Socorro UFO Incident: Alien Encounter and Unexplained Phenomena in New Mexico

Dive deep into one of the most intriguing UFO cases in history: the Socorro UFO Incident in New Mexico. This episode explores the compelling evidence surrounding the alien encounter witnessed by police sergeant Lonnie Zamora during a routine traffic stop. 

From physical landing marks to eyewitness accounts and the involvement of the FBI and Project Blue Book, we unpack the mystery with a critical eye. 

We also examine common conspiracy theories tied to the event and why many struggle to explain the lasting physical evidence. 

Additionally, we discuss how this case influenced UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek’s approach to studying unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs). 

Whether you're fascinated by ufos and aliens, or intrigued by conspiracy theories, this episode offers a balanced, evidence-focused look that will make you reconsider what's possible. 

CIA.gov article (including diagram/map of Soccoro incident)

Video 1: The Black Vault Originals: FBI Documents on the Lonnie Zamora Case / Socorro, NM UFO Landing

Video 2: Eyes On Cinema: Lonnie Zamora in 3 interviews (1964, '74 & '96) 

Transcript

Josh 0:03

Aliens.

Travis 0:04

Aliens.

Josh 0:05

Aliens.

Travis 0:07

Yes. But maybe no. Welcome back to the show. Aliens, yes, but maybe no with Josh and Travis. I'm Travis. I'm Josh. And this is an otherworldly podcast as ambiguous as our title.

Josh 0:32

All right.

Travis 0:33

Do you like how I said that? Yeah, I do.

Josh 0:36

I like how you say it every time.

Travis 0:38

Oh, that's really sweet. Yeah. That's that's not what you say off-mic. No, I am a menace. Off-mic off-mike. It's yeah, it's a lot of name-calling, and I feel very scared sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes when Josh gets mad, you guys, I fall down.

Josh 0:52

Like a fainting goat. Yeah. I mean, that's what it looks like from my point of view. And you just freeze and tip. Yep. So what what did we talk about on the last show? Yeah, I was just gotcha first.

Travis 1:03

I got there first. Now you have to figure it out.

Josh 1:06

Crap. No, I knew. I do, I don't remember. Do you remember?

Travis 1:10

So, Josh, of course, our last episode was about It was Project Looking Glass. Project Looking Glass. We did it. We remembered kind of with a with notes.

Josh 1:24

Yeah, that one was very fun. You know, you hear about the Mandela effect. I've heard about that for years, but I didn't know about much of it other than just the things that are the Mandela effect. So it's kind of cool to dive down into that. And then just some other conspiracies. That was fun. Yeah. Like a psychological episode. I love doing those kinds of episodes, but I feel like this episode we're kind of getting back to our roots, like where we started.

Travis 1:50

Oh, back to our roo ooots. Yeah. Where we talked about aliens.

Josh 1:56

Yeah.

Travis 1:57

And experiences.

Josh 1:59

We're gonna talk about just a straight up UFO incident. This is pretty cool. Yeah, it's nice. So today we're gonna be talking about the Socorro UFO incident. I had never heard of it. Had you before we took the quiz last episode?

Travis 2:12

I think listeners can reference last week's quiz and answer that question for me. I don't know a thing about it. I don't know shit about fuck.

Josh 2:21

Yeah, we didn't even know how to say it. But we got it. We did our research, we watched some videos, we read some things.

Travis 2:28

Yeah.

Josh 2:28

And it's fascinating.

Travis 2:30

All of these incidents are fascinating to me.

Josh 2:32

Yeah.

Travis 2:33

Whether or not they move the needle, I think that they're an experience that people have had, and I find that genuinely fascinating.

Josh 2:40

Like if it's all real, it's fascinating. If it's all fake or not real, there's a different kind of fascination that comes with that as well. For sure.

Travis 2:47

Yeah, absolutely. Now now you get it.

Josh 2:50

Yeah, I get that.

Travis 2:51

Do you want to tuck into it?

Josh 2:52

Yeah, we'll tick into it. Before that, smash that like button and get a hold of us because we need that. Yeah, we do need it. I mean, like mentally, I need that. Yeah, please. I feel like I'm speaking into a hollow void.

Travis 3:07

Yeah, sometimes this feels like leaving a long voicemail, and I am not very good at that. Yeah. Anybody who's had a voicemail from me can attest. They're long and rambling.

Josh 3:17

Yeah, especially when you had to ramble so people could make it to the phone when it was actually like a voice recorder.

Travis 3:23

Oh, yeah, when people had like land lines.

Josh 3:25

Yeah, that was the best. You're like, all right, goodbye. Hello? Oh, sorry, I thought I heard someone pick up the phone. Okay, never mind.

Travis 3:33

Tell them about your day or working on singing.

Josh 3:35

Yeah, or I know you're there. Come on. Yep, get your dinghy out of your hand. I would call my parents sometimes like, Mom, pick up the phone. Pick it up. That was great. Forgotten times.

Travis 3:47

Yeah.

Josh 3:48

Okay, so we're gonna dive into this. We're gonna do the Socorro UFO incident. So here we go. In the late afternoon on April 24th, 1964, in Socorro, New Mexico, police sergeant Lonnie Zamora is on a routine patrol just south of town when he spotted a speeding car. He turns on his lights and gives chase, moving away from Socorro and towards the open desert. Then, something interrupts him. Off to his southwest, Zamora hears a loud roar. Almost at the same time, he sees a bright blue-orange flame descending from the sky. His first thought is that there's a dynamite storage shack in that direction, and if something's gone wrong, he needs to get there fast.

