The La Madera Butane Tank

Orlando Gallegos had gone out to quiet some noisy horses. It was about one in the morning on 26 April 1964 and he was visiting his father in La Madera, north of Santa Fe. About 300 feet from the house, the FBI's teletype records, he saw "something shaped like a butane tank, possibly twelve to fourteen feet high, and 'long as a telephone pole'". It seemed to sit on the ground. A blue-white flame surrounded it and "appeared to come from port holes". He watched for about a minute until the flame went out. The object never moved and made no sound. His father laughed at him. The next morning Gallegos found a smouldering patch, and later that day he told a state police officer.

What is on the record

The account comes from the FBI's Albuquerque office in a teletype to the Director dated 27 April 1964. It sits in Section 9 of the Bureau's UFO file 62-HQ-83894, released by the Department of War on 8 May 2026. The teletype is filed under the Socorro landing of 24 April and calls La Madera "an additional incident". Captain Martin Vigil of the New Mexico State Police interviewed Gallegos and found him "sober and frightened". Vigil checked the site at 7.30 that evening. He found a scorched circle thirty to forty feet across, a V-shaped rectangular indentation eight by twelve inches and several smooth circular prints. A fellow officer pointed out three more indentations. No other witness was known, and military officers told the FBI they had no explanation "to date".

An Albuquerque airtel of 28 April gives the Air Force's view. Major William Conner of Kirtland Air Force Base went to the site with Gallegos. He found smouldering material and rubbish and thought the spot "may have been a dump at one time". In his opinion something such as a can of paint could have caught fire and exploded. He also noted that Gallegos "had an odor of alcohol about him". Vigil had called him sober. The FBI ran no investigation of its own.

Project Blue Book's Socorro file, also on the fact sheet, holds newspaper clippings on La Madera. By the archive's summary of them, they put Gallegos about 200 feet from a windowless, egg-shaped object with silent blue flame jets round its base, and quote Vigil finding split rocks, a melted bottle and "paw prints, like a mountain lion's", and saying "there was definitely something there". The teletype has 300 feet and port holes. These are press reports in an Air Force file, not Air Force findings.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. Gallegos is the only witness, and no independent testimony sits beside the file in the archive. The tier measures sourcing rather than truth. What stood in the field at La Madera is not resolved here.