adamski, roswell & socorro

8/7/2019 ADAMSKI, ROSWELL & SOCORRO

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ADAMSKI, ROSWELL & SOCORRO:

The Hoaxers and the Hoaxed.

by

David Calvert

Whether committed as a practical joke or serious fraud, hoaxing

has been with us from the earliest times and nothing is sacred to its

perpetrators. Great works of art, religious relics, literary works, and so

on, have all come under the acquisitive gaze of the fraudster. In most

instances their motivations are obvious - financial gain. But in these

more media-based times notoriety has become the by-word for such

acts of wanton deception, and the world of ufology has attracted more

than its fair share of con artists.

From the birth of the modern UFO era in 1947, with the Kenneth

Arnold sighting, a new breed of confidence tricksters emerged. They

were to bring disrepute upon the then fledgling study of UFOs and

undoubtedly delayed the serious scientific study of the phenomena

with their, at times, outlandish claims.

George Adamski [1891-1965]


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is perhaps the most famous individual to emerge

from the contactee period. In November 1952 he claimed to have

made contact with a UFO pilot from Venus. This claim has been totally

discredited, not least because we now know that Venus is an

inhospitable planet that cannot possibly harbour life of any kind, let

alone intelligent humanoid life. Its surface temperature is hot enoughto melt lead and its atmospheric pressure is 94.5 times greater than

Earths. This would cause any Venusian, not wearing heavily

pressurised body armour, to explode the moment he set foot on our

planet.

By looking at his earlier life it is possible to build a character profile of

the Polish-born immigrant. Throughout his twenties and thirties he had

a variety of jobs. He served with the National Guard in Portland,

Oregon, and was honourably discharged in 1919. He then turned his

hand to philosophy in the 1930s, and styled himself Professor George

Adamski, founding a monastery in Laguna Beach, California. There he

procured a license to produce wine for the monastery during

Prohibition. However, much of it was sold on the black market, to the

extent that he told two of his followers that he was making a fortune.

Naturally, he was disappointed by the repeal of Prohibition and later

commented that had it not been for the legislation of alcohol he would

not have had to get into this saucer crap. This does not bode well for

the encounter story he would later tell to the world. He wrote two

books on his encounters, the first, Flying Saucers Have Landed(1953),


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the second, Inside The Spaceships (1955). Undoubtedly, he was trying

to cash in on the phenomenon that had gripped the publics

imagination.

The final blow to his claims came in 1955 when four of the

people who had been with him on the 20 th November 1952 admitted

that they had seen nothing of what Adamski claimed.

Right up to his death on the 23rd of April 1965 George Adamski

continued to proclaim his accounts were true.

Government cover-up (The Roswell Incident).

Even world governments are not beyond dipping their toes into

the murky waters of deception. When it comes to UFOs and national

security issues they are arguably the supreme masters. An obvious

example of this is the Roswell incident.

On July 6th, Mack Brazel, who operated the Foster ranch near the

town of Roswell, New Mexico, turned up at Sheriff George Wilcoxs

office with pieces of odd wreckage that possessed out of the ordinary

properties. He had discovered them, and similar pieces, strewn across

a 1-kilometre area of the ranch earlier. The sheriff informed the Roswell

army base and spoke with Major Jesse Marcell, the Intelligence Officer

for the worlds only atomic bomb unit. Marcell also checked the

material and noted its very strange properties. He informed Colonel


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made and that it was not a flying disc that had been recovered, but a

radar reflector. This cover story went out at about 5 pm, central time,

and Marcell was sent back to Roswell and forbidden to speak to

anyone.

Claims that army personnel also discovered alien bodies and the

main body of the UFO at the site began to circulate. More recently a

counter claim that it was Brazel and several others who discovered the

remains of four extraterrestrials has come to light. If this were true

Cavitt and Marcell would have been informed of this by Brazel prior to

their inspecting the crash site.

