04/28/1964
A flying saucer –more like a monster – has fluttered into El Paso while a rash of unidentified flying objects wee reported in New Mexico. Eight students at Crosby School at 5411 Wren avenue saw the El Paso monster.
In fact, one girl, 12, reported it to police. She said she saw it out a window of the school late yesterday. “It didn’t have any legs,” said Kathy Boose. “It seemed to be floating in the air, covered with something like a sheet. It was about 6 feet 5 inches tall, and sort of egg-shaped.”
Another girl, 11, told police she had seen it too, and said six more children had witnessed the monster.
Police had theories the apparition might actually have been a weather balloon coming to earth, or some sort of parachute, or something else caught in the wind, though nothing was found on the school grounds.
But suppose it was a monster?
Unidentified flying object sighting had New Mexico State Police, radio and television stations, newspapers, local law enforcement agencies and military installations in a dither today.
No less than six “authentic” spottings have been reported since Friday when Socorro policeman Lonnie Zamora sighted an egg-shaped object, which roared off the ground, leaving deep impressions and burned patches.
In addition telephone lines across the state hummed with activity as drunks, obvious quacks, publicity-hunters and well-meaning information-seekers got in the act.
An Albuquerque television station offered a $10,000 reward for photographs of the object or objects thought by some to be prowling New Mexico skies.
An Edgewood man told state police he fired 12 .22 caliber pistol shots at an “oblong thing,” early this morning. With certainty, he told of hitting the UFO six times and hearing the bullets bounce from it.
As he paused to reload, the man said the object moved silently northward. He was unable to determine whether shots 7 to 12 struck the thing. He described it as being a light green color, about 25 or 30 feet long, and silent. He said it hovered about 100 feet directly over his head.
Investigating sate policemen said the man was completely “sober.” Edgewood is a community about 20 miles east of Albuquerque.
A few hours earlier, a motorist in the Las Vegas area reported seeing a ball of fire which apparently landed near a radio station. Employees of the station said the man asked that his name be withheld because he was afraid of being laughed at.
Police also received similar reports Sunday from a Santa Fe man – Orland Gallegos – who told of seeing an egg-shaped metal object near La Madera, about 50 miles north of Santa Fe. He told of seeing flames spurt from numerous jets aboard the bottom of the object as it took off.
State Police Capt. Martin Vigil, who checked out the incident, said “There was definitely something there.”
Other reports came from an Albuquerque motorist who saw a “silver looking” object near Truth or Consequences, two men driving in the La Madera area and a Socorro teenager.
In both the Socorro and La Madera reports, burned land was found at the sites. Also discovered were “paw prints, like a mountain lion’s,” as well as “landing gear marks,”
The Associate Director of Interplanetary Intelligence of Undefined Flying Objects said from his Oklahoma City office that pictures of an UFO sighted in 1956 by a shipboard radio officer were being mailed to Zamora.
The photos were taken by T. Fogl, aboard the USS Ramsey off the California coast. The HUFO officer, Hayden Hews, said the object was “almost identical” in size, coloring, marking, characteristics and landing gears to the thing reported by Zamora.
“Either it was an awful good coincident or it is the same object,” Hews said.
Zamora , when contacted at this home early today, said he had not yet received the photographs.
Meanwhile, military officials at Kirtland and Holloman Air Force Bases and White Sands Missile range continued efforts to investigate the sightings … with no end in sight.
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