Letter

Dr. Pauling (a multiple Nobel-Prize winner) was very interested in the UFO phenomena. An earlier article by this author details Pauling's secret UFO studies. He was researching the Socorro-Zamora landing case and decided to write to his friend, Stirling Colgate, President at New Mexico Tech to see what he might have known about the incident. Dr. Colgate's blunt reply leaves little doubt that tricksters were involved. But to allay any further doubt, I contacted Colgate.

THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S CONFESSION

DR. STIRLING COLGATE

As well as having been NM Tech's President, Dr. Stirling Colgate was a world-famous astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Considered a science visionary, he specialized in plasma and atmospheric physics. His discoveries in these fields are acknowledged as monumental. His associates included such luminaries as Oppenheimer and Pauling. Colgate still maintains an office at Los Alamos at age 84! This author emailed Colgate to see what his thoughts are today on the Socorro UFO and to see if he would shed additional light on the event. In my email to Colgate I attached the Pauling letter from 1968 with Colgate's handwritten notes on the Socorro UFO.

Colgate took several days to reply to me. In his email, Colgate answered very cryptically and sparingly:

- To the question, "Do you still know this to be a hoax? His reply was simple: "Yes."
- When asked, "Today, decades later, can you expand on what you wrote to Pauling about the event?" He wrote: "I will ask a friend, but he and other students did not want their cover blown."
- He offered that the hoax, "was a no-brainer."
- When asked "Specifically how did they do it?" He just answered, "Will ask."
- When queried, "Have you ever publicly commented on this?" he replied "Of course not."

It has been some time now, and I have never heard back from Stirling Colgate. He indicated that he would "make some inquiries" to see what more could be detailed on the event. Perhaps his "friend and the other students" who he alludes to are still not ready to come forward and be identified. As Colgate puts it, maybe they still do not "want their cover blown."

Or perhaps Colgate was stunned that the Pauling letter was ever discovered- and knows that he has already said too much. Colgate is likely conflicted about having known about the hoaxers -and the truth about the Socorro UFO- for decades. He said nothing publicly then- and prefers to not say a whole lot more now.

THE COLLEGE PROFESSOR'S CORROBORATION

NEW MEXICO TECH

Dr. Frank T. Etscorn was a Psychology Professor at New Mexico Tech from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s. Dr. Etscorn is famously known for being the inventor of the Nicotine Patch. A wing of the College was dedicated to Etscorn in 1993. Etscorn had known about the Socorro UFO event from the decade before he began work at the College- and it had always intrigued him. This author had learned of his interest and contacted Dr Etscorn to see if he had ever found out anything about the sighting and what had really happened. In a recent telephone conversation, Dr. Etscorn related:

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