Travis 4:28

That's incredible that he would have thought that. I would have think, oh god, there's a dynamite shack over here. I'm gone.

Josh 4:35

Yeah, like run towards the danger.

Travis 4:37

Yeah, I'm not gonna be exploded.

Josh 4:39

Yeah, you make a good point. But he's not an ordinary man. He's a police officer, a hero. He was trying to do the right thing. He was trying to do the right thing. So he breaks off the pursuit and radios dispatch saying he's going to check on a possible accident. The road toward the arroyo is rough and rocky. So I didn't know what an arroyo was. I had to look that up. Yeah. I don't know if that's a common thing.

Travis 5:04

It is in the southwest, yeah.

Josh 5:06

Is it? Okay.

Travis 5:07

It's just like a little kind of like a gully type thing. I think created by wind.

Josh 5:12

Yeah, yeah. It's basically a dry creek. So when there's like flash floods in an arid, dry environment or a desert, it's kind of the flood path that is carved out.

Travis 5:22

Okay, so water, not just wind. Okay.

Josh 5:24

Yeah, it's it's both. So yeah, the road was rough and rocky. And so as he approached the area, Zamora sees what he thinks is an overturned car in the distance resting down in the goalie. I did not have to look up what goalie was. But I did. Good. But yeah, basically, it's just a deeper arroyo.

Travis 5:42

That's the level of research we offer you.

Josh 5:44

Yeah.

Travis 5:45

Dear listener.

Josh 5:46

If you don't know what it is, watch Ferngulie.

Travis 5:48

Yeah, fern goal, right. That all takes place in a goal.

Josh 5:51

Yeah. So as he gets closer, he realizes that what he's looking at isn't a car. Uh oh. It's a smooth white object, oval shaped, almost like an egg, sitting on legs. The surface looks metallic. It doesn't have windows, but it does have a strange marking on the side. And standing beside it are two beings. They're small, like children, and dressed in white coveralls. And one of them seems to notice him. Oh my god. And reacts. It appears startled, jumping slightly. And I think I remember him saying in the interview, it was like a small adult or a large child.

Travis 6:29

Yep, one of the two. You had two options here.

Josh 6:32

I'm just gonna put it in the middle.

Travis 6:33

Yeah, but I mean, like that seems to fall in line with a lot of these accounts being not from here, or as we may have learned on the last episode, from here, just from the future. Possibly. They're all small. Yeah, shorter. Or a lot of them. Like not all. Yeah, there are some big ones. But a large number of them are small. They're petite. Yeah, they're described as like small adults or large children.

Josh 6:59

It's because they need to survive underground and they don't dig high because they're small, and they're small because they don't dig high.

Travis 7:06

Oh man, it's it's like an auraboros.

Josh 7:08

Yeah. So they're just shrinking and trip pretty soon. They're gonna be little uh borrowers.

Travis 7:13

Yeah, they're just gonna yeah, yeah, the borrower living in a cupboard or uh the a hole in your wall.

Josh 7:19

Yeah. So Zamora parks his patrol car about 50 feet away and starts to step out. And that's when everything happens all at once. A deafening roar erupts from the object, a flame bursts from underneath it, blue at the center, tipped with orange. Zamora panics, he drops his glasses, he bumps into his car as he runs, he dives for cover behind the vehicle, convinced it's about to explode.

Travis 7:42

I think that's a really sweet depiction of what happened. Just like a guy, like he had said this because he was the only one here, so he's the one that said bumped into his car, drops his glasses. And I think it gives you a real picture of what this person is like. This scared the shit out of him, and he wanted to be as forthcoming with all of the information as possible.

Josh 8:02

Yeah, he's not trying to glorify his experience, he's being authentic.

Travis 8:06

Yeah.

Josh 8:06

Which is great. So from where he's crouched, he watches the object lift straight up off the ground. The sound changes from an intense roar to a brief, high-pitched whine, and then it stops entirely. The craft rises to about 20 feet, its landing legs retract, then it accelerates away to the southwest, clearing the dynamite shack by only a few feet before disappearing over the mountains. The entire encounter lasts seconds. When it's over, Zamora immediately radios for backup.

Travis 8:35

Yeah.

Josh 8:36

That's that's the incident. And a lot of these seem to just last, they're just quick, but life-changing.

Travis 8:41

Uh yeah. I mean, he talks about this, they become like the defining experiences for these people, you know. And once you report this and it gets picked up, you can't, it doesn't seem like you can ever escape it. Like you're always now going to be that guy from the Socorro UFO incident. You're not officer Zamora anymore, you know, if he was married or had kids. That doesn't get remembered. He gets remembered as being a part of this incident, which is kind of sad, you know.

Josh 9:13

Yeah. Luckily, this guy he didn't try to benefit from this experience. He just kept living his life. He didn't write a book, he didn't go on tour, he didn't do any of these things, he just stated his thing. And it sounds like from a lot of people through the interviews we listened to that he was very well liked.

