Statement on the 1964 Socorro UFO incident

Here is my all-purpose, final statement about the Socorro UFO incident of 1964.

I did not arrive in Socorro until 1966, so I have no direct experiences to report.

Please consider two things that will make this story very difficult either to verify or to disprove.

Firstly, there was no physical evidence left behind of any technology unavailable in 1964. Some scorched bushes and depressions in the sand are well short of proof of alien visitation. The police officer who reported the incident could have been fooled by special effects concocted by the many intelligent, bored, mischievous students then attending New Mexico Tech, which has always had a highly select and technically oriented student body. Furthermore, campus research activities at the time provided access to heavy equipment and weather balloons, and many mining students had both expertise in and access to explosives.

On the other hand, it is all too easy for college students to claim that they staged a hoax. It is the kind of thing an upper-division student might say to impress a younger student.

I have nothing useful to add except the skepticism expressed above.