If Zamora had encountered a hot-air balloon, it was evidently
all-white and there certainly weren't many of those around at the
time.

Even rarer at that date was any balloon with a sizeable
manufacturer's emblem, or sponsorship logo.

Consequently, Zamora's reported 'insignia' remains one of the
peculiar aspects, which isn't helped by his discrepancies.

The related sketch he made, shown here:

http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/a1999/mar/socorro2.jpg

...notably differs from the confirmation given to Chris Lambright
some years later:

http://www.cufon.org/contributors/chrisl/socorro.htm

I'm sure it was Joel Carpenter who pointed out that this
subsequent 'insignia' resembles the logo for Sandia National
Laboratories.

Conceivably some connection with the Sandia facility at
Albuquerque?

If not, there's perhaps more of a coincidence here than generally
realised.

Coral Lorenzen interviewed Zamora the day afterwards and in her
1966 book, 'Flying Saucers', wrote:

"The markings were in red, consisting of a vertical line topped
by two slanting lines that gave the impression of an arrow. This
was surrounded by a horizontal line on the bottom, a vertical
line on each side, and a semi-circle over the top of the arrow".

This is essentially as Zamora sketched for Chris Lambright, not
as he depicted on that earlier drawing.

It's also different from Zamora's sketches reproduced in 'Socorro
Saucer', by Ray Stanford. Again, these illustrate a semi-circular
arch covering the 'arrow', not "a vertical line on each side, and
a semi-circle over the top".


Did Sandia therefore have a comparative 'aerial vehicle' of some
kind in operation that day [Zamora's 'UFO' came from the
_general_ direction of ABQ] and was their current logo in use,
maybe coloured red, in 1964.

Although any connection seemed most unlikely, especially that
Sandia would, for some reason, be utilising a hot-air balloon in
1964, this was a possibility which strictly required to be
eliminated.

I had made due enquiries of Rebecca Ullrich, the Research
Historian at Sandia and Rebecca has been helpful in clarifying a
key issue. She writes:

"The Sandia logo has always been portrayed in turquoise. It did
change slightly in the early 1970s, so looked different in 1964
than it does now. The earlier version was more bird-like in
appearance and looked even less like the red image you've
provided than does the current logo".

I note there is in fact a copy of Sandia's original emblem on
their web site, at:

http://www.sandia.gov/recordsmgmt/oldtbird.gif

Rebecca has offered to investigate the matter further and that's
greatly appreciated.

However, it would seem we can surely rule out any link.


This returns the focus to limited options. Although some all-
white Raven hot-air balloons existed contemporary with the
Socorro case, there's currently no indication any of them would
have borne a symbol similar to Zamora's description.

Outwith Raven, circa 1964 some early hot-air balloon enthusiasts
and entrepreneurs constructed balloons for their own use, or by
others. Information on these is difficult to find so many years
later, although I know it does exist and there's one prime
candidate for an all-white balloon which did, at least in 1965,
contain a large 'bird' emblem, which isn't that dissimilar to
some of Zamora's drawings.

So far as Zamora's insignia, 'Sandia', as with 'International
Paper' - a logo which was also remarkably similar - certainly
seems to be a 'dead end'.

No surprise and many avenues of related research await,
hopefully, equally informative responses from potentially
significant sources.


James Easton.
E-mail: voyager@...
www.ufoworld.co.uk