by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
On April 24, 1964, in Socorro, New Mexico, Sgt. Lonnie Zamora of the Socorro Police reported seeing an egg-shaped object and two small humanoids dressed in white coveralls. On April 24, 1964, in Newark Valley, New York, farmer Gary Wilcox reported seeing an egg-shaped object and two small humanoids dressed in white coveralls. The difference is, Wilcox claimed he talked with the creatures he saw.
The first investigator on the scene was Wilcox’s neighbor, Priscilla J. Baldwin. She had an interest in UFOs and spoke with Wilcox on April 28th. National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena advisor Walter Webb interviewed Wilcox on November 8, 1964, and there is a NICAP file on the incident.
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwartz investigated this case extensively and wrote an article (page 20 of the pdf) about it headlined, “Gary Wilcox and the UFOnauts,” published in the September 1969 Flying Saucer Review Special Issue 3. According to him in his article, material from Baldwin and Webb was made available to him, and he interviewed Wilcox along with his wife, friends, neighbors, and members of his family.
Schwartz, an occasional contributor to FSR, was a psychiatrist, and he begins his article advocating for the psychiatric study of UFO witnesses. He then tells the reader that he had read about Wilcox’s case in various publications and thought it was “rather far-fetched.” According to him, he became interested in it when he was put in touch with a former neighbor of Wilcox’s (a computer programmer who had worked on the Apollo simulator project) who vouched for Wilcox’s credibility.
Wilcox’s story first comes out in notes from Baldwin that are presented in the section headed, “I – Miss Baldwin’s Role.” The notes are in the form of an interview with Wilcox followed by a narrative account of Baldwin’s investigation and the involvement of the local sheriff’s department.
According to Baldwin’s notes, at 10:00 a.m. on April 24, Wilcox was driving his tractor spreading manure in one of his fields when he “noticed a white (or shiny) object” just inside the woods above the field. He drove up to get a closer look and thought it might be a fuel tank or a fuselage from an airplane. He said he “thumped it and kicked it” and it “felt like metallic canvas.” Wilcox said later that he wasn’t sure if it was on the ground or hovering.
Then, two “men” came out from under the object. They were carrying a metallic-looking tray that was filled with soil, leaves, and alfalfa. Wilcox was scared but also had the thought that someone was playing a trick on him (he told Schwartz he thought it might have been for the TV show Candid Camera). The men said, “Do not be afraid,” and asked him what he was doing. Their voices seemed to come from their chests and “had an eerie Sound.” Wilcox said he was spreading manure, and a conversation began that lasted for two hours.
It came out that the creatures had been watching Wilcox “for quite a while” and were interested in soil and “organic substances” because Mars (apparently where they came from) was rocky and unfit for agriculture. They wanted to know more about fertilizer and seemed unfamiliar with cows.
The creatures said that because of all the objects being sent into space from Earth, “Mars and Earth will be trading environments.” They also prophesied that within a year, astronauts Glenn and Grissom and two cosmonauts from Russia would die “due to exposure from space.”
Wilcox asked if he could go with them and was told he couldn’t because the atmosphere was too thin. He offered to get them a bag of fertilizer, but they didn’t want to wait, and as Wilcox watched, they took off in the craft, which made a “burring and swishing sound.” There were no marks left from the object, but Wilcox noted there was some red dust in the area that he thought had something to do with propulsion.
Later that afternoon, Wilcox brought a bag of fertilizer to the site and left it by a tree. When he came back the next day, it was gone.
According to Baldwin, she went to Wilcox’s place on April 29, and he took her to the site on his tractor (spreading fertilizer on the way) after finishing his afternoon chores. Baldwin took some pictures and collected some leaves and rocks. It had rained and there was no trace of red dust.
Baldwin contacted the sheriff’s office and reported the incident to Sheriff Paul Taylor. Eventually, on May 1, an officer, George Williams, pulled up in Baldwin’s driveway. When it was confirmed that she was the one who called, he told her he had gone to Wilcox’s place and couldn’t find him. Baldwin agreed to go back with him, and when they got there, they found Wilcox in his barn.
Williams briefly questioned Wilcox about his experience and then Baldwin took Williams to the site as Wilcox didn’t want to interrupt his chores. When they came back, it was arranged that Wilcox would go to the sheriff’s office that evening. Baldwin gave Williams her notes and “they evidently were used to crosscheck his (Wilcox’s) story.”
Sheriff Taylor wrote a report which includes William’s report and Wilcox’s signed statement, and it is presented in the section headed, “II – Sheriff Taylor’s Report.”
Williams described Wilcox as a hard worker who didn’t seem to be “unstable” or “mentally disturbed in any way.” He described the area where Wilcox said the craft had been as wet. He wrote that the surrounding area was dry and he speculated that the wetness might have been due to “a spring or ground formation.” He notes that there was only one set of tractor tire tracks when there should have been two: one when Wilcox dropped off the bag of fertilizer, and one when Wilcox brought Baldwin to the site.
Wilcox’s statement has the same story he told Baldwin, but he goes into more detail about the humanoids. According to him, they were 4 feet tall, had no faces or hair, and didn’t seem to have shoulders. Their suits were a “whitish-aluminum-tint” color, had no seams, pockets, or stitching, and there was a wrinkle at the elbow when they moved their arms. He alludes to the prophecy about the astronauts and cosmonauts saying he was told “our people that had entered into space would not survive over a year.”
In the section headed, “III – Psychiatric Study,” Schwartz describes Wilcox as “of old American stock” and says “his family has an excellent reputation in the community.” According to Schwartz, Wilcox had “no particular interest in UFOs” or any other “exotic subject,” and he and his family had no history of paranormal experiences. Wilcox’s brother, Floyd, reported that Gary had turned down a good sum of money for the rights to his story as well as money for lectures about his experience. Wilcox did give permission for his story to be published in a scientific journal following a psychiatric examination.
In the final section headed, “Discussion and Summary,” Schwartz notes the oddity of Zamora’s report coming on the same day as Wilcox’s and says that Wilcox didn’t hear about it until “several days later.” He re-emphasizes the unlikelihood that someone with Wilcox’s psychological makeup would invent such a story but notes the discrepancy of there being only one set of tractor tire tracks.
Schwartz addresses the prophecy that two astronauts and two cosmonauts would die within the year following the encounter. He points out that Virgil Grissom died in the January 27, 1967 Apollo capsule fire along with Edward White and Roger Chafee and that cosmonaut Vladimir Komorov died on April 24, 1967, died two years to the day after Wilcox’s reported encounter, when the parachutes of his capsule failed as he was returning to Earth.
As for how to interpret Wilcox’s reported experience, Schwartz refers to John Keel* and says “what was supposed to have happened is entirely an open question,” meaning that the creatures may have lied to Wilcox or manipulated his mind. He says, however, “Unfortunately, the facts do not justify much speculation in this regard.”
* Keel often wrote, particularly in his 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies, that there was a trickster element involved in contact episodes.