1964: Credible Alien Sightings

Early in 1964, NICAP almost folded as member­ship fell amidst their failure to get congress to take UFOs seriously. They published a 200,000 word dossier of their best evidence to fight back.

On April 24th the first truly impressive landing and alien contact occurred at Socorro, New Mexico and revived the fortunes of UFO groups. The witness was police officer Lonnie Zamora, a pillar of the local church. A white egg-shaped craft had landed in a gully and small humanoids had emerged. When disturbed by the patrolman, the UFO took off with a blast into the sky, setting the scrub on fire and leaving heavy imprints in the ground. This latter part of the encounter was also seen by Zamora's chief officer who arrived on the scene as back-up. Allen Hynek, investigating for Blue Book, said this case convinced him that alien contact reports had credibility. 

Meanwhile in Britain, on May 24th, a fireman took an amazing color photograph on Burgh Marshes near Carlisle. Behind his young daugh­ter's head stood the floating figure of a white suit­ed 'spaceman'. All attempts to explain it have failed.

The Ministry of Defence visited the photog­rapher to quiz him in depth. Kodak even offered free film for life to anyone who could solve the mystery, but nobody did. 

Flying Saucer Review , having sat on the Villas Boas 'space baby' story for five years, finally decided to publish to its audience of 3,000 ufologists. Betty and Barney Hill concluded their hyp­nosis sessions with Dr Simon on June 27th. They had relived a repressed memory of an alien kid­nap by small, humanoid creatures. The beings had medically examined both witnesses and put a needle into Betty's abdomen performing what they told her was a 'pregnancy test'. Body sam­ples were taken from both witnesses. 

Dr Simon was nonplussed. He assumed - in the absence of other claims of alien abduction with sexual overtones - that this was just some sort of shared fantasy. But the Hill's story was not unique - as the fully independent Villas Boas case established. Nor were these to remain alone for long.

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