Travis 9:31

Yeah, we I mean, when listening to some of these interviews that our wonderful researcher Jordan sent us, he was like, he seemed very kind. Yeah. And was patient and was like, Well, I can't answer that. I can't answer that, but this is what I can say. Very gentle. Yeah.

Josh 9:46

But also a trained police officer, too. So he was aware, he was of sound mind. Yeah. I love him.

Travis 9:54

Yeah, I think I can say that too.

Josh 9:56

I think I I love him. And we'll find out that maybe we weren't the only ones that loved him.

Travis 10:02

So I know what you're all asking.

Josh 10:05

When does this podcast end?

Travis 10:06

When does this podcast end? Ah, never. Ha ha ha. Keep smashing that like button and we'll do this forever. Yeah. If not, we're done.

Josh 10:15

Wait, no, that gives him an out.

Travis 10:17

Uh that would that would suck.

Josh 10:18

If you smash the like button, we will stop.

Travis 10:22

Reverse it. We gotcha. Ha ha ha. So you might be asking, what was left behind? I can see it in Josh's eyes. That's what he's thinking. I'm hungry for it. What was left behind? So once Zamora radios for backup, things move fast. Within just a few minutes, New York New York. Whoa, no. Other side of the country, you idiot. Within just a few minutes, New Mexico State Police Sergeant Sam Chavez arrives on scene. And the first thing he notices isn't the ground or the arroyo, it's Zamora himself. He's pale, shaken, clearly rattled. This isn't a guy amped up from a chase. This is someone who's just seen something that scared the hell out of him. Chavez starts by walking Zamora back through what happened, then the two of them head down into the Arroyo together to look at the spot where the object had been. And right away there's physical evidence. They find four distinct impressions in the hard packed dirt arranged in a kind of trapezoid pattern. They're deep, several inches into the ground, with dirt pushed up on one side like something heavy set down unevenly. One of the impressions isn't even in dirt, it's on a rock. That rock has cracked, and investigators note a metallic scrape on its surface. So this thing was so heavy that it cracked the rock. Yeah, that's wild. Is that what this is saying? Or it was the rock maybe already cracked, and then they just noticed a scratch on it. They're just describing what the rock looked like.

Josh 11:44

I would imagine it cracked the rock. I mean, uh what else would crack it? I mean, they're out in the middle of nowhere. Time? No. Time cracks rocks all the time. Uh time doesn't have a physical form, you idiot.

Travis 11:59

Yes, it does. It's manifest in everything you see in front of you. Green. It's a product of time. Trees. You are a product of time. Fine, fine. They didn't say the rock, they said it they just said it was cracked. They didn't say it was cracked as a result of this, right? I'm just literally going off what we have in the DOS, our hot DOS here. I don't know. Yep. I don't think it really matters. I don't think I don't think it matters either.

Josh 12:20

But it is just another physical evidence piece.

Travis 12:23

Yep. Put that up there where you file, dropped his glasses, bumped into his car. Uh several greasewood bushes nearby are scorched and still smoldering when Chavez gets there. He later says he actually had to stomp out small fires himself, which matters because it means whatever caused it had just happened. This wasn't old damage or desert heat.

Josh 12:42

Okay.

Travis 12:42

They also check the surrounding area and there are no other tire tracks. Just Zamora's patrol car, no signs of another vehicle coming or going. Okay. I mean, we're out here in the out in the desert, right?

Josh 12:54

Yeah.

Travis 12:55

So traffic's not going to be heavy out there. Yeah, it's a small town in the desert, and it's outside of the town. So yeah, naturally you're not going to see a whole lot. So we have a little diagram here showing the path.

Josh 13:09

I can post this in the show notes. It's basically just a diagram of where the roads are and some of the events and the timing. It kind of shows some cars driving, where the speeding car was, and then the road that he turned on. Really good drawing. And then so the road kind of curves around.

Travis 13:26

You can see the little arroyo there where the object was, hidden by a hill. Yeah. If you're gonna put that in the show notes, I think that would be great. It's a nice little visual aid describing what we are talking about here. Yeah. Okay. So at about the same time all of this is happening, the police dispatcher, Nep Lopez, realizes something else. Around the same time Zamora called in, he had received three separate phone calls from people in town. None of them knew about Zamora. They were just reporting what they saw. Bright blue flame in the sky in the same direction at the same time. I know, it's wild. This is all corroborated by other people.

Josh 14:02

That didn't know about the others, which is important.

Travis 14:06

Yep. I wonder if anybody else followed up with these guys that called in.

Josh 14:09

I'm sure uh some of the investigators we'll talk about shortly did.

Travis 14:12

From there, response escalates quickly. Local police secure the area, New Mexico State Police document the scene, and before long, the U.S. Army arrives from the White Sands Missile Range, which is nearby. The FBI also gets involved to evaluate Zamora, and their conclusion is pretty blunt. He's sober, dependable, mature, and not someone given to fantasy. And gentle. And gentle. And probably huggable. And kind. And we love him.

Josh 14:39

Yeah. He's just a good guy, man.

Travis 14:42

We love him. Project Blue Book then takes over as the lead investigative body. They photograph the site, take measurements, collect samples, and conduct interviews. They take it seriously enough that they actually build a physical scale model of the entire scene, including the arroyo, the patrol car, and the object for internal analysis. That is wild.

