Mining empty UFO troves

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

My pal Kevin Randle has provided, at his blog [kevinrandle.blogspot.com] supplementary material (and explanations) about the 1964 Lonnie Zamora/Socorro UFO sighting (about which Kevin has a popular new book – Encounter in the Desert: The Case for Alien Contact at Socorro), in response to Anthony Bragalia’s recurring insistence that the iconic sighting was prompted by a college hoax.

Kevin’s book and his postings have plumbed the depths of the Socorro sighting, as have others, but not as thoroughly.

The sighting bores many UFO buffs and enchants others, Mr. Bragalia among them and some fans of Mr. Randle.

But the sighting is kaput, pretty much. It remains enigmatic and unexplained, even the alleged insignia/symbol that Police Officer Zamora saw on the craft, my obsession with the sighting.

The 1964 UFO sighting, like the overly cogitated Roswell incident, is pretty much empty of valuable information, but is still being mined by derelict UFO prospectors for some reason.

The reason that some UFO events are so mined is that they have accumulated details that leave open, for some, questions that can be debated, ad infinitum, ad eternum, ad nauseum.

In the Roswell saga there are the Press Release – Flying disc captured by military – and the Ramey memo.

Within the Socorro observation is the purported sighting of two coverall-clad entities and that odd insignia.

But there are a plethora of other UFO reports more intriguing but ignored by the UFO rabble. 

Why? They – the wondrous sightings – don’t invite debatable issues upon which UFO buffs can maximize their deficient skepticism or pseudo-knowledge about UFO sightings, in toto.

Many UFO buffs still ponder such sightings as Roswell or Socorro only because those sightings once provided a treasure trove of wonder or excitement but now lie mouldering in the sensible UFO community, enlivened only by those who have accumulated information about them that they don’t want to give up to the dustbin of should-be-forgotten, overworked, overly-discussed UFO tales that take us nowhere.

Kevin Randle, and a few others, have offered all the material that is relevant to such (in)famous UFO tales as Roswell or Socorro, and that should be it.

But no.

UFO buffs who want fame (even without fortune) still flog the once-interesting sightings, hoping to gain a foothold in the UFO panoply of Ufology’s notables.

And why? I don’t know. UFO fame is non-fame actually. UFO fame is an embarrassment.

Why some seek it baffles. It’s a kind madness, like seeking for the Fountain of Youth or climbing Mount Everest, which has been conquered by so many that the feat has become banal.

Yet, many will continue to mine UFO stories for treasures, treasures that no longer exist.

It’s insane and sad, both.

RR

A 1954 sighting (from a 1954 report)

Paul Dean has provided, from his vast collection, of UFO goodies, this 1954 "report" from the Winter 1954/55 edition of Flying Saucer News:

Those of you who click on the image (to enlarge and read it) will find this:

Now where do such observations (or imagined accounts) of such "entities" -- seen from afar, inside a strange crash -- come from?

Are they actually seen? Or conjured from readings of magazines/books, or TV shows/movies?

The details are usually bizarre or fictive (created for or from a literary source).

The "crew" described here derive from or resemble Orthon, Adamski's Venusian, described in the Adamski oeuvre, published and circulated extensively in the early 1950s, before 1954 when this alleged sighting occurred.

RR