Brit UFO Writer James Easton on Socorro [from UFO UpDates, 2001]

 >Subject: Re: Socorro 'Balloon'

Don wrote:

 >In a recent Notice to Airmen release advising of a scientific package of 1.4 kilograms, about 4 pounds, Transport Canada advised that the balloon would be 141,000 cu.ft or 4,000 cubic meters in volume. If that was a cube it would be 54 feet on a side, just to lift a 4 pound payload. I suspect that it could probably lift 20 pounds if need be, but they wanted a margin of lift higher than usual since this thing was to go to 138,000 feet. But even so there is no way you could stretch the rubber  >band to lift a payload of say 400 pounds at that size.

Don,

One of the earliest US hot-air balloon competitions took place on 18, January, 1964. Contemporary with the Zamora case, it's documented that a competing balloon, for a “one-man crew” had a volume of 30,000 cubic feet. Almost a fifth of the size you

cite, it was not so much, as a cube, 54 feet per side, as “forty feet in diameter”. See:

http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9801/0002/cat alina0002.htm

Obviously, we would expect a 'two-man' hot-air balloon to be larger.

Don Piccard is a pioneer of hot-air ballooning and participated in that fateful January, 1964, Catalina challenge.

There's an online biography of his landmark achievements at:

http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9707/piccard. htm

Therein, Piccard comments about the first crossing of the English Channel (between England and France) by hot-air balloon, in April 1963. Piccard was accompanied by Ed Yost, generally regarded as the most accomplished balloonist (especially pre hot-air balloons).

The hot-air balloon they flew was a 'Raven' model 'S-50' named 'Channel Champ' and had a 56,000 cubic capacity. For confirmation, see Ed Yost's online biography, 'Father of the Modern Hot-Air Balloon', at:

http://webpages.ainet.com/gosner/syrinxballoon/yostbio.htm

The aforementioned 'Balloon Life' article states:

“Piccard was going to do the flight in an S 45 with four tanks Plans changed. 'Suddenly it became a 50 foot balloon and a two man job and the Vice-president of the company is going to come along'.”

So far as I'm aware, the 'vice-president' never accompanied Yost and Piccard on what was a perilous flight. As I've highlighted before, their balloon didn't have a wicker basket, instead using an astoundingly basic 'platform', a photograph of which can also be seen online at:

http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9512/history. htm

Bottom line; you wrote:

“Unless Zamora was blind, he could not have missed an 80-100 foot high balloon with a circumference of some 120 feet at the balloon's equator. When he arrived on the scene he stated that he thought it was an overturned car”.

As you can see, I have thoroughly researched these basic issues and long ago, factually established the size of a circa 1964, two- man hot-air balloon. Evidently, it could have been much smaller than you claim.

In the above article, it was also noted:

“Raven Industries hired Don Piccard to manage their nascent sport balloon program. 'They had no idea of what to do with a sport balloon,' he says emphatically. 'They had no knowledge of what to do with it.' But, 'I had design responsibilities,' he recalls, and after flying their Mittlestadt balloon, 'I set about designing a version that would be closer to the balloon Yost had built for the government.' At the helm of Raven, Yost was being financed by the Office of Naval Research on top-secret hush-hush projects”.

[...]

“Reflecting back to those days at Raven, Piccard thinks the company's sport balloon division was a cover-up for the military applications of ballooning. 'The sport balloon program, which was not believed in by the Raven Industry management, was strictly getting this crazy guy who liked to fly in balloons and make cover. So, when one of these other balloons went down, it would just look like a sport balloonist'. When the Navy

terminated its contract with Raven, the sport balloon programdied too. That was in December of 1964″.

When I brought Lonnie Zamora's 'UFO' report to the attention of a Raven Industries' historian, he recognised a possible connection.

I have never revealed all of this, publicly, before now, and was advised:

I had heard the name Zamora before, but I never knew what incident he was associated with, nor the details of his sighting, such as where it happened. You have clarified that and it allows me a new line of thought.

I have long been aware of some hot air balloon flights in New Mexico in the early to mid-1960s for research purposes. These have always been referred to as the “[deleted - James] flights”. But Socorro is not all that far from [deleted - James] and there may be a connection. I saw a film of those flights about 10 years ago and at least some of them were with an all-white balloon, having a platform for the crew.

At the time of that viewing, I made some notes that I still have. The balloons of that description were built between Dec 1962 and Feb 1963. I was not able to pinpoint the flight dates, but speculated then that they were probably late 1963 or into

1964.

This is beginning to sound very significant. [END]

It *is* profoundly significant as the USAF's investigation and subsequent conclusion that this was an 'inexplicable' UFO incident has to be viewed in the context they were seemingly oblivious to these local 'classified' test flights – whether related or not.

In the CIA publication, 'Studies in Intelligence', from 1966, Hector Quintanilla, Jr., the former head of 'Project Bluebook' wrote:

“There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora's reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw, and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic.”

Aside from any contemporary, 'classified' New Mexico hot-air balloon flights – which Ed Yost acknowledges being involved with and assures were unconnected with Zamora's sighting – there are some other possibilities currently being researched.

Meantime, where is *any* rationalisation re the ability of our, “it looks like a balloon” [Zamora] object being able to slowly descend and take-off again with only an occasional 'roaring flame propulsion' and why Zamora was so perplexed that when the object departed, its 'rocket-like' flame didn't make any impact on the ground?

Let's not forget, this is a sighting report which is a pivotal 'can't be explained' foundation of beliefs that aliens are visiting Earth.

You also wrote:

“If you want some science – here's your science. I've been around a balloons a few times and these are very big with tens of thousands of cubic feet of lifting capacity”.

What leads you to arrogantly state I'm not aware of related 'science' and that you have a foundation to publicly insinuate I do not have a comprehensive grasp of this?

I would like an answer.

At the outset of research into Zamora's reported sighting, the 'science' of hot-air ballooning, its ostensible connection with Zamora's encounter and why a hot-air balloon was the obvious explanation, were in fact discussed with and explained to me by Don Piccard.

By comparison with your related experiences, surely Don Piccard's credentials are somewhat more extensive, especially in that 1964 era, than having been around hot-air balloons a few times.

Wouldn't you agree?

I would have thought so, to say the least.

James Easton.

E-mail: [email protected]

www.ufoworld.co.uk