Josh 15:01

It is. I can get that picture we saw in some of the videos that we watch, and I'll post those videos as well in the show notes. It's a great picture.

Travis 15:09

Yep. So they run through the usual explanations. Was it an aircraft? Was it helicopters? Experimental military tech, natural phenomena, hoax scenarios, and none of them fit cleanly, so the Air Force does something it rarely did. They label the Sakoro incident unknown.

Josh 15:26

Which is wild. Yeah. Because they don't do that. No. They just they say it's an owl or a weather balloon.

Travis 15:34

I love how often owls turn out. I I mean, I think it's funny, but I don't like it. Because birds aren't real, so it's weird. And neither are weather balloons. Yeah, prove it. Prove a weather balloon's real. Show me one. I've never seen one in real life. Yeah, same. I've never seen one.

Josh 15:51

Yeah. Okay, so with Project Blue Book coming in, this is Jay Allen Heinek. He started working with the Air Force in this Project Blue Book. He was a huge skeptic, went around to hundreds of different incidences, didn't really investigate very much, and was just like, no, it was an owl, it was uh no, this is a hoax.

Travis 16:11

Yep. Real me energy.

Josh 16:13

Yeah, real Travis energy. So with Project Blue Book, this is where Jay Allen Heinek comes into this story. And if you've listened to our Close Encounters episode, you already know him. He was the consultant for Project Blue Book. His job was to explain sightings away, not validate them. What's different about Socorro is that it didn't give him much room to do that. He was kind of stumped. Heinek interviewed Zamora, looked at the site, and reviewed the evidence. And he came away convinced of one thing. Whatever Zamora saw, he genuinely experienced. This wasn't exaggeration or confusion, and it wasn't someone chasing attention, which mattered to Heinek. Later on, he would point to Socorro as one of the most credible cases he ever worked on. And it changed his view on the UFO topic. So after Socorro, he becomes more openly critical of shallow explanations, more frustrated with how Project Bluebook handled serious cases, and eventually steps away entirely. This was a huge switching point in his life, which is great. You know, I knew about Heinek, I knew he was a skeptic that turned into one of the hardcore believers and advocates for UFO topics. I didn't know why. And this is the case that switched him and eventually made it so he left because he did some more cases afterwards, but he ran into a lot more trouble because he wasn't trying to sweep everything under the rug anymore. He was like, oh, this is actually probably real. And the military did not like that very much.

Travis 17:51

Classic military.

Josh 17:52

Classic. So now when people think of Heinek, the close encounters classification, the Kufos treating UFOs as something worth studying, Socorro is one of the cases that nudged him in that direction.

Travis 18:05

Yeah. Okay. You ready to hear some arguments against Socorro, Josh?

Josh 18:09

Bring it.

Travis 18:10

Okay. Okay, ready? Yeah. Okay. If the Socorro incident is so strong, why isn't it considered solved? And if it wasn't something exotic, what could it have been? Over the years, a few explanations keep coming up. None of them are out of the realm of possibility, but none of them manage to explain everything either. Yeah. Hmm? Checks out. So, explanation one, a student prank. Probably the most common skeptical explanation is that this was an elaborate prank, supposedly carried out by students from the nearby New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. The idea is that the area was known for student antics, someone built a mock craft, staged the flame and noise, and deliberately scared Zamora. This theory was pushed pretty hard by skeptics over the years, including Philip J. Class. That's Class with a K. I don't know who that is, do you? I don't either. I'm just for listeners, if they're, you know, maybe looking it up, that's Philip J. Class with a K. And even the school's president at the time claimed privately that he thought he knew who was responsible.

Josh 19:14

He was an American aviation and aerospace journalist and UFO researcher. Oh, okay. Known for his skepticism regarding UFOs.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Okay.

Josh 19:23

So the problem with that explanation is that no one ever confessed.

Travis 19:28

Yeah, but it's a it was a prank. Maybe they didn't want to. I guess pranks tend to have a way of making their way out, right? Like when you do a prank, you kind of want to be known for it.

Josh 19:40

Yeah, you want to be the prankster, the the guy that pulled it off.

Travis 19:43

Yeah.

Josh 19:44

So that not happening, and maybe, I mean, maybe it got way out of hand and way bigger than they thought it would, and they're like, nope, take it to our grave. Could be.

Travis 19:54

Very well could be. I mean, that's like basically. Well, I guess that's not the same situation as the crop circles. That was exactly what we're talking about. Guys in a pub decided they were gonna go out and do this thing, and then they talk to other people in the pub, and that's how it was found out that it was guys in a pub. Crop circling.

Josh 20:13

I would say it's probably more like I know what you did last summer. You think this is? Yeah, like these guys did something and now they can't talk about it.

Travis 20:20

Now they all shut up and then they all just have died. They've been killed by the aliens.

Josh 20:24

Yep.

Travis 20:25

Or it's a guy with a hook the whole time.

unknown 20:27

Yeah.

Josh 20:28

So yeah, no one ever confessed. And more importantly, when you actually break down what would have been required in 1964, it starts to get pretty messy. So these guys would have had a controlled blue-orange flame, a deafening roar followed by silence, four precise landing impressions, scorched vegetation, no tracks in or out, and timing it perfectly so Zamora shows up alone. That's not an impossible prank, but it's definitely like pretty sophisticated. Yeah. And six decades later, there's still no proof, no equipment, no witnesses, and no admission.

