Trajanus, for Chrissakes! You seem completely vested in the idea that this was a 'real' UFO. Go ahead and believe that. Be a believer. I don't give a shit. I provided the footprint data simply so I could not be accused of ignoring it to prove my case. You're welcome. I am saying that it is POSSIBLE this was a terrestrial craft and POSSIBLE it was made by us.
The fact is, we HAVE NO FOOTPRINTS! Why not? They took pictures of every indentation they could find EXCEPT the footprints. Why didn't they take a plaster cast of the footprints and PROVE for all time that they really were 'small.' Instead, we have one witness, and one witness only, who SAYS they appeared small to him even though they were 'indistinct' and incomplete. Now why would he say that? Is it because Zamora had been telling him these guys were small? Do you think that influenced him at all? Did he measure the footprints? No. So how did he know they were 'small'? If you measure the heel print of my boot, it looks small, too: 3" x 2-1/2". If you don't have the entire footprint, you can't tell that this boot is nearly 12" long.
So what do you have here? After talking to Zamora about the sighting beforehand one trooper says he saw some footprints that were 'small.' He admits they are indistinct, says only one heel was clearly visible, takes no pictures, no plaster casts, no measurements at all. THAT, in a court of law, is pretty flimsy evidence.
As for the propulsion system, the fact that the craft turned silent doesn't negate or explain the fact that it took off like a rocket, including noise and flame. If that wasn't the craft's propulsion system, why did it do that? Why was it necessary?
Now, look at the picture below. It's of a field in front of my house. It was taken with a digital camera with a typical 50mm lens last December. Look across the field at ground level. See the big fir tree in the middle? Now look to the left until you see a bright white dot. It's centered between the big tree and the first house to the left (thus giving you a visual queue Zamora did not have.)
That dot is a snow covered rock that is about 8 feet high marking the entrance to the sub-development. My house is behind the big tree. The rock is immediately in front of my driveway. The distance between the camera and the rock is right on 150 yards. I just measured it, in the rain, a few minutes ago. It is 180 30" steps from the point of the camera to the rock as measured by a pedometer. Uncanny, huh? This also shows the difficulty of perspective. The house on the left is at about 100 yards. The house to the left of the rock is about 200 yards away, yet both houses and the rock look equidistant in the photo. With snow on the ground, simulating the starkness of a desert environment, it's hard to tell.
Have you gone out to a field and measured out 150 yards to see how much distance that really represents? Are you going to tell me with a straight face that from that distance, 150 yards, with no visual queues of any kind, you can tell the difference from a 'small' man and a large one? ANYBODY would look 'small' at that distance!
Really?? If you can do that I would maintain you have Superman-like qualities and can also jump over tall buildings. If you are going to maintain a position, I believe there are times when you have to get out of your armchair, go out into the field, and make some observations of your own. You need to examine the evidence, find the citations, and follow them. That's what I have done for you guys here--actually figured out what '150 yards' means in real terms and actually gone to the source to see what was actually said in context. Have you done that?
When you actually examine the evidence, you see that 1) 150 yards is a long, long way, unlikely to afford you the luxury of being able to tell a small man from a large one (Zamora wore glasses, by the way, so it's unlikely he had super-human vision), and 2) The 'footprint' evidence, though it exists, is flimsy and unusually poorly documented--especially give the scrutiny applied to other indentations in the case.
I don't believe a bunch of college students did this. I don't believe it was a hoax. But I do believe (and have demonstrated) that there is as much evidence for human origins as there is 'aliens from space.'
