Trinity is a location in New Mexico, close to the Manhattan Project’s first nuclear detonation, which took place with no real warning about the dangers to the local population. Looking at the map in Trinity: The Best Kept Secret by Jacques F. Vallée and Paola Leopizzi Harris, it is also interesting to note how close several other UFO hotspots were, if you know your subject matter.
What makes the place even more significant, according to the account explored in this book, is that a UFO crashed there in 1945, predating Roswell and even Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting of what he described as saucer-like objects in the air. In the introduction, Vallée apologises for previously neglecting the incident. Together with Harris, he investigates the area and examines what material might still be available for testing so many years later.
Reading the transcripts of witnesses Jose Padilla and his friend Reme Baca, who were pre-teens at the time, is interesting from several angles. They were looking after their families’ land and making sure the fences kept the cattle where they belonged when they heard a crash and went to investigate. They described seeing a long groove cut into a hill and several small occupants outside the object, with what they recalled as insectoid heads.
Their father, who had military connections, contacted the authorities. The military was apparently determined to clear the site, although surprisingly few personnel were sent in, and the official explanation was that the object was a weather balloon.
The boys retrieved material from the site, including a sliver of what appeared to behave like memory metal, long before such materials were commercially familiar. They later used it to repair a weathervane, where it remained for years. All this supposedly happened before UFOs became a major media phenomenon, and the boys initially kept quiet because they assumed the incident had something to do with the military.
It wasn’t until 2003 that they approached a local journalist and the story began to circulate more widely. The discovery that there were references to the case in other sources around the time of Roswell, which were largely ignored, suggests just how distracted people were by the later and much more famous incident. It does make me wonder how many other early cases are still buried somewhere, especially as reports of foo fighters were already emerging from aircrew during World War Two.
One thing that adds interest to Padilla’s account is that he later became a police officer, and his attention to detail appears to have been there from the start. It is also curious that one artefact taken from the alleged UAP appears to have been mostly aluminium. Considering the speeds such craft are reported to travel at, you might expect something tougher, such as titanium. Then again, Vallée believes one of the pieces might have been of human origin, unlike the thinner material that was used to repair the weathervane.
The boys also reported finding large quantities of thin strands, commonly referred to today as ‘angel hair’. They collected the material and apparently distributed some around the local community as Christmas decoration. It is a shame that none of it survives, particularly as they recalled that it could not be ignited. They also described the strands as glowing in different colours at night.
Something I share with Vallée is an interest in looking for existing patterns. Here, he has a definite UAP shape: an ovaloid, NOT a saucer. One of the closest comparisons is the Socorro incident, which also highlights some of the shortcomings of the military’s Project Blue Book investigation and the difficulties faced by Dr J. Allen Hynek. If you thought police officer Lonnie Zamora was the only witness to that event, Vallée points towards several others, including another police officer.
Interestingly, those allegedly involved in removing evidence appear to have been considerably more efficient. According to the book, even rocks containing possible metallic deposits were taken away. A similar vehicle was reportedly seen near the French town of Valensole. This particular alien species, assuming that is what was involved, seemed to have quite a lot of trouble keeping its vehicles in the air.
In the final chapter, Vallée addresses the radioactivity that affected the local population following the Trinity nuclear test, which might have contributed to some people moving elsewhere. Those who remained reportedly experienced various cancers and stillbirths. Whatever one thinks of the UFO material, it is a sobering reminder of the lack of public safety precautions surrounding early nuclear testing.
I doubt whether the alleged UAP itself was affected by the radiation, but the location does add another environmental factor when considering why UAP reports seem to have concentrated in the region for a period, even before they were recognised as a phenomenon. If the Trinity account is correct, it could be at least as significant as Roswell because it would represent an earlier example of the military recovering an unidentified crashed vehicle. You do have to wonder whether even the soldiers involved knew exactly what they were dealing with, beyond being told to obey orders.
It is interesting to compare Vallée’s role in the investigation with Harris’ interviews. Considerable effort appears to have been made to interview witnesses separately, and both researchers revisited the site several times.
I’m less convinced by the significance attributed to poisonous weeds growing around the alleged landing area. Considering the radioactive fallout from the nearby nuclear test, they might simply have been among the first plants capable of recolonising disturbed ground. More than half a century had passed by the time the location was investigated properly, so any physical remains would either have disappeared or be many feet underground.
I can see similarities between Trinity and Roswell, particularly in the descriptions of thin aluminium-like material supposedly capable of returning to its original shape after being bent. If such material really was recovered in the 1940s, it would certainly be significant. I doubt anyone who saw a thin sheet of metal crumpled into another shape and then watched it flatten itself again would easily forget the experience.
If you’re interested in UAPs and, like me, somehow missed the Trinity case, then Trinity: The Best Kept Secret is well worth reading. At the very least, it raises the intriguing possibility that alleged UFO retrievals and the secrecy surrounding them may have begun before Roswell made the subject famous.
GF Willmetts
September 2026
(pub: Starworks, 2022. 353-page indexed hardback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-38771-079-9)
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