Travis 21:04

So do they think that that speeding car was part of it? Like leading Zamora out there? Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Because they didn't catch the speeder.

Josh 21:12

That's true.

Travis 21:13

I'm sure he would have gotten plates, though, maybe. If that was a thing back then. License plates? Well, just like writing the license plates down and then taking that back and trying to track down who it was. All we're doing is now we're sp now we're speculating. We're getting into information that's not here in the DOS. I was just saying maybe that car was part of this. If this is part of the prank, the car led them out there. Okay, in speculation.

Josh 21:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean it in speculation, yeah, it could have been, but doesn't explain all this other stuff either. Yeah, exactly.

Travis 21:46

I was just uh getting lost in how those pulled off.

Josh 21:51

Oh, okay.

Travis 21:52

I was looking at your arms.

Josh 21:54

Look at that. How can you see it through my leather jacket?

Travis 21:57

Okay, cool guy. Take off the sunglasses. So another explanation is that Zamora stumbled onto a classified military test. Sakura wasn't far from White Sands' missile range, and the Cold War was in full swing. Some later suggestions even claimed it might have been a test version of a lunar landing module. But this explanation runs into problems fast. White Sands denied any tests in that area at that time. Logs showed testing had ended hours earlier. The proposed test vehicles didn't have independent propulsion, and they didn't match Zamora's description of the craft's movement or silence.

Josh 22:32

Yeah, plus it was a classified test that Zamora didn't know about. Yeah. The Air Force labeled the case unknown. So the Air Force probably knew about this or had the ability to find that out. And the military continued to deny involvement instead of quietly closing the case. I mean, that one just doesn't make sense because, like you said, it wasn't happening when this happened, the test. And the thing that they're saying that this was didn't fly. So it doesn't seem like this could be it at all. It's not impossible, but it's a little sloppy for something meant to say secret. So I say no.

Travis 23:13

But also there were people standing by it. That's true. And it was big. So he said it was as big as a car.

Josh 23:20

Yeah, but it was egg-shaped, and so it didn't look like the lunar landing module at the time. The lunar landing module looked like it was built with like an erector set. You can see through it, it's just metal bars and it just doesn't match the description of what he saw at all. And it didn't fly.

Travis 23:36

And it didn't fly.

Josh 23:37

It had no propulsion.

Travis 23:39

Okay, so explanation three, misidentification. Those suggestions include a helicopter, we've talked about above, ball lightning. Huh? Ball lightning, another one that comes up like an owl.

Josh 23:50

Maybe.

Travis 23:51

Uh, some unusual atmospheric phenomenon. Maybe. Maybe. So what about that, Josh?

Josh 23:58

Yeah, I mean, it can go back to kind of what we've talked about in other things where they're not seeing what they're seeing. You know, the fear takes over or something. But these don't account for a solid metal object on legs, and then having the proof after the fact, the humanoid figures beside it. That doesn't line up with those. The structured landing impressions, like I said, scorched vegetation, uh, maybe ball lightning could do that or some weird atmospheric thing, but most likely not. Or the sound that Zamora described, the super loud roar and then silent.

Travis 24:35

Yeah.

Josh 24:35

That's weird too.

Travis 24:37

Definitely.

Josh 24:38

Because when I when I first heard this, I was like, well, first of all, the flames, from what I've heard so far from our research, that doesn't line up with any UFOs. You know, it's usually a there is no propulsion, or it's some different kind of zero-point energy gravity thing. And then they're silent or a hum. But this having a propulsion.

Travis 24:59

Well, it's obviously like a combustion style engine, though, too, because it was pushing out fuel like a big flame.

Josh 25:05

Yeah. So that kind of like threw me off. I was like, that doesn't really make sense. But him explaining that the noise disappeared once it hit 20 feet in the air. I was like, maybe. I mean, I don't know how these aircrafts work. You know, do they use anti-gravity instantly? There's not much that we've seen or that we've heard of where we see them lifting off the ground. So maybe they are silent. Maybe it kicked in after they have that initial propulsion. I don't know. But yeah, the loudness to silence that close to the ground made it a little bit more like, okay, maybe it could line up with what we've heard of in some of these other incidences. But misidentification works really well for lights in the sky, but it works really poorly for something sitting on the ground in front of someone who's trained at observing, looking at things.

Travis 25:54

Yeah. Zamora is a trained looker.

Josh 25:56

Yep. I wouldn't say he is a looker.

Travis 25:59

Oh shit.

Josh 26:00

He's a good, he's a good looking guy.

Travis 26:02

Oh shit, Josh. Fucking reading him for filth. This poor guy. I'm not saying, I'm not saying he's ugly.

Josh 26:08

This poor sweet man. And then you're gonna say, Oh, he's I know he's an ugly. I love him. I love him. What the hell? No, I never said that. I'm just saying, I don't know, man. Maybe I shouldn't have said it. Mm-hmm. I love him. Okay. Okay. So, in conclusion, out of all this, most UFO cases fall apart under scrutiny, but the Sakuro incident didn't, which is surprising because it also didn't give any answers. This is a hard, like if we go aliens yes, maybe, or no. For me, personally, I want to give it like a 75% yes, but having Dr. J. Allen Heinek, who's a much smarter person than I am and has a lot more experience, having this be his transition to where like it kind of lifted the veil from his eyes. I mean, this kind of bumps it up to like 95% yes for me. Wow. On moving the needle, like why would he go against his superiors and ruin everything and dedicate the rest of his life to helping the cause if this wasn't super convincing? And he was there, boots on the ground, he took all the pictures, he interviewed all the people, and he knew what he was doing. This wasn't his first rodeo. And just how Zamora didn't change anything about the case.

