What happened
At about a quarter to six on April 24, 1964, Socorro police sergeant Lonnie Zamora was chasing a speeder south of town when he heard a roar and saw a flame come down beyond a hill.
He left the chase and drove up a rough track toward the sound. In an arroyo he found a shiny white oval standing on legs, with a red insignia on its side and no windows or doors that he could see. Two small figures in white coveralls stood beside it.
Zamora radioed in and walked toward the object. It lifted off with a roar and a flame, then left almost silently, heading southwest. Sergeant Sam Chavez of the State Police arrived minutes later and found Zamora pale and shaken.
Investigators found depressions in the soil where the legs had stood and brush that was still burning. Project Blue Book's chief, Hector Quintanilla, called it one of the best-documented cases on record, and Blue Book filed it as unidentified. Years later a hoax by students at New Mexico Tech was proposed, based on a 1968 letter found in the papers of chemist Linus Pauling.