UAP Case Archive

Shapes / Eggs and ovals

Eggs and ovals

The landing shape. Levelland, Socorro, Valensole and Dexter all describe an egg or oval on or near the ground, often on legs, and several left marks that investigators photographed. Witnesses describe height as well as width, which sets it apart from the flat disc.

    Levelland, Texas, 1957: a brilliantly lit egg sitting on the road. Drawing for reference only.
    Each egg is one case, colored by status. Select one to open it below.

    Start with Socorro.

    A police witness, burn marks, depressions in the ground, and an Air Force file stamped "unidentified." It is the case every other landing is measured against.

    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.

    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. The object lifted off with a roar and a flame, then left almost silently. Investigators found depressions in the ground and burned brush.

    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.

    What the case rests on

    • On recordA police sergeant's report and sketch, and a second officer who arrived soon after.
    • TracesDepressions in the soil and burned brush, photographed by investigators.
    • ProposedA student hoax. The evidence for it is a secondhand letter.
    • OpenBlue Book filed it as unidentified and never changed that.

    What the record shows.

    Twelve cases from 1949 to 1973. These patterns run through them.

    The egg is the landing shape.

    Levelland, Loch Raven, Socorro, Valensole, Dexter and Pascagoula all put an egg or oval on the ground or just above it. Socorro and Valensole both describe legs, and a mark in the soil afterward.

    Engines and electrics fail nearby.

    Levelland drivers reported stalled engines and dead headlights. At Loch Raven the car's electrics died and one witness felt heat.

    Trained observers anchor the early cases.

    A General Mills balloon meteorologist and his launch crew tracked a white ellipsoid in 1949. Two airport weather observers followed an oval through a theodolite in 1950. Both are Blue Book unknowns.

    Landings bring traces, and more room for hoaxes.

    Socorro has a thorough investigation and a persistent hoax theory. Pascagoula has two consistent witnesses and a skeptic who called it a hoax. The traces themselves have never been tied to an unknown cause.

    One witness can give three shapes.

    At Dexter in 1966, the Mannors' description changed between interviews: football-shaped, pyramid-shaped, then a brown sphere. A shape word is a witness's best guess.

    Often told wrong.

    Several egg cases are retold differently from their first reports.

    The story you may have heardWhat the record shows
    Drivers at Levelland saw an egg on the road.
    The first witnesses described a rocket or torpedo shape. The egg came from later drivers that night.
    Frank Mannor saw a football-shaped craft at Dexter.
    His descriptions changed between interviews: football-shaped, pyramid-shaped, and a brown sphere with a quilted surface.
    Hynek called every 1966 Michigan sighting swamp gas.
    He applied it to the Dexter and Hillsdale reports, and later called the episode a turning point for him.
    Maurice Masse saw a flying saucer at Valensole.
    He described a shape like a rugby ball, about the size of a small car, on legs. Shown a drawing of the Socorro object, he said it was the closest match.

    All egg and oval cases.

    Listed oldest first. Each card notes what kind of evidence the case rests on.

      What a landing leaves.

      Most sightings leave nothing behind. A landing can leave marks, and that makes it both easier and harder to judge.

      At Socorro, investigators photographed depressions where the legs stood and brush burned by the flame. At Valensole, Masse said the soil where the object rested later hardened. Those traces are real things that can be measured.

      They can also be made. That is why the landing cases draw the most hoax theories, and why the record notes how quickly investigators arrived and what they checked.

      standing on legsleg marks and burned brush Traces at Socorro, as investigators described them.

      Left off this page.

      These are sometimes called ovals, but are filed elsewhere.

      • Westall, 1966, and Trans-en-Provence, 1981Both on the Discs page.
      • JAL 1628's "walnut," 1986On the Discs page.
      • Alderney, 2007A passenger's "elongated oval" is part of the case on the Motherships page.