The military has changed its story as to the provenance of the

so-called alien bodies on occasion. At one point they claimed they were

rhesus monkeys, used as part of a military space-travel experiment,

which later changed to artificial human crash test dummies, dropped

from high altitudes in human endurance experiments. The latter story

certainly isnt true as test dummies were not used until the 1950s, nor,

would they account for the small stature of the alleged creatures found

at the ranch.

It is beyond dispute that the military were, and still are, trying tokeep secret what crashed that night at Roswell. Some researchers

believe that they may have been telling the truth when they said the

debris was from a balloon, even if the wreckage shown was not from

the actual balloon that crashed. At the time the US Navy and the CIA

were involved in the Moby Dick programme, which sent high-altitude

balloons over the Soviet mainland on spying missions. There was good

reason to keep this secret. However, the stumbling block to this theory

doesnt fit the description of the size or disposition of the debris field

described by Marcell who, as we will recall, stated that It was nothing

that hit the ground, or exploded on the ground. Its something that

must have exploded above the ground, travelling perhaps at a high

rate of speed It was quite obvious to me, familiar with air activities,


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that it was not a weather balloon, nor was it a plain or a missile.

The Socorro UFO Hoax. [24th April 1964]

It has taken 46 years for the truth to finally emerge regarding the

Lonnie Zamora sighting in Socorro, New Mexico. It turns out that the

landed UFO and its occupants witnessed by Zamora were nothing morethan an elaborate school prank.

While pursuing a speeding car, police officer Lonnie Zamora

heard a loud explosion. He thought that it might have come from a

nearby dynamite shack and broke off the pursuit to investigate. He saw

a cone of flame travelling over a hill and followed it. It led him to a

strange looking craft and two figures, dressed in white coveralls

walking around it. He pulled up about 100 ft from the landed, 20ft

aluminium-white oval object resting on structured legs. As he

climbed from his car he bumped his head and his glasses fell off. On

approaching the object the figures suddenly jumped out of sight.

Shortly after a flame appeared beneath the craft and it roared off over

the hill. There was a high-pitched whine and then silence.

On close inspection of the landing site, four landing

impressions were discovered along with areas of burnt bush, near to

where the craft had sat. When asked by an officer whom he had

radioed what the craft looked like he said, It looks like a balloon.

Socorro soon became embroiled in a media circus, including

officials from the US Air Forces Project Blue Book and NICAP. Zamoras

story received not only the attention of the national media, but also


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the International media. To-date, it is still one of the most celebrated

cases in UFO history.

THE PAULING-COLGATE LETTER

In 1968 a letter to Dr. Stirling Colgate -President of New Mexico

Tech- from his friend and multiple Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling

landed at his door. In the letter he claimed to be researching the

Socorro-Zamora landing case and was writing to see if Colgate knew

anything about the incident. Colgates response leaves little doubt that

the incident was the work of tricksters.

In 2009, UFO researcher and author, Anthony Bragalia - a regular

contributor to the UFO Iconoclast(s) contacted Dr. Colgate - a world-

famous astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory - to see what

his current thoughts were on the Socorro incident and to see if he could

shed any further light on the incident. In his email to the then 84-year-

old Colgate he attached the 1968 Pauling letter containing the

handwritten notes Colgate had written at the time.

It took several days before Colgate replied to the authors


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communiqu. His answers to the questions posed were sparing and

cryptic. To the first question, Do you still know this to be a hoax? he

answered, Yes.

The second question asked if he could expand on what he wrote to

Pauling about the event. He replied, I will ask a friend, but he and

other students did not want their cover blown.

Thirdly, when asked how the hoaxers did it, Colgate simply replied,

Will ask.

To the query, Have you ever publicly commented on this? he replied,

Of course not.

Colgate indicated to Bragalia that he would make further

enquires into the event, but as yet he has not received any

communication from him, leaving him to speculate as to the reason

why.

CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE

New Mexico Tech

From the mid 1970s to the early 90s Dr. Frank T Etcorn, was a

Psychology Professor at New Mexico Tech. He had an interest in the

Socorro UFO event some ten years before his tenure at the College.

