I am very relieved, now that Lonnie has passed on and I don't have to be concerned about publicly embarrassing him, that I now can finally stop equivocating about which shape Zamora did or didn't see on the object.

Some persons 'engaged in UFO research' will be annoyed with me for saying the following: I commend Lonnie Zamora, a man of his word, for keeping his promise in not revealing what he actually saw in red on the side of the object. I comment Captain Richard T. Holder for his thoughtfulness in asking Zamora to obfuscate the real appearance of the red thing he saw, so that any copy-cat hoaxes could be nipped in the bud.

I also comment Zamora for his patriotism (however ill-conceived some persons might consider it to be) to things he deemed important to do for his country.

In turn, I deeply respect Zamora, since he did not want to break his word to Captain Holder, and, thus refused to tell his two children anything, in preference to telling them something that would break his promise(s) to the government., and realizing he could, when they grew up, let them guess the truth for themselves, in his saying that I got everything right in the book.

So, what did Zamora do? He, in fact, gave my book to his account-insistent daughter, and told her I was the only writer who got everything right. Surely he had in mind my book's Appendix A, titled, "An Obfuscated Red Insignia?", which reveals what really happened concerning the red shape on the object, without actually saying for sure that Zamora agreed to an investigations-useful cover-up of the appearance of the real shape on the object, and leaving a final conclusion to the reader, because of wanting to protect Zamora for his, in my opinion, wise decision to comply with holder's explained and very reasonable obfuscation request. In the book's front illustrations of the event, I used the substituted (fake) shape for what Zamora saw, but explained in the appendix that I did it so that persons who have believed the fake symbol would not refuse to read my book, thinking I didn't really know what the symbol was (in their mistaken opinions).

So now, Lonnie's 45-year-old secret is out and I have declared my reasons for respecting his decisions to abide what Holder asked him to do.

In later years, Zamora became highly suspicious and even disgusted at the USAF's refusal to return New Mexico State Policeman Ted V. Jordan's reportedly irradiated first-after-the-event photos, or even copies of whatever turned out on the film. As Lonnie has said publicly, that made him begin to suspect that the government is unjustifiably hiding something, and that the something might be visitation to earth by beings and a technology that could not have originated here.

In closing this eulogy, I should tell you that at least a couple of weeks before Lonnie died last Monday, November 2, 2009, he learned of Anthony Bragalia's irresponsible (because Bragalia did not bother to tell people it was only one man's totally unsubstantiated claim, made in desperation of disbelief in the possibility of visitation from outside this planet) internet headline declaration that the Socorro case had been exposed as a student hoax. Bragalia knew his case is so totally insubstantial that he refused (and still refuses) to debate me on Coast-to-Coast AM, with George Knapp.

People have now asked me if I think Bragalia's insistence that Zamora was just a fool for an imaginary student's pyrotechnics and balloon (which would have had to have flown off directly into the wind) being mistaken for something the policeman never believed in to begin with, could have caused him such anger as to induce a fatal heart attack. Perhaps my questioners never got the chance to see, years back, on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, Zamora's obviously completely -- no stress-on-his-face -- at-ease statement that he didn't care whether anyone believes or disbelieves what he saw and experienced.

Now, after due reflection on that question, I must declare: ABSOLUTELY NOT. Zamora could not have personally cared what a false-rumor monger trumpets as though the monger were a hero.

But, come to think about it, Bragalia's trumpeting Sterling Colgate's delusion about what happened at Socorro supports such utterly ridiculous 'constructs' about how a student hoax might hypothetically have been performed (forget the hoax's fly over of some Colorado tourists' car, almost taking the roof and its radio antenna off, that it made enough sound on landing and take-off as to be clearly heard over half a mile away, and that after takeoff it reached a speed of somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 miles per hour in less than 30 seconds), that knowing good old Lonnie Zamora, with a little persuasion, I might become convinced that the truth is:

Lonnie Zamora died laughing!

He was the most objective, unwilling to embellish, witness I've ever interviewed, among hundreds, across my more than 56 years of actively researching UFOs.

Memory of Lonnie Zamora will endure in history as a witness so credible that the USAF officially had to take its hat off to him and declare what he saw to be a truly unidentified flying (and landing) object.

May the beloved Lonnie Zamora rest in peace.

That is, if he can ever stop laughing at Bragalian fantasies about his well- substantiated encounter. Laugh on, dear friend.

UFO Digest would like to thank Ray Stanford, who literally wrote the book on the Socorro Case, Founder and Director, Organization for Physical UFO Science, for this special tribute to a special police officer, one of many in the annals of UFOlogy.

Update: November 16, 2009

Ever since I told the truth about what red emblem Lonnie Zamora actually saw on the side of the object on April 24, 1964, in my eulogy to him, certain 'Johnny-Come-Lately' pretenders have been declaring that I took advantage of Lonnie Zamora's death to create a lie about what was actually seen by him on the side of the object. That's ridiculous. In fact, I had discussed that exact matter, in some depth, via Appendix of my 1976 book, Socorro Saucer in A Pentagon Pantry, pages 206 - 211, which I sent to Zamora in 1976, and which he passed on to his daughter, telling her that I was the only writer who got everything right. In the book, I had held off telling the full story because of concern for Lonnie Zamora who, in supplying a substitute emblem instead of the real one, was merely doing what he felt was his patriotic duty. All that was explained in the eulogy.

The Associated Press article out of Socorro on Thursday, April 30, 1964, as carried in the San Antonio Express on page 8-A that day (See below.), should reinforce the fact that those who have accused me of making up the story about the inverted V with three lines across it are themselves ignorant pretenders and deceivers.

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