Socorro UFO Hoax, on the trail of the perpetrators

Read the entire post from Anthony Bragalia at the UFO Iconoclast blog. This unfolding story, debunking one of the most famous UFO incidents, comes from an author who does believe the earth has been visited by aliens.  Check out my old UFO article and my UFO time line too.

New investigation reveals that the likely culprits behind the Socorro UFO hoax in 1964 were part of a highly secret group of student pranksters at NM Tech. It is now learned that so extreme were some of these Techie "pranks" during the 1960s that they even caused physical endangerment. One especially sophisticated UFO hoax at that time led to the severe reprimand by U.S. military base officials of a Techie whose prank had caused the emergency scrambling of jet interceptors!

... As a vocal advocate of ET visitation, this author struggled with release of this information. I did not look for this story, it fell upon me when I discovered Linus Paulings's archived secret UFO studies. I did not intend on dousing this campfire story. It is hoped that in reporting this, readers understand that I am simply following the evidence where it takes me. I am obligated to report what I find and have no "hidden agenda." I remain firm in my conviction that life from elsewhere visits Earth. But I am also firm in my conviction that many UFO researchers simply do not appreciate the extent and sophistication with which UFOs are pranked by our nation's college youth. This was especially true in the 1960s at places like NM Tech:
"STUDENT SAUCERS" IN THE SIXTIES

John W. Shipman came to NM Tech in the Summer of 1966 as a Freshman. John -an admitted serial prankster- remains so enamored of his college experience that he recounts events of the time in an online blog. John offers keen observations about this most unique school in the mid-1960s: "The spirit of technological uproar rubbed off on the students. With limited opportunities for recreation, the happiest students were the ones that made their own fun."

John mentions his accomplices to hoaxes- with code names "Joe Hat" and "Harry Hat." Both he says, were extremely competent with electronics. Shipman says, "They were nerds long before the term was invented." Shipman says that during that summer, the Hats bought a surplus radar and began working on it. The school paper featured them on the cover with the caption, "They've Landed." Harry had found out that jets from Holloman AFB often used Socorro Peak as a radar target for simulated bombing runs. Apparently the Hats were able to devise a jamming device and then left it on a nearby mountain to the base. Shipman says that the bombing scores "all went to hell" because of this jamming device. Shipman explains that the Air Force had tracked down the problem. As Shipman understands, two MPs came into the Tech classrooms and physically hauled Harry to the Base Commander. After over an hour of scolding, an officer admitted to Harry Hat that, after graduation, he would like to hire Harry because he was better at radar research than most of his people at the base!

Shipman recounts that "Harry also experimented with making Flying Saucers, a popular diversion for dorm residents." He says that an even more impressive student-made "saucer" was "specifically designed to upset the folks at White Sands." Shipman explains, "the envelope was a surplus weather balloon filled with natural gas. The payload consisted of a highway flare, a hundred-foot surveyors measuring tape made of steel, and a long fuse. The measuring tape was weighted at one end rolled up and secured with a piece of waxed string. After the prevailing wind had blown the balloon out over the north end of the range, the fuse burned to the end and lit the highway flare and burned the string around the steel tape. The radar operators were rather upset when a hundred-foot long radar target appeared suddenly on their screens. They scrambled several interceptor jets. The interceptors never found what they were looking for."

Though Shipman came to NM Tech a couple of years after the Socorro UFO event, the information he provides is invaluable in understanding how such a thing could have ever happened. From Shipman we learn that in the 1960s, Techies were making "Flying Saucers" that even fooled military men. This brand of brilliant "merry pranksters" was of an entirely different order then found then or now at other schools.

The Techies of the 1960s were so "ballsy" and rebellious -and had such little regard for safety or legality- that they would even jam sensitive radar and disrupt military exercises! To cause a "hub-bub" with town cop Zamora paled by comparison!

...

Squint while viewing [the photo of the NM techies in Radiological suits above] and move back a bit from the screen- Lonnie was at a distance from the craft. Remove your eyeglasses if you have them- Lonnie lost his. Note the shortest figure in the middle. Is this an "alien" - or is it a "short in stature" student scientist of "normal shape" who is clad in "white coveralls" as described by Lonnie Zamora? Next try covering up the other figures in the picture with your hands so that only the middle figure remains in view. Squint and place yourself a distance from the screen. The "alien" -precisely as described by Zamora- will appear even more vividly.

In a future article I hope to conclusively identify the white clad students who walked the arroyos outside Soccoro in 1964 - fooling a town, a nation and the world for decades.