Socorro, New Mexico UFO Sighting (April 24, 1964) — FBI Files (D8P232)
A cold war / blue book era case from Socorro, New Mexico. A police officer reported observing an unidentified flying object ascending from the ground with a loud roar and emitting bluish and orange flames.
Background
On April 24, 1964, in Socorro, New Mexico, U.S. government investigators recorded an unidentified-object incident later released to the public on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is a Cold War-era case investigated under the Air Force’s Project Blue Book or its predecessors. The case was filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose Knoxville, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and other field offices routed UFO reports to headquarters under the Bureau’s standing protocols for the protection of vital installations.
What the document records
A police officer reported observing an unidentified flying object ascending from the ground with a loud roar and emitting bluish and orange flames. The object disappeared over a distant mountain. Investigators found four smouldering areas and four depressed areas at the reported location.
The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.
Verbatim from the file
“reported seeing an unidentified flying object rise from the earth with a roar, emitting bluish and orange flames and disappear over a distant mountain.”. “four small irregularly shaped smouldering areas and four regular depressed areas at the site.”. “The unidentified flying object was described as oval shaped; about twenty feet long”
Type of case
The case is a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers.
Status
All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by default. The federal government has not concluded that the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series in the late 1940s), atmospheric optical phenomena such as sundogs and lenticular clouds, and astronomical objects including Venus, the Moon, and meteors near the horizon.