Anthony Bragalia became aware of his interest and contacted him to

see if he had discovered anything about the sighting or had gleaned

any new information about what had really happened.

Etcorn related to him that in the mid 1980s a young student of

his had examined the case as a project. She had contacted alumni who

were at Tech during 1964. She claimed she had found one of the


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students who had been involved in the hoax. Though he did not give

details concerning the hoax and refused to have his name mentioned,

he nevertheless confirmed that it was a hoax. Interestingly, she also

discovered through records that on the day of the sighting a rear

projection device had been stolen from the campus.

Etcorn and Bragalia went on to speculate as to how the student

Techies may have pulled off the stunt. Their ideas were not beyond

the abilities of the smart Techies to create. They included:

A large helium balloon resting on the desert floor with landing struts

attached, to be released on cue.

The use of explosives, pyrotechnics, model rockets, thrown flares or

a flame device to simulate the roaring or whining.

Small students dressed in white lab coats acting as aliens.

The landing depressions were probably dug out by hand.

The creosote bushes were torched deliberately.

Surrounding soil and rock area salted with silicon or trinitite from

the schools geology lab.

Zamora was probably lured to the site by another student, whose

car he had been chasing.

ENTER DAVE COLLIS

Collis was a freshman at New Mexico Tech. In 1965, a year after

the Zamora sighting, he and some friends intended to carry out a

paranormal prank and shared his idea with a trusted Professor.

Tellingly, the Professor told him that the Tech had a long history of

pranking - and that one of them was especially notable. He then

confided to Collis that the Zamora sighting was a hoax, done by Techie

students. Collis, who is a pyrotechnics expert, said that it had always


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surprised him that they didnt seem to realise just how terrestrial the

Zamora UFO seemed to be in the first place. The name of his Professor

still remains a mystery.

WHAT MOTIVATED THE HOAXERS?

In this instance it would appear to be revenge. The Socorro police

didnt have a very good relationship with the students back then.

Zamora in particular had a reputation for harassing the Techie students

for no apparent good reason, ergo their motive for getting back at him.

QUESTIONS AND INCONSISTENCIES

Whilst this author does not discount the possibility of a hoax

being committed, there are a few disturbing questions that require

answers, namely:

Zamoras glasses: We are told the officers glasses fell off as he

climbed from the car. Yet strangely there is no mention of them

being put back on. Could it be we are being subtly led into believing

that this is why Zamora did not see the UFO for what it really was?

Furthermore, an article, written by Patrick Huygue in the Anomalist,

No 8, Spring 200, reveals that Zamora lost his glasses when he ran

from the UFO as it took off , and not as he got out of the car to take

a look at the craft. This explanation seems more credible than the

former.

Colgates silence: Why did Colgate really cease communications

with Bragalia? Project student and discovered hoaxer: What is the name of

the female student who examined the case in the 1980s and that of

the self-confessed hoaxer she had uncovered?

The trusted Professor: Dave Collis Professor had apparently


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been at the College for many years, so why does his identity still

remain a mystery?

The balloon: Zamora claimed that when the UFO took off it

travelled very fast over him. This does not sit well with the flight

characteristics of a balloon, unless there was a very strong wind

blowing that day.

The mysterious figures: Bragalia would have us believe that the

two humanoid figures seen next to the craft/balloon and wearing

white coveralls jumped out of sight when Zamora approached

them - presumably behind the so-called balloon. However, when the

object took off they were nowhere to be seen.

The young student who, in the mid 1980s, allegedly discovered the

identity of one of the hoaxers also claimed she had discovered,

through campus records that a rear projection device had been

stolen from the campus. If, as Bragalia and Etcorn speculated, a

large helium balloon, explosives, pyrotechnics and model rockets

were used in the elaborate hoax, then why werent they also

recorded as stolen in the campus records?

For this author there are far too many unanswered questions to arrive

at a firm conclusion. I remain open minded on this case until conclusive

evidence is produced, one way or the other.

ENDS

adamski, roswell & socorro

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