Travis 27:28

Yeah, there were there were accounts like decades later, and he was still reporting it the same way. So it's 64 when this happened, then again in 74, and then 96. And his account of the incidents that happened to him never changed. And neither did his heart. No, no, he just he was just an old sweetie.

Josh 27:48

Yeah. What about you? I'm curious.

Travis 27:50

Um, I don't know. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered for me. I I want to believe that this happened, and there's a lot of evidence kind of supporting that this happened, but again, it was one person accounting something that happened who was notably, by his own admission, under stress and was scared. And so it could have it could have been something, I don't know, that he just didn't understand. I don't know. I don't, I don't know.

Josh 28:18

You're right. There's not a lot of answers.

Travis 28:20

I'm at a maybe though, as where I usually where I fall, that's like where I'm most comfortable with these. Maybe. I don't really come out and say no unless it's like an absolutely ridiculous story, like that guy ripping off uh Heinlein novel.

Josh 28:34

Oh, uh Valiant Thor. Valiant Thor, yeah.

Travis 28:37

Anyway, those are usually like outright no's for me. But things like this, where it's pretty like the title war show where it becomes a little ambiguous, you know, that's kind of where I like to operate. Somewhere in the middle.

Josh 28:50

I think from memory, and I could be completely wrong, most of the UFO encounters or anything, you've been lower on the maybe and more closer to the no.

Travis 29:00

Sure.

Josh 29:00

But this one doesn't really leave a lot of wiggle room for an absolute no, I don't think.

Travis 29:04

No, no. This is a high maybe for me, I would say.

Josh 29:07

Cool. I like it. Well, let us know what you guys think. Like we said, we want to hear from you. We need to. Our lives depend on it. Get a hold of us through fan mail. It's a link in our show notes.

Travis 29:19

You guys know, you know all this.

Josh 29:21

Oh, they know.

Travis 29:22

Yeah, you guys know.

Josh 29:24

If they don't do it right now, they're gonna forget. Yep. Just do it. It's easy. So, what does it cost you? Nothing.

Travis 29:30

But you know what does cost you something? Sending an angry email to us or an angry review. Don't do that.

Josh 29:36

No, just chill out. That costs karma points in your life.

Travis 29:41

Yeah, you're putting bad out in the world. Just hurts our feelings, and we're still gonna do the show.

Josh 29:45

Just be kind, not just to us, but to everyone. And we did it. That leads us to reading some fan mail.

Travis 29:52

I think us asking for everybody to be kind may have earned us a peace prize.

Josh 29:57

A Nobel Peace Prize?

Travis 29:58

A pizza prize. Sorry, I misread it. Oh we get a pizza prize. Oh, but we have to pay for it. Oh man, there's there's a lot of fine print down here. Oh yeah. Okay.

Josh 30:09

So, yeah, we're gonna read some fan mail. Oh shit. Okay, cool. It looks like we have a whole bunch. Love this. I love your podcast. It's the best. Yes. Yeah, thank you. Hold on just a second. You know what? I was in the wrong thing. That so our researcher has her own podcast.

Travis 30:30

Okay.

Josh 30:31

And that is her fan mail. That wasn't for us? Mm-mm. God damn it. Oh, uh, it looks like we don't have fan mail.

Travis 30:43

Oh shit. So what do we do? Do we just vamp in this time?

Josh 30:46

I mean, last time we didn't have anything. I talked about anime. So I think it's your turn to talk about something.

Travis 30:53

Oh boy.

Josh 30:54

What do you want to talk about?

Travis 30:56

Okay.

Josh 30:56

And this isn't punishment unless you think it is.

Travis 30:59

Yeah, but this is why you should send us fan mail so you don't have to hear us talk about our private interests.

Josh 31:04

Yeah, you could get to our quiz a lot faster if you sent us fan mail.

Travis 31:07

Uh so I host another podcast. It's a movie, kind of movie review podcast. Not really reviewing. We just watch movies and talk about it. It's called the Cinema Roast Bunch. And today we are doing our top tens of 2025. It's very exciting. So if you want to listen, I'm not going to reveal what my top tens are, but there have been some things going on in the movie world that are kind of concerning. Oh. At least for fans of movies. Because of Netflix's model, they want all of this traffic through their service. Movies in theater are going to get a much smaller window if they feel that it's a prestigious enough movie to be considered for an Academy Award. It has to be in theaters for two weeks, right? And so you might get a movie that is really great, but it only plays for two weeks, and then it'll go onto Netflix's streaming service. And not make the awards. Oh, I mean, it it will all depend on what Netflix decides to release and what they don't. So a lot of their algorithm just kind of turns into content where it's just stuff to fill the website. But the thing with that is, is if it all goes to streaming, physical copies don't get released. No physical copy means no physical evidence. And if you want to go and watch this movie, you're like almost gaslit into thinking that it ever existed. So anyway, uh Netflix is probably going to have this deal go through. Paramount is also looking to buy it, and they offered a value higher than what Netflix was offering, but it was turned down because it was done in like bad faith and done real aggressively. Now the problem with Paramount is that it's owned by the Ellison family, and the Ellisons have very strong ties to the White House. And already because of David Ellison's ties to the White House, the White House is saying that the Paramount deal has to go through. So now we're seeing the White House determining what media is going to be and trying to shape what media needs to be in the future instead of just letting the market decide what needs to happen. So thank you. You guys want to talk to me more about movies? Sorry, wrong show.

