One item Stanford offered up was the proximity of Zamora to the craft. He said within 55 feet and said it was probably closer than that. 50 feet is pretty close, but there seems to be some discrepency regarding this. Blue book says it was over 100. And Zamora himself puts the object at 200. Some say well over 200. I'm not sure the deal here.
If I may chime into the Paracast discussions for the first time:
TClaeys is mistaken about these numbers. He is probably getting confused (as are others) by Zamora indicating TWO positions where he saw the object on the ground. One was a distant one, 500-800 feet away from the object (depending on whose map you believe), when he
first spotted the object (with the two humanoids next to it). Zamora's written account (where he placed this distance at 150-200 yards, not feet), states he stopped his car for only a few seconds to observe, then thinking it a car wreck, rapidly drove on down the dirt road to investigate and render assistance.
He parked his car directly above the spot where he had first observed the object, radioed in he was going in to investigate, then started on foot down into he arroyo. The Air Force map marks the car distance from the object at "100 feet". The FBI report says "103 feet". Ray Stanford's map also shows about 100 feet, though Ray says the paced off distance was more like 55 feet. (I personally doubt that--topos suggest probably the closest the car could be parked to the arroyo bottom was about 70 feet.)
In any case, Zamora walked part way down into the arroyo before being scared off by the object suddenly blasting off. Thus Zamora clearly approached closer than 100 feet no matter how you slice it. Stanford says the paced off distance with Zamora there to indicate exactly how far down he got was only 35 feet to the object. Even if the distance was actually double that, Zamora got a very close look at the object, which included the oval shape, an estimated length of about 15 feet, seeing the large red insignia on the side, a hole about 3 feet across at the bottom (from which the blue flame emerged), and two girder-like legs. (After he had run away, perhaps 150 to 200 feet away, Zamora also reported to Stanford that the legs folded up into the object before the object rapidly departed in dead silence).
Besides Zamora's eyewitness testimony there was much physical evidence at the scene, including four wedge-shaped rectangular landing impressions (whose geometry had interesting engineering implications--the burned soiled directly underneath was under the center of mass of the object and each landing pad would have born equal weight). There was a bush at the edge of the burn area seared cleanly in half. Chemical analysis by the Air Force of the charred vegetation and soil indicated no hydrocarbons present, as would be expected with a hoax (gasoline, kerosene, blow torch, etc.). The sand under the flame was vitrified (fused to glass), and as Ray Stanford revealed on the show, a rock he later recovered under the soil at the main burn area had large quartz crystals that were also vitrified.
Had there been "hoaxers", they left no evidence of their existence behind--no footprints, no equipment of any kind. Zamora went back immediately to the scene and backup arrived within minutes. There was no way hoaxers could have cleaned up after themselves that quickly. Hynek in a letter to Menzel noted that the only way a hoax could have been carried out is if Zamora was a part of it, as were fellow police officers and the FBI agent who also scoured the area looking for evidence of hoaxers.
Hynek also noted that talking to several police officers who arrived soon at the scene, that the landing impressions appeared to be fresh, since they penetrated into moist soil underneath. The moisture remained for several hours before drying up. Analysis of how far down the impressions were in firm soil indicated an object weighing at least several tons.
At the edge of one landing impression was a broken rock, first noted by Zamora. Stanford talked about this on the show. The broken rock had small metal particles imbedded in it (photos in Stanford's book). Stanford described well, both in his book and on the show, the coverup that ensued when the metal was taken to NASA for analysis.
However, the part that still impresses me the most, is the rapid, totally silent departure of the craft described by Zamora (directly into a stiff wind, which alone rules out a balloon), which absolutely defies any conventional propulsion system. You can get a rough idea of just how fast the object traveled from more of Zamora's testimony. He observed the object getting smaller and smaller until it faded out over the mountains to the WSW, in the vicinity of 6 Mile Canyon (which as the name implies was about 6 miles away). Zamora estimated it only took 10 seconds. Stanford in his book thought this was low and doubled it to 20 seconds. 6 miles in 20 seconds is 18 miles a minute or 1080 miles an hour average speed. Double that for maximum speed if the object had constant acceleration. That's where supersonic speed estimations come from.
Even using much more conservative numbers for fadeout distance and departure time still leads to speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, all in complete silence with an object having no wings or other obvious means of support. No human conventional craft then or now can do any of this.
And as Ray Stanford points out, there were other witnesses. Sgt. Chavez, rushing to the scene as backup, privately admitted seeing the object rapidly disappearing over the mountains, just like Zamora (as first reported publicly by Stanford on the show, though he told me this about Chavez several years ago, saying Chavez refused to go public with his observation). Chavez also observed Zamora in a state of shock and the brush still smoking.
Within days, the local newspaper reported the tourists on the main highway to the east who told the local gas station owner (Opal Grinder) about a craft that crossed the highway just above them and just about took off the top of their car. They also saw the police car going out along the dirt road to investigate. Two named tourists approaching Socorro from the west about a mile away saw something bright either landing or taking off, kicking up dust. Numerous people in town heard the roar. Stanford names two in his book he interviewed, who indicated two roars about a minute apart (presumably landing and takeoff). Stanford in his book says a police officer told him that hundreds of people on the south side of Socorro heard the roar or roars. As Stanford noted on the show, no speaker system back then could have created such a loud and pervasive sound. It also begs the question of how such a large speaker system plus power supply could have been whisked away within a minute leaving no trace behind.
People who think college pranksters could have carried this off really don't know the nitty-gritty details of the case. Stirling Colgate will never get back to Anthony Bragalia with the names of the alleged hoaxers or details of how they did it, because this was quite impossible to hoax.
AF Blue Book head at the time, Hector Quintinella, a rabid UFO debunker if there ever was one, also concluded that a hoax was not possible. If anyone wanted to explain away Socorro in prosaic terms, he was near the top of the list. Quintinella held out he hope that maybe it was some super-secret test craft. But intensive inquiry by the Air Force and other agencies indicated no such craft. Not surprising given the physical evidence left behind and the characteristics described by Zamora, such as silent, rapid departure by a wingless craft.
The case is still carried as an unknown in Blue Book records at a time when Blue Book was using every conceivable explanation in sight no matter how absurd to try to reduce the unknown percentage down to zero.
David Rudiak
