critic. 114 00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:57,920 Dr. Heineck saw this and it was very obvious to him that what Lonnie Zamora was saying 115 00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:04,080 in the depths of his honesty was not what the military was saying in their attempt to 116 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:08,240 explain it. 117 00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:12,280 Disproving the lunar lander theory does not mean that the Socorro craft came from another 118 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:17,320 planet, but it does raise serious questions about the true nature of the event. 119 00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:21,520 What could have landed there more than 30 years ago that is still too sensitive to reveal?