Josh 33:09

Yeah, go listen to his other show. But now we have to get to our baseline quiz. Uh-oh. So this is gonna be our topic for next week.

Travis 33:20

You snuck that right in there. Oh my god, you got me talking about movies. I got excited, lured into a false sense of security. Then bing bang boom. Oh, you threw in a quiz. Son of a bleebah.

Josh 33:32

So we don't know what we're talking about. Our researcher, Jordan, has our topics kind of laid out of what we're gonna do. She's teaching us because we started this show not knowing anything, and she's just episodically giving us more and more information. The baseline is just kind of so you can see that we're actually idiots. We don't know what we're doing. 100%. And we don't actually know the topic. So did you get the quiz? Yeah, what the fuck is this? Oddballs? Oddballs. I don't know.

Travis 34:02

Sounds like an 80s movie. So what is is this just like miscellaneous? Is that what's happening here?

Josh 34:08

Oh, the little picture that she gives, little hint, teasers, there's a gold ball up at the top. So it's not goofballs, it's odd balls. Oddballs. Not oddballs, it's odd balls. All right, well, let's get into this. Okay. So, first question: where was the Bets Mystery Sphere discovered in 1974?

Travis 34:33

Oh, this is all so it's all about balls.

Josh 34:35

Oops, all balls.

Travis 34:37

Yeah, oops. Balls all the way down.

Josh 34:40

Okay, so is it A Roswell, New Mexico, B, Fort George Island, Florida, C, Catalina Island, California, or D Martha, Texas? I mean, I'm gonna say Catalina Island. I know there's some strange things that happen there.

Travis 34:56

Okay.

Josh 34:56

I have no idea.

Travis 34:58

I'm gonna say Martha, Texas, because it sounds like somebody trying to say Martha, and I just think that's funny.

Josh 35:04

With a with a lisp.

Travis 35:05

Yeah.

Josh 35:06

Okay. Next one. Which behavior was reported by the Betts family where the sphere was inside their home? Is that A, it shattered glass objects nearby. B, it floated several inches off the ground. C, it rolled on its own and changed direction, or D, it emitted lights. Oh my gosh. So someone found a mystery sphere, yeah, brought it into their home, and it did things.

Travis 35:31

Does it say they brought it in their home or it just was in their home?

Josh 35:34

The question is where the sphere was inside their home.

Travis 35:37

Yeah, it doesn't say they brought it in.

Josh 35:39

It came in?

Travis 35:40

Yeah. Uninvited.

Josh 35:42

It rolled in. It rolled into their homes. I'm gonna say rolled.

Travis 35:45

Rolled on its own and changed direction.

Josh 35:47

It went in and was like, nope, and then rolled back out. I don't know. I'm gonna say it rolled and changed direction.

Travis 35:53

Okay, so I'm getting a picture of what is happening with this. It's the Betts family. The Betts Betts is the surname of the family. I thought it was just the name of the ball. So this happened in a family's home.

Josh 36:06

Yeah.

Travis 36:06

I'm gonna say what I think is probably the scariest one with shattered glass objects nearby.

Josh 36:12

That is the scariest. All right, next question. The metallic sphere recovered in Columbia in 2025 was first observed doing what? A flying through the air, B flying from space, C rolling through the fields, or D emitting a loud sonic boom. I think I know the answer because it was over the socials a bunch when it was happening. So what do you think? You remember this? Yeah, it was last year.

Travis 36:40

Yeah, but I don't remember I don't remember hearing anything about this.

Josh 36:43

On the aliens Instagram, I follow a lot of people in the UFO world, and this was going around quite a bit.

Travis 36:51

I don't know.

Josh 36:52

What did you say? I said I think I know, and I want your answer.

Travis 36:56

Oh, god damn it. Uh flying through the air. That's what I'm gonna say.

Josh 37:00

Okay, that is my answer as well. Oh if this is the same one, I'm pretty sure it is. There's video of it flying, and then there's video of the recovery. All right, next one. What detail about the Colombian sphere made researchers immediately compare it to the Betts case? A its exact size and weight, B, it's seamless construction, C, its radioactive signature, or D, its ability to roll up hill. That's weird. I mean it's between exact size and weight or radioactive signature. I'm gonna say exact size and weight. Okay.

Travis 37:37

I'm gonna say seamless construction.

Josh 37:40

Okay. Next one. The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica are attributed to what culture? Is it A Maya, B Aztec, C Inca, or D what is that? Diquis? D quiz I don't know. D-I-Q-U-I-S. Dequis? Dequiz? I don't know. I mean I have no idea. It could be that.

Travis 38:02

It could be it could be pronounced Kevin and we just don't know.

Josh 38:05

Yeah. De quiz. De quiz.

