Socorro final determination?

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Did a little reading on this - didn't know that several people overheard Zamora's radio traffic. I believe he saw something highly unusual that rattled him.

Had to have been some terrestrial craft - clanking doors, roaring flames, two people standing next to it doesn't sound extraterrestrial to me. Project Gemini was in full swing and Apollo was gearing up. At that point the concept of the LEM existed but they hadn't worked out all the engineering. The final product was all about weight savings.

Why the Air Force or NASA never owned up to it is strange but after more than a half century it could be a combination of secrecy at the time, bureaucracy, the routine destruction of old documents and death of the participants. Maybe it was a comparatively small project that wound up at a dead end and got overshadowed by the successful programs.

The Bell Aerosystems Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) - the 'flying bedstead' - absolutely existed in 1964 but hadn't officially flown when Zamora saw whatever it was. It was intended to give astronauts practice piloting the real lunar lander. Just to speculate maybe this was some earlier concept vehicle that wound up being ruled out - too heavy, whatever.

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The shadow

The shadow knows!
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Project Morpius. A lander prototype. unfortunately I can find no records of any test before 2014. and it is unmanned.
the insignia on the craft and shape lend well..but it is to early for this to be a candidate for what was seen.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Just to contradict myself, the thing about those landers that makes me wonder about what Zamora saw is that (obviously) astronauts were intended to fly them. Right? Some of the best pilots in the world. Test pilots, fighter pilots, men with engineering degrees and thousands of hours of experience in the most advanced flying craft of the era.

So just who the hell were to two schmucks that flew the roaring egg?

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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Wasn't being totally clear - not totally awake. That 'flying bedstead' was a bitch to fly and could be deadly. Not something just anyone could jump into. White Sands was close by, but exactly who - two people - would be on board?
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
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Neal Armstrong and Allen Shepard pose with lunar test vehicles note the white and blue outfits ..
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
View attachment 4153 View attachment 4154
Neal Armstrong and Allen Shepard pose with lunar test vehicles note the white and blue outfits ..

Well, yeah. But I never heard even one of them ever mention anything like that and in 1964 the real astronauts there were had their time well accounted for. Any why two on a lander? I realize they landed on the moon with two aboard but that LEM couldn't do it in Earth's full gravity. The flying bedstead used a big turbofan to simulate 1/6g and rockets only for maneuvering, and there was only one man in it at a time with a (necessary and used occasionally) ejection seat because the thing was so wonky to fly. Pretty sure Neil Armstrong had to use his. They only put two men in the static simulator.

So whatever Zamora saw does sound terrestrial (and I think it was) and was probably within the technical capacity of the time but still seems damned strange to me. It would have to be robust enough to operate in 1g, be quite more maneuverable than the bedstead really was, have two highly skilled operators aboard, and somehow escape any mention whatsoever in history. Weird, like maybe one day it'll be found in storage and nobody will realize what it is. This is what I like about this case.

And why is this on my mind right now, today, this morning? Dunno.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
BTW - for 40 years I've always heard (when discussing Socorro) ".......from nearby White Sands Missile Range". I'm not exactly sure where in Socorro that Lonnie's incident happened, but I wanted some idea as the distance from Socorro to White Sands. When I plugged it into Google Maps it said 118 miles. That's pretty far. I think over the years I've always envisioned it as like my house to Lakehurst Naval Air Station where the Hindenburg blew up. To me, that's not far away....(about 11 or 12 miles). If I lived 118 miles away from Lakehurst - I'd never consider that "nearby". 118 miles from my house in any direction and you are in another state.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
BTW - for 40 years I've always heard (when discussing Socorro) ".......from nearby White Sands Missile Range". I'm not exactly sure where in Socorro that Lonnie's incident happened, but I wanted some idea as the distance from Socorro to White Sands. When I plugged it into Google Maps it said 118 miles. That's pretty far. I think over the years I've always envisioned it as like my house to Lakehurst Naval Air Station where the Hindenburg blew up. To me, that's not far away....(about 11 or 12 miles). If I lived 118 miles away from Lakehurst - I'd never consider that "nearby". 118 miles from my house in any direction and you are in another state.

Jeez, I thought it was only 15-20 miles baaed on that earlier link. Never checked it in Maps.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
Jeez, I thought it was only 15-20 miles baaed on that earlier link. Never checked it in Maps.
Right? They always made it sound like the base is 15-20 miles away. I think 118 miles is very far (in the context of what some of the explanations are regarding Socorro).
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Right? They always made it sound like the base is 15-20 miles away. I think 118 miles is very far (in the context of what some of the explanations are regarding Socorro).

Well, I actually checked depending on where you measure the distance it's between 10 and 60 miles from the closest/farthest corners of the range.

And I did read about the student hoax. To be honest, if you have to speculate between that and a secret prototype the hoax is probably more likely. I've wondered why we never heard of such a sophisticated prototype lander, and on the other side of the coin wondered what the dean would have to gain by admission of a hoax. The mining school is much, much closer than the missile range. It does seem improbable as hell though and a lot of trouble to go through for what, some problem with the town cop?

Again, just to play Devil's Advocate in most cases there is a gap between what's actually seen/reported and reality - Morristown, Hudson Valley etc. People get caught up in the adrenal rush of encountering the surprising and unexpected and their imagination fills in blanks. Maybe Zamora is at least a little guilty of that - we might all be too.

Years ago I was out walking my dogs and was startled by a hellishly loud roaring whooshing sound and saw a gigantic 8-ball settling on the neighbor's pond. A sign from God for an end of the world party? No. Big hot air balloon from a nearby festival struggling to stay in the air - and you could see a cone of flame but obviously it was directed up into the bag. Not what I was expecting. It certainly didn't move away rapidly. Scared the crap out me & the dogs at least for a minute.

This one stays in the WTF file along with Pascagoula. In the end both rely on eyewitness credibility and there's no harm in leaving them there. There is no benefit to fully accepting or dismissing them short of any new facts, and after all these years I'm not holding my breath.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
This one stays in the WTF file along with Pascagoula.
The Pascagoula incident seemed like total nonsense to me. That is until I heard the audio recording of the two guys involved (audio recorded without their knowledge). After I heard that, my instincts tell me that SOMETHING must have happened. Now exactly what that is, I have no idea. But I can't see these two guys that advanced - to think that they had a hunch that they were being recorded and put on act for the police. They sounded genuinely frightened to me - and that something did indeed happened. But who knows?
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
ok, this is interesting, is there any other military facility there?
I know there is Holloman AFB but that's listed as 141 miles away from Socorro (via roadway). And I see what Pigfarmer was talking about regarding the perimeter of the White Sands Missile Range. It looks like the NW corner of the range gets pretty close to Socorro.
 
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