Travis 38:08

And since we're seeing this for the first time, we look like real idiots. We haven't had a chance to put it through uh Google pronunciation yet.

Josh 38:16

We'll learn it for next episode.

Travis 38:18

And I can't because of allegations of cheating. So I can't Google it.

Josh 38:23

Yeah. So the ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica. Where's Costa Rica? Okay. I don't know. I mean, I'm gonna say Inca.

Travis 38:32

Okay. This is gonna make us look like real historical idiots, I'm sure. I'm gonna say De Quiz. I'm gonna say the weird one.

Josh 38:40

Okay.

Travis 38:41

Dickies.

Josh 38:42

So, last question. Which explanation is commonly proposed by geologists for the Bosnian stone spheres? Oh my god, these things are everywhere. Balls for days.

Travis 38:53

Yeah, it's balls for days. Odd balls.

Josh 38:56

Okay. Is it A alien construction? B medieval artillery, C, natural geological concretions, or D glacial debris. Most commonly proposed by geologists. That's dirt science. I mean, they're not gonna say alien construction, right? No, a geologist? No. No. Probably not. Medieval artillery, maybe. Like cannons? Did they have cannons in medieval time?

Travis 39:23

Um, no. We know. Um not no, I know.

Josh 39:27

No, no, that I knew that.

Travis 39:29

Okay.

Josh 39:29

I'm gonna say medieval artillery, so maybe what are the big slings?

Travis 39:33

Oh, like a trebuchet?

Josh 39:35

Yeah. So maybe, you know, I don't know.

Travis 39:37

Maybe. Okay, sure. Um, I'm gonna say, because it's a geologist, I have two thoughts. One is natural geological concretions, but I don't really know if that's right. I'm gonna say glacial debris. Okay. Just rolling up balls, going down a hill.

Josh 39:55

Yeah, big snowballs rolling down and then turning into stone spheres. Mm-hmm.

Travis 40:00

Maybe that's how concrete was invented, though. I don't know. Aliens? Natural geologic concretions.

Josh 40:07

Yeah, maybe. All right. So I'm gonna submit. I'm gonna view accuracy.

Travis 40:12

Ah, dang it. All right. I talked myself out of an answer.

Josh 40:16

First one, where was the Bet's mystery sphere discovered in 1974? I said Catalina Island.

Travis 40:21

That is not right. I said Marfa, Texas, also incorrect.

Josh 40:26

It was Fort George Island, Florida. Yeah. Okay, off to a good start. Which behavior was reported by the Betts family where the sphere was inside their home? Oh. I said it rolled on its own and changed direction. That is correct.

Travis 40:42

I said it shattered glass objects nearby, which is scary.

Josh 40:45

And that is incredible. Yeah, I'm glad that's not it. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be scary. Okay. Next one, the metallic sphere recovered in Colombia in 2025 was first observed doing what? And we both said flying through the air.

Travis 40:59

Flying through the air.

Josh 41:00

Yeah. And that is correct. The next one, what detail about the Colombian sphere made researchers immediately compare it to the Betts case? I said it's exact size and weight.

Travis 41:12

And I said it's seamless construction.

Josh 41:15

Woo-hoo! And that is correct. Yep. It's seamless construction. So it is constructed the same. Uh-huh. Which would make me uh think that it is similar. Sure. I mean, I'm no scientist. You? I may look it with my leather jacket, but I'm not.

Travis 41:33

Yeah. And your sunglasses.

Josh 41:35

Yeah. Okay, next one. The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica are attributed to what culture? I said Inca. Yep. That is incorrect.

Travis 41:43

And I said Dequis, which just sounds like a sassy name.

Josh 41:48

It does. And you were correct.

Travis 41:52

I was correct. Yeah.

Josh 41:53

It is Dequiz, Dequiz. Or Dequis? Dequis?

Travis 41:58

I think maybe Dequise, yeah. Maybe. We'll look it up. We'll have an answer for you guys next week.

Josh 42:02

All right. And then last one, which explanation is commonly proposed by geologists for the Bosnian stone spheres? I said medieval artillery.

Travis 42:10

I talked myself out of this one. Natural geological concretions is the right one, but I said glacial debris.

Josh 42:17

Right. We both got that wrong.

Travis 42:19

We did.

Josh 42:20

So I got two right. And I got three. Oh my god, what an upset. I hope you guys weren't betting on anyone.

Travis 42:29

I hope you were. Oh, yeah. And lost. No, bet on me. Always always bet for the underdog. This one pays. It pays out big time.

Josh 42:37

All right. Well, I'm excited. I've I've seen a couple of things about oddballs. Oh, I'm sure you have. This podcast outwithstanding. Uh when it comes to the alien world. Sure. I haven't looked into them very much, so this will be really exciting. I'm gonna talk about oddballs. There's a couple oddballs talking about oddballs.

Travis 42:57

Yeah.

Josh 42:58

Well, thank you guys for listening. Thank you, Jordan, for everything you've done. If you want to know what she's done, it's basically everything other than talk. Yeah. Thank you, Jordan, our researcher.

Travis 43:09

But she tells us what talk to about.

Josh 43:12

What talk to talk?

Travis 43:13

She don't write closing.

Josh 43:15

She leads this part to us. Okay. Um bye. Bye. Bye.